Cybertron: Planetary Orbit
‘Join the exploration ships for some excitement.’
You had thought. ‘Cybertron is boring, nothing to do here for three
centuries.’ You had felt.
Now, sitting on the bridge of an exploration ship,
staring out the forward view screens, you thought how bad the choice might have
been.
Of course, you HAD found excitement.
Slag, you never even left orbit and you found excitement!
Excitement came in the shape of the old Decepticon
Warworld, Bludgeon’s old ship.
Excitement sat orbiting your home planet.
Now, this would all be fun and filled with
possibilities, but something about the situation, didn’t sit well with you.
First of all, you were sitting in a Cybertron shuttle,
probably being targeted for destruction.
Secondly, there was a rather nasty relic stuck on the
fore of the Warworld that you didn’t feel real happy about. Actually, no
transformer in their right mind would feel too great
about, but some idiot Decepticon thought it’d be cute as a hood ornament.
Unicron’s horn was adorning the massive battle moon.
That just wasn’t right.
Third, no one had even THOUGHT to invite you in on the
takeover of your homeland.
--Go-bots!--
Well, not much to do about that now, but sit and wait
for the…
"Captain, they’ve got a lock on us."
Reported the scanner officer.
"Shields u…" the captain started to squeak.
The ship rocked violently, as it was slammed back in
space and down further into the atmosphere of the silver planet.
"Great." You mutter as you fire off a
pointless volley in the direction of the nearest ‘Con ship.
Another smashing noise and the computers on the ship
fluttered on and off, resetting your controls and causing you to
recalculate. A freezing cold gas started to hiss across the floor
of the ship
You fire another volley, but the guns start to read an
overheating.
"Hey, brave captain! We’re gonna blow
up."
The captain still seems stunned as he stares out.
"Great."
The ship shakes again, and you see a rather impressive
chunk go spiraling past the front view screens.
"That’s it. Adios, amigos." You push
up from the console and make your way back to the exit hatches. A scramble of
robots is close on your tail. The door to the rear opens, and a
gout of flame and air slams you back through the tangle of robots.
"SLAG!"
Everything was covered with smoke, and from the sound
of it, there wasn’t much of the rear of the ship left. The hollow whistle
of air signified that atmosphere was actually blowing
past the ship, and the heat that was building up in the bridge only served to
solidify the fact.
The ship was going down.
The captain still stood stock-still, frozen in terror.
"Idiot." You grab the robot and shove
something into his gaping mouth. He gives off an urk of surprise as you
slam his head, face first into the side rear wall of the ship.
"FIRE IN THE HOLE!!" You jump away as
the grenade exploded, shattering the outside wall with a sucking slam of flame
and air. You feel your feet give way as you and the rest
of the crew are flushed out of the ship…
Nanos before the ship smashed into the ground with a
thunderous explosion.
Sometime later, you find yourself sitting in a pile
of smoldering debris. You don’t remember hitting the ground, only the
shockwave caused by the ship crashing.
Someone was pulling a large metal strut free from your
circuits as you came to. You gasped in pain as pieces of metal innards
scatter across the soot-covered ground.
"You ok?" asks a voice through the haze of
pain.
"What…"
"The Con’s shot your ship down, you and a few
others made it out. We’re just trying to sort through the rubble and make
sure there aren’t others who are trapped down here."
"Down here?" your optics flickered into life
with a spastic jolt. There was more than just smoke around you. You
were underground, under the streets of Cybertron.
"Musta hit… hard." You say as you stand and
flex, flinching as you find several of your systems still in critical repair.
The robot that was helping you was green and gray.
"What’s your name?" you ask, trying to get
your bearings.
"Lightningwing."
"What’s been happening up there."
"They came and sliced into the airways of
Cybertron. Now, there’s nothing up there that isn’t Decepticon.
They’ve deployed satellites and mines as a defense net against anyone
leaving, or entering. There was hardly any fight, but they came down hard
on the cities. Several are nearly incinerated, and the Council Chambers
have been melted to molten rivers!"
"So there’s no one left to fight them?"
"No. The fleet’s too scattered, deployed to
try to cover the bases that had been under attack."
You remember hearing stories of random attacks across
the galaxy. All kinds of outposts, but mostly ones that were far flung
and out of reach.
"There are some people gathering about three
miles that way, in one of the large underground reservoirs."
"Thanks, Lightningwing."
"Sure. You ok to travel."
"Yup." Another piece drops off your
chest.
You wave goodbye to the Cybertronian and make your way
for a while by foot, letting your systems work on a few more repairs.
After a short while, you feel confident enough in your
repairs to take to the air, "Dreadnought, FLIGHT MODE!" you leap up,
splitting down the center into two, nearly identical craft,
each slicing down the tunnel in a blur of speed.
Megacycles later you found yourself sitting amid a
gathering of dirty, burned, and damaged survivors. There had been
vehement debate on what to do for quite some time now. There
were some that thought surrender was in order, others who thought there should
be a war, and others who thought that the whole situation was pointless.
You just sat and listened.
Apparently, besides the net above Cybertron, there had been
random attacks on the surface. No one had actually seen the attacks, but
there were columns of flame on the horizon in
every direction. Communication had been solidly jammed, and no one seemed
able to do any long range traveling without being attacked, and destroyed.
There were rumors that Megatron and Galvatron were jointly
leading them in a crusade from beyond the matrix, that Scorpinok was at the
head and leading them for revenge, that
Unicron himself powered their army and that none of the invaders could die!
All of these were only rumors and the chaotic confusion of a
people who were in a state of panic.
--Pathetic—
You just sat and watched.
There was a group, a group that sat like you did. All
separate throughout the crowd. They were silent and watchful.
You watched them, and they watched you.
When they began one by one to stand and leave the room, you
decided to follow them. They went to a small room down one of the
tunnels. No one seemed surprised at your
entrance.
You all shared a bond. You were all warriors.
The chaos above had effected you. You had each seen
battle and war many times over.
As you looked around, a tall, lanky individual started the
meeting.
"We’ve all seen what’s going on out there. The
fools are in a blind panic."
You nod, "It’s the Decepticon’s best weapon, I have yet
to hear of anyone seeing proof of anything they speak of."
Another bot, a car of some sort by the looks of it, added,
"We know they’ve attacked. We know that the skies are a dangerous
place to be, and we know that communications lines
are dead."
"Yeah, all the ingredients for keeping a whole planet
in the dark." You grimace.
"Then what do we do?" asks another bot that was
present.
The lanky tall one stood up, "A long time ago, a need
was made for an elite force, a group of renegades against the inevitable.
They stood against impossible odds, and they survived.
I think it’s time we re-ignite the flames of rebellion that they once
represented."
"What are you saying?" you look at the glowing red
eye of the bluish robot.
"It’s time we resurrect the Code of the Autobots."
You visibly grimace at the word. There was a
part of you that longed to burn into the atmosphere and rejoin the Decepticon
War banner, but at the same time you know those
aren’t Decepticons.
No true Decepticon would follow Unicron, would even use his
power.
--Is this what I am reduced to?
Must I turn on my own misguided brethren to save a world
where it's illegal for me to even exist?--
"It appears I must," you say more to yourself than
to the others assembled. A few noticed his grimace and how heavily he
debated the decision but for the most part it went unnoticed.
"Then we are agreed?" asked the lanky bot who
had made the proposition.
A general round of consent circled the
room, though you can tell he wasn't the only one who didn't like being called
an Autobot. "Good, then we must plan our next course of
action..."
"Repair and refit," you interject.
"You others may be perfectly equipped to fight a war but I need a few
repairs. I also have a few items and a small energon cache that may be
useful.
All of which I donate to the..." you force yourself to spit the words
out, "Autobot cause."
You look around the room expectantly and wait
for an answer.
"Very well…?"
"Dreadnought. And you are?"
The lanky blue transformer stands up and extends a
robotic grasper- like hand, "Names Whirl."
Introductions followed as you and the others, about
ten of you, made your way back to your storage area down town.
A small bot named Squawkbox stood on your shoulders
as he looked through the grate leading out to the surface.
"Yeeeeeaaaaa, there’s a big ship sitting in the
center of the street. Couple of Con’s sitting outside of it, but I don’t
think they’re paying much attention to anything."
"How big is the ship?"
"It looks like some kinda cargo hauler.
Looks like something’s being unloaded into the warehouses over there."
"What about the storage units. Have they
been messed with?"
"No, not yet. They seem pretty slaggin’
intent on dumping out whatever’s in that shuttle."
Whirl motions for you to bring the smaller bot down.
"Let me take em out!" blurts a yellow and
orange bot called Sureshot. "I can smoke both those darkspawn before they
can even blink!"
"I don’t know about that…" Squakbox started,
"Most of us have taken a decent amount of damage."
You add in, "And we don’t want to play our hand
yet, not until we know something about what’s going on up there."
Whirl’s red eye flashes, "We outnumber them five
to one."
"Yeah, that’s what it looks like, but…
There’s something that doesn’t seem right."
"Ok, it’s your stuff, how do we get to it from
here?"
You give a short burst of your engines, lifting you
long enough to get a solid scan of the area outside.
The storage bins where your stuff was is across the
street. The ship sat down off to the left and down a few hundred
meters. The warehouse that Squawktalk spoke of was on the
opposite side of the street, and was being loaded by worker droids.
The streets were dark, and terribly silent. Any
noise would echo off of the towers that surround the area.
You landed and think about what you could do…
Cybertron: Storage Facilities
You can't help but chukle to yourself, "Old
tricks die hard."
"What?" asks Whirl.
"A diversion. They're too close to
attempt to sneak over. Even if we did get to the storage garage, the
sound of the opening doors would alert them to our presence."
"So what's the idea?"
"I'll create a diversion. Trust me I
know this place. You don't live in a place for two hundred years without
learning a few tricks.
The larger and more damaged of you should go to my storage,
there's a CR chamber there. Not the best one but better than
nothing. Somebody else needs to check out that
warehouse. I'm not going to make any suggestions. Who ever can, go
for it."
"You can't do it alone! You'll get
slagged. Some of us will serve as backup." Blurts out Crosshairs.
"No, thanks. Besides I didn't live this
long by getting slagged. Just be ready to move when the time is
right."
"There’s still a problem." Interrupts Whirl,
"Those storage cubicles aren’t the best spot to make a base out.
They have low power inputs, no connections to the core, and not a whole
lot of room for fifteen bots."
"Not to mention they’re out in the
open." Squawkbox adds.
"Then, what do we do?"
Whirl thinks, "Same plan, but we all go to take
the CR and other supplies out and underground. No traces of entry or exit
left, quick and quiet. You draw their attention as best we
can."
"What about that warehouse?"
"We’ll come back to it. First we get
everyone back into repair shape."
"Ok, everyone good with that?" you look
around the dark tunnel as the group nods in agreement, "Good."
You stalk over to one of the access hatches and
prepare to enact your plan.
"I gotta be nuts... helping a bunch of Autobots.
Next thing you know I'll be forming an alliance with Starscream." A
shudder ripples through your body. "No! That's where I draw
the line."
"Well it's now or never," you tell
yourself. You drop into your Strato-fighter forms and rocket out of the
entrance. Autobot Sigils emblazoned on his wings and hull flash angrily
as
you streak through the cold night.
"Die Decepti-creeps!" You launch
several missiles at the shuttle and general area as if doing a
saturation bombing but making sure not to hit your storage or the warehouse
that is being used.
To their credit, the 'Cons respond surprisingly fast and
take to the air after you.
"Well then now that I have their attention…"
You split up, each of your halves tacking off in
opposite directions.
You descend into the network of tunnels and debris as the
craft pursue, their blasts chewing up the environment around him.
"Primus I beg you let this work..."
Your jets move as the two ‘Cons blast all around
them. Your exhausts were already singed from several blasts, but the
chaotic path you had set was enough to keep them from
scoring any direct hits.
--They’re faster than me. But I know where
I’m going.—
Within a few seconds, you receive an interesting
perspective as both your units fly directly at, and past each other, blasting
at the con that was following the opposite half as they roar
past them.
Both ‘Cons falter in confusion and drop as your guns
lace into them.
--Score!—
You arc back up a few tunnels, before meeting
again. You transform and land with a thud, breathing a sigh of relief.
--They won’t be flying for a wh…--
The tunnels echo with the sound of jet engines
streaking through them.
--What?!? No way, they went down hard!—
You step back into a smaller side tunnel and begin a
low level signature jam.
After a few seconds one of the jets streaks right by
you. Smoke still poured out of holes that dotted his cracked wings, and
bolts and scraps clattered off of him as he roared past.
--How the slag is he holding together?!—
Regardless, they’ve lost track of you, and you hoped
that you provided enough of a distraction for the others to clear out the
storage area.
Your jet mode would make too much noise in the
tunnels, so you decided it’d be best to hoof it back to the rendezvous.
Sometime later, you join up with the others.
They’re mission had gone off successfully, and without apparent notice.
"Where to now?" Asks Sureshot.
"We need an underground cavern. Something
we can access some power wires from." Whirl states.
You think for a second, "I know a place.
It’s a ways from here, but that might be better, considering they know
something’s flying around out here."
"Lead on then."
The cavern was spacious, and you knew that it ran
near several power conduits. You used the area for hiding when you needed
it. The power output from the heavy wires covered
signatures, very handy when your CR chamber has a habit of marking you
Decepticon any time you used it.
The makeshift base is set up. You hook the CR to
some wire outlets you had previously rigged for just such an emergency.
You, Whirl and a Maximal named HunterOwl get together as
repairs get set underway and plans are made…
Cybertron: underground
You look around the table, servos and exo-structure
aching for a stint in the CR-Chamber.
--That can wait--
"Ok, it appears we have two options,"
you open, "We either stay here and launch a guerilla campaign from the
surface, or we attempt to get up there…" you emphasize by pointing
skyward, "and see what damage we can do."
"I don't believe their are enough people here to be
able to mount a successful guerilla campaign," states Whirl flatly.
"Maybe, but we are not going to be able to wage a space
battle against an Armada," adds HunterOwl, "especially seeing
that we don’t have any spacecraft, or artillery heavy enough
to do appreciable damage before being scrapped."
"Indeed," you agree, "but perhaps a recon
mission would be best. The key to destroying your enemy is learning who
he is."
"You know anything about black ops missions?"
inquires Whirl.
"Yes, I know a thing or two," Dread smirks.
"And I as well." Adds HunterOwl, flicking a black
and silver wing.
"Oh yes, I have some rather alarming news." You
inform them.
"Such as?"
"All that dribble about the 'Cons being powered by
Unicron may not be so far off."
"You've got to be kidding," interjects Hunter.
"I wish I were. Holo emitters, project data tracks
seven two four." From your optics, a whine emits and a projected
hologram appears, playing back the pictures of the battle, and
pausing as the warrior jets flew by. The rips and burns could easily be
seen on the still frame.
"While in battle they did not display ‘supernatural’
abilities, these mechanisms appear to be a cut above the rest."
"So we'll have to try twice as hard to kill
them," scoffs Whirl.
"I believe that will indeed be the case. I
do know one thing. The horn that I saw on their flagship was more than
just some ornament. It does have power. Power that is being used
one way or another."
"Then the rumors are true, and it truly is a peace of
the Dark God," whispers Hunter.
You end the holo image. "Well my suggestion is we
make an attempt to get up there and do a little recon, and what damage we may.
Where' a personal Warp gate device when you need one?"
you muse.
"Well," ponders Whirl, "We don’t have
one, and a regular ship would get noticed too easily."
HunterOwl shakes his head, "Plus, they’ve got
mines set about up there. I got reports up till recently, every ship that
tried to go into even the lowest orbit got hit, and hit hard."
"Great," you mutter, then we’re stuck on the
ground.
"Not necessarily." An antenna on Whirl’s
head rotates as he thinks, "A small group might just make it up
there. After all, they’re apparently sending ships down here."
