This idea came completely out of the blue after stumbling across the Transformers Timelines: Shattered Glass comic whose entire premise is basically Evil!Autobots verses Good!Decepticons. It was such an interesting concept it wouldn't leave me alone until I adapted it to the Beast Wars universe. Enjoy at your own risk.
Disclaimer: Nothing's mine. Don't sue. I'm serious. I have no money.
Shattered Glass: Beast Wars
The vines had come seemingly out of nowhere. Neither Airazor or Tigatron had seen the fibrous lengths of plant matter slithering through the grass until it was already too late and they were caught in the strange plant's grasp. Vines coiled around their arms, legs and chests. One had even snaked around Airazor's throat. The two scouts thrashed and kicked against the constricting vines, desperately trying to shake them off and make a mad dash for safety. But all their efforts were useless. Whatever it was this giant energy-emitting plant they'd stumbled across in the wilds of primitive Earth was, it was unlike any other indigenous fauna the female flier had seen before. Nothing Airazor did seemed able to loosen the plant's hold on her or prevent even more vines from winding around her and solidifying their dominance over her. Mech-fluid and panic pounded in Airazor's audios. Several feet away from her, her fellow scout and lover desperately struggled against a dozen slithering vines. But Airazor already knew his efforts would ultimately prove as useless as her own.
"Tigatron!" she cried as loud as she could around the vine crushing her throat. The Siberian tiger looked up and found her through the snarl of twisting green vines entangling them.
Their optics met. A look of quiet understanding and acceptance passed between them. Neither one of them was escaping this. This was the end.
"Tigatron…" Airazor whispered. The vine around her throat made the other scout's name garbled and barely audible even to her own audios. If this really was the end the only regret she had was that she couldn't meet it with her lover's arms around her or at least holding his hand. She didn't want to go into the Matrix without Tigatron by her side.
Her lover seemed to understand her desire and reached one hand out towards her, the tension cables all the way up his arm quivering with the effort of fighting against the vines. "Airazor," he called between gritted teeth.
Airazor reached out towards him, straining against the vines encircling her wrist and elbow.
A strange glowing light had begun to build around them. The air suddenly seemed charged with electricity. Airazor felt the air around her begin to hum with energy - like a generator slowly cycling up to full power.
Tigatron's fingers brushed against the tips of her own. Mustering every last ounce of effort she had, the flier strained across the last few inches separating her from her lover and intertwined her fingers with his, holding onto him as if he somehow possessed the means of their escape. They stared into each other optics, both of them knowing that such a thing was not an option to them any longer.
"Whatever happens to us… wherever we go…" Tigatron called to her as the strange sub-sonic humming reached a deafening pitch. "My spark will find you!"
The light was almost too bright now to keep her optics online. All Airazor could really see was the faint outline of Tigatron's helm and shoulders between the twisting lengths of vines and the washed-out black stripes of his armor against the glaring white light around them.
"As will… mine!" Airazor cried with her last little bit of strength. The vines were so tightly coiled around her they had begun to crush her internal parts. She heard more than felt something inside her chest cavity pop and shift under the crushing pressure in a direction she was sure it wasn't meant to go. She squeezed Tigatron's fingers tighter if only to reassure herself he was still there with her in her last few moments of function.
The supernatural glow around them deepened, blinding her to anything else but a sea of endless white light. The humming vibration was so powerful it felt as if the very fabric of the universe was being torn apart around her.
No longer able to see her lover's face through the blinding glow, Airazor nonetheless felt Tigatron's fingers tighten around hers as though in answer.
The vines squeezed tighter. Airazor could no longer feel her body. Everything had gone numb. She could no longer even feel Tigatron's fingers around hers. The low vibrations increased. Then it felt as though she was falling away from herself as the light rushed forward to claim her and whisk her away into oblivion…
…
…
…
Airazor came back to herself with a violent jerk. There was no moment of groggy disorientation or slow waking - just a sudden, frame-rattling jolt that brought her immediately back to full awareness. She lay on the ground in the middle of a grassy field. Low mountains lined one whole section of the horizon to her right. The sky between them glowed a fiery orange - the last traces of daylight as the sun slipped around the curve of the earth. Twilight was sweeping in overhead. Several stars had already begun to glitter against the deepening backdrop of purple.
That was strange. The last thing she remembered it was the middle of the day -the sun still on its upwards arc over her head and the sky an endless sheet of blue. She remembered that very clearly because Tigatron had commented on what a beautiful day it was turning out to be before they'd come across the strange plant…
Tigatron!
Airazor felt no actual pain as she frantically forced herself to her knees and looked around, but her entire frame twinged with the residual ache of being roughly squeezed. She vaguely remembered being crushed by vines before everything had suddenly gone white and she'd woken up here. Pushing herself to her knees, the flier looked around and immediately noticed the white figure laying on the grass beside her.
