Holy crap on a cracker! This must be a new record for an update. But this chapter was entirely too much fun and seemed to literally write itself.
Chapter Four: Desperate Measures
Rattrap scrambled from one rocky outcrop to the other, always in the direction on the uncovered energon vein. Since Silverbolt and Blackarachnia had given him an opening to move he hadn't been the aim of any direct enemy fire. The two seemed to have managed to divert all Predacon attention towards themselves, including Megatron's own. As the spy came within the last few yards of the dig site he saw that Megatron had left Inferno to finish setting the explosive charge himself while he went to join Terrorsaur in pounding Silverbolt and Blackarachnia's position with fusion canons and lasers. Inferno's back was to Rattrap. The fire ant knelt beside the oversized weapon, fiddling with several last minute wire connections. As far as Rattrap could tell he was completely unaware of the spy's presence.
"Looks like things're finally startin' ta go our way," Rattrap murmured softly to himself. Gripping both blasters tight, the spy swung out from behind his cover while simultaneously aiming both pistols between the fire ant's shoulder struts. "Freeze, six legs."
Inferno stiffened and whirled around, his hand automatically reaching for the flame thrower at his hip.
"I'm serious, ugly," Rattrap warned. "I got'cha directly in my sites. Make one wrong move an' I'll blast ya inta next week."
"Enemy of the colony," the fire ant swore. His optics narrowed with burning hatred.
"Move away from da bomb," Rattrap ordered. He waggled the tip of one pistol to the side to emphasize his point. "Or I'll shoot'cha right between da eyes before yer fingers ever even get close ta yer gun," he emphasized with his other pistol which he rose a fraction of an inch higher to sight down the scope.
Inferno snarled, his mandibles quivering with rage. "You shall not interfere with the Royalty's plans."
Rattrap chuckled. "An' who's gonna stop me? You?"
With a shriek of fury, Inferno's hand shot for his hip. Rattrap opened fire but the fire ant ducked aside, dodging the spy's shots by mere millimeters. A massive plume of flames shot towards Rattrap, forcing him to drop to the ground and roll out of its path. The air sizzled around him. He could feel his transmetal armor physically buckle against his frame in the intense heat. In one smooth motion he rolled back to his feet and dropped to one knee to send another volley of laser-fire towards Inferno.
This time, Inferno was not fast enough to duck and took two hits straight in the shoulder. With a shriek of pain, he fell backwards to the ground. As he fell, his finger involuntarily clenched down on the trigger of his flame thrower and sent a twisting spiral of fire dancing into the air.
Standing again, Rattrap rose to his pedes and cautiously approached the downed Predacon. He knocked the flame thrower from Inferno's hand with a kick as he came up beside him. The fire ant stared up at him from the ground, his optics glowing as if the very flames of the Pit burned behind their lens.
"Heh heh," Rattrap chuckled. "Told'ja I'd shoot ya if ya didn' move." The spy slowly straightened one arm, the fire ant's helm centered in his sites. "Now tell me. What are ya usin' as a detonator fer dat bomb?"
"I will not tell you anything, foul vermin," the drone growled.
Rattrap leaned down further, pressing the barrel of his gun flat against the side of Inferno's helm. His optics narrowed threateningly. "Listen, bub. I have no qualms 'bout blastin' yer ugly head right off yer shoulders and figurin' out how ya wired dat thing myself. I'm just tryin ta give ya da chance ta save me a lot'ov time an' you a messy end. Got it?"
Inferno visibly hesitated. He stared up at Rattrap as though trying to calculate the probability of Rattrap following through on his threat. As though choosing not to push his chances, he speared Rattrap with a scathing glare and bit out between clenched dentals, "Timed detonator. I'd already set the detonator for ten minutes when you attacked me."
"You already started da count down process?" Rattrap demanded.
Inferno gave one contemptuous nod.
Rattrap felt all the circuits in his body involuntarily clench and mech fluid run cold. Ten minutes? If what Inferno said was true then he had probably no more than nine minutes to disarm the bomb before it blew him and his comrades - both present and those back at base - to kingdom come. He had to hurry or they were all as good as dead.
"Ya better not be tryin' ta pull one over on me or I swear ta Primus I'll deactivate you so fast you'll already be burnin' in da Pit before ya even know ya were dead," he growled. Keeping one gun trained on Inferno, Rattrap slowly began to back away from him towards the bomb. "If I see ya move a single cable I'll blast ya."
"I think not," another voice said behind him.
