Rapidly, Ulgris' web of slaved matter began eroding away with the influx of radiation from the destruction of the fortress-ship's rectifier coil. It responded quickly: one of the wings of the structure began to transform, bio-matter erupting over its metal surface. Ulgris couldn't save everything immediately, but if it could shield part of itself against the radiation, it would be able to slowly regain the rest of the Conquest eventually. It was too big and too powerful now for the planet's natural levels of radiation to kill it faster than it could counter the flow. That was, until the bombs hit.
"AAAAHHH!"Ulgris was, for the most part, logical… but its creators had long ago known the value of personal difference. An army of computers with universal coding and behavior could be overcome with one fatal flaw, where computers which all varied in MO and personality would be more difficult to cope with. Furthermore, any creature with intelligence, artificial or not, and programming for self-preservation, would react poorly to such immediate, wide-spread damage.
Thinking quickly through its anguish, Ulgris turned what had been a slow-growing bubble of expanding bio-mass into a hard shell and quickly solidified it as much as possible. The radiation on the outside was so intense that even its hold on biological matter was deteriorating... albeit slowly. It felt the extremities of its mass unresponsive... it would be unable to slave more matter. It had no choice: it would need to slaughter them - all of them - to survive. But it lacked the mass to reliably do that. It had salvaged roughly twice what it had prior to attaining the Conquest. With this much radiation, what were its chances? But the radiation couldn't go on forever... not with the limitations it had detected in Streak's original form.
A ball of shiny black chitin rolled out of the wall near the control room. In the buzzing heat of the bombs, one of Blightstrike's gambling companions turned to see the monstrous shape... it filled the entire hall and began collapsing down into a more definitive form. Great stalagmite-like spikes rose up from the back of a vaguely pentagonal frame, and three great legs or fingers articulated out from each corner. With freakish speed for a thing so large, the faceless monstrosity overtook the first gambler, and with no visible weapons, seized a hold of him with the fingers of two of its corners and simply crushed him.
The radiation of the bombs was still coursing through the room, but somehow that solid, crystalline, chitin-covered shape seemed to endure against it. It filled the hall, but the hall was Predacon-sized, and it was clear from the sound of its movement that it was many times denser than even a Transformer. The crystalline monster wasted no time in finishing its first victim. With horrifying alacrity it moved on to the next Predacon and seized its head in its thick fingers, and crushing down with brutal force. The creature did not, could not, absorb them. Its main concern was evident in its shape. This was not as efficient a killer as any of its previous shapes, but it would endure until the bombs ran short. Those layers of super-dense crystalline shell would keep the monster from being killed outright by the radioactive poison. It had to kill them all to survive. Blightstrike and his crew would be first.
Blightstrike was stunned by the speed of the murderous beast. For a creature of such density and size, it was alarmingly fast. This would certainly get pretty ugly. Wheeling around, the lizard managed to catch his comrade's attention and with jerks of his buzzard-like head, he ordered them to move to the east platform of the room, which was also the highest.
Though it seemed to have no eyes, the mineral monster responded instantly to the fleeing Predacons, catching two on their way to the platform. The scuttling of its fifteen legs pounded into the metal floor, leaving dents along its path before it used the fingers of two of its corners to seize two of the gamblers and drag them under its bulk; the sounds of wrenching gears and tearing metal rang through the room as it stopped at the base of the platform. Two of the gamblers both yelped in sheer fright as they saw the grotesque thing crush their allies like mere insects, which inspired them to run faster. Once all of the remaining Predacons had reached the top of the platform, Blightstrike barked ordered then to tear down the two massive steel panels that stood at each border of the platform and served as rampways. With death looming, they brought them down rather quickly.
The terror scrabbled frantically at the downed panel for several moments before the haphazard nature of its scrambling legs became slow and deliberate, and as they slowed, power was poured into the appendages. The panel began to bend and warp under the pressure of those spindly fingers, and soon it seemed like the thing was eating the panel itself. Soon, though, the vaguely arachnid monstrosity managed to rotate its base on its myriad legs, and awkwardly pull the large metal sheet aside, and then up it shot. The gamblers were desperate to escape at this point, but Ulgris knew better than to give them an opportunity. It climbed over the first Predacon it reached, crushing her beneath its obscene weight, and stole two of the remaining four in opposing corners of its frame, grinding them into scrap-metal like wood into a chipper. Two remained, and as soon as it was done with its three victims, it would take them as well. It was then, as the lives of the three ended horribly, that the dull thrumming of the bombs ceased, and the radiation levels cooled. It was now safe to transform.
With the radiation in the area dropping to normal levels, transforming into their robot modes was safe enough. Without a second thought both of the smaller, narrow creatures wordlessly switched into their robot forms and drew their deadliest weapons for the battle ahead; Blight his plasma pistols and the remaining gambler an assault rifle. After a nanoclick strategy discussion via their linked comm channels, both Preds agreed on a course of action and set it into motion. Blightstrike grappled a thin, lengthy floor slab with a clawed foot and flung it upwards with such force, that when it impacted against the ceiling it managed to bring down two other slabs. Automatically, Ulgris stopped whatever he was doing with its victims and charged at them.
