Chapter 2

As the day cycle drew to a close, the hallways of the Decepticons' Kolkular headquarters in Kaon echoed with mechs who were retreating to their quarters for the night. With the current restrictions on energy now in place, nobody could afford to consume more than their fair share of energon, or stay up too late into the recharge cycle.

As Brawl passed the common room on his way to his quarters, he was startled to hear the distant sounds of revving car engines and lively shouting further down the corridor, and he stopped to listen. After a moment he shook his head, and then continued walking. The noise seemed to get louder with every step he took, until he turned the corner at the end of the passage to find two of the Stunticons in their car modes, blocking the hallway as they shouted and laughed with one another. As soon as they saw the Combaticon, they transformed into their robot modes and approached him.

"Hey, look who's here, Dead End!" shouted Wildrider to his team mate. "It's Braaawl!"

Dead End acknowledged his partner with a sour look, but then turned his attention elsewhere. "Eh, who cares? Let's go find Blackjack. I want some more of that booster!" he said, before transforming back into his vehicle mode and zooming past Brawl on his way back down the hall. As he did so, he narrowly avoided bumping into the strongly-built Decepticon.

Brawl noticed immediately that they were both over-energized. He turned to watch Dead End navigate around the corner behind him, and the burgundy, grey and white car almost swerved too close to the wall. In the same moment, Wildrider transformed and accelerated to catch up to his fellow Stunticon, and Brawl did not have time to move out of the way as Wildrider veered into him, catching him off-balance and pushing him backwards onto the floor. "Hey, watch it!" he called out to them, growling and clenching his fists in anger before picking himself up again, but the two Stunticons were already out of audio range down the hall.

Inside the common room, Drag Strip had persuaded Breakdown to join him in celebrating Blackjack's recently acquired case of energon crystals. Upon querying their team leader about how it had come to be in his possession, Blackjack had simply told them that an old friend owed him for helping him out with a favour a long time ago, and then added that there were still another two or three more cases of the stuff to come. They had been happy enough with his explanation, and had not questioned him further.

Having already had their fill of energon from the communal automatic dispenser set into the far wall, Drag Strip stood up and walked over to it again, intending to get a refill for himself and his team mate, but when he pressed the button on the dispenser and placed his empty canister underneath the nozzle, nothing happened. He tried again; still no fresh energon, as Breakdown got up from his seat and walked over to see what was taking his friend so long. Drag Strip hit the button several more times, growing increasingly more frustrated, before finally banging his fist against the machine and giving up. "This thing must be broken or something," he explained, as Breakdown pressed the button in his own attempts at getting the dispenser to work, "and I'm still not over-energized enough."

Breakdown turned to his team mate and shrugged. "We could always ask Blackjack for another few crystals, you know," he said.

That seemed to cheer up the yellow dragster, and he clapped Breakdown on the back. "That's a great idea. Why didn't I think of that?"

They both turned away from the dispenser and began to make their way out of the room in search of Blackjack, but were stopped short by a blue and grey seeker, who was looking at them both with a calm yet stern expression. How long had he been standing behind them, they did not know. The two Stunticons attempted to casually side step him, but he pushed them back with his hands. "Not so fast." He paused, observing them with a critical optic. "Where the slag have you guys been all day?"

"Oh, Thundercracker," Breakdown greeted him. He tried not to come across as nervous, and told himself that there was no reason to be; neither of them had actually done anything wrong. "Something up?"

Thundercracker dispensed with the greetings. "First of all, getting over-energized is off limits, or didn't you two get the notice yet?" They both gave him an add look, but he ignored them. "And second of all, what's a great idea?"

Drag Strip shrugged. "Uh, nothin'." He recalled Blackjack asking them all not to tell anybody else about the energon crystals, because 'we wouldn't want to stir up unnecessary trouble.'

Thundercracker frowned at his dismissive response, crossed his arms in thought. "Nothing, huh? If you two are lying to me–"

"Lying? No way, we're not lying," Breakdown cut in, trying to sound surprised. He glanced over at Drag Strip for support. "Are we?"

"Nope," Drag Strip said, shaking his head a little too emphatically for Thundercracker's liking.

The seeker continued to watch them, until finally he gave them a small sigh. "Go on, get out of here," he told them, stepping aside to allow them to walk past him. He watched them head quickly towards the exit, but then called out after them before they left the common, "By the way, tell Blackjack that Megatron wants to see him," but he received no response from either Drag Strip or Breakdown, as the two transformed into their vehicle modes and sped away down the hall.

