Disclaimer: I don't own beast wars, Hasbro does.

Warning, this fic's pretty graphic, consider this your last warning, don't go making formal complaints to me or FF.net because of the content. (Flames are acceptable, since they let me know if I've gone too far) I wrote it this way specifically because many people have liked my other Rampage fics because of the graphic nature.

I've been meaning to do a Depth Charge fic for a while now, but I've still got plenty of ideas for both Rampage and Depth Charge, so all you Rampage fans out there, stay tuned (and tell me which char I write better so I can work more on them.)

And for all those of you out there who want more, I didn't even break a sweat on this one, I can go waaay gorier if you want! (Is gorier even a word?? The word processor thinks so, hmmm.)

On with the show (and don't forget to R&R!!!)

……………………………..

I knelt down on the wind-swept platform, fingering the patch of ion-burn from X's engines.

Yet another colony I'd been too late to help with.

Slag X, he was always just that one step ahead of me; I'd come so close to capturing him on so many occasions, quite often some of his victims were still warm by the time that I arrived.

Hmm, X seems to be running his engines a bit hotter lately, maybe he's low on plasma coolant.

Or maybe he's doing it deliberately.

He also seems to be using a different propellant for his weapons; there's a lot more carbon staining on the walls where his shot's miss.

Not that he'd miss that is, just another way of his toying with me.

X thinks that he's got something over me, but he doesn't realise just how much I've figured.

It infuriates me that he's playing me, using me as a puppet, but I go along with it, hoping that he'll get complacent and slip up.

I was so close to capturing him last time, right down to still being able to see the ion contrails from his planet hopper as he left the atmosphere.

A hopper that once belonged to may father.

I think that's why he still uses it; I've seen many newer, better models burnt out in their docking cradles than the one that he insists on flying.

I realise that the whole thing is played by his rules, that he lets me hunt him, lets me 'almost' catch him every time.

Every colony is another gambit; how much time can he spend decorating for my arrival before he actually has to leave to avoid being caught.

That monster destroyed my life, killed every bot that I held dear, still killing every bot that he knows will be in my path just to entice me to keep playing.

He thinks that I haven't realised that he's deliberately driving me insane, but what can I do? Give up?? Buy another allotment on some fledgling colony and start again?

I think not.

I hunt him, but in a way, he's the one hunting me; every move that I make is by his rules, every hint and clue is meticulously left in a way that will tax my neurals to the extreme to figure out what they mean, but none of them have ever been designed so that I 'couldn't' get them.

I pulled the scrap of red armour out of subspace, my latest clue; the mech fluid had still been wet when I found it, and so some of the writing was slightly smudged.

Check, my dear friend. Mate in 6 moves.

What could it mean? That I'd get a chance to catch him on the sixth next colony??

I stumbled over the pile that he'd left, no longer caring about the tearing scream of armour under my feet, or the harsh crunch of crushing circuits.

Over there, movement!

I rushed over to where I'd seen it, only to find another 'clue'.

Judging by the look of the cranial armour, and the rate and angle of entry, I'd say that this official was kneeling when he was executed… From behind?? What game was X playing?

I filed that bit of the puzzle away for later as I focused closer on the meaning of the clue.

The severed head was wired up to a small power source, probably the power cell from a sidearm, which was even now beginning to fade.

The recording finished its loop and began again, the sick twisted mess using the bots own vocals and servos around the jaw in a twisted representation of a spoken message.

"You search so hard for that you seek that you pass it by without even a glance, you can't see the forest for the trees."

"Ok X, very inventive, mind giving me a hint?"

I'd long given up caring about talking to myself, it wasn't as if there was anyone else around to think I was nuts, so why not?

I reached over and pulled the data track from behind the vocals, storing it in subspace along with the rest of X's 'clues' so that I could think it over later.

That done, I started looking around to see if there was any other, more obscure hints that X might have left.

Beneath the now silent skull was a tray, designed to catch any mech drips.

