Transformers: Animated

The art of Deception

Over a century ago, many galaxies away a message plays over the speakers of the Decepticon Flotilla. "Megatron is a fool! He is wasting our time with this search for the Allspark! Cybertron was ours! But he has to abandon it to get the Allspark. Four centuries we have been out here searching for something we will never find! It is time that we Decepticons take our rightful place in the universe as its rulers! There are plenty of Advanced worlds out there, We can find better sources of energy. The universe has started to forget about us, and its way past time that we remind them why we once the most feared beings in existence!" It is the most circulated message from the Decepticon known as Thunderwing.

In the years after the Great War, He has becoming the figurehead for the Decepticons that have grown tired of Megatron's quest for the Allspark. In the great War he earned fear and respect from enemies and comrades alike, as he took down enemy flanks by the dozens by himself. Considered by many as the only Decepticons hat could take Megatron in a straight fight. Many Decepticons have joined him, leaving Megatron's own forces dwindling.

There are a few ships out there however that are not loyal to Megatron or Thunderwing. One of these ships is dreadnought known as the Skyraider. Its captain growing more irritated by the messages every cycle that passes, And the latest one that plays is no different for him.

"My fellow Decepticons. Today is the day that will forever change how we take over worlds. My scientists have created away to better infiltrate worlds. Techno-organic biosuits that will allow us to adapt to each planet, even those that have in the past proven too hazardous for us. There will be grand showing of what these suits are capable of .I invite all those interested in see our future to join us on the Black Shadow!" Thunderwing's voice booms, though this message give the Skyraider's captain just the opening he has been waiting for, as an evil smirk crosses his face.

"There is only one future for the Decepticons, and its a future that doesn't include Megatron, or you; Thunderwing. There is only one fit to lead the Decepticons to glory, soon all will know the name of Starscream!" A shrill voice laughs as the Aerial Commander steps from the shadows, looking over a strange deceive in his hand. "Oh yes, I shall join you on your ship. And I know were gonna have a BLAST!" He laughs manically and commands his crew to head for the Black Shadow.

--------

Many ships have gathered around the Black Shadow, as it orbits around a nearby star. Though noticeably absent is Megatron's flagship; the Nemesis. The Skyraider pulls in close and docks with the large warship. Starscream is followed by another Decepticon, having some what similar body design to his own. The most differentiating features that can be seen in the darkness are the oddly-shaped wings and a more conical shaped head.

The second Decepticon speaks in a smoother tone compared to Starscream's shrillness, a closer look to his face, reveals a faceplate that moves as he speaks. "Are you quite sure about this, Starscream?" The mech says crossing his jet engine shaped arms over his chest. "This makes the 5th ship you have sabotaged this Mega-Cycle. Surely the others are going to get suspicious, with so many explosions taking out rival leaders."

"Quiet, Thrust. I know what I am doing. Besides I like bombs. They are simple, easy to hide, and leave very little evidence. Even if those fools did start to suspect foul play, there is nothing that would lead them to me."

"You chose me as your second, for my tactical input. And I really would prefer that you actually listened to it once in awhile." He says giving Starscream a bit of a glare. "I am only going along with this because I agree that Thunderwing has let his victories and reputation go to his head. I will be all too pleased to see him taken down."

Starscream looks to Thrust, almost looking hurt at the acquisition of not listening "I do value your input Thrust." He says putting a hand on the shoulder of the other Jetbot. "Your a master when it comes to large scale battles. Who could ever forget your victory at Rigel 4! But this, this is smaller scale, a simple preemptive strike. Thats my area of expertise. When were in an actual battle, you can command the troops however you want and I wont say a word."

Thrust nods softly, he knows Starscream is just trying to keep him on his good side, as losing him to another potential leader would ruin any plans he has.. "As you wish, Starscream. Just remember that I am your partner in this endeavor, and not just some dumb lackey." Thrust says, before his visage fades as he becoming invisible before the duo enters the Black Shadow.

Exiting the docking tube they are greeted by a thin black and red robot. "I am rather surprised to see you join us, Starscream." He says with a deep voice. "You have never shown interest in such scientific pursuits before. Maybe you are more intelligent then I gave you credit for."

Starscream sneers "Are you going to take me to this experiment of yours, or do you wish to insult me some more, Database?"

Database's optic visor brightens, his faceplate moving as he chuckles. "I really would wish to insult you more, but seeing as the experiment will be starting soon, I doubt I have the time with all the other ships arriving. So lets get you to the Auditorium." Database says turning away from Starscream and escorts him down the hall, as Thrust makes his way deeper into the ship...