"That’s another thing," Hunter adds,
"What were they unloading into that warehouse? I tried to do a low
level scan on the stuff, but they had some major jammers fuzzing the area
out."
"Then we do a split mission. One group will
go up above, and the rest will learn what they can about what they’re doing on
the surface." You decide.
"That still leaves how we get up top?"
interjects Whirl.
HunterOwl answers, "The jump a ride on the
factory ship itself! If we can sneak a group aboard the ship, we can walk
right under their scanners without aver being seen."
"One problem." You grimace, "How do we
get back down."
"Bah, we’ll think of something." The
red photoreceptor on Whirls head glows fiercely.
"Good," HunterOwl nods, "Then you two
head up that side of things, and I’ll take care of the warehouse. "
"How do we keep contact?" you ask.
A voice speaks up from behind, "I can help with
that!"
It was the small bot from earlier, Squawkbox.
"How’s that?" you look down at the odd
robot.
"Squakbox, BEAST mode!" The robot
splits in two, each half-transforming down into Cybernetic robots. One a
robotic ape, and the other a bird.
The bird gives off a squawking voice, "Take one
half with each, and we’ll know exactly what the other half is up to!"
"Nice," you chuckle, "We’ll take the
birdybot."
"Names, Squawktalk."
"Beastbox goes with Hunter." Grunts the ape.
"Hmm, good. I believe it will work.
Then if we are agreed?" You look at the other two robots, who nod their
agreement.
"Good. In that case, I believe it is my
turn for the CR-Chamver." You turn from the table and head toward
the recently vacated R-Chamber. As you power down you think of
several things. Unicron, Primus, Autobots, the plan, your past… and your
future.
"What a world..." are the last words to escape you
before you power down.
--You feel the buzzing
burning through your body, even into your very spark. It burned inside
and called out to your spark to hurt whatever was near. Like a burning
tide
it rolled against your mind, searing away the
rational.
The world erupted in flame
around you, Cybertron’s streets melted like sauter, the very core of the planet
ripped itself apart with the chaos.
A cold calm washes over you,
a wave of relaxation and clarity, and a voice came to you, as if someone was
walking around a corner, their speech getting louder as they
neared.
"…and so you see, he’s quite free from the effects
of the Chaos Bringer. He’s neither from this world, or is he from the
other. He alone is the free piece and the final key.
But, of course, to protect him, he must stay
alone, he must find his own path. All others are susceptible to the
control… oh hello. My, who are you?"—
--Power levels at
maximum. Regeneration complete.—
The doors hiss as you step free from the CR chamber.
"Have a nice nap?" asks a small green robot
as he steps in after you.
You only half notice, your mind reeling with the images that
they saw. You had heard of robots having dreams, but never had you
actually experienced one!
A cold feeling sat in the pit of your fuel pumps.
Certainty that the dream was no happenstance gripped you like cold iron, and
for once, you knew that forces were at play that were
beyond your control.
Cybertron: Underground
You stand there, a bewildered look on your face.
--What could that...—
A thought hits you out of the blue like a big red Mac truck.
"Computer reset Sigil." Your wings, chest,
and forehead wipe clean for a moment and reset to the Autobot symbol. You
look about quickly, but no one appeared to have noticed.
--Eh, if they ask I'll say I was a Destron, the two
symbols look alike enough to be mistaken for one another at a passing glance—
At least it sounded convincing.
You shake the thoughts from your head as
you go and greet the team. Whirl, Squawktalk, the one called SureShot and
a few others. "Are we all prepared to do this?"
"Ready, willing and able to kick 'Con!"
announces SureShot.
You roll your optics as you remember how much you hated
that phrase.
"Very well. Hunter?"
"Yes?"
"I don’t think we should all congregate in
the same place. It might be hazardous for my team to try to sneak aboard
the ship that’s right by the warehouse you're investigating, so..."
"You are referring to my connections? Yes,
we know of other ships that are in the surface and that would provide suitable
transport."
"Good, if you would?"
He seems to look inside for a moment, you detect a
faint, high pitch signal being sent, "Coordinates seven by six, nine by
four."
You give the Maximal a nod, "Thank
you."
With a sigh you look around, forcing yourself to say,
"Autobots, move out."
The small recon team quickly makes its
way several miles to the south. You remain within the underground for as
much of the trip as possible but are eventually forced out and onto
the deserted surface. They stalk through the streets for what seems like
hours. Smoke clouds the usually crystal clear Cybertronian skies, and off
to the West, you can still see the
orangish glow from the inner city of Iacon, where the attack had been centered.
Occasionally, there would be a flicker of life on your
scanners, as some Cybertronian hid in fear for its spark. Still, no
Decepticon’s harassed you. The streets were surprisingly
un-patrolled.
Then, up ahead, you saw the warehouse. The ship sat on
the low building like some bird of prey, and movement could be seen as boxes
were loaded and unload from it.
It seemed to be supplying and taking loads from the
warehouse it sat on, as well as several other smaller ones around it, and as
you watched, it seemed to exude an aura of fear.
It was a bit hard to believe it was merely a transport
shuttle.
"Any ideas?" you mutter as you peer
around the corner.
"Aren’t you the team leader?" asks Sureshot as he peeks over
your shoulder.
You roll your optics again, "I
ask in case anyone notices something I don't. Well, a direct approach is
not going to work here but perhaps we can sneak into one of the secondary
buildings. Get in a piece equipment and then, merely allow them to carry
us aboard."
Whirl’s eyepiece rotated, "And how are we
supposed to sneak aboard without them detecting our energy signatures?"
You thought about it for a moment,
"Timed shutdown. I hope that wasn't eliminated in the last quantum
upgrade. We merely shutdown and set our internal computers to
reinitialize
us in..."
You trail off as you try to gauge their progress in
loading and unloading, "Twelve cycles should about do it."
You moved your group around to the least busy of
the warehouses, you selected a side door and crowded around it in the darkness
of the street.
"It’s locked." commented Whirl as he looked
at the keypad.
"Hold on." Squawktalk croaks. He
transforms from his bird mode and down into an even smaller disk.
--A size morpher!—
Very handy, but most size morphing had been eliminated
as the ability to produce smaller body frames had come around. The
process of altering one’s molecular structure to a more
compact mode took a great deal of energy, and generally wasn’t worth the bother
of doing.
The disk slid into a slot above the keypad.
Numbers flashed as Squawktalk burned through series of combinations.
Then with a soft click, the door slid open.
"Let’s go." You retrieve Squawktalk and move
into the warehouse.
The warehouse was dark. No lights except for
some standard emergency lights remained lit, causing the shadows to deepen and
the feeling of foreboding to increase.
The Decepticon’s were almost done with this
warehouse. You knew that they had stopped unloading into this one, but
that it appeared they still had some to load out from it.
As you walked by the rows of the warehouse, you could
tell that it seemed to be being converted into some type of factory.
Crates of supplies sat unopened, but several large pieces
of conveyor equipment motors sat partially assembled.
You moved the team toward the back, where a pile of
crate sat. You look and see floating droids moving the boxes out, one by
one.
The droids were standard, round globes with two
appendages and one lens. These appeared thick and heavy, built for
lifting and strong, but without armament.
You look around, no guards could be seen, and only one
light bathed the loading dock with radiance.
"We’ve gotta act quick." You transmit
to the others on a low band, "Squawktalk, transform to that disk mode,
it’ll save us in room. Whirl, you and Sureshot stay together.
Wayward and Skybomb, you’re together. Get a crate, clean it out, and
dectivate."
You look back over, there were still about six fair
sized crates going out, ones that were large enough to hold a Cybertronian.
The landing platform was raised, so dumping out the
body parts where they wouldn’t be noticed wouldn’t be too difficult either, the
hard part was doing it without being seen, and without making noise.
"Squawktalk, can you make a white noise to cover
us dumping crap?"
"No, not without being obvious, but what if I
just cancel out the sounds in the area."
"Can you do that?"
"Sure, it’s just a reverb on the same wavelength
in the opposite…"
"Ok, ok, just do it. Sureshot, take out
that light… quietly."
Without even turning away, Sureshot lifted his blaster
and fired a pinpoint blast at the light. The faintest hiss could be
heard, then darkness swallowed the platform.
"Go!" you whisper.
You move out to the platform, silent as possible and
grab a crate. Your infrared scanners allowed you to see, but the drones
may take a second more to adjust. You open it and
start pulling out parts. To your surprise, you didn’t hear a thing as
parts rolled out across the floor, you kick them over the side of the
platform. They fell silently to the darkness.
With interest you noted that they appeared to be hard
materials, construction materials, and of a ver high grade. But you
didn’t have the time to investigate. You crawled inside once
there was enough room.
"Squawktalk, status."
"The others are almost done… ok, everyone appears
to have quieted down."
"Then commence shutdown."
You felt the energy drain off in the tape slot you had
put him in. You quickly followed suit.
You woke up to the low hum of engines throbbing
through the crate.
--Slag, overslept.—
You quickly did a check of the others. A small
pre-arranged beep on a boring level provided enough info. Everyone was up
and active.
"Squawktalk activate the silence field
again."
You carefully push open the door in the eerie silence.
Standing, you found yourself in a dark hold, racks of
worker droids sat above you in the large hold. All were deactivated, and
you noticed that about half were missing.
The others had begun to extract themselves from their
crates as well.
"What now?" asked Wayward as you ejected
Squawktalk.
"We could go back to sleep." Suggested
Wayward.
"No good." You tell the silver furred
Maximal, "If we’re asleep when this thing boards the Warworld, there’s no
telling who might open the crates and find us. It’s time we hide and
start jamming, and hope they don’t do a detail scan of the whole shuttle."
"Personally," starts in Whirl, "I’m
curious as to where the Con’s are. Shouldn’t there have been at least one
guard in here to dispatch?"
"Yeah," you admit, "It’s not like them
to leave things THIS unguarded."
"Then, why don’t we see who’s flying this
bird?" asks Sureshot.
Squawktalk reports, "We are just taking off from
the ground. There is approximately fifteen minutes until we should dock
with the Warworld. Based on last known position and
orbital aptitude."
"Not enough time for all of us to go tromping up
to the bridge to knock. We’d best find a corner to hide in. Engines
usually make a good spot. Engines or…"
You move toward the back, a large panel with markings
signified a fuel outlet, to refuel ships that are held in the hull.
"Squawktalk, can you open this?"
"Negative, my energy reserves are rapidly
depleting. I can’t change size for several minutes yet."
Whirl moved over, "Let me try, I used to work on
these rigs."
He pushed in the handle and gave a quick jerk, the
nozzle area swung to the side revealing the entry hatch for inner maintenance.
"It always worked whenever you forgot the key
number…" Whirl admitted wryly.
Just as you had expected, the tank read as
empty. You pushed open the maintenance hatch and crawled inside.
It was tight, but everyone managed to fit without a
problem.
"The energon shielding in this thing will cover
us without making a dead zone in the ship. Now, we just wait till we set
down…"
Cybertron: Underground
You stand there, a bewildered look on your face.
--What could that...—
A thought hits you out of the blue like a big red Mac truck.
"Computer reset Sigil." Your wings, chest,
and forehead wipe clean for a moment and reset to the Autobot symbol. You
look about quickly, but no one
appeared to have noticed.
--Eh, if they ask I'll say I was a Destron, the two
symbols look alike enough to be mistaken for one another at a passing glance—
At least it sounded convincing.
You shake the thoughts from your head as
you go and greet the team. Whirl, Squawktalk, the one called SureShot and
a few others. "Are we all prepared to
do this?"
"Ready, willing and able to kick 'Con!"
announces SureShot.
You roll your optics as you remember how much you
hated that phrase.
"Very well. Hunter?"
"Yes?"
"I don’t think we should all congregate in
the same place. It might be hazardous for my team to try to sneak aboard
the ship that’s right by the warehouse you're
investigating, so..."
"You are referring to my connections? Yes,
we know of other ships that are in the surface and that would provide suitable
transport."
"Good, if you would?"
He seems to look inside for a moment, you detect a
faint, high pitch signal being sent, "Coordinates seven by six, nine by
four."
You give the Maximal a nod, "Thank
you."
With a sigh you look around, forcing yourself to say,
"Autobots, move out."
The small recon team quickly makes its
way several miles to the south. You remain within the underground for as
much of the trip as possible but are eventually
forced out and onto the deserted surface. They stalk through the streets
for what seems like hours. Smoke clouds the usually crystal clear
Cybertronian skies, and
off to the West, you can still see the orangish glow from the inner city of
Iacon, where the attack had been centered.
Occasionally, there would be a flicker of life on your
scanners, as some Cybertronian hid in fear for its spark. Still, no
Decepticon’s harassed you. The streets
were surprisingly un-patrolled.
Then, up ahead, you saw the warehouse. The ship sat on
the low building like some bird of prey, and movement could be seen as boxes
were loaded and unload
from it.
It seemed to be supplying and taking loads from the
warehouse it sat on, as well as several other smaller ones around it, and as
you watched, it seemed to exude
an aura of fear.
It was a bit hard to believe it was merely a transport
shuttle.
"Any ideas?" you mutter as you peer
around the corner.
"Aren’t you the team leader?" asks Sureshot as he peeks over
your shoulder.
You roll your optics again, "I
ask in case anyone notices something I don't. Well, a direct approach is
not going to work here but perhaps we can sneak into
one of the secondary buildings. Get in a piece equipment and then, merely
allow them to carry us aboard."
Whirl’s eyepiece rotated, "And how are we
supposed to sneak aboard without them detecting our energy signatures?"
You thought about it for a moment,
"Timed shutdown. I hope that wasn't eliminated in the last quantum
upgrade. We merely shutdown and set our internal
computers to reinitialize us in..."
You trail off as you try to gauge their progress in
loading and unloading, "Twelve cycles should about do it."
You moved your group around to the least busy of
the warehouses, you selected a side door and crowded around it in the darkness
of the street.
"It’s locked." commented Whirl as he looked
at the keypad.
"Hold on." Squawktalk croaks. He
transforms from his bird mode and down into an even smaller disk.
--A size morpher!—
Very handy, but most size morphing had been eliminated
as the ability to produce smaller body frames had come around. The
process of altering one’s molecular
structure to a more compact mode took a great deal of energy, and generally
wasn’t worth the bother of doing.
The disk slid into a slot above the keypad.
Numbers flashed as Squawktalk burned through series of combinations.
Then with a soft click, the door slid open.
"Let’s go." You retrieve Squawktalk and move
into the warehouse.
The warehouse was dark. No lights except for
some standard emergency lights remained lit, causing the shadows to deepen and
the feeling of foreboding to
increase.
The Decepticon’s were almost done with this
warehouse. You knew that they had stopped unloading into this one, but
that it appeared they still had some to
load out from it.
As you walked by the rows of the warehouse, you could
tell that it seemed to be being converted into some type of factory.
Crates of supplies sat unopened, but
several large pieces of conveyor equipment motors sat partially assembled.
You moved the team toward the back, where a pile of
crate sat. You look and see floating droids moving the boxes out, one by
one.
The droids were standard, round globes with two
appendages and one lens. These appeared thick and heavy, built for
lifting and strong, but without armament.
You look around, no guards could be seen, and only one
light bathed the loading dock with radiance.
"We’ve gotta act quick." You transmit
to the others on a low band, "Squawktalk, transform to that disk mode,
it’ll save us in room. Whirl, you and Sureshot
stay together. Wayward and Skybomb, you’re together. Get a crate,
clean it out, and dectivate."
You look back over, there were still about six fair
sized crates going out, ones that were large enough to hold a
Cybertronian. The landing platform was raised,
so dumping out the body parts where they wouldn’t be noticed wouldn’t be too
difficult either, the hard part was doing it without being seen, and without making
noise.
"Squawktalk, can you make a white noise to cover
us dumping crap?"