"Tigatron!" she cried, throwing herself at the still figure. "Tigatron, answer me!"
The Siberian tiger groaned through his vents as she roughly shook him by the shoulder. "Airazor..?" he groggily murmured as his optics flickered online. "What happened?" He seemed to regain his senses and pushed himself up to sit. He looked around them with a confused expression. "How did we get here? The last thing I remember was that strange plant…"
"I don't know," Airazor shook her head, as equally confused as her lover. "It looks like we're a few miles east of the Axalon. But how we got back here from that valley I haven't the faintest idea."
His facial plates etched with a lingering look of bewilderment, Tigatron got to his pedes. Airazor got up to stand beside him. Only the faintest hint of pink remained in the western corner of the sky. The soft glow of Airazor and Tigatron's optics were the only thing to give off any source of light and illuminated the contours of their faces.
"We should return to base and report this to Optimus," he said. "Whatever that plant was seems to possess at least several unnatural properties - one of them the ability to apparently transport individuals across long distances."
"Agreed," Airazor nodded.
Together, the two scouts converted to beast-mode and started off in the direction of the Maximals' downed starship. Within an hour, the Axalon came within sight.
"Thank Primus," Airazor murmured, flying low over Tigatron. "Who would have ever thought the Axalon would look so inviting. I don't remember half of what happened today, but I'm exhausted."
Tigatron didn't immediately answer. As they came within the last half mile of it, the scout's demeanor became increasingly tense.
"What is it?" Airazor asked.
Tigatron squinted into the darkness at the approaching ship. "I don't know. Perhaps my optics are not working at one hundred percent capacity because of our inexplicably swift transport here, but is it my imagination or does the Axalon look slightly… different to you?"
Airazor followed her lover's gaze towards the downed starship. At first glance, the starship looked exactly the way it did a few days ago when she and Tigatron had left to go on an extended scouting mission - a non-flyable heap of twisted metal from not one, but two, crash landings. It was only as she examined the details of the ship that she finally understood what Tigatron was talking about.
A series of large scorch marks covered the entire underbelly of the Axalon and a majority of its port side as though it'd survived some kind of vicious firefight. Even from a distance she could make out a number of hastily constructed patches on its lower hull.
"What happened here?" she said in a horrified whisper. "It looks like the others had to fight off Megatron and half a dozen squads of ticked off Preds.
"Perhaps there was some kind of battle," Tigatron suggested. "Although I'm not sure why Optimus or one of the others wouldn't have contacted us to return to base to help if there was."
Airazor glanced down at Tigatron. "What if something bad happened to them and they couldn't contact us for help? What if…" She couldn't bring herself to finish that line of code.
"We mustn't jump to conclusions," Tigatron said. "Let us first investigate before we fear the worst."
Almost in answer to Tigatron's suggestion, the Axalon's spotlights flared on, bathing the two scouts in a pool of brilliant yellow light. The muffled hum of Sentinel's perimeter guns coming online and swiveling around on their bases to lock on their position sounded from several different points around them. Blinded by the sudden surge of light, Airazor dipped low and transformed to her bi-pedal form with a graceful flap of her wings. Tigatron transformed beside her. They both stood in the pool of light motionless.
"Why isn't Sentinel standing down?" Airazor whispered out of the corner of her mouth.
Tigatron shook his head. "Perhaps they deactivated Sentinel's signal detector. If Megatron attacked while we were away and they had to put Sentinel on full alert it won't immediately recognize our energy signatures."
For several minutes the two scouts stood perfectly still. Any movement would have immediately triggered Sentinel to open fire on them. Finally, after what felt like forever to the anxious flier, a low hum sounded as the gun turrets powered down and swiveled away from them. The floodlights above them abruptly shut off.
"Let's go," Tigatron said.
Airazor nodded.
The two quickly made their way to the underbelly of the ship where one of the lifts was already waiting for them. They stepped inside. Almost immediately the lift began to rise. As she and Tigatron rose, Airazor couldn't help but feel that something wasn't quite right. The feeling had been haunting her ever since she'd woken up in the field. Being unexplainably teleported several hundred miles by a giant energy-producing plant was certainly not normal, but there was something else needling her neural sensors. Something just felt… off.
The lift finally came to a stop and the reinforced glass door slid open with a pneumatic whoosh. Airazor was just about to step out when she suddenly found herself staring down the barrel of a laser gun which seemed to have magically appeared out of nowhere in front of her. Airazor was so startled, she immediately froze in place.
"Who are you?" a voice snarled. "What are you doing here looking like that?"
Airazor shook herself out of her paralyzed trace to look up. Cheetor stood in front of her, his optics narrowed with suspicion. He thrust his blaster closer to her like he was really trying to stab her with it. "I said who are you?" he demanded. "You better start talking fast or I'm going to blow a hole straight through your sparkchamber." His once bright yellow paint job gleamed a dirty tan in the gloom of the bridge.
