Autobots, Assemble!

Part 2

Chapter 25

Starscream arrived back at the lab in record time. Prowl's advice to revert to vehicular mode had been smart, clever. If he hadn't then Shockwave most likely would be in a worse state than when the Seeker had left. Technically speaking he had broken protocol, but at the same time it probably didn't matter right now. Getting on Shockwave's good side wasn't what he was aiming for anyway – he was simply giving Megatron a very good reason not to terminate him by saving a very valued scientist.

In short he was actually trying to save his own skin, not Shockwave's. Saving Shockwave was simply an easier way of going about it and would have positive ramifications that would help him out in the long run. If he screwed up at any point afterwards, he could use this action as a safeguard to keep him alive.

All of this passed through the Seeker's head as he placed the cubes on the ground next to the black and white Autobot, making enough noise for the mech to know where he'd placed them. Prowl quickly snatched one of the cubes up and gave a simple order to the Seeker to find an intravenous syringe. Starscream had to fight down the urge to voice a sharp retort about being ordered around the way he was right now. But Prowl had a point – arguing about trivialities while a life was on the line was never a good idea. And really, Megatron constantly gave him orders; what was so different about Prowl giving him orders?

"Here," Starscream handed the item over to the other's open hand. The Autobot's hand coiled around the syringe's base as he dunked the head into the cube he held in his other hand, drawing up the precious fuel into the holding chamber. The Seeker watched, almost enthralled, as the blind mech felt around for a main exposed line on the scientist's arm. Finding one suitable enough, he gingerly poked the needle-head into the line and pressed down the release.

The Autobot performed this three more times. Shockwave's size coupled with his severe Energon loss meant he would need a higher dose than, say, someone of Starscream's size with similar wounds.

Shockwave had passed out as soon as they'd found him in order to let his repair systems work unhampered. With his Energon levels rising back to normal, the Autobot lightly tapped a hand on the scientist's face to bring him back to reality.

The single red optic flickered back to life at the pestering touch. Prowl wisely backed away from the mech's giant arm-mounted cannon. He may be weak but that gun could still do serious damage.

"Starscream," Shockwave noted the grey Seeker's presence as if detecting some kind of virus. "Your actions to ensure my survival go against your personality print and are as such illogical to you. Prowl's actions were predictable, far more so than yours."

Starscream looked very insulted on hearing this. He says something like that to him, but not to Prowl?

"I would advise staying in the lab for now, Shockwave," Prowl suggested. "Your repair systems are still trying to seal up your wounds, and staying here would give you access to all the medical tools you need if anything were to open back up. Go out there now and you'll end up dying."

Shockwave remained silent as thought the suggestion over. Prowl was not ordering him to stay, it was merely a suggestion revolving around concern for his well-being. The ship was under Autobot and Avenger attack, and in his current state he wouldn't exactly be useful in the Nemesis's defense.

"Your argument is logical, Autobot. I will remain in the lab," He replied. "And what of Starscream? He is mobile and armed, and would not hesitate to offline one of your allies."

"Excuse me, I'm right here!" The Seeker whined. Honestly, Shockwave was being downright rude at this point, and that mech was incapable of displaying any kind of emotion!

Prowl smirked. "We….have an arrangement. As of right now, we are both at a metaphorical stalemate in terms of favors. And so neither of us is able to turn on each other, and technically if he turns of any of my fellow Autobots, his actions would unbalance the scale so to speak and give the others as good a reason as any to harm him."

Starscream rolled his optics in the most exaggerated fashion. "That is your extremely fancy way of saying we have an unofficial truce, isn't it Prowl?"

"…Don't patronize me, Starscream." Prowl growled.

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T'Challa's first question was how to transport the massive blade to the bridge most efficiently. Carrying it would slow their progress substantially, and he stated so outright. However, the medic had a clever workaround – the blade capable of transforming along with its user. He had discovered this when Optimus had first set out with the Saber on a mission once. When the Prime had reverted to his semi-truck alt. mode, the blade appeared to have mysteriously vanished. Only when the Prime had returned had the medic figured out where it had gone – it had shrunken down and was neatly tucked away against his vehicle mode's underbelly.

"But would it work for you? You are not a Prime." Panther noted.

"I expected you to bring up that point," Ratchet answered. "The Star Saber's inner power only activates when wielded by a Prime, which is true enough. But –" He waggled a finger at the Wakandan reprovingly. "With any other Cybertronian, it would act as a normal – if somewhat unwieldy – sword."

