Author's Note: the presence of the Nodus Gordii Mountains is a shameless nod to Alan Moore's seminal graphic novel Watchmen, where the superhuman Dr Manhattan reflects on the nature of humanity at those samesuch mountains. I'm told they've been renamed since 1987, but since this is a Multiverse in which we traipse, Nodus Gordii can stay. Elsewhere, the Decepticons we used turned out to be those which were part of Starscream's Brigade--the splinter Decepticon faction from the G1 episode of the same name. tells me that all of them, except Dead End, are of a flight-possessing/helicopter variety--which made writing the battle somewhat easier. So we see mostly a Decepticon view of things in this instalment, though we do get some of Ironhide's thoughts as well. Shockwave particularly was a joy to write; I suppose the Nazi parallels are lame and unavoidable, but my first thought as far as frame of reference was concerned ran to Joseph Goebbels, the stalwart and unassailably flesh-crawling Reichsminister who stood by Hitler until the very end. I've thus tried to cast Shockwave as less loyal to "the mission" (see Starscream) and more personally loyal to Megatron--ultimately more dangerous and more unbalanced as a result of that. At any rate, I hope I haven't taken too many egregious liberties with Shockwave's character. This instalment also allowed me to approach the Transformers from a slightly more savage angle. I can't write fight scenes to save my life, but I do hope that a certain destructive angle gets conveyed here. Put another way, when they're not on Earth and don't have humans to protect or things to hide behind, Cybertronian wars get real ugly, real fast. Hopefully, not too fast though. Happy Reading!


Mars.

The last time Bumblebee found himself transited through a Space Bridge, the Decepticon defector Jetfire had flung him into Egypt's vast and bleak desert.

Skywarp had no such faults in his hardware.

The Space Bridge blinked to life as a broad circle, in two dimensions, at the base of the Nodus Gordii Mountains. No flinging or fault technology here. Skywarp was old, at least as old as Bumblebee and Prime, but he had maintained himself.

Not being on Earth to get stuck in one of the mausoleums they called 'museums' helped.

Skywarp materialised first, in a low crouch. The black and cerulean panels on his armour reflected the Space Bridge's electric energy brilliantly. He stood and through the electric haze, beheld the sadly familiar Martian landscape.

Home, he thought with some dissatisfaction.

Home to little more than refugees on a barge.

Skywarp's optics narrowed and he formed his facial tensors into a frown. The action was familiar—dissatisfaction, annoyance, anger were definitions of his existence—but the word was a human construction.

You homo sapiens and your feelings.

He looked over one shoulder.

Prime materialised next, standing straight, his head looking forward with some lofty, indefinable arrogance.

Then Ironhide. Whirling his guns out and willing to shoot. As usual.

Ratchet. Bumblebee. Sideswipe. Prowl. The Twins, Skids and Mudflap, unusually silent.

They are as hatchlings, Skywarp reminded himself. In the human idiom, little more than teen-agers with wide eyes and flights of fancy, eager to pick up a weapon and fire it at the nearest offender of their high expectations. Or their vastly abrasive personalities.

Skywarp thought for a moment about turning around, right here and right now, and cutting their heads off.

But that would serve no purpose, now would it?

We need Prime to bear glorious witness...

The electric sizzle of the Space Bridge faded away, leaving only the transported bots standing in the middle of an arid plain. The winds of a sub-zero Martian winter blazed around them.

"Scenic," Prowl said. Shunted his arm into its usual gun; twin cannons flipped up and over his shoulders.

"Autobots," Prime said and waved one manipulator in a slight circle, "Recon."

"Nothing," Ratchet said. The most technically astute Autobot, Skywarp knew, though by no means the most technically sophisticated, was Ratchet. Battlefield Medic was a demanding position. Necessary. Gruesome as well, but it demanded a great deal of technical acumen. Which Ratchet appeared to have in spades.

Skywarp respected that.

So he watched with a discerning and perhaps even jealous eye as Ratchet's manipulators hovered over the Martian waste lands, scanning for a trap, a subterranean explosive. Or, and this amused Skywarp more, Scorponok perhaps.

He allowed a brief chortle of amusement through his vocoder, and turned away.

"You won't find anything," Skywarp said, glaring into the distance.

Ironhide had been pointing his cannons at an outcropping. He turned to Skywarp and said, "You're so sure?"

