Raven's Quarry

by Oreobot

Just when Hound thinks he has enough Decepticon trouble on his hands, another adversary, a type of which he has never encountered before, joins the fray. Set in the G1 universe. Characters in this story: Hound, Onslaught, Blast Off, Swindle, Brawl and Vortex.

Raven's Quarry

First published: November 24, 2008

The holographic human driver of the green army jeep moved his hand down on the turn signal as Hound moved the lever and steered himself toward the next highway exit. The Autobot decreased his speed and the illusory driver combed a hand through his wind-mussed hair. Hound sighed inwardly. After many tedious hours of driving, he was finally off the main highway and about to start his winding trek up into a remote mountain valley.

The drive north was long and quiet, giving the scout plenty of restful time to reflect on recent events before beginning the real work of his reconnaissance mission. He followed a local road for a while, then turned onto a back road that headed through the countryside and up toward the Storm Mountain range. His maps indicated that there was a forest service road further ahead that would take him closer to his target in the wilderness.

It was good to get away from Autobot Headquarters for awhile. Although the presence of the Ark was a comforting reminder of his home world, he was worn down by the incessant undercurrent of war that murmured through its corridors. The memory of the Decepticons' pivotal boarding of the Ark was never far from his thoughts whenever he returned to the reconstituted wreckage of their ancient spacecraft. How could any of them forget it?

The hijacking of the Ark was merely one mishap in a vast array of Decepticon atrocities that spanned the ages, penetrating right into the dim recesses of Cybertronian prehistory. His thoughts lingered dangerously close to a forbidden doorway. How many other tragedies had he witnessed on Cybertron? Yes, there were things that Hound would rather not remember. Then there were the things that he could not remember; those were the worst. Whenever he felt their tug, he knew it was time to go out on another adventure, or take on another scouting mission. He had hoped that this mission would relieve his mind of a stinging burden – a recent and ill-fated event right here on Earth – but so far it was still haunting his thoughts. Hound shifted down a gear as the road began to ascend through the endless evergreen sea.

The image of a dozen frightened human faces was imprinted in his processor. They had trusted him to save them from the Decepticon triple changers, Astrotrain and Blitzwing. Momentarily distracted by the unforgiving memory, he jerked his steering wheel to the left to keep from trailing off into a ditch. I must remain focused, he scolded himself.

Eventually, the meandering country road reached a T-intersection, as Hound's map had predicted. From there, Hound made a left turn onto the forest service road. The narrow track climbed in switchbacks, taking the jeep up into steep, rugged terrain. He hoped for a fleeting view of the distant scenery as he slowed at each corner, but the road was buried deep within the trees. Without a distraction, it was not long before the images returned to Hound's mind.

The moment lingered, frozen in Hound's processor. The human beings thought they were going to live; they always did. Blitzwing – impatient, malicious, and hungry for energon – paid them no heed as he knocked down a string of live power poles. A dazzling arc danced harmlessly across the triple changer's armored chassis as the high-voltage lines fell to the ground. There was nothing Hound could do. He felt responsible for the deaths of those people.

The tragedy should not have happened. He was an Autobot and it was his duty to protect. That responsibility was deeply programmed in the scout. It was like an instinct.

But it was his error that caused it to happen. He was the only Autobot there at the time. He was the one who conjured the image of Starscream, cast it upon himself, and then attempted to emulate the voice of the high-pitched air commander. Hound silently cursed himself. His choice was painfully sloppy; Decepticon lines of authority were never reliable. Not only did the triple changers exhibit outright contempt for Starscream and his orders, but they soon ascertained that they were being tricked by a poorly-voiced hologram.

Something small scurried out of the patchwork of shrubs and wild flowers by the roadside. Whatever it was, Hound was nearly on top of it when it tried to dart across the road. His tires sprayed loose gravel as his jeep mode lurched to a stop. Stunned, a small chipmunk momentarily froze in front of the intimidating vehicle, then bounded back into the shrubs from where it had come.

Get a grip, Hound ordered himself. He could not afford the luxury of indulging in memories like these. The event was over and done. There was no going back; no changing the past. There were only decisions to be made in the present.

Hound continued his journey. He was now in a region where few ventured, and there was no need for a hologram disguise. The illusion of the human driver flickered and then disappeared; a turret gun reappeared in the back of the green jeep.

He could forgive himself if his erroneous judgment was an isolated event. But the triple changer incident was not the only time he had misused his illusion-casting ability. A massive hologram of a rocket base in the desert had been his grand scheme, too. Optimus Prime trusted Hound's judgment and went along with his plan. But Megatron was clever. He saw through the trickery and turned their plan against them. Megatron's junk-bots kept the Autobots busy at the fake plant while the real Decepticons raided a real rocket base for fuel. It was a costly mistake.

Hound wondered if he was losing his scouting acumen. His holography was his trump card. It was the most powerful tool in his vast array of scouting and reconnaissance technology. He was a master illusionist. But he had fumbled once too often, and his mistakes carried dire consequences. The lives of the humans and the safety of his fellow Autobots were endangered whenever his plans failed. He drove onward.

The lonely road took the scout far into the wilderness. The last sign of human habitation was many miles behind him. He was on his own now, surrounded only by the timeless expanse of planet Earth.

The weaving mountain road carried Hound toward a narrow pass high above him. Long, pale stands of grass swayed as the green Jeep drove past them, coating the vegetation in a wake of fine road dust. Hound shifted into a lower gear as he climbed through ponderosa pines and fir trees. According to his maps, Bear Lake should be visible once he reached the crest of the gravel road. The Autobot scout slowed to reduce his engine noise as he approached the top of the pass. He could not risk the sound echoing into the open valley ahead. Careful to keep a low profile, he remained in jeep mode and stopped to survey the landscape.

He was struck by the rugged beauty of the area. The lake spanned the length and breadth of the valley, and was surrounded by an imposing chain of mountains. Their massive flanks dropped thousands of feet from snowy-capped crowns above to the twinkling water of Bear Lake below, with its stunning blue-dye hue. Hound knew that the color of the water was due to natural minerals abundant in the alpine rocks. The serendipitous sprawl of Earth's natural geography was awe-inspiring compared to the highly-structured and tightly-organized layout of Cybertron's endless cities.

Hound sighed. He had not come here to admire the view. He had a job to do. Two days earlier, Teletraan I's Sky Spy satellite had picked up faint Decepticon energy signatures in the area, but had been unable to generate an image or even get a fix. Unusually high levels of electromagnetic interference blanketed the entire region. The Autobots had to know why Decepticons were congregating in such a remote location. Optimus Prime had promptly dispatched Hound on a standard recon mission with orders to investigate and report.

Although Hound did not know exactly where the enemy was located, it would not take him long to find out. He turned the turret gun radar scope in the back of his jeep mode toward the far end of the lake and slowly scanned back toward him, looking for some reading on activity.

Hound's scope found nothing on the first pass, so he turned his radar in the opposite direction. Immediately, the scout detected a long, metallic object moving far below him. It snaked gradually along the edge of the lake, roughly oriented in his direction. Hound studied the object for a moment, listening astutely to the drone of a distant diesel engine and the whine of steel wheels on a curving rail line. He relaxed. It was only a freight train.

He raised his radar scope and slowly swept it through a horizontal plane, canvassing the mountains on the opposite side of the lake for an energy signal. Still, there was nothing. There did appear to be dead spots where he could not get the radar reflection he needed to look into the nooks in the lay of the mountains. This was dangerous territory in which to be searching for an enemy because the geography created natural radar camouflage.

Hound started his engine and rolled to the right, following the ridge line mountain road along the length of the long lake toward its far end. He kept his scanners alert as he drove, searching for any hint of a Cybertronian electromagnetic aura.

The jeep traversed the enormous range, following the twists and turns of the gravel road as it tracked the shape of the mountains, leading him alternately in and out of the forested slopes. In glimpses, his optical sensors searched the shadowy slopes across the lake while his other tracking sensors swept over the landscape around him and maintained his course. The land had been eerily void of the signs or sounds of human civilization until suddenly the train – now ahead of him along the edge of the lake – blew its horn. A series of insistent, short warning blasts from the rumbling diesel engine penetrated the wilderness. Then a long ear-splitting screech of steel sliding on steel cut through the air as the engine threw on its brakes.

Hound's instincts told him that those horn blasts were about more than a moose or deer on the tracks. He hurried along down a dip in the road, across a wooden Bailey bridge over a creek and back up the winding one-lane road to the next lookout point. Just before he came out of the woods again, there was a thunderous metallic crash and Hound heard the awful, cascading sound of train cars impacting against one another.

Hound lurched to a stop and quickly aimed his radar gun down at the train below, expecting to find the worst. Immediately, his scanner picked out five Decepticon energy signatures gathered at the front of the immobile train. They had halted the train with brute force. The front end of the engine had crumpled around the resistive force of the powerful Decepticons.

To Hound's amazement, the train had not derailed. Instead, its cars were neatly lined up behind an impacted engine. The Decepticons must have wanted something on that train for them to stop it without destroying it. He had to get closer to find out.

Hound followed the forest service road closer to the Decepticons and the train, and stopped just out of sight at a vantage point before transforming into robot mode. The Autobot scout took out his listening dish and knelt down to peer cautiously over the edge of the road and down the mountainside.

He zoomed in and focused his optics on the enemy figures gathered around the train engine. "Combaticons," he whispered. They had prepared a small camp, complete with a modest supply of energon cubes, near the place where they had intercepted the train. They knew that the train was coming and had been waiting for it. The bulky tank Combaticon, Brawl, their tall and conniving leader, Onslaught, and the brutish interrogator, Vortex were standing in front of the engine. Blast Off and Swindle, the other two Combaticons, looked on.

The scout's infrared radiation collector spied a human hiding in the trees a short distance away from the train. "That must be the train's engineer," Hound told himself. At least the man had not been harmed and was able to flee after the Decepticons hijacked his train. Although the man was safe, there was little that could be done to help him in his current predicament.

Hound adjusted the output on his listening dish so that it would transmit directly to his audio sensors, then pointed it at the group of Decepticons.

"Brawl! Vortex! Blast Off!" a commanding voice rang out. "Get those box cars open."

Hound peered down at the tall, dark figure on the tracks in front of the train. The shorter, yellow and purple figure of the arms dealer, Swindle, walked up next to him and stood slightly stooped. Onslaught stepped back from the crumpled front end of the engine and dusted off his hands, pleased at their handiwork. Brawl boldly walked up to the first train car and leaned forward to fire the tank cannon on his back to blow it open.

"Have some sophistication, Brawl," Blast Off, the brown and purple Combaticon, chided his combiner teammate, "that crude manoeuvre will only ruin the tachyon disrupter."

"And what do you know about weapons?" Brawl shot back gruffly while looking the other Decepticon up and down. "You're a crude Earth space vehicle."

Blast Off was not about to let an insult like that go unchallenged. "My vehicle mode says nothing about me – and neither does yours," he retorted snobbishly. His Combaticon body, the form that the dimwitted Decepticon Starscream had chosen for him, was merely a temporary vessel for his personality component. He agitated for the day he would shed it for his original Cybertronian form. Soon, they would ditch the Decepticons and return to their home planet where he could realize his goal. It was all part of Onslaught's master plan. He crossed his arms smugly. "So you can wipe any pathetic ideas about your military superiority out of that small processor of yours."

Brawl's temper flared like gasoline doused on an open flame. Blast Off's pathetic attitude – always the moping victim – was infuriating. The whining elitist had no place in the toughened ranks of the Decepticon war machine. Blast Off's impotent space shuttle form was a perfect fit for his persona – even the idiot Starscream could see that when he resurrected their sparks. As his previous boss' hit man during his criminal life on Cybertron, Brawl revelled in his new found firepower. Being a cannon on treads was also a perfect fit for his current role as Combaticon ground assault soldier. The green and black tank Combaticon turned and braced himself as he aimed the large tank cannon on his back at the mountainside next to them.

"You wanna see what real firepower looks like?" he seethed, his yellow optic band glowing brightly with pent up aggression. "Just watch me blow a hole right through the mountainside," the Combaticon tank declared as he glared back at Blast Off. "Space shuttle," he spat contemptuously.

Just then, a warning blast boomed over their heads. Caught unawares, Brawl and Blast Off both turned to see smoke trailing from the barrel of Onslaught's sonic stun gun.

"And I can blow two holes in the mountain," Onslaught announced calmly, the dual cannons of his missile trailer alternate mode gleaming on his back. "Now, we're going to get that tachyon disrupter off this train. We're going to take it to Starscream. And we're going to build a Neutralizer."

Brawl glanced back at Blast Off. It was difficult to resist the urge to dislodge Blast Off's face mask with his fist.

Onslaught glared down at them, ice in his vocalizer. "We need that Neutralizer to get through the space bridge and overwhelm Shockwave's forces on Cybertron. We cannot afford to be beaten back again. This time we shall overpower them… and take what is ours. Now back to work!" he commanded, waving his hand dismissively.

Swindle rubbed his palms together and grinned slyly. "Starscream's a fool to think that we'd really be his agents, especially after we crossed him once already. His hunger for power blinds him. He deserves what he gets." He chuckled, thinking about how easily Starscream was convinced that they wanted to help him overthrow Megatron. It was a lie that the air commander – with all his mindless ambition – was too willing to believe. "I love a good double-cross!"

"I can't wait to get back to Cybertron and rid myself of this," Blast Off glanced down distastefully at the body Starscream had built from the scavenged, burnt-out scraps of World War II military equipment. "Uncivilized contraption. And the color scheme... it's ghastly. Whatever was Starscream thinking? He must be color blind."

The space shuttle's petty fixation on appearance irritated Brawl. "Speak for yourself, Blast Off. I'm beginning to like my new form."

"You'll have all of the upgrades you want once we hijack a reconstruction facility," Onslaught announced. "Now enough bickering. Back to work!"

Onslaught turned and motioned to Vortex with a flick of his finger. The masked, grey Combaticon withdrew an intimidating energy cutter from subspace. He approached Brawl and Blast Off, wielding the glowing blade menacingly. "Mind if I cut in?" he sneered with a high-pitched, metallic chortle. The others wisely stepped aside.

From a distance, Hound watched as Vortex's cutter sliced effortlessly into the first rail car. The searing blade severed the sturdy metal like a giant can opener. Vortex stood aside as the entire side of the boxcar toppled to the ground with a loud clang.

Brawl pulled out his blaster and riddled the lock on the second car. The disgruntled Combaticon flung the sliding door open and glanced briefly inside before moving along to the next train car. Swindle took a look as well. He liked some of the things in there.

Vortex and Brawl continued moving down the long line of boxcars, alternately cutting and blasting them open for inspection. As soon as the cars were accessible, Swindle and Blast Off entered them, searching for loot. Onslaught waited nearby with his hands resting on his hip plates. He kept a firm hand on his stun gun in case any of them stepped out of line.

Hound watched as the Decepticons methodically ransacked the train, tossing unwanted crates and boxes out of the ruined cars. A cacophony of crashes and bangs echoed off the mountainside as the unwanted crates landed hard and split asunder, their contents strewn across the ground. The Autobot scout lowered his listening dish and leaned away from the edge, gazing off into the distance.

"They're ransacking the entire train," he said quietly to himself. But why steal the device – the tachyon disruptor – out in the country when it would be a lot less effort to rob the train at the nearest rail yard? They must have wanted to avoid the attention of a human news crew. That had to be the reason. If the story was broadcast on television, Megatron would find out about their subversive activities. Out here, the Combaticons would be long gone by the time anyone discovered the ransacked train.

Megatron would find out about this "Neutralizer" sooner or later. It was virtually impossible to conceal anything from Soundwave and the prying eyes of his airborne minion, Laserbeak. Whether Megatron discovered the Neutralizer under construction here on Earth – or learned of it from Shockwave on Cybertron – there was a good chance that it would be deployed against the Autobots. Hound had to warn Optimus Prime.

He peered back over the edge. Even if Optimus Prime was alerted, what could the Autobot leader do? Soon the Combaticons would have the device and then they would be gone with it. Hound was the only one who had a chance to stop the Decepticons. The scout pressed his lip components together. He was only one Autobot and they were five Decepticons. He could not possibly win.

As Hound gazed down at the Combaticons, something rustled in the treetops nearby. Hound started and scanned his surroundings. His sensors picked up a large avian form above and behind him.

"Laserbeak!" he said in a whisper and prepared to grab his gun from subspace. That dirty bird must have discovered me while spying on the delinquent Combaticons.

Hound quickly drew his weapon and spun to meet the enemy. The boughs of a large fir sprung under the jostling of the large bird, obscuring its form as it swayed in and out of the shadows. Hound's optics scanned the shifting patterns of light and dark, looking for its outline. Just as his finger closed around the trigger, the bird settled. The sweeping branches stilled and the bird came into plain view. Hound gasped and lowered his weapon. It was a huge raven – an old rook of the high mountains.

"That was close," Hound said to himself as his servos relaxed. He looked up at the large black bird as it cocked its head and peered down at him. "I just about turned you into Thanksgiving dinner," he muttered.

Relieved, he turned away from the raven and directed his listening dish at the Decepticons. Crates of broken goods littered the ground as the Combaticons continued noisily pillaging their way through the line of box cars. It was a good thing that he had not fired his weapon since it would have alerted the Decepticons below. A good scout did not give away his location.

Hound needed a plan. He tallied his arsenal: he had his holography, his hologun and turret gun, his radar scope, his tracking and scouting skills, and his shoulder-mounted missile launcher. As an Autobot soldier, he was adequately equipped to defend himself. His holograms could be used to bluff, deceive and disorient the enemy. But these were heavily-armed criminals. Masters of tactical combat, they were outfitted with the strongest body armor available to the Decepticons. Each and every one of them could easily outgun him.

Disguising himself as Starscream and demanding they give him the tachyon disrupter – once they found it – was not worth considering. Experience had proven that he could not pull it off. Besides, he could not fly. It would be suicide. He frowned and clenched his fist. He could not bear to stand by and idly watch the Decepticon plot unfold. There had to be some way that he could use his holographic wizardry to foil the Combaticons' plan. But how?

The raven rustled then hopped from one branch down to another. Hound ignored the bird as he listened to the Combaticons' conversation. He brainstormed.