"No, not without being obvious, but what if I
just cancel out the sounds in the area."
"Can you do that?"
"Sure, it’s just a reverb on the same wavelength
in the opposite…"
"Ok, ok, just do it. Sureshot, take out
that light… quietly."
Without even turning away, Sureshot lifted his blaster
and fired a pinpoint blast at the light. The faintest hiss could be
heard, then darkness swallowed the
platform.
"Go!" you whisper.
You move out to the platform, silent as possible and
grab a crate. Your infrared scanners allowed you to see, but the drones
may take a second more to adjust.
You open it and start pulling out parts. To your surprise, you didn’t
hear a thing as parts rolled out across the floor, you kick them over the side
of the platform.
They fell silently to the darkness.
With interest you noted that they appeared to be hard
materials, construction materials, and of a ver high grade. But you
didn’t have the time to investigate. You
crawled inside once there was enough room.
"Squawktalk, status."
"The others are almost done… ok, everyone appears
to have quieted down."
"Then commence shutdown."
You felt the energy drain off in the tape slot you had
put him in. You quickly followed suit.
You woke up to the low hum of engines throbbing
through the crate.
--Slag, overslept.—
You quickly did a check of the others. A small
pre-arranged beep on a boring level provided enough info. Everyone was up
and active.
"Squawktalk activate the silence field
again."
You carefully push open the door in the eerie silence.
Standing, you found yourself in a dark hold, racks of
worker droids sat above you in the large hold. All were deactivated, and
you noticed that about half were
missing.
The others had begun to extract themselves from their
crates as well.
"What now?" asked Wayward as you ejected
Squawktalk.
"We could go back to sleep." Suggested
Wayward.
"No good." You tell the silver furred
Maximal, "If we’re asleep when this thing boards the Warworld, there’s no
telling who might open the crates and find us.
It’s time we hide and start jamming, and hope they don’t do a detail scan of
the whole shuttle."
"Personally," starts in Whirl, "I’m
curious as to where the Con’s are. Shouldn’t there have been at least one
guard in here to dispatch?"
"Yeah," you admit, "It’s not like them
to leave things THIS unguarded."
"Then, why don’t we see who’s flying this
bird?" asks Sureshot.
Squawktalk reports, "We are just taking off from
the ground. There is approximately fifteen minutes until we should dock
with the Warworld. Based on last
known position and orbital aptitude."
"Not enough time for all of us to go tromping up
to the bridge to knock. We’d best find a corner to hide in. Engines
usually make a good spot. Engines or…"
You move toward the back, a large panel with markings
signified a fuel outlet, to refuel ships that are held in the hull.
"Squawktalk, can you open this?"
"Negative, my energy reserves are rapidly
depleting. I can’t change size for several minutes yet."
Whirl moved over, "Let me try, I used to work on
these rigs."
He pushed in the handle and gave a quick jerk, the
nozzle area swung to the side revealing the entry hatch for inner maintenance.
"It always worked whenever you forgot the key
number…" Whirl admitted wryly.
Just as you had expected, the tank read as
empty. You pushed open the maintenance hatch and crawled inside.
It was tight, but everyone managed to fit without a
problem.
"The energon shielding in this thing will cover
us without making a dead zone in the ship. Now, we just wait till we set
down…"
Cybertron orbit: The Warworld
After a short wait, Squawktalk stepped free from
the CR chamber.
"All ready to cause some chaos!" the
bird sneers.
You gather together the others and set off from the
med bays toward the main computer core.
All the while, the hallways echo with an eerie
silence.
"I don’t get it, where are all the
Decepticons?" mutters Whirl.
You make your ways down deep into the bowels of the
Warworld.
The computer core pulsed and hummed before your
group. The chamber in which it was contained was squat and wide,
stretching maybe five stories up and five
stories below. The computer core sat in the middle, a thick golden column
of circuitry and wires. A walkway stretched out to meet with a wide,
circular platform
that reached around the core itself.
"Ok, Squawktalk, get in there and see what you can find
out."
Squawktalk looks around, "Sure, but this will
take a while." And transforms into his disk mode.
Cycles crawl by as you wait for some report. You
and the others spread out on the platform, watching carefully for any signs of
activity.
Then, a sputter of sparks and a whir comes from the
computer banks, followed by the soft glow of an energy shield covering the
surface of the controls.
"THAT WILL BE QUITE ENOUGH!"
You spin towards the deep voice.
Standing on the long platform leading across to the
thick column of the main computer is a tall black robot, a gray and
reddish-purple camouflaged robot, and a
thick treaded tank with double gattling guns on top of it.
The whine of engines can be heard and on either side,
jets hovers up from below and transforms into robotic modes.
Along with the jets, about twenty circular work drones
hover up, surrounding your party. Shiny new gun barrels level
themselves at you from the drone workers.
"Game over, Autobots," the voice sneers, "throw down your weapons and surrender."
The Warworld: The computer core
You look about at the numerous bots and drones that have
surrounded your party. Making a quick head count you realize that you are
drastically outnumbered,
and if these Decepticons are as tough as the ones you faced on the surface,
you’re hopelessly outgunned as well.
--I could leave these fools to die...—
You think realizing that your flight speed and skill might
be enough to get at least half of you out alive.
--and as long as it was the right half...--
--No!-- you tell yourself, --It was such
cowardice that lead to the collapse of the original empire. I lead them
into this and I'll be damned if I abandon
them now...--
As you deliberated, one of the Maximals jumped forward,
"BITE ME!!!"
He pulls his weapon and fires a quick blast at the
Decepticons on the walkway.
Immediately, the tank responded with his powerful Gattling
cannons. The Maximal never stood a chance. He fell smoking to the
ground.
The others began to move, but you quickly yelled,
"STOP!!"
They all looked at you expectantly…
After long deliberation you release an exasperated
sigh. Re-modulating your voice you say, "A cursory evaluation
of our situation would indicate a marginal
numerical deficiency."
After a short pause you add, "in other words... we're
out numbered."
You drop your multi-rifles and raise your hands in
surrender.
The others look at each other, and for a segment you fear
that they would act on the impulse to attack. You knew that even now, you
felt the itch to launch
yourself headlong into a fiery battle that would no doubt end in your
destruction.
But then, they each in turn drop their weapons.
The tall black and green robot walks forward, "Wise
choice. Drones!" The floating orbs flit in and snatch up the
collection of rifles and blasters from the floor.
As he moves forward, you recognize some of the robots.
The leader was named Clench, and at his side was a rebuilt Soundwave.
Both of them had been pretty
high in the hierarchy back in the old days.
"Who’s in charge here?" you mutter.
"I am." Growls Clench as he comes to stand in
front of you. "Autobots? Ha! Pitiful renegades that dare
think you ever stood a chance…"
"Vulcan, Skywarp, Thundercracker. Escort our
prisoners to the holding area. I will decide what to do with them
later."
The tank with the gattling guns transforms into robot mode
and moves forward, motioning with the massive gun barrels on his arms.
You turn, "And what is to become of us?"
Clench smiles, "Scrap parts for our forces.
Autobot fool."
Warworld
You and your group walk through the halls, marching at a
defeated pace, shoulders slumped and anger welling in their eyes...
"Thanks," quips one of the Bots behind you.
"No talking!" bellows Vulcan prodding the
individual.
You continue the march, the entire time you remain silent,
pensive.
--There must be something I can do...--
The one called Vulcan starts in on you as you walk,
"Man, you Autobots sure became some real certifiable losers! Back in
the old days I can remember when
Autobots fought to the last man for one stupid cause or another."
He opens a turbo-lift and shuffle you into it.
"So, what's the matter? Has time turned you in to
a bunch of scraplets? Humph, at least with Decepticons in charge things
will be a lot less soft."
He steps in with the two Jets and hits the controls.
"Oh, by the way your buddy makes a fine addition to my
face plate collection. What was its name by the way?"
A sharp hand gesture and all in the lift leap to
action.
Sureshot slams Skywarp to the wall as Whirl does the same to
Thundercracker. As they pin the two jets, the Maximal jumps up and opens
a hatch on top of the
car.
You slams into the behemoth that his Vulcan. As Vulcan
turns to engage you, you fire a condensed blast from your optics shattering
Vulcan’s.
The warrior screams in rage.
"Quickly now!" you orders.
Sureshot and Whirl pull Thundercracker and Skywarp in
front of them and use them as sheilds against Vulcans wild assault.
His gattling cannons tears into the walls of the lift as you
jump up and pull yourself through the ceiling. The others quickly join
you, dropping the smoking bodies at
the last second.
"Always, search your foe for weapons!" you quip as
you dodge another volley of blasts.
"Third floor, ladies lingerie, lube jobs, and
freedom. Everybody out!" you yell as you and a few others tear open
a door and spill out onto a deck.
You turn and fire a volley of missiles at the top of the
car, knocking its stabilizers out and plummeting it down the tunnel.
You turn towards the others, "Good thing they still
teach you guys the wordless hand getures."
The Maximal smirks, "Yep, it's required reading
in the academies."
You scoff at the remark, "Required reading."
"Now what?" asks Pointblank.
Whirl looks up from where he was firing an awful lot
of extra missiles down the shaft, "Yeah, should we go down and make sure
their toast!" He asks greedily.
"No, we got off of this crate."
You spin and head off down the hallway, surprised at the
strength of the feelings you had to swallow that agreed with Whirl.
Thoughts of jumping down and ripping that pompous Vulcan
circuit from circuit swell in your head.
--How the slag do we find our way out?—
The ship was the size of a small moon, no, of a large moon!
--This is going to be tricky…--
Cybertron orbit: The Warworld
--Ok,This thing was built, and rebuilt by
‘Cons. There's gonna be a heavy Decepticon influence in this thing, a
cross between a flagship and a fortress.
Great that only puts about twenty thousand design elements in anywhere from
five to two thousand areas, this is gonna be fun.—
You turn to the others, "Ok, we gotta sink this thing,
hard! It probably has one central power, we blow it and escape in the
resulting cunfusion. We'll crawl into
the repair network and move in agreed?"
At the same moment you opened a tight band comm channel to
the others, "They probably have hidden cameras located throughout the
base, so just agree vocally
with what ever I say."
A general nod of assent went around the group.
Into your comm you added, "We’re not walking into a
trap again, so we’re not going for any obvious targets."
Out loud, "I want everyone to work on resetting their
weapon output for maximum damage. And I need to know who had what
left."
To the comm channel you broadcast, "This crate probably
has more than one power core, and there’s no way we can take them all
out. Our best bet is to head
for the docking bay, and use the turbo lift network to travel."
Out loud again, "Let’s kick some bot!"
Comm, "Any suggestions before we move?"
As the group is giving rough cheers of approval,
Whirl’s voice crackles across, "What about the bird tape?"
"He’s gone for, the Con’s gotta have him buried
in here. If we find him on the way out, great, if not, we’ll have
to get better numbers and try again."
Whirl gives a nod, and the group of you move off,
entering the turbo lift.
As the group clambers onto ladders and wires, thoughts
race through your head.
--If this place is built right, if we’re lucky
enough, if they bought our act, if they couldn’t monitor our personal
transmissions… by Primus that’s a lot
of ‘ifs’—
A few cycles later, a blast tears apart the metal,
right above your hand.
You look down to see the green and brown camouflaged
jet Decepticon in the Turbo shaft. You recall his name was Thundercracker.
"Autobots, MOVE!!"
You dodge another blast that shreds a panel off of the
inside of the wall, and jump to the opposite side.
Whirl leaps up, transforming into a attack helicopter
of some form, his blades whirl with a deadly buzz as he aims his noise downward
and releases a volley of
missiles.
The explosion spouted fire across the hallway.
You yell above the din, "Up, NOW!!"
Whirl begins to rise in the tunnel, as the Maximal
transforms into a bird form. His red and brown wings beat furiously,
pushing him above the wind that the
chopper was making.
Sureshot climbed as quickly as he could, and was soon
passing you as you pull yourself up.
A banch led off in a horizontal direction up
ahead. As you passed it, the Maximal asked, "Shouldn’t we dodge down
there?"
"No, we went down more levels than that so far
today, by my count, we need to be at least fifteen levels up!"
Then a blast from above drew your attention.
Sureshot swung around grabbing for his weapon before
realizing it was still gone, "SLAG! We’re sitting ducks if we don’t
have more armament!"
"And we’re cut off from above!" Yelled
the Maximal.
You look up to see the attacker, the other jet, a pale
purple, almost white Decepticon, Skywarp.
"Then we go sideways." You growl as
you swing into the horizontal shaft.
Sureshot leaps up and transforms into a yellow and
orange race car of some kind, his wheels spinning as he shoots down the
hallway.
The Maximal shoots past you as you transform into your
two jets, and Whirl was just behind you.
--At least we can all move pretty quickly while
there’s ground for Sureshot, but now it’s just a matter of time before they
trap the rats and slag us
out.--
The Warworld
"Think, think, think," your twin craft tell
themselves repeatedly as the small Autobot troop races through the
tunnels. Soon they come to a small divide and all, including Sureshot,
manage the leap across. "Ah ha! Now if only our luck holds
out...."
You register a doorway up ahead, signalling the others, you
dodge out of it, smashing open the lift doorway and speeding out into the
hallway.
Gunfire splatters around your group as they race through the
metallic hallways and dive, into a new set of turbo shafts.
As you dive into this new shaft, you see your opportunity.
"Whirl, missile spread, NOW!"
"Can do!" called the chopper as he fired a small
volley of missiles into the shaft behind them.
The resulting fiery explosions and flaming debris were
just what you had needed. Quickly your two halves soar off in two
different directions. One going up the shaft and the other down, then both
quickly swung around and hovered in the air facing each other.
"3...2...1.." Dread fired a barrage of
missiles that sped directly at each other. The missiles reached the
impact zone just as the pursuing Decepticons did. The result is a
titanic explosion that brought a smile to your face.
The twin craft quickly pivot and shoot down two tunnels
parallel to the one the Autobots were in.
Coming to the next junction ahead of them, the craft soared
through the connecting shaft and joined up, meeting the Autobots at the
junction. Startled by your sudden appearance they stopped.
"Wha... Now what?" gasped the Maximal bird.
You quickly thought about their location in the War
World and where they had been here. "Down 2 levels."
"But isn't the docking ring up?"
"Yeah but there’s something we need down.
Quickly, before the cons recover." Quickly the Autobots began to
make their way down, to the brig.
"How’d you know where the Prison centers
where?" Whispers Sureshot.
You look warily around the corner into the empty darkness,
"Easy, I looked at what button that bruiser tank-bot pushed in the turbo
lift while we were prisoners. Figured he was probably takin’ us down
here."
Whirl’s red optic flashed, "But just what ARE we doing
down here?"
"Well, first of all, it’s the last place they’d expect
us to go. Secondly, there’s Squawktalk. Isn’t their some kind of
Autobot code about always going back for your friends?"
Whirl shrugged, "Not if they’re dead…"
Sureshot shook his head, "He’s not dead, he was jammed
into that computer, they probably just plucked him and shipped him on down
here. Dreadnought’s right, we gotta bail him out!"
Whirl sighed, "Ok, then what now, fearless
leader?"
You look around, "There’s got to be sentry guards of
some sort. Maybe auto-guns or something, maybe those worker drones with
blaster’s…"
There was a thunk.
"What was that?"
"That," came a squawking reply from around the
corner, "Was a worker drone hitting the ground."
You looked around again to see Squawktalk hovering
over a spheroid drone’s inert body.
"You guys are noisy, you know that?"
squawked the flapping bird.
You stare agape, "Wha…."
"Well, the oldest rule of war was to watch out
for yourself. So, when I was captured I played dead, recorded some codes,
and set myself free. Just in time to hear you guys coming from a planet
scale away!"
The Maximal made a shushing noise, "You guys hear
that?"
