Chapter 4 – Return of Meltdown
A/N Sorry this took so long, I had full day of doing technical stuff for school, then half a day spent shopping (I hate shopping), then a college taster day, then Prom, After-prom, and finally yet another taster day, so this was delayed a bit. (Not out of choice)
Sari puts on her jetpack that her Dad had gotten her for Christmas, and flies to the Autobot base, where she finds Jazz, Arcee, and Ratchet. Jazz is meditating, Arcee is watching TV, and Ratchet is reading the Autobot equivalent of a medical textbook.
"Meltdown's got my Dad," Sari says to Ratchet.
"WHAT, Prime said Meltdown melted into a puddle," Ratchet says.
"Well, evidently he's back," Sari mutters.
"Where do you think he's going to be?" Ratchet asks.
"Dinobot Island," Sari clicks her fingers, "think about it, it's off limits, because of the Dinobots, but there are no Dinobots there now, they're all on Cybertron, and his lab's still there."
Ratchet rubs his chin, "you could be correct, but how can we capture him? Don't forget he's made of acid."
"Yes, but force fields still can get him, maybe my laser pulse thing can as well," she looks at Ratchet expectantly.
"You maybe correct, but what is definite is that a Skyboom Shield would be able to, I'll talk to Perceptor about activating it, and probably you're hammer, which has probably needs a better name than just energy hammer."
"I'll call it the Hyperspace Hammer*," Sari says.
"Why?" Ratchet says.
"I have my reasons," Sari says, Ratchet shrugs.
"Well, I'll go call Perceptor," Ratchet says walking out the room to the com centre, "Perceptor, come in Perceptor."
"Good to hear from you Ratchet, how's the techno-organic?"
"She's fine, I was thinking about activating her Skyboom shield, and the energy hammer, she's dubbed it the Hyperspace Hammer. We need something to deal with Meltdown."
"Who?"
"Prometheus Black, he was one of our reports, a human who accidently turned himself into an acid based creature, we thought he had melted, but he's still around."
"Very well, I have reviewed the file on Meltdown, and agree that Sari's upgrades should be brought online, if you think she's mature enough."
"I do, she's grown a lot whilst training with Jazz. Ratchet out."
"Perceptor out."
Ratchet walks back into the room with Sari in, "I take it you were listening in," he says looking at her.
"How did you guess?" Sari asks.
"You're in Autobot mode," Ratchet says looking at her.
"Oh," she changes back.
"Get on the table," Ratchet says, Sari jumps onto the Autobot sized operating table, and lies down.
"This may tingle," Ratchet says, pressing a button, several mechanical arms, with laser scanners scanner her (and the table), Ratchet presses more button, Sari feels a tingling sensation in her left thigh, her right arm, and is forced into robot mode, the tingling sensation intensifies to the point where it starts to hurt, until it abruptly stops.
"I think I'll need some practise when this is all over," she says activating the shield, which comes out of her right arm, and her Hyperspace Hammer's handle comes out of her left thigh, then when she presses a button on it the hammer activates.
"Well, let's get Jazz, and go find your Dad."
"I should tell Fanzone what's going on, so he can prepare a cell for Prometheus," Sari says.
"Otherwise he might not be happy about suddenly having Meltdown appear," Sari calls Fanzone over the communicator.
"Fanzone here."
"Fanzone, I looked at the recording from the security cameras, it's Prometheus Black, again, so prepare a cell for him."
"I hate that guy, how do you plan to get him back?"
"We're going to use energy weapons, he can't melt them."
"Good idea, well, I'll see you when you get Meltdown back in jail," he ends the call.
"I just thought of something Ratchet, we have a new force-field generator that Dad was developing, it's portable, it was meant to be used in places like nuclear generators, and volcanoes, so it can probably handle Meltdown's acid."
"That's a good idea, you get the generator, I'll get the other two, and meet you at the docks."
"See you Ratchet," Sari transforms, and skates back to Sumdac tower.
One hour later Sari arrives at the dock with the generator.
"What took ya so long kiddo?" Ratchet asks.
"Paperwork, and dealing with some of Dad's employees," she says with contempt.
"Well, you two I believe our boats here," Jazz says looking at the ship that had just arrived.
"Let's go then," Sari says, Jazz takes the generator, and they board the ship.
When they reach Dinobot Island the moon has risen high in the clear sky, and the weather is surprisingly warm for Detroit at this time of year, if it were not for the threat of Meltdown then the night would be very pleasant.
"Let's get to that lab," Sari says, as they walk to the 'hidden' lab a trapdoor opens beneath their feet, sending them down into separate rooms, Sari's room is solid concrete, cylindrical, with a twenty foot diameter, and about twenty feet tall, the only opening is a .
"MELTDOWN," Sari hears Ratchet yell through the walls.
"Ah the Autobots," Meltdown says over a PA system, "I hope you find your accommodations to be sub-satisfactory, in a moment you will fight for your amusement, not again each other, but against my pets, and Rhodes."
"You sick monster," Ratchet yells, as he says this, the cage door opens Sari, and Colossus Rhodes enter the room.
"Great, it's you."
"I get my revenge now little girl," Colossus says, "there's no water in here, and Mr Black has reinforced my pumps against everything."
"So, you got upgraded toys," Sari says, "so did I," in a flash of blue light she transforms into her robot form.
"Well, that's new, but I'm still gonna smash ya," Colossus says punching a fist into his palm.