Onslaught had joined Blast Off and Swindle in the search for the experimental device. Hound watched Swindle disappear from view behind the tree line as he walked down the line of cars, looking at the writing on the side of each car. Onslaught rummaged through scattered crates on the ground, checking that his teammates had not accidentally discarded the item.

"Hurry up!" he heard Brawl call to the others from a position well along the length of the train. The Combaticon was concealed behind a line of trees near the lake shore. "I'm half way done here!"

"Then why don't you start searching yourself?" Blast Off chided him in an impatient tone.

Brawl grumbled something incomprehensible and then Hound lost the reception as static buzzed loudly in his audio receptors. He adjusted the output on the listening dish, turning the knob fruitlessly in both directions. White noise showered through the communication link. Hound tapped the side of his head, wondering if it was his own audio receptors, but the interference continued. When he turned to tap the listening dish, a strange electrical sensation suddenly erupted across the back of his hand. Hound extended the fingers of his hand and then shook it. The tingling sensation dispersed but the noise persisted.

Must be some kind of electromagnetic interference, Hound surmised, knitting his optic ridges. But it isn't the Combaticons. He scanned the horizon line. The tall, thickly-forested mountains yielded no clue as to the source. Hound turned the listening dish over in his hands. The anomalous interference faded as suddenly as it had manifested. Swindle's voice returned to the airwaves.

"Here it is!" the Combaticon proclaimed, still out of Hound's line of sight. The others stopped what they were doing and went over to see for themselves.

"Get it out of––" Onslaught ordered, but the Combaticon's voice dissolved into static.

Hound looked over his listening dish again. Something must be malfunctioning, he concluded. But it was working perfectly just two days ago!

A fierce electrical tremor abruptly shot through Hound's motor contactors. Startled, he straightened and pulled away from the edge, standing up just out of view of the enemy. A strong tingling sensation intensified around his engine casing, then traversed through his power conduit and up his central column. The scout's sensors were electrified. Whatever it was, his periphery scanner gave him a confusing readout on his surroundings. He had the distinct feeling that he was being watched.

Hound spun around and scrutinized his environment. His optics darted around, searching for the invisible watcher. He scanned the maze of endless shadows between the firs and pines behind him. Nothing. Slowly, the scout shifted his weight, scrutinizing everything in his field of vision, looking for anything – perhaps something that was hiding behind a tree trunk or a rock.

"Krok!"the raven croaked deeply from a branch above the scout's head. Hound started at the unexpected sound.

"Easy now, Hound," he calmed himself as he looked up at the oversized bird perched above him, "it's just a bird - a big one. Nothing to be worried about."

"Krok, krok!"the large black bird croaked again. The calls were louder this time. The raven's shaggy throat feathers ruffled and its head bobbed each time it called. "Krok, krok, krok!"

Its distinctive call carried clearly through the air. Hound was certain that it could be heard on the other side of the lake. It cocked its head one way and the other, then turned to watch the green Autobot through one eye.

"Shhh!"he hushed the raven with a finger to his lip components. "You don't want to get the attention of those Decepticons down there," he warned. "They'll blast you."

Crouching down, Hound cautiously peered back over the edge of the gravel road. The Combaticons had pulled the tachyon disruptor from its crate and carried it back to their encampment at the front of the train. They did not appear to notice the raucous bird.

The raven unfolded its wings and spread its glossy dark feathers. The magnificent bird was bigger than any raven Hound had ever seen. Awestruck, Hound watched it hop off one branch and alight to a higher perch on the evergreen. The raven settled on its new branch and preened the underside of one of its wings with its stout black beak before cocking its head again to peer down at Hound.

"You're curious, aren't you?" Hound mused aloud. The strange sensation subsided with the knowledge that there was only him and the raven there. "I bet you don't see too many of my type out here."

Atop the tall tree, the raven gazed elsewhere. Hound decided to check his systems. All of his sensors reported normal status, as if nothing unusual had happened. There's nothing out here, the scout assured himself.

"Krok!"sounded the raven's throaty crow. "Krok, krok!" The sound reverberated eerily through the wilderness.

Hound glanced up at the talkative bird. Its busy chatter made the scout uncomfortable. Glancing down the mountainside at the Decepticons once again, he realized it was time to look for a new observation post. Remaining at this one was too risky. That bird was drawing too much attention to itself. He searched along the ridge line, looking for another place where the road looked down on the Combaticon camp.

"Krok!"the bird above called loudly. "Krok, Krok!"

Far below, Onslaught turned away from the tachyon disruptor and peered up the mountain slope.

"Stop making a racket!"Hound hissed, alarmed.

"Krok, krok, krok, krok!" croaked the raven contentedly.

Onslaught was now looking right at him. Hound froze, hoping that he had not been seen. His army-green coloration was a good camouflage in the woods. Long seconds passed as Hound remained still, waiting. Onslaught continued to stare up at the gravel road.

"Krok!"the raven called out enthusiastically, oblivious to the danger.

Suddenly, the tall Combaticon leader pointed up the mountainside. He must have said something because the other four Combaticons turned and looked as well.

Hound ducked back from the edge of the road as the sharp thunderclap of cannon fire reverberated throughout the valley. A massive incendiary shell hurtled through the air and exploded in the trees above Hound, spraying him with rocks and wooden shrapnel.

He quickly subspaced his listening dish and transformed into jeep mode. The Decepticons were sure to be on his tail at any moment. With a rush of energon giving his fuel pump a kick start, Hound's engine jolted to life and he raced east, back up the forest service road the way he had come. A short way along the road, the slope of the mountain on the uphill side eased and the scout turned abruptly off road for the cover of the forest. Barrelling over fallen tree limbs and through the underbrush, Hound climbed the hill, hoping to obscure his trail.

The dust from Hound's getaway had barely settled when Brawl, Vortex and Onslaught landed on the stretch of road where he had been listening in on them. Guns drawn, they began their search for the enemy.

"He couldn't have gone far," Onslaught concluded. "There's only one road."

"Krok, krok, krok!" came a noise from further up the mountainside.

Brawl turned and fired his electron gun at the sound. The huge raven flapped its wings and fled into the refuge of the forest, disappearing from sight.

"Stupid bird," the green and black Combaticon muttered.

"Brawl," the Combaticon leader commanded the tank, "you go that way." He pointed eastward along the mountain road.

Brawl forgot about the bird. An Autobot was better game. He took off and flew east, high over the road, his weapon at the ready.

Onslaught turned to Vortex. "Make sure he's not still around here, trying to fool us."

His grey teammate laughed maniacally. He jumped into the air and transformed into helicopter mode, catching his weight evenly as his blades chopped through the air. The strong gusts from the helicopter beat down the grass and boughs of nearby trees as Vortex hovered, then gained altitude.

"If he's around, he won't escape," the Combaticon interrogator assured Onslaught, then lifted himself clear of the road and away from the mountainside to get a good view of the area.

Onslaught raised his forearm in front of him and a panel popped open. He opened a split channel with Swindle and Blast Off, who were still down by the train.

"Hurry and secure the tachyon disruptor," he ordered the munitions expert. "We're going Autobot hunting."

"Sure thing, boss," Swindle agreed on his half of the communicator screen.

"A little entertainment is always a welcome diversion," Blast Off responded coolly on the other half as he produced his weapon and checked its setting.

Onslaught closed the channel. Activating his leg thrusters, the Combaticon leader took off and headed west, surveying the road for the Autobot.

* * *

Hound kept his radar alert as he fled through the understory up the mountain. The three Combaticons appeared on his radar periphery behind him. While the scout was relieved to see two of them head away to the east and west, undoubtedly figuring he would have kept to the road, the third Combaticon on his radar was a concern. It hovered over the mountainside, searching for him in ever-widening passes. The throbbing pulse of chopper blades reverberated through the air.

As Hound rolled over the harsh landscape, rough branch ends and swaths of underbrush relentlessly scraped and smacked him. He steered to avoid the rocks, often choosing to pass over fallen branches or thin pine trunks. They snapped and cracked as the jeep climbed over them. But the terrain quickly became steeper and more difficult to pass, so he turned to his right and followed the contour of the slope.

A vertical rock face emerged on the uphill side of the slope, preventing Hound from ascending further up the mountain and over into the next valley. Immediately ahead of him, the trees thinned dangerously, threatening to reveal him to an airborne enemy. He scanned down the slope. The roadway lay a few hundred feet below him, but so did the approaching helicopter. Out of options, the jeep lurched to a sudden stop. It was the end of the line. Hound turned off his engine.

The beat of approaching helicopter blades pounded in his audio receptors. Going off-road had slowed him down too much. He did not have enough time to reach the pass further to the east. The Combaticon would be on top of him before he knew it.

A light wind rustled through the boughs toward Hound. He transformed, knowing that finding shelter immediately was imperative. The helicopter grew louder, though still out of sight. Hound frantically searched his surroundings, looking for somewhere to anchor himself. These pines are too far apart. He'll see me.

He scurried back the way he had come, scanning the mossy rock face in earnest. The droning beats were deafening now. Hurry. In his haste, Hound stumbled over a protruding stump and landed on his hands. Get up! he ordered himself sternly, and promptly got to his feet. A few paces further along brought him to a jagged, water-worn crevice. Hound sized it up. It was too small for him, but he could still wedge himself part way into it. Just enough to hang on, he thought. He could disguise the rest of his body with a hologram. This has to work.

A light in the center of the scout's helmet glowed brightly and an instant later the Autobot disappeared behind a three-dimensional hologram. Instead of a crevice, the rock formation now appeared to jut outward. Hidden behind the illusion, Hound tightly gripped the rock on either side of him as he watched the sky through the treetops. The percussion of helicopter blades made it impossible to hear anything else. Wind gusted through the trees toward Hound, tossing up pine needles and forest debris in a small windstorm.

The wind suddenly howled with ferocity. Hound watched the evergreen trees bend and shake with the force of each gust. He looked down at the lively ground around him. Dancing needles, pinecones and loose dirt were swept aloft in a cone of violently churning air. The airborne Combaticon was using his blades to create a tornado beneath him. If not for the partial shelter of the crevice, Hound would be sucked out of the forest canopy and dropped from dizzying heights to the hard earth below. His gaze followed the writhing funnel upward, where he glimpsed the ominous shape of a Sikorsky Black Hawk high above the swirling treetops. It was Vortex.

As the Decepticon's whirling maelstrom closed around him, its massive suction dislodged one of Hound's hands from the rock. Hound immediately found a new handhold, but it was eroded shale and began to crumble beneath his fist. His servos tensed as he tried to keep himself lodged in place. A tempest of rock and dirt eddied around him, blinding him. He winced and gritted his dental plates together. His optics were temporarily useless, but his radar was not. Hound activated his tracking device. But he could not get a radar lock without first disengaging his hologram.

The tornado pulled harder at Hound as it moved over him. Agonizing seconds crawled by as his tenuous hold grew weaker. The loose shale crumbled away in his impotent grip. He grimaced, realizing that he had to take action or fall prey to Vortex.

Hound abruptly switched off his hologram and pivoted his shoulder-mounted missile toward the hovering helicopter's prone underside. The missile burst out of its launcher and cleared the forest canopy in a heartbeat, striking Vortex with a thunderous crash. The tornado instantly subsided. Above him, thick smoke billowed from the floundering helicopter.

"Aaaaagggghhh!"Vortex hollered as he lost stability and plunged into the trees.

Hound lost sight of the Decepticon and then heard the tell-tale sound of Vortex transforming into robot mode before impacting with the forest floor.

The scout fled back eastward through the trees, pushing apart the dense boughs to find his way as best as he could. He was sure that the Decepticons would be able to see his location from above by the movement of the trees, but he had to put distance between himself and his adversaries.

* * *

Hearing the echoing explosion, Brawl turned from his course and headed back. In the distance, he spied the column of black smoke issuing from the trees near the summit on the ridge.

"If that Autobot's not finished by that blast, I'll finish the job," the Combaticon snorted to himself, assuming that Hound was smouldering in the forest. "There won't be enough of him left to recognize."

As he flew toward the wreckage, Brawl caught a glimpse of something big moving through the trees below. Glancing up at the cloud of smoke gathering over the site of the explosion, he decided the unusual thing in the forest was not of interest. He wanted to see if there was anything more than scrap left of the pesky Autobot scout.

Moments later, Brawl landed near the source of the explosion. There was not much room for him to move around in the densely-wooded area, so he began snapping off tree trunks to clear some space. While he was busting up trees like so many matchsticks, a grey and black form rose up out of the smouldering underbrush, wheezing and cursing. With half an evergreen held in each hand, Brawl watched the grey Combaticon stagger to his feet and dust himself off. Vortex's head snapped around to face Brawl.

"What are you looking at?" the Combaticon sputtered as tendrils of smoke drifted up from his burned circuitry. "You gotta problem?"

"You wanna make one?" Brawl goaded Vortex.

Vortex laughed off the challenge. "You have no idea how badly I could mess you up. But count yourself lucky. I'm not in the mood today."

Brawl watched as Vortex brazenly walked past him and off into the forest. He had half a mind to shoot the no-good slagger in back. Just for kicks. But as he watched Vortex stride into the trees, a lingering doubt crept into his mind. There was no way an Autobot could have stood up to Vortex and won. But the little jeep did have a hologram generator. Brawl's servos tensed.

"Wait a minute," he snarled, tossing the broken trees to one side. He drew his gun and aimed it at Vortex's back. "That Autobot can cast illusions. I'm not going to fall for this!"

Vortex froze. "What are you talking about, you moron?" he retorted with disdain.

Brawl's finger tensed around the trigger. "You're that filthy Autobot scout, aren't you?"

"Put that thing down, you oaf!" Vortex demanded, spinning around to face his accuser. "I'm Vortex!"

"Sure you are," Brawl responded sardonically. "And I'm Optimus Prime. You can quit casting that hologram to make yourself look like one of us because it isn't going to save you, Autobot."

"You've lost your processor!" Vortex sputtered. "That Autobot hit me with a mortar! He's still around here… somewhere."

"He's around here alright," Brawl mockingly agreed, "and I'm looking right at him."

"Don't be stupid!" Vortex sneered.

"If you're a Decepticon, then why don't you fly out of here?"

Vortex glared at Brawl. The mortar had damaged his flight system. "I don't have to prove anything to you," he huffed.

"That's all I need to know," Brawl replied as he squeezed the trigger.

Vortex toppled to the ground and was still.

"Ha, ha," Brawl laughed, gloating. "Take that!"

But there was no hologram. Vortex was still Vortex. The only change was the blackened hole blasted in his chest.

"Well, whadda you know?" Brawl chided himself. "Guess I was wrong after all."

Vortex's red optic band flickered. "Uhh.... Onslaught?" he groaned.

Brawl looked up to see the Combaticon leader descend to the forest floor. Onslaught glanced down at Vortex, then spun around to face Brawl. He was clearly displeased.

"Do not settle your squabbles on my time," he warned Brawl. "Or you'll find yourself… replaced."

"That lousy Autobot shot Vortex!" Brawl declared indignantly. "I tried to catch him, but he escaped into the woods!"

"No excuses! Remember, you answer to me," the Combaticon leader reminded the tank, aggravation mounting in his vocalizer. "And only I tell you who to shoot and when to shoot them. You will do as I say."

Brawl nodded.

"No more messing around," growled Onslaught. "We have an Autobot to exterminate. One Autobot! This shouldn't take all day."

"I'll fill that Autobot full of holes," Brawl snarled. Then he remembered the large object moving through the trees and he looked to the east. "I know where he went!" Brawl declared and took off to look for the fool rushing so obviously through the forest.

Onslaught glanced down at Vortex. "Get up," he ordered coldly before taking off to join Brawl in the hunt.

Vortex's optic band flickered then glowed steadily.

* * *

Down by the train, Swindle closed the lid on the crate containing the tachyon disrupter. Arms crossed, Blast Off leaned against the train engine and watched Swindle work.

"You could give me a hand," Swindle needled.

"What do I look like? An errand boy?" Blast Off retorted. "You do it."

"Lazy space boat," Swindle sneered as he banged the nailed lid onto the crate with his metal fist.

"Oh, don't worry, Swindle," Blast Off added facetiously. "You're doing a fine job."

"One of these days you're going to get what's coming to you," Swindle retorted.

"And what's that, Swindle?" he shot back. "Are you going to be the one to give it to me?"

Swindle ignored him and picked up the crate. Blast Off stood up and huffed. He did not need to be there. Swindle was doing all of the work, anyway. Overcome with boredom, Blast Off transformed into shuttle mode and took off. He was anxious to see what was left of the Autobot after the recent explosion up on the mountain.

Disgruntled and muttering to himself, Swindle carried the crate toward the front of the train and placed it carefully next to the trees. Done. Now for the good part. His optics shone as he mused about what might still await him aboard the train – the part that had not yet been ransacked, of course. The temptation to steal was too great to resist. All that merchandise... so little time.

"One thing's for sure," he chuckled to himself, "I'm going to get what I deserve." It was a veritable shopping spree, but without having to pay for anything. The others can take care of that Autobot.

He hurried down the line to the unbroken first box car and picked its lock with a well-placed shot from his gun. He would eventually join the others… but not until he had finished his plundering. By then, he hoped, they had done the hard work of exterminating the Autobot.

* * *

High up on the mountain ridge, Hound dashed through the trees and down the sloping landscape, heading back toward the road. He had to flee. He had just given his location away to the Decepticons. Rough evergreen boughs scratched and scraped him as he ploughed between them. The sound of snapping and breaking wood underfoot grated his audio sensors. His noisy escape might give him away, but there was nothing Hound could do about it for the time being.

I have to lose some altitude, he told himself. The terrain lower down the mountain, with its ravines and hidden crevasses, would provide ample opportunities to evade the Decepticons. If he remained on the top of the mountain it would be only a matter of time before the Combaticons found him. Even if he had remained perfectly still, a holographic disguise would not have prevented them from discovering him if they thoroughly searched the area. It was urgent that he remove himself from their vicinity.

Hound momentarily lost his footing on a patch of loose earth as it collapsed under the weight of his metallic body. He teetered as he skidded down the slope, narrowly missing several trees on the way. The small rockslide that accompanied his descent loosened several rocks, which tumbled down next to him. As dirt and debris raced him to the bottom of the slide area, Hound managed to regain enough balance to clumsily leap down onto a small plateau. He steadied himself and pressed on down the next, steeper slope, his radar guiding him through thick underbrush and saplings beneath the towering trees. The road to the pass was now sparsely visible through the wooded terrain that lay below him.

