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As usual...I only own Spindle and my imagination...
Chapter 25: Face-to-Face
The devastating firepower that was directed solely at Megatron was more than a simple nuisance, it was beginning to have a disastrous effect on his still healing frame and spark. He had to retreat; and that word burned in his processor as he turned from the firing line, to transform and escape to the safety of the pyramids' apex.
Quickly scanning the area for more foes, he did notice a small blip, but the signature was not worthy of the Lord of the Decepticons concern and he settled first in his tank form then molded his frame into his favored jet configuration.
It was in mid-transform that he felt a slight nudge just above his afterburners. He waggled his wings in the hopes that whatever it was would fall off and crash onto the pitiful mud ball of a planet below. This only brought about a sharp pain from his side panel as whatever it was dug in deeper and held on tighter.
"Slaggin' Pit', he yelled as he flew towards his Second-in-Command, Starscream. It couldn't be a human; there were none that he considered smart enough or strong enough to contend with him. He had noted that there were very few Autobot scum close enough to him to cause such trouble…was it one of Soundwave's irritating symbiots? Some new device conceived by his treacherous Second-in-Command to overthrow his rule? He was unable to lock a scan on the area due to heavy damage to those particular scanners. He would have to wait until he arrived at the pinnacle to discover the irritation.
"STARSCREAM!" the dread Lord of the Decepticons shouted as he landed with a bump upon the top of the ancient pyramid. He began twisting this way and that trying to detect the annoyance, his limbs contorting around his frame in an attempt to dislodge it.
Starscream pursed his lip plates and cocked his head to the side in an attempt to placate his superior. He pressed a servo to those lips, to keep from laughing out loud at his Lord's feeble and ridiculous movements.
"Ahhhhh…what is …what is this piece of scum clinging to my armor?" he growled at the Seeker as he tried to keep an unsteady pede-hold on the stone step.
Realizing the absurd position his gyrations put him in; Megatron raised his left arm towards his Seconds' face, the tip of his fusion cannon forming beneath the Seekers olfactory intakes.
Starscream, for his part, tacitly ignored the threat; he'd seen it and been the brunt of his Master's rage too many time to remember. He only grunted and allowed a breath of air to pass through his cooling vents before he acquiesces to his masters' question.
"Hold still…my Lord", he gripounds out through his dentas.
Slowly, his own weapon transformed in his servos, Starscream peered around Megatron's back to see the small figure of a femme clinging to the mighty leader's dorsal strut.
"Well…lookie here…it's a little femme…Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!"
Said little femme had, in the meantime, unspaced Sideswipes rifle and shot the Seeker rapidly, in the chest and the face plates. Starscream turned away for the shots, which earned him a few more on his backside as well.
"AHhhhhhhhh…my face, my face…!" the Seeker screams
"Hold still slagger, let me put one right between your optics." Spindle yelled as she continued to fire. Realizing that Starscream is moving further away on the small platform of rock, she turned the rifle towards the Decepticon leader and presses the trigger.
The pain in his side from the laser blasts sent Megatron into a frenzy of twists and spins. The momentum of these continuing frenzied gyrations finally caused Spindle to lose her grip on his strut and she is scooped up into the waiting servos of a very angry Starscream.
"Gottcha!" came the annoyingly triumphant voice.
Roughly he enclosed her entire upper frame in his servos and brought her face plates directly to his. For this he received oily sputum just above the left portion of his lip plates.
"Ewwwwww…disgusting," he shouts as he tries, in vain to shake the mess from his face. "You'll pay for that femme!"
"Shut it Starsleeze, it looks good on…ughhhh…" Her comment was cut short by the violent grasp of Megatron as he rips her from Starscream's grip. In the ensuing transfer, Sideswipes rifle fell from her grasp and made its way, noisily down the steps of the ancient edifice.
"Well, aren't we the feisty one...?" the Decepticon War Lord gloats. "Chief Scholar Spindle, so nice to see you. Have you come to enlist with the winning side?"
"I'll KILL you!" was his only answer as she unsheathes her energon blade preparing to plunge it into the closest opening nears his spark chamber.
Megatron only laughed at her feeble attempts as he holds her away from his from and lets her dangle by her neck.
"My, my, my…what a shame, to have such vehemence wasted for the losing side. I suggest you stop struggling before I decide you are too much of a bother and let go" he sneered.
Spindles frame shook as she felt a hand reach and disconnect her blade from her own servo. She was then slammed into the pinnacle, her chest plates cracking, her helm and right side of her face dented and springing leaks from the myriad fractures and cracks that now appeared. Her legs are then enclosed in the vise-like grip of Megatron's powerful servo and she was flipped on to her back; the violent intensity of that change causing her vents to expel any left-over air and her spinal strut to crack into too many places to count.
"I will very much enjoy picking you apart, piece by piece when this battle is over. Or perhaps I will be merciful and leave you to my troops before I end you." She gasped a sob. Megatron leered at the broken femme, his optics a raging, violent red, the air around them silent, expectant, malevolent.
It was Starscream who broke the stifling silence.
"My Lord…" he began, an itchy feeling catching him just below his fuel tanks. He began to look around, curious as to why he felt as if he were being watched. "My Lord…Megatron…" he began tapping his leader on the shoulder.
