Chapter 35-The Tempest part 2
The roar Temperantia gave was one of primal fury, directed entirely at Optimus for the supposed transgressions committed against the dolems. The time for talk was over. Now the fight truly began.
Optimus ran back into the forest as Temperantia threw a massive fist into the ground. The impact was like a meteor hitting the ground and the entire forest trembled. Optimus was nowhere near the punch, but he felt the powerful shockwave that blew him off his feet. He slammed into a tree, but quickly got up and started running. He thought about shooting the Cardinal, but a target that big wouldn't even notice he was being shot at.
"Give up, Prime." Temperantia said, scanning the forest for Optimus. It couldn't see him, but Optimus had a feeling that it wasn't above taking pot shots at the forest to root him out. "The more you resist, the more humans who will die because of your cowardice."
"I'm defending the rights of these people to live free of your false blessings! You'd kill them even if I did surrender, just out of spite for being spurned." Optimus said.
"So you blame me for the deaths of the people you failed to protect?" The Cardinal gave a deep, condescending laugh. "You are more of a fool than I thought."
Temperantia raised its hand and pointed its fingers at the forest. From its appendages, it fired multiple projectiles that looked like missiles, but were in fact huge chunks of polished red crystals shaped like cannonballs that were shot at high speeds. Temperantia fired them from the hollow points of its fingers, not even bothering to aim as it leveled a large chunk of the forest. They hit the trees, smashed them apart to splinters before hitting the ground with explosive force.
Optimus ran through the forest as fast as he could, hearing the forest be destroyed all around him as explosions went off everywhere. Each fireball hitting the earth felt like being near a concussion bomb during detonation. The tree next to him exploded from a fireball that completely destroyed it, sending sharp pieces of wood into Prime's face, one large chunk hitting him in the eye. He stumbled and another fireball hit the ground before him, blasting him straight through a tree and crashing face first into the ground.
Groaning, Optimus sat up and saw another fireball heading straight at him. Unfolding his battle axe, he leapt up and cut it in half, letting both halves explode harmlessly beside him. He landed back on his feet and winced at the pain in his eye.
"Such dedication, you would've made a fine warrior under Her grace's command." Temperantia said, gazing down at Prime through the ruined treeline. "But alas, your resistance will only bring further misery to your life. You, who have spent centuries fighting for others, will be nothing more than a relic when your petty war ends. Legends like you are born from war, and when that war ends, you die along with it."
"If you're trying to get into my head, then you're not doing a very good job." Optimus said.
"It's time we ended this farce. You are coming with me."
Leaning his massive body over the forest, Temperantia reached out with his large hand to grab Optimus. Optimus prepared himself to slash at the Cardinal's fingers as they descended upon him, but to his surprise, and Temperantia's, three missiles slammed into its hand. Temperantia roared and pulled its hand back.
"Who dares to attack a Cardinal?" Temperantia growled.
"This guy!" Skyfire flew in from above, firing her particle cannons at its back. It tried to grab him, but she weaved out of its fingers and continued shooting at the massive entity to draw its attention away from Optimus.
"Skyfire?" Optimus said. "How…?"
"On your feet, Prime." Two sets of hands helped him up. "The fight's just getting started."
Optimus saw Jazz and Prowl standing to the side of him, each hefting some heavy weaponry for the occasion. "What are you doing here? I thought I said to wait for my orders."
"With all due respect, Prime, your orders were going to get you killed." Prowl said. "As soon as we detected multiple heat signatures around you, Ratchet sent us out at once."
"Just you two?"
"No," Jazz said. "All of us."
By that, he meant everyone. Arcee, Jazz and Bumblebee were leading Temperantia into the valley outside of the forest, where Bulkhead, Wheeljack and Ironhide were waiting to unleash hell on the Cardinal's upper body. They were going to hit this thing and hit it hard.
Optimus wanted to protest getting the others involved, but they all knew the risks and had signed up to give their lives for the greater good. He knew it was a waste of time to try to get them to fall back, so he might as well take advantage of the extra guns as soon as possible.
"It's illogical to think that we would let you do this alone." Prowl told him, staring right at his face. "We're in this together."
Optimus chuckled and looked back at Temperantia. "All right, Prowl, we'll do this together." He took out his weapons and called out to the rest of his team. "Autobots, fire at will!"
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At the same time, thousands of miles away, the Decepticons were also battling their own Cardinal.