* * *

In the skies above the sprawling wilderness, Brawl searched persistently for the rustling trees he had just seen. The Autobot may have had a head start, but he was not going to get away. There was only so far an Autobot could travel on foot through the densely-wooded landscape.

Brawl flew in an easterly direction until he was sure that he had overshot the Autobot, then turned and circled back. He had not kept track of his location, and it was more difficult than he figured to find the same place again. The landscape beneath him was still and all the trees looked identical.

Onslaught caught up to Brawl and the two hovered over a section of the expansive forest.

"Well, where is he?" the Combaticon leader asked impatiently.

"He should be right here," Brawl protested, confused.

Both Decepticons rotated mid-air to scan their surroundings. Just then, Onslaught caught sight of several trees just north of them shaking from the force of something large.

"There!" exclaimed Onslaught, pointing.

"Time for annihilation!" Brawl announced enthusiastically. He made a beeline for the spot, with Onslaught close behind him.

As the Decepticons touched down between the trees, the rustling boughs ceased their movement. At first, the two robots could not see anything between the overlapping branches. Brawl transformed into tank mode and pivoted his massive, turret-mounted gun toward the shadowy figure standing in front of them.

Onslaught swept the branches apart to see their target. Daylight suddenly flooded the understory to reveal that the source of the moving trees was not an Autobot at all. It was a large bear.

Unafraid, the big animal stood up on its hind legs and squinted at the robots.

"A bear?" Onslaught asked with disappointment.

Brawl lined up his sights on the beast and fired a massive artillery shell. The boom from the explosive blast shook the forest for miles. Sound waves echoed off the distant mountains with a resounding crack. An enormous swath of forest had been blown wide open; the tips of the surrounding branches sizzled ember-orange. There was no trace left of the animal.

"You wasted ammo on that pathetic beast," Onslaught chided Brawl.

"It's never a waste," Brawl answered, a tendril of smoke trailing from the end of his gun barrel. He transformed back into robot mode.

A shadow passed overhead. Brawl and Onslaught looked up to see Blast Off flying nearby. As the shuttle approached the site of the explosion, the bald patch on the mountain was impossible to miss. Onslaught and Brawl stood at one end of the oblong scar.

Blast Off could not believe his optic sensors. "I thought you were hunting an Autobot, not shooting at birds," the brown and purple space shuttle spat at them from a distance.

Not one to endure a condescending jab, rage swelled up inside of Brawl. "Let me blast him," he begged Onslaught. "Just one shot is all I need." He eagerly drew his electron gun.

"No!" Onslaught commanded, his patience tried by the incessant posturing of his warriors. "Save it for the Autobot scout. Now fan out. He's around here somewhere."

Brawl obediently lowered his weapon, but shook his fist at the passing shuttle as a warning. "Someday, you slagger. Someday."

"Ha, ha, ha!" the space shuttle laughed, brushing off Brawl's feeble attempt at intimidation as he cruised past. Blast Off's scanners swept the region of the mountain beneath him. Vortex was to the west, flightless and wading through the trees toward the road. Brawl was below, blowing up mindless targets while Onslaught watched.

"Sometimes I don't know why I stick around with this circus of misfits," he sneered to himself. The shuttle banked away from the others and took off to search for Hound on his own.

* * *

Hound barrelled out of the trees and leapt down onto the gravel road. Now that he could see where he was, the scout turned off his radar guidance system.

"At last," he breathed the words through his vocalizer. Even in the face of danger, the human behaviors he had learned remained solidly with him.

Hound bent over and fumbled with a compartment in the back of his leg. He opened the cover and knelt down to reach inside. "Where is that device that Wheeljack gave me?" he asked aloud. His fingers feverishly passed over his energon canister, groping for the spherical shape of the device.

Wheeljack's experimental sound shield generated a sphere of absolute silence around its user. It was a perfect stealth addition to Hound's arsenal of reconnaissance gadgetry. And it would give him the advantage he desperately needed to escape from the Decepticons. He had forgotten about it until now.

"Aha!" the scout announced as he felt the round shape and its protruding handles. He grabbed it by one of the handles and closed the compartment as he stood up, scrutinizing the device for the activation switch.

There were two yellow buttons, one on each handle. "Press down both buttons at the same time, and it will activate the shield," he said aloud, remembering Wheeljack's instructions.

Hound pressed his thumbs down on the two buttons and waited. A moment later, his surroundings rippled for an instant and then were still. Unsure if it was working, Hound reached down and pick up a pebble from the road. He tossed it at a boulder a short distance away. The pebble silently ricocheted off its surface and rolled to a stop.

The sound shield worked, but left him deaf to his surroundings. Hound would have to get Wheeljack to modify the device. The shield in its present form would be useless for future information surveillance missions. But it was exactly what he would need to evade capture.

Glancing at the road winding off into the distance, the scout gritted his jaw mechanism. The mountain pass higher and further to the east was too visible. There was no way he could risk being out in the open with airborne enemies on the horizon. He would have to wait them out until dark, then pass through the sub-alpine forest where they could not see him. But the terrain ahead was steep and not easily negotiable. Striking out through the wilderness would take a great deal of time. Hound grimaced.

He raised his hood and tucked the sound shield generator inside his chest compartment for safekeeping. Then he removed his hologun from its subspace compartment, switched its setting from beam weapon to hologram generator, and squeezed the trigger. A translucent green image of that region of mountainside appeared before him.

Hound's optics darted over the contour of the holographic landscape before him, looking for a hiding spot. There was a fold in the terrain, likely where a creek ran down the slope, not far away. Located in a dangerously steep section of the mountainside, there was nowhere for a Decepticon to land and search for him. If he found a spot to conceal himself where he could not be seen from the air, then he was home free. He would just have to wait for nightfall. As Hound mentally marked the route to the ravine, the hologram flickered and then disappeared.

"What the––?" he started to ask, but an electromagnetic pulse buzzed in his circuits and interfered with his vocalizer. Fearing that a Decepticon was closing on him, Hound looked up. The sound shield rippled, momentarily disturbed by something, then remained steady.

Sensors alert, the scout gradually looked around, studying his surroundings. He kept his hologun at the ready. The world was deathly quiet within his soundless sphere. Across the valley and over the lake, the wilderness was silent. His pursuers were sweeping the forest high above him and over the tree line, but the foliage surrounding him remained still. There was no obvious sign or source of the strange force that caused the disruption.

A raven glided across the sky above the trees, tilting its head to look at him through one eye as it passed over the gravel road.

Hound lowered his hologun, but was concerned. He could disregard an electrical disruption when it was confined to his listening dish. But now there had been another, and he began to worry that there was something wrong with him. He blinked and put his hologun away. There was no time to ponder. The presence of Combaticons nearby was a more pressing threat to his survival.

He had to get out of the open and back into the trees, and quickly. The ravine was not far. The scout hopped over the side of the road and down the steep slope into the woods. Barely able to contain his momentum, Hound knocked over saplings and ploughed through the underbrush as he stumbled down through the forested landscape.

* * *

As Blast Off rounded the mountainside, he glimpsed a green, metallic figure leap from the gravel road and into the forest. The Decepticon cut his thrusters and sailed toward the Autobot, watching from a distance so as not to be noticed.

Far behind him, Vortex was heading back to the camp. Onslaught and Brawl were searching elsewhere. The shuttle chortled to himself. He was not going to give away what he had found; the others would instantly descend upon the Autobot and spoil the fun. No, he thought, I found the Autobot, so this is my kill to make. All he had to do was wait for the right moment. I'll strike down that unwitting scout and leave him dead in his tracks.

* * *

Deep in the forest, Hound trekked over fallen trunks and stepped around rotting stumps as he progressed toward the ravine. The reaching evergreens on the steep slopes dwarfed the Autobot beneath their broad canopy. He could take his time now that the sounds of rustling vegetation and snapping branches were contained within the orb of silence. No Decepticon would hear him.

Ahead, through a clearing between some pines, Hound glimpsed the adjacent side of the ravine. Relief washed over him as he waded through a thick swath of huckleberry bushes toward the opening between the trees. He was almost there. All he had to do was negotiate down the side of the ravine. Hound grabbed two pine trees to steady himself as he peered down over the sharp edge. He was standing at the top of a rocky precipice. Tree tops from the landing far below stood at foot level and dropped away quickly toward a stream of water trickling along a rocky creek bed. There was no easy way down.

While Hound studied the lay of the land for another route to take, a brown and purple ship dropped silently out of the sky into view above the ravine. The ship hovered with its nose angled down at Hound. As soon as Hound caught sight of him, Blast Off transformed into robot mode, deftly withdrew his ionic blaster and took aim at the cowering Autobot.

Hound ducked back into the trees, followed closely by a series of blasts. "How did he know I was here?" Hound cursed aloud as he fled back the way he had come. The Combaticon unleashed another volley of shots. Their sizzling impacts flashed and smoldered in the ground around the fleeing scout.

Hound grabbed for his weapon and flicked the setting to beam. More shots glanced past him and he blindly returned fire. Following a brief pause, a volley of blasts cut through the forest uphill of him, hitting several large firs. The severed treetops plummeted to the ground and headed for Hound, rolling and tumbling wildly. He bounded toward the cliff to avoid being struck by the rogue trunks as they crashed downhill. Hound's sound shield was up and he heard nothing, but he could still feel the thunderous vibrations.

Hound realized with dismay that he was trapped. Blast Off had the superior position and could fell trees on him until he was pinned and could not fight back. It would be suicide to try escaping up the unforgiving slope he had just descended. Soon the other Combaticons would arrive and mow the forest down just to destroy him. The scout's fuel pump surged. There was only one course of action: he had to fight.

Another volley seared through the forest around him. Shattered fir trees cracked and split, spraying the air with wooden shards and splinters. Hound crouched and reloaded his shoulder-mounted missile launcher with a shell out of subspace and prepared to attack.

Before the third round of ionic gunfire could raze the trees, Hound leapt forward and fired his missile at the Decepticon hovering overhead. He deftly recovered from the missile's recoil and opened fire with his hologun. But Blast Off was nimble and angled his torso away from the shell's trajectory. Hound's frantic shots missed their mark as the agile Combaticon danced in the sky. The missile continued its harmless flight over the lake in the distance.

Blast Off swiftly retaliated with a rapid succession of blasts aimed at the exposed rock beneath Hound's feet. Hound glanced down to see fissures eke their way through the granite bedrock. Before he could lunge for safer footing, Blast Off unleashed another ionic barrage. With a resounding crack, the fractured ground gave way and he fell from the precipice to the forest floor below.

Hound was lost in a blur of rock and debris as the avalanche ruthlessly crashed through the evergreens, smashing everything in its path. As the deluge of rock consumed the forest, terrible blows from unknown obstacles cracked and whipped against Hound's body. The force of blow after blow knocked his processor offline as he tumbled over and over down the murderous terrain.

Hound came online a moment later, but he was still falling. The forest tumbled and swayed all around him in a confusing jumble. The sky was nowhere to be seen. Loose earth rolled underneath him like ball bearings, propelling him into a trough where he bounced off jutting rocks and protruding roots. His descent seemed to last an eternity, but just when he thought his servos could no longer withstand punishment the rockslide began to slow.

As he rolled over in the debris, rough branches scraped and caught his arms and legs, slowing his descent. Hound caught a glimpse of sky. His hood was ajar, partially blocking the view in front of him. Moments later, he jolted to a stop when a large log hooked into his midsection.

Hound shook his head and feebly closed his hood to see where he had come to rest. Perched in a tangle of logs and intertwining branches over the creek, he watched as small rocks and a thin stream of dirt skittered down the ravaged mountainside: the last remnant of the avalanche. A curious object clinked and clattered down the slope then plummeted out of sight, smashing on the rocks below with a tinny clang.

The sound of the breeze rustling the boughs of the firs and water trickling beneath him filled Hound's audio receptors. He gazed down at his damaged hood and realized that Wheeljack's device had just shattered. He had to get away.

Hound vigorously tried to pry himself free of the logjam. As he struggled, Blast Off descended in front of him and hovered mid-air.

"You survived that better than I thought you would," the space warrior stated coldly. "Now hurry up and get out of that mess," he demanded, "you're making this much too easy for me." Blast Off looked up at the mountain to check that the other Combaticons were not coming. The rockslide had been awfully noisy.

Stunned, Hound pulled at the branches, but he was stuck. His hologun was gone, lost in the avalanche.

"I said hurry up, pathetic Auto-scrap!" Blast Off ordered and aimed his blaster at Hound. "Don't make me do it for you!"

"Don't shoot!" Hound pleaded, raising his hands. "Please."

The Combaticon laughed heartily. "Please? Please!"

Hound had no other option. He was stuck and could not free himself. "Please," Hound pleaded, "I haven't done anything to you."

The pleas bolstered the Combaticon's confidence. "Beg for your life!" he commanded forcefully. He wanted to see how much fear he had struck in the Autobot before he terminated his worthless life.

Hound stuttered.

"I said beg!" Blast Off demanded, and he put a hole through the log next to Hound. Weakened, the branch cracked under Hound's weight and he dropped several inches.

Hound raised his hands higher. "I surrender. Please don't kill me," he begged.

Blast Off laughed. "More!"

"Don't kill me," the scout repeated. "If you let me go, I'll erase my memory bank. No one will know what you were up to out here."

Blast Off was not convinced. "That's not good enough," he responded sourly. He shot at the net of branches holding Hound. "Now it's time to go for a ride."

Hound's optics snapped wide and he stared down the steep, rocky descent in front of him. Over the edge of the drop in the creek bed he could see the tops of trees hundreds of yards away and the blue lake far below. "No! Don't do it!"

Laughing, Blast Off's mood improved slightly. "Now that's more like it," he gloated and weakened the log with a second shot in the same spot. "But I can't grant mercy. It's just not possible." The trunk cracked and bent precariously. It was the trigger holding back Hound and a pile of avalanche rubble.

"You see, it's not my fault that you're an Autobot," Blast Off shrugged as he explained nonchalantly. "Everyone knows what Decepticons do to Autobots. It's just the way things are."

Hound struggled to get free.

Without further ado, Blast Off fired a final shot at the log and freed the jam. Moving up and out of the way he coolly watched as Hound was swept helplessly out over the edge of the creek. The thunderclap of rocks splitting asunder and huge sections of wood breaking apart echoed across the valley.

He descended to the level below to see if there was anything left of the Autobot to finish off. Amidst the strewn rocks and wood lay the bulk of the scout's frame, face down. Three fingers from one hand were missing and bent servo rods and cables protruded from the elbow joint and leg where the limbs had been sheared by twisting trunks during the fall. A stream of hydraulic fluid trickled from the torn limbs and seeped into the ground. A dull pink glow emanated from beneath the Autobot's torso.

"Hardly worth the effort," the Combaticon grumbled without remorse as his feet touched down gently on the ground next to the broken Autobot body. He kicked its motionless head with a thud. The force tilted the head at an unnatural angle and he glared down at the dull optics. "The spineless wimp practically gave up without a fight. He deserved to die."

Moments later, Onslaught appeared above the severed trees over the precipice, soon followed by Brawl. Blast Off figured they would come sooner or later.

"You're too late," the space warrior chided them and hooked his thumb at himself. "I found the scout and I took care of him myself."

"Fine work, Blast Off," Onslaught commended his soldier as he viewed the remains from above. "Now with that out of the way it's time to get down to business. Back to the camp."

Blast Off joined the other two Combaticons in the air above the ravine. Without a second glance at the wreckage, they flew back to the train to collect their spoils.

When he was sure the Decepticons were gone, Hound shut off the hologram projector in his helmet. Next to him, the mirage of the scout in pieces vanished and Hound stared for a moment at the rock where the head had been.

It's a good thing he didn't kick that rock so hard that it went down the hill, Hound thought as he stood up.

The scout methodically assessed his damage. Dents pocked his dusty and dirt-coated skin plating. He first extended his arms and flexed his hands, then checked over his legs and joints. He found that he was sufficiently intact, although his mechanical systems had taken quite a beating. Hound did not know if he could still transform. He would need to find a flat area to check. The side of a mountain was no place to risk losing his balance or traction while his body shifted between modes.

Hound looked toward the west. The afternoon was waning. He began to search the immediate area of the slide for his hologun, moving aside large fir boughs and scanning up the slope for any sign of it. But it was nowhere to be found. For all he knew, it was buried under many feet of rock and debris, likely crushed. He sighed. Maybe it's time to call for help, he thought. Beaten and lucky to be functional after run-ins with both Vortex and Blast Off, it would be the safest way back home. Skyfire could give him a lift. The airborne Autobot might even arrive with back-up as part of a rescue effort.

Hound frowned. He leaned over and picked up a handful of fine dirt and scattered it as he watched the scenario play out in his mind's optic. He saw himself riding comfortably and safety in the air guardian's cargo hold, then the indignity of returning to the Ark a wreck because he had failed as a scout.

Wings beat behind him and he turned to see another raven settling in a tree nearby.

"Krok," the bird said and then was quiet as it looked this way and that.

Hound blinked. A raven – a simple bird – had given him away to the Decepticons. How would he explain that to the other Autobots? Surely they would laugh. Earth creatures were not adversaries to Autobots, yet one of these black birds had threatened his survival with the attention it attracted to itself.

A scout's pride stemmed from his ability to take care of himself in remote regions, to be self-sufficient, and to elude the enemy. Hound's duty required competence at those tasks. Calling for help should be a last resort, not the first choice in a situation like this. Convenience was not his style.

The bird spread its great, black wings and took flight. It glided over the trees down the mountain. As Hound watched it grow small, soaring into the distance before disappearing into the forest below, he realized it was time to go.

East was the direction of choice. He gazed up at the mountainside. He would have to find a way back up to the ridge road. It was the only way out of there, after all. His maps had not shown an intersection with another forest service road for miles and miles. If he had to camp out for several days to make sure the Combaticons were gone, Hound was prepared. He had his energon ration. It would give him time to implement minor field repairs, as all scouts were trained to do.

Hound crossed out of the slide and headed into the forest toward a hill on the rolling face of the next mountain in the chain. Its gentler slopes, populated less densely with trees, would be easier to traverse. However, with the sun going down in a few more hours, it would take him until the next day to climb it to the top.

