Author's Notes – I've got kind of a love/hate relationship with Beast Machines: I loved the philosophical questions it raised, but hated the terrible character development and ugly robot designs. I also disliked the lack of Predacon/Decepticon outlook. The only Predacon that was really around was Megatron and he had gone so far off the deep end that even his fellow Predacons would call him insane. I wanted to write a fic from their usually violent point of view. The original idea for this story spawned my unfinished fic "Not Fade Away". Unfortunately, I tried to put way too many ideas and plots in it and it got rather convoluted, so it has now been discontinued. But, I've stripped it to its bare bones and decided to have another go at it.
Primus Giveth and Primus Taketh
Chapter 1
"Not Fade Away"
The young Maximal quickly walked through the prisoner area. He forced himself to look forward at all times as the Predacons raged against their cells, howling and jeering at the obviously skittish Maximal. The Maximal refused to give them the satisfaction of watching him squirm, but he was nonetheless frightened by their uncontrolled demeanor. The Maximal nearly ran up the stairs to the bridge, taking two at a time, where his commander was waiting.
"Sir, I'm afraid there's still no reply from Cybertron." He said through his rapidly cycling vents.
A brief look of panic flashed across the face of the prison ship's commander. "No one at all responded to our wave? Did you try the Maximal Elders? Civilians? Anyone?" The young Maximal could only shrug.
"What's going to happen?" He asked quietly.
"If we don't get energon soon… there's going to be a riot." His commander said, not bothering to take his optics off the prisoners to look at his young charge. The majority of the prisoners were your common everyday petty thieves and general malcontents. The very best that Predacon programming has to offer, the commander thought with a sneer. But this particular prison ship also housed quite a few of Cybertron's more dangerous criminals: murderers, insurrectionists, former Decepticons, and the like. It had been nearly five lunarcycles since Cybertron had stopped transmitting messages. And not just messages, but deliveries as well, including energon deliveries to the prisoner ships. They had finally run out of energon two days ago and everyone was feeling the depletion, not just the Preds. Of course, you couldn't tell them that. They were absolutely convinced that the Maximals had plenty of energon and that they were hoarding it all for themselves.
The commander was pulled from his musings when the alarm sounded and the roaring of the prisoners turned into a raucous cacophony. "There's been a breach! They've broken out of their cells!" The young Maximal cried out. The commander looked down to see that several Predacons had finally broken through their bars in a near berserk rage and were opening cells left and right.
"Maximals! Get down there! We've got to stop them!" The commander yelled as everyone on the bridge immediately rushed down to put an end to the revolt.
The young Maximal hurried at the heels of his commander only to be swept away in a sea of Predacons. The escapees had worked fast, liberating everyone in that cellblock in just under a few minutes. He could hear the sound of gunfire, but couldn't pinpoint where it was coming from. Suddenly, the young guard felt a sharp blow from the side of his helm, sending him crashing to the floor. The guard carefully moved his way through the jostling legs, hoping desperately that the Preds wouldn't notice him. The guard pulled himself through the crowd and landed in a relatively clear area near the back of the cellblock. He stood up and looked around.
He gasped when he saw his commander raised high above the crowd in the tight grip of the Predacon prisoners, a gaping hole where his face used to be. The Maximal could see torn wires sticking out, sparking and lifeless, from the dead commander.
"Well, well, who's this then?"
The Maximal turned to see a giant of a bot leaning casually against the wall. The Predacon was black and silver with a car alt-mode and a thick Cockney accent. The Maximal quickly pulled out his blaster and aimed it at the Predacon thug.
"Stay back! I'm warning you…"
"Oooo, kitten has claws." The Pred sneered. "Those are some bolts you've got there, Junior. I like you. You're all eager and yellow… full of kid-appeal. I'm sure someone would buy you up in a beat."
The Maximal tightened his finger on the trigger as the Predacon sauntered towards him. Before the Maximal guard could pull the trigger, however, he felt a sharp slice of pain strike him from behind. In an instant his optics darkened and he fell face forward onto the floor, revealing a large dent in the back of his helm. The culprit revealed himself to be a wildly grinning Pred who was as wide as the other was tall, brown and gray with a wrecker alt-mode.
The first Pred grinned at the other. "Lunker! How's prison life been treatin' you?"
"Slag-tastic. What's the plan, Tripod?"
Tripod shrugged. "Don't know. Haven't thought it up yet. Hey, do me a favor and pick this up, will ya?" Tripod gave a little kick to the offline Maximal.
Lunker groaned. "What for? He's just some stupid Maximal."
Tripod rolled his optics. "Yeah, I can see that, genius. We'll take him back to Cybertron with us. If he wakes up, we'll sell him. If he doesn't, then we'll melt him down for scrap metal. Win-win."
Lunker grabbed a hold of the yellow and red car-alt Maximal, slinging him over his shoulder and pocketing his blaster. Tripod turned his attention to the still raging Predacons. One Predacon in particular seemed to be the ring-leader of this little takeover and, with a large group surrounding him, made his way up to the bridge where he stood with his arms raised high.
"My fellow Predacons!" He bellowed. "Join me and together we shall throw off these shackles the Maximals have forced onto us! I shall lead a new era in Transformer history and you shall call me Megatron!"