"Yes," Skywarp said. "How often do you think Megatron receives visitors?"

Ironhide appeared to shrug for a moment. He relinquished his cannons to stationary holds on his arms and gave up reconnaissance.

Skywarp had his optics trained on the horizon.

His shoulders tensed, his vocoder let out a small hiss, when he sensed Prime standing next to him.

"You don't trust me."

"No," Prime said. Didn't seem terribly bothered by the admission.

"That's valid," Skywarp said. "You have no reason to trust anyone anymore. Our home is dead. Our fortunes have become entwined with the human hive. And for what? So we can hide in a dead planet, waiting for death or obsolescence to take us over?"

Prime's optics skittered in their sockets. Moved around with manic vagueness. Thinking hard, perhaps, about Skywarp's war-forged ennui.

"It pains me to see our race reduced to a few dozen warlords, Optimus. It pains me to think Cybertron's glory shall never be as it once was. It pains me to think that all this started because a primordial evil deigned to control Megatron, and deigned to control the universe." Skywarp paused. Then added, with a sad sort of wistfulness: "I suppose beings start wars over far less sensible things. Killing for a swatch of land makes as much sense as anything."

Then Prime saw his opportunity.

"Come with us," he said.

Skywarp angled his head toward Prime. His optics narrowed, his facial tensors changed, severe and annoyed.

"Yes, let's just all do what we want."


The Nemesis.

The human girl named Banes had been on the Nemesis for little less than forty-eight Earth hours. In that time, Megatron had tasked Shockwave with the monitoring and upkeep of his guest. It was a natural expression of Shockwave's talents. Combined both his distaste for organics with an ever-reaching, ever-searching processor.

The Nemesis, too, might have been a wrecked vessel, a corpse of a once-great empire, now reduced to lifelessness on a dead planet, but it still was eons beyond the humans' wildest scientific imaginings. The engines and machines Megatron had used to power his war on Cybertron, Shockwave had retrofitted to fit his new task.

The guardian of Cybertron allowed himself the delight of torturing her.

As it turned out, her resistance was considerable.

In the forty-eight human hours she had spent in the company of her captors, both of Mikaela Banes' legs were broken. She had gone temporarily blind in one eye from certain ocular degeneracy treatments Shockwave had administered—wanting to test the limits of human vision in a comparative study with the remains of Long Haul. He had deduced a severe blood-borne disease in the girl, and cured it with such minimal effort that it barely warranted his attention in the first place. She had suffered severe inhalation damage; one lung had been collapsed after a particularly severe Nitrogen Induction experiment—only to be reconstituted with some tricky work by Rumble.

Rumble, who was no Frenzy, to be sure, still had his merits. He served as Shockwave's de-facto assistant in the Banes girl's 'upkeep'.

Upkeep is such an ugly word, Shockwave thought. Why not call it exactly what it was?

Torture. Certainly. Extermination—hardly—for extermination implied some kind of line-wide destruction. Death. Wholesale. And Shockwave had been through that once already.

In a way, he surmised, this was better than extermination.

This human, this girl. This insect. Had stood to be counted with the enemy of everything Megatron and the Decepticons believed. Everything they had worked for.

Punishment was natural. Deserved.

One of his manipulators thinned into a scalpel the size of her hand, and lowered to her abdomen.

She had passed out from the shock some hours ago. Even still, death was not worth the risk.

They needed her alive.

Shockwave summoned Rumble.

The tiny little contraption slithered out of the dark on impossibly skeletal legs. He came to stop just before the Banes girl's unconscious, slumped, body, and jerked both his arms back. One changed into a reflex-syringe, a thin and gleaming metallic spike that he drove into her neck. Delivering anesthesia enough for the hypertrophs in Cybertron's Great Deep to feel. She would not wake for hours.

Rumble laid his other spindly hand on her forehead and craned his neck to one side.

His tiny optics burned bright.

Shockwave eased the scalpel toward her abdomen.

The operation was cut short by a blaring alarm. The hangar turned a bright red. The subsystem emergency lights flickered to life as the ship went into automatic lockdown.

Shockwave stood away from the human girl and stormed out of the hangar.

Twelve metres away and three levels up, Megatron stood at the precipice of what had been the Fallen's incubation throne. In their return to the Nemesis, Megatron reappropriated it.