"Not now Starscream" Megatron turned and shoved his clenched fist under the Seekers olfactory intakes. "Never interrupt me…"
"But my Lord…He's…" Screamers sentence was cut off by the servos around his throat.
"I …said…NEVER…disturb…me…"
"But…but…but…" came the strangled reply.
"But what, you Primus forsaken slag heap?" But Starscream did not have to answer that as the air around both them and the pyramid became still as a vacuum and then exploded into inter-dimensional concussions and a far mightier being appeared perched on the top most stones.
"Master," Megatron bowed in subservience towards the ancient mech. Starscream, finally released from Megatron's deadly grip backed away as far as he could without falling, trying to make himself smaller, less easily noticed.
The Fallen, former Prime of Cybertron, imagined master of all he surveyed stood tall and proud before the two cringing mechs. He turned his spike-riddled visage from his disciples, his optics darting around the small refuge until they alighted on the crumpled form of Spindle. With one elongated claw he began to prod the still from.
Then, as if struck by lightening, the ancient embodiment of evil reeled back in surprise and anger.
"YOU!" he shouted. "I know you. How are you here…online?" he leaned over the now convulsing femme and scooped her off the stone and into his wickedly sharp servos, his vents steaming, his optics aflame with fury, his voice now low, menacing.
"Do not bother yourself with her, My Master she is only…"
"SILENCE!" came the reply and Megatron back-peddled as if struck on the face.
"Fool, do not disturb me…YOU! You live?" He laughs. "Who would have thought, after all these millions of vorns? You're femme was quite wise in the ways of concealment."
Spindle could barely lift her head, the voice, the air of evil emanating from this hideous-looking mech, the pain she felt caused her to tremble violently. She moaned in fear, the agony of her wounds leeching any sense of boldness away from her frame along with her vital fluids. Her confusion causing her processor to spiral into crash alerts. She bowed her head.
The Fallen chuckled, low, vicious, mirthless.
"So now you have finally arrived at the proper state of obedience. I am afraid, little one, that it is too late for you. Your Femme was quite correct in concealing your continued existence; it is too bad she wasted her efforts. You are been a problem I intend to fix"
With that pronouncement, the exiled Prime lifted his staff, a long, thin blade of dura-energon extending from the tip and slammed it into Spindles midriff, just below her spark casing. He twisted the slender blade, nicking the chamber enough to cause tiny fractures to run upwards from where the blade touched the precious container.
He started, looking at her again with seeming wonder in his optics.
"What's this? You too have something to conceal as well, haven't you? I will deal with you later. I cannot have you off-lining too soon though."
"Master, you know this femme?" Megatron asked incredulously.
"It is none of your concern," came the vicious reply.
He turned towards the wretched femme, and an evil reddish glow appeared around the wounds in Del's chassis, sealing the wound on the outside and the ancient Prime began slowly retracting his clawed hand from her chest plates.
"There" he drew Spindle close to his face, "that should…help?" he snickered.
But Spindle's optics were not on the Fallen. Instead, through the only slightly less damaged left optic, she could focus in on the scene in the small village encampment below. And what she saw gave her one last thread of hope.
"Heh…heh…heh…*cough* You *cough-cough* all talk too much." A hoarse whisper left her vocorder. "The boy *wheeze* has succeeded." A smile parted her lip plates and she sagged into the Fallen's embrace contently, her laugh sounding like a sob.
"FOOLS!" he screamed as he threw the limp frame of the dying femme to Starscream's feet.
"Make sure she is still on-line when I return. We have unfinished business she and I," with a grandiose swing of his spear, he disappeared in a flash through a dimensional gate to the desert floor. Megatron can only stare after the concussive flash, rage battling with fury at this current turn of events.
But Starscream only smiled. He had other ideas about how to spend his time until the Fallen returned. He leans over the quivering femme and whispers, "My turn femme," as he silently slides his wing-sword from its sheath on his arm.
But before he can completely draw the blade, Spindle, with her last ounce of strength extends her own long talon-like finger servos and shoves them into the joints of the Seekers ankle plates.
"Whaaaaaaaaaaaaattt…ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…slaggin' femme, I'll show you!" and without any thought to the command of the Fallen, Starscream, Second-in-Command of the Decepticons kicked his pede out away from himself and dislodged the impudent femme.
*Femme'll be off-line before the Fallen returns…lucky for you* he processes and turns to wait for the ancient ones return.
For Spindle, the trip down the pyramid is much slower than her trip up to the top. Leaking fluids, half blind, unable to filter air through her vents and crippled from her broken spinal strut, she slid, unceremoniously down the smooth side of the ancient edifice that hid the sun-harvester from prying human eyes. Sliding, rolling, somersaulting, sometimes side-over-side, sometimes head-over-pede, she finally came to rest wedged in between the pyramid's broken limestone sheathing and a fallen block of ancient stone. There, resting as if preparing to drift off into recharge, Spindle cast her less broken optic to the sky above Egypt.
*how beautiful. How beautifully blue the sky…the sky…the beautiful, beautiful sky, what a lovely… *