As the scout departed, his attention focused on the trek ahead, several drops of red fluid leaked from a crack in the coolant tank behind the jeep's front grill. Running down the inside wall of his frame, they splattered in the fine dirt where he had been standing, leaving a dyed trail in the ground.

* * *

Back at the Combaticon camp, Vortex crashed through the trees on his final descent down to the lakeside. He was in a foul mood.

The violent felling of trees was impossible for Swindle not to notice as he picked over his pile of goods ransacked from the train. Seated comfortably next to his stash, he looked up and glanced back momentarily from his accounting then coolly ignored the angry helicopter.

When Vortex at last strode out of the trees it was with several alders, each ripped out of the soil by the roots, clutched angrily in both hands. Once free from the encumbrance of the forest, he chucked the annoyances to one side.

He glared at Swindle. The yellow and purple combat support jeep paid him no attention. "You got a tool kit on you?" he seethed.

Swindle glanced up. "What would I need one of those for?"

In a rage, Vortex marched up to the arms dealer. In one swift movement, he grabbed Swindle by the back, hoisted him to his feet and spun him around. Glaring into Swindle's optics he reiterated himself. "I'm talking to you. Do you have a tool kit or not?"

"Hey!" Swindle pushed Vortex away and brushed off the interrogator's touch. "I said no." He sized up the helicopter Combaticon. Vortex's torso was blackened and the metal distressed around a puncture large enough for Swindle to fit his fist through. Charred components were visible inside. "What happened to you?"

"That's none of your business," Vortex huffed and then turned his attention to Swindle's loot. "I'm taking a look through this," he declared and brushed past Swindle.

"Hey, that's mine!" Swindle protested, grabbing Vortex's arm as he reached for the pile. But Vortex wrenched his arm free and knocked Swindle away. Angered, Swindle pointed emphatically at the train. "Go get your own!"

But Vortex only laughed and glanced back at the mad Combaticon. "Why, when all the good stuff's right here?" He picked out a handful of interesting-looking gadgets and looked them over to see if he could use them to fix himself.

There was a click from behind Vortex. He straightened and turned to see Swindle staring at him down the barrel of his arm-mounted scatter blaster.

"I said that's mine," Swindle glared at the Combaticon in his sights.

Vortex stood his ground, putting himself squarely in front of the loot. He wagered that the greasy black market trader would not shoot him and risk damaging the goods behind him. He rested one hand on his hip plating.

"Tell you what," Vortex bullied Swindle. He held out the clenched handful of Earth gadgetry in front of the dealer. "How about I just take these… and we'll call it even?"

Swindle was not amused by the intimidation tactic. He had a better deal in mind. "You can take those," he grinned slyly, tilting his head away from his blaster, "but I'm expecting them back with interest when you're done."

"That's ridiculous," Vortex declared with disgust and walked away. The gadgets were his now.

Swindle glanced at the crated tachyon disruptor in the distance and realized he could not fire at the other Combaticon without risking hitting their newly-acquired merchandise. He lowered the blaster and hurled himself at Vortex.

"Give those back!" Swindle ordered, grasping desperately for the devices.

Vortex held out his arm to keep them out of Swindle's reach as he wrestled with the other Combaticon.

"How about I sell them to you," the helicopter chuckled as he mocked the dealer. The scuffle was turning out to be quite a welcome channel for his anger. Vortex darted his arm around, watching with amusement as Swindle tried to grab it each time.

"I stole them," Swindle sneered at him as he struggled with Vortex. "You have no right!"

Vortex twisted himself away from Swindle, who was caught off guard by the manoeuvre. As Swindle stumbled forward, unbalanced for a moment, Vortex raised his hands together over his head. Then, in a swift blow, he pounded them like a mallet on Swindle's helmet.

"Take that!" he growled with vengeance.

Swindle groaned and his legs buckled. Then he fell to his knees. Now that his selfish comrade had been beaten, Vortex turned and walked away to find a suitable place to sit down and repair himself.

Swindle teetered on his knees, the index finger of his left hand twitching, as his systems recovered. His diagnostic computer quickly rerouted his cerebral functioning through a different pathway while his automatic repair system looked after mending the superficial damage. Swindle recovered and shook his head. With Vortex's back turned, the arms dealer's optics locked on the unguarded hand holding the stolen gadgets. He could not let Vortex get away with the theft of his property. The slagger would do it again if he learned that Swindle gave up when pressured.

Grimacing, he leapt at Vortex. Unaware of the impending blow, Vortex's hand was knocked open and the devices clattered to the ground.

Swindle grinned as he held up the recovered goods. "At last," he said, a sense of fairness returning to his vocalizer. Now he could return to his accounting.

Vortex regained his balance and pulled his semi-automatic glue gun from its subspace compartment as he turned around to meet Swindle. Now the greedy, no-good double-dealer had his back turned to him. He would give Swindle a taste of his own medicine. Vortex fired a short round of adhesive capsules at the other Combaticon. The barrage exploded mid-air and streams of sticky cement ejected toward Swindle as he sat down with his loot. At the last possible instant, Swindle looked up.

"Aaghhh!" Swindle yelled in alarm as the super-sticky glue bombarded him.

Gooey threads of adhesive strung across Swindle and latched onto the pile of stolen goods behind him. He fought to free himself from it but, like a fly caught in a spider's web, the more he moved, the more he became stuck.

Gun still in hand, Vortex rested his fists on his hip plates and let out a hearty laugh at Swindle's expense. "If you want those things so badly, you can be joined with them – permanently."

"You rusty bucket!" Swindle cursed Vortex. He extended his arms, hoping to elongate the strings of glue enough to break the curing strands. But when that did not work, Swindle attempted to stretch it with his body. But the curing glue was becoming less forgiving. He shifted and it suddenly recoiled, snapping him back against the pile of merchandise, where it hardened over top of him. Swindle was glued into his treasure.

The fun was over. Vortex subspaced his weapon and casually walked around the back of the pile where Swindle could not see him.

"What are you doing back there?" Swindle asked worriedly, trying unsuccessfully to turn his head. "Don't take anything! It's still mine!"

Vortex reappeared moments later, waggling some tools in his hand. "You had what I wanted after all," he goaded the trapped Combaticon. "Thanks, Swindle."

"What about honor among thieves?" Swindle called after his Combaticon teammate.

"Honor?" Vortex snorted, his head turned to one side as he walked away. "The honor of gluing you to that pile was all mine." He chuckled dryly.

Swindle cursed at Vortex as the helicopter sat across the camp from him with his back turned as he fixed himself. Vortex was very experienced in the various workings of Transformers, having been a master of interrogation in his former life on Cybertron. He had to know how inner mechanisms worked so as to pull the right puppet strings in his victims. Now he would reverse the sequence of methodical disassembly to repair his flight drive.

Vortex was still working on his damaged torso when the other three Combaticons returned to the camp. He looked up as Onslaught, Brawl and Blast Off touched down near the train tracks.

"Well, did you get him?" he asked the others eagerly.

"I got him," Blast Off boasted proudly, and glanced at Brawl. "I didn't even need a tank cannon to do it, either."

That was the last straw for Brawl. Blast Off was going down. He wound up and punched the braggart square in the faceplate.

The blow struck Blast Off across the jaw mechanism and sent him stumbling.

"You'll regret that," Blast Off warned as he cupped his hand around his battle mask. A small fastener popped out from underneath the mask and slipped between his fingers.

Circling his fists, ready to fight, Brawl followed the unbalanced space warrior. When the moment was right, he would put his fist in Blast Off's faceplate again. That ought to silence the slagger, he seethed.

Blast Off glared back at Brawl, torn between keeping an eye on his opponent and retrieving the broken fastener that had fallen to the ground.

Brawl hunched down and stalked Blast Off, ready to strike at any moment. "You got lucky," he hissed at the other Combaticon. "If I had found the Autobot first, there would've been nothing left to identify. You barely did anything."

"I can't help it if they die easily," Blast Off shrugged off the insult. "They're made to be flimsy."

"You sicko," Brawl snarled. "You didn't even shoot him, did you? You played with him until he went offline."

"Brawl! Blast Off!" Onslaught commanded. He had drawn his sonic stun gun. "Cut the nonsense or I'll give both of you something to worry about!"

The two glanced sideways at the Combaticon leader, but their attention was still fixated on each other. Brawl lunged at Blast Off, but Blast Off narrowly dodged the punch and drew his ionic blaster to settle the argument. Onslaught raised his weapon and opened fire. The two robots shuddered as the high amplitude sonic waves disrupted their circuitry and seized their electromechanical systems. Onslaught lowered his stun gun and approached the frozen pair, plucking Blast Off's weapon from his outstretched hand.

Vortex grunted and went back to fixing himself, disappointed that the fight had ended prematurely. The outcome of the match would have been interesting to watch.

Onslaught turned and, aiming the ionic blaster at the hardened glue binding Swindle, fired a short burst. The hot blast stream cut easily through the glue. Swindle pulled himself free and turned to check on his loot. Vortex's glue had seeped through all of it.

"My stuff," he moaned, "it's ruined!" He turned to look at Vortex through narrowed purple optics. "You're going to repay me."

"Fat chance," Vortex huffed, not bothering to turn around.

"Swindle," Onslaught interjected.

"Yes, boss?" the shorter Combaticon responded.

Onslaught pointed to the east. "You can have what's left of the Autobot. His parts are lying at the bottom of a rockslide halfway up the mountain, a few miles that way."

"Thank you, Onslaught," Swindle responded gratefully. He scoffed at Vortex. "That starts to make up for it."

"Make it quick," Onslaught instructed Swindle. "So we can load up and get out of here before nightfall."

Swindle nodded and took off. As he flew away from the camp, Onslaught looked to the west where the sun would disappear behind the mountain for the day. Dusk would soon fall in the valley.

Shadow was gradually falling over the forested mountainside as Swindle followed its undulating contour. The far eastern slopes were still bathed in the warm yellow of day's end. The Decepticon soared high above the darkening forest slopes below him. Curious, he peered down one of the deep crevasses nestled in the folds of the mountain. The features at the base of the towering trees were obscured by swallowing shadow. When night finally fell, the wilderness would be engulfed in blackness.

As he stared down into the dark evergreens, Swindle caught himself absent-mindedly descending toward them. He pulsed his leg thrusters and gained altitude until the road was just above optic level. Moments later, a beam of late afternoon sunlight glimmered off something metallic on the forested slope. It was nowhere near a rockslide but it was worth checking out, all the same. You never know when you'll find a gem, he thought.

Swindle closed on the object and raised his pitch until he stood balanced on the lift from his leg thrusters. Tilting his head to one side, he took a closer look at the metallic object. The rusted remains of a teal hulk lay half-buried on the slope. Two faded tires were visible. He gazed at it for a moment. It was the carcass of some old vehicle that had plummeted off the road above long ago, and come to rest among the firs and pines.

There was nothing of interest in a pile of scrap, so Swindle jetted away from the trees and continued eastward. After several minutes, he found what he was seeking. In the shadow of the mountain, a deforested gulch dropped into the tumultuous aftermath of a rockslide. He descended toward the toppled trees, then followed the path of debris down the slope to the bottom. The forest was eerily quiet.

The Decepticon set down on the rock pile at the end of the slide and looked around, puzzled. There were no parts there; no remains of an Autobot could be seen anywhere. This has to be it, he thought to himself as he looked back up at the freshly broken cliff on the steep slope above.

Swindle rummaged through the broken boulders, hoping to find a remnant of the Autobot scout underneath. He discarded large rocks to each side, growing frustrated that he could not find his prize in the pile of debris. Then a strange sensation passed through his circuits and he dropped the rock he was holding and stood up straight. A charge rippled up his central column.

"What is that?" the Combaticon asked warily.

The trees rustled behind him. Swindle spun around, the scatter blaster cannon on his arm thrust out, ready to spit buckshot. But the trees settled again and remained perfectly still. The source of the noise was invisible in the darkening forest.

"Must be an animal of some kind," Swindle reassured himself. He lowered the weapon. A deer or a squirrel was nothing to get spooked about. The momentary electrical tingle in his circuitry had already discharged.

Swindle turned his attention back to the slide. He frowned at the thought of walking away, empty-handed, from a train robbery and the termination of an enemy unit. He needed to find something to show for all of his trouble.

Swindle was keenly aware of the Autobots' arsenal of specialized weaponry. The arms dealer yearned to get his hands on it as soon as he laid his optics on the Autobots' powers during battle. Now was the prime opportunity. The scout's hologram generator was somewhere in all the debris. He mused about the bounty with a crooked smile. That was one item he would not sell. It would remain his.

He turned on the round lights on either side of the front of his hip plate and illuminated the grey rock in front of him. Although there was still enough light to see, he hoped the light beams would glint off of some protruding metal and point the way to the treasure. He just had to locate it and dig it out. He walked across the slide, sweeping the beams up and down the slope, moving broken tree boughs as he went. But there was still no sign of metal in the debris. Swindle growled in frustration. Time was passing and the sun was getting low on the horizon. The clouds above were turning purple as sunset approached.

Swindle decided to trek back up the slide and take another look from a different angle. As he headed past a medium-sized boulder, a dark patch on the silt-colored ground next to him caught his attention. He knelt down, ran his hand through the fine dirt, and cupped a portion of it in his palm. Swindle examined it in front of the light.

The wet grit was stained a light hue of red. It appeared to be a translucent fluid, not the blood of a flesh creature. Perplexed, he knelt down and aimed the light beams on the small, soaked patch of earth. In better lighting, he noticed another patch about a yard to the east. Swindle stood up and shone the light on it. It looked like a leak of some kind; there was another small patch just beyond it.

Swindle clenched his fists as he swept the light beams further and uncovered more of a trail. It was clear that all was not what it seemed. The others had been fooled by the Autobot's apparent demise. The scout had been injured and was leaking, but was functional enough to stagger off into the woods.

"Hmph," Swindle grunted at the thought of aiming his scatter blaster at the Autobot's processor to put him out of his misery. It might take a little longer to follow him to wherever he was hiding, but the end would be the same. Swindle would inherit the scout's weaponry one way or another. Lights on to guide the way, Swindle forged a path through the woods, following the trail.

* * *

Hound was making good progress on his hike back up the mountainside. A soft, golden light penetrated the forest around the Autobot scout as he emerged out of the mountain's shadow. The glow filtering through the veil of evergreen needles was a welcome sight. The shadows through the trees were long now and the forest scenery was a stark contrast of darkness and dazzling greens in the waning sunlight.

Hound stepped into the cool shadow of some close trees and stopped momentarily, an overheat alarm nagging his attention with its persistent warning. He leaned his arm against one of the trunks, surprised that the climb in elevation was wearing him down so quickly. This was the third time it had happened since he left the slide, each time forcing him to pause for several minutes. His scouting endurance was typically far greater than this. The climb should not have strained his systems to this extent.

He remained still and waited for his internal temperature gauge to register a cool-down before he continued uphill. Unseen, birds chirped in the lofty tree tops. Silently, he watched a meandering cloud of black flies buzz in the warmth of a wide sunbeam, mesmerized by the insects' swirling dance. He hoped that he could fix his wounds and make it back to base without aid. But he would have to wait until he was out in the open before he could attempt basic repairs.

Hound checked the output from his array of specialized scouting sensors. An odd background disturbance buzzed in his data channels, prohibiting him from receiving a clear reading on his surroundings. Only his optics seemed to be free of the electrical noise. He knitted his optic ridges and focused past it. It reminded him of the charged sensation that had disrupted his circuitry and left a tingle in his hand earlier that afternoon, back up on the ridge. As he recollected the strange experience, Hound checked his temperature gauge. His systems were almost back into the safe operating range.

It was possible that he was suffering from a low-level, lingering malfunction when he left Autobot Headquarters, and now that his systems were taxed the error was being amplified. Of course, he thought. That made sense. Since he was remotely linked to his listening dish and his hologun they might have both malfunctioned because they were picking up a bad data connection from him. While an internal fault was not a savory answer to the bizarre condition, given that he was far from help and home, it was better to have a sensible explanation for the experience than nothing at all.

A staccato burst of squirrel chatter shattered the reflective moment of silence and brought Hound's attention back to his environment. He noticed that the high temperature warning had vanished. Hound pressed onward and upward. Branches cracked carelessly underfoot as the big robot trekked through the forest under the tall trees.

Hound glanced up through the gaps in the canopy above him. He would walk as long as there was still light in the sky. Once darkness fell, he would have to stop for the night. It would be unwise to turn on his headlights while the Combaticons were still at large.

* * *

Swindle hurried through the forest, keenly searching for the next patch of soaked ground darkened by the Autobot's leaking fluid. The discovery of each dark stain on the ground buoyed Swindle's hope into certainty that terminating the scout would be as easy as winning a rigged bet. Blast Off had done the hard work of crippling the scout. Now all he had to do was follow the trail and collect his reward. His hip lights cut through the deepening shadows like a knife as he climbed toward an area where the sun was still shining on the slope. The prowling Decepticon eagerly anticipated the moment when he would glimpse the straight lines and hard angles of a metallic figure in the distance ahead of him.

It will be any minute now, he repeated over and over to himself as he rushed ahead toward the afternoon glow passing through the trees further ahead. The soft light was dimming and soon it would be dusk. If he did not find the Autobot before nightfall, he would be forced to give up the search and return empty handed. Swindle plunged through the trees, snapping branches that inconvenienced him, as he made this way clumsily up the Earth terrain. It did not matter if the Autobot heard him coming. A badly-damaged enemy was little threat to the Decepticon.

* * *

Hound paused to gaze up through a break in the tree tops ahead, gauging how much time he had left before he had to camp for the night. But determining the time that the sun would set was difficult in the mountains. The lay of the land and one's location played a large part in when that would occur. The light was fading quickly. Purple clouds blotched a deepening blue sky. Hound looked down at the angle of the shadows around him. Based on his current altitude, and where he should be on the holographic map he had referenced before losing his hologun, he made his best estimate. There would be fifteen to twenty minutes of good light left.

In the stillness, the scout's audio sensors picked up the muffled sound of breaking wood somewhere down the slope. He could not pinpoint its source; a persistent electromagnetic buzz hindered his senses. Hound looked in the general direction of the noise and listened attentively. Another branch cracked, and then another. It was the rhythmic cadence of something moving through the trees, not something standing in one place and making noise. It was growing louder and coming toward him. Hound's fuel pump surged instinctively. "It's probably just a bear," he reassured himself.