His carburetor skipping several revolutions in surprise, Rattrap whirled around. He began to raise his gun to defend himself against his unforeseen attacker, but at the sight of the one standing there made the spy involuntarily froze.
Like the living image of some ancient harbinger of death, Talon stared down at him, barely two feet away. How she'd managed to sneak up on him so quietly, he had no idea. The transmetal femme's single optic bore into his. Although she was the exact same height and build as Dinobot, the warrioress's clone seemed somehow taller and more intimidating to Rattrap than her original counterpart ever had. She seemed to literally tower over him, her elongated shadow swallowing him in semi-darkness. The spy instinctively shrunk back from her, an undeniable thrill of terror shooting down the length of his spinal strut despite the surprise of her sudden appearance still clouding the forefront of his processor.
With nothing more than a snarl, Talon raised one hand and viciously backhanded Rattrap against the side of his head. The spy went flying. For a half second of eternity he was completely weightless. For half a second of eternity he sailed through the air before reconnecting with the ground with a harsh, frame-rattling crunch. Pain slammed through his body's neural lines with all the finesse of a runaway freight train. He lay where he'd fallen in a disjointed daze, wondering idly if it was physically possible for a Cybertronian body to crumple in on itself under extreme pressure. A worrisome metallic rattle sounded somewhere deep inside him as he shakily pushed himself into a semi-sitting position.
"Anyone ever tell ya ya hit like a battering ram?" he slurred as he tried to blink the snowstorm of static from his vision. Something wet was smeared against his cheek where Talon had struck him. He gingerly touched it. His fingers came back covered in a thin film of energon, mech-fluid and several other substances he wasn't sure he wanted to know what they were. It was only when he touched his hand once more to his face to find the source of bleeding that he realized with a confused jolt that none of the fluids were his own.
Shakily rolling to his knees, then his feet, he staggered as he stood. The spy tried to raise his weapons at the female Predacon but was having difficulty deciding which of Talon's four images he should aim for.
The familiar contours of Dinobot's face twisted into a sneer as Talon glared back at him. As the four transmetal femmes slowly coalesced into a single image Rattrap was finally able to properly take in the image of his lover's clone. He almost dropped both his guns in horror at what he saw.
Talon was literally covered in energon. Smears and speckled spray patterns of iridescent purple crisscrossed her limbs and torso in a grotesque collage of gore. A long streak of visceral matter transected one side of her face from forehead to chin. Several cuts marred her superstructure here and there, but Rattrap could see no injuries to actually account for the amount of gore he saw. It was then his horrified optics settled on her hands. Both sets of claws were stained a solid shade of purple. A clump of half-congealed energon dangled from the tip of one finger blade like the macabre parody of a spider hanging from the end of its thread.
"Where's Dinobot?" he demanded as a sudden, horrifying thought struck him like a physical blow to the coolant tank. He struggled to keep any emotions from seeping into his voice, but the words slipped from his mouth in a strangled whisper.
Talon's lips curled back from her teeth in a cruel grin. "I left her laying in a pool of her own energon," was her answer.
Rattrap froze in place, all power of conscious movement draining from him like water through a sieve. The pulse of his spark thundered in his audios, giving soundtrack to the steadily mounting sense of panic inside him. So much fluid… How could Dinobot still be alive with so much of her vital fluids covering Talon's hands? How badly was she injured? Dinobot would never let anyone walk away from her in a fight as long as she was still functional.
Ignoring the look of settling horror on the spy's face, Talon turned back to Inferno. With one hand she reached down, grabbed his by the shoulder guard and roughly yanked him to his pedes. "Go help Lord Megatron," she said as she shoved the fire ant away from her in the direction of nearby gunfire. "I will see to it than no one interferes with the bomb."
Inferno seemed confused by this sudden turn of events, as though unsure whether to follow Talon's command or not. "Yes, my Lady," he finally said with a nod.
As Inferno hurried away Talon turned back to Rattrap. Her stained finger blades glistened wetly in the overcast light.
"Disgusting rodent," she snarled. "I will take nothing but the greatest pleasure in tearing you apart and presenting your dismembered head to Lord Megatron as a trophy. He still burns with the memory of your deceitful bomb trick."
In his lingering daze, Rattrap failed to recognize the irony of that familiar title coming from his lover's clone. All he could really focus on was the physical aura of danger the transmetal femme seemed to exude. Everything about her reminded him of Dinobot but amplified a thousand times over. Her fighting stance. Her stature. The ferocious gleam of bloodlust in her optic. Everything about her was exactly like the Maximal warrioress, but not. It was terrifying and altogether unnerving to be faced by this familiar yet alien presence.
