Call of Darkness

By: Master-Zev

Chapter 1

Smokescreen walked into the ground-bridge on his to the coordinates preset by Ratchet, he stepped out on the other side looking down into a deep gorge. "Base this is Smokescreen, I've reached my destination but I'm at the edge of some kind of canyon" said Smokescreen. "According to the humans, where you are at is called the Grand Canyon; you are at the right location, you should be three miles from the energon signal" said Ratchet. Smokescreen turned off his communications then transformed into his sports car form and drove towards the coordinates.

The drive to the location was uneventful, Smokescreen was careful not to drive too close to the edge because the drop to the bottom looked like it would kill him. It had over a month and a half since Smokescreen had joined Team Prime and he made great friends in Bulkhead, Bumblebee, and Optimus, he even liked the team's medic Ratchet. But he was still untrusted by Arcee for being found in a Decepticon escape pod. Smokescreen noticed a large group of Decepticon troopers working on unearthing a subterranean energon deposit, there were four troopers standing guard. One of them pointed towards Smokescreen and then all of them stared to fire towards him. Smokescreen transformed and drew one blaster arm, he fired and three troopers went down sparking then he fired again and another two troopers were shot down.

"Smokescreen to base, I'm going to need immediate backup at these coordinates" said Smokescreen. "I hear you Smokescreen; Arcee and Optimus are en route to your position" said Ratchet. Ducked behind a large boulder, the young Autobot tried his best not to get shot until Arcee and Optimus arrived. The miners had already started to mine the energon and were loading it into hover cars. Smokescreen noticed a slim aircraft circling above the troopers and miners, a sudden jolt of terror struck through Smokescreen as he realized it was Soundwave! Out of the corner of his optics Smokescreen noticed a ground-bridge portal open up a few meters from where he was crouched for cover. Arcee and Optimus came through with a leap and then started to fire at the troopers; several of them went down in a few shots. "I see you made some new friends there rookie" taunted Arcee, "next time though you should wait for backup instead of engaging the 'Cons". Optimus had charged the Decepticons and struck down a few more with his sword arm, while Arcee and Smokescreen went over to where giant energon crystals were jutting out of the ground. Smokescreen attacked the miners and sent them running towards their own ground-bridge opened up by Soundwave. "At least this trip didn't turn out to be a total waste of time" said Optimus, "now we should have enough energon to resupply our stockpiles".

Soundwave transformed and landed onto the ground and launched his security drone Laserbeak. Soundwave lurched forward and attacked the Autobots with Laserbeak behind him shooting. Arcee blasted the drone out of the sky and it crash landed in pile smoldering heap of junk. Soundwave then swatted aside Arcee dangerously close to the edge of the canyon; she had managed to grab the ledge to prevent herself from falling into the canyon. "Autobots, exercise extreme caution Soundwave is a most dangerous foe" warned Optimus. The silent Decepticon just stood there, his visor blank as if he was studying them for his next attack. But instead of attacking, Soundwave turned around and ran to where Laserbeak lay in a crumpled junk pile. Then Soundwave opened another ground-bridge. Before he went through, Soundwave turned around to face the Autobots and then he said "Soundwave superior, Autobots inferior".