Sapientia was built like a battleship. Despite the full might of the Nemesis focused on it, the creature didn't pause in its travel to Decepticon Island despite the ship's weapons targeting it. At the speeds Sapientia was swimming, they could only use the ship's forward missile batteries to deliver a missile payload to the Cardinal, which was made difficult by the storm. Heat seekers were out of the question, since the Cardinal had no large heat signature despite being alive, so they had to go line of sight.
The Seekers, Blackout and Nightshade all swarmed Sapientia like bees, hitting it where the Nemesis couldn't reach. They fired missiles and laser bolts at its stony hide, but it weathered through all of their attacks. But that didn't mean it was completely docile either. As the Nemesis unleashed its missile payload on it, Sapientia fought back with its own arsenal; the faces on its knees spat out large ruby red crystals that emitted large amounts of heat that tracked the flyers through the air. Blackout fired a sonic wave at them, but one got too close and exploded near him. The blast nearly threw him into the ocean, but he managed to save himself and return fire with his laser cannons, which didn't do much.
Some of those fireballs hit the side of the Nemesis, but the ship was built for large scale siege operations, so it didn't suffer serious damage. That being said, not much was being done to slow Sapientia down. From his spot on the bridge, Megatron could only watch as the Seekers flew around to escape the fiery projectiles the Cardinal shot at them.
"Starscream, I didn't bring you aboard this ship so you could run!" Megatron snarled. "Stand strong and fight that beast!"
"We're trying not to get shot down by the fireballs, Lord Megatron!" Starscream yelled back, putting a lot of sarcastic emphasis on the title. "It's not like we can just ignore them."
"Then take them down and attack the Cardinal! It's getting close to the island." Nightshade said.
Thundercracker dive to the ocean in front of Sapientia and shot two missiles straight into its open mouth. Large explosions rippled in the Cardinal's wide mouth and stopped it in its tracks, its face covered in smoke and flames.
"It's hurt!" Thundercracker announced.
Sapientia growled and the panels on its long, thin body flipped open to reveal four long tentacles with eyes at the end. They slithered out of its body and shot powerful beams of light at the flyers around it. Blackout was the first to be hit as a beam tore through his tail rotor and he spun out into the ocean. As if to add insult to injury, just before he hit the water, Sapientia spun around and slammed its tail into Blackout with enough force to break every steel bone in his body, smacking him across the water's surface with debilitating force.
Just barely dodging a beam herself, Nightshade called a med evac for Blackout. Two beams hit the Nemesis and cleanly tore into the ship's thick armor plating, cutting through the thrusters and destroying one of the missile batteries. The ship wavered in the air, and Megatron was almost thrown to the floor with Soundwave as Rumble and Frenzy struggled to keep the ship steady.
"Enough of this," Megatron hissed. "Target our particle cannons on the beast and fire at will. Destroy it once its within range."
"Yes, sir!" Leader-1, who was manning the weapons systems, said.
Outside, Sapientia retracted the eye stalks back into its body and dived underwater. They quickly lost sight of its large body as it swam through the dark depths, deeper than they wanted to go, and hampered by the low visibility of the storm. Nightshade searched for it too, but she couldn't see anything either.
"I can't get a reading on thermals either." She said.
Megatron scowled. "Seekers, return to the Nemesis to resupply, then-"
Sapientia burst from the water like a Great White, roaring thunderously as it leapt high into the air and shot at Nightshade, who quickly flew out of its path to avoid being eaten. But it didn't stop there; Sapientia swung its massive body around in a twofold attack-slamming its tail into Nightshade to smack her into the water and digging its claws into the side of the Nemesis, intending to rip it to pieces.
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Ratchet sat at the Teletran-1 terminal monitoring the rest of the team who were battling the Cardinal. The Autobots mobilized with a full load-out of weapons from the Ark's munitions plant, many of them heavy weapons made for dealing with larger targets like Devastator. The arsenal was impressive, but against a being as powerful as the Cardinal, he felt a bit too optimistic thinking that it would be enough.
"Ratchet?"
The kids and their guardians stood at his feet, all dried up and looking better now after their ordeal. Ratchet was pleased to see that they were alright, especially after the incident with Annie and Darren. Personally, Ratchet considered the children as part of the team, and respected them as much as he would his fellow Autobots. He had to, considering the things they had gone through over the past few months.
"Hello, children," He greeted them. "How are you feeling?"
