Chapter 9 – Epsilon Expanse
A/N The last chapter ended rather abruptly, I should explain that we had patchy internet at best, we had a moment of internet, so I uploaded when I could, good thing I did, because the next day we had no internet. Then I was then holiday for ten days, then I had to catch-up at work, which took forever, so it has taken me a while to update. I hope it is worth the wait.
"Oh, so you can fly," Smokescreen says.
"Your first training exercise will be an obstacle course, you will start from those pillars," Download Minor says as he points at five metal pillars. "You will continue down through that tunnel," he points at a tunnel, "over that cliff," he points at a cliff, "through that oil swamp," he points at an oil swamp. "Finally across the Epsilon Expanse, which is that flat area on the horizon," he points at a flat area on the horizon. "To the finish, which is marked by a beacon on the roof of that derelict warehouse, you must reach the roof without the use of the stairs, you will be monitored, and evaluated across the entire course," he points at a speck on the plain in the distance. "Doubleform, you'll go first."
Sari flies over to the pillars, "no flying," Download warns as Sari lands, "3, 2, 1, Go."
Sari activates her skates, and speeds down the hill, and into the tunnel, and almost has her head taken off by a laser, "whoa," she says as she ducks just in time. The next laser is vertical, and Sari only just has time to dodge to the side, next she hears a rocket fire up, and she jumps over an ankle height rocket that flies down the tunnel.
As Sari leaves the tunnel she arrives at the base of the cliff, "well, better start climbing," Sari starts climbing up the wall, and uses processor-over-matter to scan ahead to look for anything that might attack her, she feels the missile before it his. She jumps to the side, and only just grabs a new handhold, as she feels it explode on the wall next to her, sending out a pressure wave that almost knocks her off the wall, a large chunk of wall hits her side, causing her considerable pain. She looks down, to see no obvious damage, but she will have to see a medic later, or she may be in trouble, despite this Sari continues climbing only just dodging rockets, and debris before reaching the top, and looking out at the swamp before her. The swamp is about three miles across, covered with oil, with metal pillars, and stepping-stones where pillars had fallen.
Sari jumps from one stepping-stone to the next, and carries on going until a large bulk rises from the swamp, the creature that has risen from the swamp looks like a segmented metal slug with a dozen fleshy tentacles protruding from its face around a gaping maw with massive teeth. The creature is supported with hundreds of tiny legs; the creature turns towards Sari, its solidly black eyes narrow at her. The creature bellows, and runs forward on its tiny legs, Sari grabs hold of a tentacle as it gets near, and uses it to vault onto its head, the creature looks around for a while, then the creature stops, and starts bucking, Sari runs along its undulating body before jumping off the tail. The creature turned around slowly, and starts running at Sari, who draws her sword, and jumps on top of the creature's head, and stabs at the back of its head, but the armour on the creature's head turns her sword, leaving the creature unaffected.
Sari is knocked off by the creature's tentacle, as one swings at her again she slices the fleshy tendril off causing the creature to bellow, and run off into the swamp, dribbling oily looking dark red blood.
"What was that thing?" Sari ponders before charging off through the swamp again.
A while later she reaches the edge of the swamp as the creature came back, it appears on the horizon behind her as she hears a screech behind her, she reaches the solid ground of the plains, and activates her skates, and charges skates across the plains, the sound of the screeching fading into the background.
When Sari reaches the door of the warehouse she finds them barred, no matter how much she pounds on the door with her hammer, or attempts to slice the bar by shoving a sword through the gap in the doors she cannot force them open. She walks around the perimeter of the building until she finds a gap the size of a medium sized dog, just large enough for her to squeeze through.
As Sari wriggles through the gap she hears the creature screech from outside, and one of the tendrils follow her through the gap, but she cuts it off, causing the creature to screech again.
"That was too close," Sari says looking around, the warehouse is a warehouse scaled for an Autobot, and it is at least fifteen stories tall, the roof is half off, with other places patchy at best. She walks over to one of the vertical beams that hold up the roof, she hears a buzz, and looks behind her, she sees a laser slowly training on her, she jumps to the side as the beam shears half way through the vertical. "Lasers, it had to be lasers," as she says this, the laser moves forward, revealing itself to be attached to the head of a drone with what appears to be a shark head.
"That's a frickin shark-bot with a frickin laser attached to its frickin head, that's really evil" Sari says, she draws her shield, and one sword before stopping for a second, "where have I heard that before?" She shrugs before taking a defensive stance, the shark-bot shoots the laser at Sari who absorbs it with her shield, the bot raises a servo, and swings a flail at her, falling just shot of her shield, it steps forward, and swings again, hitting Sari's shield, knocking her backwards into a column.