Shockwave catapulted himself up to the dais and was at Megatron's side a moment later. Staring out through a gash in the hull at the arid Martian waste.

Megatron's shoulders heaved and when he spoke, steam poured from him in great curling volumes. His body ached with the fires of war. He laid one claw on the hull plating.

Shockwave said nothing, giving his master silence. He turned and stared at the Nemesis' great, dank interior.

Starscream and Thundercracker landed in unison at the edge of the platform. Both in a low crouch, their arm tensors clenched into the floor plating.

"Master," Starscream said. "Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but we've encountered a vergence on the long-range sensors. The Autobots must be coming for the girl!"

Soundwave came gliding down from the darkness the rafters afforded.

Merely said, "What is your command?"

Megatron looked Soundwave square in his optics. Clenched one gleaming claw and formed the other into his lobstrosity of a fusion cannon.

"Decepticons," he said in a bestial and seductive voice. "Attack."

Soundwave looked back at Starscream. In addition to Thundercracker and Shockwave, several more Decepticons had gathered on the platform. All stretching for a chance to see their Master. All champing eager to see battle.

Glorious battle.

"Vortex, Blitzwing, Laserbeak, Rumble, Ratbat, Swindle, Dead End—Attack."

Silently, without word or complaint. With, Shockwave surmised, grateful processors, they went forward.

The force-field covering the hole in the hull dissipated, and they went forth. Blitzwing led the way, changing into his helicopter form as he went. Then Vortex and Swindle, also helicopters. Dead End, slinking through the hole, his optics furtive and roving, his armour shining in the twilight. Laserbeak and Ratbat next, flying side by side with perfect synchronicity. Rumble hung on Laserbeak's claws.

Megatron watched them go.

Starscream looked back at Shockwave and Soundwave. "And them?"

Megatron pushed Starscream aside. Pointed one phalangeal claw at Shockwave.

"Protect the girl," he said.

Then he was in jet mode and exploding out of the Nemesis. Thundercracker and Starscream followed, forming symmetrical con-trails behind him.


The Nodus Gordii Mountains.

They were in a loose convoy—what the humans called a Flying V—barrelling across the plains. Skywarp was at the head, flying a thousand feet above them. Prime led on the ground; Ironhide on one side, Ratchet on the other. Prowl and Bumblebee behind Ironhide; the Twins and Sideswipe behind Ratchet.

In the distance, or so Ironhide's long-range sensors told, the Nemesis lay waiting. And with it, the Banes girl. And certain doom.

It was every bit the case that they were going to their deaths. Ironhide took the opportunity to tell Prime this before they left Earth. "Every time we face them, we face death," Prime had said. And that was that.

It was the case that Megatron was a monster. And his lieutenants were worse.

Soundwave and Shockwave couldn't be blamed for their lack of initiative. Cycles of servitude had gutted their courage and turned them into little more than sycophants and psychopaths. Whatever potential they had was wasted under Megatron. Destroyed by his hatred.

Starscream, oddly, garnered Ironhide's respect. Both knew it. Starscream lacked what the humans called 'spine' but he made up for it in other ways. He was crafty, at the very least. Imaginative. Spry and always quick to attack. Summarily always quick to flee if things didn't go exactly the way he wanted.

Starscream was worse than Megatron. He had stood by for millennia and watched Megatron raze entire worlds. Had allowed the death of billions simply because he was too frightened or too unwilling to do anything else. Now that Megatron was back among the living, matters were worse. Megatron would keep slaughtering. Keep coveting. Keep dominating.

If he had to kill every living thing in the galaxy.

Ironhide could deal with that. Megatron's ambition could be stopped—certainly it had been before.

But Starscream would still be there. Shockwave. Soundwave. Skywarp. They would all clamour for leadership. And they would all keep killing.

Until there'd be nothing left to kill.

Ironhide's sensors picked up an atmospheric disturbance and transmitted it to Skywarp.

Skywarp transmitted back an entirely curt thank-you and increased speed.

Prime compensated and worried for a moment that Skywarp's duplicity would play itself out now. If it did, they would not reach the Nemesis for days. By then, Mikaela would be dead. To say nothing of the Autobots themselves, whose very survival rested on Skywarp.

Ratchet's sensors picked up the disturbance at the same time as Ironhide. He pinged into Prime's cab radio on the open channel. So they could all hear it.