"We're better now that we're all dry, but what about the team?" Darren asked. "Sparkplug told us about the dolems. Are they doing alright?"
Ratchet sighed and looked back at the monitor. "I'm monitoring their progress in their battle against the Cardinal, but the battle's too early to be decided. If this Cardinal is anything like Fortitudo, then they're in for a rough fight."
"Let us go out there, Ratchet. We can help." Gina said, but Ratchet shook his head.
"Out of the question. Optimus left me explicit orders not to let you go out there." He gave them all a look to show that he was serious. "This is dangerous, kids. What happened last time was out of our power, everyone was in danger, but this isn't something you can just rush into. We got lucky last time, but we're not taking chances now."
"But our talos are powerful, Ratchet, not to mention Mjolnir can pack a punch." Annie said. "We're no stranger to being in danger."
"That's the problem, children your age shouldn't be caught up in this stuff. I know you want to help, but it just isn't right to keep dragging you into these battles where you could be killed." Ratchet sighed and rubbed his forehead. "This war is changing you three into warriors, and that's not what any of us want for you."
"Don't say that!" Gina yelled. "Don't act like distancing us from this is going to make things normal for us again! We've already done things we can't take back and that's just how things are now. And now our home is being attacked by some super powerful alien and our friends are in danger. We can provide support and you're here stonewalling us!"
"This is not up for discussion, Gina, let the soldiers handle the war!" Ratchet firmly said.
The room went silent after that. Ratchet and Gina had an intense stare down before Gina huffed and stomped out of the room with Sureshock and Sara in tow. The twins and their partners stood there uneasily with a still angry Ratchet not exactly knowing what to do. Eventually, Grindor just gave up and took a seat.
"Not exactly how I imagined the apocalypse would go, but hey," Grindor shrugged. "Life's full of surprises."
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The ocean felt ice cold to Nightshade, but aside from a few aches, she was unharmed from that massive blow she took. Reverting to robot mode, she quickly swam back to the surface, where she saw Sapientia hanging onto the side of the Nemesis by just its claws.
The Nemesis was a large, heavy ship that could take some damage, but the diamond sharp claws of Sapientia easily tore into the ship's hull and its heavy weight threatened to drag the ship into the churning waters below. The ship spun in the air as Sapientia dug its sharp teeth into the upper deck, tear out chunks of armor off the vessel. On the bridge, the Decepticons were struggling to maintain altitude with the beast crunching away at the ship.
"Shake it off!" Megatron shouted.
"It's out of the range of our weapons, Megatron. We can't get a lock on it." Soundwave said.
"We're still airborne, but if that thing stays on any longer, we'll start losing attitude." Leader-1 said. "We're just barely holding on as it is."
"Damn it!" Megatron growled and ran out of the bridge.
He ran back up to the upper deck and outside to face the Cardinal munching on his ship. Running to the edge, Megatron aimed and fired his fusion cannon at the beast's large teeth, shattering multiple teeth at once. The move caught Sapientia off guard and it reeled back in pain, roaring. Megatron jumped off the ship and onto its back, firing another shot at the claws buried into the ship. He didn't blast off any fingers, but he did do enough damage to make it flinch. Another shot finally forced Sapientia to let go of the ship and fall back into the ocean, diving under the surface.
Megatron held on tight to the golden head crest on its head as the massive creature swam through the water like a giant lizard, moving far too fluidly for a creature its size. When it broke the surface again, Starscream attacked the face on its rear leg, destroying it and blasting off a large chunk of stone as well. Megatron climbed atop its head and stabbed his blade into its skull repeatedly, though his attacks felt like pin pricks.
"It appears your battlefield skills do not extend to your common sense. Your weapons cannot hurt me, alien." Sapientia laughed. "My skin is like diamond, and my bones are like steel! You would have a better chance trying to catch the sun! Beg for forgiveness and you shall be granted a swift death."
"Megatron never begs," Megatron pointed his fusion cannon at the small hole he dug into Sapientia's head. "He conquers!"
A close range plasma beam fired right into Sapientia's head through the hole carved into the top of its head caused more damage than could be expected. Even the dolem's rocky skin could not completely weather the power behind Megatron's greatest weapon. A large chunk of stone was blasted apart from the Cardinal's skull, and Sapientia definitely felt the pain of white hot plasma bursts burning away at its sensitive innards. Meanwhile, Thundercracker and Skywarp were attacking the face plates on its knees with missile fire, effectively taking out half of its arsenal.
