Blood and Energon 11
A Taste of Energon
A Transformers Prime FanFiction
Knockout shot the servos of one hand forward, following with his energon spear, prepared to finish up with a few quick jabs. The point of this was to pin the Autobot down until the air strike arrived, after all, not to offline the big bot himself. But to his surprise Optimus failed to fully deflect the opening feint, and the medic's talons gouged primary red paint off his armor. The Prime's blade came down and swept the energon spear to the side at the last moment, barely protecting his core. Knockout narrowed his optics and grinned wolfishly. Clearly he was over estimating his opponent.
The Decpticon began pressing his advantage; lunging in at the Prime and darting out of the way of his strikes easily. Now why wasn't the Autobot using his plasma cannon more, the con wondered. Most likely there were some skin-jobs hiding nearby, and the soft sparked fool didn't want to endanger them. Now where, maybe by the trailers? Suddenly Optimus stumbled on the uneven ground, for a split second his spark chamber was unguarded. Knockout seized the opportunity and aimed his weapon at the enemy's spark. A split second too late he realized his mistake, but he was already committed to the strike.
A massive arm shot up and deflected the spear. Optimus slammed a hand down on the con's shoulder, using his own momentum to throw Knockout over his hip. A knee came up and pistoning into the gleaming chassis, then impacting repeatedly into the vain mech's faceplate. Simultaneously Prime's energon blade came down, slicing into the transformation seam on the back of his opponent's knee. Knockout shot out of the Autobot's grasp with a shriek of rage.
"My paint job!" he howled as he limped away. "Do you have any idea how long this will take to fix," he gestured at the torn mesh on his torso.
Optimus only took up a ready position. Knockout cursed himself for thinking even a weakened Prime was easy prey. While the con's injuries certainly didn't put him out of the fight entirely, the Autobot had essentially leveled the playing field. Knockout began circling the wounded soldier firing off plasma blasts from a safe distance, blasts that were deflected harmlessly off an energon shield, but they served the purpose of keeping the prey pinned. The Decpticon medic began casting about with his sensors for the fleshlings. A hostage could prove very useful.
A wave of pain and fear suddenly swept over the Decpticon. Something cold and slimy seemed to writhe in ecstasy in his spark chamber. He realized in panic he had dropped to his knees and struggled to stand. But Optimus Prime was no longer focused on the Decpticon. He had turned back toward the mystery Autobot. The blue semi still hadn't transformed but appeared to have Breakdown pinned. Get away, screamed every instinct in the con's programming. But the fear and pain held him rooted to the ground. His com had chirped a second, then a third time before he recognized it. The seeker drones were in range. He quickly relayed his and Breakdown's coordinates and ordered an air strike on the Autobots. The blue Autobot had disengaged from Breakdown and appeared to be coming toward him. Breakdown seemed preoccupied with ripping his own face off at the moment.
Suddenly chaos erupted around them. Seeker drones weren't the best shots in the Decpticon ranks, but they usually had no problem hitting what were essentially stationary targets. Now however they seemed to be raining down destruction randomly across the battlefield. Knockout fell to the ground cursing them and demanded an explanation over the com. The drones returned with a lot of senseless chatter. The con ordered them to hold fire until further notice. The dust from the strike was beginning to settle. Breakdown was still on the ground snarling incoherently. He hadn't even noticed the attack as far and Knockout could tell. Where was Optimus?
Knockout leapt up and spun around, just as a front kick met him full force in the faceplates. The con went flying back and landed with a mesh tearing skid. Optimus seized the opportunity to rush over and heave Sal upright. The blue semi looked terrible; his front axle was broken, his aluminum skin was shredded, and his frame was warped.
"Yeah, I'm fine, before you ask," Salcha growled. "None of these wounds are fatal. I just won't be drag racing for awhile."
"Good," Optimus muttered shaking his head.
He staggered slightly and put out a hand to brace himself on top of Salcha's cab. The air strike had injured the Prime, blind luck plays no favorites on the battle field. The armor on his shield arm was cracked and leaking energon. Sal felt the blue fluid began to drip down onto his frame. Where each droplet touched a nerve a shiver of pleasure radiated out through his body. Spindly black tentacles reached out instinctively for the wounded warrior above him. Starting in horror Sal pulled his appendages back, trying not to think about how weak his new friend was, how good that strange blue fluid tasted.
"Salcha, you are trembling," Red Warrior said in concern.
"I'm fine!" Sal snarled. "You're life's blood, dripping into my engine…"
The Prime starred back. Pulling his injured arm to his torso.
"Did it injure you?"
Sal could sense the warrior now. Even the few drops of life force he had absorbed opened the creature before him to his deeper senses. Right now waves of care and concern were washing over the blue semi. Weakened from the loss of life's blood, battered from battle, Optimus's main concern was for Sal's welfare.
"No you don't understand. I, eat, consume, blood, all kinds of blood. Yours tastes good. I didn't even ask but I ate some of yours. I…" Sal was babbling he knew. He wanted to apologize but was coming off accusatory.
Red Warrior tilted his head to one side in thought, and deliberately placed the leaking arm over Salcha's battered engine compartment.
"I will be able to stop the leak soon," he said gently, "until then you are welcome to as much as spills out. It might as well do one of us some good."