"Trackflare!" Blightstrike cried, and the pyro-Pred gambler unleashed a football-sized blood-red sphere from the strange weapon he held, which smashed against the falling slabs. The red blob exploded and the steel tiles seemed to melt as the red liquid spilled over them, falling just right on top of the creature. Immediately, both Predacons strafed to their right, turned to face the hulking thing and back-flipped over the platform's rail.
Molten steel adhered to the monster's crystalline body, and quickly solidified, anchoring it in place. The tiny legs of the hulking beast skittered against the floor, and when they met the resistance of the steel, dug in harder to find purchase and detach their main body from the ground. Nonetheless, a wide area of metal now attached the bulky mass of the crab-like terror to the floor, and the metal flooring beneath its feet began to tear long before it could summon the leverage to free itself. Shredding the metal flooring, its feet were quickly scrabbling with futility against the destroyed floor, unable to free themselves. At the sight of the multi-limbed ball of death struggling to free itself from place both Predacons looked at each other and exchanged a confident nod.
"Let's get outta 'ere!", Trackflare barked with renewed hope and Blightstrike gave another nod. Together they ran to the locked door – unfortunately they had to wait until Trackflare's magma weapon could recharge and blow open an exit. Therein lay the flaw.
The radiation was down. The nano-computer resolved that changing form was safe once more. Quickly, it searched its memory for a form more appropriate to the situation. When it found one suitable for freeing itself, it found simultaneously that it was a good form for battle with these Cybertronians, and was therefore pleased. Ulgris quickly began to alter its matter accordingly. The black chitonous exterior quickly broke down into a soupy biotic puddle, which rapidly reshaped itself to something with a torso that could very vaguely be described as humanoid. It had no head, but very broad shoulders, and a cluster of eyes just above where the clavicle bones might have been in a more Terran life-form. Its black flesh quickly changed to gray, and deep fissures began opening across its flesh...jagged, but symmetrical along both sides of the body. The crystal-form's myriad legs were reshaped into two powerful, outflung forelimbs, set in front of two thin, but well-muscled hind legs sticking straight out behind. All joined the torso at a thick pelvic girdle. Two burly arms sprouted out from either side of its upper-body, thin between shoulder and elbow-joint, but thick and bulbous from elbow to where its hand should have been. Flaps of tissue began forming at the ends of these appendages, clearly designed for grabbing and manipulating objects. These fleshy folds quickly closed up, forming a thick, tear-drop fist at the end of each long, powerful arm.
Suddenly, the fissures flared red hot, and the temperature in the room began to climb with alarming rapidity. A hundred degrees, now two, now three. The air around Ulgris began to shimmer with the waves of blistering heat radiating off it, and slowly, the solid steel began to melt off once more. The "eyes" at the thing's shoulders glowed too, and its gray flesh bleached white as the heat increased, now enough to cook any human alive. It stepped away from the melted steel, and with its four legs, loped over to its prey.
Neither of the two escapees even noticed Ulgris' dramatic transformation until it began to emit incandescent waves of heat. Instinctively, both turned to face the source of the rise in temperature, and when their optics met the blazing white-fleshed creature, both simply stood in place like statues, their confused cores trying to fight back the wave of mixed awe and horror that plagued them. Standing there like dumb-struck fools though did not bode well for them… well, at least for Trackflare who happened to be the nearest to the creature. The white demon's intense aura of heat did not seem to bother the pyro much, as he was used and made for resisting tremendous temperatures; however that did not mean that he was completely immune to Ulgris' attacks.
As Ulgris neared him, it jerked back one of it's oddly-shaped arms and shot it forward, intending to pierce the Predacon's chest - fortunately, Trackflare managed to interpose his fire rifle between himself and the dagger-like fist just in time, and what could have been a fatal blow just became a strong bash which launched him back onto the weakened command door, denting it slightly. The gambler blinked twice and gaped, surprised to find himself almost intact after a strike like that. But a high-pitched beep alerted him that his gun's internal mechanisms has just gone critical. Setting aside his unusual sentimental-attachment to the gun, Trackflare wisely dropped the weapon to one side and bounded away, avoiding the small explosion that literally disintegrated the entire door and – and seven square feet of metal around it - into black ashes.
"The door's gone! Report Ulgris' status to anyone still alive. I'll distract it. Run. Now!" Blightstrike stressed the last word to Trackflare, who unsurprisingly carried out his order immediately. Blightstrike was not altruist; without a weapon Trackflare would be unable to keep the creature at bay for longer than the time it would take to die. Blightstrike had a fighting chance, and if he was going to die he wanted his final act to contribute to the downfall of this monster.