----

In the darkness, the cloaked Thrust makes his ways through the bowels of the large ship, passing through into areas where no one but crew were permitted as he slowly makes his way to the engine room, where the bomb will be able to cause the most damage.

'This is too easy.' Thrust thinks to himself. 'There should be more security, more locked areas. Thunderwing couldn't possible be this careless with all these ships around...' He continues to ponder as he continues to travel deeper into the ship. Unaware that he is being followed by the one person on the ship that can see through his invisibility, waiting to act until having proof that Thrust is up to something.

-----

Meanwhile back in the largest room of the ship that is set up to serve as an Auditorium; Decepticons gather round a large stage. In the center of the stage, stands a large and powerfully built Decepticon, his armor being mostly a cool gray interwoven with blue which also serves as the main color of his helmet, abdomen, gauntlets, and boots. Certainly looking like one that could rival Megatron. His red optics gaze over the crowd and smiles proudly that so many are interested in his vision for the future.

"My fellow Decepticons!" He begins, his voice deep and gravelly "I am proud to see so many of you could join us here for this momentous occasion! Even a few surprise faces, such as Starscream captain of the Skyraider." Thunderwing says and motions to the Jetbot, who doesn't seem to happy at being pointed out among the crowd. "And a few unsurprises, such as the lack of our so called Leader Megatron," This time, motioning to a large empty throne made to look like the Decepticon emblem "who once again refuses to see reason or even entertain ideas other then his own. Not even able to send that brainwashed minion of his. But that is his loss."

"Just get on with it already!" Calls an angry Austrian voice from the crowd, the spotlight cutting over to the vocal member, the triple changer known as Blitzwing. His head spinning from red to black "This is getting rather boring! You could have at least given us snacks!" The black head complains before switching over to the blue face. "Really now, I came to see this so called future, not listen to the same long winded speeches I can hear over the comm channels."

Thunderwing glares, but quickly changes his expression. "Alright, then lets get to what brings us here!" He says and sweeps his arms outwards as rising from a hidden compartment under the stage is pair of Decepticons. One is Database. The other is a heavily armored green and purple robot. Between them are several strange grayish humanoid... things. "Since they seem to be tired of my speeches, and you are the inventor of this technology Database, I shall allow you to explain it to them." Thunderwing says and takes a step back.

Database gives a quiet nod and begins "These are Polymorphic Techno-Organic Biotic Suits. With these suits we will be to adapt our self to any world, mimic any lifeforms. As long they are worn, we will be indistinguishable from the native life forms. We will be able to infiltrate and take over right under their noses." As he speaks there are already the sounds of several jeers from the audience. "Yes, I know what you are thinking. But we are Decepticons, we are master of deception. But we can only mimic mechanical objects, and on worlds where life forms aren't mechanical we are severely limited on what we can do without revealing ourselves. With these we will be able to deceive more efficiently, and take over quicker by removing their defenses and learning about their technology. When a planet is ready, the rest can swoop in and raze the world and prepare to colonize it!" Some of the jeers die down as more begin to contemplate the abilities and advantages of these suits.

-----

While the presentation continues on the levels above, Thrust as well as his stalker finally reaches the the main engine room. Inside is a long black and blue Decepticon worker. 'Maybe they are all at the presentation, Thunderwing is probably so sure of himself that he couldn't fathom someone pulling something on his ship. If he really is that arrogant, then I really won't regret getting rid of him in the least. I had hoped this would be more... interesting.' Thrust thinks to himself as he slinks into the room, making his way to the core, opening up a compartment on his arms and pulling out a small round disk.

"I think its time to shed some light on this ruse." A feminine voice giggles, as suddenly large solar windows open, and illuminates the room; Thrust stumbling back and covering his optics from the sudden change in light levels. As the light fills the room Thrust's stalker finally steps into the light; A slender blue and purple figure, with a pair of solar panels on her back sticking out like wings. She flips a visor down over her red optics to filer out the bright light. "Now now, such a silly little Decepticon..." She giggles and dances towards the still invisible Thrust, the long black wire tendrils that flow down from the back of her head swishing about as she moves. She strokes a finger over his chin and grinning broadly. "Did you really think such a trick could fool me? Invisibility fields, all they do is bend light around something. While it may fool some, It can't fool Modem; mistress of light!" She says with a playful giggles and pokes the bridge of Thrust's helmet that makes up his nose, causing his field to dissipate. "For me, you stuck out like a damaged servo with that dome of light around you. But really, enough talk. Hand me the bomb, and you'll leave intact. I really don't like hurting people." Modem says with a rather bright and cheery smile.

