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The Valorian reporters were already on their feet.
Ethan had watched the argument unfold with the patience of a man holding a royal flush while everyone else at the table bickered about the ante. The Aurelian correspondents had been vicious — "deceiving the entire world," "is this the integrity Valorian scientists are known for?" — and the Valorian press had fired back with the kind of raw, patriotic fury that turned a ballroom into a barroom.
And Ethan had let it run.
Not because he enjoyed watching journalists scream at each other (though, privately, he did). But because every second of that argument was being broadcast to a global audience, and every second gave viewers more time to form an opinion about who was being arrogant and who was being attacked.
By the time he leaned into the microphone and said "Say hello," the entire world was watching.
Now he just needed Bumblebee to cooperate.
One second.
Three seconds.
Five seconds.
The yellow sports car sat on the stage, gleaming under the ballroom lights, and did absolutely nothing.
Ethan felt a vein pulse in his temple.
You have got to be kidding me.
Ten seconds. Fifteen. The car was a statue. A very expensive, very yellow, very unresponsive statue.
In the audience, the Aurelian reporters recovered from the brief moment of anticipation and began to grin. Then to chuckle. Then to laugh openly, the sound carrying through the ballroom like a wave of vindication.
"What the — what is he doing?"
"Is the Great Scientist Mercer… talking to a car?"
"My God. This is the genius who invented nuclear fusion? He's having a conversation with a pile of sheet metal!"
"Perhaps our Valorian colleagues can explain what we're witnessing. They were singing his praises rather loudly a moment ago."
The Valorian reporters went red. Every one of them. They didn't understand what Ethan was doing any more than the Aurelians did, and the secondhand embarrassment was physically painful. If Ethan hadn't already invented three world-changing technologies, they'd be calling for a psychiatric evaluation.
In the second row, Director Nathan Graves sat with his arms crossed and his expression neutral.
Unlike everyone else in the room, he wasn't panicking. He'd known Ethan Mercer long enough to understand a simple truth: this kid did not make empty promises. Every single time — the reactor, the armor, the serum, the laser — the pattern was identical. Mockery, disbelief, dramatic pause, then a reveal that made every skeptic in the room want to crawl under their chair.
Whatever was happening on that stage, it had a purpose. Graves was content to wait.
Ethan, however, was rapidly running out of patience.
He turned away from the audience, walked to the car, and leaned down until his face was level with the rearview mirror.
"Bumblebee." His voice was low, tight, and very much not for public consumption. "I don't know what's going on with you right now, but I need you to understand the situation."
Nothing.
"There are four hundred people in this room. There are cameras broadcasting to every country on the planet. I told the world you were intelligent robotics. If you make me look like a lunatic talking to a car, I swear to God—"
Nothing.
Ethan's jaw clenched.
"Big guy. Buddy. Please. I am asking you nicely. Just stand up, wave, do something, and I will buy you the most expensive premium fuel on the market. Top shelf. Whatever you want."
The car sat there. Gleaming. Silent. Possibly enjoying itself.
The laughter in the ballroom had reached a crescendo. Even some of the Valorian reporters were struggling to maintain straight faces. The Aurelian correspondents were wiping tears from their eyes.
"What the f—"
"Is this really happening?"
"The man who fought his way out of the Aurelian Republic single-handedly is begging a car to wake up!"
"Hahaha — please, someone, forgive my ignorance, but can anyone explain what the incredibly brilliant Professor Mercer is doing right now?"
"Perhaps our Valorian colleagues have an answer? They seemed very confident a few minutes ago!"
The Valorian press corps looked like they wanted the floor to swallow them whole.
On stage, Ethan straightened up. The pleading approach had failed. The bribery approach had failed. Time for the nuclear option.
He drew his foot back and kicked the driver's side door. Hard.
"You little punk—"
The sound rang through the ballroom like a gunshot. Four hundred heads snapped toward the stage.
"— if you don't get up RIGHT NOW—"
Another kick. The car rocked on its suspension.
"— I will drag three guys in here with full bladders and have them PISS ON YOUR HOOD!"
The ballroom went silent for exactly one second.
Then it erupted.
The Aurelian reporters were howling. Shoulders shaking, faces red, cameras forgotten. One correspondent had his head in his hands, wheezing. Another was recording on his phone, already composing the caption. In their eyes, Ethan Mercer had officially lost his mind. The genius who'd cracked fusion and built powered armor was threatening to urinate on a sports car.
The Valorian reporters sat in mortified silence, silently composing their resignations from journalism.
Graves, in the second row, allowed himself a single, quiet exhale. The corner of his mouth twitched.
Any second now.
And then the laughter stopped.
Not gradually. Not trailing off. It stopped, like someone had reached into the room and ripped the sound out of the air.
Because the car was moving.
Not rolling. Not being driven. Moving. The hood split along a seam that hadn't been there before. The doors folded outward at angles that no hinge could explain. The rear quarter panels separated, rotated, and locked into new configurations. The roof lifted, split, and reconfigured into something that looked less like a car part and more like a shoulder plate.
Every piece of the vehicle was in motion. Hundreds of components, thousands of joints, actuators, and servos all moving simultaneously in a choreography so complex it made the brain hurt to watch. Metal slid against metal. Gears clicked. Panels rotated, telescoped, and interlocked.
The transformation wasn't fast. It was deliberate. Each phase flowing into the next with the mechanical precision of a machine that had been designed by a civilization with thousands of years of engineering superiority over anything this planet had ever produced.
The chassis rose. The wheelbase narrowed. The engine block relocated. The hood and fender assemblies reconfigured into something wide and segmented.
"Look—"
The whisper came from somewhere in the middle rows.
"What is that?"
"Do you see — it's changing shape. The car is literally—"
"It's forming limbs. Those are limbs."
Arms. Legs. A torso. A head.
The sports car that had been sitting motionless on the stage thirty seconds ago was gone. In its place stood something that no one in the room, no one in the country, no one on the planet had ever seen before.
Five meters tall. Bright yellow. Armored plates layered across its frame like the scales of a mechanical predator. Basketball-sized optical sensors glowed blue in a face that was somehow expressive despite being made entirely of metal. The ballroom's chandelier, which had seemed impressively large when the event started, now hung level with the thing's chest.
Bumblebee stood on the stage at the Northvale Grand Hotel, looked down at four hundred frozen humans, and tilted its head with the unmistakable curiosity of a very large child examining a very small ant farm.
The silence was absolute.
Then Graves, in the second row, leaned back in his chair and let out the breath he'd been holding for three minutes.
There it is.
Beside him, the Valorian press corps sat in stunned, vindicated, trembling silence. The Aurelian correspondents had stopped laughing. Several of them had stopped breathing. One had dropped his phone.
On the stage, Ethan straightened his jacket, walked back to the podium, and looked out at the audience with the specific expression of a man who had known exactly how this was going to end.
"Ladies and gentlemen."
He gestured to the five-meter mechanical giant standing behind him.
"Allow me to properly introduce Bumblebee."
"This is intelligent robotics."