"Sideswipe — charge straight in. Ignore the smaller monsters."
Inside the car, Ethan gave the order.
Sideswipe surged forward, engine roaring, weaving through the jungle's interior at terrifying speed. Unlike Blurr's jerky, drift-heavy driving, Sideswipe's handling was smooth and precise — a sports car on rails.
Sophie clung to the back seat. "I'm telling you — we are absolutely speeding. This has to be over a hundred."
Jake wasn't panicked. He was grinning. "I've never been in a car this fast. This is incredible."
Lily said nothing, but a small smile crossed her face as she watched the trees blur past.
A few minutes in, they hit their first Tier 3 monster.
It was a rock formation shaped like a small mountain — two massive arms, no legs, squatting at the entrance to a large passageway. A living boulder.
Generally, the final BOSS occupied a separate arena. Just like boss rooms in games from his previous life.
They parked at a distance. The Stone Golem didn't attack unprovoked from this range.
Ethan didn't summon immediately.
Because Big Big Wolf was about to arrive.
Heavy footsteps. The ground shook. The mech emerged from the treeline — thirty feet of jury-rigged metal, bristling with weapons.
"Leave this to the Great King!" Big Big Wolf needed no further instruction. He locked onto the Stone Golem the moment he arrived.
This mech was bigger and more lethal than the one Ryan's Sandstorm Mantis had destroyed. The cockpit wasn't in the chest this time — it was in the head.
"Like Dr. Zomboss," Big Big Wolf had explained during construction. "Since I can respawn, why protect myself? Go all-in on attack power."
The mech — which Big Big Wolf had christened the Heavenly Wolf War God — surged forward.
The Stone Golem spotted it instantly. With a roar, it compressed a massive boulder between its hands and hurled it.
"Holy crap — Dust Release!" Ethan scrambled sideways, putting distance between himself and the mech to avoid splash damage.
If that thing hit a human, it was instant death.
Big Big Wolf swatted the incoming boulder aside with one arm. Simultaneously, cannon barrels extended from the mech's right hand and opened fire.
BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.
"Hmph — you're nowhere near ready to challenge this Great King." Big Big Wolf rubbed his nose smugly.
But Big Big Wolf never succeeded when he celebrated early. That was practically a law of nature.
As the smoke cleared, a boulder twice the size of the first came hurtling out.
Big Big Wolf barely activated a defensive shield in time. The impact drove the mech back a full step.
When the dust settled, the Stone Golem was completely unscathed.
Smoke but no damage. A law as old as anime itself.
Big Big Wolf checked his damage readout: 1 point.
One.
He refused to accept this. He switched to heavier munitions and charged at a fifteen-degree angle — closing distance while avoiding the Golem's next throw.
Watching from a distance, Ethan already knew how this was going to end.
Big Big Wolf's combat power was genuinely high. Against the right opponents. Against the sheep, he could take on five.
Against any other enemy, his combat IQ nosedived.
The Stone Golem was a rock. Its melee was obviously stronger than its ranged game. Wouldn't it be smarter to kite from distance?
But no — Big Big Wolf went in swinging.
He's lost his mind.
Except... he actually had a plan.
The mech's fists were equipped with extra acceleration boosters and energy coatings. Each punch carried amplified momentum. The damage was leagues above the cannon shells.
BANG.
One punch cratered the Stone Golem's torso.
"It's working!" Big Big Wolf was ecstatic.
The Golem retaliated. Big Big Wolf blocked with his left arm and kept swinging with his right.
Punch for punch. Rock versus metal.
Three minutes of deadlock. Big Big Wolf's left arm was a mangled wreck, but the Stone Golem's torso was heavily dented. Neither was winning — but neither was backing down.
The energy shield was depleted. A few more hits and the mech would crumble.
"Sideswipe!" Big Big Wolf suddenly shouted.
Everyone froze. Nobody understood why he was calling the car.
Only Sideswipe went completely still, a terrible premonition dawning.
"I want to hear more of your stories someday!"
"Backup Hidden Energy — ACTIVATE!"
On the mech's chest, a white orb materialized and began pulsing with blinding light.
"Oh no—" Ethan felt the energy spike before he saw it. "Transform! RUN!"
Sideswipe shifted to car form instantly. The four of them dove inside and peeled out.
Jake, completely lost, kept asking questions from the back seat.
Ethan didn't explain. He just watched through the rear window.
Ten seconds later — a mushroom cloud erupted from Big Big Wolf's position.
The shockwave reached them even at a distance, rocking Sideswipe on his axles.
"What the—" Jake whipped around. "Did Uncle Wolfie just... self-destruct?"
Sideswipe spoke up, his voice uncharacteristically quiet.
"It's my fault. I shouldn't have told him the story of Jetfire."
"Jetfire?" The other three were confused. They only knew Sideswipe and Blurr. The rest of the Transformers were strangers.
"He was a Decepticon who switched sides. Fought alongside us in the end." Sideswipe's voice carried a weight that didn't match his usual personality. "He was old. Damaged. Knew he couldn't keep going. So he ripped out his own spark and gave it to Optimus. Gave everything he had left — so someone else could keep fighting."
A pause.
"We were enemies once. And then we weren't. I told Big Big Wolf that story, and he..." Sideswipe trailed off.
The car fell silent.
Jake, Sophie, and Lily turned to look at Ethan with expressions that could only be described as judgmental.
What kind of stories are you writing? Sideswipe's a good guy, and you killed his friend?
What they didn't know was that Ethan had been devastated when he'd first watched that scene. He'd practically been screaming at the screen for Optimus to do something.
But Jetfire had made his choice. And it had mattered.
In their eyes, Sideswipe's stories were all Ethan's creation. So Jetfire's death was Ethan's design.
Ethan could only smile awkwardly. There was no way to explain that he hadn't written anything — he'd just faithfully recreated stories that already existed.
Even if he told them, they wouldn't believe it.
"Let's go back and check," Ethan said quietly. "After an explosion like that, the Stone Golem should be done."
Sideswipe said nothing more and drove back toward the blast site.