"Ch-Cheetor! It's us!" Airazor cried, holding her hands up in front of her. "Airazor and Tigatron! Don't you recognize us?"
"Yeah right," the young Maximal hissed. "Airazor and Tigatron were killed in the alien quantum surge months ago. I don't know what kind of cheap trick Megatron is trying to pull by sending two people who look like them here, but it's not going to work." The blaster aimed at Airazor's chest loomed closer.
"No!" Tigatron said, pushing himself in between Airazor and the gun to shield her. "We really are who we say! We were conducting a long-distance scouting mission in the north and came across a strange plant that gave off an alien energy signature. It captured us in its vines and began to act like a giant generator. One moment we were there, the next we were waking up in the middle of a field several miles east of here."
This explanation seemed to take Cheetor by surprise, but his gun didn't waver from them. "Do you really think I'm stupid enough to fall for a story like that?" he scoffed. His facial plates warped into an expression of contemptuous disgust. The blaster in his hand hummed with deadly intent. "You know what, slag this. I'm just going to kill you and let Optimus sort it out later."
Airazor stared at their young comrade, unable to make what he said really compute. What was going on? Never had she seen Cheetor pull a weapon on a fellow comrade before or threaten to deactivate them. Never had she heard him speak in such a cold, calculating manner. In front of her, Tigatron tensed as Cheetor held his blaster out straight and pressed his finger to the trigger.
"Cheetor! Stand down!" a voice roared from deeper inside the bridge.
"Oh, come on, Rhinox," Cheetor growled, still glaring at the two scouts. "There's no way they're really who they say they are. Airazor and Tigatron were killed months ago. This has to be some kind of Pred trick."
"That's for Optimus to decide," Rhinox rumbled as he stepped closer to the lift Tigatron and Airazor huddled inside. The engineer looked them up and down with a suspicious sneer. "Only he gets to decide when to execute prisoners."
Cheetor sneered. "What a bunch of flaming slag," he cursed. "Optimus is going soft if he starts letting disguised Preds in here like they belong."
With speed that belied his hulking size, Rhinox lunged forward and grabbed Cheetor by the throat, lifting him several inches off the ground. The young Maximal clawed at the thick fingers suddenly wrapped around his throat cables. Gargled, choked off sounds were the only things able to escape his gasping mouth. Airazor and Tigatron both shrank back against the lift's back wall, unsure of what to make of this unforeseen display of violence between their crewmates.
Rhinox drew Cheetor closer to him so that he could meet the younger Maximal's bulging optics. "Understand this," he growled into Cheetor's face. "Anymore smart talk from you about how Optimus is running this war will only end with you in the scrapheap with a crater in your chest where your sparkchamber used to be. And don't think for a nano-klick I won't be the first one to volunteer to do it too." He drew Cheetor even closer to him. "Understand?"
Pure hatred burned in the racer's optics, but he mutely nodded.
"Good," Rhinox snarled. Then - in a movement that was almost too fast for Airazor's stunned processor to follow - turned and threw Cheetor away from him against the nearest wall. Cheetor hit the wall with a sickening crunch and slid to the floor in a jumbled heap. Airazor and Tigatron stood as still as statues inside the lift as Cheetor painfully pushed himself off the floor into a sitting position and glared at Rhinox. His optics burned with hate.
"What's going on here?" a low voice rumbled from the other side of the bridge.
Airazor looked over to see Optimus Primal striding through the door. His blood-red optics swept across the bridge, taking in the scene. His gaze finally came to rest on Airazor and Tigatron. His expression flickered with surprise before immediately morphing into one of guarded suspicion like Cheetor and Rhinox had greeted them with.
Airazor refused to read too much into that and instead focused on the wave of relief she felt at Optimus's appearance. If anyone could restore order to the madness she and Tigatron had returned to, it was Optimus.
"Optimus," she greeted. Regaining some measure of confidence in the world now that their leader was there, Airazor ventured to slink past Rhinox out of the lift to meet him. "Thank Primus. You have no idea what kind of-"
She was abruptly cut off by the hum of the high-powered fusion gun mounted on Optimus's forearm being shoved in her face. The flier froze, her processor freezing in confused panic. What was going on? This was now the second time she'd had one of her crewmates pull a weapon on her like she was an enemy.
"Who are you?" Optimus snarled.
"It's us! Who else?" Airazor cried. This was starting to become too much. After being instantly transported several hundred miles by a mysterious plant, this was not the type of homecoming she'd been hoping to receive from her crewmates.
"Airazor and Tigatron were killed in an alien quantum surge months ago," the transmetal gorilla growled. "Their bodies were dismantled and used for spare parts." His arm-mounted fusion gun hummed louder. "Now, tell me what Megatron is hoping to accomplish by sending two spies here disguised as them."