The answer was muffled by the staccatto of gunfire as
a door was blasted down, and the Maximal was buried in a hailstorm of fire.
Your group scattered, diving for cover behind control
consoles and chairs in the small ante-room for the jail center.
"Slag! Tell me you know how to get outta
here, Squawktalk!" you yell above the din as the Maximal’s head comes
rolling to a stop by your feet.
"Back and left, follow me!" The
blue-green bird-bot flew back into a cooridor behind you.
"Fall back!" You yell as you fire a volley
of missiles at the doorway, where the huge Decepticon Vulcan stood spraying the
room with firepower.
The blast caused a momentary lapse in the deadly
shower, and you and the others made your brake for it, transforming and speeding
after the small bird-bot.
Warworld: Trying to escape...
Within cycles you and the others skidded out onto the deck of the docking bays
of the Warworld.
“Now what!” Whirl landed with a thud next to you.
“Now we hijack a ship!” yells Sureshot as he transforms.
You shake your head, “We’ll get blasted to scrap!”
The sound of gunfire ripping up the deck reminds you of the tank that’s been chasing you.
“Like we have a choice?!” Whirl transforms again and spins, firing another volley of missiles down the turbo shaft that had dumped you here, “I’m out of missiles!!”
Squawktalk screeched in annoyance, “I got some older codes that might get us past the defense satellites!”
“What about the main guns!” you yell back as the group of you begin to pound toward a shuttlecraft.
Whirl landed atop the ship, “We’ll improvise!” and jumped in the side loading hatch.
Sureshot was steps behind him, and Squawktalk was already inside.
You turned as the Decepticon stormed out of the doorway. He looked like scrap!
Pieces hung off, and one arm hung completely limp, over his shoulder, however was slung a knotted wire to which the faceplates of the two Maximals were tied.
You fire your last missile, slamming it into him. He seems fairly unperturbed, despite the smoldering plates that fall to the deck. He raises his good arm, cannon already spinning.
You dive into the ship as the vulcan cannon drills into the side of the ship.
The engines were already humming as you sat down in a seat.
“Hit it!”
The ship lurched out into the starry skies.
Almost immediately, the sounds of heavy cannon fire echoed dully through the hull.
“If one of those cannons hit, we’re scrap.” Reported Sureshot.
You think, “Squawktalk, you said you had some codes?”
“Yeah…?”
“Can you get some sattelites to take shots at that ship?”
He seems to think for a minute, staring at you blankly, then, “Yeah! No problem. He transforms and jumps into the control panel.
Suddenly, a new hail of fire starts flashing past the screen, this was smaller, more compact. It arced into the massive war station.
Almost as if in confusion, the heavy ship’s cannons stopped. It was enough. Whirl took the ship into a sharp dive, quickly penetrating the atmosphere of Cybertron…
The Warworld
Now, after
what seemed like ages, you lean back and smile.
It feels like a weight had physically been moved off of your spark. It
was an almost palpable lifting of the stormy chaos that had been steering you
since landing in the monstrous ship.
"By Primus it feels so good to be free of that place."
"We're not out of the woods yet," assures Whirl.
"Yeah, they're probably tracking us as we speak," adds Sureshot.
You sigh, "I know. Geez can't you let me get just ONE minute of rest. Anyway, good work people. We survived. Hopefully what little information we've gathered will help the others. Squaktalk, how's the other side doing?"
The bird squawked from within the ships control console, “Looks like they’re clear, some casualties on their side as well. However, I can’t seem to raise a clear channel to them. Something seems to be spreading out a jamming field.”
"Well at least they aren't all dead," you pause remembering the
fallen Maximals, "In either
case we will be joining them shortly.
“Oh well. Whirl, Bring down in a wide G-Arc. Put us in sector Kappa. Don't bother slowing."
"What?!” Sureshot gasps.
"Kappa is one of the more damaged areas and there are several large wholes in the surface. We'll take this shuttle into one and disappear into the underground of Cybertron. Understood?"
Sureshot shakes his head, “No, but what the slag. It’s not like we aren’t armed…oh wait, that’s right, we’ve all lost our guns and you guys are out of missiles!”
Whirl looks back, “Yeah, but he’s right. We land this out in the open and we’re dead bots. At least we stand a chance in the warrens down there.”
You flex your hands, “And, I know a few things about the area. I can get us through without too much fight, and maybe even get us some temporary weapons ‘til we can get back to a CR.”
Sureshot shrugs, “Well, as long as I don’t go the way of our Maximal buddies back up there.”
You sigh and look back out the window.
Sector Kappa, a named area that sat above some of the darker warrens of Cybertronia’s inner city. Above ground, there was massive damage. The place was still close enough to central Iacon to have been victim to one or two stray blasts from the Warworld’s original attack. Finding a hole in the surface large enough to land the shuttle in was far from difficult.
Your group jumps out and begins the journey.
Through winding tunnels of metal and steel, past pools of sulfur and mercury that dripped slimly down the side walls in the darkness, you made your trip as quietly and unobtrusively as possible.
But within cycles you realize that you are not alone.
The signs are subtle at first, things that could be mistaken for wind in the tunnels, or extra echoes from your own footfalls.
But the low growl in the darkness could not be mistaken.
“We’ve got company.” Whispers Sureshot.
You look around, but here was little to hide behind, and next to nothing to allow a tactical advantage.
You were in a large room, possibly a dumping point for some of the metallic liquids that seemed to drain from the tunnels you were using.
“Squawktalk, go up you’re backup. Whirl, Sureshot, circle, back to back.”
They move into position, your lights clicking on and shining in wide circles across the dingy walls of the rusty underground.
“What was that about weapons?” whispered Sureshot.
“Would you believe we’re about two kilometer’s from where I thought of?”
“Shhh!!” warns Whirl as a low slithering noise could be heard. It was accompanied by a clattering noise, as if many claws were scrabbling for purchase.
From the darkness, out moved a multi-legged creature. Metallic plates line it’s multi-segmented back, and a long neck held up the head of a lizard. Two large spider-like legs hel up the front, and a long, snakelike tail with a stinger on the end of it rose in the back.
“What the rust is that!!” growled Whirl.
“Heliopede, TERRORIZE!!” the creature transforms, it’s plated back sliding up and spreading into an arc of wings behing the robot. It’s tail still swished casually over it’s head as it leered at you and the others.
“Well, what do we have here? Autobot’s! Well isn’t the rabble just coming out of the woodwork!” The red and green robot’s translucent exoskeleton glistened in the torchlight.
“Stand down, Heliopede!” another voice snapped from behind.
There were footfalls as two forms moved out of the shadows. One was greenish, with a large claw made of two crystalline sings on one arm and the head of some kind of lizard on the other. The other was yellow and purple, with an elongated head. A reddish fin ran down it’s hunched over back, and it’s face had a wide, oversized jaw lined with sparkling white teeth.
The green one spoke first, “Our apologies… Autobot’s? My name is Skyshadow and this is Aquasting. I believe your have already been introduced to our guard, Heliopede?”
Cybertron: Sector Kappa
“Who are
you?”
“I believe I just answered that question. I don’t suppose you would be
willing to return the same consideration?”
“Name’s Dreadnought, this is Sureshot, and Whirl. What I meant is, what are you doing?”
“Same thing that I would guess you are doing.” The green Predacon waved his lizard headed hand at your party, “Hiding from the Decepticons.”
“Who said we’re hiding!” interrupts Sureshot.
The multicolored one with the big jaws, Aquasting snorts, “Then retreating. It’s rather obvious that you’ve been fighting, and since you have Autobot sigils then it’s fairly easy to figure out who you’ve been fighting with!”
“Then what do you want?” you question the group.
“Don’t worry, we’re not here to stop you, but we think that we may help you…” Skyshadow smiles.
“Help us?”
“Yes, you see I believe we know of a repository of weapons that is not far from here, maybe only a few cycles travel.”
“Why do you need the weapons?” your eyes narrow in distrust. Something just didn’t add up.
Aquasting answered, “Same as you, for defense against the Decepticon scum that have usurped our planet!”
Skyshadow continues, “We need help in acquiring the weapons from their place of keeping. And as luck has it, we have happened upon you. I believe our meeting is by no chance, but maybe Primus has smiled down upon us.”
“So… you want arrow catchers.”
“No! No! In fact, in your current state of repair I doubt that you would last long enough in a fight to do us any good in that respect.”
You look down at yourself and the others. It was true enough, you had all taken your fair share of scrapes in the escape from the Warworld.
“Where is it?”
“Several levels below here.” Skyshadow sends you burst of transmission data with the exact location encrypted within it. This catches you by surprise, and disarms your worries a bit. He didn’t seem to be holding back that information at least. He just gave you the option of leaving him and taking the prize for yourself…
“Down? Isn’t that a bit dangerous?”
Aquasting smiled, “Any more than going back to the surface unarmed after upsetting the Decepticon forces?”
Skyshadow adds, “You may not know it, but the Decepticons have announced that a return to Cybertropolis is allowable. Even a return to Iacon.”
“How? They that confident in their abilities to control the populace?”
“Very confident. Patrols of transformable tanks have been spotted throughout the remains of Iacon. They all appear identical, and move in unison, like drones. But any attempt to face off with them has proven disastrous. They are well armed, and their armor is impregnable.”
“So what good will this weapons cache be?”
“It is a leftover cache, that’s why it’s so far down underground. After the Great War was finished, the heaviest weapons were carted down to one area, and then placed under lock and key, and promptly deleted from Cybertron’s main computer banks. It only took a hundred years or so for it’s memory to begin to fade from the general populace of the planet.”
“And three hundred years later… who remembers it at all?”
“Exactly.”
“Why do YOU remember it?”
The Predacon sighs, “I have my sources.”
--He’s withholding, but it almost sounded like he knew he shouldn’t… what game is he playing?—
“What’s the catch.”
“The catch?”
“Why don’t you just go and get them for yourselves?”
“Ah… ‘the catch’ is that it is guarded.”
“And we’re back to arrow catchers.”
“No, no… You misunderstand. The reason it was luck that we found you is because of WHO it’s guarded by, and your own newly donned insignias.”
“I’m not quite following you.”
“The Armory was created as the last act of a faction before they voluntarily disbanded. They placed their strongest warriors in stasis there to guard in case anyone tried to steal them.”
“Voluntarily disb…” recognition and realization dawns on you.
“Yes, “ Skyshadow continues as he sees the realization in your optics, “The Autobots created the Armory.”
“Then who are its guards?”
“A guerilla strike force crated on a distant planet during the last Great War. They went by the name, The Dinobots.”
Cybertron: Underground
You couldn’t help but be stunned, it all fell together too well… too perfectly. That a band of Autobots just happened to find a band of Preds that knew where a cache of weapons were.
And these weapons were guarded by THE Dinobots!
Even on Cybertron the Dinobots had become legend, fierce warriors said to have indestructible armor and limitless endurance. Granted, they were from the Great Wars, and probably major energy hogs… but still!!
YourYou Your expression soon returned to normal. “Allow us a time to consider.”
“As you wish,” the small green Skyshadow agreed. He motioned and the two larger robots stepped back into the shadows. He turned and followed.
You You and the others huddle in a circle. “Firstly, Squawk can you make a sound field to make sure that THEY can’t over hear us?”
“Sure, but not for too long, you know how draining it is.”
“Ok, we’ll keep it short and sweet.”
Nodding the diminutive bot reconfigured to his disc form and landed in Dreadnoughts hand. He held it when it emitted a high pitched whine and suddenly everything beyond them seemed to fade away, as if someone pressed the mute button on Cybertron.
“Can you guys here me?”
“Sure thing,” answered Whirl.
“Ok, our options. Join their plan or don’t, suggestions.”
“As much as I can’t stand the Preds, it seems this may be our best bet,” answered Whirl.
“If it really IS guarded by the Dinobots then we’ll get all the aid we need!” exclaimed Sureshot.
“You know them?”
“I served with them for a short while when they came back to Cybertron. Let’s just hope they don’t have short memories.”
“Agreed. Then it’s settled, we go with them for now but we prepare for anything they might throw at us.”
The other two nodded in agreement.
“You ok with this Squawk?”
“No prob, not like I’M gonna be taking on the Dinos if something goes wrong.”
You You chuckle. “Ok then, agreed, disengage your screen.”
The disc beeped noticeably before the whine turned down and the world slowly returned to them. The small bot leaped from your hand and transformed landing of your shoulder.
Slowly they walked over to the Predacons, “It appears that this is our best option, we will accompany you, lead the way.... “
Soon, you and your groups were even farther down in the depths of the metallic planet. The only light came from your own optics, and Sureshot’s headlights. The high beam headlights glimmered off the walls in the still darkness, and your footsteps echoed hollowly through the tunnel.
“Where IS it?” complains Sureshot.
But Skyshadow had already stopped up ahead, in front of a massive grate, “Here.”
The bars were meters in diameter, and a scan revealed that they were made of a titanium alloy, shielded, and had a sheen of energy that crackled along their surface.
“Charming. Who wants to knock.” Whirl proclaimed, looking up at the bars. The gate stood five times his height, and he was every bit as tall as you were.
“Ok, how do we get by?” you turn to Skyshadow.
A burst transmission registered on your computers. You decode it to find a simple pass code.
“This will shut off the gate when spoken by an Autobot.” He explains.
--Great, what if you were an ex-Con?—
“Sureshot. You knew the Dinobot’s… you speak the code. The rest of us will cover you.”
Sureshot shrugged and started reciting. The code was long, it wasn’t meant for use if someone was in a hurry. The recitation took nearly ten cycles! At the end, there was a low humming noise as the shield shut off first, then the bars de-charged. After five minutes the gates began to rise.
And in the darkness beyond, five sets of optics flared to life.
“Who enters Armory?” Rumbles a deep voice.
Cybertron: The Armory
You stare at the five sets of eyes for what seemed like a short eternity before you finally respond.
"Autobots," you say simply.
--I heard they were
powerful, but weren’t too bright.
Best be short and to the point.—
"We need the weapons to destroy the Decepticons."
You pause, had you actually said that? Shaking your head slightly, you return to the matter at hand and await the Dinobot’s response.
Another higher pitched, voice spoke up, “The Decepticons were defeated a few hundred years ago according to my watch.”
And another, “Yeah, and the two there are marked as Preadcon.”
The first voice took over again, “Don’t know what is going on. You say you Autobots, and you bear symbols, but Prime leave, not return. He return he come wake us…”
The form steps free of the shadow, revealing a massive robot, thick and heavy with silver plating and a golden chest. His optic visor flahses red, “…he come wake me, Grimlock.”
--He
doesn’t sound bight… but his cohorts seem up on it.—
“Optimus Prime is dead, and there has been peace on Cybertron for three centuries. The Predacons, the Maximals, the Destrons, and the Cybertrons have all been living in peace, but now the Decepticons have shown up.”
“First, Prime not dead, he just left for a while. Second, me know the terms of the Pax, me there when it was signed. What you mean the Decepticons show back up?”
A new, somehow familiar voice interrupts your answer…
“He means, we have returned to power, relic! Decepticons, ATTACK!!!!”
You spin to see an unfamiliar looking Decepticon on top of a small ledge near the ceiling. At his command, three silver blue Decepticons… all perfectly similar, and without legs, swoop over the ledge and begin to fire heated energy blasts from their shoulders.
Also, a large number of heavy, gray, clone-bots jump down from the ledge. They have heavy cannons on their shoulders that rotate and then discharge heavy blasts of plasma energy.
They each land with loud thuds, ten of the heavy clones, and the three flying clones circled around as they fired.
The leader opened fire from where he was, a heavy shoulder-borne gattling cannon tearing after the Dinobots themselves.
--Gattling cannon…? That voice…
It’s that Decepticon from the Warworld… with a new body!!—
Things look bad…
Cybertron: The Armory
"Vulcan..." you say coldly.