"Something is coming."

"Agreed. Autobots, be ready."

Sideswipe converted into robot mode in a single contorting motion and began skating across the landscape. He slid out the swords on his arms and used them for leverage and speed.

Bumblebee thought remotely that Sideswipe resembled something Sam used to call Short Track racers. Humans who skated on razor blades around a circle of ice. An odd convention.

Next to Bee, the Twins were speeding along at a leisurely clip as well. The whole convoy seemed to be north of the 100 miles per hour range—sensibly, too, Skids guessed, if they wanted to make the Nemesis in any kind of time.

Privately, Skids wanted to see it.

Wanted to stroll up to Megatron and punch his dumbass old face.

That'd show him.

Skids sped up with this happy fantasy in his processor.

Unfortunately for Skids, he never saw it coming.

None of them did.

The Decepticons came all at once.

Blitzwing blew out of the clouds, followed by Swindle and Vortex. Dead End crested a distant ridge and came speeding toward Bumblebee at an astonishing speed. Then Megatron, Starscream and Thundercracker blew out of the clouds and fired on Prime.

Skywarp veered away and flipped into robot mode, landing in a shallow crater. He opened fire on Ironhide in the next moment.

Blitzwing fired off three shots in the course of his landing. One slammed into the soil and threw up a small cloud. Good diversion, so he couldn't be disappointed about that. The other shot landed between Ratchet and Sideswipe and sent both reeling away from the impact in opposite directions. Ratchet contorted into robot form as the force flung him away, and landed in a skid. Pointing his arm cannon wildly into the air. Momentarily panicked.

The third shot slammed right into Skids' hood and blew the engine out. He tried to convert to robot mode in the instant before the missile impact, but it didn't take. A gruesome concatenation of twisted metal, dead Autobot and leaking energon came to rest at the edge of the canyon.

Megatron immediately went for Prime.

Starscream picked off Ratchet from the air, blowing half his shoulder out before landing in front of the medic in robot form and beating him with his bare hands.

Thundercracker went for Prowl.

There was no cover. No rocks or trees to hide behind. The canyon was half a kilometre east, and too deep to afford cover. Plunging in would've only meant death.

Blitzwing—and now Vortex and Swindle standing on either side of him—was firing at Ratchet and Sideswipe in an open field—the rest were occupied with Megatron and the Seekers. To any lesser Decepticon, to any lesser being, this was suicide. To Blitzwing?

Sport.

Prowl and Ironhide switched out with Sideswipe and Ratchet, and took forward point. At the same time Vortex went for Ironhide, Swindle went for Ratchet. Blitzwing focused ahead.

Sideswipe charged forward and for a moment Blitzwing thought the Autobot's style resembled that of Bonecrusher—may he rest in pieces.

A few metres away, Starscream was pounding on Ratchet.

Blitzwing knelt and cocked his rifle again. Took the time to aim right at Sideswipe's chest plating.

I'll blow the spark right out of you, Autobot.

Blitzwing was so focused on Sideswipe. So focused that—

He jerked back and sparks exploded from his shoulder. He looked down with a distant, uncomprehending look at his arm and his energy cannon, bleeding energon on the ground. If he'd been a human he might have frowned. He looked up. In the microsecond before his death, Blitzwing saw Prime in the distance. Prime turning away from his fight with Megatron and blowing Blitzwing's arm off. Prime turning back to Megatron without hesitation.

Blitzwing stared uncomprehendingly at his own arm, mangled and sparking, dead on the ground.

Then Sideswipe was on him. Jamming a sword in his face and forcing it through.

Blitzwing's processor fluttered and stunted, the flow of information halted by the piece of metal now bisecting the circuits.

Megatron's finest triple-changer fell dead to the ground a moment later.

Sideswipe pulled the sword out and kicked Blitzwing's crackling, bleeding head aside.

"Not fine anymore are you," he said and turned back for Swindle.

Starscream saw Sideswipe charging toward him and abandoned Ratchet, exploding--escaping--into the sky as usual. The Air Commander had done a number on Ratchet: his left arm lay twisted on the ground. What was left of his shoulder sparked and crackled behind buckled and blackened armour. Starscream had ripped off his buzzsaw and forced it into his abdomen. Sideswipe suspect Ratchet was leaking energon. Profusely.