"Megatron has nothing to do with this," Tigatron insisted, cautiously stepping out of the lift to stand beside Airazor. He had his hands held up by his shoulders in the universal sign of surrender. "We really are who we say. We were in the north on a long-range scouting mission when we came across a strange planet in a secluded valley." Quickly, he retold his and Airazor's story for what felt like the tenth time in the last half hour.
Optimus did not seem impressed when the scout finally concluded his tale with them arriving at the Axalon, however. "That's a very interesting story. But you must think me a fool if you think I'm actually going to believe that after I saw my minions' dead bodies and even had several injuries healed by protomatter recovered from their corpses grafted onto my own frame." The transmetal gorilla slowly leaned closer. "Now tell me, who are you really?" The unspoken threat of physical harm hung from each word like heavy, invisible weights.
Airazor cast Tigatron a frantic look. What were they to do? Their comrades didn't believe they really were who they said. They thought they'd been killed and that she and Tigatron were really imposters! Nothing that was happening made any sense. Why did they think they were dead when they were standing right in front of them? How could they prove their identity before they were blasted into pieces?
Tigatron seemed at just as much of a loss as Airazor. Suddenly, the flier had an idea.
"Check our energy signatures!" she blurted out. "No one can fake an energy signature! That will prove who we are!"
Optimus glared at her as though he expected this to be some kind of trick. He glanced at Rhinox. "Do it," he snapped. His fusion gun did not waver from the pair.
The engineer lumbered towards the holo-table in the middle of the room and punched in a series of codes. The computer chirped as its sensors made a quick scan of the bridge's occupants. Rhinox reared backwards from the display when the computer listed its findings a few seconds later. "Their energy signatures match Airazor and Tigatron's exactly," he said. He looked backwards over one spiked shoulder guard and cast the two scouts a look of incredulous surprise.
"That's impossible," Cheetor growled. He'd finally dragged himself back up onto his pedes. "It's got to be some kind of computer malfunction. Just let me blast them and be done with it."
There was the muffled pomph of a fusion gun discharging which was immediately followed by the sound of charged ions exploding against metal. A spot on the ground several inches in front of Cheetor's right pede was a shallow crater of charred black. Optimus let his arm fall back to his side, the barrel of his forearm gun smoking little wisps of gray.
"Do not push me, Cheetor," he growled in a dangerously low voice. "You forget who is the leader here and who is the subordinate. I am the one who makes the decisions around here; not you. Do not make me have to remind you of that again like I did last time…"
Cheetor's answer was a venomous glare that would have left Optimus as a puddle of smelted metal if it were physically possible.
Airazor could only stare at the two. What had happened? Cheetor and Optimus were usually like inseparable brothers. But now they were treating each other like hated rivals. She decided not to ask any questions about it until after several other, more important issues were cleared up first.
Optimus had finally swung his fusion gun away from her and Tigatron. Although he no longer had a weapon trained on them, his optics seemed to physically pierce them with their intense gaze. "This is either a very elaborate trick or we are faced with a very interesting conundrum. The computer has confirmed that you are Airazor and Tigatron, but you are obviously not the Airazor and Tigatron we knew - they are dead."
"I am beginning to suspect we are not the Airazor and Tigatron you knew either," Tigatron said. "I have noticed several…" he glanced between Optimus and Cheetor uneasily, "differences since arriving here. I am forced to wonder if that plant didn't just transport us across distance but perhaps across time and space as well."
"What are you saying?" Cheetor hissed from the far side of the bridge away from everyone else. "That you two are from some kind of different dimension?"
"Parallel dimensions have been theorized as being mathematical possible," Rhinox said.
Optimus's optics narrowed thoughtfully at the two scouts. A sly grin pulled at the corners of his lips. "How very interesting…" he murmured.
"You can't seriously be buying this, Optimus!" Cheetor cried. "Parallel dimensions are nothing but theorized fantasy! The odds of them actually being from-"
Anything else Cheetor might have said was abruptly cut off by another fusion blast from Optimus that slammed into the young Maximal's left shoulder. The racer crumbled backwards against the wall with a howl of pain, holding his shoulder. The blast had not been meant to kill or seriously wound, but Optimus had made sure to put enough energy in it to partially melt Cheetor's armor and fry his internal circuitry beneath. The smell of burnt protomatter filled the bridge.
"This is your last warning, Cheetor, about questioning my judgment," Optimus growled. "One more word from you and I will permanently deactivate your glitching little aft. And just to make sure you remember this lesson, you are not allowed to use the CR chamber to repair yourself. You can wait for your self-repair systems to do that."