Mustering his bearings, Rattrap leveled both guns at the Predacon femme. "Listen, One Eye, I don' care if ya look like Choppa'face or not, I'm not about ta let ya blow me or any ov my friends up wit' dat Daisy Cutter over der. If it's gonna come down ta an issue of it bein' either you or me, I'm gonna chose me. Ya can ask anyone else on my crew 'bout it 'cause they'll all tell ya da exact same thing."
Talon grinned, as though intrigued by the spy's unforeseen display of gumption. Her stance dropped low like a predator taking to the scent of her prey. She flexed her finger blades threateningly. "Is that so?" she mused with a condescending smirk. "While I do appreciate your willingness to engage me in battle, I can assure you doing so will result in nothing but your own messy demise. You might have spent some time in the presence of my original half and are now familiar with her fighting techniques, but she and I are not the same. Lord Megatron was wise to see to it that all traces of Dinobot's less than desirable qualities - namely her sympathies towards you Maximals and your pathetic ways - were never introduced to my core programming. While I am her physical copy, I possess none of her weaknesses or entertain loyalties to anyone else except Lord Megatron."
Rattrap grimaced, Talon's words a disturbing glimpse at what Dinobot might have been like before she joined Primal's crew or what she might have become if they hadn't been able to rescue her from Megatron and an unwanted sparkbond. A wave of intense loathing coursed through Rattrap. Talon might have looked like Dinobot and sounded and moved exactly like the warrioress, but he hated her with a sudden burning passion he usually reserved only for those who cheated at Kardissian poker and Megatron himself.
"I can tell I'm gonna have no trouble sendin ya back ta Megatron full ov holes," he said with false bravado.
Talon must have been brought online with basic stat-bios of her intended enemies because her reply was a derisive bark of laughter. Apparently his bluff of bravery had not been taken. "Oh, I am going to take more pleasure in ridding this planet of your plague-infested presence than is proper for a warrior to - especially when the opponent in question is so pathetic a challenge. But one shouldn't snub what small pleasures are presented to them in this brief walk of life…"
Rattrap didn't even bother with a sharp-tongued quip before opening fire on the transmetal femme. He was running out of time. By his estimations there was maybe only seven minutes left before the bomb's countdown reached zero. He had to hurry. Not to mention he still had no idea where Dinobot or any of the others were or what situations they were in. With each tick of his internal chronometer he could feel the cold whisper of Death breathing a little closer on the back of his neck.
Talon darted out of the path of Rattrap's fire. With a bounding leap she covered the short distance separating them and was suddenly directly in front of him. With one hand she clubbed Rattrap's gun out of his grip and followed through with a stunning glance to the side of his head with her other fist. Rattrap's visual readouts flashed white. Before he could recover his cognitive functions, Talon spun on her heels and whipped his feet out from him with her tail. The spy hit the ground hard. His insides once again made a worrisome rattle. With a swift kick Talon disarmed him of his last remaining gun.
"Foul vermin," she snarled as she dropped to one knee overtop him, one set of gore-stained claws reaching down to wrap around his throat. "I was hoping for at least a little bit more of a challenge from you."
Rattrap's hands flew to the merciless blades suddenly encircling his neck. Their sharpened edges bit into the soft proto-matter of his fingers as he strained to pull Talon's claws away from him. Laying there, pinned on his back beneath the larger femme Rattrap was seized by the sudden irony that only several hours earlier he'd been caught in almost the exact same position underneath Dinobot - only her intentions had been of a much more pleasurable kind then while this twisted version of the warrioress only wanted to bring him to an early termination.
"Give my regards to Dinobot when you see her again on the other side," Talon leaned down to snarl in his face. "Because I half suspect she is already waiting for you there."
Rattrap grit his dentals together in helpless anger and fear. Energon trailed from his shredded fingers down his wrists and the lengths of forearms. His arms physically shook with the effort of keeping Talon's fingers from closing completely shut around his neck. He could just feel the touch of their sharpened edges ghosting against the side of his throat. Every tension cable from his shoulders to hands burned with the strain of holding her fingers back.
Despite his best efforts, the edge of one blade slowly sank into the surface of his superstructure. Mech-fluid welled up between the edges of sliced proto-mattered and trickled down the spy's neck into the ground beneath. A fresh wave of panic seized Rattrap. Above him, Talon grinned into his face as though already savoring the taste of victory.
