Beast Wars and all characters and things related are copyright and trademark of Hasbro and Mainframe Entertainment. This work, however, is the original work of the author.
Note: This story takes place immediately after "Journeys".
Saving Cybertron
By TVfan
Underground Caves
Everyone seemed to gather in the central area of the present underground base that Optimus Primal and Queen had agreed to use to fight the Tripredicus Council and try to prevent them from achieving their goals of bringing Unicron back.
"So we are in agreement that that the Tripredicus Council Headquarters is to be attacked?" Queen questioned to Optimus directly, knowing full well that the Maximal would not go back on his promise.
"After their drone factories have been destroyed," Optimus answered, "Otherwise, if we fail to catch all of the Tripredicus Council, they could simply retreat and call for reinforcements. Once those factories are destroyed, then we'll attack."
Queen glared at Optimus Primal and then at Dinobot who wasn't standing that far away. The male raptor looked very much like the warrior she remembered, but she couldn't fully understand why he seemed to be undermining her to help Optimus. She could understand opposing Megatron, but he was a prisoner now, himself. Dinobot was no free to restore Predicon rule, yet he was deliberately blocking her attempts to insure that her 'Resistance' movement of Predicons and Maximals was the dominant faction after the Tripredicus Council was beaten. But, while these actions angered her, there wasn't much she could do about it, and it didn't look like Optimus was going to cave on the issue.
"Fine," Queen finally caved, sensing that the rest of Optimus's followers weren't about to let her bully their leader, "We'll destroy the factories first. Then we'll take on their leadership."
Optimus then nodded, "How many drone factories do they have?"
"In this area?" Queen sighed, "at least four. All of them produce every drone that the Tripredicus Council uses."
"Non-specialized?" Rattrap chuckled, "sounds like a bungled operation to me."
"It was done to insure that the Council could field an army should one or more factories be destroyed," Queen growled back at the transmetal rat.
"Yeah, but them drones are useless, largely," Rattrap shot back, "if you had a factory that produced one type of drone that stood a chance against a transformer, you could build enough of them to be able to hold off most attacks. Under this current system, even destroying one factory would hurt."
"So you would favor ignoring the factories?" Queen asked, hoping the rat's big mouth would help her.
"No, I'm saying this could be easier then originally thought," Rattrap answered with a confident grin, "One or two charges here and there, and they're out four factories and stuck with a weak army."
"Alright, who are you and what have you done with the real Rattrap?" Cheetor teased with a slight chuckle.
"Hey!" Rattrap answered, "I can be confident when I want ta be."
Optimus then stepped forward to try and get things back on task. Queen wanted to assault he Tripredicus Council Headquarters, and the longer they argued over specifics, the harder it would be to deal with Queen and her resistance fighters.
"With the factories out of the way, assaulting the Council's citadel will be easier as they won't be able to replace their losses," Optimus spoke, moving himself between Rattrap and Cheetor and Queen, "If you could tell us where those factories are."
"Wired, Runner, Grease, and I will lead your teams to the factories," Queen spoke, "while everyone else takes up positions to storm the Tripredicus Council Headquarters."
Optimus then nodded.
"I will go with you to the first factory," Optimus spoke, "Rattrap will go with Runner. Depthcharge will go with Wired, and Cybershark will go with Grease. Destroying the factories is to be done as quickly and as quietly as possible."
"You're only sending two transformers after these factories?" Silverbolt asked, "Forgive me, sir, but isn't that a bit unwise? Suppose they're guarded?"
"Given recent activity, I'd think they're actually going to pull back toward their own headquarters," Optimus answered, "any guards that are there are likely to be drones which can be easily dealt with. And even if they are more heavily defended, the rest of the group can easily turn to aid one of the strike teams."
"And who will be leading the rest of the forces?" Queen asked.
"Dinobot will see to the placing of our forces until the teams striking at the factories have finished their mission and can rejoin the main group," Optimus answered, "His military experience will be important in that regard."