Turning his attention back to the now thoroughly frightened scouts, Optimus went on as if he'd never been interrupted. Airazor was beginning to wonder if she really wasn't caught in the midst of some stress-induced nightmare. "The fact that Airazor and Tigatron are here when we know they were killed in this world proves the existence of parallel dimensions." The transmetal gorilla stepped closer to them, eyeing them hungrily. "No matter how that plant - if that's really what it was - managed to transport you from your dimension to ours is a fascinating but not necessarily urgent question. All that matters is that you are here now. The addition of two to my army's forces is an opportunity that cannot be passed up. With your return to the ranks, we will outnumber Megatron and his crew and finally be able to crush him once and for all." He eyed each of them in turn: first Airazor, then Tigatron. Airazor shuddered under his gaze. Although he was shorter than Tigatron by several inches, Optimus's intimidating presence seemed to completely invade Airazor's personal space. "What say you? Are you still loyal to the Maximal cause and its complete destruction of the Predacons? Do you still recognize me as your leader and swear to follow me to the end, whether that be in glory or termination?" The Maximal sigil on his shoulder gleamed a malevolent purple in the dim light.
Airazor shared a frightened look out of the corner of her optic with Tigatron. After everything she'd just witnessed she wasn't sure what to make of anything anymore. But the idea of disagreeing with Optimus's request did not seem like the wisest course of action. "O-of course," she shakily said. Beside her, Tigatron timidly nodded his consent as well.
Optimus rewarded them with a grin. "Good." Airazor couldn't help but feel the acknowledgement carried with it a reminder of the harm that would have come to them if they had said no.
The chirp of the ship's comm-system sounded. "Hey yo, Boss Monkey." a familiar voice called over the line. "Ya might wanna come down to da brig. I think we might'a finally made da bug wanna talk. But ya might wanna hurry, 'cause he might not live long enough fer ya ta question him if ya take yer sweet time gettin' here."
"It's about time. You've had Waspinator at your disposal for more than two solar cycles. I was beginning to think you'd lost your touch, Rattrap," Optimus replied. His tone was full of condescension.
There was an angry sound from the other side of the line. "It wouldn't a taken so long if I hadn't had ta handhold Dinobot through da entire interrogation. Ya know how squeamish he gets 'round spilt mech-fluid. He hates gettin' his claws dirty."
"And that is your problem to rectify," Optimus snapped. "You were the one that insisted he could become a working member of the Maximals after he was captured and turned to our side. If he is unable or unwilling to conform to our ways, then I will see to it that he is removed as a liability to our cause."
"Aw, cool yer circuits," Rattrap groaned. "He did his part, an' da bug's in no condition ta put up anymore of a fight 'gainst questions. Wha' more d'ya want?"
Optimus's lips twisted into a snarl. "I will be there in a few minutes." He abruptly cut the comm-line off. "Come," he said to Airazor and Tigatron. "Perhaps you've come back to us at the perfect time." The scouts silently fell into step behind him as Optimus led them into the main part of the ship. "A few days ago we managed to capture Waspinator while he was out on patrol. We've been-" he gave a throaty chuckle under his breath "-vigorously interrogating him ever since in hopes that he will reveal some useful Predacon intelligence to us, but so far he's maintained his silence." He glanced back over his shoulder with a decidedly evil grin. "Until now that is…"
Airazor and Tigatron shared troubled looks. It went without saying that something wasn't right here. Airazor had only been with the Axalon crew for little more than a year now, but had come to deeply respect Optimus Primal and her fellow crewmates over that time. Never had she witnessed such brutality amongst her comrades like she'd seen since arriving there. The Optimus she knew was peaceful, kind and fair. This Optimus frightened her to her very core. Unconsciously, she moved closer to Tigatron until that her shoulder guard almost touched his.
Within minutes, the three arrived in the ship's lowest deck. Airazor had never been this deep in the ship before; she'd never had a reason to venture so far. In her world, she and her fellow Maximals had never had any reason to use the Axalon's brig. By the confident ease of which Optimus strode down the halls, however, it seemed as though he'd walked this path on more than one or two occasions. The lighting was darker down here - the halogen bulbs running down the length of the hallway weakly sputtering on and off in several places. Shadows seemed to seep from the walls as if the ceiling panels were bleeding oily tar. Empty holding cells lined either side of the hall. Tigatron slipped his hand into Airazor's as if seeking his own reassurance from her. She readily returned his grip.
Up ahead at the end of the hall, the doorway of one cell shined with light. Optimus headed directly towards it. As they neared Airazor became distressingly aware of the stench of burnt ozone, processed energon waste and - possibly the most disturbing of all - the ionized reek of mech fluid. And lots of it if the intensity of the smell was any indicator. She had to physically force back a gag of revulsion as they neared the door of the cell and was met by an even denser cloud of vileness.
"Here," Optimus said, his tone almost excited as he veered inside. Airazor and Tigatron hesitantly followed him inside. Airazor gasped at the sight she was confronted with. Tigatron stiffened with horror beside her.