"Okay getting near that thing is not a good idea," she says picking up shield, she aims her own laser at the creature, and throws an orb, the orb hits but only causes the bot to stumble, the bot, now enraged raises its flail, and charges Sari, who jumps over it, causing it to hit a support column. With the bot now stunned Sari runs over to the beam the laser hit earlier, and shimmies up with her shield on her back to protect her from the bot. When she reaches the top she looks down to see the bot climbing after her, "I hope this works," she slices the column with her sword, causing it to collapse, taking the bot with it, when the dust clears Sari looks down to see the bot broken in half, twitching, and sparking. "Well that deals with him, or would it be a her, or maybe an it, genders with drones is so hard" Sari ponders, shaking her head as she sheathes her sword, and shield.
She looks around the beams in the roof of warehouse, looking for a way onto the roof, she sees an open hatch, and she carefully makes her way over, but is stopped by the sound of scuttling behind her, "what was that, more bots?" Sari turns to see a spider-like bot, "okay, that's creepy, it's like a smaller Blackarachnia," Sari hears more scuttling behind her, "oh no," she turns to see another spider bot.
"Come on then," Sari says as the first spider leaps, she hears the spider behind her leave the beam, Sari jumps off the beam, and grabs on to the edge as the two bots collide. She pulls herself onto the beam, and draws her hammer; the two spiders turn to her, and hiss, one leaps at her again with its fangs drawn, Sari hits it in the side of its head with her hammer, knocking it onto the floor below. The other seeing the fate of its companion spits a purple web at Sari, who ducks under it, the bot believing her distracted launches itself at her. She raises the hammer, and twists a ring on the handle, turning it into a lance. The spider impales itself on the lance, but not before letting out a screech.
After the screech dies down she sees dozens of eyes open, "by the pit," she runs along the beam as she hears metal hitting metal behind her as the bots jump onto the beam, she reaches the hatch, and slams it closed, she hears the bots scraping at the hatch, "that's not going to hold them long."
She looks around the roof for the beacon, she sees it at the apex, there is a tower, about two, and a half times the height of Bumblebee, the bottom fifth is black, and covered in controls, the rest is a giant yellow lamp. Sari sheathes her hammer, and walks over, and hacks into the control panel, jumpstarting it, the yellow lamp flares into life with a loud bang, lighting the region all around the warehouse with a dazzling light with a blinding light. Sari adjusts her optics for the new lighting levels, and sees that the loud bang was the roof-hatch bursting open as spider-bots are now swarming onto the roof, Sari starts throwing her orbs at the spiders, causing them to explode, but there are too many of them, as they get closer she climbs on top of the beacon, and readies her hammer, twisting a ring to turn it into an axe, as the bots climb tower she swipes them off, knocking them over the edge of the roof, as Sari thinks she is about to lose she hears a plane of some kind nearing her, fighting with renewed vigour she manages to hold out until the plane draws near enough for her to jump through the open door.
Looking around the interior of the plane she sees Download Minor looking very angry about something, they ride in silence back to the start of the course. "Someone sabotaged your run Doubleform, you were only supposed to fight two of those Insecticons, and the first drone was meant to be deactivated. He was meant for a harder difficulty for more advanced bots, like Elite Guard Autrotroopers, whose course ends there as, I have no clue how a Muckabot got in there, they don't live in that swamp, we will have to check the fences."
"Who do you think did it?" Sari asks.
"I don't know," Download says, "I will have to talk it over with Straxus Major, he will probably have a good idea, don't tell your teammates, I will tell them there were technical difficulties, and so will have to consider you all passes, for now."
"We have experienced technical difficulties, so you will all be considered passes until the course is repaired, and you can run the cause, we will move onto your next course which is on the far side of the metal zone, where the metal, and the organic meet, come." He signals them to follow him to the transport zone where they arrived, Dropshot Prime is talking with a very tall Autobot, he is red, and dark purple, he is carrying a pick-axe, which is resting on one of his shoulders.
"Straxus, something has gone wrong with the assault course, it has been sabotaged, get it fixed," Dropshot Prime shouts at his taller sub-ordinate.
"Yes Dropshot Prime," Straxus says, "I will set Spanner on it at once sir."
The group walks passed them, and enter a transporter, "where do you think you are going Download?" Dropshot yells.
"I am taking the recruits to the rust belt, for combat exercises, Dropshot Prime sir" Download says, as the whole group salute their superiors, Straxus looks at Sari with disdain.
"Great, an organic hater," she thinks.
"Very well, dismissed," Dropshot yells, waving a servo towards the waiting transport.
The group hurry over to the transport, and board it, Download presses a button on the wall, and keys in co-ordinates, and the transport shoots off as the PA system announces: "next stop, the Rust Belt, base MCUNSC-117BG*."
*This is a halo reference, the MC is Master Chief, UNSC is the United Nations Space Corps, and the 117 is Master Chief's serial number, Spartan-117, and BG is Blood Gulch, which is where the Halo Machinima Red vs Blue takes place, yeah I felt like a nerd for saying that.
A/N Just a little note, I am basing the abilities processor-over-matter on what is shown in the series, and on how other authors have depicted it, particularly Fanfiction1024, who has written a great series of stories for Sari's adventures, if you read them tell them that I sent you .