Queen found herself unable to argue against that point. Dinobot was an excellent warrior and could easily deal with any battlefield obstacle that could pop up, and even though he was blocking her attempts to take over Cybertron once the Tripredicus Council was beaten, she had to admit, he would be needed to insure that the Tripredicus Council was defeated.
"Very well," Queen spoke, "I trust he can tolerate having Terrorsaur as his executive officer for this operation?"
"So long as he understands that he is no the commander," Dinobot spoke in a very firm voice as he stared back into Queen's optics.
Queen then glanced back at Terrorsaur who had so far remained silent.
"I will let Dinobot lead," Terrorsaur then spoke in a calm voice, "no one need worry."
"For now," Queen then nodded, and turned back to Optimus and the other Maximals around him, "I trust that this will be sufficient for the opening stages of this final battle?"
Optimus slowly nodded and then turned to Rhinox who stood nearby.
"Rhinox, I will need you to remain here, both to guard the base and to keep our CR tanks ready and online," Optimus spoke, "judging how big this battle will be, you'll be having a lot of wounded coming in."
"I'll be ready," Rhinox answered.
"Alright," Optimus replied, "We all have our missions. Let's go."
Tripredicus Council Headquarters
The three Council members sat quietly at their conference table, largely reviewing recent activity by Optimus Primal and the various resistance movements around Cybertron.
"What was the building they destroyed yesterday?" General Ramhorn asked in a very frustrated voice.
"Our primary munitions plant and warehouse," General Seaclamp answered, "our battle fleet to drive the Maximals and disloyal Predicons from their off world colonies will be delayed by at least three months, maybe more."
"New drones will also have to wait that long before their weapons can either be given to them or charged," General Cicadacon added "Which weakens our overall position."
"He's getting aggressive," Ramhorn grumbled, "this latest attack hurts us."
"It's too aggressive to be Primal," Cicadacon spoke, "I'd tend to think it's the resistance fighters using Primal's forces as 'grunts'. From what we know of Primal's record before the Axalon chased after the Darkside, Primal was not a warrior and in the few classes the Maximals gave him on 'warfare' he was ranked as extremely cautious."
Both Seaclamp and Ramhorn looked at their colleague with some disbelief evident in their faces.
"Perhaps the 'Beast Wars' against Megatron changed him," Seaclamp spoke, "given him some actual combat experience. You can't expect him to have beaten Megatron and not learned something about combat."
"Not to mention the number of transformers that arrived with Primal," Ramhorn added, "I doubt they'd all abandon the leader that lead them through the Beast Wars."
"The few reports we got out of Ravage before he cut the link or before his ship was destroyed was that Optimus had changed little," Cicadacon answered, "If the Resistance is not controlling Primal, then Primal is at least working with them as partners."
Seaclamp and Ramhorn then sighed heavily.
"Either way, it's still aggressive," Ramhorn spoke after a few moments, "and since we only have a handful of transformers following us, the situation puts us in grave danger."
"How so?" Cicadacon retorted, "we have more then enough drones to defeat any transformer, even these new and powerful armor designs that Primal and his followers are using."
"But that would only be in a one at a time fight, and we would have to have them in rather open terrain to target them either from space or from ground mounted missile batteries," Seaclamp reminded him, "when there's been more then one of them, they've been near impossible for our drones to handle them in the numbers we've had available."
"We need to build more," Ramhorn said urgently, "If Primal or the Resistance is getting more aggressive, we will need many more drones in order to stop them, or to at least buy time for us to recall reinforcements from our other colonies or workers from the Unicron restructuring station."
There was an awkward silence for a few moments before Seaclamp spoke in a rather nervous voice.
"There might be another way for us to strengthen ourselves to fight with Primal and the Resistance," Seaclamp spoke nervously, "although it sickens me to think of it."
"What is it?" Cicadacon asked curiously.
"We upgrade ourselves with… 'organic' type armor," Seaclamp said slowly, "use Primal's own kind of armor against him. We could easily reformat ourselves back after he's been defeated."
