Chapter 78: Newborn Decepticon

After escaping far beyond the range of Sun Cheng's pursuit, those few F-16 fighter jets fired several AIM-120 medium-range air-to-air missiles in resentment, seemingly still holding some lingering thoughts toward him.

Unfortunately, without the containment of these F-16 fighter jets, it was no longer difficult to dodge these missiles that lacked intelligence.

Sun Cheng merely accelerated into a dive, and not until he was less than two or three meters from the ground did he rely on the excellent control of his Decepticon chassis to suddenly shoot back up at a 45-degree angle.

Soon, violent, chain-reaction explosions rang out behind him.

After being buffeted by the surging heatwave and tumbling once in the sky, Sun Cheng stabilized his form, no longer paying attention to the radar waves he could still faintly detect, and flew straight on toward Las Vegas, following the tracks of Bumblebee and the others.

Having been held up by that aviation squadron for too long, he had failed to catch sight of Bumblebee and the others even after entering the territory of Las Vegas.

"Strange, why can I no longer lock onto the frequency of the 【AllSpark】?"

With no other choice, he had to first contact Pioneer to ask about the situation on his end.

"Master..."

Pioneer replied quickly, "The battle here has also ended. Brawl heavily damaged a silver Autobot, Optimus Prime was also injured, the Autobots have retreated and are fleeing toward Las Vegas, Megatron has already pursued them, and we are also rushing over..."

This was within his expectations; although he had only witnessed it for a brief moment before, Megatron's combat power had truly shocked Sun Cheng—that was an existence capable of holding his own even under the siege of the Autobot Leader Optimus Prime and several Elite Warriors.

After the arrival of Brawl and the others, it was not surprising that Megatron had turned the stalemate around and routed the Autobot squad.

Only when he heard that a silver-gray Autobot had been injured did Sun Cheng's heart stir. He remembered that there was only one silver warrior in the Autobot squad—Jazz, one of the adjutants to the Autobot Leader Optimus Prime. That guy's combat power might be slightly inferior to Bumblebee's, but it should be on the same level as Barricade.

By extension, he finally grasped a bit of the bottom line of the current Brawl; even if he still wasn't a match for Starscream, he shouldn't be too far off.

"Understood, no need to wait for Brawl, you come over first..."

After letting Pioneer rush over to support him first, Sun Cheng thought for a moment and resent the Las Vegas coordinates to Blackout. If he had known earlier that he could handle that squadron of U. S. military jets, he definitely would not have notified Blackout.

However, since he had already told him, this matter could no longer be hidden. Rather than being kept in mind by him later, Sun Cheng decided to be straightforward for once. In any case, even he could feel that the possibility of him getting his hands on the 【AllSpark】 was already slim to none.

While searching, Sun Cheng gradually approached the urban area.

With his core functions fully activated, he relied on his speed advantage to carefully scan back and forth in the sky for the frequency of the 【AllSpark】, yet he could never find it.

Just as he was beginning to suspect that he had made a mistake and that Bumblebee and the others might have seized the opportunity to flee in another direction, his core suddenly scanned several sets of special frequencies that could not be matched in his database. Analyzing them by their fluctuations, they seemed to be Decepticons as well!

"Could it be Starscream?"

Hurriedly flying toward the location of those newly appeared Decepticon fluctuations, Sun Cheng felt somewhat uneasy.

Megatron suddenly appearing from out of nowhere, along with that 【AllSpark】 that could actually shrink so small, had already disrupted his plans.

If Starscream, who had been operating on Earth for decades and whose hidden cards no one knew, were to join in now, the remaining matters would truly have nothing to do with him. Sun Cheng even felt that with his own strength, he could leave the scene early.

Amidst his unease, it didn't take long for Sun Cheng to fly to the place where the Decepticon fluctuations he had captured were coming from.

"Huh..."

Landing on the roof of a human building and looking down from a high vantage point at those violent Decepticon figures creating panic on the street, Sun Cheng's eyes froze.

What he saw were some Newborn Decepticons he had never seen before. The data fed back from his core scan showed that these guys actually all possessed a Spark, but, let alone compared to his own Spark, even the strongest Decepticon among them had a Spark whose energy fluctuations were not even as good as the Level 2 Core inside Pioneer!

"What is going on here?"

With doubts rising in his heart, Sun Cheng scanned the surroundings for a while. After failing to capture any more frequencies, he leaped down from the high building and landed directly in front of the largest and most rowdy Decepticon.

"Shoo shoo..."

This was a Decepticon who looked a head taller than Sun Cheng currently was. He was entirely green and held a weapon resembling a rocket launcher, currently firing missiles everywhere with a fanatical expression.

Sun Cheng frowned as he looked at this Decepticon, who lacked any semblance of reason. He walked up, kicked him over to the corner of the wall, and then stepped on his chest to ask: "Now, answer my question. Did any Autobots pass through here just now..."

"Hiss..."

Answering him was a chaotic and disorderly angry hiss; clearly, this guy had not formed a complete thought circuit.

Seeing him raise his weapon as if he wanted to shoot at him, Sun Cheng felt a surge of anger. With blue light flaring intensely in his eyes, he used a trick that Starscream and Soundwave had both used on him before, utilizing his Spy Core to send a terrifying data stream to directly invade the guy's core.

Without encountering the slightest resistance, he easily broke into the guy's core. Unfortunately, what Sun Cheng saw were sets upon sets of chaotic and disorderly data.

Fortunately, there was still some usable information.

Soon, after withdrawing the invading data, Sun Cheng had a thoughtful look on his face: "The 【AllSpark】 escort squad separated here just a few minutes ago. Bumblebee seems to have gone to support Optimus Prime, and human soldiers are escorting a boy named Sam to a military camp in the suburbs under the protection of over a dozen Infantry Fighting Vehicles and tanks. It looks like they are preparing to let him leave here by plane..."

The 【AllSpark】 had been dropped here once, automatically emitting a radiation wave.

No wonder what he saw were all chaotic, violent Decepticons; they turned out to be human machines converted by the 【AllSpark】. No wonder they all possessed Sparks, yet were merely Cannon Fodder with only the form but no substance.

Glancing at the Newborn Decepticon who was now completely controlled by him and lying quietly on the ground no longer resisting, Sun Cheng suddenly had an idea. He quickly wrote a control program and infused it into his core. He immediately gave an order to this big guy, who probably couldn't withstand a few human Grenades: "Go, avoid human sight, leave Las Vegas, and go to my Base..."

Seeing him nod blankly and then get up and leave, Sun Cheng was just feeling uneasy when he suddenly received a transmission from Pioneer; it turned out he had already arrived in Las Vegas.

Immediately, he notified Pioneer to rush to his location and instructed him: "Take him away from here and return to my Base first. Be careful to stay hidden on the way and avoid human cities as much as possible..."

With Pioneer's protection, he could surely bring this unexpected harvest back safely.

After arranging all of this, Sun Cheng immediately transformed back into a Reaper Drone, spread his wings, and leaped toward the human military base in the suburbs.

Even though, with his strength, the chance of obtaining the 【AllSpark】 was becoming increasingly slim, Sun Cheng would never be willing to hand it over until the very last moment.

PS:

1. Thanks to reader 'Twelve-Winged Mosquito' for the tip!

2. Because I've fast-forwarded through Transformers 1-4 many times recently, the plot has become a bit jumbled in my memory, so it took some time to go back and finish re-watching Transformers 1 before I started typing.

3. Some people might not like these last two chapters, because Transformers 1 will end within a few chapters. I am still thinking about how to end it, what things can be taken and what cannot; allow me to organize my thoughts.