White hot pain rippled through Sapientia's skull, and it only got worse as a white arrow hit the side of its abdomen, blasting a hole in its length body. Nightshade flew over it, pulling the string back on Gandiva for another attack.
"That superior attitude of yours is starting to piss me off." Nightshade growled, firing another arrow right at its rear left leg, shattering its knee and blasting the leg off completely. "Don't underestimate us!"
Megatron fired another blast at one of its wings. "How does it feel, beast? That is pain, a feeling we true warriors experience every day." He stabbed his blade into its joint and began hacking away. "Tell me, Cardinal, do you bleed?"
Sapientia finally had enough of this treatment and began thrashing around, kicking up large amounts of water around it. Megatron held on so he would get thrown off while it threw its head back and opened its mouth wide.
"Frag me, what's it doing now?" Thundercracker asked.
He got his answer when Sapientia's mouth split apart to reveal a large crystal emerging from its throat. As the crystal started glowing brightly, Starscream knew what was coming next and shot at it, though it seemed to not notice or care about the null blasts pelting its damaged skull.
"Kill it, kill it before it shoots the ship down!" He shouted.
As the Seekers opened fire on the Cardinal, Nightshade called the Nemesis. "Soundwave, get the ship out of here! The Cardinal is about to attack!"
Too late; Sapientia fired a blast of pure energy from its mouth that cut through the storm like a scalpel. At the same time, Nightshade let loose an arrow from Gandiva, which hit the side of its head at the moment of fire and tilted its head slightly, though the beam still hit its target. Megatron and Nightshade watched with wide eyes as the entire left side of the Nemesis exploded.
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Even with their heavy ordnance, the Autobots were still constrained to basically leading the Cardinal around as they attacked it with everything they had. Skyfire was doing her best, but she was running out of missiles, and the team spent more time dodging its fireballs than actually trying to damage it. As it is, Arcee and Jazz acted as decoys to draw Temperantia into a valley where Bulkhead and Ironhide were stationed for some explosive action.
"All set up, Bulkhead?" Ironhide asked.
"Yup, power levels are holding and targeting systems are functional." Bulkhead said. "Now we just need to wait for that ugly bastard to get within range."
The two mechs were working on setting up a trio of nucleon shock cannons that were left collecting dust in Ironhide's weapons vault. They were huge triple barreled cannons modeled after Megatron's fusion cannon, only bigger, and guzzled energon like no other, but was extremely powerful against heavily armored bots and units. The only setback was that it was stationary and couldn't be carried around. It needed to be set up and ready to fire before the enemy got close or you were screwed.
"Looks like we get our chance to fire old faithful here." Ironhide pointed at Temperantia as it slowly neared the valley.
"Ironhide, we're heading straight towards you," Prowl said over the comm. "Get ready to hit it!"
Bulkhead cracked his knuckles and pointed the cannons to where Temperantia was heading, which was just a few feet from them. Down below, the Autobots continued to bombard the Cardinal with everything they had, slowly luring it into the canyon and right into their laser sights. Jazz and Arcee were grappled onto its torso and were swinging around its body shooting at its chest.
"Cee, we're going in for one more run before we have to split!" Jazz said.
"Copy that!" Arcee replied.
With the skills of highly trained acrobats, they swung around Temperantia's large body on grappling lines and fired at its chest with photon blasts. Bumblebee, who was keeping an eye atop the cliff side with Jolt to watch for any strange movements from the Cardinal, noticed something. Arcee's photon blasts had riddled Temperantia's right side with holes and one of the blasts hit the energy sphere connecting its arm to its torso. At that moment, Temperantia flinched and growled, swinging an arm at her.
'Did it…just feel pain?' Bumblebee thought. Acting on a hunch, he called up Ironhide. "Ironhide, can you hear me?"
"Not now kid, we're about to fire." Ironhide grunted.
"Just hear me out. Have Bulkhead move the cannon so that its pointed at the sphere between its arm and torso." Bumblebee said.
"What for?"
"Just trust me on this!"
"Guys, that bozos almost on us." Bulkhead said. "What're we doing?"
Ironhide only hesitated for a few seconds before ordering Bulkhead to aim the cannon at the Cardinal's shoulder. As Temperantia drew closer, Arcee and Jazz disengaged their lines and leapt off the Cardinal, grabbing onto Skyfire as she swooped in to catch them. Once Temperantia floated into his view, Ironhide gave the order.
"Fire!"