"Organic forms?" Ramhorn gasped.
"They're an insult to things Cybertronian," Cicadacon growled, "Surely you must be joking."
"It was only a suggestion," Seaclamp defended himself, "and even I do not like the idea entirely. But as I said before, we can be reformatted back after Primal's defeat."
"No," Ramhorn said firmly "for now, we shall remain pure. Our primary task is to figure out where Primal and the Resistance will strike next."
"What do we do, then?" Cicadacon questioned.
"They're likely planning an attack against us," Ramhorn sighed heavily, "they've had success of late and they've learned of our plans to resurrect Unicron. The only option they have is to assault our headquarters."
Seaclamp gave a very frustrated growl before speaking, "Recall all sparked transformers on Cybetron to our base here and station all available drones here. We can't let them take our Council area."
"Why not evacuate the building?" Cicadacon offered, "let them take an empty citadel. They'd gain nothing but a building they'd have to defend or abandon."
"We won't have time," Seaclamp sighed in a defeated voice, "and we don't have anywhere to evacuate to. By the time all that is done, Primal or the Resistance will have attacked. We will have to repeal their attack against us."
The other two Tripredicus Council members sighed heavily. They both knew the situation was not one that they liked. The conquest of Cybertron from the Maximal Elders and the weeding out of disloyal Predicons not descended from Unicron had gone so well that they never anticipated a situation where they would suffer a setback so close to their base.
Sure they had not had much success in attacking the colony worlds, and the Maximal protectorates had not yet been seriously attacked, but they were on the fringe of the Tripredicus Council's concerns. Once Unicron had been resurrected, those problems could very easily be dealt with. When the resistance began on Cybertron, they were few in number, under armed, and unable to transform which made any damage they took serious. They never posed a serious threat to their rule on Cybertron, and once Unicron had been resurrected, they would have likely given up out of fear.
But, the return of Optimus Primal and his Maximals changed things. The resistance had stolen supplies needed to repair themselves and keep their fight going, and now they had made it impossible for them to arm their drones or ships, which would make everything dependent on getting Unicron back online. Ramhorn, Seaclamp, and Cicadacon all hated the situation. At present, they had to win in order to save their vision of Cybertron.
Elsewhere
Rattrap stuck his head up through a small fluid vent in the bottom of the first factor that they had been sent to destroy. Other then the sound of the mechanical parts moving, nearly everything was silent as they came out on to the factory floor. The transmetal rat, however, stayed low, and did manage to spot two new drones, that resembled motorcycles patrolling the upper floors.
"Lightly guarded," Runner commented as he spotted the cycle drones.
"Yeah," Rattrap nodded, returning to beast mode to reduce his size, "but even still. We gotta be careful. They could have an army of drones nearby and it only takes one to sound the alarm."
"Leave them to me," Runner spoke confidently and then broke into a dead sprint.
"Wait!" Rattrap whispered after him, but it was too late.
Runner ran at full speed toward the wall and then straight up the wall before leaping onto the catwalk that the cycle drones were on. Before the cycle drones even turned to investigate the noise, Runner threw a small metallic object at each drone. The thrown weapon exploded, destroying the two cycle drones on impact.
"Okay, Rattrap," Runner spoke down to the transmetal rat who was sitting on the ground totally surprised by what had just happened.
"How in the…?" Rattrap started to stammer as he returned to his robot mode again.
"I call them 'star bombs'," Runner answered, "I came up with the idea of packing explosives into a throwing star, but until Terrorsaur destroyed their munitions plant and brought us some supplies, I never had the ability to test out the idea."
"Looks like they worked," Rattrap commented, "but how did you run up there? I mean not even Cheetor could do that."
"I've always been into running," Runner answered, "hence my name. It may not help me lose weight, like it does for some organics, but I found it to be an excellent activity before all of this started."
Rattrap only shook his head and began looking around the factory. He was certain he could easily destroy the place, but he needed to know where to place the charges to destroy both the factory tools themselves and to collapse the building. Runner began doing the same thing from the crosswalk he was on, and quickly spotted something on the roof.