In the middle of the cell a pair of manacled chains hung from the ceiling. A limp body hung from them by the wrists, his pede tips swinging an inch or two above the ground. Airazor at first didn't recognize the mangled form. Waspinator's distinctive green and yellow superstructure was covered by layers of half dried mech-fluid and energon. A pool of brackish purple fluid congealed on the floor beneath him. The Predacon flier's chest plate was missing, his internal wiring and sparkchamber completely exposed to view. One corner of his sparkchamber's glass front was etched with spider web cracks. Airazor tried to avert her optics out of modesty, but could not seem to make her body respond to her processor's commands. Horror robbed her of all voluntary movement. Waspinator's body lazily swung back and forth in the air from the ends of the chains. Painful looking dents, cuts and burn marks seemed to cover every inch of his superstructure. The protomatter beneath his armor was blistered and wept mech-fluid. As Airazor stared in silent revulsion the wires in his left shoulder shorted and sent a shower of electrical sparks arching up between his armor plating into the air. Waspinator's head hung down the middle of his chest, but Airazor still heard the low whine of misery that escaped from between his mandibles. His body weakly twitched against his bonds.
"Hey, boss. Nice ta see ya finally here," a voice called from the corner of the room to Airazor's right. Rattrap sat in a chair with his feet propped up on top of a metallic case, the front two legs of his seat tipped back off the ground in a reclining position. Lazily rocking back and forth, Rattrap was cleaning the tip of a nasty looking electrical prod with a fluid stained rag. Behind him, leaning against the wall was Dinobot. The former Predacon warrior seemed indifferent to their arrival and merely glanced in their direction before crossing his arms across his bulky chest and looking away as though bored by the proceedings.
Optimus stared at Waspinator's mangled form before looking back at Rattrap. "Is he still functional enough to speak?"
The spy shrugged. "Eh. Should be. He was certainly makin' enough noise before I comm-ed ya." The sadistic grin he gave Optimus chilled Airazor straight down to her core. He finally seemed to notice Airazor and Tigatron standing there. He tipped his chair back down onto all four legs with a hollow crack and leaned forward to stare at them with sudden suspicion. His hand shied down to the blaster on his hip. "Wha 're dey doin' here? Weren't dey killed a few months back? I swear I remember peelin' their protomatter off fer Rhinox ta store."
"It's a long story I do not feel like explaining at the moment," Optimus curtly informed him. "Suffice it to say that they are our missing comrades returned from the grave."
Rattrap seemed unconvinced but did not try to push the issue. He sullenly leaned back in his chair and tilted the front two legs back off the ground.
"What methods did you use on him?" Optimus asked as he took a step closer to their silent captive.
Rattrap chuckled darkly. "Wha' methods didn't we use? Got ta use all my toys on da fragger twice through." He tapped the metal case under his feet with the top of one pede.
Dinobot finally rattled himself out of his silence. He threw Waspinator an annoyed glare. "He was most obstinate. It took us eight hours of continual torture just to make him plead for mercy, and then another forty before he finally admitted that Megatron is planning something against us. But he still refuses to give us any details as to what that might be." The velociraptor made a low growl through his vents. "It was most irksome. If I must listen to anymore of that annoying insect's screams, I swear I will go insane."
"Aw," Rattrap cooed and reached one hand up over his shoulder to pat the warrior's forearm. "I told'ja those're an acquired taste. Just give it some time an' you'll come ta appreciate 'em. A good interrogation is like a symphony. Ya just need ta get over dat last lil' bit of Predacon coding ya have, an' den you'll really be able ta get inta it."
"I find the entire idea of torture, interrogation and prolonged deactivation completely tiresome," Dinobot sighed. "It is a waste of time and energy, and is unforgivably messy."
Rattrap chuckled. "Like I said: ya just haven't had da opportunity ta learn ta appreciate it yet."
Dinobot heaved a disgruntled sigh, and against all expectations seemed to calm under Rattrap's touch. Smirking victoriously, the spy rubbed his hand down Dinobot's forearm before finally turning back around in his seat.
Airazor and Tigatron stared at the two in silent, shell-shocked confusion. Since when did Dinobot and Rattrap get along? And when in the entire history of them knowing each other did they so openly interact and touch except to try and rip each other's throat cables out? Airazor didn't know what was more disturbing: Rattrap's open love for torture; Dinobot's dislike for his former profession; or their mutual contentment in each other's presence.
Optimus, meanwhile, completely ignored the two. He strode forward until he stood directly in front of Waspinator. The pool of half dried mech-fluid and waste on the floor squelched underneath his pedes. Reaching out, the transmetal gorilla grabbed Waspinator by the jaw plate and savagely forced his head back. The flier gave a warbled cry of pain, his optics weakly flickering as though he was only barely holding onto the edge of consciousness. Optimus loomed down over Waspinator. "What is Megatron planning?" he demanded without any preamble.
Waspinator seemed to have trouble converting speech into processed code and merely stared up at Optimus with glazed optics.