Panther stifled a chuckle on remembering how Skywarp had struggled to hold onto the giant sword. "Somewhat unwieldy" was an understatement for smaller Cybertronians like him. The Saber was the equivalent to Skywarp holding a fellow Trine mate as a weapon in terms of size comparison.

The medic backed up to allow space for the transformation. He had no way of hitching the blade to himself, so he would simply be holding it instead.

After a second or two of whirring and clanking gears, an amber and white ambulance stood patiently waiting. Curiosity got the better of the Wakandan and peeped underneath to see if there was any hint of the mighty blade being there. Just as Ratchet had described, the hilt of the sword was neatly tucked against his vehicle mode's underside, the blade itself having shrunken down to only a foot or so in length.

"Quite the intuitive weapon," Panther remarked. "If I may ask, who created it? The last time I encountered this sword, in Asgard, my suit detected substantial amounts of what I can only term 'alien magic', different from anything I've ever encountered."

The driver's side door clicked open. "Get in and I'll tell you on the way to the bridge."

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The door to the bridge had been sealed shut. Soundwave stood guard, still as a statue and yet ready to leap into action on a moment's notice. His little robotic symbiote, Laserbeak, chirped as it uploaded sensory data to its master that it had gathered on a reconnaissance task. To a human it would simply look like lines of alien code; to Soundwave it was valid, if somewhat hastily gathered, information.

"So how do we get past Sounders, chief?" Wheeljack whispered from around a corner. "I'm pretty sure he already knows we're nearby and watching him. Surprising him is a no-go."

"Maybe we can," Vision offered. "There is a high probability he expects to fight Autobots, and there is also a high probability that he is not expecting to fight Avengers – remember, the security systems are down; he may not even know our team is here. If the Avengers go in first, we may be able to confuse him."

The white Wrecker snorted. It was not a sound of derision – it was a sound of amazement at the little android's intelligence. A whole squadron of Visions would scare Megatron silly.

"I'll go in first," Ms. Marvel offered. "I can absorb Laserbeak's gun fire easily."

Before anyone could stop her the former Air Force Major had taken flight and flown right for Soundwave. To her astonishment, neither Laserbeak nor Soundwave showed any intention of attacking. She just….hovered there, waiting for some kind of motion, some hint that he was simply biding his time to attack.

Nothing. She hovered there for two full minutes. Nothing happened.

Cautiously, she moved closer to his face. Bracing herself, she lightly tapped on the display screen he used to communicate with others.

"Um Soundwave?" She asked. "You there?"

The display screen flared to life so suddenly it made her yelp. On it was a giant question mark above a clip-art image of a tombstone. Was he – was he seriously asking if she was going to kill him to get past?

It took her a moment to compose herself to speak. The question….it was outrageous! Kill someone in order to win? Who in the world did this mech think he was "talking" to?!"

"No." She finally said. The tombstone vanished but the question mark remained. "Avengers never kill in order to score a victory. It's not our way of operating. We fought Knockout when he kidnapped Fowler, but we never harmed him beyond simple repair. We offered him mercy, a second chance."

"And we would willingly give that same chance to you, Soundwave," Cap added in, walking out from behind the corner he'd been using as cover. "To any Decepticon. We'd even give that chance to Megatron."

The question mark flickered as if in disbelief. The faceless Communications Chief turned the display screen to look at the gathered group of humans, scanning them to check for altered heart rate, a simple indication of a lie. The result of the scan nearly sent him reeling:

Not a single one was lying. Not. One.

He stood completely still, analyzing the information. For a moment he thought his sensors were faulty or that the humans were somehow managing to trick those sensors into thinking they were telling the truth. Soundwave quickly pushed the thought aside. For a group of humans as morally upright as these were, lying was against their core coding ("out of character" he corrected himself; these were humans, not Cybertronians). The only one he believed capable of lying was the purple-clad archer, but even then he was better known for telling the brutal, honest truth, often in the bluntest way possible.

However, they had invaded the Decepticon warship, and that made them enemies by any standard definition. But there was absolutely nothing standard about this attack or its results thus far! Laserbeak's reconnaissance showed that none of the drones had been hurt – they had simply been herded into various holding cells or locked in the brig without a scratch on them. This wasn't a true assault if they were letting the drones live. This was….Soundwave didn't know what this was. Not an assault, not an infiltration; so what was it?

