Chapter Three Plenoptic

Thanks for all of your spectacular reviews! All the suggestions are much appreciated…and it seems you're all rooting for miss Elita at this point. And more requests for a little more Ironhide action? My, my, aren't you all…erm…eager. In reply to one review, Ironhide and Chromia haven't technically met yet, but they've seen each other around. At this point…oh, can't exactly reveal too much. This fic mostly centers around Optimus and Elita, but Chromia and Ironhide will certainly have their fair share of "juicy" moments. Half of you seem to want Elita to kick some Decepticon aft, but some seem to want her in a situation that requires the jerking on her pride in the form of calling for (gasp) backup. Well, how much torture can one deranged author ensue? Only time will tell…

Enough with my babbling, though, let's roll out. Please enjoy, please review…in that order.

Designated void location

Cybertron, fourth sector

. B E G I N . T R A N S M I S S I O N .

"…Who is that?" Prowl blurted as quietly as one can when very surprised. "He's only got one optic!"

"Ewwww, that's just creepy," Chromia muttered. "Weirdo. His creators must've been glitching or something. What do you think, Elita?"

"Uh, who cares? He's got only one optic, that means he can see you half as well," Elita replied. "All the easier to take him out. But…I'll bet you just about anything that he's the one who sent out that transmission."

"What makes you say?" Prowl asked, scooting closer to the femmes so as better to hear them.

"All he's got with him are drones," Elita muttered, lowering her head as one glanced in their direction. "That virus was super high-tech, I already told you. It would crash any normal drone's system."

"Doesn't it seem a bit too obvious, though?" Chromia asked softly. "The one mech in the whole bunch standing out in the open like that? If he really sent that transmission, he'd be hiding, wouldn't he?"

"The Decepticons weren't expecting us to clear that void," Elita said, for the fiftieth time that day. "They probably assumed we'd overlook it as a glitch. And…I guess anyone who hadn't been around computers would've. I don't think they hacked the systems via any technology in particular. I think they might've been using waves."

"How so?" Prowl asked with a groan.

"Radio waves or sound waves," Elita replied matter-of-factly. "I don't think they'd risk detection by jamming our computer frequencies. Only makes sense they'd sabotage the links with some kind of wave."

Prowl frowned slightly and turned on his com link, patiently waiting for headquarters to receive the call. Elita and Chromia fell silent, both watching the mysterious cyclops intently. "Ya got headquarters," Ironhide's gravely voice grumbled through the link. "Prowl, tha' you?"

"Yeah, it's me," Prowl replied, remembering to keep his tone hushed only just in time. "Ironhide…do we have any reports on a mech with only one optic? Possibly uses radio or sound waves."

"Hang on, lemme…aw, slag, not again…Prime, wha's the new password?…Huh? Wha? Ah, okay…alrigh', Prowl, let's see wha' we got here…gimme tha' description again."

"Paintjob's purple. Single optic, yellow in color. Wing like appendages on back. Approximately thirty two units high. No voice record as of yet, real quiet guy. Company includes drones. Wide berth, no visible weapons."

"…Sorry, bud, nothin' matches tha' description. Probably jus' anothah officah they've kept hidden."

"That's awfully convenient," Elita muttered. "Prowl, I think we need backup."

"Huh? Why?"

"He saw us."

Prowl peeked over the side of the collapsed building they'd been using as cover and felt his energon processor lurch. That one glowing yellow optic was turned in their direction, unmoving, unblinking. The three ducked down, equally panicked. This guy was not anything to joke about. He wasn't a glitch. Whoever the mech was, new player or not, he meant business.

"Slag," Elita muttered. "He's got, what, four or five drones with him? Shoulda counted, slaggit! Where's our nearest unit?"