Inside the Constructicons' laboratory Scrapper sat at his terminal, going over the schematics of the planet's major power junction points and reviewing the data readout of the main distribution system. All the overhead lights had been dimmed to their minimum settings, and most of the other terminals in the lab had been powered down in an effort to help conserve power. In fact, the rest of his team mates had already retreated to their recharge berths for the night, and he was almost ready to join them.

He leaned back in his seat, pondering the energy situation, when he heard the sound of movement behind him. Startled, he stood up and glanced around to see if there was anybody there. Due to the semi-darkness, he probably hadn't noticed anyone entering the lab, or perhaps he had been too focused on his task. "Hook, is that you?" He received no immediate answer, so he stepped away from his desk to get a better look.

"Sorry; I didn't mean to startle you," said a not-too-familiar voice, and it took Scrapper a moment or two to realize who had spoken. The figure of a black mech stepped closer towards the Constructicon leader, revealing his identity.

"What are you doing here?" Scrapper asked, a little confused. He could never recall a time when Blackjack – or any of the Stunticons, for that matter – had stepped inside his laboratory for any reason other than scheduled repairs or maintenance – and certainly not after hours.

"You're just the mech I wanted to see, actually," Blackjack said, looking around the work spaces as if it were the first time he'd ever stepped foot inside the lab. "I'm very curious to learn more about the combiner technology you created."

Scrapper powered down his work station, and then shook his head dismissively as he began to make his way past Blackjack. "Can't it wait until tomorrow?" he said.

The Stunticon stepped in front of his path. "No," he answered determinedly, but then backed off a little, not wanting to raise suspicion. "I mean, I really want to see if my own team can adopt the same technology."

Scrapper hesitated. For some reason, he felt uncomfortable with the way Blackjack had approached him about the topic. "Look, it's not that simple. First, we need to make absolutely sure that every team member is one hundred percent compatible with one another, otherwise it won't work." He paused, pushed his way past the mech. "And besides, I won't agree to do anything without Megatron's permission first." Once he reached the door to the lab, he turned back briefly, slight hesitation in his mannerisms as he reconsidered the request. "I can't promise you anything, but I'll run some tests to see if your team's compatible. Meet me at the workshop tomorrow." And with that he walked out of the lab, leaving Blackjack alone.

Just outside an oil house in the district of Tesarus, only a few mechano-miles away from Kolkular, a brawl had broken out. Several Destrons had become angered over the recent closure of the bar, and had decided to confront its owner over the fact, who had tried to explain to them that he could no longer afford to run the bar because the Autobots had cut off his primary power supply.

This confrontation had quickly attracted other mechs down the street, who had just been dealt a similar blow, and it wasn't long before they began to gather together, smaller groups merging to form larger ones. It soon began to dawn on them that all of Kaon was feeling the sting of the energy restrictions, and that the oil house was not an isolated incident at all. So instead of quietening down and dissipating, the initial brawl soon turned into an all-out street riot.

Mechs began to march down the main street of Tesarus, shouting and throwing empty canisters at buildings in anger. Some of them had even started to loot and steal whatever they could find that was of value – energon cylinders, trading chips, rubies, batteries, tools, even weapons – anything and everything was fair game, and it seemed that nothing could stop these disgruntled mechs.

As the growing mob made its way noisily down the main street, most of the town's residents turned and fled upon its approach, looking for somewhere they could hide, afraid for their safety, whilst others decided that it was safer to join the mob than to become a victim of it.

But one mech was not afraid at all. Originally from Kolkular, this particular Destron had been forcibly removed from the fortress capital when the Liege Maximus had been ousted, and not only that but he had been betrayed by those closest to him. Soon after, he'd taken up residence in Tesarus, but he had never forgotten that incident when he'd been unceremoniously replaced as Stunticon leader several months ago by that scheming Blackjack, and had made a vow since then that he would one day even the score.

He stood up from his chair inside his cramped apartment, canister in hand, and walked over to the small window to peer out into the street. Then he growled, finished off his drink, and crushed the can in his hand. Releasing it, it dropped to the floor with a clang and he kicked it aside, then he opened his front door and stepped outside the mediocre apartment block. The mob was getting closer; soon it would be upon his doorstep.

It had been a while since he'd had any fun, he thought. So he transformed into his alternate mode – a black, purple and grey semi-trailer – and rumbled onto the road, slowly picking up speed as he headed straight for the mob.

When the angry protesters realized that they would soon be facing a head-on collision with a large truck, they scrambled to get out of the way, throwing themselves to the side of the road to avoid getting trampled beneath his wheels. But Motormaster would slow down for nobody, only too willing to take his frustrations out on whomever he could for the way he'd been mistreated, and to prove to himself that he was still the king of the road.