Bulkhead pressed the button and the two shock cannons fired a pair of large emerald particle beams that shot through the air and hit the Cardinal right in the nexus point in its shoulder. Temperantia gave a pained groan as the combined blasts hit the sphere in its shoulder and the pain made it stop in its tracks.
"Holy slag, it worked!" Bumblebee cheered.
"Bumblebee, what the hell was that?" Ironhide asked.
"Guys, the spots where its arms are connected to its body with those spheres, we need to attack them! They're like open nerves, hitting it causes that thing pain." He explained.
"You heard him, Autobots." Optimus said before shooting at the sphere in its left shoulder.
The other Autobots followed suit, attacking its weak points to stagger it. Skyfire flew in toward the Cardinal with Arcee and Jazz hanging on her wings. When she got close enough, she fired her particle cannon at its right shoulder before dropping the two Autobots onto its body. Arcee took out her laser swords and descended on its left shoulder, slashing at the sphere. Temperantia roared and spun its body around, slamming a massive first into the canyon wall and sending rocks falling down on the Autobots.
"Cee, catch!" Jazz grappled Arcee's arm and pulled her away before Temperantia could grab at her, nearly smacking the two away with its large fist.
"Skyfire!" Optimus yelled.
Skyfire circled around and flew over Temperantia, dropping some boys from her bomb bay and peppered Temperantia with explosions along his upper body. She spun around and switched to bipedal mode to fire her particle cannon at its shoulders a bit before transforming back to jet mode and flying away.
"It's working," Optimus muttered, watching this seemingly invulnerable being wail and scream in pain. "We're doing it! Keep attacking until Ironhide and Bulkhead can get the shock cannons recharged again!"
"Prime!" Prowl pointed at the Cardinal's face. "It's doing something."
Optimus looked up and saw Temperantia's face slither out of its chest like some deformed snake. Its eyes began to glow and its forehead split open to reveal a glowing white jewel that pulsated with energy. Energy gathered into the jewel and Temperantia angled its head down at the Autobots, who all prepared to run.
Then it fired.
It was like the sun itself shined from within its body. An intense beam of light was fired from its head and hit the ground with tremendous force and power. Optimus barely had time to tell his team to retreat as Temperantia trailed the beam along the canyon floor, leaving a massive explosion trailing behind that rattled the entire canyon. Temperantia raised its head and slid the beam along the canyon wall, forcing Arcee and Jazz to jump off as the beam tore apart the cliff they were hanging onto and Bumblebee quickly drove away with Jolt behind him. It slashed its head and brought the beam down on where Bulkhead and Ironhide were hiding.
"Move!" Bulkhead pulled Ironhide aside and down the slope as the beam tore into the ground with a resounding boom that blasted them away.
Without a care for its surroundings, the Cardinal swept the beam across the landscape, reaping destruction everywhere it looked. Its beam reached for miles, annihilating unsuspecting towns in the distance. Hundreds of people who were seeking shelter from the storm, people who were unaware of the battle going on miles away from their homes, were killed in an instant. Their only solace was that their deaths were quick and painless as they were vaporized. Two towns met this fate, carved apart by a beam of light that set them aflame.
Temperantia cut the beam off and retracted its head back into its body, floating in place over a burning landscape. Burning gashes were left in the land, forests were on fire, and large swaths of land was carved apart, looking like morbid scars left in the earth. It was like a scalpel was heated to 1,000 degrees had stabbed into the earth and cut through stone and dirt like flesh.
Optimus stood in the middle of the inferno in shock. The land was burning and there was nothing he could do about it. This surpassed what Fortitudo was capable of. How many worlds had the dolems invaded and destroyed just like this? How many races were fooled into worshipping them in the name of their so-called divinity?
His audio receptors were full of static from the shrieking whine of the beam that almost torched them, so he didn't hear Prowl call out to him or call Ratchet for an evac. He felt Wheeljack struggle to pull him up to his feet and drag him towards the ground bridge. Optimus followed him, but he never took his eyes off Temperantia's large form looming over the flames, its body covered by the smoke save for its glowing eyes. Staring into the impassive face of the Cardinal ignited a rare but familiar feeling within Optimus-rage.
This wasn't over. He wouldn't stop protecting this world and his friends until his Spark stopping pulsing.