No. No, no, no no nononono… Rattrap frantically chanted in the back of his mind as Talon's claws slowly sank deeper into the sides of his neck.
But then, just as Rattrap was certain his doom had finally come for him just as he always said it would, the whistle of jet-thrusters screamed across the sky overhead. The muffled pomph pomph pomph of blaster fire thumped over the background patter of gunfire. The razor-sharp claws around his neck suddenly disappeared as Talon reared back from over him, the off-white armor of her left shoulder charred black and smoking slightly. The transmetal femme snarled and retreated several paces from him, her body sunk low in a battle stance and single optic turned up to the sky above.
Rattrap lay for a moment unable to move in the wake of his near-death experience.
"Rattrap, you okay?" a familiar voice called down to him.
Shaking his neural circuits back into working order, the spy looked above to see Airazor hovering several dozen feet in the air.
"You have no idea how glad I am ta see ya, bird girl," he shakily called back. With considerable effort he forced his shaking arms to push himself off the ground.
Airazor dropped down out of the sky and lighted on the ground beside him. "Lucky for you Tigatron and I got here when we did. It looks like you guys are in need of some major backup."
"You have no idea…" Rattrap darkly murmured and glanced around Airazor back towards the one who'd just come so close to ending his function. Airazor followed his gaze and gasped at the sight of Talon.
"Is that who I think it is?" she demanded in a horrified whisper.
Rattrap nodded. "Ol' Megs apparently couldn' stand da thought ov Choppa'face not wantin' ta be with him an' decided ta make an upgraded copy ov her fer himself."
Airazor appeared at a loss for words and stared in shell-shocked silence at the transmetal femme.
Talon returned the flier's gaze with a threatening snarl. Sinking into a low battle stance she glared at the two Maximals with simmering rage in her optic. "Reinforcements will not be enough to save you now, Maximals," she growled. Out of the corner of her optic she glanced in the direction of the bomb Inferno had dragged to the lip of the energon vein. Her lips curled back in a decidedly evil grin. "Your doom is already certain," she said as she straightened from her battle stance. "My presence is no longer necessary here to assure it." Then with a nasty parting smirk she turned tail and disappeared from sight between a jagged stand of rocks back in the direction of distant gunfire.
Airazor and Rattrap stared after her, not immediately sure what to make of her abrupt departure.
"What was that about?" Airazor said.
Rattrap turned to the bomb with a renewed tingling of impending doom. "Oh no…" he murmured and darted for the explosive. Airazor followed close behind him, still unaware of the level of danger looming over her and her fellow Maximals.
The spy dropped to his knees beside the explosive. His coolant tank sank as he surveyed the device. Thin wisps of smoke curled from the center of large blaster hole that'd punched itself almost dead center in the bomb's control panel. Sparks crackled between the charred pieces of metal. Several bundles of severed wire lines hung limply over the jagged sides of the hole. Despite the damage, however, a small digital screen just to the right of it continued to count down to the bomb's programmed detonation. The numbers currently read '6:23" and continued to steadily decrease with each passing second.
"Oh no…" Rattrap murmured again in dawning horror. "I must'a accidentally hit it when I ambushed Inferno."
"Can you disarm it?" Airazor asked. Despite the flier's best attempts Rattrap could still hear the subtle note of panic tainting the back of her voice.
"I don't know," Rattrap said, frantically tugging at the edges of burnt consol. Its twisted remains came off in Rattrap's hands in two separate chunks of blaster-scorched metal. He tossed them away without a second glance. "Most ov da wires are almost completely melted," he said as he plunged his hands deep into the explosive's internal circuitry. "I can't tell which wires connect da fuel cells to da detonator or which ones're operatin' da timer. Dey're all just one giant fused mess."
Panic visibly flashes across Airzor's face. "What do we do?" she demanded.
Rattrap helpless shook his head. "I might be able ta slow da countdown, but dat's it. Da detonator core's already been activated. It's just powerin' up ta full charge now. I might be able ta buy us a few minutes before it blows, but dat doesn' do anything ta help da others dat are on da other end of this energon vein when it does." As he frantically shifted through the multi-colored remains of melted wires and fuse lines, Rattrap swallowed against the rising rush of dread in the back of his intake line.
Gotta keep calm. Gotta keep calm or you'll end up blowin' yerself an' everyone else up before dat clock reaches zero, Rattrap coached. The seconds seem to tick by with increasing speed as he worked. The spy barely even felt the pain of his shredded fingers as he quickly but delicately pried wire after semi-melted wire apart in search of the line he needed. The intense concentration necessary for bomb defusing stole any and all other conscious thought away from him.