"Soundwave, we're not here to hurt anyone," Arcee said. "We're trying to save billions of innocent lives here. I think you know as well as any of us what will happen if the Omega Lock is used on Earth."

The femme wasn't wrong. He did know because Megatron had tried it once before, though the only result of that had been Darkmount thanks to the Prime's interference. Billions of humans would be killed, along with every other life form on the planet. Normally he wouldn't think twice about this, but S.H.I.E.L.D records (at least the public ones) told him that a significant portion of the human population was genetically altered, meaning they had powers in one shape or another. Strong and well-armed as the Nemesis was, there was no feasible way for it to survive a super-human assault of that magnitude.

Soundwave seemed to debate his options, and then silently stepped aside. He wasn't playing nice, not fully; he was simply being reasonable. A case of one against two teams wasn't going to end in his favor. And a case of one warship versus an entire planet would end up with just as bad an outcome, if not much worse.

The Communications Officer nearly jumped when he felt a tiny hand against his ankle. He could feel the double-tempo of the human's heartbeat through the touch, and it was….calm, unafraid, steady.

"Thank you, Soundwave." Wasp said.

Soundwave did however transmit a simple warning to Megatron over his comm. link, informing him of the intruders.

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Gunfire was the first thing that greeted them when they stepped through onto the bridge. Energy shots whizzed past the Autobots' heads, some just barely grazing their armor. It wasn't the first time that they found themselves thankful that the drones were such horrible shots.

Megatron, however, had pin-point accuracy compared to his soldiers. One well-aimed shot to the chest sent Wheeljack sprawling, while another struck Bulkhead in the leg. It was only thanks to his thicker armor that he remained standing and relatively unharmed.

"Hey! Tall, dark, and murderous!" Ms. Marvel taunted. She was virtually invincible against Cybertronians due to their energy based weapons, though that only stood true if they used guns or other such long ranged weapons. Against the gladiator's sword, she wouldn't stand as much of a fighting chance. Getting him to target her would save the others some trouble.

And when it came to energy discharge, Megatron's cannon trumped anything the Autobots had. Which was exactly what she was after – she was going to turn all that power against him.

The warlord snarled in rage and fired repeatedly at her, each shot finding its mark. He knew this particular altered human could absorb and manipulate energy; what he was going for was to overload her. Instinct said half a dozen high-powered shots should overload her energy field.

The human staggered mid-air as she tried to control all the power flowing through her. Her entire body glowed a vicious red, the same red of Decepticon optics. She quite honestly looked terrifying.

"Big. Mistake." She managed to pant out. All the energy seemed to focus into her hands. And then she released it. All of it.

Right at him.

The seasoned gladiator had experienced pain many times over the eons, but nothing compared to this. It wasn't confined to just certain parts of his body – it was everywhere. Excruciating pain laced through ever circuit, every gear and mechanism in his body. And then it stopped.

He staggered but managed to stay standing. When the pain dulled to a manageable level he wasn't surprised to see the troopers down for the count – not dead, just knocked out cold.

The Autobots surrounded him from all sides, keeping their guns pointed at him and ready to fire if he made a move. Their human compatriots stood at their feet or hovered by their sides. This wasn't happening. He hadn't just been defeated on his own warship by a bunch of soft-sparked fools!

"Checkmate Megsy," Hawkeye teased. "You lose."

The Lord of the Decepticons was nothing if not intelligent. Right beneath their feet, the Omega Lock hung suspended on the underbelly of his ship. Past that, sixteen thousand feet below, was a vast expanse of saline water the humans called the Atlantic. And they were all standing on the hatch that would lower them down.

He couldn't help smirking to himself.

That smirk made every one of them tense. The humans recognized that kind of smirk: the I'm-about-to-get-rid-of-you-all-in-one-go smirk. But how was he going to do that? He was badly damaged and totally surrounded.

The warlord sent a data burst to Soundwave to lower the hatch. Not many knew that the mech was wirelessly tapped into the warship's systems. That was what allowed him to easily monitor whole sections of the vessel at a time. It also allowed him to control certain sections of the ship.

The floor under the Autobot's feet shuddered as it began to lower down.

"What are you doing, Scar-face?" Hulk growled.