But Ratchet had a trick or two left.

He caught Sideswipe's attention long enough to yell, "Get down!"

Sideswipe ducked, barely avoiding the stream of fire from Ratchet's arm-gatling. Looked back and saw Swindle's head explode. Ratchet helped Sideswipe up, saying "He almost had you."

In the distance, Vortex was still matching Ironhide's volleys. Suddenly he was the last chopper in the Decepticon army. Vortex was built on the Blackout model. He was huge, well-armed, particularly vicious. Yet his peculiar rage and stocky style made up for his slowness. He kicked Ironhide away and fired a blanket of missiles at Sideswipe and Ratchet before they could get close.

He was running out of options. Converting to vehicle mode and flying off left him too open for attack and he couldn't take six Autobots on by himself.

Keep firing.

So he did.

Vortex dove for Ironhide again and suffered two shots to the chest for his trouble. The fight continued.

Bumblebee tried to sneak up on Thundercracker—who had taken the opportunity to wail on Prowl—but found himself waylaid by Dead End, who had sped in and knocked Bee off his feet at the very last moment. Dead End twisted out of vehicle mode and slunk toward Bee with a mad glint in his optics.

"Thought I'd take one from the Barricade book."

Bumblebee's radio hissed static, then said in a tinny voice: "Very cute." Then he started firing.

Dead End avoided each shot expertly, flipping and twisting around as a rhombodroid might. A page from the Rumble book, Bee recalled. He perched himself on Bee's shoulders and started slashing at Bee's shoulder cannons. Bee flipped over himself trying to get Dead End off. No avail. Bumblebee's shoulder cannons were now completely gone. Stripped off, ripped off more appropriately, by Dead End's greedy and foul style. Bee reached one manipulator over his shoulder. The other behind at his waist, grabbing Dead End's tensors. Bee pulled and oddly Dead End came off with ease. The Decepticon's eyes were burning red and energon was leaking from his mouth. Worked up. At the very least. Bee filled him full of explosive ordnance a moment later, and flung the flaming hulk away.

Near the precipice to the Unending Canyon, Megatron was fighting Prime in his usual manner.

Rage.

Megatron had dive-bombed Prime, converting to robot mode and flipping over Prime as he landed. Firing successive shots right into Prime's chest.

Prime immediately dove for him, both energon blades pointed at Megatron's chest.

The Decepticon leader merely sidestepped and kicked Prime while he was down. Readied his fusion cannon at Prime's mid-section. The mistake was waiting for Prime to stand, because he immediately pivoted and slashed at the fusion cannon's outstretched blade. The kinetic follow-through forced Megatron away—the fusion cannon discharged into the distance and struck Thundercracker, still engaged with Prowl—and Prime jabbed one blade, glowing with impossible orange heat into Megatron's elbow. With his other manipulator Prime bent the joint back on itself and kicked Megatron for good measure. Megatron brought his free arm around and struck Prime across the face.

Prime took the blow and readied his ion rifle. Megatron turned and kicked Prime in the face, as he had done in the Earth forest. This time, Prime stayed down. Long enough for Megatron to fix his cannoned arm rightly and take aim at his prone enemy.

"What a simple mind," he barked and pressed the pointed end of his lobstrosity against Prime's head. "You can't even face me!"

He entertained a terrible thought for a moment. That Prime was drawing him in. But he dismissed it summarily. Prime was never that subtle.

Then Megatron flew backwards, kicked through the air by Prime and a surprising show of effort.

Megatron stood and willed the pain away. Pain was for lesser creatures.

He fired an explosive round into the nearest Autobot—it so happened to be Prowl, who fell like a sack of tin.

Megatron lumbered toward Prime again.

The battle raged around them.

Ironhide was still engaged with Vortex.

Starscream still remained in the skies; he circled the carnage in a low circle and sniped at Bumblebee every few moments.

Skywarp and Thundercracker had holed up behind the corpse of Swindle and traded fire with the cowering Autobots.

Prowl and Ratchet were all but crippled, crawling toward Bumblebee and firing intermittently at the Seekers.

The ruse had worked. Bringing the Autobots to Mars had worked. They had come to their deaths.

In the distance, Prime was hunched over the flaming wreckage that was once Skids.