Finally, after several minutes of near unbearable tension he spotted a single soot-charred blue line running from the back of the control panel's timer. "Bingo," he murmured. Tapping open a small storage compartment on the inside of his forearm he withdrew a small pair of wire cutters and snipped the wire's end and several others running alongside it. A field-grade soldering torch followed the wire cutters from his makeshift bomb kit and with several puffs of smoke he rewired the lines back together in a completely different array.
"There," he said as he leaned back to inspect his handiwork. The numbers on the timer continued to count down - only now instead of clicking down one mark every second as it had been, two or three seconds passed between each new subtracting tick.
"How much time do we have?" Airazor asked.
Rattrap did a quick calculation. "Ten, maybe twelve, minutes."
"What to we do? We can't just let this thing blow up."
Rattrap frantically racked his processor. "If we can somehow get dis thing far enough away from da energon vein, we might be able ta keep da explosion from ignitin' da entire vein. We might be able ta save da Axalon dat way."
"How do we do that?" Airazor asked.
Rattrap glanced up and held the flier's gaze steadily with his own. "Drag it as far away from here as possible, den run like hell in da opposite direction…"
"This situation can't get any worse!" Blackarachnia swore as she ducked low and covered her head with both hands. Fire licked over the top of her cover as Inferno's insane laughter drifted across the distance separating her and her comrades from Megatron and his men.
"Don't say that or it will," Tigatron shouted back to her over the boom of one of Megatron's fusion blasts. The scout had arrived only moments before and was already deeply entrenched in the fight beside Blackarachnia and Silverbolt. His snowy white armor was smeared black in several places with streaks of dirt and soot.
Blackarachnia responded with an annoyed sneer. Carefully swinging out from behind their cover, she sent several blasts back towards the Predacon line. There was no break in fire from the other side. "This is ridiculous," she spat. Tapping the tip of one pincher against the side of her helm she keyed on her internal commlink. "Hey! Dinobot! Rat! Where are you two? We're getting hammered over here! If it's not too much trouble a little backup would be nice."
There was a long moment of staticky silence before an answering click sounded from the other side of the line. "Rattrap here," the spy's voice called back. "Sorry, but yer just gonna have ta sit tight fer awhile. Airazor an' I kinda have our hands full at da moment…"
"Then where's Dinobot?" Blackarachnia yelled as something exploded directly on the other side of her cover. "She's supposed to be in charge of this entire operation."
There was a long, heavy pause from the other side of the link. "I don't know…" the spy finally said. "I saw her fightin' Talon earlier, but Scissor Hands attacked me not long after that. I haven' heard or seen anything ov Choppa'face since. I think she might be hurt…"
Beside her, Silverbolt and Tigatron exchanged worried looks.
"Great…" Blackarachnia scowled. Of all of the 'bots on Primal's crew Dinobot was the only one she trusted in a fight, and what did the scaly femme go and do but end up going MIA when they needed her the most.
"Listen," Rattrap went on, "Dis bomb is set ta blow in a couple ov minutes. I can't stop da countdown. Airazor an' I are tryin' ta drag it as far away from dis energon line as we can, but you'z guys might wanna start runnin' fer da hills 'cause it's gonna be da lightshow ov a lifetime when it goes."
Blackarachnia felt a cold chill run along her circuits as she hesitantly said back into the link, "Understood." As she tapped her commlink off she glanced at Silverbolt and Tigatron. The three Maximals stared at each other for several moments of uncertainty - the sound of enemy fire the only thing to break the silence - before all three of them simultaneously turned and ran as fast as they could in the opposite direction of Megatron and his men.
"What is this?" Megatron growled several moments later. "The Maximals have stopped returning fire."
"They fear you, Royalty, and cower before your glory," Inferno proudly announced from his side.
Megatron scowled. "No…" he murmured doubtfully and ceased fire. Terrorsaur and Inferno both followed suit. A ringing silence followed in the wake of the sudden cessation of gunfire. No Maximals appeared on the other side of the rocks to take advantage of the opening. Megatron stormed forward and looked over the edge of scorched rock. "Where are there?" he thundered. With one angry swing of his fusion cannon he knocked out a sizable chunk of rock from the Maximals' former hiding place. Terrorsaur and Inferno both cowered back from him. Quickstrike remained motionless where he lay on the ground.
"My Lord," a new voice said as Talon appeared seemingly out of nowhere beside him. "The Maximals and their reinforcements are retreating."