"Primus." Tripod muttered under his breath. He turned to his left to see a mech standing not far from him with his arms crossed and a completely impassive expression on his face. "No matter where you go there's always some nut calling himself Megatron and going on about victory over the Maximals, eh?" Tripod said with a laugh. The other Predacon, however, simply looked at him, not saying anything. "Jackaft." Tripod mumbled before turning back to Lunker. "Let's get out of here before these Preds blow this place to the Pit."
Lunker nodded and the two, with the unconscious Maximal, began to make their way out of the cellblock. Tripod looked behind him to see the same impassive Predacon staring after him, just as unreadable. Tripod stopped. "If I were you I'd get out of here real quick. Predacons don't do well with a bunch of other Predacons in closed quarters." Tripod turned away, but could hear the soft click of the other Pred's feet trailing after him.
It was not just their cellblock that had revolted, but the entire ship. There were even a few Maximal turncoats fighting with the Predacon prisoners; the need for energon turning their processors rapid. Tripod, Lunker, and their two silent companions made their way down to the level that housed the escape pods. At once Tripod noticed that he hadn't been the only Predacon with the right idea.
There was a plain white femme already there, programming one of the escape pods to jettison to Cybertron. She was a motorcycle-alt with a hard, calculating face. Not the usual kind of Pred femme. The usual kind being the professional interfacers, of course. Tripod allowed his processor to briefly linger on the many professional interfacers he had had the pleasure of knowing before addressing the femme.
"Hey there, girlie. Got room for four more?" And with that Tripod roughly pushed the femme out of his way and made his way towards the escape pod.
"Hey!" The femme gave an indignant squawk.
"Don't worry." Tripod said with a gleaming smile as he and the other mechs filed in. "I'm not leavin' ya behind, now am I? I am, after all, a gentlemech. Now get your big white aft in here."
BMBMBMBMBM
The Maximal woke up with a groggy groan as his optics came flickering online. He looked around at the assembled crew leering down at him and felt his coolant tank shoot up to his throat.
"So, slavery it is then." The first Pred the Maximal had encountered said with a lazy grin. He pulled out the blaster and tapped it idly against the Maximal's helm. "Or I could be nice about it and give ya a choice. Whaddya say, Junior? Do you want to hand-feed some Predacon kingpin his energon cubes for the rest of your life, always sniveling and groveling and saying 'Yes! Right away, Master Predacon!' or are you too proud for that? Would you rather I just off-ed you and sell you in bits and pieces?" Tripod whispered as he drew slow circles on the Maximal's helm with the blaster tip.
"That is enough."
Tripod turned to look at the mech who had, until then, not spoken a word. "He speaks!" Tripod crowed and with that he pushed his way towards the other Pred's side, jostling the others in the escape pod as he went. "And here I thought you were some sort of mystic warrior Predacon samurai."
The other Predacon shot Tripod a look, shifting slightly to free his blue and green jet wing from underneath the grubby Pred's back.
Tripod laughed. "What? Surprised that I know what a samurai is? I can read human. I did get some schoolin' after all." The jet-alt Pred said nothing more, however. He simply turned away from Tripod to stare stoically ahead. "Aw, what'sa matter, Samurai?" Tripod cooed. "Were the Maximals too rough on you? Were you a naughty bot back in prison? Did they take you to their little back room to show you what they do to naughty bots? Did they-" Tripod was cut off when a little red light began to bleep suddenly. "What's it doin', girlie?" Tripod demanded, jerking his chin at the light.
The femme growled. "My name is Synthetica, not girlie. And it's just letting us know that we're coming up on Cybertron."
"Cybertron?" The Maximal asked. "But…" He started, but trailed off, not quite sure what to say.
"Hey! I didn't give you permission to talk, Junior." Tripod growled. "And what's with that 'but…'?"
The Maximal hesitated at first, but then took a deep cycle of breath and said, "For the past five months nothing has been coming out of Cybertron. And I mean nothing. Not so much as a "Hi!" from… from anybody down there. It's like they all just vanished. That's what caused the energon shortage."
For a moment even Tripod was silent. "But… how?" Lunker asked, worry and confusion etched on to his face.
"It sounds like everyone's dead." Synthetica said. The Maximal couldn't help but shudder at her tone. It was as nonchalant as though she were describing the weather, not stating that an entire planet was dead. She gave a little shrug. "A virus could do that sort of damage. You know, air-born? One that gets into your vents and cycles through your energon cables." At this, the femme gave a little laugh. "I remember this one virus that I had created when I was working for the Maximal Council. It would literally cause a bot's energon cables to explode inside his superstructure." She gave another little laugh.
"Well…" Tripod drawled. "I think you just topped my criminal record. Now, suppose the same thing's happened down there? How do we stop our energon cables from explodin'?"
Synthetica began to rummage through the escape pod. "There should be some filters somewhere around here. Standard procedure. Just in case the escape pod lands on a planet that has a corrosive atmosphere."
Suddenly, the pod rocked, knocking the Predacon femme onto her back. The pod began to shake and jerk. It felt as though they were no longer cruising but plummeting. "What's happening?" Tripod yelled.
"I don't know!" Synthetica screamed, lifting herself. "I think something is sucking us down towards the planet!"
"Gravity?" Lunker supplied helpfully.
"I mean, other than gravity, you stupid fool!" She yelled. "Something mech-made! We're going to crash!"