"Evening the odds creature," Megatron replied coolly. "Though I don't expect you to understand strategy with that brutish brain of yours,"

The gamma monster tried to have a go at the warlord, only to be held back by three of its team mates who were plainly struggling to do so. The Hulk was stronger than most of his team combined, but he also had a short fuse and preferred head on attacks over all else.

Tony had never actually seen the Omega Lock up close; he had only ever seen it via blueprints and schematics. It wasn't until just then that he appreciated how truly massive this supposedly smaller copy was. The entire underbelly of the Nemesis had been altered to accommodate it. Platforms for workers spanned the outer ring of the device and power cables stretched upward into the warship's fuel reserves. The entire device was attached to the ship with massive support beams. A weird pool of glowing energy filled the center ring of the Lock.

"Whoa….That's the Omega Lock?" Wasp breathed. "That's what you helped build, Tony?"

Iron Man seemed less than pleased with his handiwork. Normally he would have loved to tell every step of how he'd built something as incredible as this. This construct was not one that demanded praise, not with the purpose Megatron intended for it.

Megatron couldn't help gloating. "Hmm yes. Quite a feat of engineering, isn't it? I assure you, you're assistance was invaluable Stark; yours and that of your allies."

He could feel the anger coming off of the inventor. The gauntleted fists clenched and the full-body armor itself seemed to tense. Iron Man was clearly restraining himself from blasting a hole through his chest, as were the rest of his team mates.

Two loud whining sirens caught everyone's attention, including Megatron's. There was also the unmistakable sound of Starscream's jet mode not far behind, and audial evidence suggested he was coming in fast.

"Sounds like Ratchet and Prowl finally decided to show," Smokescreen guessed correctly. "Panther's gotta be with 'em too."

Starscream caught up to the two automobiles easily and shot overhead, transforming and landing beside his leader and readying his guns. A sly smile formed on his face as he trained them on the black and white Autobot above him. The truce had served its purpose of keeping Starscream alive and now he would do what he did best: backstab.

The amber and white ambulance reverted out of vehicle disguise. Megatron's reaction to what the field medic was holding was electrical – his EM field was pulled in tight against his body, his red optics widened in fear, and he backed away instinctively to put as much distance as he could between himself and the Star Saber.

"Optimus!" Ratchet called down. "Catch!"

The medic flung the sword down to him, though he elected to stay up top for safety reasons. The Saber was capable of causing massive collateral damage when it was used, and whenever the Prime and Megatron butted heads, collateral damage was unavoidable.

Then, suddenly, Megatron's fear vanished as he reached for something on his back. In a flash of movement he'd brought out what looked like a darker version of the Star Saber that exuded an aura of pure evil, and then used it to send out a wave of black energy.

The Autobots were forced to dive out of the wave's path lest it send them flying off the platform on which they stood. Optimus had just barely gotten a grip on his own giant blade when the wave slammed into him, sending it flying to the opposite end of the Lock's circular platform, well out of his immediate reach.

Bumblebee took this opportunity to dart around behind Megatron while his attention was focused on his rival. He needed to get it back to Optimus so he could stand a fighting chance against the Dark Star Saber. He did his best to tone out the sound of his friends getting thrashed around by the wicked blade. He heard Ms. Marvel snarl determinedly as she tried to absorb one of the black energy waves, but he knew she was still exhausted from that massive surge mere minutes before, and absorbing Dark Energon couldn't end well for her. It would weaken her even further.

The scout snatched the hilt of the massive sword in one hand just when Megatron figured out what was going on behind him. The warlord whirled around and readied the Dark Star Saber. Bumblebee jumped high to avoid the energy wave, keeping a firm grip on the sacred relic of the Primes. No way was he going to let it break a second time!

Megatron was expecting this maneuver. He lowered his sword and raised his gun instead. With a cruel, sadistic smile he fired off three shots right at the scout's chest.

Everyone could do little except watch in undisguised horror as those three gun shots slammed into Bumblebee's chest plates, tearing through them like they were nothing, revealing the complex array of circuits and wires beneath the armor. The normally bright blue glow of Energon pumping through those cables and wires flickered dangerously low.

And then it went out completely, along with the scout's bright blue optics, as he fell into the strange energy pool that filled the interior ring of the Omega Lock.

Muahaha! I am a cruel authoress to leave the chapter here ;D. Oh and don't worry, I'm using nearly the exact sequence of events from Deadlock. Don't start raving at me.