"If we can get a couple of charges on those beams there near the center I think we can easily bring the roof down," Runner called down to Rattrap who was placing a charge near one of the factory pieces.
"Run it up there then," Rattrap answered back, tossing two charges up to the resistance member.
Runner easily placed the charges and then ran back down to stand beside Rattrap.
"Now what?" Runner asked.
"Now comes the fun part," Rattrap smiled and lead the way outside.
After checking the street to see no drones on patrol, they crossed the street and moved behind a large metal cable sticking out of the wall of the building. Once there, Rattrap ignited the charges they had placed with a remote. Runner watched as a series of explosions went off inside the factory and then saw the factory itself fall on itself. He then glanced to see the transmetal rat grinning.
"Now to regroup with Chopperface," Rattrap spoke and then turned to head down the alley.
Depthcharge and Wired, meanwhile, came up in an alley across the street from the second Tripredicus Council drone factory to find it slightly better guarded then the one that Rattrap and Runner had just destroyed. There were two jet drones hovering outside the doors to the factory, and there were sounds of movement by other drones coming from the surrounding area.
Unafraid of a fight, however, Depthcharge readied his shark blaster and advanced on the two jet drones. Wired fired behind him with a pair of smaller blasters. The jet drones moved as if to fire, but the transmetal manta ray was faster and fired one powerful blast from his shark blaster that destroyed the two drones and blew a hole in the door and wall of the factory.
"There, one easy entrance, and they can't jump us when we come in," Depthcharge spoke confidently as they approached the hole he had blasted in the wall of the building.
Two tank drones then came into view and fired immediately at the two transformers. Depthcharge dove to his right and did his best to keep his larger size from being an easy target while Wired rolled forward. The shots the two drones fired missed both transformers and Wired then destroyed to two drones with two shots from the blasters he was carrying. No new drones appeared after the first two tank drones were destroyed, and both Depthcharge and Wired slowly made their way into the factory.
Once inside the factory, they found it devoid of any other guards and even devoid of some sort of maintenance bot to run the factory. The machines that made the Tripredicus Council's drones were still working, but there was nothing there to monitor them.
"This is rather strange," Wired commented as they made their way through the factory, "even if they don't have much in the way of guards, there should at least be some other type of drone to run the factory… or transformers loyal to the Council, but there's no one here."
"Maybe," Depthcharge shrugged, "but it's an opportunity to destroy this place quickly and easily. I'll take that. We can worry about the lack of workers later."
Depthcharge then powered up his blaster to its full charge and aimed a series of battery packs that were being installed in one of the drones being built by the factory and fired. The resulting blast set off a chain reaction that sent explosions rattling throughout the factory. As batteries and unfinished drones began exploding left and right, Depthcharge grabbed Wired by the arm and took off into the air, blasting through the roof as he went.
Shortly after making it out, they both watched as the factory exploded in its entirety, sending fragments of metal passed them while that which didn't explode burned on the ground.
"Don't do that again," Wired growled in a semi-panicked voice, "Rattrap gave us the charges so that we wouldn't have to be in the factory when it blows up."
"This was quicker and easier," Depthcharge answered, "besides, we'll be able to regroup with the others much easier this way."
"If the Tripredicus Council doesn't detect us and send an army of drones after us," Wired grumbled.
Depthcharge showed no fear and flew on.
Cybershark leaped into the air in beast mode and looked around to see that the entrance to the factory was just one hundred yards away and that there were walls around the factory, but that that there weren't any guards on them. As his body descended back toward the ground, the Maximal Great White Shark altered his density to be able to 'swim' through the ground as if it were water.
Once back in the tunnel he landed before the Resistance Member known as Grease. They hyena transformer looked rather impatient with the Maximal he had lead to the location.
"There are no guards about," Cybershark announced, "We can get in easily."
"Good," Grease answered and pushed Cybershark aside to head up a step ladder to the ground level, "We've already lost too much time dealing with the tunneler drones on the way here."