Growling with impatience, Optimus curled one hand into a fist and slammed it into the flier's exposed sparkchamber. Waspinator screeched in pain, his body convulsing on the ends of the chains. Optimus's hold on Waspinator's jaw became crushing. The flier keened and weakly tried to free himself from Optimus's grip.
"Do not make me ask again, insect."
"W-Wazzpinator d-doezzn't know! Wazzpinator knowz nothing!" The flier's voice hitched with the strain of forming coherent words.
"Wrong answer," Optimus growled. Looking over his shoulder, he held his hand out towards Rattrap. "Rattrap!" he snarled. The spy tossed him the electric prod he'd just been cleaning. "Now let's try this again, shall we?" Optimus said as he turned back to Waspinator with the prod held high enough for his captive to see. Its pronged end crackled with energy. "What is Megatron planning?"
Waspinator's ventilation systems kicked into panicked hitches as he stared at the electrified device. "W-wazzzpinator already told! Wazzpinator doezzn't know!"
The prod was thrust against the front of Waspinator's sparkchamber. The flier's strained vocals filled with static as he arched backwards, screaming. His body wildly convulsed against the bonds. Currents of electrical blue light crackled up and down his frame, illuminating the edges of his armor from behind. Smoke curled up from his superstructure. The stench of fried protomatter - a smell similar to burning rubber - filled the room. From his chair in the corner, Rattrap leaned back in his seat and shuttered his optics like a connoisseur of fine music savoring the sounds of a skilled orchestra. Dinobot turned his head away as though bored by the tediousness of Optimus's task.
Airazor covered her mouth with one hand to stop the press of half processed energon rising in the back of her intake line.
Optimus finally removed the prod from Waspinator's sparkchamber. The flier went limp and hung from the end of his chains. Tendrils of smoke curled off Waspinator's body. His entire body shuddering with stress, the flier was unable to stop himself from vomiting a gush of watery liquid down his front. It dripped off the edge of his sternum strut to join the pool of fluids beneath him.
"Tell me what I want to know, bug," Optimus bent to snarl in Waspinator's face. "You withholding information is not going to make this ordeal any easier on you. I will gladly continue this interrogation until your neural lines finally short out and you permanently slip into stasis."
Waspinator shuddered and coughed against another rush of phlegmy lubricant. "No… Pleazzze…" he warbled in a pitifully weak voice.
Cursing under his breath, Optimus glanced backwards over his shoulder towards Airazor and Tigatron still standing in the doorway. He reversed his hold on the prod and held it out to Tigatron handle first. "Here, my friend," he said with a dark glare at Waspinator. "Perhaps you will have better luck with him."
Tigatron reared back from the proffered weapon as though it were a live electrical wire. "I-I cannot!" he sputtered. "I could never harm another living thing!"
"What?" Optimus demanded with an incredulous stare. Even Rattrap and Dinobot raised their optic ridges in surprise. He turned to fully face the scout. "You are refusing the opportunity to interrogate an enemy prisoner? This is very unlike you, Tigatron. Interrogation was, after all, one of your many talents."
"No. Never my talent," Tigatron said, aghast by the implication of this revelation.
"Do it," Optimus growled. His tone promised violent retribution if he was not immediately obeyed. "It is not a request."
Airazor glanced between Optimus and her lover in mounting panic. This wasn't right. This wasn't like the Optimus they knew and followed. If anything, this Optimus reminded her of Megatron.
"No," Tigatron firmly shook his head.
Optimus visibly seethed with rage. His optics flashed scarlet red. Airazor and Tigatron both instinctively shrunk back from him towards the door. Before he could come at them, though, he was distracted by a soft warbled laugh from the limp figure hanging from the ceiling. All the other occupants of the room stared at Waspinator as he weakly lifted his head off his chest just enough to meet Optimus's optics.
"What is so funny, pest?" Optimus demanded.
"Thizzz… You… Every -schzzzz- thing," Waspinator rasped. His voice was barely louder that a whisper. His vocal processor was beginning to short, filling his speech with bursts of static. He gave another watery laugh which was pitifully weak and sounded more like a groan of pain than an actual laugh. "Optimus Primal'z - schzzzz - troopz don't obey him anymore… It'zzzz only a - schzzz - matter of time before purple monkey -schzzzz - izz finally defeated by Megatron… and Maximalz' - schzzz - tyranny stopped. Primal will - schzzz - pay for hizzz crimez…"
"Is that so?" Optimus hissed, leaning closer to Waspinator. "And what crimes would those be?"
The flier mustered enough of his strength to glare up at the Maximal leader. "Murder… rape…- schzzz-... the willful disregard -schzz - of sentient rightzzzz…"
Optimus's lips curled back from his dentals in an ugly sneer. "The only right those who do not follow me have is the right to slavery and termination."