Megatron startled slightly at the suddenness of her appearance. Let no one say she didn't possess her predecessor's speed and hunting stealth. As the warlord glanced at her with an annoyed scowl, however, any reprimand he might have given was momentarily forgotten at the sight of half-dried gore covering Talon's frame. "What happened to you?" he demanded with a raised optic ridge.
Talon returned his look with a malicious smirk. "Let's just say Dinobot has paid for the disrespect which she showed you…" was her cryptic answer.
Megatron stared at the transmetal femme for a long moment before a grin slowly spread across his facial plates. "I knew you would prove yourself a valuable asset to me," he said.
Talon visibly preened at the compliment. "I live only to serve you," she said with a bow.
Megatron smirked. Oh yes… In less than a few short hours, Talon had proved herself more valuable to him than all his other servants combined. With her by his side, his overthrow of Cybertron would be quick work. Why he hadn't thought of making a transmetal clone of the Maximal warrioress earlier he didn't know…
"The Maximals are retreating, my Lord," Talon said as she straightened once again to look at him. "The bomb is also set to explode. The control panel was damaged in a firefight and is now beyond repair. There is no way for them to stop it from detonating now."
"Excellent," Megatron crooned. Everything was coming together so much more smoothly than he anticipated. It was almost surreal to savor the sweet, sweet taste of victory with so few complications. Turning to his other two servants he called, "Terrorsaur, Inferno! Our work here is done. Grab that worthless fuzor, Quickstrike, and return to base."
"Yes, Royalty!" Inferno called, and stooped down to yank Quickstrike off the ground. With a screechy cry, Terrorsaur transformed and took to the air.
Buoyed on an unfamiliar cloud of triumph, Megatron turned to the blood-stained femme. "Come," he said, reaching out with a grin to press one hand to the small of Talon's back. "You've pleased me beyond all measure today. Your loyalty will be rewarded when we return to base."
Talon beamed under his attention. "The honor of sharing in your victory is my own reward, my Lord."
Megatron grinned even wider. Oh yes… Talon was proving to be a much more valuable asset to him than her stubborn, Maximal-loving half ever could have.
"Do you think this is far enough?" Airazor panted beside Rattrap as she and spy strained to drag the quarter-ton bomb across the rocky ground. So far through an extreme exertion of strength and willpower the two had managed to pull the explosive several dozen meters from the edge of the energon vein.
Rattrap paused and glanced back along the torn track of earth they'd left in their wake. Condensation soaked both his and Airazor's brows. He panted heavily for air in an effort to cool his overtaxed engines, but it didn't seem to be doing him any noticeable good. All the cables in his shoulders and arms felt like they'd been boiled down to low-grade rubber. His entire body shook with exhaustion and an ever growing sense of impending doom. He glanced at the digital timer. It read "2:49" in it's slowed, incorrect estimation of time.
"It's gonna hafta be," he said. "If we wanna get out of dis thing's blast radius, we're gonna hafta beat a hasty retreat now. We're just gonna hafta hope an' pray dis is far enough ta keep Optimus an' da others from gettin' blown ta pieces."
"You don't have to tell me twice," Airazor said. With a small hop, she leapt into the air while simultaneously transforming to beast-mode. With a throaty call, she shot into the sky. Rattrap was not far behind and transformed into his beast-mode's wheeled version. With a loud rev of his engines, the spy sped away in a billowy cloud of dust. His wheels barely seemed to touch the ground they turned so fast in his panicked dash. Above him, Airazor's wings frantically beat the air. As Rattrap maneuvered around small rocks and other obstacles in his path, he sent a silent prayer to Primus they weren't cutting it too close. Although much of this particular bomb's destructive power came from its ability to burrow deep underground when dropped from a high altitude, it nevertheless still posed great danger when detonated on the surface. Instead of it's blastwave being directed out into the surrounding bedrock if it was being detonated within a setting it'd been originally designed for, it would instead radiate out across the surface and pulverized anything ground level in its path. Even if he and Airazor managed to get several miles away before it exploded, Rattrap still worried if they could properly think of themselves as safe.
The spy's worried thoughts, however, were interrupted by Airazor's voice crackling over the commlink. "Rattrap! I think I see Dinobot!"
Rattrap's spark gave a painful twinge. He'd momentarily forgotten about the missing warrioress in his hurried dash to take care of the bomb. "Where?" he demanded.