Thrust growls softly. "You want an answer?" He asks, as the whir of a jet engine starting up can be heard. "How's this for an answer, Wench?" He asks as powerful flame shoots from he engine that sits on his arm. Modem cries out and barely dodges in time, holding her sides from where her armor has started to melt.

Her optics glow brightly from behind her visor. "So, you want to play rough?" she asks with another giggle, seeming to regain her composure quickly "Okay then!" She says with a wide grin and extends her arm and a beam of light shoots forth and knocks Thrust off his feet.

Thrust shakes his head as he starts to get up. "What?" He asks groggily.

"Hard light projections. My specialty. I can shape light into any form, even into weapons. Last chance. Give me the bomb and I won't have to throw you into the star." Modem says pouting at the thought of such an action.

Once again the engines on Thrust's arms whir with life and shoots out another spire of flame at Modem. Her optics brighten hearing that sound and reacts quickly creating a wall of light in front of her in which the flames deflect off of. "Aw come on, the same attack?" She pouts again. "I thought you were some great general." She says, clearly disappointed by Thrust and with a wave of her hand sends out a storm of needles mode of light.

"Make no mistake, woman. I have more then a few simple tricks." Thrust says and takes to the air quickly, crying out as right leg is skewered by two of the needles before they dissipate. "I will win this fight, and this ship will go up in a grand explosion." Thrust says with a dry laugh.

"I won't give you that chance, Squidhead!" Modem says jumping up walls and across pipes, with an acrobat's grade and speed and launches herself at the flying villain. Thrust's optics glow as he smirks underneath his face plate as the whir starts again, knowing the femme has no way to dodge. The flames burst from from his arms, only to fizzle out surprising the Jetbot as he gets tackled by Modem.

As he hits the ground, Thrust notices that his engines have iced over. "Modem wanted you to freeze, Squidhead. It seemed like you needed a helping hand." Says a cold voice.

"Nice to see you could tear yourself away from your precious engines, Icewind." Modem says with a giggle, looking over the the black and blue robot as she recovers, glad to have some help.

Icewind's circular red optics look to her blankly. "Not really, I'm still attending to them." He says and looks down, only to notice Thrust has recovered and is making his way to the engine core. "You really seem to have a problem understanding the meaning of FREEZE!" Icewind irritatedly yells as his hand morphs into a cannon and shoots a beam of ice at Thrust, freezing the servos in the Jetbot's legs.

Thrust grumbles as his legs start to lock up, the cold penetrating through them and freezing up everything. "Freezing isn't my style, but as you wish. I'll surrender." He says and raises his arm giving a slight flick of his wrist before he does.

Modem's optics glow bright "SLAG!" she cries out and notices the cloaked bomb being tossed, and futilely rushes to stop it. The bomb latches on the the Engine core, and begins to flash. She turns to Thrust. "You better disarm that." she says and forms a mace out of light, ready to bash some sense into him.

"Oh, I am truly sorry, but I can't. You see, I didn't have time use any form of precision, I don't even know what the settings are. But I think you have bigger things to worry about. Seeing as about half the Decepticon Army is on this ship, and that bomb can go off at any moment. And any attempt to disarm it without know exactly what to press will result in it exploding prematurely." Thrust laughs victoriously. "Either way, I win. And that, is how I earned MY nickname."

"Should we really trust him?" Icewind asks.

"I'm not gonna risk it, Lets get up to the Auditorium and evacuate the ship. Your faster, so your gonna have to get us there." Modem says, as Icewind transforms into his vehicle mode, and Modem getting op top of him as the take off for the Auditorium.

------

Back at the presentation, Database looks to the crowd which still seems mixed in its reaction to the biosuits. "But you shouldn't judge them before you see them in action." He says to those that are still apprehensive to the idea. "Bludgeon, if you would..."

The green and purple robot nods as walks up to one of the suits, grabbing one. As he touches it, the suit grapples on to him, oozing up his arm. "I'm not sure if I'll ever get used to how this feels." He says, in accent that sounds somewhat Asian, as he watches the suit continues to ooze and cover him until he is totally enveloped by it, looking much more rounded and organic.

"The material bonds with our Destronium armor and is able to alter its composition to fit in with the species around it. The biggest draw back to it, is that if a race is smaller then us; we will be infinitely heavier then all the others of the species." Database says as her begins keying in a few things on the keyboard on his arm. As he does Bludgeon's form begins to twist and shift around becoming smaller and smaller until he is about 6ft tall, dressed in a purple robe with ashen gray skin stark white hair and glowing green eyes.