Then, before Waspinator could say anything more, Optimus flicked on the electric prod and rammed it into the fliers chest, through the cracked glass front of his sparkchamber and into his spark. The Predacon prisoner screamed, his body violently spasming. Powerful waves of bright blue energy danced up and down his body. The stench of charred protomatter became suffocating. Waspinator's agonized screams were abruptly cut short by his vocal processor snapping from strain. He twitched and jerked for several more seconds before his spark finally sputtered and blinked offline and his body sagged limp against his chains. A dense haze of smoke filled the room around him like a funeral shroud. The handle end of Rattrap's electrical prod hung from Waspinator's charred chest like an impaled gladiator spear.
Airazor was unable to stifle a cry of revulsion and sorrow at what she'd just witnessed. No matter how hard she tried she could not make the scene she'd just seen compute. Optimus Primal had just violently offlined a 'bot - a helpless, injured prisoner. This was not the Optimus she and Tigatron knew.
Slowly, the Maximal tyrant turned back towards them, his optics glowing with cold fury. Neither she or Tigatron had to say anything before they simultaneously turned and ran out the door.
"Get them!" Optimus's voice roared after them as they fled as fast as their pedes could carry them down the hall. There was the muffled crash of Rattrap's chair overturning from inside the room before the echo of his and Dinobot's footsteps came thundering after them. Almost immediately laserfire began to slice the air around them.
"Ah!" Airazor cried as a green bolt of energy caught the side of her arm.
Tigatron grabbed her hand and pulled her into a branching hallway. "This way!" he cried over the sound of Dinobot and Rattrap's shots. The two scouts ran as if agents of the Pit were nipping at their heels. "I think there's a hatch that leads outside somewhere around here!"
In the distance an escape hatch appeared just as Tigatron had said. "Come on!" he cried, trying to simultaneously shield Airazor from anymore stray blasts and force her faster at the same time. The two scouts threw themselves at the door and into the cool early evening air beyond just as Rattrap and Dinobot turned the corner after them, their weapons blazing. They slammed the hatch behind them and sprinted hand-in-hand away from the Axalon's moonlight drenched bulk as fast as they could.
Airazor was just about to believe that she and Tigatron were going to escape when they heard the hum of Sentinel's gun turrets powering up behind them. "Tigatron!" Airazor cried. There was no way they were going to survive if Sentinel locked onto their energy signatures.
"Come on!" Tigatron called, veering towards the waterfall that thundered into a deep ravine beside the Maximal ship. "It's our only chance!"
Even if Airazor had had a better idea of escape, she had no time to explain it before the first volley of laserfire sounded from the nearest perimeter gun. "Jump!" Tigatron cried as they came to the edge of the cliff. One moment they were flying across solid ground and the next they were plummeting through empty air. The muffled pomph pomph pomph of Sentinel's laser guns exploding against the edge of the cliff sounded high above them. Neither had time to transform before they were suddenly plunged into cold, watery darkness. The scouts' hands were ripped apart by the splash.
"Tigatron!" Airazor shouted as she pushed herself back towards the surface. Almost immediately she was sucked back down under by the current. Tumbling end over end through the swirling vortex of darkness, she blindly kicked against the water. She lost all sense of direction. She could no longer tell what was up or what was down. Nor did she have any idea where her lover had been swept by the swirling rapids. She somehow managed to break the surface again. "Tigatron!" she cried. The flier thought she heard a faint shout from somewhere behind her to her right, but it was immediately lost to her as she was violently slammed into a boulder by the current.
Airazor's visual display flashed white. Her neural receptors were so stunned by the blow that she was completely helpless to fight the current when it pulled her under a third time. She didn't know how long she spent being violently tossed down the river and tumbled end over end before all her sensor nodes began to dull with impending unconsciousness. She felt herself being pulled deeper into the watery blackness but couldn't seem to summon the energy to try and fight her descent. The chill of the water seemed to invade her body and stab at her sparkchamber like a hundred-thousand miniature darts of ice. She felt herself violently slammed into another rock and let herself be swept away into deeper darkness…
Airazor briefly became aware of herself again some time later. The swirling water was gone, replaced by the gritty press of sand against her back struts. Someone was kneeling over her. Purple optics glowed softly down at her through the darkness of early dawn. She thought she detected the murmur of other voices around her. Their words were unintelligible. "Tiga-?" A violent gush of water erupting from her intake line effectively cut her off. She could feel unconsciousness sweeping back over her even as she continued to helplessly cough and sputter against the ground.
"Rest," a deep voice rumbled above her. "We will see to your care."
An intense wave of tiredness was already pulling the water-logged flier back down into oblivion. Inky darkness began to seep across her visual readout, but Airazor wondered if she wasn't already unconscious or dead. Because why else would she hallucinate Megatron of all bot's kneeling over her and promising her his protection?
Continued?
Eh. What do you think? Good? Bad? Somewhere in between? I'm not sure if I'll continue this or not. It was written mostly to get this rabid plot bunny out of my head. Your reactions and comments are always welcome.
Signing out
-LAXgirl