The flier banked hard to the right above him. "This way," she called. Veering northeast, the spy's wheels skid in the loose dirt before accelerating after the hawk. Within moments, Rattrap sped around the corner of a small grouping of boulders and caught sight of the downed warrioress himself. From what he could tell from a distance, the raptor lay on her side seemingly offline. With an extra burst of speed he transformed to robot mode without even slowing and jogged the last few yards separating him from Dinobot. By the time he reached her, Airazor had already dropped out of the sky and knelt down on Dinobot's other side.
"Oh Primus…" she whispered as he came up to them.
Dropping to his knees beside the warrioress he saw for himself what had wrangled such an exclamation from the female flier. To say Dinobot was a shredded mess would have been a gross understatement. Half-dried energon caked her entire body and soaked the ground beneath her in a crusty layer of purple. Countless cuts and slash marks crisscrossed her armor as though she'd just emerged from the other side of a giant cheese grater. Some of them were so deep he could actually seem the faint gleam of Dinobot's skeletal frame. Between the warrioress's fingers which were weakly pressed to the base of her breastplate, Rattrap saw four perfect puncture holes. Energon seeped from their jagged edges with each rattling intake the warrioress took. Rattrap quickly pressed his hand down overtop Dinobot's own over the bleeding stab wounds.
"Dinobot! Hey, Lizard Lips!" Rattrap called as he reached out with his other hand and frantically shook Dinobot's shoulder. "Online yer optics an' look at me!" He was sickened by the realization there was barely anywhere he could touch her that wasn't covered in Dinobot's own fluids or sliced open by some weeping gash or cut.
A watery groan of pain answered him as the warrioress weakly brightened her optics. "Vermin..?" she coughed.
"Aw, man, Choppa'face, wha' da heck happened ta ya?"
Dinobot's optics flicked several times as though struggling to focus on Airazor and Rattrap's faces. "Talon…" she murmured as though that single named should explain everything. "She was stronger than I anticipated..."
Rattrap and Airzor shared a panicked look. "Rattrap, we have to get her out of here," Airazor said in a numbed voice of horror. "We only have a few more minutes before that bomb goes off, but I'm afraid to move Dinobot like this."
"No…" Dinobot murmured where she lay between them. "Leave me… I was defeated in battle and must accept my fate with honor."
"Like hell you will!" Rattrap snarled in mounting panic. "Unless ya have anything useful ta say just shut yer trap an' let us figure out how ta save yer scaly hide."
Silence descended over the group as the spy racked his processor for what to do. There was no way they could stay where they were; they were still too close to the explosive to hope for any chance of survival. But just as Airazor had said, the possibility of causing more damage to Dinobot by moving her was extremely high. She could bleed to death before they even made it a hundred feet.
"I can' believe I'm doin' this, but desperate times call fer desperate measures," he murmured as he reached for the storage compartment on his right forearm. "Here," he motioned to Airazor as he removed his hand from overtop Dinobot's chest. "Keep pressure on these stab wounds or she's gonna bleed out before I can patch Ginzu Finger's handiwork."
"Rodent, what are you-?" Dinobot gurgled beside him.
"I told'ja ta can it, Bronto-brains!" he snapped. "Dis ain't gonna be pretty but it should keep ya from goin' offline before we get'cha back ta base. Or at least until dat bomb goes off…" From his arm's subspace compartment he withdrew a small roll of black electrical tape. As Dinobot and Airazor watched with dawning realization, Rattrap tore off a length of tape between his teeth and wound it tight around Dinobot's midsection over the worse of her wounds.
"Rattrap, you're a genius," Airazor said.
Dinobot, meanwhile, offlined her optics and grit her teeth to keep from crying out as he applied another coil of tape around her chest. Rattrap inwardly winced with sympathy. He could only imagine what pain Dinobot was going through even though the warrioress refused to even whimper in discomfort.
"There," he said when he placed a final layer of field dressings over a deep gash mark bisecting Dinobot's shoulder plate. "Dat should hold."
"Can you move?" Airazor asked as she and Rattrap helped ease Dinobot into sitting position.
The warrioress swayed between them but visibly forced herself to focus on nothing but the task at hand. She tried to pull her legs underneath her to stand, but almost immediately collapsed back to the ground. "No…" she ground between grit teeth.
Rattrap and Airazor shared another panicked look. They were steadily running out of time…
"I don't think I'd be able to carry her," Airazor said. "She's too heavy for me."
"Leave me," Dinobot once more insisted.