"I don't think so," Sari deploys her Hyperspace Hammer, and Skyboom Shield. Colossus punches at her, but Sari slides between his legs, and jumps up onto his back, she then whacks him hard with the hammer, sending him flying. Then she hears a voice.
"Sari, look closer," the voice says, it is the same voice she heard all that time ago, when she returned to Earth, the voice is undeniably Prowl.
"Prowl?" she asks looking around, but is cut short by realising that Colossus rather than being stunned or injured simply gets up, and activates the pumps in his back, making him even larger than ever, but whilst he's doing this Sari notices that the pumps are struggling.
"Look closer," then the voice fades, using her full range scanning Sari can see a large amount of infra-red radiation coming from the pumps. "They're going to overheat, the armouring is disrupting the cooling," she mutters.
"Hey stupid, you're not gonna get me," she jumps up, and whacks him around his face, he then growls, and punches at Sari, who deflects his fist off her shield, he then bellows in rage, and pumps up more, now he looks like an anaemic Hulk with a moustache.
Sari scans the pumps, and sees that they are maybe one or two away from totally overheating, he punches at Sari, who dodges his fist, but not totally she's knocked off her feet, and hits the wall.
"Now I have you," Colossus says standing over her, he then activates the pumps again, which causes them to spark, and fizz, this causes Colossus to try again, Sari puts up her Skyboom shield, just for the pumps to explode, taking out the back half of the room, but only knocks Colossus into the wall, where he is knocked out, and shrinks back to normal.
The explosion has destroyed the gate, revealing the corridor, which Sari skates out into, looking for a control panel, in the end she finds Jazz' cage, where he is standing next to the unconscious creature, that was once Prometheus Black's lawyer, and the shield generator, which is undamaged. Sari presses a button on the wall, opening the gate for Jazz.
"Jazz, I think either I've gone mad, or I heard Prowl," Sari says, and proceeds to explain what happened.
"It is possible that Prowl communed with you from the Well of Allspark, that is some major Cyber-ninja stuff though, especially to talk to an apprentice, that must have taken him a long time to do."
"That's awesome," Sari says, "Prowl's not as gone as we thought."
"We should find Ratchet," Jazz reminds.
"Right," they walk down the corridors at random, having trouble finding Ratchet's cage, a control room, or Meltdown, or anyone.
After half an hour they stumble upon Ratchet's cage, where he is having trouble fending off the remaining creature.
"Do you want to help, or shall I?" Sari asks.
"You go, I'll be back-up if you get something wrong," Jazz says.
"Thanks for the vote of confidence," Sari mutters pressing the button, opening the cage, she steps in, the creature knocks Ratchet into a wall, and turns to look at her.
"Sheesh, someone took an ugly pill," the creature looks at her tilts its head, then charges at Sari, who jumps over it, pivoting in the air, landing behind it she takes out the Hyperspace hammer, and as the creature turns around she hits the creature around the head with the hammer, knocking it in the wall, hard. Unlike Colossus the creature does not get up, Sari runs over to Ratchet, and helps the old bot up.
"Are you ok Ratchet?"
"I've been better, come on let's get your Dad," Ratchet says getting up, and starts running down the corridor whilst the other two follow.
"I could swear this place used to be smaller," Sari mutters as they run down the corridor.
"I think the last time we were here these tunnels were sealed, I think Meltdown either melted the seal, or had Pinky, Perky, and Colossus dig it out," Ratchet says.
"Pinky, and Perky, really Ratchet, you just compared a pair of psychotic, brain-washed mutated humans to a pair of singing anthropomorphic pigs from the 50s that is not an accurate analogy in any sense of the word."
"I've spent too much time watching TV with Bumblebee," Ratchet mutters.
Eventually they reach a control room containing Meltdown, the room is roughly carved grey stone with pipes, and cables drilled into the rock, there are screens showing every inch of the facility as well as computer screens, and keyboards. Meltdown is sitting on a throne made of metal, with a command panel in each arm.
"Ah, you appear to have defeated Colossus, and the mutants."
"No, we sat down, and drank tea," Sari mutters.
"Well no matter, I have other pets for you to meet," Meltdown presses a button on the left console, and a pair of Minotaurs rises from the floor. The Minotaurs are the same height as Ratchet, as broad as Lugnut, and are wearing nothing but a loin cloth. One is holding a metal club the size of a tree, the other hammer comprised of a streetlight with a large lump of metal on the end, they have a man's torso, with the lower half of a bull's back-legs, their heads are that of a bull, with large horns, and a nose ring. "Minotaurs, deal with the robots, and Sumdac's daughter."
One Minotaur bellows, and charges, Jazz narrowly dodges, he puts the generator down before turning to the Minotaur, which had charged into the wall, Jazz jumped behind it hitting it over the head with his numb-chucks, which it ignores, and tries to swat away Jazz. The other charges Sari, who flips over it, and hits it in the back of the head, but it also ignores the hit.
"Sensei, they can't turn if they charge, and if they are like bulls they have bad eye sight, also don't bother with the top half the skull, and muscles are too thick, try to knock them over." Sari shouts at Jazz.
"Right," Jazz says.
*Get it? For those that do not, I quote from TV tropes on the subject of the Hyperspace Mallet: "It comes from nowhere, it strikes without mercy, and disappears again. It's a mallet the size of a circus sledgehammer, and it's evidence that anime characters watch too many Bugs Bunny cartoons or The Three Stooges shorts. An angry character — usually but not restricted to short-tempered school girls — can often whip out a massive hammer with which to slam the target (and cause) of her ire."
A/N Sorry I can only focus on one fight at a time. H h h