But Hound knew that a large bear was not to be shrugged off, even by an Autobot. He was well aware of the creature's ability to rip doors from vehicles to get at food. Hound was in no condition to risk an animal challenging him. A slight echo buzzed in Hound's strained audio receptors. He quietly cursed the background interference but kept his optics peeled for the first glimpse of the approaching animal.

Then it stopped. Hound shifted his stance and a branch under his foot snapped loudly. The footsteps suddenly started again, hastening toward him now. A pair of searching headlights and a flash of inorganic purple appeared in the distance. The lights were moving rapidly uphill, scanning to and fro as they went. Hound stepped backward, but the fallen branches littering the ground audibly snapped and popped under his weight.

* * *

Bathed in the diminishing glow of twilight, Swindle hurried through the trees toward the sounds ahead of him. He eagerly swept his lights through the forest, exposing everything around him in their bright beams. The Autobot was there in the forest with him. Swindle's glowing purple optics darted around the woods, searching. There was something in the forest up ahead. It was not of Cybertronian origin, but it was not natural, either. He readied his arm cannon.

A strange, flat surface stood in the forest. A mottled green, black and brown pattern was imprinted on it: rudimentary camouflage. Swindle scrutinized the object, playing his lights over its surface. It was a flimsy, clumsily-erected structure, held up with a pole at either end and tied down with string.

Illuminated by the bright light, a pale human figure stood up and shielded his eyes with his hand. He had been squatting next to a campfire. The man was dressed in an earth-colored plaid shirt, green boots and camouflage trousers and hat. A rifle and other hunting paraphernalia rested up against a nearby log.

Swindle lowered his cannon as he looked down at the human.

"A hunter, eh?" Swindle observed with a crooked grin. "You're a long way from home."

The man squinted at the big robot.

"What––?" the hunter began. It was the best astonishment that Hound could muster. He had mentally role-played what it would be like to be human many times, but had never once prepared for this situation. "What do you want?"

Swindle chuckled, amused by the sight of the human alone in the wilderness in his make-shift camp. His optic ridges lifted curiously and he tilted his head to one side. "I'm looking for someone. Maybe you've seen him."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Hound responded hesitantly from behind the illusion. The hunter's mouth moved perfectly with his words.

"Someone big like me," Swindle explained with a tone of annoyance. "He's hard to miss. I know he came through here." The Combaticon glanced around the camp.

The prospect of a prolonged conversation made Hound nervous. He did not know how long he could maintain the complex image.

"I haven't seen anything like you before," the hunter replied to Swindle. "I'm just out here hunting deer."

"Any luck?" Swindle asked in a surprise attempt to make idle conversation with the illusory human being.

"Why… no," the hunter responded hesitantly. Hound searched for something else to say, but he could not think quickly enough.

Swindle smirked and shook his head at the socially awkward man. That explained why he was out here in the middle of nowhere on his own. He must not be able to get along with his own kind.

Behind the hologram, Hound reached into subspace for his hologun. He flinched as his fingers grasped at thin air. Scrap! He had forgotten that it was lost in the rockslide. But he still had his jeep mode turret gun. Hound cautiously squatted and reached behind his leg for the subspace pocket where the fully-charged gun was stored. Despite his careful movements, the ground beneath him made noises under his shifting weight.

Gritting his dental plates with regret at making the sound, Hound generated a branch under the holographic hunter's feet to explain the unexpected noise. He gazed up through the ghostly holographic image at the purple optics looking down at the hunter.

"Something strange is going on here," Swindle puzzled. The man had not moved, yet he made a noise louder than a flesh creature should be able to make.

Energon surged in pulses through Hound's fuel lines. The increase in energy release through his power core triggered an electrical potential build-up around his motor casing. The resulting charge trickled out of his primary motor windings and tickled his central column with an eerie sensation.

The dark forest around them was unusually silent. Then the background buzz in his periphery sensors registered a confusing proximity alarm. It's that bizarre system fault again, he told himself. He grasped the handle of the turret gun and slipped it out of its containment pocket. But the alarm was unrelenting, directing him to flee. Hound made the hunter back up toward the rifle lying against the log.

"You're going to scare off the game!" the hunter changed the subject and reprimanded the Decepticon. The hunter reached for the barrel of the rifle as Hound carefully aimed his turret gun.

"Hey!" Swindle retorted. "Who do you think you are?"

The hunter lifted the rifle and swung it in Swindle's direction. "I said get out of here!" The man jerked the gun barrel to one side and lined up his aim on the robot.

Swindle chuckled to himself. A puny rifle was no match for Cybertronian armor plating.

"Go on, get out of here!" the hunter warned the Decepticon again.

Hound struggled against a building electromagnetic charge that would not dissipate. His sensors stabbed his awareness with an urgent retreat warning.

As the hunter slowly paced toward Swindle, his weapon trained on the robot, the hologram flickered momentarily.

Swindle's optics widened and he grinned. "You know what's wrong with this picture?" he asked as he raised his arm cannon at the image of the human being.

The hunter looked up from the gun sight. "What?"

Hidden by the hologram, Hound cradled the turret gun against his frame, pointing it at the Decepticon above him. He had carefully moved the image of the hunter away from him, distracting Swindle's attention from his actual position.

Keeping a steady aim on the illusory man, Swindle swung his other arm around and pointed at the trail he had followed through the forest to the camp.

"Humans don't leak engine fluid," Swindle reported, his purple optics narrowing in the darkness as a glow developed deep in the barrel of his scatter blaster cannon.

The hunter's face went slack with surprise, mimicking Hound's own expression. A burst of shrapnel erupted from Swindle's cannon. The image of the hunter and his camp abruptly vanished as Hound squeezed off a round of charge ammo, knocking Swindle to his knees. Hound darted from his hiding place and fled into the dark forest.

"He's not supposed to be able to do that," Swindle complained to himself as he glanced down at the blast marks in his exterior. He spun around and flashed his beams off through the forest after the fleeing Autobot. The lights reflected off the dark green and silver paneling of the scout as he rushed away. As he aimed his scatter blaster at Hound, his hip lights suddenly cut out.

Standing in the darkness, Swindle pulled his arm cannon back and looked down at the two round lights in his hip plating. He tried to turn the lights back on several times, but each time the contacts clicked uselessly.

"What the heck?" Swindle asked aloud. In the trees above, a raven called. Its distinctive croak cut through the still air. The Combaticon looked up at the black trees silhouetted against the dark sky. Alone in the dark forest, Swindle became aware of a strange electromagnetic surge building in his electrical systems. It stole up his central column like an invisible hand inching its electrical fingers up each section of his main structural support. Internal alarm relays bleated at Swindle. Something unusual was close at hand, but he was unable to detect exactly where it was located.

"This place is creepy," he muttered. The raven called once more. Swindle looked up in the direction of the sound, but the woods were pitch black. His glowing purple optics blinked in the young night.

"I'm getting out of here," Swindle announced as he took flight, climbing quickly through the towering evergreens and into the night sky. Away from the eerie presence, he paused to gaze down at the dark expanse of wilderness below. The strange sensation discharged from the Combaticon's circuitry as suddenly as it had manifested.

Somewhere far beneath him, the muffled sounds of servos pumping and wood breaking punctuated the still night air as Hound struggled blindly through the forest. Swindle's optics swept over the sprawling darkness. There was nothing more he could do today. He would have to convince the others that they needed to stay longer. The arms dealer absolutely hated to walk away from an opportunity empty-handed.

"Tomorrow," he whispered angrily, "your stuff will be my stuff." The Combaticon turned and looked to the west. A twilight glow silhouetted the distant mountain peaks. He directed a pulse of energy through the flight drive generators in each leg and headed back to camp.

* * *

Caught in darkness, Hound blindly probed his way through the maze of spiny tree trunks and webs of feathery fir and bushy pine boughs as he fought to stay ahead of Swindle. Ignoring the recurring high-temperature warning, Hound scrambled between trees and over boulders, even as his limbs were weakening from his overheated and thinning hydraulic fluid. It had been almost five minutes since the Decepticon's light beams had disappeared. Hound raced onward through the lightless forest.

Only when his temperature sensors finally threatened to shut him down did Hound stop to check for his pursuer. Soft blue optics searched the still darkness. The woods were quiet save for the quiet whir of his strained coolant pump. Nothing – not even another set of glowing optics – stared back at him through the swallowing blackness.

"Phew!" Hound breathed through his vocalizer. His blue optics blinked slowly in the night. "That was too close for comfort."

Hound switched his turret gun back to radar mode and aimed it at the woods around him to double-check that he was alone. Bursts of electrostatic noise spat through his wireless channel. The broken data streams did not produce a meaningful picture of his surroundings.

"Bah," Hound frowned with disappointment. He raised the gun in front of him until he could see it reflecting in the glow from his optics. Am I slowly breaking down? he wondered. But the hardy scout refused to indulge the thought. He returned his turret gun to its subspace holder. The nagging, high-temperature alarm continued to demand his attention. His systems were at a breaking point. A new warning had recently appeared: low coolant level. It was clear that he had a leak somewhere; that was how Swindle had tracked him. If he tried to push on without attending to his injuries, he would become incapacitated. The Combaticons would easily find him in the morning, immobile and prone.

Hound ran a diagnostic. He pressed his lip components firmly together as he received the grim results. He desperately needed time to rest and make basic repairs. He would have to wait until the cooling night air returned his hydraulic systems to their normal temperature range.

After lowering himself into a seated position, Hound rested his torso against a tree and spread his legs out in front of him. The scout looked skyward, but could see no stars through the breaks in the canopy. He considered his predicament. His radar scope was malfunctioning, his hologun had been destroyed, and he dared not use his lights to navigate the dark countryside. Thickening clouds obscured the night sky.

He lifted his forearm to optic level and raised the communicator screen panel. The bright light from the blank display screen flooded his optics and provided some comfort in the remote darkness. If he sent a distress call to Autobot Headquarters now, help would arrive by mid-morning of the following day. It was the right thing to do; he was clearly outmatched. He sent a signal to Teletraan I and waited.

The screen flickered and then filled with electrical interference. Hound tried again. Digitial noise rained through the communication channel. The scout quietly turned off his communicator and wearily folded the screen back into his forearm. He was stranded.

He looked up from the closed communicator and dropped his arm by his side. The forest was deathly still. Hound stared into the deep blackness, absorbing the silence around him. Nothing made a sound: no droning insects, no coyotes howling in the distance. Only the gentle whirring of his coolant pump disturbed the woodland night.

An electromagnetic surge gradually undulated up his central column and spread into his weary limbs. Hound stiffened, sensing that he was not alone. Fearing that a Decepticon had stalked him to where he rested, the Autobot closed his optics, concealing the light they emitted.

Seconds passed like eons. The scout's keenly-tuned audio receptors listened to his environment. But unlike before, no footsteps could be heard approaching. The surge swelled through his circuits, engulfing his tracking sensor array with disruptive noise. The interference was so intense that he was forced to turn off the device. Without his technological arsenal, the scout had nothing left but his basic senses.

The sound of wing beats resounded in Hound's audio receptors. With his optics still closed, he carefully analyzed the sounds. They were organic in nature. Feathers fluttered above him as the bird folded its wings at its sides. Hound's systems buzzed as he listened to the amplified scratching of its feet. The bird edged sideways along a nearby branch.

Hound could wait no longer. He opened his optics. When the two blue lights appeared in the darkness, the raven above called. Hound gasped. Something was out there – something strange. Hound's optic ridges wrinkled as he stared off through the forest. He had never seen anything like it before.

* * *

Seated on the ground near the train tracks, Brawl polished his electron gun in the flickering orange glow of a wood fire. The metallic soldier muttered to himself, occasionally spitting curses loud enough to prompt Vortex to turn and glare at him. When Vortex was just about ready to hurl something at Brawl to shut him up, Onslaught gave him a stony stare. Vortex dutifully turned his attention back to his repairs.

Vortex's repair work resembled his torture methodology – crude but effective. The seasoned interrogator glanced over his shoulder and started the rotor on his back. The shaft turned slowly. With the four helicopter blades now spinning, he stood up and leaned forward, so that the tips would not contact the ground. It was time to see if the rest of his flight mechanisms functioned properly.

Vortex stowed the rudimentary tools he had stolen from Swindle in his torso cargo compartment and closed his opened panels. Without ceasing the motion of his blades, he transformed and came to rest on the ground in helicopter mode.

"Not so close!" Blast Off complained from the other side of the fire. "You'll put the fire out."

The speed of the helicopter's blades quickened. "So what if it goes out," Vortex replied without concern for the wind he was creating. "Light another one. We've got plenty of energon left."

Onslaught stood up. "We're not going to waste energy, and you're not going to start a forest fire." He flicked his hand to an area ahead of the broken train where there was a flat section of shoreline. "Go over there if you want to practice flying."

"It's not practice," the grey helicopter replied sullenly, but obeyed his commander by turning his tail to propel himself away from the camp.

"Slagger," Blast Off cursed Vortex over the drone of the beating blades.

Brawl looked up and glared at Blast Off. "Takes one to know one."

Just as Vortex lifted off the ground, proving that his flight ability had been restored, Swindle appeared in the sky over the camp.

"Time to load up and get out of here!" Onslaught announced when he saw the returning Combaticon. "Blast Off, transform! You're carrying the tachyon disrupter."

But before Blast Off could get off his skid plate and do as Onslaught ordered, Swindle landed among his fellow felons. There was urgency in his optics.

"What's gotten into you?" Brawl mocked him, knowing that Swindle preferred to make deals rather than make war. "Can't handle seeing that much destruction?"

Blast Off laughed.

Swindle shook his head and looked at Onslaught. "He's not dead!"

Upon hearing the news, Vortex touched down in the distance, turned off his rotor and transformed back into robot mode.

"Impossible!" Blast Off sputtered. "I saw him destroyed with my own optics." He looked over at Brawl and Onslaught. "You saw it, too."

But Swindle persisted with his story. "It's the truth. Would I lie?"

There was a pause and then Brawl nodded. "Yes."

"C'mon, Brawl," Swindle persuaded him with open palms. "If I'd been able to get my hands on his weapons, I'd have them right now!"

"He has a point," Onslaught agreed with Swindle. "The Autobot scout has the ability to produce holograms." The Combaticon leader glanced at Blast Off. "His demise was a trick."

"It can't be," Blast Off muttered, shaking his head. He could not have made such an embarrassing mistake. He pointed at Swindle. "You're making this up!" the space warrior accused Swindle. "You're trying to get back at me for busting up his weaponry when I killed him."

Swindle contorted his faceplate at the accusation. It was petty reasoning. "His stuff's still functional, but he's leaking fluid. I followed the trail and found him. He disguised himself with a hologram then shot me and ran away, like a coward."

Vortex joined the discussion around the fire. "That Autobot's survival definitely changes things," he stated, cracking the knuckle joints of one fist into the palm of the other hand. "I have a score to settle."

"He's mine!" Blast Off reacted vehemently. "Only I finish what I start."

"Not this time," Vortex countered.

Swindle grinned mischievously as he watched his comrades get riled up over his news of the Autobot. This was the reaction he wanted. He would have another chance to retrieve the scout's hologram generator. Best of all, he would not have to venture back into that creepy forest alone.

"I say we go annihilate him!" Brawl announced enthusiastically, brandishing his freshly-polished gun in the air.

The other Combaticons cheered in response.

Onslaught stood proudly with his fists on his hip plates. The destruction of a common foe was the bond that held his unruly team of Decepticon criminals together. A fresh Autobot hunt was an excellent team-building opportunity. Starscream's weapon would have to wait for the time being.

"We set out in the morning!" Onslaught announced as orange flames reflected off the Combaticon leader. "He won't get away overnight."

Onslaught strode over to the dwindling pile of energon. He scooped up five cubes, tossed one to each member of his team, and kept one for himself. "Tonight we relax… and recharge."

Onslaught sat down with the pink energon cube under his arm. He casually withdrew his refuelling line and venting apparatus from a compartment in the front of his torso and stuck the tapered end of the line into the energon cube. After adjusting the flow through the venting apparatus, the glowing plasma wafted through the fuel line into the bulbous venting chamber, where the sinewy vapors mingled with air.

"Ah," the Combaticon leader sighed as he drew in a long draught from the energy hookah and tasted the sweet fumes. "That's more like it."

The other masked Combaticons set up their own hookahs and began puffing on the intoxicating energon fumes. Swindle sat down and sipped the delicious pink fuel from the corner of his cube.

"This is the way to live," the arms dealer said. He relaxed as fresh electrons trickled into his power circuits.

A gust of heated steam erupted from Brawl's venting apparatus. The cloud of pink mist dissipated in the air. "Wild and free," he proclaimed merrily.

The pink liquor set Blast Off and Vortex at ease. They soon forgot their dispute over who owned Hound's fate. That would be decided when the sun rose.

* * *

Hound remained still for several minutes as he watched a strange phenomenon unfold before his eyes. A gentle, white glow radiated through the trees, illuminating the dark woods with a ghostly light.

As his temperature cooled, his coolant pump became quieter and then shut off. The sudden, deafening silence was profoundly peaceful. Hound's basic senses were alert in a way that he had never experienced. He felt alive with energy. His fear was washed away, supplanted by an all-encompassing sense of awe.

The light manifested as a haze with no clear source. It was as if a region of space itself was softly illuminating the distant woods. As he gazed at the luminous field, it gyrated, gracefully dancing among the trees. Phantasmal distortions flowed through the air, creating a pattern eerily reminiscent of shadowy human legs walking through the forest. At its diffuse periphery, the wisps of light slowly ebbed and swirled around the dark tree trunks, casting sylvan shadows.

The light was not far away, only about a hundred yards or so. Cautiously, the Autobot stood up, keeping watch over the mysterious entity. It glowed silently in the distance.

Hound began moving toward the light, as if enchanted. Through the silhouetted forest, the soft glow contracted from a gentle haze into a shimmering flame. Hound stopped. The shape-shifting light reciprocated, softening and diffusing back into a swirling haze.

He paused, his blue optics searching the bewildering play of shadow and soft light. When he took a step forward, the wispy light drew together to form a brilliant flame. The intensity was reminiscent of dazzling sunlight. He stopped again, resting his hand on a tree trunk. The light responded by relaxing into a familiar, softly glowing haze.