"Very clever X, since when have you worried about staining the ground?"
The piece of armour looked as if it'd been taken out of the back of the same official, most of it was simply torn off, but one end looked as if it'd been shaped into a pointer.
Before heading off in the direction of the pointer I emptied out the armour, not being surprised in the least to find a small egg-shaped data crystal lying in the bottom of it.

X had been leaving these on most of his worlds, to the point where I'd actually gone back over past planets looking for a vital clue that I might have missed.

I pulled out the recording device that I'd found in X's lab when I'd revisited Omicron looking for another clue. I'd turned the whole colony upside down when I'd been there, yet the recorder was in plain sight when I'd returned, signifying that X had been back.

I slipped the data crystal into the recorder, which seemed to be the only piece of equipment able to unscramble the data etched on the surface of the quartz.

"Floating dead worlds, while living ones consume. The Chaos Bringer rests, while others finish what he began. The Matrix is on Charr. Mate in 4 moves."

Chaos Bringer? Does he mean Unicron? The Matrix is on Charr? What's that supposed to mean?

Is X comparing himself with Unicron?

Suddenly it clicked; Charr was a dead world, just like all the colonies, while the only thing that could stop Unicron was on a dead world.

I was the only thing that could stop X's rampage, and here I was on some lifeless husk while he was off destroying another world.

"DAMN YOU X, A MILLION DEATHS ARE NOT ENOUGH FOR YOU!"

I started searching the wreckage for more hints. If I worked fast enough, maybe I could at least arrive in time on the next colony to save at least some of the colonists.

Wishful thinking.

As I moved away from the blank head, I was startled to hear that same voice again.

"As you are, so I once was. As I am, so you will soon be."

I turned back around to see the red light of the motion sensor blink off

"Cute X, very cute, but you won't kill me, not just yet. No, you're having far too much fun for that."

I started moving back towards my planet hopper, knowing that X had won yet another round, knowing that he'd already won the next by baiting me into continuing his game.

"Sooner or later X, you're gonna slip up."

I knew in my spark that that was unlikely; X was just too smart. But hope was the only thing that kept me going.

Hope, the salvation of the ignorant.

I reached a pile of debris and climbed it to get a better picture of X's handy work, to see if I could spot anything that X might have left behind.

Everywhere I turned I saw fragments of armour, grey-blue stained soil, the occasional patch of red from an organic pet making a stark contrast to all the mech.

No punishment justified this.

Down near my feet was a message made from spent casings.

'Let all that grows recede and rot. I call this work of art 'destruction by moonlight' --X.'

It never ceases to amaze me how X knew me so well, how did he know that I'd climb this mound??

Sometimes I think that he knows me better than I know myself. I've tried to use this to my advantage, but every time I've just wound up being more predictable.

My planet hopper was just over the next rise, but I'd surveyed that area before I'd left, so I wasn't hopeful that I'd find anything there.

I reached out and pulled the manual release on the cockpit, it opened to reveal a bot completely unmarked except for a 1mm hole over his spark casing. In the corpse' hand was a small slip of paper, confirming something that was just beginning to dawn on me.

'I'm closer than you think.'

X was still here!

Suddenly I heard the low pulse of reaction engines fill the air; I turned just in time to see the stocky red and black hopper rise from where it had been hidden in the debris.

I glanced back at my ship, seeing at a glance why my ship hadn't alerted me to X's presence.

The scanners of my ship were completely torn out along with the boost controls for my engines, but all the basic flight controls were still functional.

I pushed the body out of my ship and was about to chase after him when I noticed that he was heading my way. I pulled my hunting rifle out of its clips in the cockpit, but I then saw the blue flicker of shielding over his cockpit.

The ship flew slowly over my head, a loudspeaker filled with hideous laughter blasting away.

The ship reached the end of the lot before turning and accelerating back, I ducked for cover from the inevitable strafing run, but the ship only dropped a small parcel, before jetting up into the dusk haze.

I ran over to the small item to find another quartz egg.

"The cat watches the mouse hole without wavering for a second, while the mouse is at the cat's bowl eating all his food."

Damn you X, I will have my revenge.