"Thank you," Sal managed to get out in shock. The only others who had ever freely offered their blood were his own family members. The blue liquid was flowing down into his engine compartment. He eagerly opened his mouths to accept the offering. Immediately he felt new strength flowing through him and his wounds begin to heal. The blood of a warrior freely given was always powerful, and here was a warrior indeed.
"Ah, Zech and Jack are fine by the way, they want to know if it's safe to come out yet," Sal relayed suddenly.
Optimus looked over to where Knockout was slowly getting up, and then up to the circling drones.
"The battle is far from won," he said grimly, "tell them to stay hidden."
"Okay, by the way." Sal gestured up at the drones, "I think I can block any of their signals from getting in or out. But I can't differentiate between yours and theirs and it's probably gonna be uncomfortable. Want me too?" he offered, listening to the chattering of the seeker drones.
Optimus nodded and flexed his shield arm. The leaking had stopped. Suddenly a grating noise came over the radio. The Autobot flinched and shook his head. Whatever signal Salcha was giving off it indeed blocked transmissions.
Suddenly he caught a movement out of the corner of his optic. Knockout had regained his feet and was aiming a missile at Salcha. Cursing himself for his inattention Optimus lunged to intercept the projectile. Of course the Decpticon would try to offline the one blocking the signal. In his spark the Prime knew he was too slow. But something flew past him faster than the optic could follow. There was an explosion immediately in front of Knockout as the object impacted with the missile, throwing the con onto his back.
A quick physics lesson. A missile leaves its launch point at essentially zero miles per hour and accelerates towards its target. A traditional projectile like say, a two-hundred pound boulder, leaves its point of origin at its maximum speed and decelerated due to friction. Sal had seen the con pointing the missile at him and thrown the rock he'd had ready, snapping it out from his coiled tie strap at something approaching the speed of sound. The explosion of granite less than a foot from his faceplate thoroughly stunned the already weakened Decpticon. Unfortunately, he had already signaled the drones down to engage in the mêlée.
Optimus saw them coming and fired off two quick shots. Both struck their intended targets and sent them crashing to the ground. Before he could follow through on the advantage the Prime staggered and caught himself on Sal. Seekers rarely fell that easily, however the blue semi was blocking the signal it was interfering with his CPU and those of the Decpticons as well. The seeker drones came in for a strafing run and Optimus crouched over his wounded friend to return fire. His shield was able to deflect the majority of the shots. The fliers circled around for a second time and prepared to transform and land as per their last orders.
"Red Warrior! Cover your eyes," Sal pulled a large mustard yellow fire extinguisher out of his cab and flung it into the midst of the drones as they landed. One automatically fired at the canister. Funny thing about chemical mixtures, under one set of circumstances they display one property, under another they display entirely different properties. The fire retardant copper powder superheated at the plasma blast and exploded in a cloud of flaming particulates, effectively blinding the remaining three drones. Once the cloud had cleared Optimus stepped in and easily finished them with his energon blade. Knockout had apparently recovered and was assisting Breakdown to his feet. The two hurled a few parting insults at them and transformed, speeding off into the maze of gravel roads that led out of the battle field.
Optimus allowed himself to relax a moment and Sal let the jamming signal drop. He had no idea how far it worked anyway.
"HA! We sure showed those goons!" Salcha crowed in delight. "Lookit em run. Will there be any more coming?"
The Prime lifted a brow at the eagerness in the semi's voice. They were both badly injured and in no shape to fight. He was about to answer when the thrumming of a low flying helicopter sounded from the north. Optimus armed his weapons and Sal picked up another boulder. But just as quickly he powered down and rested a restraining hand on his ally.
"Easy, a friend approaches. Tell me are you known to the government of this land?"
"Canada? Yeah, Zech's got a few cousins in the military here. They make sure the appropriate authorities know. Not sure if the current PM knows tho. I think they only tell him if I make trouble, and I've been good the past few years."
"So there will be no issues when I report this incident to our liaison with the human governments?"
"Uh, maybe a little if he doesn't know. But it'll get worked out, I'm sure."
"Very well please summon Zech and Smith."
A Chinook was settling down onto the gravel, double props whipping the air into a miniature windstorm as the two young men walked out of the forest. Special Agent William Fowler stepped down and glared across the battlefield. Five dead cons to clean up, at least one new human to account for, a civilian semi to replace from the looks of it, and all in a foreign country; he took a deep breath to try and calm his nerves. Look on the bright side, he told himself, everyone is alive and you can kill them all later.
"Fowler?" Optimus was staring off to the west, "Did you bring backup?"
"No, just the one Chinook. Why?" he asked.
"Another approaches," Optimus said rearming his weapon.
A sleek Apache attack chopper came zipping over the tree line.
"Hold your fire, Red Warrior," Fowler said listening to his radio and frowning. "They're giving the right codes. It's one of ours. But I didn't call for a 'pache."
"Ah, actually that would probably be our penguin," a voice supplied. They all turned to look at Zech who was leaning into Sal's engine compartment.
"Your 'penguin'?" Optimus asked in confusion.
"Yeah, the Fed who usually handles covering for Sal," the young man explained. "And wow he looks ticked off today."
"Sal?" Fowler asked arching an eyebrow.
"Salcha Franklin! Of Franklin trucking, at your service," the blue semi extended a tie strap to the stunned agent, who automatically took the tie in hand to shake.
"Sorry about all the robot goop," Sal said when he saw Fowler wipe his hands on his pants, "That blue one was juicy."
"Oh, I am gonna just love writing this report," Fowler muttered.