This time, Hound steeled himself and walked deliberately toward the light. It flickered and became a flame as before, but danced away through the trees as if sensing his intent. The scout could not help but smile as he watched the ethereal display. It provided just enough illumination for him to see his way through the forest. He followed it as it wove through the trees, never catching up to it, but never being outpaced by it. The light always remained a tantalizing distance away – not real, yet not an illusion.

After some time had passed, Hound stopped to check his temperature gauge. The light waited for him, flickering above a rise in the hillside. Oddly, his temperature gauge remained in the normal range. He was very low on coolant and should have registered an alarm by now. Perhaps the cool night and his relaxed pace were keeping his systems operating smoothly.

The world around the scout was void of any movement or sounds. He gazed back up at the scintillating light. It had once again rekindled into a flame, beckoning him. Hound continued his journey deep into the endless night. The fiery light coaxed the weary scout through the wilderness, sometimes climbing, sometimes descending. Hound did not know where he was going, or how long he had travelled. His chronometer would not work in its presence.

The persistent light guided him over the crest of a ridge and along a wide expanse of alpine grassland. He was up on a plateau. Hound began to feel the effects of energy depletion on his body and mind. He slowed as he came to the edge of a clearing and looked up. Stars peered through celestial eyelets in the thinning cloud cover.

Hound gazed back at the light. This time it did not wait for him, but danced away into the forest. The flame burned fiercely for an instant, as if fuelled by an invisible source, then sputtered and disappeared.

The night was suddenly very dark, except for the glimmering stars above. Hound waited to see if the light would reappear, but it did not. The mysterious illumination was gone.

A midnight chorus of chirping crickets rose from the remote landscape around the lost scout. Hound lowered himself to the ground and reclined on his back, looking up beyond the edge of the forest at the night sky. It was time to let his processor rest for the remainder of the night. At dawn, he would regain his bearings and begin making field repairs.

Thoughts of the Combaticons were distant in Hound's mind as his systems cycled down. Though they were still a real danger in the region, he savored the memory of the peaceful light shimmering through the forest. He slid his hands underneath his head and his optic covers closed. Images of the day's events flashed in his processor, ending with his meeting with Swindle. Hound's optic ridges wrinkled and he frowned at the disquieting image of Swindle's gleaming purple optics staring at him in the darkening forest. Then he recalled his ruse, the human hunter, and his expression relaxed. Hound imagined the man lying contentedly on his back in the comfort of his tent in the wilderness, just as he was lying in the grass. He powered down for the night.

* * *

The overwhelming presence of something above alerted Hound. His optic covers snapped open with military precision and he scrambled to his feet to meet the enemy. The Autobot instinctively reached for his hologun to defend himself, but it was not there.

Hound shook his head and collected himself, quickly surveying his surroundings. There were no Decepticons. He was alone. The sun had risen many hours ago and fluffy, white clouds rolled across a blue sky. He caught a glimpse of a dark shape in his peripheral vision and looked up. A large raven soared overhead, its wings spread wide across the open sky. It glided silently through the air.

Hound watched as the avian form descended toward him in slow motion, seemingly underwater. Ebony raindrops began to gather beneath the bird's wings, gently cascading into a resplendent cloak festooned with glossy, black feathers. From out of the raven's body, an anthropomorphic figure emerged and grew. The cloak edges fluttered like new wings as the being swooped toward the ground, landing gracefully on human feet. Standing before Hound, the bird-man raised its arm, completely concealing its raven head within the flowing, black cloak.

A moment later, a long beak lifted out of the raven-man's chest and the cloak dropped back to his shoulders. But it was not the bird's head that appeared. It was a brightly-painted, wooden mask: a likeness of the raven's head with a flowing mane of cedar bark. A beautiful symphony of red and black patterns covered the long-beaked mask: the geometry of an aboriginal people. Hound knew he had seen human artwork like this before, but he could not recall the occasion.

Transfixed, Hound watched the being. It stood silently, cocking its head back and forth to look at him as a bird would. Only the pair of moccasins visible beneath the regalia suggested that a man was inside.

"Hello," the Autobot amicably greeted the raven-man.

The bird mask tilted so that one of its painted black eyes looked up at Hound, but the raven-man did not answer.

"I'm Hound. Who are you?" He took a step toward the creature, crouching to get a closer look at its magnificent garb. But the strange raven-man bolted like a startled animal and vanished into the forest.

* * *

Hound powered up and opened his optics. Above him, the first light of morning flooded into the dark world from the eastern horizon. He blinked.

The image of the raven-man dwindled as he awakened. Data trickled in through Hound's scouting sensors. They were recalibrated themselves. The links to his subspaced equipment had somehow reactivated. Hound's tracking abilities, holograms and radar guidance system were all back online. New information about his surroundings was rapidly collecting in his central processor.

The scout sat up in the dewy grass and looked around him as he compiled the input from his newly-restored senses. His short-range scanner told him that he was alone, save for a deer 300 yards to the northwest, grazing just out of his line of sight. Hound remained seated as the predawn light grew, checking and re-checking the integrity of his scouting systems. Everything had returned to normal. But there was something unusual about the barren trunks standing around him.

Hound rose to his feet and slowly turned. Around him, weathered wooden relics of human creation towered like ancient forest guardians. The carved poles protruded from the ground at odd angles, bent with the passage of time and the shifting of the earth beneath them. Hound immediately recognized their significance. They were totem poles. He had seen them in a museum once. They were carved by the native people of this region of the Earth to commemorate events and to tell stories.

Hound's optic ridges furrowed as he surveyed each one in turn. They had been painted once, but the colors had long since eroded away. He remembered his trip to the museum and imagined what they would have looked like painted in the traditional black and red hues. Many pairs of carved eyes from the creatures and men standing atop one another stared blankly back at him. There were bears, a frog, some creatures he could not discern and atop one, a raven.

The distinctive call of the raven sounded in his mind. He recalled an exhibit he had seen during his trip to the museum: a large carving of a raven perched atop a giant clamshell. The clamshell was partly open and filled with small people: the first men of the world. It was an odd combination of humans and creatures. Their relative sizes were completely at odds with reality. Both the raven and the men were smaller than the monstrous clam, but the raven was a giant compared to the little humans. It was a piece of artwork that told a story. Hound recalled his human companion, Spike, reading the plaque next to the carving.

* * *

"This one's called Raven and the First Men," Spike announced, turning to look up at Hound.

"How come everything's out of proportion, Spike?" he asked, looking at the large raven whose wings spread over the giant clam beneath.

Spike turned back to read the plaque. "The bird is a mythical creature called 'Raven' and he's a trickster who was here before people lived in the world. According to the myth, the world was barren and empty back then. Raven was bored and wanted to play tricks on someone."

"Sounds kind of like a Decepticon," Hound chuckled. "But let's hear the rest of it."

"Raven found a clamshell on the beach one day and heard it make a noise," Spike continued. "He peered into the opening between the two halves of the shell and saw that it was filled with tiny, cowering creatures."

"Why were they inside a shell?" Hound asked, confused.

Spike glanced up and grinned at his Autobot friend. "It's a myth, Hound. It's not supposed to be realistic. Myths are like that."

"So what happened to them?" Hound asked Spike. "That bird looks hungry."

"Let's see," Spike replied as he scrutinized the plaque. "It says that Raven coaxed them out of the shell and into the world so that he could fool them."

Hound gazed at the odd carving for several minutes afterward. The story was truly bewildering. Why would a mythical creature let people out into the world, only to play tricks on them? The idea left him feeling uncomfortable.

"C'mon, Hound," Spike ushered him on. "Let's check out the next exhibit."

* * *

"Raven, the trickster," Hound mused aloud. He gazed up at the carved raven totem towering above him, and thought about the unsuspecting men clambering out of the shell. He remembered how an impudent raven had revealed his position to the Combaticons. But a raven had also been close at hand when the mysterious light appeared in the forest. Is the trickster god playing with me?

Hound looked away into the distance. The Raven story is just a myth, he assured himself, just like the mythical Quintessons of ancient Cybertron. He glanced up at the raven totem one last time. The first ray of morning sun shone full upon the old raven carving.

Hound smiled. His auxiliary systems were back online and he had a second chance to stop the enemy. But he had to clean himself up and refill his coolant tank before he did anything else. He could not afford to be in poor condition while the Combaticons were still out looking for him. He scanned his surroundings, searching for a water source. A body of water was a physical feature that was impossible to miss. There was a good chance that a pond existed somewhere on the flat range around him. He just had to find it.

Following wildlife was Hound's best bet for finding a water source. He trekked over to the lone deer he had detected in the distance. As the large Autobot approached, the wary animal lifted its head from its grazing and stood alert. Its tail flicked. Cautiously, Hound stopped and scanned the area. But there was no water, only an expanse of wild grass. The fearful deer bounded away, its large ears turned toward Hound.

The cloud-smattered dawn sky was brightening. Hound searched his surroundings for other wildlife trails through the grass, hoping for something that might point him in the right direction. He found a promising set of tracks early on, but it turned out to be a false lead; the trail emerged from the woods and looped back in the same direction. Hound persisted and eventually discovered another set of tracks that appeared to head away from the forest and out into the open grassland.

Hound knelt down to scrutinize the trail of bent grasses, noting the deeper depressions where the animal's hooves had struck the ground. Whatever had gone that way had been running. The scout looked more closely. Softer prints were interspersed with the deep marks of cloven hooves: evidence of a predator. He looked off in the direction of the tracks. Nothing of interest was immediately visible in the distance. Hound followed the fresh trail over the open, undulating terrain until he came upon a carcass.

The Autobot looked down at the partially-eaten remains of a fallen deer. Its lifeless body lay bloody and dishevelled in the matted grass. The scout carefully inspected the nearby ground. The predator's tracks meandered away from its prey. Hound followed.

* * *

Morning sunlight suffused the rose-tinted horizon, spilling gold over the hovering bands of smoky purple clouds. Next to the calm water of the remote lakeside, the Decepticons lay motionless, powered down near the ransacked train. Depleted energon cubes were strewn around the encampment.

Onslaught was the first to come back online, his optic band flashing golden yellow as his silvery optic covers opened. The Combaticon leader looked around and took stock of his surroundings. The soaring mountains on the other side of the lake were bathed in light, but the rest of the valley was still in waning darkness. He reached down, disconnected his refuelling hookah and stored it back in his chest compartment.

The Combaticon leader slowly drew himself up and looked at the empty energon cubes on top of a discarded crate. Vapors from the energon condensate coating the inner surface of his fuel lines wafted against the porous surface of his energy absorbers. He savored the tingle of energy. The slow-paced draw of energy through the hookah the night before had left him topped up, but without the usual burning in the solenoids. There was no unpleasant cross-contact arcing, either. An overcharge with no side-effects was a powerful state; a perfect start to a day of Autobot hunting.

Onslaught glanced over at the glue-smeared pile of electronics and parts that Swindle had gathered. It was garbage now. Between the empty energon cubes and the clutter of discarded junk from the train, their camp was a mess. The crate containing the tachyon disrupter still sat safely at the edge of camp next to the tree line. It would remain there until they did away with the Autobot scout.

"Rise and shine, Combaticons!" Onslaught announced loudly to his subordinates. There was no response, so he took out his sonic stun gun and fired into the air.

Brawl started and grabbed his own weapon, blindly returning fire. His wild shots smashed into a bulky fir tree and sent it toppling to the ground with an audio-splitting crack. The other Combaticons swiftly powered up, weapons at the ready.

"Time to kill!" Onslaught called to his minions. The Combaticon leader brandished his weapon menacingly. "Leave nothing for Autobots or flesh creatures to recognize!"

The other four Combaticons cheered and fired into the air.

"Let the hunt begin!" Onslaught ordered as he soared skyward.

Blast Off fired up his heel thrusters and leapt into the air after Onslaught. Brawl and Swindle followed. Vortex transformed into his alternate mode and lifted into the air to join the others as a Black Hawk helicopter.

The airborne Combaticons climbed rapidly over the towering mountainside, clearing the shadow line and emerging into the early morning light. Onslaught motioned for Swindle to fly alongside him.

"Show me where you encountered the Autobot," Onslaught commanded his weapons specialist.

"Sure," Swindle complied, and scanned the shadowy landscape below. He led them over to the rockslide, hovering as he searched for the route he had taken on the previous day. He had travelled uphill through the trees for a while. But he was accustomed to gauging distance and direction from the air. Figuring out how far he had gone on foot was not that easy. He could not even remember which way he had headed up the slope.

Onslaught, Brawl, and Blast Off hovered nearby, waiting. Vortex transformed to wait in robot mode.

"Which way is it?" Blast Off asked impatiently.

Vortex laughed. "He doesn't know."

"Of course I do," Swindle replied indignantly. "Just give me a minute."

Swindle hovered over the avalanche area, trying to decide how high and far he might have climbed the night before. The other Combaticons quickly grew impatient. They were in the mood for action.

"Enough!" Onslaught finally concluded. "We're wasting time. There's five of us and one of him. We'll fan out." He pointed at Brawl and then motioned toward the northeast. "You, go that way. Be sure to check the pass." Onslaught ordered the others. "Blast Off, follow the lake to the east. Vortex, go north."

The others departed, anticipating the thrill of the hunt. Each one of them was eager to be the first to find the Autobot – and wreak havoc upon him. Swindle and Onslaught watched them go.

"What do you want me to do?" Swindle asked his commander.

"Figure out where you went before. Go there. Start searching," Onslaught replied with a hint of exasperation in his vocalizer.

Onslaught checked the ammo charge in his weapon, then ignited his thrusters and accelerated toward the mountain pass.

Swindle stared into the dark forest below. He recalled the creeping sensation that had come over him the night before, and shook his head. He had his arm cannon and other weaponry. He could take down an Autobot with a fraction of his firepower. A strange feeling was not a cause for concern. Still, the sun could not light the forest floor soon enough. Swindle was in no hurry to descend into the obscurity of the trees until there was plenty of light to see.

* * *

Hound soon found a pond up on the alpine plateau, as he had anticipated. Leaving his spare tire, a folded solar energon collector and his energon ration canister lying on the dewy grass, the scout tread carefully over the tangle of branches near the water's edge. After half a dozen steps, his large feet sunk into a cushion of mud. Hound waded out into the icy water until he was chest deep in it. Dirt and dust lifted from his body, leaving a film on the water's surface. He knelt down, submerging his entire body, then showered himself with cupped handfuls of frigid water to clean himself off. Most of the grime was gone after a few minutes, rinsed away by the surrounding water.

Hound cracked his hood and opened the cap to his coolant tank. He squatted, allowing the icy water to pour into the chamber and flow through his maze of coolant lines. It instantly invigorated him. Hound sighed with relief. He stood up and waded toward the shoreline, but did not get out of the water. Instead, he stopped where he stood and remained perfectly still, waiting for the excess water to run off his frame.

The leak from his coolant tank became apparent when the persistent drip of water from beneath his protruding jeep front sent ripples across the pond's surface. Hound opened a panel on the underside of his jeep torso and felt along the bottom of the coolant tank casing. Cold water trickled down his fingers when he moved them to the edge of the casing. It was split. He gently pried open the narrow gap in the casing, inching his fingers along its inner surface. There was a buckle in the surface of the coolant tank itself. Hound pressed on the area around the crease until he felt icy water spatter against his fingertips. He had found the source of the leak.

Holding his fingers over the crack, Hound stepped out of the water, closed his hood, and knelt down on the grass to take a field repair kit out of a storage compartment mounted on his lower leg. He opened the box with his free hand and removed a block of sealant putty, a glass vial and a packet of tiny blue crystals.

"This'll fix that leak," he said to himself as he pulled off a corner of the putty. He kneaded it in his fingers to make it more pliable, then pulled his right hand away from the leak and pushed the putty into the tight space with his left hand. Hound felt around for the cold leak, spreading the putty over the damaged area and massaging it into the crack itself to ensure a good seal. The emergency repair material cured quickly when wet. Now, his coolant tank would be leak-free until he returned to the Ark for a more sophisticated repair.

Once Hound was sure that his patch was holding, he collected some pond water in the vial. After breaking open the crystal packet, he gently tapped the fine, cobalt-blue contents into the glass tube. Using a finger to close the top of the vial, the scout shook the contents until the crystals had completely dissolved.

"New coolant coming up," he said aloud. He opened his hood and added the bright blue liquid to the water in the coolant tank. It would take several minutes for the stabilizer to mingle with all of the water in his lines and change its composition.

Hound replaced the cap on the tank, closed his hood, and packed up the repair kit, storing it back in his leg compartment. He returned to his supplies on the bank and sat down on the long, wet grass. He picked up the energon canister, opened it and took long draught of the invigorating pink fuel.

"Ah," Hound sighed to himself. "That's better."

He shook the energon container. The remaining liquid sloshed back and forth. He had consumed too much energy evading the Combaticons and would have to harvest more for the trek back home. The scout scanned the eastern horizon, noting that the sun was still too low in the sky. At this early hour, Hound's collector would capture a mere trickle of the sun's life-giving energy. After one last drink, Hound closed up the canister and stored it.

He glanced up at the brightening sky. Thoughts of the Decepticons entered his mind. Though he had evaded Swindle the night before, it was doubtful that the Combaticons would give up so easily. They knew that he was still out there in the wilderness. There would be no mercy; it was the Decepticon way to relentlessly pursue an opponent until he was destroyed. Hound looked out across the placid lake.

The troublesome electromagnetic interference that had plagued his systems seemed to be gone. Hound knew that he could call Autobot Headquarters whenever he needed backup. But not yet, he chided himself. Not yet. He stood up and headed away from the pond, back to the forest.

The scout walked a short distance, then stopped. The body of the deer lay sprawled in the grass, limp. He gazed with interest at the dead organic form. He had seen road kill before, but never anything like this. Some hungry creature – a coyote, wolf or cougar – had made the kill to replenish its energy.

It always came down to energy. Here on Earth, as on Cybertron and probably everywhere else in the universe, the basic rules were the same. Predators and prey. Winners and losers. The eaters and the eaten. Hound shuddered. Decepticons and Autobots. The carcass stared emptily into the azure sky above.

But sentient beings can change the rules, Hound reminded himself. We can shift a dire situation to our advantage. That's why we Autobots are still here, even in the face of Decepticon genocide. We always keep one step ahead of the enemy; we always keep him guessing. We survive impossible odds because we are clever. And then Hound understood the raven.