"I didn't call them there," Cybershark answered him defensively, "They just happened to show up, and we did destroy all of them."
"We've lost time," Grease answered, "at least two of the factories have already been destroyed and when Queen arrives with the main assault units, they will attack the Tripredicus Council directly."
"Optimus wouldn't let her do that," Cybershark retorted, "but we'll hurry anyway."
They then slowly opened the main doors to the factory to be greeted by several completed tank drones that were ready for battle rolling right toward them. Two cycle drones stood near the factory's main control panel on the far side of the room.
"Slag," Grease cursed as the completed tank drones began firing.
Neither transformer was able to get out of the way of the shots fired and they were both blasted back several feet. Thankfully though, they did not get blown into the wall, and their armor managed to take the punishment from the hits they had taken.
"Don't want to take much more of that," Grease then growled and fired to grappling cables from his forearms.
The cables caught the first two tank drones moving out of the building, and once they made contact, Grease ran an electric current through the cables. The flow of power easily overloaded the circuitry in the drones and they exploded, knocking the remaining drones back, reopening the path for Grease and Cybershark to get into the factory.
"Now," Grease urged, "while they're off balance. We can't let the cycle drones call for help or reinforcements."
"Right," Cybershark nodded and used his beast mode's ability to 'swim' to speed toward the cycle drones who remained near the control panel.
Grease, meanwhile, found himself caught by the tank drones as they recovered, and the hyena transformer settled in for a fight against he drones around him. The drones fired a handful of shots at him, but this time, Grease was able to avoid these shots, and two of them actually took out two of the tank drones themselves, lessening the odds against him.
The two cycle drones, meanwhile, stood still while watching the battle. They, however, did not notice Cybershark's approach until the Maximal seemingly appeared out of the floor and seized the first cycle drone in his jaws, easily destroying it. Cybershark then took his robot mode and used rotating 'claw hand' to shred the remaining drone. Once the drones were out of the way, Cybershark turned to the panel to see that it did have a marked 'stop' button, and Cybershark quickly used it.
To Cybershark's disappointment, the button only stopped the working of the factory's machines, not the drones that had already been built, and were keeping Grease in a dodging fight.
"Hang on, Grease!" Cybershark yelled as he looked for a way to defeat the drones attacking the other transformer.
He noticed some long beams in the ceiling, and hoped that they would do the trick. Cybershark fired a pair of missiles at the two beams, which fell and crushed several drones an leaving Grease unharmed. Grease then finished off the last two drones with his tazer weapons.
"Nice trick with the ceiling beams," Grease admitted as Cybershark, "and it actually gives me an idea on how to destroy this place."
Grease once again fired his grappling hooks at the beams, and once they connected, he began pulling on them, hoping to pull the buildings internal supports out. In this, Grease was successful, and both he and Cybershark rushed out of the building as it collapsed behind them.
"Great job!" Cybershark congratulated is partner.
"Yeah, we're wasting time," Grease only answered in reply.
Optimus and Queen, meanwhile moved on a more above ground path to the last and final factory that had to be destroyed. Both were in beast mode and taken the route they were taking to avoid having to deal with any tunneler drones that were still patrolling the underground. Optimus could also tell that Queen was visibly frustrated with something, likely something to do with his refusal to bow down to her or with the fact that Dinobot wasn't behaving as she remembered.
"You know," Optimus commented lightly, "you'd feel a lot better if you let go of this idea that you need to rule Cybertron. As I said to Megatron when the Beast Wars began, there has been peace between the Maximals and Predicons for centuries before all of this. There is no need to start it all up again."
"You've fought with Dinobot and recruited another of Megatron's Predicons, and you think that?" Queen answered, "Your faction has ruled Cybertron for centuries while mine has lived at the lowest possible levels of poverty."