"This race is extremely light and agile; and wouldn't be a race we'd want to emulate due to the restriction of the suit. As can easily be seen by the cracking ground under Bludgeon, from having his mass compacted into such a small form." Database says and keys in something else, as Bludgeon's form quickly begins to balloon out, as his form once again begins the twist and change before the audience.

Bludgeon's new form is around 15 feet tall, and is what can be best described as monstrous, with a pair of four long purple tentacles come from its back, as its octopus-esque head looks out to the crowd. "This species, as can be seem is much larger, and as such the weight isn't compressed. They are also totally aquatic, which would be a problem for us if they were smaller, as the compressed weight would cause us to sink. We have been trying to work in way to counter act the mass effect, but so far have been unsuccessful."

"Do we really need such a suit?" says a Romanian-accented mech, the spot light moves over the blue and gray robot. A dark red face stares out from under the blue helmet. "Why cant we just concur these worlds straight out. We have plenty of forces that would be suited to those planets. Just swoop in and over take them. They'd never stand up to even one of us." A pair of what can be best described as fangs, can be seen as he talks.

"Yes, and alert every Autobot or any other universal authorities in the process. We'd be in jet another war that we can't afford to fund with our current resources." Thunderwing responds. "Using these suits we can channel energy more efficiently and even being able to mimic the species' own ways to gather nutrients so that we wont always be using Energon while disguised. Even you can see the value in that Bomb-Burst, and I'm sure your shipmates would be grateful as well that your not using them as fuel." The comment gets a few chuckles and cheers from the group surrounding Bomb-Burst.

Before Bomb-Burst can reply, a message calls out over the speakers, heavily garbled from the solar radiation, making it hard to hear some words. "Somebody... ... ... ... ... has set us up. ... ... the... ... ... bomb... " Modem voice says trying to alert everyone of the crisis as her voice fades in and out "No chance... ... ... ... to survive... ... ... ...make ... ... your ... time ..." The rest of her communication is unintelligible. Though it has already had its effect, as the audience is scrambling towards the exits in a panic.

-----

Modem rushes through the tunnels, as the klaxons begin to sound. She can be seen banging on her forearm. "Stupid solar panels. They wont close, and its disrupting communication. But it seems that they got the message at least."

Unknown to her, is that Thrust has thawed enough to transform and is chasing after her. "I'm not going to let you go that easily." He calls out and fires on them as he catches up.

"What is WRONG with you?" He asks and throws a volley of light spears at him. "I would think you'd have more important things then a stupid vendetta in your processors, like getting your sorry aft off this ship before it explodes!" Modem says angrily.

"With you riding me like you arm I can't help you.." Icewind says as he does his best to dodge the attacks.

"Thats fine, Just get us to the others! I'll hold him off." Modem replies.

"I won't give you that chance! Your going to go up with this ship!" Thrust replies and starts to shoot at the hall around them, causing debris to fall in Icewind's path trying to trip him up. But his plan seems to backfire in an unexpected way, as the debris shambles together into a hands the grab at the Cybertronian jet.

"Database, have I even told you how much you rule?" Modem asks.

"Someone has to look out for you, always getting yourself into trouble. Sometimes I don't know why I bother with you. Your just lucky to be within the limits of my abilities. I'll try holding this piece of slag off." Database replies over the comms, the signal seeming stronger now.

Modem giggles "Whatev DB, You know you like the chance to show off in front of me."

Its silent for a moment before Database replies "Just get up here..." causing Modem to giggle again. looking back as more hands grab and hold Thrust.

"It couldn't have happened to a nicer person." Icewind replies as the pair continues on their way.

----

As the timer counts down, more and more ships are seen zooming away from the Black Shadow just before explosions ripple through Thunderwing's ships as the engines blow up. The ship is ripped apart and debris is sent hurtling in every direction. Several escaping ships are hit and damaged as another large one appears out of nowhere, the massive Nemesis, begins to lock on to several of the damaged ships pulling them on board. One of the ships pulled in is the Skyraider.

The destruction of the Black Shadow would be talked about for cycles, and prevent Starscream from repeating his performance, not that it mattered. He was now on Megatron's ship and could work his way though the ranks until the time to strike is right.

The Pretender's project, as Megatron refers to it, looses its steam without Thunderwing around to rally support and most the biosuits lost in the explosion. But unknown to the Decepticons, on distant little mud ball, the project would have its greatest test run as the Survivors of the explosion have no choice but to rely on them until they can return to the fold and teach the universe the true art of deception.