He looked down at the hapless deer. Then he had a remarkable idea.

* * *

Above the wilderness, miles away, Brawl's yellow optics scanned the deep forest. Bald patches of mountainside were of little interest as it was clear at a glance that the Autobot was not out in the open. He took his time searching the shady forest floor as he cruised overhead, handgun ready. So far, he had found nothing worth shooting.

Time crawled. The Combaticon soldier hovered to see if he was missing out on action elsewhere. He could see Vortex, far to the west, hovering slowly over the south side of the next valley. Blast Off was nowhere to be seen. The incompetent shuttle was probably flying at a lower altitude over the eastern end of the lake.

Brawl shook his head with disdain. He wondered what insanity had prompted Starscream to select Blast Off's personality component from the Decepticon detention center. There were plenty of criminals with superior records of destruction. If Blast Off was ever severely wounded in battle – and they were alone together – he would gladly "help" by putting the pathetic shuttle out of his misery. Brawl chuckled to himself. It was his favorite fantasy.

* * *

Hound transformed into jeep mode. As he rested on his suspension, his silvery turret scope emerged from subspace in its holder. He swiveled the scope around, scanning his environment.

The scout's expansive memory recorded every last byte of data as Hound sniffed out the lay of the land, the locations and heights of trees and the presence of other life forms. The loss of his hologun meant only that he could not see his surroundings with the convenience of a map. But all of the raw data was still stored in his memory banks, and he could readily meld new data with existing older data. His scouting ability was much like the sense of smell that guided a very skilled tracking animal here on Earth. Hound would find his way back.

The scout started his engine and pulsed his accelerator. Fresh coolant flowed through his engine block cooling coils, soothing the overtaxed operating machinery. Hound rolled forward over the bumpy grass, his radar scope darting back and forth, sensing which way to go to get closer to the Combaticons.

Hound gradually accelerated until he was racing across the alpine grassland. His radar detected several wild birds roosting in the nearby trees and a rodent scurrying away through the long grass. He increased the detail at a greater radius and his scanner detected two bears concealed behind a thicket of trees.

As he approached the edge of the forest, Hound's radar picked up a large, airborne anomaly several miles away. Hound stopped behind a dense thicket of hemlocks. The signal was headed in his direction, and closing fast.

One of the Combaticons, Hound realized. Now that the sun was up, they had started looking for him. He watched as the menacing shape cruised over the mountaintop west of his position, banking north. The Decepticon was too far away to have seen him. Hound breathed a sigh of relief. They must have split up. Perfect.

Hound spun his wheels and headed for the shelter of the tall evergreens to the southwest. The concealment of the forest was less than a mile away. As Hound tracked the threat, the Combaticon turned in a wide circle and headed south, this time flying above the plateau. The enemy would see him within a minute, if he had not already been spotted.

As the swiftly-moving robot pulled closer, Hound strained to reach the sheltering cover of the trees. His tires tore at the ground, spitting grass and dirt as he pushed his engine to its limit. He reached the margin of the forest in jeep mode and launched himself into the brush in a frenzied tumble, rolling to a crouching stop in robot mode, radar scope in hand. Seconds later, the Combaticon streaked overhead. It was Brawl.

Hound was still not sure if he had been seen by the Decepticon, but his tire tracks had certainly betrayed his presence. His suspicion was confirmed a moment later when Brawl's signal dropped below the tree line, landing just a few hundred yards south of Hound's position.

Sure he's got firepower, but I'm in my element now, Hound reassured himself. I'll show these thugs what a scout can accomplish.

A purple glow surrounded Hound's free hand as he withdrew a bulky object from subspace.

* * *

Brawl angled around in a wide loop and headed south over a broad plateau. He had a funny feeling that Blast Off had found something but was keeping it to himself. The very notion made his overcharged contacts crackle with fury. As he picked up speed, his bulky frame started to ice up from the high-altitude wind chill.

Brawl was about to clear the grassy plateau and head down the forested slope toward the lake when he spied something on the open ground far below. Was it… ? He wiped the sheen of ice from his optics. Whatever it was had vanished into the trees. He was about to dismiss it as another bear when he noticed something else: tire tracks. This is my lucky day, he chortled to himself.

The Combaticon cut his speed and lost altitude as quickly as he could manage. He had already overshot the Autobot's last visible position, but decided against backtracking. He was not in the mood to be shot down by an Autobot sniper hiding like a coward in the bushes. The odds would be in his favor, so long as he kept the fight on the ground.

Moments before Brawl dropped below the treetops, he glimpsed two bears in the distance. They were lumbering toward the forest, inexplicably following the Autobot's tracks. It made no sense. Brawl put the thought out of his head as he touched down on the forest floor.

Energon was already gushing through his hungry fuel lines. The ground assault soldier was fully-charged and ready for a fight. Crouching, he drew his electron gun and surveyed his surroundings. He was especially wary of the scout's holographic illusions. But Brawl was not willing to take any chances. Anything out of the ordinary was going to get shot – no questions asked.

Brawl was expecting a sneaky Autobot trick, so when he saw the scout sprinting through the forest in the distance, he was dumbfounded. The foolish Autobot was running right at him.

"This is going to be too easy," Brawl complained. "I want a real fight." Heraised his electron gun and opened fire. Burst after burst exploded from the gun, but the trees were too close together, and the nimble Autobot dodged as he ran. Several trees fell, but the scout leapt over them and kept coming. He was carrying something over one shoulder. Frustrated, Brawl threw his gun to one side and prepared to grapple with the crazed Autobot.

"Aaaagghhh!" Hound hollered as he grabbed the deer carcass off his shoulder with both hands. He charged headlong into Brawl, swinging the bloody corpse through the air. Brawl tried to duck, but the dead animal struck him squarely across the torso, smearing bloody slime and entrails down his chest plate. The blow from the bizarre attack nearly unbalanced him. Hound let go of the animal's hind legs, leaving the messy corpse in Brawl's arms as he rushed away. In disbelief, Brawl turned to watch the Autobot flee. He had never seen anything so nonsensical.

Brawl dumped the carcass onto the ground and bent over to find his discarded electron gun when an ominous sound caught his attention. He turned to look over his shoulder at the sound of cracking and snapping wood to see two enormous brown bears thundering toward him, growling with their teeth bared. Before Brawl could react, the bears tackled him. He fell forward onto the ground with a thud. Long snarls and growls accompanied the ear-splitting sound of tough bear claws dragging painfully across metal as they dug into Brawl's armor plating.

Trapped under the two heavy animals, Brawl reached futilely for his discarded weapon, but it was just out of reach. The bears eagerly licked the deer blood off his arms and tore at his exterior, attempting to get to the bulk of the dead animal, which was pinned under the Combaticon's chest plate.

"Get off me!" Brawl cried as he kicked and struggled. One of the bears pushed the tank cannon barrel on his back to one side to gain better access to the carcass. "No, not my cannon!" Metal groaned as the large animal bent the barrel with ease, ruining it. "No!"

The other bear sat down across Brawl's legs and held the Combaticon down while it peeled away a corner of his skid plate. Hound cautiously emerged from the trees to see how things were progressing.

"It looks like you're not going anywhere for a while," Hound said to Brawl as he circled the bears and their meal.

"You!" Brawl spat, huffing through his vocalizer with disgust. "You'll pay for this!"

Hound laughed dryly as he stowed his turret gun scope on a clip attached to his hip plate. "Not on your life, Brawl."

Careful not to distract the bears, Hound casually picked up Brawl's electron gun and looked it over approvingly.

"Oh, and thanks for the gun," he chimed, wagging it at the Combaticon. "I needed one of these."

"I'm going to get you!" Brawl called after the Autobot as he strolled away. As Hound disappeared into the cover of the woods, the screech of tearing metal pierced his audio sensors. He clipped the electron gun to his waist and kept walking.

* * *

Under the cover of tall firs, Hound reached the crest of the ridge. There was an outcropping of rock a short distance down the slope and he could see the lake far below. It was late morning and the sun was twinkling on the surface of the water. A light wind blew from the south.

Hound crouched while he scanned for Decepticons. Since he anticipated finding them to the west, near their camp, he was surprised to pick up an airborne Combaticon heading back from the eastern end of the lake.

The scout peered in the direction of the signal and made visual contact with the brown and purple shuttle. Blast Off was cruising above the trees near the shoreline. His rumbling thrusters crackled and echoed back and forth across the valley. The slow-moving shuttle was an easy target from Hound's position. A shot through Blast Off's rudder would render him flightless.

Hound flicked his turret gun from scope to weapon mode and steadied his elbow on one knee as he lined up a shot. He trained the crosshairs on the moving target, aiming for the vulnerable rudder, and pressed the trigger. The gun clicked impotently. He squeezed the trigger again. The weapon would not fire.

Hound grumbled in frustration and checked that he had it set to weapon mode and not radar scope mode. It was on the correct setting and had plenty of charge. The gun should have fired.

As Hound inspected his malfunctioning turret gun, Blast Off cast his sensors up the mountain, his attention caught by a flash of light from the chromed weapon. Upon sighting the Autobot, he transformed in mid-air and returned fire with his ionic blaster.

The stream of disruptive energy struck Hound and he toppled onto his back, his servos convulsing as ionic charge coursed uncontrollably through this circuits. Blast Off fired a second blast, but it missed Hound entirely and discharged into the tall trees behind him.

Hound struggled to move, but his servomechanisms were slow to recover. He let go of the turret gun and rolled over onto his front side. His right leg twitched as the scout pulled himself toward the trees with his arms.

Blast Off was on top of him in seconds. As Hound grabbed handfuls of grass and dirt, pushing himself forward with his one good leg, he heard the Combaticon's heel engines cut out. Blast Off glided to the ground behind Hound. Hound fumbled for Brawl's gun, which was still clipped to his waist.

"You're not getting away this time, Autobot," Blast Off sneered at him.

Hound froze with his arm by his side, his fingers touching the grip of Brawl's weapon.

Seeing Hound's turret gun on the ground a body length away, Blast Off confidently approached the prone Autobot. Careful not to put himself in the path of Hound's shoulder rocket, he drew his ionic blaster and pointed it at Hound.

"A hologram won't save you," he taunted as he inched his aim closer to Hound's head and threw open the charge throttle on his weapon, "if you don't have any head to conjure it with."

Hound looked up at Blast Off as he slowly wrapped his hand around Brawl's electron gun. "You're right about one thing, Blast Off," he confirmed.

Blast Off relaxed his aim momentarily, wanting to hear what Hound had to say. "And what's that?"

Hound slipped the gun out of the clip and grasped it firmly. The last of the ionic charge had dissipated and he tested the tension in his mechanisms. He was ready to move – quickly.

"Holograms aren't going to save me this time."

Blast Off's shoulders dropped with disappointment. "Well, that's stupid. That's exactly what I just––"

Lightning quick, Hound rolled onto his side and drew Brawl's weapon, unleashing a barrage of charged potential. Jagged electricity arced through the air, bursting into a spray of sparks with a loud bang upon striking the Combaticon's metal body. Blast Off uttered a stifled cry and collapsed, wrenching his left ankle joint as he fell.

Hound jumped to his feet, grabbed his turret gun and darted into the woods where his army green coloration would blend in with the environment. Blast Off would soon recover. Hound had to find some way to disable him.

When he was far enough into the forest and safely concealed by the darkness of the canopy above, Hound stopped and crouched behind some large, weedy bushes. In the distance, he could hear Blast Off cursing as the Decepticon picked up his weapon and came after him.

Hound slipped his turret gun back into its subspace pocket and re-clipped Brawl's weapon at his waist. Just then, a brave squirrel darted down a nearby tree trunk and scampered across the understory to another tree. Hound's optics lit up. He had an idea.

Hound crept from his hiding spot, moving slowly and carefully to avoid drawing attention to himself. He slipped behind a mass of huckleberry bushes and quietly observed Blast Off.

"Come out, coward!" Blast Off called to Hound as he searched the shadowy forest. He held his ionic blaster at the ready.

Hound watched as the Combaticon stalked him, nervous and suspicious in the unfamiliar surroundings. Blast Off had no clue that he was so close to Hound. A pair of unnoticed blue optics blinked in the greenery.

"You're trying my patience, Autobot," Blast Off huffed arrogantly. "Don't make me destroy this forest to find you hiding like some hapless whelp."

Hound remained deadly silent as Blast Off moved past him. When there was at least a hundred yards between them, he slipped out of the bushes. His fingers felt for the outline of the Decepticon's tracks beneath the plethora of ferns carpeting the forest floor.

Hound noted the arc of the back half of Blast Off's shuttle engine heels pressed into the ground. The space warrior's weight balance was off. He was walking with a heavy right heel strike. His left ankle had been damaged when he collapsed. The scout visualized the ankle pins rotating to accommodate the imbalanced forces. He knew what he had to do.

After checking that he was still safely out of sight, Hound unlatched the hook from the jeep winch on the front of his torso. He quietly unwound a long length of the wire rope, looping it into his other hand, and crept across the path through the trees, where he wrapped it around a large trunk and latched the hook onto the rope. Hound carefully hid the cable under the feathery ferns as he crept back into the bushes. Finally, he tugged on the line to ensure that it was taut. The trap was ready.

Hound felt around on the ground and grabbed a chunk of broken, eroding wood. His blue optics peered through the interwoven leaves at the Combaticon's backside as he tossed the rotten wood into Blast Off's line of sight. It landed with a loud thud, followed closely by a beam of purple blaster fire as the space warrior unloaded his weapon. Hound smiled to himself as he heard Blast Off blundering back the way he had come. He pulled his winch cable tight with one hand and waited for the inevitable.

Each thud of the Decepticon's feet matched the rhythm of Hound's fuel pump. He steadied his hand on the winch cable, holding it tight. As Blast Off thundered through the woods, Hound focused his attention on the invisible trip line in the ferns in front of him.

Blast Off's right foot cleared the wire but his left foot, which had been limping, caught abruptly in the snare. Hound yarded back on the wire rope as it reeled from the force of the Decepticon's momentum. He strained to hold it tight. There was a metallic bang as Blast Off's ankle joint snapped, sending him crashing to the forest floor.

Hound burst out of the bushes, unhitched his winch line from the tree and reeled it in.

"My ankle!" Blast Off cried, clutching at his leg. The thruster engine hung at an odd angle from his leg. As soon as he saw Hound, he floundered for the gun he had lost in the fall. But he could not find it in the thick ferns.

Blast Off's arm flailed out, trying to grab hold of him. Hound jumped out of reach, but Blast Off lurched along the ground after him, frantically trying to grab him. The scout jogged back toward the lookout before glancing back.

"Come here!" the Combaticon demanded petulantly as he struggled to his feet, trying to balance on his ruined ankle. He hobbled toward Hound slowly at first, limping to one side. "You're going to the scrap heap today!"

Hound kept his distance from Blast Off as the Combaticon stubbornly pursued him. It would be easy to outpace Blast Off, but the Combaticon could call for help if Hound left him functional. He could not afford to let that happen.

At the edge of fir trees, Hound paused and checked for the other Combaticons. There was no immediate threat. He hastened down the grassy slope and stopped at the rock outcropping. From there, the mountainside dropped away to the edge of Bear Lake, hundreds of feet below. He spun around as Blast Off noisily pushed his way clear of the tree line.

The Combaticon laughed arrogantly when he saw Hound standing at the precipice. "Foolish Autobot," he mocked Hound. "You're trapped and there's nowhere to go." Blast Off's optics flashed and he hobbled headlong down the grassy slope toward Hound. Hound braced himself.

"Three, two, one..." Hound counted down as Blast Off closed on him. An instant before the space warrior lunged, Hound pulled down into a crouch. The unwitting Combaticon suddenly found he had nothing to grab. Unable to catch his balance on his one good leg, Blast Off stumbled and fell onto the scout's back. Hound flexed his torso servos and straightened up, heaving him over the precipice. "Blast off!" Hound said, finishing his countdown with gusto. He watched as the flightless Combaticon flailed through the air toward his unhappy landing.

All was still after Blast Off crashed through the trees and came to rest far below. The space shuttle would no longer be a threat on this mission. He took out his radar scope again and scanned his surroundings to check for Brawl. Fortunately, the device still worked in surveillance mode. He picked up the beaten soldier in the distance, with the bears still prowling around him. Brawl was down for the count.

Hound surveyed the lay of the land from the lookout and checked the raw data log from his radar scope. Triangulating his coordinates with the eastern end of Bear Lake and the top of the nearby mountain, Hound plotted a course to the nearest point on the road. The geography was not onerous, so he would likely get there within the hour.

* * *

Onslaught was growing impatient. He radioed Swindle on his communicator.

"Status report, Swindle," he demanded of his munitions expert.

"I looked everywhere," Swindle reported sheepishly, "but I just can't find the trail that I followed last night."

Onslaught huffed with frustration. He looked to the north, where Vortex swept tirelessly over the next valley. The other two could not be seen.

"Stand by," Onslaught instructed Swindle before putting him on hold. The Combaticon leader switched the communicator channel to a different frequency.

"Brawl! Status report!"

* * *

Brawl lay on the ground with sections of plating lifted and peeled like orange rind, dents the size and shape of large bear paws, and a multitude of scratches marring his armor plating.

Some distance beyond his feet, the bears chewed on half of the animal carcass that they had wrestled out from underneath him. The other half of the mangled beast was spread across his chest plate.

The persistent beep of his communicator hailing him gradually came to his attention. How long has it been ringing? Brawl wondered, disoriented, as his optical mechanisms worked to focus through his cracked left lens. A shoulder joint groaned as he lifted himself off his back and reached across to activate the channel screen in the other forearm. The small screen opened in Brawl's forearm and he took the call.

"Yeah, what do you want?" he asked gruffly, not caring who it was.

"What the slag happened to you?" Onslaught responded with disgust.

Brawl was annoyed to have to explain what had happened. "The Autobot surprised me with a sneak attack. He had bears working on his side."

"And you can't handle a couple of furry flesh bags?" Onslaught sneered at the powerful Combaticon. "Where is he now?"

"Somewhere around here," Brawl answered, looking from side to side. "I don't see him anywhere, but––"

Frustrated, Onslaught cut him off in mid-sentence. "Get the frag up and start looking for him!"

"Send Vortex," Brawl told him, "I need repairs first."