It had been bad enough that you were followed but NOW he had to deal with this pompous shell scraper too!?
"By Primus...." you begin to visibly shake with rage, "Autobots, grab a weapon, Dinobots! Here is your proof that we speak the truth, so let us join forces and rip these soldiers apart. FOR CYBERTRON!!"
You drop your fist like a gavel and launch the two or three missiles that your systems had managed to rebuild in the short period. They popped and crackled into the three flight robots that flew out over the overhanging ledge and in front of your determined target, Vulcan.
The three steel blue, slicked back robots didn’t even flinch, but rather opened fire with energy cannons on their shoulders.
You rise into the air, ready to rip Vulcan apart with your bare hands if necessary, when a powerful energy shot lanced through one of your right wings.
You spiraled back a bit, but quickly recovered, “PIT! I need WEAPONS!”
Below you, you hear Grimlock’s voice roar over the din of the blast weapons, “AUTOBOTS, DINOBOTS, PREDACONS, faaall BACK!!! Pull together and through gate. Swoop, lay down aerial suppression. Sludge, ground pound! Slag, fill Sludges trench with fire!!”
You split apart, transforming into your two jets, and rocket toward the armory.
However, the rest of Grimlocks well-laid plan seemed to be falling apart. The three aerodrones were on Swoop, their aerial warrior, in a heartbeat. Sludge, a massive robot who now transformed into a thick limbed, long necked robot-reptilian stomped his foot down with enough force to form a massive trench between the party and the oncoming tank bots. But, when Slag transformed into a massive, three-horned dinosaur, he was smashed dead on by four blasts from across that trench.
His skull shattered in several places, and wires flew out as the massive creature staggered back.
There was a hissing explosion as a volley of missiles raked across the stalwart Grimlock. Acid spraying across his metallic frame.
As you enter the Armory, you hope the Dinobots can hold until your return
The Armory was huge. A metallic chamber, in whose center hovered a floating safehold. Through shimmering shields you could make out a wealth of weaponry.
“Shielded!?!?”
“Of course,” you spin to see Skyshadow standing in the shadows, “You really didn’t expect it to be just lying around. “
“We need in, NOW!”
“You’re an Autobot… Get them!” he waves his clawed hand at a large console to one side. It was a chamber of sorts.
--A signature scanner!!!—
“I don’t…” you hesitate.
“Then don’t.” a new voice, chiding and amused.
You both look around to locate it’s source.
A monstrosity of a robot stepped out of the shadows. It was insectoid, sort of. It’s legs were recurved, like some animals, and greenish wings stretched down from its back. It was colored in reds and greens, and it’s shell was distorted and twisted as if created out of some nightmarish dream. Two orange eyes glittered below massive green compound eyespots on its head.
You hear a harsh intake of breath from Skyshadow, “…a Transmetal…”
“I am as far above your ‘Transmetals’ as they are above you, Lord Skyshadow. I have come here to make sure that you are not allowed to escape.
You step forward, “I don’t think so!”
It looks over at you, “Ah yes, Dreadnought. You will still live, by Clench’s command only. But do not delude yourself into a fight you can not handle. Especially disarmed.”
Skyshadow turned as the new Transmetal was facing you, but one of the greenish wings flipped out sideways, launching a shard from it’s tip at the retreating Predacon. Greenish energy arced across Skyshadow’s frame and he slumped to the ground with a twitter. All the while, the newcomer didn’t turn from you a micron.
“Who are you.”
“I am Scourge, Autobot. And my with my master I shall bring to your race a plague to end all plagues.”
With that, he turned from you and went to scoop up Skyshadows body in his clawed hands.
--Can’t fight him… what does he mean, ‘You
will still live, by command’?!? I
gotta get a GUN!!!!—
You spin, “Here goes…” and step into the signature scanner. A wave of energy slides down and back up your body, and you brace yourself for the destruction that would probably follow.
Then everything goes dark.
For a second, you think… ‘Well, I guess I was asking to be deactivated…’ But then realization set in, the shielding on the platform was off. It had been the only light source!! Now, lights began to shut on, lighting the cache of weapons floating above you. You hear footsteps coming in and spare a glance to see Sureshot and Whirl, worse for wear but still intact, come pounding into the chamber. Scourge was no where to be seen.
“It’s bad!” yells Sureshot. “Two dinobots are off-line already, and the others have barely dented the enemies!”
You jump up to the edge of the weapons vault and snatch up a heavy rifle. With a snap of your wrist you assure that the weapon is loaded.
“Then let’s try to even the odds a bit!”
Cybertron : The Armory
In a flash, you scoop up several grenades, ammo clips and two lighter rifles. Stowing the light rifles away, you glance at your two companions.
Sureshot hefted what could only be referred to as a master creafted weapon worthy of Prime or even Megatron himself.
Whirl had snatched up a multi-barreled vulcan gun, and all three were carrying a host of other weapons.
“Ok, Let’s show them the way of the warrior!”
Not missing a beat, all three turned and ran from the armory’s den. Whirl slammed down some laser mines near the entryway as you left, ensuring that no one would enter again before him.
Outside there was a massacre.
You cursed yourself. The Dinobot’s old tech couldn’t handle the new age weapons, you should have guessed. All of them had fallen, except for one, the leader, Grimlock.
He knelt in front of Vulcan, dazed, a smoking hole in his back from where a tank drone had shot him.
Before you could do anything, the Decepticon raised his arm, and a spinning saw blade flashed in the dim light of the battles fires.
His arm fell like a scythe, and Grimlocks head fell from his shoulders.
“NOOOO!!!!!” You yell, and immediately the three of you pounced into action.
You split apart, screaming past the advancing line of tank drones, firing the rifles and dropping grenades and bombs in a cluster pile across the line of the advancing ground forces. Slamming together, you throw several flash-bangs into the opposing forces and finally turn your attention back to Vulcan.
You hovered, your optics glittering dangerously in the
darkness of the underground, "You loathsome Unicron SPAWN! DIE!!"
But
Vulcan transforms into tank mode, “We’ll finish this yet, Autobot.”
You lunge toward him, but one of the Aerodrones hits you from the side with a powerful blast.
You spin and face the robot.
--Good thing about the old tech, it’s insanely inefficient, but a LOT more powerful than anything YOU’VE got!!—
You let loose with both rifle, the safeties off, the robot spun backward, smoking from the assault.
You spin to see that Vulcan was gone, and that most of the remaining forces were pulling out, you also see that the other Predacon, Aquasting, was being carried off by another Aerodrone.
“Not so fast!” You fire into the ceiling of the tunnel it was making for, sealing off the escape route. The drone turned and fired on you, floating up toward the tunnel they had made their entrance from.
You couldn’t get a lock, not without nailing the Predacon, and it seemed the jet bot knew it.
Then there was a flash, and the robot fell from the sky… minus one head.
You turned to see Sureshot grinning from behind the heavy rifle he had purloined.
Spinning you find that the initial barrage seemed to have cleared out most of the Decepticons. Four tank six tank drones lie in ruins, and all three of the ‘Aerodrones’ had fallen. The rest had escaped down the tunnel… the same tunnel that you had come in through.
You stare at the now collapsed entryway, something tugging at your CPU, something amiss.
“That’s it then, guess we showed the Decepticreeps who NOT to mess with.” Sureshot’s cockiness was palpable.
“Yeah,” Whirl cut in, “We did reeeeeaaaal good. We plain lost one Predacon, and they killed five ancient legends and another Predacon.”
You look back, sure enough, each of the Dinobots lay smoldering and in stasis. Each had their heads removed. The Predacon bodyguard was in worse shape. He had been ripped in two, his core exposed. His spark had already evaporated.
You dropped the two rifles to the ground and moved over to where Grimlock had fallen.
His body was a wreck. Granted, this armor was probably tougher than yours, but against that many of those Decepticons?
You reached down and hoisted the headless body up to it’s knees again.
“How’s it look.” You turned to see Sureshot standing there, an anxious look on his face.
“Bad. He’ll go off-line permanently within the hour.
“Slag!” he kicks one of the smoldering tank drone carcasses.
“Perhaps I can help…?” you both turn to see a rather beaten, but still whole Aquasting. You had forgotten about the Predacon after Sureshot had blasted the Aerodrone that was carrying him off.
“You a technician?”
“No…”
“Then what can you do?”
“I know where we can take them.”
“Take them?”
“Yes, near here is a vehicle that Skyshadow and I used to get here. Inside of it there are five CR chambers. Just enough to repair your five warriors.”
Whirl had flown off into the Armory, but now returned with a glum look as he transformed and landed, “There’s no repair equipment in there, at least none that would do them any good in this state.”
You look back at the Predacon, “This ship, is it far?”
“Perhaps a half hour walk. The ship is between here and where we met you. Of course, we can’t go through the tunnels we originally came here in…”
--The tunnels we came here in… the one I collapsed.—
“What about those tunnels?” Sureshot pointed up to where the Decepticons had come in through.
“Those are a slightly more direct route, that actually will work in our favor, provided we don’t get lost.”
--The tunnels the Decepticons came through…--
Something about it was bugging you, but you couldn’t quite put your fingers on it, or pull it together…
“I thought you said it was more direct?” Whirl was asking.
“It is.” Answered Auquasting, “We’ve been down here for several days scouting around this area and hoping to find something that would allow us access to the Armory, however, I’m not a scout, I was more or less along for the ride. Heliopede was our scout, it was up to him to discern the tunnels and find the paths.”
You shake off your line of thought for the moment, “We have no choice, let’s get to removing those spark chambers. It’ll be quicker if we just carry them rather than try to drag these monsters….”
Cybertron: The Armory
You set to work on a most gruesome task, the removal of another's spark.
The mere thought sent shivers down your spine.
--Shake it off
Dready…--
You force yourself to reach down and pry open Grimlock’s chest. It wasn’t too hard after the amount of damage it had received. It’s thick armoring had been thinned and pounded to a point where little effort was needed to rip it open.
You remove the pulsing spark chamber, looking momentarily down at the mechanical frame that held it in place. It was easily pulled out, gripping the opposing handles around the central orb, and easily stored in your secondary spark chamber.
--Great, now I’ve got an Autobot passenger, next thing you know I’ll be
pledging my allegiance to Prime!
Primus, I need to get my CPU cross-linked and tested!—
Shaking your head you watch as the other sparks were removed and attended too, watching carefully to make sure that the Predicon didn’t get his hands on one. It wasn’t too hard, he seemed to be leary of anything that might seem like physical work…
Whirl carried Swoop and Sludge’s chambers, attaching them to his back. Sureshot had Slag and Snarl’s. The small spark chambers could hold a static charge for a short time, but the others didn’t have the storage room that you did. The chambers only had a limited time until the sparks would expire.
--At least Grimlock is
safe…--
You walk over to the Pred, who was pruning the tall purple and red fins that stretched away in all directions from his odd body, "How far is it to your ship?"
"Oh about 1.3 clicks."
"Good, ok people whirl and burn… no pun intended… Let's move and move fast." You transform and waited as the others followed suite. You tell the Predacon to latch onto your primary fighter, and have Squawktalk transform and jump inside as well.
"I'm don't want to go the way the Decepticons departed
or entered, it's too likely that they'd have
left traps for pursuers."
"The other routes are longer," cautioned Aquasting.
"And we're that much faster. You
are the navigator… lead on."
"As you wish," sighed the
Pred, and with that you were gone, tearing across the under-bowls at max speed
and hoping to Primus their precious cargo would last.
--....Good... you no.... trust... pred....—
"Wha?!?"
“Did you say something?” Aquasting asked, startled.
“Uh… no, nevermind, it was nothing.”
--Shake it off Dread, now you’re hearing things. Pit I need a good recharge and a few
days in an oil bath.—
Within a half of a megacycle the group made it to the squat land rover. It was a large size, and well armored. The vehicle sat upon eight huge wheels that stood as tall as you did. It was two stories by transformer reckoning, and multi-jointed to allow an easier travel. Several gun turrets were placed around the ATV, making it look like a rather formidable war machine.
You transform, ejecting the disc and letting Aquasting flutter to the ground. His beast mode was some kind of crossbreed creature, part hornet, part lionfish… or something so he could fly…
He transformed in front of the door plank that led up to the entry hatch and motioned for your group to follow.
The door slid open and he tromped inside.
Inside there was a fairly plush ready area. There were five CR chambers in the back room, which Aquasting went about opening and powering up. Also, there were three recharging pads in there.
In the central room there was a full holo-vid setup in the center with several long seating couches for viewing it. Forward of that there was a command center, and around all the rooms was a short hallway of sorts for added buffering and access to the gunports.
Upon a closer inspection you found that the central room was on a buffer system that almost made it float in the center of the vehicle, to reduce the chaos of what is no doubt a rough ride. The holo-vid system was tooled for the finest in entertainment, but was perhaps a bit much for a battlefield briefing.
The whole thing seemed to be built by someone who had too many resources, and who wanted to ‘appear’ in a battle, but didn’t want to take the risk or discomfort associated with it…
You doubted the slaggin’ thing had ever even been shot at.
Quickly, the two Autobot’s unloaded their cargoes into four of the CR chambers. As you reached up to unload yours, you looked around at the bots gathered.
A sorry lot was standing there, everyone was badly damaged, including yourself. It had been a long day, and not a kind one to your group. Squawktalk was the only one who barely had a circuit charred.
“Sureshot, what’s the status on those pods.”
He turned and pulled a panel around, tapping in a few commands, “Slag.”
“What is it?”
“The pods are low on resources. They can keep the sparks indefinitely, that’s not hard, but as far as total rebuilds, there’s barely enough for one body.”
--Rebuild smallest. Repair your men. Only tactical choice.—
You jumped. The
voice was easily recognizable, but you didn’t understand its source.
--Grimlock?—
Nothing.
You shake it off, perhaps you were just loosing it finally. That’s all you needed, a psychosis from trying to play Autobot.
But the idea was sound. And you wouldn’t have to sacrifice anyone to do it. You could keep Grimlock’s spark stable for now, rebuild the smallest of the Dinobots, and meanwhile have someone getting repairs in the empty CR. As soon as the other was done, that would make two CR’s open for repairs.
You quickly explain the plan to the group. The Dinobot Swoop seemed the most likely for a rebuild, and Sureshot began to program in the coding. Then it came time to decide who would go into the chamber.
“You.” Whirl pointed at you with a claw, “It’s the only choice that makes sense. You’ve got the heaviest frame, the most combat experience, and you’ve got Grimlock’s spark to watch over.”
“Yeah,” adds Sureshot with a cock of the cannon he got, “Besides, me and Whirl can hold things down in this tub, after all… I went up front and looked, almost every control can be automated. A half-rate Gobot to run this thing!”
You nod, “Ok, then I want this ATV moved out from here. If those Decepticons return and try to track us, I want them to find nothing but dust. First, though, drive it back to the Armory. Let’s take a collection before they can regroup and return. The rest, either lock up, or if that doesn’t seem secure enough, set charges and bury the place. Understood?”
“Righto bossbot.” Sureshot headed for the bridge immediately, the Predacon and Squawltalk went with him.
Whirl waited and turned toward you, “Dreadnought, there’s something that’s been bothering me…”
“Yeah?”
“I’m not really sure what it is, but something about that last fight was… wrong. Not the fight itself, but… I don’t know, something.”
“Me too. I’ll leave my tactical computers working on it, maybe they’ll crank out something while I’m asleep. Meanwhile keep an eye on the Predacon, make sure he doesn’t try anything funny. You’re in charge till I wake up.”
He salutes and walks out.
You lean back into the CR chamber, the soft seat creaking as you pressed against it.
--At last, a rest and
recharge… and maybe I’ll stop hearing voices…--
--Stasis lock commencing.—
“But the code is what
kept us going… Least that what I finally learned.”
“What code?”