"Springer and Jazz are close by, I'm sure of it," Prowl whispered. "But there's no way they'll make it to us before he does. Not that he's chosen to pursue—yet. I think we might just want to fall back for some time, make him think we've retreated. If he really saw us, he's going to be expecting trouble…"

He trailed off at the creak behind them. The pressure on their backs lessened as the mech lifted the building in one large hand, his systems whirring from the effort. One handed. He picked up that building—easily three times his size—and hurled it. It flew. Flew through the air to collide with the ruins behind them.

"Introduction: I am Soundwave," the mech droned, his voice monotone. "Declaration: Autobots, prepare to be terminated."

Autobot Base

"…Prime…trans…ected…called…wave…up!"

"What?" Optimus said, confused as he stared at the radio console. "Ratchet, play it back! Decipher and play it back!"

Ratchet did as he was told, his fingers hammering the keypad relentlessly. For a moment, only static issued from the radio; then the transmission came through, Prowl's panicked voice making them all jump.

"Prime! The transmitter has been detected…it's a Decepticon called Soundwave! He's too much…we need back up!"

His following words were drowned out by the unmistakable sound of heavy gunfire, then the radio fell silent. Ironhide's optics were wide, and Ratchet's mouth hung open very slightly. Optimus felt the knife-edge of panic well within his Spark; he mentally stomped on it. Not the time to panic. Cool down. Keep your head on straight and your aft in gear.

"Ratchet. Assign inner circle units to the designated void coordinates. You and Jetfire stay here. You're on standby, got it?"

"Yes, sir," Ratchet replied, moving quickly from the command center, releasing the order over his com link. Ironhide grinned somewhat maniacally, allowing his arm cannons freedom from their containment chambers.

"Finally. 'Bout time Ah saw ah lil' action."

Two units from designated void coordinates

There was a reason only the best of the best made up Prime's inner circle. They were an elite strike force, the bells of destruction. Ironhide had almost as big a reputation as Prime; the trigger-happy lugnut had made one heck of a name for himself with his blow-em-ta-pieces antics. Wheeljack's cool head in battle was famous, his rare wild side even more so. Jazz was the loose cannon, the nutcase, the carefree soldier with the burns of a thousand battles. Ratchet was the unsociable yet faithful medic, who, rumor had it, had once reassembled a warrior who had gone in and out of a black hole. Prowl was the collected second in command, the only one Prime could truly turn to when in need of advice. He was one of the central driving forces in the military, Prime's ears and eyes whenever the commander wasn't present. He'd made appearances to the High Council, he'd gone on long recruiting missions around Cybertron, and didn't make a penny for any of it. But he was there all the same.

Then there was Optimus Prime. A young mech yet—only a few years out of his youngling stages—the commander, the hero, the prodigy. The heir apparent to Sentinel Prime, the creation of the revered Alpha Trion. He was his own tactician, his own battle strategist. He was a one mech wrecking unit, a one-mech bomb just waiting to go off. There had been issues in deciding whether or not the Matrix went to him; the government had resented it, the military had pushed for it. And, after some hard thought and Spark-searching, Optimus had pushed for it. He was ready. He was ready for whatever his brother had to throw at him. He wasn't going to run. So he'd become commander in short order. Charismatic, proper, calm, collected—the guy was a Pit-slagging femme magnet.

"This Soundwave guy sounds like a real pain in the aft," Wheeljack complained as their vehicle modes tore towards the ruins, dust rising behind them in long trails. "Prowl's sure he can't handle him?"

"Wheeljack, he threw a building," Ultra Magnus snapped irritably. "With one hand. This is one mech that needs some serious straightening out, and Prowl just can't do it alone."

"And," Ironhide added, "we've got fems ou' there. Can' leave th' gals ta fend fer themselves, aftah all."

"Though they're more than capable, you trigger-happy chauvinist," Magnus reprimanded.