* * *

Onslaught growled and angrily closed the channel with Brawl. His mechanical muscle may have been defeated, but this was no time for Vortex or any of them to play medibot.

The Combaticon leader hailed Blast Off, but repeated attempts to contact him went unanswered. Onslaught took Swindle off hold and opened a parallel message channel to Vortex.

"I'm sending you my coordinates," he said curtly. "Get over here. Brawl found the Autobot."

Onslaught closed the channel and ignited his thrusters to gain altitude. He scanned the mountain range below. The lone gravel road wove through the sprawling wilderness and off into the distance. The distant background behind Brawl in the communicator screen had been flat and grassy. Further east, the forest broke into an alpine plateau. That had to be where Brawl and the Autobot were located. Onslaught accelerated toward the plateau.

As he passed over a bend in the gravel road, the army green Autobot suddenly broke out of the trees and onto the road. Both Autobot and Decepticon froze for a moment, surprised to see each other. Hound quickly darted back into the forest as Onslaught withdrew his sonic stun gun and fired. The shots seared the greenery but missed their target.

Onslaught landed on the gravel road and listened for his prey. He could hear wood and branches snapping underfoot as Hound fled, but he could not discern the Autobot's exact position. Onslaught fired several shots into the shadowy forest.

Realizing that he was making too much noise, Hound stopped and waited. He could see Onslaught pacing on the road through breaks between the trees. A minute later, Vortex and Swindle alighted on the gravel road to either side of Onslaught. Hound's fuel pump surged.

"Great," he whispered to himself.

"He's there in the forest," Onslaught told the smaller Combaticons, pointing into the woods. "Flush him out."

"Right, boss," Swindle agreed and entered the forest with his arm cannon raised.

"Freshly-chopped Autobot coming up," Vortex laughed and took out a hot shear, one of the tools of an interrogator's trade.

Next to an old, overturned stump, Hound crouched and watched them through the vegetation. He knew that he could not go anywhere without making noise. The Decepticons knew that he was somewhere nearby and would eventually find him. He grimaced as he watched Swindle and Vortex sweep back and forth through the trees.

Swindle's purple optics suspiciously scanned the shadowy flora. He hated hunting like this. There were too many hiding spots. You might even get shot from somewhere that you thought you had already looked. If someone is going to get it, please let it be Vortex, he pleaded silently.

Vortex sliced his hot shear through a nearby bush. Bunches of cut greenery dropped away. No one was hiding there. He glared in the opposite direction. The forest around them was too quiet for comfort. He peered into the distance. Flanked by a rolling green mass of underbrush, the endless rows of evergreen trees eventually faded into each other.

Vortex moved out of Hound's line of sight, although he could still hear the noisy Combaticon as the interrogator hacked at anything within reach. He glimpsed Swindle every few seconds. The munitions expert was gradually closing on his position.

Hound glanced down at Brawl's weapon hanging at his side. If he fired the electron gun, it would give him away. This situation clearly called for holography, but he needed to be sure that the device still worked. Hound aimed his helmet-mounted hologram generator at the mossy ground and projected a life-like image of maple leaves. His servos relaxed. There is nothing wrong with using holograms, he reassured himself, as long as I don't overreach.

Hound patiently observed Swindle's movements. The wary Combaticon was overly concerned with mundane details. Every time he moved into a new area, he would stop for a minute or two and scrutinize everything around him. Hound watched with growing amusement as Swindle stared up into the trees above, as if expecting to find Hound hanging from the slender branches.

Electromagnetic energy tickled Swindle's sensors as his optics darted into the bushes and through the trees. It made him extremely uncomfortable, as if something was watching his every movement. It's the Autobot, he told himself over and over again as he looked around nervously. He's a trickster with those holograms. It's not fair. Hound could be standing right next to him, disguised as a fern, and he would not know it. But greed overshadowed fear, and he continued to search. He was going to do whatever it took to get that hologram generator for himself.

"Just a little closer," Hound mockingly coached Swindle in a whisper as he watched the paranoid Combaticon. He readied his hologram generator as Swindle stepped forward into a clear line of sight.

"Okay, there!" Hound whispered, barely audible. "Stay there." He turned on his hologram generator.

Not far from Swindle, Vortex cut away a swath of bushes. He tensed and aimed his semi-automatic glue gun at the exposed inside of the underbrush, but nothing was there. His servos relaxed and Vortex stood up and glanced around. He tossed away the smoking bunch of vegetation, wondering where else the Autobot could be hiding.

There was a sudden movement in his peripheral vision. Vortex turned to look, expecting to see Swindle searching in the distance. He started when he sighted Hound standing in the forest with his back turned to him. Vortex spun around and fired.

"Take that, Autobot!" he called out as hot streams of highly-adhesive glue sprayed across the intervening distance. He held his finger firmly on the trigger, unloading gallons of entrapping fluid.

The mass of glue stuck to the metallic figure, quickly coating his arms and legs and binding his body so that he could not move. Surprised by the attack, he struggled futilely to free himself. But escape was impossible and he toppled over. The glue ran down his features and captured pinecones and needles in its sticky embrace.

"I got him, Onslaught!" Vortex announced loudly as he ran toward his target. He twirled the hot shear in his hand.

"Excellent!" Onslaught called to him from the road. "Bring me his head."

Vortex leapt over a fallen tree with the hot shear raised high and his glue gun in the other hand. As he landed he brought down the shear and stabbed the gluey mess in the back.

"Aaaaaggghhh!"a voice cried out in agony. "Stop! Help!"

"What?" Vortex responded in shock. He pulled out the shear and turned the robot over. It was Swindle. "Impossible! I fired at the Autobot."

Swindle was furious. "You slagging piece of scrap! You're going to pay for this, you slagger! Pay!"

Hound stifled a chuckle as he watched the two Combaticons from his concealed position. The illusion had worked perfectly. He unclipped Brawl's electron gun and carefully trained it on Vortex.

"What's going on?" Onslaught demanded.

"The slagging moron stabbed me!" Swindle groaned, wincing with pain.

"Who are you calling a moron?" Vortex shot back.

A bolt of charge suddenly burst through the air, snapping as it arced across Vortex's metal body. The Combaticon hollered as his servomechanisms convulsed. The spastic jerks unbalanced him and he fell over beside Swindle.

Hound jumped up and hastened through the forest, mindful to keep heading west by south-west toward the Combaticons' camp. The sound of breaking branches faded into the distance as he fled.

"Cease your petty squabble!" Onslaught ordered. "Get the Autobot!"

"He got Vortex!" Swindle yelled from underneath gobs of drying glue.

Vortex got up and looked around for Hound, but he was gone. The forest was still as far as he could see, so he trudged back toward the road.

"Hey!" Swindle piped up. "What about me?"

Vortex turned and gave him a caustic glare.

"Bring him out, Vortex," Onslaught commanded.

Without a word, Vortex headed back down the slope. He picked up Swindle and carried the sticky Combation up to the road, unceremoniously dumping him at Onslaught's feet.

"I refuse to believe that one Autobot can defeat the Combaticons," Onslaught stated emphatically. He shook his head disapprovingly. "All the damage we have taken will alert Megatron to our plan."

"If sticky fingers here hadn't been so quick on the trigger," Swindle glared at Vortex, "I wouldn't be in this mess."

"We're heading back to camp to get the tachyon disrupter," Onslaught announced with indignation. "This hunt is over." He picked up Swindle and slung the glue-bound metallic mass over his shoulder.

"What about the others?" Vortex asked.

"We secure the tachyon disruptor first, then worry about the others."

* * *

Hound stopped and remained perfectly quiet while he listened attentively for the sounds of pursuers. The forest behind him was still as daylight flooded the understory through a hole in the canopy left by a dead and fallen tree. A burst of squirrel chatter penetrated the silence. Just for good measure, Hound took out his listening dish and swept it back and forth. As he tuned out the white noise from a breeze stirring the fir boughs above him, he picked out the distinct sound of the Combaticons' heel thrusters as they flew overhead. Hound looked up as he listened, though he could not see them through the dense canopy.

"Vortex, take the tachyon disruptor back to the base in your cargo hold," he heard Onslaught say.

"You owe me by carrying what's left of my stuff," Swindle added.

A brief argument ensued as the voices faded into the distance. The Combaticons had given up and were leaving. Hound turned off the device and put it away.

This is my last chance. If I don't reach their camp in time... Hound's thought trailed off as he remembered his failure at the rocket base, and Blitzwing knocking over the power lines. No, I can't let that happen.

His scouting senses guided him back to the gravel road, where Hound promptly transformed into jeep mode. His radar scope emerged from subspace as Hound throttled his engine and accelerated down the forest service road. At least they won't be looking for me now.

Hound sped along the lonely road. The road gradually descended, winding around the contour of the mountainside. Having driven the same route the day before, he anticipated the sharp turns before he came upon them and was able to shave critical time off of the trip.

He soon reached the lookout where he had spied on the Combaticons the day before. Debris from Brawl's tank shell still littered the ground. The scout transformed and crouched at the edge of the road as he watched the Combaticons packing up their camp far below.

Well, Hound, he coached himself, it's now or never. There was not enough time to call for backup. If he was going to stop the Decepticons from making a weapon with the tachyon disruptor, he had to face Onslaught and Vortex on his own. It was a terrible risk, but he was up to the challenge.

Hound leapt down the steep slope, running to catch his balance as he slipped and slid down the loose dirt, barely dodging tree trunks. Fir and pine boughs slowed his descent, preventing him from losing his footing and tumbling out of control. He grabbed their branches until their ends ran out of his hands, leaving nothing but barren limbs. The scout lost altitude quickly, but his approach did not go unnoticed by the Decepticons below.

"The fool wants more!" Onslaught exclaimed when heard a commotion and turned to glimpse Hound rushing down the mountain.

The Combaticon leader set down the crate he had been carrying, transformed, and aimed his missile trailer cannons at the moving target. It was difficult to get a lock on the Autobot as he darted back and forth down the slope, taking the least treacherous route. Onslaught braced himself and fired a missile. The projectile left a vapor trail as it streaked through the air, slamming into the mountainside with a thunderous explosion.

Rock and earth rained down on Hound as he ducked and dodged falling boulders. He hopped to his right as an uprooted tree barrelled wildly down the slope, kicking up mounds of dirt. The tree hurtled down the mountainside ahead of a mass of rumbling debris that threatened to sweep Hound off his feet. Dust billowed through the air.

Onslaught scanned the destruction. With all of the blown-out material cascading down the slope, he could see no sign of the Autobot.

"That ends that," he chuckled dryly. He returned to robot mode and resumed packing up the camp.

Vortex brought the crate containing the tachyon disruptor and set it down next to Swindle. Then he took out his energy cutter and prepared to free Swindle from his hardened bonds, as Onslaught had ordered before the Autobot appeared.

Swindle could do little but remain still as the grey Combaticon stood over him and hacked at the thick chains of cured glue. Facing the mountainside, Swindle watched as the last of the rocky debris rolled to a stop at the bottom of the steep slope. A large raven soared out of the trees and across the dusty debris, settling atop an evergreen on the other side of their camp. It peered down at them.

Something was stirring in the underbrush not fifty yards away. Swindle squinted at the rustling bushes with mounting unease. He was still wrapped in layers of hardened glue.

"Hurry up!" Swindle pleaded, not wanting to be lying vulnerable any longer. "There's something coming out of––"

Before Swindle could finish his sentence, Hound burst out of the underbrush.

"––those bushes," Swindle finished, the enthusiasm gone from his vocalizer.

"How on Cybertron did he survive?" Onslaught asked with disbelief.

Hound glanced over at Onslaught, then set his sights on Vortex as he stood straddled over Swindle. As Hound rushed Vortex, Onslaught hastily put down the items he was holding and took out his stun gun.

Vortex raised the cutter like a sword to defend himself as the scout leapt at him with a jump kick. The blade flipped out of Vortex's hand as Hound's sweeping foot dealt a jarring blow to the Combaticon's head. Vortex tumbled toward the railway tracks, coming to rest in front of the damaged locomotive.

Hound pounced on top of Vortex as the interrogator tried to clamber to his feet.

"You're finished, Autobot!" Vortex hissed as he shook off Hound's grip, only to have the Autobot grab him more firmly by the upper arm.

"Never..." Hound gasped. Vortex's helicopter blades flexed under their combined weight as the two tussled back and forth across the ground. "You're not getting… that tachyon disruptor."

"You can't stop us," Vortex spat as he wrestled himself into a superior position.

Onslaught lined up his gun sights on the fighting robots, trying to pick out a good shot. He could not risk hitting Vortex because he needed the helicopter to carry the tachyon disruptor.

Swindle had rolled himself along the ground and was struggling to pick up Vortex's energy cutter with his free hand.

Hound struck Vortex in the face, denting his battle mask. He rolled out from underneath the stunned Combaticon and stumbled onto the railway tracks.

Onslaught was ready. He squeezed the trigger, belting Hound with sonic waves. The scout groaned, clutching at his midsection as his optics dimmed. Vortex lunged at the injured Autobot, throwing him to the ground at the edge of a rocky abutment by the lake.

"Take this!" Vortex barked as he pinned Hound and punched him in the face. "And this!" The second blow struck the Autobot full in the faceplate. Hound's mouth went slack.

"Out of the way!" Onslaught demanded, moving closer and training his gun on the scout. "I'll finish him off!"

"Not until I'm done with him!" Vortex snapped at Onslaught. He glanced down at his blackened chest plate then glared at the Autobot. "You're going to pay for doing this." He wound up to deliver a third blow.

Hound's optics suddenly brightened.

As Vortex swung his fist, Hound grabbed the Combaticon's arm and twisted it, jamming the elbow joint. As Vortex struggled to get away, Hound slipped the electron gun out of its holder and aimed it point blank at Vortex's torso.

"No!" Vortex yelled in his airy voice. As he tried to pull his mangled arm from Hound's grasp, the scout fired.

"Aaaggghh!" he screamed. Ten megawatts of electricity penetrated the circuits in the interrogator's hastily repaired torso.

Behind them, Swindle was furiously cutting away at his bonds. He was afraid that Hound was about to get obliterated. This was his last chance to get the scout's stuff.

Hound pushed the smoking Combaticon to the side and stood up. Onslaught was waiting for him, weapon at the ready. He laughed with evil intent.

"You never had a chance of winning," Onslaught informed Hound, gloating. "Why even try? You must be mad. That's what is wrong with you Autobots. You're all insane."

"I give up," Hound announced, dropping his weapon and raising his arms in surrender.

"We don't take prisoners," Onslaught sneered and trained the weapon on the Autobot.

"But," Hound stuttered in dismay, "I surrender."

"It was a mistake to disarm yourself," Onslaught stated. "But it will be the last mistake you ever make."

As Onslaught pulled the trigger, Swindle sprinted at Hound and tackled him. The sonic weapon discharged as the two robots sailed over the edge of the abutment and plunged into the water below. Onslaught was not sure who he had shot.

He calmly walked up to the water's edge, but could not see through the milky blue surface as waves softly lapped against the rocks. Bubbles trickled up and popped on the water's surface as he waited for a sign of what was happening underwater. Several minutes later, a large oil slick floated to the surface and spread across the water. The lake was quiet and serene. Clearly, one of them had succumbed to the other.

He peered down into the water, trying to see the victor. A shape moved just below the surface of the water, about forty yards east of the abutment. Onslaught pointed his sonic gun. A helmet bobbed at the surface, then a hand lifted out of the water and grasped the shoreline, followed by another. It was Swindle. Onslaught lowered his weapon as the wounded Combaticon struggled to his feet and shuffled up the embankment.

"Krok." A raven was keeping an eye on things as it perched atop the locomotive.

Swindle was clearly the worse for wear. One of his optics was smashed and his throat plating was crushed. Onslaught straightened as Swindle reached the top of the embankment and limped toward him. The munitions expert grinned triumphantly as he held aloft the holographic projector from the scout's helmet.

"Where is his head?" Onslaught growled, displeased. "Why didn't you bring it to me?"

A crackling noise erupted from Swindle's mouth as he attempted to speak. He paused and pointed at his crumpled throat plating, shrugging lamely.

"Never mind. I'll get it myself," Onslaught huffed. "Go keep an eye on the tachyon disruptor."

Swindle nodded as he continued limping toward the crate at the front of the train.

Onslaught was half way down the embankment when he saw Swindle's head poke above the waterline.

"Hey, Onslaught!" he called plaintively. "Give me a hand. I think I'm stuck."

Onslaught froze. Behind him, he heard the crack of an electron gun discharging, followed by a loud pop and the distinctive sound of glass breaking.

"What was that?" asked Swindle.

Onslaught felt a blind rage building in his contacts as he turned and raced back up the embankment to the train. There sat the ruined remains of the tachyon disruptor, visible through a gaping hole in the crate.

Hound stood beside the smoking crate. He was holding Brawl's electron gun and turned to point it at Onslaught.

"No!" Onslaught gasped in dismay. "It can't be! My plan is ruined!"

"Ha, ha!" Hound laughed triumphantly. "That's another point for us," he chimed. "You won't be making any more weapons, Onslaught."

The Combaticon leader tightened his grip on his sonic gun.

Hound fired at him. The electrical current zapped Onslaught and raced through his body, instantly seizing his mechanisms.

"What's going on?" Swindle called from the lake.

"You just lost," Hound called back to him. It was quiet for a moment.

"Frag! I'm stuck," Swindle muttered.

"Good," replied Hound.

He stowed Brawl's weapon and gazed at the mess that the Combaticons had left behind. He would have to inform the proper authorities about it.

A branch high up in a nearby tree swayed, catching his attention. Hound gazed up to see the raven rocking the branch with its weight, and looking down on the world below with interest. Then it took off and soared over the camp. Its glossy black wings spread to catch the breeze. As Hound looked up to watch it, he was reminded of the raven-man from his dream, and the totem. The scout imagined beautiful geometric shapes in black and red detailing the bird as it crossed the lake.

The raven grew small as it reached the other side of Bear Lake and then vanished as it settled in the trees. Hound looked back at the camp and noticed that the Combaticons had left a little energon in their cubes. After taking it for his supply, the scout stood next to the railway tracks and gazed off into the distance.

The train's engineer was somewhere out there. Hound took out his radar scope and turned it on. There was no static; no electromagnetic interference. He scanned the rail bed both east and west. The man was walking along the tracks many miles to the west. Hound set off to catch up with him, leaving the Combaticons behind.