The rock Grimlock sat on was traced with veins of gold and red. A butterfly fluttered up past him as he
considered your question. Around
you, thick, lush forests of an alien word echoed with noise in the sunlit
daytime.
“The Code. Fought against code
all my life. Then I got what I
wanted.”
You leaned
back against another thick tree, it’s dark bark crunching under the weight of
your frame. A few reddish-purple
leaves fluttered down from above.
“I became leader. Threw Prime down, took over.”
“Good for you. Whoever’s
stongest…”
“No, that what I thought… that where I failed.”
“Failed?”
“It was part of the code. I
was strong, capable, good leader.
Tactics came easy, people follow easy. But I never understood why Prime follow code, why he cow-tow
to the weak. Never understood why
we bother with the fleshies, why we not take what we need and leave. My blindness led to too many changes.”
“Changes?”
“The Autobots split, shattered.
No one knew why we fought anymore.
We were the Decepticons, they were us. ‘Kill the weak, take what we need. ‘ I watched as my forces
were depleted, slaughtered. I
watch while Bludgeon kill every one of us.”
“I don’t… follow.”
“The line between Autobot, Decepticon, Destron, Cybertron… it not just
politics. It not as easy as, ‘this
what we are… this who we are…’ That where I made mistake. I turned Autobots into a fighting
force, a force to kill Decepticons.
Ruthless, emotionless… That what I wanted.”
“And?”
He looked up, his red visor burning into you as if searching your very
spark, “I change our very hearts.”
“You’re Cybertronians, you don’t have hearts.”
“No, perhaps not, but I change something I shouldn’t have. We loose purpose, we fight
ourselves. We splinter and
fall. I realize what I do too
late.”
“But the Autobot’s survived…”
“Yeah, Prime show up, save my bacon again.” He mutters quickly.
“I don’t see why you’re telling me this…”
He pulls something from his arm, a metallic sigil, an Autobot sigil. He tosses it on the ground between you.
“Because of this. This
nothing… this piece of metal.
It not what we are.”
“It’s not what I am, I’m a Decepticon!” you say haughtily.
“Why? Because you like trash
things?” He pulls out a cannon and
fires a blast into the jungle, the shockwave pushes against you as a
considerable clearing is atomized in the explosion. He looks pleased at the flume of fire that floats up into
the sky, “Me like destruction. Me
think fire good.”
He turns back to you, “Because of who you follow? Megatron, dead… Bludgeon, dead... Prime, dead... Clench, nutcase…”
You look
down at the Autobot symbol, hot ashes floated like glowing butterflies falling
in a spiraling dance to the ground, covering the shiny sigil.
“Maybe because of what you
believe?”
You couldn’t really think of an answer. More ashes fell.
“We make sigil, we draw
line. Soon, that no matter. Soon, slag hit the fan. Clench woke something, somethin’ he
shoulda stayed away from.”
You look up at him, “What’s that?”
“Fear, hate… chaos.” He
bends over and picks up the now ash encrusted sigil.
“It up to
us to stop him.”
He
hands you the sigil. You grab it,
and some ash falls away, revealing a glint of purple.
You
shake the rest off and find yourself holding a Decepticon sigil.
“It
no matter where we start. We
finish together.”
You
look up and find him gone. The
fire now reached far above the skyline, it’s dark clouds blotting out the
sun. Everything seemed lit now
only by it’s flickering orange light.
And in the center of the column of flame, you swear that you see
millions of pulsating sparks float up into the sky…
“Oh!”
you hear Grimlocks’ voice echoed above the crackling flame, “and if the
Decepticon’s tracked you to the Armory, why they come in tunnel that no connect with one
you come from?!”
--System
active.—
A
thud sounds from outside.
--A thud? No, an explosion!!—
You shoved the lid upward as it tried to slowly hiss it’s way up and jumped out. A quick glance showed that the Dinobot was still being rebuilt, and had a ways to go. You quickly moved up to the bridge.
“What’s going on?!”
“Hey Dread! Looking sharp!” yelled Sureshot.
Whirl turned, “We’ve got a group of tank drones outside. They showed up while we were at the armory. However, this thing has shields and some major firepower. We’re dispatching them fairly quickly.
You look out the windows to see one of the tank drones blossom into a fiery ball of flame.
“How many?”
Aquasting looked up, “Eight…” kaboom…”…Seven.”
The ship shook again as another barrage of blasts splattered against its shields.
“Shields at sixty percent.” You hear Squawktalk report from somewhere inside the computers.
“Sixty!?”
“Ok, so there not dying as easy as I made it sound.” Whirl shrugged.
--Lock down rear
gunports, kill power to them, Tankbots too slow to get behind ATV. Keep power routed to forward shields,
cannons, and CR’s.—
“I
know!”
“What?” Whirl looked at you.
“I… know… what we need to do. Kill the power to rear guns and push it forward into the shields and frontal guns. Don’t let the CR’s power systems fail.”
As Sureshot jumps to make the corrections, you shake your head…
--This is going to be a long few days…--
Cybertron: The Armory
--A long few days indeed, but no matter, we have more important things to take care of.--
You think about the options and situation as another blast slams into the heavy transport.
"Well, we aren't going anywhere until those drones are scrap. Whirl, you and me, outside and kicking can. Sureshot , help hold down the fort and above all else..."
"Keep the chambers operational... of course." shrugged the yellow and orange Autobot.
You nod in agreement and head toward the doors.
As you reached the rear exit, Whirl turns toward you, I've repowered a bit, but I'm still dangerously low on missiles... but I have these..." He hefts a set of heavy rifles that he must have borrowed from the armory.
"All right, let's go..."
The drones lit the cavern with heavy blasts as the two of you buzzed around them dropping flash grenades adn laying down fire patterns. They were good, but not perfect, and as the two of you began to make out a mindless pattern, you decided to take a chance.
"Whirl!"
"Yeah!" The bot was transformed into his helicopter mode and was releasing a drill of the two rifles into one of the tanks drones.
"We need to talk, go into a more distractive pattern!"
"Allllll riggghht!!"
You've seen few bot's go berserk, but nothing matched the sheer madness of the onslaught that Whirl now set down. He seemed to take an unreal joy in the chaos of the battlefield, feeding off of the shattering explosions and fiery columns to hide himself and confuse his attackers. As he did so, you opened a direct line to him and encrypted it.
"What's up twinbot?"
"I know neither of us trust the Pred, but soemthing just hit me a little while ago." you dodged another blast volley and fire several missles into a tank that was trying to back up and get a better shot.
--Hi you?!? ME tell you... only thing hit you is that rail gun!--
A blast singed one of your tail wings, but you quickly recovered.
You're optics rolled...
"What's that?"
"Well, if the Cons' had tracked us to the armory, then why did they enter through a tunnel other than the one we came in through?"
"By Primus! I didn't even think of it! They must have been tipped off!"
"Exactly."
"You think our 'friend' there tipped them off?"
"Maybe, but it doesn't exactly fit. He looked scared greasless of the Cons too... and they almost took him off as well."
"True, but could be an act."
"I know, but I think we need to keep a good eye on him and monitor any transmissions."
"Squawktalk should be able to handle that."
"Yeah, but we'll need a back-up too. In case he somehow gets to Squawk."
Whirl hovers up through a hazy red cloud of fire, "Well, in either case, we shouldn't leave him alone back there much longer."
You smiled under your face plate, "Indeed, let's finish these drones!"
Together, you turned your full attention to the drones, scrapping them down with a maddening hailstorm of firepower.
Later, you sat back in the heavy ship, Whirl had gone next to the CR. And you, Sureshot, and Aquasting were using the time to finish loading the rest of the armory supplies into the rapidly crowded interior of the ship.
As you sat in the command module you thought on what to do next.
--Destroy the Armory... you hold all that is important to our kind.--
"Well?" The Predacon was preening his head-fins.
"Well, we'll drop a few explosive blasts and collapse the tunnel here. If we stay around here we're asking for a retaliation of those drones. And since they now know we've got some heavier arms, we can expect a heavier attack."
"Where too then?" Sureshot was expecting several pistols and long range rifles.
"Well, if we try to surface here we could be scrapped on sight..."
"We can stay to the levels here, but there are only a few tunnels that will support this ship... and the Decepticon's may have already discovered those..." The Predacon grimaced.
Squawktalk looked at you sideways, "I think we can make it..."
Sureshot shruggs, "Well, they expect us to go up, what about headin' down?"
The Predacon gives an inarticulate shriek, "You've got to be kidding, this transport was the only thing that kept us from getting scrapped on THIS level!! No one survves the lower levels!"
--His kind did... that why they survive, they fight their way up from the vat...--
You had no clue what the voice was telling you, but you knew one thing... with this tank, and with the bots you had at your disposal... your chances of surfacing may be limited, but if you could go down a few levels, where the tank drones won't follow... perhaps you can make your way out to where you CAN surface...
Cybertron: Sector Kappa
"Down it is." you affirmed.
"Down?!" Exclaims Aquasting, "Do you have any idea what the lower levels of Cybertron are like!?"
"I lived on the lower levels, so don't bother trying to tell me of the hardships. Besides it might be dangerous, but if we try to go against those Vehicons all day..."
That seemed to silence the Predacon for at least the moment.
However, his instance on not going down could signal something more dire. After all, it was hard for a signal to reach you or give you away the farther down you go.
Should that indeed be the reason, then perhaps the spy just revealed himself. Then again, if not...
You shook your head, returning yourself to the here and now.
"Set the charges and let's roll."
Acting with a speed born of desperation, the transformers quickly set about leaving demolition charges.
The explosion of the armory echoed about the sunken halls for kilometers around, and somehow you felt that you should salute the Armory that had given you so much.
New allies, new weapons, new hope...
After a quick check on the CR chambers, you returned to the bridge to find a course plotted.
"Where'd this come from?" you ask, looking over Sureshot's shoulder at the route mapping.
"Squawktalk set it." he shrugged.
Sqawktalk's screechy voice cawed, "I know a way to a hole in the ground that should be safe enough for us to make our way out from. I figured I'd go ahead and program it in and get in on the way."
You stared at the map. It would take about half a megacycle to get there, maybe more. And it was buried deep under Iacon itself. But it did seem to hold possibilities.
"Ok, then let's make best speed there." you turned and went to work for a while in the back, organizing the weapons there. Sureshot came back to help, Whirl stayed up front with the Predacon to... keep an eye on things.
Eventually, you both cleared the holo machine off. Sureshot activated it, and brought up a schematic of the underground warrens you were using.
--Somethings.. wrong.--
The thought was your own, but it was caused by some deep urging, a fear of the direction you were heading.
Suddenly, the klaxons on board were set off.
"Whirl, what's going on?!"
The comm shut on, "We've got multiple matches of the Decepticons up ahead! There's a swarm of them."
"Do they see us?!"
"I don't think so, not yet at any rate. There's about fifty of them total, and they're all heading the opposite direction... down the tunnels we are about to hit!"
For some reason, that news made you feel worse... far, far worse!
"Put us in reverse!"
--NO!--
The sudden outburst caught you offguard.
--If they using these tunnels... if they heading toward end point of path... They must be stopped!!--
--What?!? Why?!?--
--The map. It lead to Vat.--
--What?! That's just a myth!--
--No, Vat real. It birthplace for sparks. If they go there...--
"They can increase their numbers exponentially." you accidentally speak aloud.
"What?" Sureshot looked at you confused.
"Whirl! Keep going. We've gotta stop them."
"Stop them. Dreadnoght, you lost your CPU!?"
"No, just trust me. They don't need to be down here."
"Well, that's good, I couldn't turn us around to begin with."
"What?"
"Just what I said. There's a problem with the controls, they aren't responding... and Squawktalk stopped squawking!"
--Squawktalk...?--
You bolted to the bridge.
Cybertron: Sector Kappa
You hurled yourself past Sureshot, toward the bridge.
Pushing into it with shattering speed, you find Squawktalk and the Predacon ambassador on the floor, grappling and fighting! A good portion of the bridge around them had been lain to waste as a result... exchanges of fire were still going off even as you swooped in.
You throw your full force into the head and neck of the Predacon, pushing him to the floor and pinning him with your foot. You pull your rifle and aim it at his head, "What in the Pitt do you think you're doing!!!"
"Me!?" gasped Aquasting under his breath, "It was HIM!!" he struggled to say, pointing at Squawktalk.
Keeping your foot pressed against the Pred, Dread swung your other rifle at the small bird.
"Explain, Predacon."
The Predacon struggled to free is vocal box, "I caught him... trying to send a message... I confronted him... and THIS..." he gestured to the bridge, "Is what happened."
Squawktalk gave off a shriek, "No! He's playing you for a fool, Dreadnought! It was I who caught him!"
Sureshot bolted into the bridge, "What's going on here?" he questioned as he narrowly avoided tripping over where Whirl was lying on the ground. You hadn't even noticed him in the confusion.
You looked at him as he knelt over Whirl to check him, "The Pred says Squawk tried to betray us, Squawk says it was the Pred."
He stood up with a growl, "Well, we obviously know which is the liar!" he began, standing and leveling his rifle at the Predacon.
"NO!"
Something within you twitched. This didn't feel right. How could the Pred have even attempted the comm trick, especially with a communications expert right next to him?!? You doubted he had the expertise or the idiocy to attempt such an endeavor.
But Squawktalk had been with them from the beginning... could he have been a plant all along?
"How's Whirl?"
Sureshot looked down, "He's ok, just got stunned... probably from behind." he looked pointedly at Aquasting.
"Stow that. Can you bring him back up?"
Sureshot kicked him, and the blue bot began to stir.
As he got up, you nodded, "Whirl, Sureshot..." you lifted your foot from the Predacon, "I want them both escorted to holding chambers."
"But..." began Sureshot.
"Both." you reaffirmed. Slowly the two were escorted out of the bridge.
You went to work on the controls immediately.
--One, re-establish disabled controls. Two, route all available power to the R-chambers. We'll kneed the Dinobots. Three, review vid recordings of the bridge battle, and talk to Whirl to learn the truth.--
--ONE!-- interjected Grimlock,-- Get to Vat. There's more danger than you understand.--
"You have your priorities and I have mine... There's a spy here and I want him found." you mutter.
And so the vehicle continued it's inerrant course, delving deeper into the Cybertronian underground, on a direct course with history...
Whirl was little help. He was at the controls, and he was shocked into unconsciousness.
The video cameras were a little clearer. The Predacon hoisted a gun to Whirl's head and pulled the trigger. Squawlktalk ejected and the fight began...
Sureshot leaned over, watching the display, "That cuts it! I'm gonna shred that Predacon to bug bites!"
You lean back, "That might be a mistake..."
Sureshot looked surprised, caught momentarily offguard, "What? You saw the record!"
You looked at him,"Nothing in that struck you as... odd?"
"Uhm..."
Whirl snorted from where he sat, nursing a body ache from his earlier shock, "If he shot me in the head, you don't think I'd have noticed?"
He pointed to his, unblemished, head.
"But..."
You stand up, "Not to mention, where's the part about the hidden signal. Both of them mention it, but none of the records show it."
Sureshot plops down on the chair, "Then Squawk is the traitor?!"
"Probably." you cross your arms, "Question is, from how long."
Whirl's optic flashed, "The Warworld!"
You nod, "Probably. They had him as a prisoner from the time we first got caught. No telling what they did to him then."
"So, should we set the Pred free?"
"I don't know, I still don't..." your reply was cut off as the great hulk of a ship shuddered.
Unfortunately, plans one and two hadn't worked the way you wanted. The ships controls were quite fused. And as far as rerouting power... you rerouted a small portion, but the mains still fed the wheels on their direct path... but you had slowed down enough to work on this little mystery.
Now, however, it seems time had run out.
"The tank drones! Sureshot, Whirl, get to the guns!"
You bring up a tactical display.