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"Scientists are baffled by the abnormal weather patterns happening across the western hemisphere, with storms ravaging coastal cities and flood warnings reaching as far as Arizona and Ozark. Astronomers believe that this may be connected to the recent planetary alignment which…"
"Turn it off." High Wire sighed. Darren turned off the Solivision with a quick wave of his hand.
The mood was somber for the smaller occupants of the Ark's west wing. They just learned that the operation was a complete failure. According to Teletran-1, three towns within 200 miles of the battle were wiped out by Temperantia. Thousands died in the span of ten minutes. The Autobots escaped with light wounds and were recovering in the medibay, though their morale was dangerously low after that display of power.
And as if things weren't already bad, the storm was getting worse. Abnormal weather patterns over Osea and Azteca led to floods, fatalities caused by car accidents, freak lightning bolts, it was like Mother Nature was unleashing the entirety of her fury on the two continents.
Debbie clapped her hands to get everyone's attention. "So who wants to play a game?"
She got back a multitude of dry looks in response. Even Peppercat was not amused and slinked away in beast mode to sleep in private.
"Really sis?" Annie shook her head. "Now's not the time."
"Well excuse me for trying to lighten the mood!" Debbie crossed her arms and motioned to the depressed expressions on the Minicons' faces. "How am I supposed to deal with all these sour faces? All this sitting around and moping isn't doing anyone any good."
"Well what do supposed we do?" Grindor asked. "I mean, I'm sure we have a few guns in the closet but I'm not really into the whole group killing thing."
"That's not even remotely funny, Grindor." High Wire scolded.
"Good, because I wasn't trying to." Grindor stood up. "We're screwed ten ways from Sunday and we can't do a thing about it."
"Way to be negative, Grindor." Annie frowned.
"But it's the truth." Roadstorm said. "We're stuck on a sinking ship with no way out."
"It's game over, man," Liftor whimpered. "Game over!"
"I'm all for a good fight, but it's lookin' pretty bad out there." Refute said.
"Would everyone shut up!" Annie screamed, halting the dreary chatter. "Listen to yourselves! How can you think of giving up like this? Were things like this on Cybertron? Things got too hot for everyone, so the best option was to just run away?"
"Annie, we're not cowards, but…what can we do in this situation?" Roll Bar sighed. "You heard the report. That monster just torched 200 miles of land and destroyed three towns in a heartbeat. The Autobots were nearly wiped out by that thing."
"So your first instinct is to just up and leave them despite how they risked everything to make sure that you all got back safe?" Gina shook her head in disgust. "That's just sickening. If you plan on doing that, then you're no different from the Cons!"
"What the hell do you know about us, blondie?" Roadstorm yelled, stomping up to Gina but Sara pushed him back. "You don't know slag about what we've been through! Why we left Cybertron in the first place! We left that planet to escape enslavement and death, and this planet is just another Cybertron waiting to happen! I don't know about the rest of you bozos, but I'm not going through that again!"
"Then fight for your future, don't just run away again." Darren said. "Running won't solve anything, it'll only make the problem worse. The reality is that you're all here now, and if you want to stay free, then you're going to have to fight back."
"That's a great speech and all, but how can we help against the monster that's trying to blow us all up?" Sonar asked. "I mean, as strong and mighty as the Air Defense Team is, I doubt a little power boost is going help the Autobots in this situation."
"We Minicons are not just power ups or weapons for them to use, Sonar. We can be dangerous too." High Wire said. "Look at what we've achieved; gestalts and targetmasters combined to make powerful weapons in defense of Minicon independence. We're intelligent beings who can do more than hold and fire guns. There's more to war than just fighting."
"I couldn't have said it better than myself."
Everyone turned to see Sparkplug entering the room, looking tired and worn, even his armor looked duller and less vibrant.
"Sparkplug!" Debbie exclaimed. "Is everyone okay?"
"Everyone's had a run in the CR chamber, so they're all healed now. The Autobots are in the command center coming up with another plan." Sparkplug turned to the children. "I heard that pep talk you gave. I didn't think you'd feel so strongly about wanting to fight."
"Our home is in danger because of that monster." Darren said. "Despite what Ratchet says, more important things than our lives are at stake. Seeing all those people just get wiped out…we can't let that happen again."
"Wise words, Darren, and I think I know a way we can help." Sparkplug said and looked to Sara. "After hearing Jolt's account on what happened, I think we can formulate a plan of our own that might turn the tide for us."
"Simple, High Wire," Sparkplug slammed his fist into his palm as the life returned to his eyes. "We strike at its Achilles' heel!"