"If your faction didn't pour ALL of its credit into very militaristic policies, your faction wouldn't have had to wallow in poverty," Optimus answered, "I've read the treaties that closed the Great War. While it granted political rule of Cybertron and control of all Cybertronian actions to the Autobots and thus the Maximals now, it did not demand Decipticon and Predicon slavery. The terms were actually quite generous, but many Decipticon and now Predicon leaders have continued to play to militaristic sentiments that refuse to accept that they lost the Great War."
"In other words, we should have become Autobots and Maximals," Queen retorted sarcastically, "you know that without Predicons and Predicon militarism, you wouldn't have Dinobot, and Megatron might have won the Beast Wars that you fought."
"Dinobot is driven by a strong code of honor," Optimus answered, "he ISN'T a militarist. He may like fighting more then the average Maximal, but I've never known him to fight an under armed or unprepared opponent. And that goes against Predicon militarism and its policy of doing anything to win, even if its underhanded."
Queen didn't answer immediately while Optimus continued.
"And if there were no militarists in the Predicons, why would their be a 'Beast Wars'?" Optimus continued, "Cybertron would be at peace and we could all make a better world."
"Well that didn't happen and won't happen," Queen answered back testily.
"So all you care about is getting revenge for the Decipticon defeat in the Great War?" Optimus questioned, "You don't aspire to anything higher? Like Dinobot and his honor or even Blackarachnia and her love for Silverbolt?"
"And what is higher for me to aspire to?" Queen retorted, "all I want is political justice for my faction and the right to control that which has been denied us. If you want 'peace' so bad, then perhaps you should submit to my rule and let the Predicons rule Cybertron and control its policies."
"And let you attack Earth out of vengeance or kill Maximals for being descended from Autobots?" Optimus replied, "You're foolish if you believe I will just stand aside and ignore what is just."
"Then it would both appear to be stuck in a potential loop," Queen responded, "Likely to fight once the Tripredicus Council is destroyed… or at least divide into separate camps."
That made Optimus sigh heavily. The Beast Wars had been hard enough, but now to add the current rebellion against the Tripredicus Council, and the fact that much of the Maximal sectors of Cybertron had been ravaged by fighting, the last thing he wanted was for there to be another war for control of Cybertron when the Tripredicus Council was beaten. There had to be a way to prevent another war from starting, but Optimus wasn't entirely sure how to do that, and felt he would need Rhinox's help to figure out some sort of compromise. Maybe something that would unify the Predicon and Maximal factions so that they wouldn't have a reason to fight each other anymore.
Queen, meanwhile flew above and behind the Maximal leader. His insistence on a 'peace' between the Maximals and Predicons angered her, but a good part of her mind told her that there wasn't much she could do to stop it. Even without Dinobot, Optimus's Maximals and the Maximals that were in her resistance would be more then a match for the Predicons that weren't descended from Unicron and under her command. Dinobot's presence on the Maximal side made things more difficult, which meant that her threat of war was not one that she could likely carry out.
It was at that moment that she glanced down to see Optimus's movement through the jungle that was Cybertron's maze of towers. His beast mode seemed ideally suited to this sort of travel which Queen found herself admiring slightly. She was brought out of it as they began to approach the factory itself.
"Here we are," Queen spoke as she transformed to her robot mode and landed on the roof of the building across the street from the factory.
Optimus remained in beast mode and approached the edge of the building and looked down to see an army of drones of varying types marching or flying out and then moving in formation down the street.
"We can't go straight in," Optimus sighed, "although…"
"They could be headed for the Tripredicus Council headquarters which would ruin the second half of the plan," Queen growled.
"Exactly," Optimus nodded, "Can you take the charges?"
"Why?" Queen questioned suspiciously.
"My transmetal two armor can take more damage then you can," Optimus answered, "and my jet mode will allow me to strafe them rapidly. While I keep them distracted, you can go in and destroy the factory."
"You would distract them?" Queen asked, "even though you believe… or know that I could betray you?"
"Right now we have to work together," Optimus answered, "We don't have time to argue."
Queen slowly nodded, "I'll take the charges and will give you two minutes to provide your distraction."