Rattrap shook his head. As opposed to dying as he was, there was no way he was just going to leave the warrioress. "No," he said and leapt to his feet with sudden inspiration. "Beast mode!" he yelled, and in a flurry of shifting limbs he transformed into his wheeled alt-mode. Sidling up close beside the warrioress he nudged her in the thigh with his shoulder. "Comm'on, get on," he urged.
Dinobot stared at him incredulously. "What?" she growled.
"I said get on! I'll carry ya."
Despite severe fluid loss and impending stasis lock, the warrioress still managed to shoot Rattrap a look of utter disgust. "You must be kidding me…"
"I ain't! Now get on!"
With Airazor's help, Dinobot shifted herself onto Rattrap's back. Rattrap's suspensions dipped low under the warrioress's weight. "Okay, hold on tight," he said as he revved his engines. "'Cause we're gonna hafta book it fast if we want ta live ta see another day."
Dinobot did not respond except to weakly clutch the back of his shoulder rims, her mutilated body folded uncomfortably overtop him. He could only imagine what the two of them must look like at the moment - like a full grown adult perched on top a sparkling's toy car. Punching all four cylinders, Rattrap jolted away. Dinobot's grip tightened as he gained full speed. Rattrap tried not to hit any potholes or large debris in his frantic dash, but each time he was unable to he felt Dinobot tense sharply above him. Several times he actually heard her suck in a strangled gasp between her teeth. He wanted to slow, to not cause her so much pain, but at the moment his main concern was getting them both to a safe distance. He forced his wheels to spin faster.
The seconds seemed to tick by with increasing speed. In the back of his processor he could almost picture the bomb's timer rapidly blinking down to zero. By his estimations, they still had a minute to go. If he could just-
A deafening boom sounded behind them.
A blinding flash of light momentarily enveloped them before a cataclysmic force thumped the air. Even with Dinobot weighting him down Rattrap felt his rear wheels momentarily lifted off the ground by the blast. He fishtailed wildly in the loose gravel when he dropped back down a moment later. For one terrifying second he was sure he was going to wipeout but somehow managed to straighten himself out and keep going. Dinobot clutched him tighter, her claws digging painfully into his shoulder rims. He ignored the pain though. If anything he pushed himself faster. Behind him a giant plume of dirt and smoke slowly blossomed from the ground up into the stratosphere.
"Rattrap! Are you and Dinobot alright?" Airazor's voice squawked over the commlink.
"We're fine," he called back. "Wha' 'bout you?"
"I'm alright," was her strained reply. "But I'm not sure about Tigatron or Blackarachnia and Silverbolt." Rattrap could hear the subdued worry in the flier's voice. "I don't know if any of them got away in time… I'm going to circle back and see if I can find them. They may need help."
"Fine," Rattrap said. "But I'm gonna go on ahead. I need ta get Choppa'face back ta base as soon as possible. Assuming there's still a base left…"
"Acknowledged." And with that the commlink went dead.
"Ya still with me, Lizard Lips?" Rattrap called back over his shoulder.
"Unfortunately…" Dinobot weakly growled between her teeth. Out of the corner of his optic Rattrap noticed the dull color of the warrioress's face. Despite his field dressings she was still losing fluids fast. He could feel the growing stickiness between them. He had to hurry.
"Hold on," he said and put on an extra burst of speed.
Just as time had seemed to shorten with the approaching detonation of the bomb, it seemed to stretch out as he sped across the many miles separating him and Dinobot and the nearest CR chamber. As the miles sped past in a chaotic blur of browns, greens and grays Rattrap felt the warrioress's hold grow increasingly weaker and weaker on his shoulders.
"Comm'on, Choppa'face, stay wit' me. We're almost der," he begged as the open fields began to shift into the rocky hills and valleys of Maximal territory. "Please still be der, please still be der," he chanted under his vents as he turned the last corner to the Maximal ship. If the Axalon wasn't there he didn't know what he was going to do. As horrible as it was to admit, Optimus, Cheetor and Rhinox did not factor highly into his panicked thoughts. The only things Rattrap could focus on was the bleeding femme on his back and the ship's emergency repair tanks.
Primus must have heard his pleas and decided to smile upon him because as Rattrap sped around the last hill he spotted the Axalon sitting just the way he'd left it earlier that morning: unharmed and still in one piece.
Optimus and the others must have spotted his and Dinobot's approach because he didn't have to stop to wait for Sentinal to acknowledge him. Without wasting a nano-klick, he sped towards ship's main lifts. It was only then as both Optimus and Rhinox appeared to help him with his injured cargo that Dinobot seemed to finally reach the end of her limits and slumped off his back unconscious to the ground…
To be Continued…
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