There were nearly thirty-five tank drones outside. Too many to even handle at full capacity. The other twenty or so had continued up the tunnel, picking up their pace to avoid your massive treads.
"This is bad."
--Forget the drones, the ship is scrap!--
Grimlock's voice echoed through your head.
"That's great, Grims, but I've got crew, and I don't think the drones are gonna waltz right past me."
--Then birth the rest of us...--
"What? Grimlock, I'm trying!" you shook your head in confusion.
Suddenly, everything went dark.
And once again, you were standing in an idyllic setting. Leaves and flower petals filled the air, floating on soft, warm breezes.
"Why do you keep bringing me here?" you complain.
The massive robot snorted from his rock, "Keep's you distracted... you listen better when your too stupefied to talk."
You snort, "What do you want?"
Grimlock stood, "To tell the truth."
"Oh Pitt... can this wait till later?"
He reached out and grabbed you, "You listen, NOW!"
"Ok! Ok! I'm listening. What is so important that I'm here while my crew is getting slagged out there?!"
He set you back down, "You don't know the power you've been holding. I didn't tell you."
"What power...?"
An image appeared in front of you, it was the spark chamber you had pulled from Grimlock's body. In it's center, a white light, blindingly bright pulsed with life.
"You pull more than a park from my chest."
"More than a spark?! What are you babbling about?!"
He reaches out and grasped the two silver handles on either side, pulling the roundish chamber apart, revealing the light whithin.
Your mind spins with ecstasy as the knowledge of what was before you flooded your being.
The Matrix of Creation and Leadership.
You staggered backward as Grimlock again closed the chamber.
"Why... why didn't you tell me!??!"
"You Decepticon." the Autobot snorted simply.
You stare at him, "But what about everything you said?!"
"It was true... but like I said, old grudges are hard to put behind us. I no perfect being. I'm just an old Autobot."
"How... how the pit did you have it?!"
"Optimus give it to me when he made me guardian of Armory. It was a remnant of the Wars. It's power had been copied to..."
"To the Vat." you finished.
"Yeah, new bots had come to take our place. The Vat made them stronger. This could be kept safely away to be forgotten..."
"Then... what do I do now?"
"It your own choice. You use the power of it to help, I hope."
"And if I choose to use it to become a god?" your eyes flared.
"Wouldn't help you. It selective about what it used for. oh, you might try, but to do so dooms all of Cybertron. You would waste precious time while Clench grew stronger, while he creates a god of his own. Some day, some young Autobot would rise, kill you take matrix... the cycle would begin again."
You shake your head, "Then am I to become some kind of Prime?"
"Doubt it... it never changed me. For now, you guardian. You give it to someone else, they become guardian. I've been guardian for centuries. Now, I give it to you."
Another violent shake hit the ship.
You looked around, Whirl and Sureshot were gone, off in the gun turrets, taking potshots at the tank drones.
Standing up, you reached down to touch the chamber that held the Matrix.
You turn to enter the next step of your destiny.
Cybertron: Sector Kappa
"The journey of a million miles begins with but one step..."
You were awestruck, frozen in place by the incalculable gravity of what you had
just learned. Your head swam amid the possibilities... both for good and
for evil.
Another explosion from outside jolted you back to the present. Now was not
the time...
"Get a grip, Dread..."
--And fast!--
Nodding, you raced down the corridor quickly heading to the back of the
ATV. Arriving in the rear, at the med bay, you stare at the four CR
chambers. They hummed with power as they worked on sustaining the
Dinobot's sparks. Light glittered from one, where you could see the
exoskeletal plates of the spark called Swoop as they worked on creating his new
body.
He was almost seventy-five percent complete, but the second closest, that had
just started, was Snarl. He was only twenty three percent built.
The others were still in the spark stage.
You take a deep breath and walk over to Swoop's chamber. Gently, you
reach up and touch the smooth, warm surface of the glass faceplate on his CR
chamber.
"Ok... Now what?" you breathed.
--Matrix do what it will, but maybe you ask it
just to be sure.--
You sigh, reaching down deep into yourself.
Quickly you felt as though you were being drawn into your own soul.
--You floated restlessly on a sea of Sparks as
they swirled around you. Darkness seemed to stretch beyond the blue belt
of energy...
And the darkness stirred. You stared in horror
as the very sparks were pulled out from beneath you, swept into the darkness
and swallowed by the eternal ecliptic night...--
You jolt back to where you were, aware of raw power pouring out from your
frame. You feel a burning seeping through your chest as a golden light
began to suffuse your frame. It leaded out slowly, creeping along
his arms and legs, turning every inch of your frame into a livid molten entity.
The light ripped free, painfully from your chest, and you felt your very spark
pull and stretch out, touching Swoops, and for a brief segment you saw the very
essence and being that was the ancient Dinobot. You saw far off worlds,
molten pits of tar, and valiant battles. Swiftly, one thought surfaced
and with that thought became resolution.
"Air..." you felt yourself speak out of a dried, burning vocal box.
Light flooded the room as the very CR chamber became engulfed in a glowing
morass, shrinking as though melting under the intense energies. With a
shattering burst, the CR chamber flew apart, and in it's wake, a soft, cooling
breeze came from nowhere.
Swoop was reborn. Where the chamber had once stood, now there was a robot
in colorful plumage. A wing swept upward across his chest, and a red
visor covered his eyes in a mask. The robot looked down flexing his arm
and touching the soft coat of feathers displayed across the chest.
He looked up with eyes that blazed with a burning power, "It has been too
long since I knew this power..."
"Welcome back, Swoop."
"Why do I feel... so different?" he looks down again at his
body, "and why do I look like a beast-bot?"
You shake your head, more than a little dizzy, "The Matrix' power... and
my own guiding will. Somehow, when I touched your spark, I felt... I felt
as if you maintained a connection to something more... something through the
matrix. It connected you to a primal element, to wind... so it ended up being
part of your final construction.
With
a flick of his wrist, a pistol appeared in his hand. Around him a gust of
wind swirled, "I like it."
The ATV rocked from yet another explosion.
"Ok," you start, "Here's the deal. We're fighting those
same drones again... and we're trying to beat these Decepticons to the
Vat."
Swoops eyes widened, "The Vat?! How the..."
"Nevermind... just go to the battle. Your brothers will join you
shortly."
Swoop transformed into an odd looking bird and leapt upward in a flurry of
feathers.
What you hadn't told Swoop was that you felt drained... your frame was still
hot to the touch, and your oil reserves had been depleted. Focusing the
Matrix power through yourself was very taxing... augmenting Swoops abilities
and adding the Wind element was no easy feet either.
Shaking it off you looked at the next chamber, "Now for Snarl"
Again the tidal wave of power, the touch of something from beyond, and the
grasp of the Dinobot's essence...
"Earth..."
The chamber again was blow open, but this time, as the new Dinobot stepped
forth, he found you leaning against a wall, smoking.
"What happened?" the Autobot helped you up. His new form
had a skull-like chestplate, and a ridge of spines down his back. Also,
his head bore a large 'crown' of slightly glowing crystals. His skin was
mostly golden, with touches of silver, blue and red in his armor.
You push off his help, "We're under attack, we must stop them from
reaching the Vat... Swoop is out there, now GO!"
Luckily the thought of battle ran strong in a Dinobot's metal. He turned and
ran off toward the exit doors.
"Dreadnought!" shouted Whirl over the comm system, "Swoop
has just appeared... he's joined our counter assault!"
"I know, Snarl is close behind. The other Dinobot's will be out
shortly, then we grab Squawk, Aquasting, and leave this sinking
ship!"
"But how..."
"Don't look a gift horse in the mouth, just shoot as many of those
tank drones as you can, and get ready to jump ship!"
"Got it."
You stepped forward on shaky leg units. The joints squealed sharply
as they ground together... Still, you had more work to do.
You put your hands on the next chamber, Slag's. They shook as they came
to rest on the warm glass, then, a bolt of fire coursed over them and into the
CR. Several of your neuroreceptors in your arms fried this time, and your
hands and forearms blacken from the sheer power you were unleashing.
Again the mingling of sparks, the mixing of power.
"Fire..."
A wave of heat poured out of the CR as it melted around your hands. In
the center stood Slag. His new form brown and bronze. The head of a
three horned dinosaur made up his right arm now, and a thick plating that
displayed bone ribs hung on his left shoulder.
Golden eyes glared out of a red face as he looked down at you where you knelt.
"Time to reduce some Con's to slagmetal!" he grunted, clenching
his left fist.
You looked up through blurred optics, "Outside then. We're battling
them as we speak. Swoop and Snarl are out there now, our mission is to
stop them from reaching the Vat."
Grunting, the thick robot plodded past you, never even taking notice... or
perhaps just not caring... that you were smoking and severely damaged.
You leaned over, panting heavily.
--You should stop now. Three Dinobot's
enough...--
"Like hell it is. Even with all of you we might not stand a chance
and you slaggin' well know it!" You pushed yourself up and moved to
the final CR chamber.
Power ripped through you, shattering one of your optics completely and sending
the left half of your body into a neural fit.
"Water..."
When the light receded, a wave of superheated steam issued forth and there
stood Sluidge. Perhaps the most changed of the bots. His new form
was smaller, and green with black spots and yellow armoring. A smaller
dinosaurs hardhead was on his chest, it's bone-like plate glinting like
dull ivory.
The bot looked down, "I'm... small!?"
You were too weak to even look at him, "Your brothers.. fighting cons
outside. Must stop Cons from reaching vat..."
"What happened to you?" a panel on his clawed forearm popped open and
a cooling foam shot out across your sparking surface.
"I was... just out there... now go!"
Shrugging the Dinobot transformed into the two legged saurial and quickly
scooted out of the room.
--Ok, you finished...--
"Like hell, there's still one more..."
--You mad! Not even Prime use Matrix
this much! He had it for millenia!--
"Yeah, but he was dormant for most of it... Wouldn't mind a little rest
myself... that's all I need... nothing here a little rest and some polish
couldn't fix..."
You arm fell limp, a side panel flopping off.
"... and maybe a few new servos."
--No.--
Pulling yourself up you reach into your second spark chamber, pulling the
silver and orange matrix out.
Looking at it now, you were struck with how used it looked. Cybertron's
greatest artifact, and no one had bothered to polish it in millennia...
Drawing yourself to your full height, you held the chamber in front of you,
"Try and stop me, old bot!"
You pulled on the handles and an energy tore around you, seeming to bring the
entire chamber collapsing in on you.
"SPIRIT!!!!!"
Darkness collided with consciousness.
You feel yourself yanked upward.
"You reeeaaall stupid."
You look up into a pair of shimmering red eyes. It was Grimlock alright,
now, though his body was tan and brown. Blue lines on it emanated a
ethereal blue glow. One arm was a massive dinosaur head, with sharp,
glittering teeth, and the other was a claw made from a tail.
He set you down on your feet.
"At least... I'm not... ugly..." you countered.
Grimlock laughed, snapping the jaw-arm shut with a whoosh of air.
"Now go... command your troops." you gasped, "I have to get...
the prisoners."
Grimlock growled, "Yeah... you do a good job when you not even stand
well. WE get prisoners, then we ALL leave sinking ship."
You were in no condition to argue, "Fine..."
It was a long an noisy few minutes before you struggled to the holding
cells. The ship rocked around you, and every time Grimlock though you
could stand on your own, you fell like a pile of sticks.
Now, you stood at the door, feigning the ability to be threatening,
"Squawk!" you began, "I saw the video, the Pred's the guilty
party." with that you opened the door, "Come on!"
The bird smiled smugly as he exited the cell and looked up at you, "So
what's the plan?"
A heavy, clublike tail fist smashed into Squawktalks head. Sending
him well into stasis. Grimlock smiled looking at the thick armature with
a new found appreciation.
You crumple to the floor and fumble with Squawktalk until you manage to force
him into transformation. Picking up his disk-form, you clamp a mode lock
on it and store him in your cockpit.
Then, you turn to the Predacon Ambassador.
"So, you know the truth, " Aquasting looked at the damage on your
frame.
"Yeah... but I still don't trust you. However, the enemy of the
enemy is my friend."
You nodded at Grimlock, and the large robot released the energy bars on the
door.
"Whether you stay with us or not is your call, but it's going to be hard
for you to survive down here without us."
The Predacon shook his large head, "Believe it or not, what I said when we
met still stands true. The Decepticons are our enemy now. I
took you to that Armory in the hopes that we might be able to do something
to stop them."
You turn, switching on your comm unit, "Ok, that's it guys. This is
the final word, abandon ship."
Outside the battle was pitched. Four dinobots against thirty tank
drones. The new bodies were impressive, but so were the drones. This
time, however, surprise was on the dinobot's side. They new what
the tanks were capable of. The drones had no such luxury. The
seasoned veterans battled with precise maneuvers. Keeping the drones off
balance.
For you five to join the battle, there would be nine
against thirty... It'd have helped if the ATV had taken more out.
But
as you leapt free from the ship, you realized that there were suddenly
others here!!
Others bearing the Autobot signal!!!
There was a silver and blue jet, an orange and yellow street bike, a
massive monkey that looked like an orange and black reject from the age of
steam powered engines, a small blue female that moved like lightning, and
finally, you recognized two... or three?
You shook your head as the black and red form of the Autobot you called Hunter
Owl swooped out of the darkness, landing next to you. Across the field,
you could see an identical robot... except in blue and silver... attacking a
tank drone. Also, you could make out Beastbox, Squawktalk's other half
amidst the battling chaos.
You turned to HunterOwl and smiled, "So... 'bout time you guys made it to
the party!"
He looked up and down at you, "We thought you guys were dead! Why
didn't Squawktalk keep in touch with us?!"
"It's a long story..."
Grimlock stepped up to you both, and one that we don't have time for.
There's sixteen of us here... sounds like good odds to me!"
You nod, managing to straighten yourself, "Then let's do it."
Cybertron: Sector Kappa
The battle was hard, and you could do little to help out. Grimlock forged ahead, giving commands to his team of Dinobot's to clear out a pathway. They did so efficiently, and it was clear that the tide of battle was rapidly going in their favor. The ATV unfortunately might never roll again, but at least most of you should survive...
But soon, you and Grimlock were past the battle, and quickly making your way to the end of the tunnel, where a nondescript doorway sat.
AS you reached the door, it slid silently open to reveal a room flashing with a red klaxon!
Smoke billowed out as the two of you entered.
The first thing you felt was a wave of coldness, of wrongness. You look to see a skeletal robot in black armor. His body was actually comprised of bone! his skull bore a solitary red optic, and great bone wings stretched from his back. He held a glittering green sword in his hand and was hovering over a silver and blue Autobot who was already missing one arm.
Suddenly, a gold and red raven swooped in, slashing at the bone-bot's skull. He staggered back a bit, waving his arm in defense of the unexpected attack.
Grimlock took the opening to fire. He raised the massive dino-head hand and a red bolt of thick energy lanced into the robots back, knocking him staggering forward.
"ME think that enough, bonehead." Grimlock growled as he lowered the massive jaws of his weapon.
The robot turned slightly to look at his new attackers, then without a seconds delay, transformed into a bat mode and leaped for the ceiling.
Another robot, a Decepticon who also had bone armoring, transformed and followed him. The second one had smooth armor though, almost as if he was made of ivory. He didn't look monstrous like the first had.
The silver and blue Autobot looked like he was about to follow, but gave a shudder as a pain spasm runs up his arm.
You look around to see that indeed the chamber was in danger of self destruction. You felt a knowledge swell within you that you knew came from the Matrix.
This place had once been the creation place of a new race, but now it's time was ending.
The
Autobot and his small raven seemed to be conferring, "I'm thinking you
might wanna count your losses and wait on that fight, cowboy." Smiled
the bird.
"I
hate to interrupt," you spoke from the doorway, "But those lights and
that smoke might mean it's time to leave this place."
Grimlock
looked back with an inquisitive optic.