Optimus quickly handed the charges to Queen and switched from his beast mode to jet mode and dove down on the drones below him. He fired rapidly as he dove down, destroying several drones in the process. What resulted was absolute chaos. The drones weren't expecting to be attacked and began firing randomly after Optimus. Their steady march quickly became a disorganized pursuit around the factor with tank drones crushing several cycle drones and shooting down at least one jet drone. Several more jet drones, flying at too high a speed, crashed into buildings near the factory trying to fire on Optimus.
Optimus took very little in the way of fire on his first pass, but was ready to be under heavy fire when he made his second pass. As he circled around, he did come under heavier fire as the tank and cycle drones fired from the ground and the jet drones zeroed in on him. Optimus unleashed everything he had on he remaining jet drones, destroying all but three and breaking up their formation as he flew through them. The move ended up giving him some damage as he took several hits from the ground and a few from the air, but his armor was still functional, and with most of the jet drones destroyed, the ground drones wouldn't stand much of a chance.
Queen, meanwhile, found that Optimus had provided a more then adequate distraction. All of the drones that had been marching out of the factory were now chasing the Maximal leader leaving the factory practically alone. As Queen hovered over one of the roof windows she could see two cycle drones inside, but they weren't looking up. She quickly dove down and fired on the two cycle drones with a blaster that fired two darts that looked like a bee's stingers.
"All too easy," Queen smiled as the two drones exploded and she set about setting the demolition charges Optimus had given her.
Optimus was preparing to make a fourth pass on the drones chasing him when he suddenly felt the massive shockwave of an explosion shake him off his flight path. He managed to recover by transforming to his robot mode, and found the shockwave had destroyed the remaining drones and did serious damage to the buildings around him.
"Need any help?" came Queen's voice from above him.
"I would think your destruction of the factory did that already," Optimus told her, "thank you."
"We need to complete our mission," Queen said firmly.
Tripredicus Council Headquarters
General Cicadacon looked out nervously towards one of four towers of smoke that were rising out of the skyline of the main city in the area. All were presumed to be factories, but the small 'aide' drones were yet to report back, so the Council was left to worry.
"Primal was behind this," Ramhorn growled as he approached the other Tripredicus Council member, "he had to be. Four factories destroyed, and we don't know how bad yet."
Cicadacon only sighed in response. These attacks had added more hurt to his earlier confidence that they could rebound from the string of defeats that Primal's Maximals and the Resistance had dealt them. Now it looked as if things were change for the worse. Then, General Seaclamp rushed into the room.
"Don't tell me another factory was destroyed," Cicadacon spoke in a depressed voice.
"Worse," Seaclamp answered, "We've lost three squads of tunneler drones to a large group of resistance fighters. I think Primal's followers are on their way here."
"And now everything gets worse," Cicadacon sighed heavily.
On the Ground
"There does not appear to be any activity between us and their 'base'," Airazor reported as she returned to the ground in beast mode, "although, the attempts to destroy the factories have already taken place, so would think that they're probably on alert at the moment."
"No doubt," Dinobot nodded, "Everyone is to assemble in these alleys and to wait for the teams that went after the factories to arrive."
"Why not attack now," Terrorsaur urged, "They'll likely send reinforcements to the factories."
"There was no sign of that," Airazor spoke.
"Besides, we do not know how many actual transformers they have with them, other then those we've already fought," Dinobot answered, "They could have more. We will wait and observe until the others arrive."
Terrorsaur looked like he might protest, but backed down under the transmetal two raptor's glare. Dinobot then turned to the others.
"All flyers are to gather on the rooftops," Dinobot spoke, "when the main attack begins, it would be best to have some bots to keep the jet drones from strafing those of us on the ground."
There were some slight nods as those that had beast modes that naturally flew, or specialized abilities that allowed them to fly, began moving toward the roof tops. Rapther came to stand beside Dinobot as he looked around the edge of a building while the others moved across the street to the other alley.
"And soon will come the great battle," Dinobot spoke softly, "one that will decide Cybertron's fate. May it be with honor."
To Be Continued…