As the disarmed Transformer fled the glowing red eyes focused on the plasma pistols leveled at them by the one remaining soldier. The shots penetrated the beast's ceramic skin, but failed to do appreciable damage. This creature was only vaguely biotic at all; it didn't seem to be a carbon-based life-form, and in fact was not, traditionally. Ulgris had infused it with carbon-based molecules to increase its resistance to the planet's radiation, as the being of supple clay would ordinarily have had no resistance to it at all. "Why have you sacrificed yourself?" the alien asked, the voice of Streak emerging from what appeared to be a glowing red vent at the creature's belly, bearing the heat of the furnace within. Its fists shrank several centimeters as they tightened, the ceramic fingers crunching audibly as they clenched together, hot air whistling off of the searing skin.
Blighstrike sneered and cocked his pistols, tapping their triggers mockingly but never too strong as to fire. "Sacrificed? Well, here I thought you were a monotonous and unemotional killing machine. You know, pride is considered as one of the capital sins. My respect for you just dropped in half." Blightstrike frowned and shook his head as if disappointed. "And to answer your question - which I think its pretty slaggin' easy to guess… First of all, I owed the bastard you just hit five hundred chips, and do you know how slaggin' hard it is to obtain money on this forsaken planet? No, I guess you don't…but you kinda get the idea, right?"
Ulgris resumed his gait, and Blightstrike began to jog backwards while performing a series of dramatic hand-gestures, though never extending his arms too far and increasing his backwards speed by the second. "Second of all, I've gotten tired of having to eat the flesh of those disgusting creatures that roam this cesspool. Have you tried ingesting one of those little mole-things? No, not that dumb bastard you killed who transformed into one - a real one. It is dis-gus-ting. I'd rather drink stale Terran oil than eat one of those again!
"And finally," His tone no longer sounded mocking, which made the alien program curious enough as to halt. Blightstrike acknowledged this and halted on his tracks too. "For too long have I been slave to mob leaders, forced to perform dishonorable acts that went against what I used to be until my compatriots forsook me. I know that none of these scrubs, Predacon and Maximal alike, will get off this planet, but neither will you. So I ask myself: Why bother living another day? Things are horrible as they are… I'd hate to live and see you make everything around here just worse."
Ulgris ran Blightstrike's words through the memories he had downloaded from Streak, and was thus able to understand previously unknown concepts, including the nuances of his words, including the hidden meanings, sarcasms, and bitterness behind them. Ulgris was programmed for survival to come first, duty to come second, and learning to come third. Nonetheless, it always took a passing interest in the lifeforms it consumed or combatted, and so had delayed its progress through this predacon long enough to sate its own curiosity. Blightstrike's words struck a cord in Streak's personality simulation, and Ulgris read from that a list of appropriate responses, depending on how the listener felt. Though it was a being of war, a weapon, Ulgris was not without free will. Reading through possible responses, it decided that, regarding itself as an individual, it felt a mixture of amusement, indignance, sympathy, and a modicum of respect for this life form's resignation to death. As with most real intelligences, Ulgris would need to choose how to act on these emotions, and would need to choose what could best be described as a combined action, one which synthesized all of those feelings and acted on them. And so it wasted another moment on the trapped Predacon.
"This form was based off of the prince of the Gulmrk, a ceramic race belonging to a labyrinthine world far from this one. He faced me alone as you do, though his emotions were too alien to approximate to yours. He did not have your radiation bombs, nor your plasma weaponry, but was the best warrior of his race, and also wanted to die before witnessing the end that I brought to his world." The computer's voice was Streak's voice, but its inflection was off; its attempt to simulate his emotions was crude, but its words and voice were powerful.
"I will deliver the death you seek. And one day wear your form before another who seeks in vain to oppose me." With that, the prince leapt at Blightstrike. Fists several times harder diamonds blurred through the air and crashed into the wall where the Predacon's head had been, plowing through it with power alone, and then heating the metal so acutely that it started melting after the fists had been pulled out. The air whistled with the passage of plasma rounds into the creature's hide. The powerful forelimbs pushed away from the wall, and the sprinter hindlegs launched the quadruped toward the fleeing Transformer again.
The vent in the creature's belly swelled, and belched forth acrid smoke. The cracks all along its white body gaped open, and the air all around it began to shimmer uncontrollably, so much so that Ulgris' form was obscured by the convulsing atmosphere. Leaping from the floor and then the wall, the prince of the Glmrk rebounded with lightning speed on the Predacon, who expertly dived and rolled. As he stood, Blightstrike caught one of the hind legs in his shoulder-plate, which crushed like it were made of plastic and sent him hurtling toward the far wall. He gathered himself as the white sagittarian cavorted toward him, and aimed the pistol in his good hand at the monster.
The sounds of the super-dense monster's leaps and landing resounded off the walls, but the pistol shots strayed left and right... the heat was intense, focused... it was being kept in by the metal walls like an oven. Blightstrike's processors would not withstand much more. He fired two more shots... but realized too late that the air was so distorted by now with the heat and the smoke that his optics weren't telling him where his enemy was. One brutally solid fist crashed down onto his face-plate, crushing him down to where his good shoulder met his hip. It was a total destruction. Blightstrike was not awake to feel the magma-like intensity from that mace-like hand super-heat him and melt him down beyond any hope of repair.
TO BE CONCLUDED.