"No," you forestall his question, "It's over. Now, the Vat
will truly pass into history."
The
raven spoke, "He's right. This place has served Primus'
purpose. It's time to let it slip into the archives."
The
silver and blue Autobot looked to a graying pile that had once
no doubt been a Cybertronian, "He's with the Matrix now.
His shell will now become one with the end of the Vat."
He
nods, and heads to the door...
Cybertron: Sector Kappa
Soon, you and the others were gathered in a nearby tunnel. The explosion
of the Vat had shaken the planet for several kilometers, and no doubt
had a sizeable portion of Cybertropolis wondering what had happened.
Looking around, you were a sad bunch. Besides yourself, Whirl,
Sureshot, Aquasting, and the Dinobots, there was a new group now, It's
leader was the black and silver Transmetal Autobot you previously
called HunterOwl, now he was named Silverbolt, there was also a
twin version of him in blues and whites called Prowl. With them
came the Autobot targetmaster you had saved, Altima Stratus; and his
targetmaster, Shatterblast; the co-partner to Squawktalk, Beastbox; A large ape
that looked like he was built with steam engine technology, his name was
Halloween Jack; and finally a small blue fem-bot named Quickfire.
"It seems our forces have grown considerably..." Altima Stratus
commented as you paused to catch your breath.
All
of them, however, were in sad shape, except for the Dinobot's that is
You pushed yourself up from where you were leaning, "Still doesn't do us
much good at the moment, we all look like we took on a loosing battle against a
trash compactor. Anyone know where we might find a good CR?"
Silverbolt nods, "We might as well return to our base.... we can repair
there..."
"But where to then?" Altima asks, "Streetfire's last words were
to find Exodus... but I don't even know what's happened these past years while
I've been holding down the lab."
Shatterblast, in raven mode, lands on his shoulder, "Exodus? Who's
that?"
The tall blue and silver Autobot strains to look at him as best he can,
"Exodus was an Autobot scientist, and a good friend of mine. In a
way, you might consider him your creator. It was from his models that I
built your frame!"
You shake your head, "Let's get repaired, while we do that, we can
all compare notes on what's happened so far.... oh, and if anyone's interested,
that ATV is stocked full of weaponry. Consider it a present from the
Autobot relief fund."
Silverbolt looked surprised, "Then I suggest we load up! Everyone, carry
what you can... Beastbox, Quickfire, try to rig a few hover sleds from those
leftover tank drone pieces..."
And so, soon, you found yourself in the Autobot's base. Swoop and
Quickfire had made sure to cover your tracks as you made your way, limping,
back home.
There, each of you spent time being rebuilt by the repair chambers. There
were many of them, and a decent power supply to draw from. That, combined
with Quickfires skilled hands and some leftover parts from the tankdrones, helped
to speed the general level of recovery.
You told how your Autobot group had been sent to the Warworld to see what they
could find out. And about the Decepticon named Clench who was
controlling the Decepticon forces from there. You told how you were
captured, and that one of your numbers was mindwashed and placed back with you
during the escape in an attempt to track you to the Autobot main base.
You told about finding the two ambassadors for the Predacon
council. In turn, these ambassadors lead you to a place called the
Armory. It was there that you found Grimlock and his Dinobots. You talked
about the attack, and how one of the ambassadors was taken by the
Decepticons.
You
talked about removing the Dinobot's sparks and loading the weapons from
the armory. Finally you told of Squawktalk, the one who had been
mindwashed, and how he had managed to trick you into heading toward the
tank drone army. You phased over how the Dinobots were rebuilt, hoping no
one would ask...
Silverbolt plugged this in with his group, that had been the second half of the
Autobot forces, and had stayed on Cybertron to find out that the Decepticons
were using the old warehouse section to mass produce the drones.
Apparently there really weren't many true Decepticons in the force above
Cybertron, they had used sheer intimidation to take control of the planet, and
now of course had the drone armies to back them up. But this much you had
already learned.
The Cybertronian armada was missing, Iacon had been blasted to bits, and
the Cybertronian councils presumably with it, but with the re-appearance of the
Predacon ambassadors, as well as that of Prowl and Silverbolt, the Decepticons
may not have done as thorough a job as they thought.
Other than that, life for the Cybertronians in Cybertropolis had returned to
normal. They went about their daily work now, under Decepticon control,
without too much to worry about. Iacon's borders were being rebuilt, and
quickly... soon the expedient Cybertronians would have erased any sign of the
massacre that had occurred little less than a month prior.
"What about Exodus?" Altima finally asked as a large group of
you clustered, standing around a tactical table.
"Your scientist friend?" a large metallic blue baboon named
B'boom asked.
"If he is alive, he must not be allowed to fall into Decepticon
hands." Altima replied grimly.
A few of the bots surrounding you looked uncomfortable.
Silverbolt stepped forward, "You'll have to forgive them, Altima. Remember
that some of those gathered here were once considered Decepticons, many
centuries ago. But we all banned together during the onslaught,
especially since these new Decepticons have chosen Unicron as their mastiff..."
A general growl of agreement seemed to pass, you remember the sight of the
Warworld and the grotesque horn that served as a symbol of the ancient god of
Chaos...
Altima
shakes his head, "Forgive me, I think of all menaces as Decepticon."
"And in this case, we have to remember that you are right..." sighed
Beastbox, "Those slaggin' repos chose the wrong god to flout as their
master."
Altima
nods, "Then it's up to us to get rid of the Decepticons...."
"Which is no easy task, " the lanky blue Whirl commented,
"They're cranking out those drones like there's no tomorrow."
B'boom added, "In fact, I've even heard that they're planning on shipping
the drones out to other cities soon..."
"We can't let that happen." The massive Grimlock leaned a thick
reddish orange dinosaur head over the gathering table, "If Con's make way
around globe, we never break grip."
Altima sighs, "If we could find Exodus, he may be a great asset..."
Grimlock turns his large head sideways, "Me heard of Exodus. He
build lots of equipment for Armory before Autobots all left. But records
show him gone, disappeared, presumed dead."
Silverbolt shook his head, "Streetfire told me something, something about
the Decepticon Scourge wanting to know where Exodus was.... Perhaps he's
not dead."
"If so," Swoop spoke, "Then we can not allow him to fall into
the hands of our enemy."
"Agreed." grunted Grimlock, "But where we look for him?"
Grimlock
turned, "What about this 'Scourge'"
That triggered something in your memory, "We met him at the armory.
He's a Decepticon insect, a Transmetal."
Altima adds, "He was there, at the Vat as well."
"I saw him!" Shatterblast transformed and landed on the table,
"there was something... something that Doctor Archeville put inside me...
I think I can track him!"
"Doctor who?!" Altima asks, startled.
"Doctor Archeville, the one who transplanted my spark... He shared some
part with Scourge, and I think he must have given me the same link!"
Grimlock transformed, the dino head becoming one massive hand, and his tail
becoming another. He brought the tail arm down on the table with a thud,
"Then that be our next step. We find Exodus. Altima, it your
friend. You take Swoop and Whirl with you, find what you can. Dreadnought,
you find what you can about this Doctor Archeville. Me saw him
leave, he not like most Cybertronians. And if he smart enough to put a
spark into a body, we could use his help. Me and Silverbolt will get this
base armed and set for a true war."
And so a new quest had begun...
Cybertron: The Autobot
Base, Sector Kappa
The meeting quickly adjourned, as it did, you looked down on your newly repaired hands, reflecting. Your mind was still spinning fromt he series of events since your return to Cybertron. A solo mission may be just what the doctor ordered.
You felt the wait of the matrix... the burden of the responsibility that it had placed upon your shoulders.
--No, not burden, responsibility, and one I must quickly come to terms with.--
You saw Altima and his targetmaster, Shatterblast, leaving the room as you stood, "Shatterblast, a word please?" you called after them.
The small golden targetmaster turned to you, "Yeah?"
You stood, and moved to where the diminutive Autobot stood, looking down, far down, at him, you cross your arms and fight the irractional urge to play kcikball, "What can you tell me of this Doctor Archeville?"
"Well," begins the small robot, "It's kinda hard to explain. I really don't know him, there was only the segments that he pulled by spark from the vat and placed it into this body. It's more of a feeling that I have. I know I can tell where bothhe and Scourge have gone... and where they are headed."
"What about his 'design'?" you push.
"It don't know, it's definitely not like ours. I don't even know how to explain it. It's a blench of Cybertronian technology and flesh..."
"Like the Dinobots?"
"Sort of, but even more so. The Dinobot's seem to have seperate parts... robotic and flesh. His was more of a smooth blend of the two!"
You scratch your faceplate in contemplation.
"There was more... sort of... something I learned before I was even made... something... from the Vat."
You looked down at him intently.
"He's.... not real.. I mean he's real... but different than us. His origins are different I guess. I'm not sure..."
You sigh, "Well, did he give any indication of where he was going, or what he was doing?"
The small bot shook his head, "No, sorry. He didn't even say word one to me..."
You pondered this information, cranking through it heavily, "... matrix guide me..." you whisper beneath your breath, "Shatterblast, Thannks. It looks like I'll have to start the search at the Vat... or whatever is left of it now."
"Good luck!" the small bot turns, transforming into a golden raven and flies off.
Striding to the exit of the Autobot base, you leap into the air, cleanly breaking into the twin strike craft, and launching off at blinding speeds through teh twisting tunnels of the Cybertronian underground...
The Vat was a mess. The massive chamber itself was completely collapsed, as well as a half mile of tunneling around it.
You toss a metal fragment down the side of one of the banks of srap, seding a mini cascade of materials tumbling noisily down.
"Pitt, how am I supposed to track someon who 'isn't even real?"
Then something clicked, "Got it... computer, uplink to Cybertronian databanks, search residences for Cybertronian, 'Doctor Archeville'."
--Doctor Archeville. No Cybertron is registered with that name.--
"Search Destron... Maximal and Predacon."
--Doctor Archeville. No Destron, Maximal or Predacon is registered with that name.--
"Search non military."
--Doctor Archeville. No Cybertronian is...--
"Yeah, yeah got it.... is there anyone listed with that?!?"
--Affirmative. Doctor Archeville. Off-world repair mantenance contract. The Lab.--
"Offworld?"
--Affirmative. Doctor Archeville is listed as a cyborg.--
"A Cyborg?! That's one Pitt of a cyborg! Show me a picture."
A small patch shades out on your optics, altering to a picture of a silver skeleton of a humanoid. He was small, listed as 1.5 meters. And apparently the only remaining fleshy part would be his 'brain'.
"Interesting. You said he was at 'the Lab?' Where's that?"
It generated a quick address for you. It was an address on the outside of Cybertropolis, very close to the Decepticon attack zone. A quick check confirmed that many of the buildings in that neighborhood were destroyed in the Decepticon onslaught.
"Well, that's it then. Let's go see..."
You heard something slide down a pile of metal somewhere. The rasping sound reverbrated throughout the cavern.
--Computer! Scan area!--
Just then, from the shadows, something launched itself at you... a green blur that slams into you, crashing you against a far wall!
The flash of a silver gun is pressed under your throat, "Autobot, eh Dread?"
You recognize the voice from long ago, "EagleEye?!?"
Cybertron: The Vat
"Yep, Eagle Eye... the Decepticon. Looks like at least one of us didn't bother to sell out his old allegiance." He nudged hard with the gun.
You had known Eagle Eye from back when you were a Decepticon. He was no one to mess with.
"Look... I..."
"I'd guess you're down here for the same reason as I... But let me tell you that the bug is ours as is that tentacled freak, Archeville!"
"Why are you so interested in him!" You knew the answer, but it was burning time.
"Oh no you don't, I want to know what you plan to do with them!"
Just then his commlink squawks, "This is Vulcan on board the Warworld. We are under siege! There are Destron, as well as Maximal boarders. I can not raise Clench's command chambers. Get your tinplated butts over here pronto! I repeat, we are under siege!"
It gave you the opening you needed. You knocked the rifle away from your throat, feeling the searing heat as it goes off mere milimeters from your face.
Transforming, you split into composite halves, but Eagle Eye was quick on the draw, he was already transformed and on your tail!
A volley of missiles fires out, opening a blazing trail all around you. Several of them hit way to close to home, but he hadn't had a chance to get a decent lock as of yet.
Suddenly he veered off down another tunnel. You transform and land.
--He'll be heading to the surface... and then to that Warworld.--
You considered following him... but you had your mission.
--But maybe I can make sure that ol' Eagle Eye doesn't get up top to help hinder any 'siege' that might be taking place!--
After all, if this Doctor Archeville was indeed in the lab, what would a ten minute delay matter! Eagle Eye didn't have the thrust to break orbit, so he must have a ship above.
You transform again, jetting after him in your duo form.
Indeed, on the surface almost straight above, there was a shuttle, and it was already lifting as you broke through the street.
--No time for subtlety!--
Your heavy jet ducked low to come around behind it, while your fast jet darted in for a frontal assault.
Machine guns ripped across it's surface as you did a strafing run! Two autogun ports opened and began to track the small, sleek v winged design. But this one was too fast for them to hit, and you easily looped around for another hit.
However, this was only a ruse. The bigger half was rising behind the engine wash of the shuttle. The shuttle was unaware, as it's attention was directed solely at the smaller jet.
Heavy bay doors opened on the other half, and out dropped several pulse bombs... right into the engines of the shuttle.
As both halves turn away from the shuttle, there was a heavy explosion, and the shuttle, who had gained maybe twenty meters of air, fell back down to Cybertron's streets, it's tail exploding into a ball of flame.
--That'll slow him down!--
It wasn't much, but hey, every little bit helped! But you knew that it wouldn't be enough to completely eliminate Eagle Eye. He'd find a way to crawl out of that wreckage, and when he did, he'll have forgotten about any Warworld distress signal!
You dart off into the night, heading for the coordinates of the lab.
You reach the area, seeing that it was just outside of the killing zone that destroyed Iacon. However, this neighborhood had also been decimated and slagged out. As if a stray blast had wandered away from the kill zone and hit here.
It had taken you longer than you had thought to get here. Most of a Solar Cycle had now passed since you had started your hunt. And as you did sweeps over the neighborhood, it seemed that you may have yet longer to go.
At first glance there was no light, but from high above, you used your sensors to sweep the area in a heavy scan for energy signatures. That's when you found three Predacon signatures on the move below.
There were two flyers, and one was moving along the ground.
--Interesting, what would a Predacon patrol be doing snooping around here?--
They were registered on any of the patrol rosters for the Resistance group that you had come from, but it wasn't likely that they were part of the Decepticon's here either.
You decided that it called for closer examination.
Following them, you find that all three stop at various positions just a few blocks away. The city here was still in stable shape, though there was no sign of anyone in the streets or the air at the moment.
Confused by their positions, the two flyers had taken different rooftops and the groundling was in an alley, you extrapolated the center of their triangle and scanned there.
There was no robot signatures, but on optical observation, you did indeed see two Beast forms!
Transforming and landing a few rooftops away, you zoomed in on that roof.
One of the shapes was a brown and greenish bat. He had to be a bot, his size was abnormally large, and he appeared to be talking, as well as staring off into the night sky.
But it was the other one that drew your attention. He too was bat-like, but his head was tentacled, almost squid-like.
--Archeville!!--
Both were conversing quietly and staring off into the night sky.
You turn to see where they were looking...
There far above the city line you see where a glittering orb hovered high in the night sky. You realize that this small silvery nighttime object must be none other than the Warworld, hovering far above the Cybertropolis skylines.
You see several other moving objects around it. Other ships!
Automatically your optics zoom in, giving you a better view. Indeed there
were ships. The other Decepticon warships... but why had they
gathered around the Warworld? Unless...
The stars around the ships seemed to bend and twist for a segment... and following
that segment the skies became filled with an all new battlefleet!
--The Cybertronian Armada!!!--
End of NWNG: General Statement