Bumblebee and Ratchet had piled Dead End's corpse on top of Blitzwing's and were using the two as cover against Laserbeak and Ratbat and Rumble.

Megatron growled. Teeming with rage at the idea of finally killing Prime.

He brought his fusion cannon up, trained it on Prime's back.

Then felt a stinging in his legs.

He looked down and recognized the tiny, petulant Autobot shooting at him. Mudflap, Skids' extant partner, firing at Megatron's legs and shouting obscenities.

Vaguely, Megatron thought of Jazz.

"You want a piece of me?! You want a piece?!"

No. I want two.

Megatron ran the little flea through with his energy blade.

Then he fired at Prime.

The remains of Skid, along with the fusion cannon's customary incendiary payload, exploded across Prime's scapular armour and sent him reeling.

Megatron formed his arm back into its manipulator and looked around.

Ironhide had taken up residency with Bumblebee and Ratchet behind the first wave's corpses. Soundwave's pets were doing an admirable job holding them off.

"Decepticons," Megatron barked and waved skyward. "Withdraw!"

Then they were in the air, blasting back toward the Nemesis.

Bumblebee was limping, badly, and Vortex had ripped off one of Ironhide's cannons. Ratchet and Prowl lay maimed, but alive, behind the corpses of Blitzwing and Swindle. The Twins were dead.

The Decepticons had won this round.

Prime stared at Megatron's flight-mode, a dark spot fading into the rust-orange horizon.

"Next time, then."


The Nemesis.

Shockwave was crouched in the corner, or sitting, more appropriately, when the Banes girl stirred finally. Megatron's dutiful was in many ways the exemplar Decepticon. Loyal to a fault—weren't they all. Stunningly ruthless. Stunningly quiet. Shockwave occupied every sinister superlative in the book. He had been with Megatron since the beginning.

To be sure, so had Starscream. But Shockwave scorned the Air Commander.

Starscream didn't have the heart for the mission. He was an opportunist, certainly. An admirable trait among the Decepticons. But he was a coward and everyone knew it. Starscream would never take complete control because he would never engage any situation unless complete victory were guaranteed.

It came as little surprise to Shockwave, then, watching the battle on the viewscreen, to see Starscream flee the battle so soon. Even more suprising to see him rip off Ratchet's arm and beat him with it. That was a remarkable show of strength.

Shockwave's single eye, gleaming yellow, brightened. In lieu of facial tensors or anything resembling some emotional core, it was the closest approximation to hatred he could manifest.

He left cowardice to Starscream. Hatred was Megatron's. Loyalty was Shockwave's business.

Very soon he would have to save Megatron from Starscream's inevitable duplicity.

Starscream was always trying something.

When that day comes, and my Master commands it, I will be ready.

He heard the buzzing of the emergency under-frequency in his processor and tapped in. Megatron came on, his vox heavy and disjointed.

"Shockwave!"

"Yes, Master, what is your command?"

"Victorious--heavily damaged--ortex dead--indle--oo--tarscre--e ready--"

Ahead of him, the Banes girl stirred. Made an imperceptible human moan and woke from her anaesthetic unconsciousness. She wiped a strand of hair from her face and looked around. Groaned when she realized she was still on the Nemesis. She tried standing and screamed in pain—which Shockwave denoted as a particularly pleasing sound—when she remember her legs were broken. As it was she started pulling herself into the ray of light that shone through the gash in the hull.

Shockwave cocked his head to one side. Stood and walked into the light.

She stopped when she saw him towering over her. Tried in vain to crawl the other way. She was hyperventilating again. Possibly in shock.

Shockwave crouched over her and picked her up between spindly phalangeal tensors. His single yellow optic burned bright for a moment.

"We haven't much time," Shockwave said. "Tell me about the one that killed Megatron. Your human familiar. Where would one find him?"

She started sobbing, which turned into babbling, which begat tears and more sobbing.

He shook her and that seemed to clear it up for the moment.

"Prince. Prince. Princeton," she said. Babbled. Wiped the tears streaming down her face.

Shockwave set her down. Panels in the floor, in the centre of the light shining through the hull, slid out and covered her at the waist and knees.

"Our science is centuries beyond human measure," he said. "Your legs will heal in six seven decimal three two seconds. At that point, I shall return you to Earth and you will deliver your human paramour to me. Let us hope he is as durable as you."


Continued...