"Converging on coordinates," Optimus reported, oblivious to his soldiers' squabbling. "Transform and get ready to roll out, we've got drones all over the place. Seems that our new friend called back up as well…"

"Drones," Wheeljack moaned, reverting to his humanoid mode along with his comrades. "I hate drones. "

"Don' we all," Ironhide agreed somberly, but he was grinning and his cannons were out, humming and already releasing discharge. "Let's kick some aft."

So the battle raged. It was chaos, it was confusion; the ruins were both a cover and an obstacle, depending on whether one was the chaser or the chased. Standing still did no good either; there were too many places for a sniper to hide. So the only option was to run around and try not to get shot.

Funny, Elita thought she was pretty good at it. Drones couldn't see, really. They were programmed to detect the heat signatures of their opponents. And femmes, thank Primus, definitely didn't burn as much heat as mechs did. Most every drone she came into contact with simply stared at her, its systems humming as it tried to process what exactly it was seeing—then it had barely enough time to recognize that its head had been blown off.

"Nice shootin'!" Ironhide said, clearly impressed as she fired two shots, downing both drones in the process. "Where'd ya learn ta sling ah gun like tha'?"

"Uh, right here," she replied, panting very slightly. Okay, so it was her first time in combat. Her instructors at basic training had been, for some strange reason, nervous about putting a real gun in the hands of a raw recruit, and most of their training had been on simulation. Which was much easier than actually fighting. If you got shot in a simulation battle, you got points off your score. Here, you got pieces off your aft. Here, death was for keeps.

"Tha' Soundwave guy," Ironhide said seriously, turning so their backs were together to ensure three hundred sixty degree coverage, "he was the one who sent tha' transmission, righ'?"

"That's the idea," Elita replied. "He jammed our frequencies via sound waves, caused the void. I thought something was funny about it…"

"So we just gotta take 'im ou', righ'?"

"In theory. It won't do much good now that we've deleted the void, but we certainly don't want him to get away so he can try it again. Next time we might not catch it."

"You caugh' it, recruit."

"…Well, yeah, but that was partly luck," she said, feeling her faceplates redden slightly.

"Hey, don' be embarrassed," he chuckled. "Not every day we get ah recruit tha's worth more'n slag. Guess we were the lucky ones, pickin' ya up."

"You're too kind."

"Ya, well, Ah'm pretty awesome like tha'."

Everything fell apart then. Soundwave released the self-destruct order. ("Command: Drones, self destruct.") In seconds the air was littered with the sound of twenty or so mini-bombs going off, with the cries of pain as they found their mark. Elita was shielded only by Ironhide's massive bulk as shards of flaming shrapnel exploded through the sky, debris raining down with dull clinks against their armor.

The world spun. His optics blacked out, resurfaced momentarily, blacked out again. He felt dizzy, the pain in the left half of his body dulled by his sub-conscious state. Soundwave's borrowed fusion cannon crackled as if in satisfaction as the Autobot hit the ground, his vision swimming, the images blurry as his weakened mind struggled to make sense of them. He felt a hard foot press down on his injured left arm; he didn't have the strength to cry out. He found himself wishing desperately that Ratchet were there, not back at base. Primus, he was an idiot, telling the medic to stay behind… idiot…what good was a medic if he wasn't on the battlefield? Fool…you fool, Prime…

Only his ragged gasps of pain broke the silence. The drones had self-destructed. He'd been locked in combat with Soundwave at the time, but…no, he was sure they had self-destructed. They were gone…the battle was over…the relief washed over him, but the wave was ended as Soundwave's cruel voice whispered into his ear:

"Message: you will not live. Declaration: Lord Megatron is coming for you. He will not rest until you are terminated. Theory: you are going to die, Autobot."

The fusion cannon fired, its hum the toll of death. He didn't stay awake long enough to feel the pain. His mind shut down, his optics went offline.

His energon pump stilled…

"…Oh, Primus, no. Ironhide, come in. Ironhide!"

"Prowl? Wha' is it?"

"…It's Optimus."

. E N D . T R A N S M I S S I O N .