AN: Happy St. Patrick's Day to all of you who celebrated. Being Irish it was a very happy day for me!
Loki's Nightmare: Thanks for the review and voting.
Chapter Summary: The Battle(Part 3)
{Wheeljack and Knockout}
Knockout knew what he was, and he had never been ashamed of his vain looks or his experience, or lack there of. Before the war, Knockout had been studying for his medical degree, which he had shoved aside once Megatron had rebelled to gain some experience in espionage, while working secondly as a field medic. He was not, nor had he ever been, a frontline soldier although he was not ignorant of the battlefield and what went on there. Knockout had always a femmes' mech, easily captivating the optics of femmes with his shining varnish and excellent paintjob.
Despite the horrors of the war, Knockout had kept his vain persona as more of a shield and something familiar to rely upon. There was nothing like waxing and polishing to quite calm down your nervous system when things around you got too emotional or hectic. He had always acted indignant whenever his paintjob had been messed up; it had been fun to react like a spoiled sparkling in order to ease his processor about what was going on around him. And while Knockout had been more than willing to embellish his own deeds to further impress admiring femmes, the espionage/medic officer had never fooled himself into believing that he was anything like those mechs who ran right into the midst of danger and fought with all their spark. Those mechs were a different class altogether, and while Knockout admired them he knew he could never be one of them, either because he lacked a certain something in his coding or he really did have a wish not to inflict harm on another.
Whatever Knockout's dilemma, if such it could be called, it would explain why he hung back as Wheeljack took center stage in the fight. Or possibly it was because Wheeljack left him very little room for fighting anyway, as the demolitions expert was a ruthless machine of destruction, laying the cells low and blackening the walls with the deflected laser shots off his swords from the incoming enemy. Or perhaps Knockout hung back because there was something about the approaching mechs that struck him as odd, and he crouched behind a smoldering wall as he watched them.
There was something off about the mechs, something different, and Knockout wished he was not in the middle of a firefight as it made everything extremely difficult. Still, his optics were functioning at peak efficiency so perhaps he could visually find out what the problem was, though he would have preferred a closer inspection with his medical tools. Knockout used his zoom in option, originally designed for surgeons or snipers, and studied the advancing mechs.
Then again, he would not need his medical tools after all.
"Wheeljack," Knockout called over the din of laser fire. "They have no spark chambers!"
"What?" Wheeljack yelled, not really sure why he bothered to have the medic repeat himself since he probably would not listen to any advice the Decepticon would give as it was. Perhaps he asked for clarification because he realized that the medic was the only one he had to watch his back, and while Wheeljack was always a sucker for fights not in his favor, he was not an idiot. One of the first rules of combat after all was not to tick off the guy watching your rear.
"They don't have sparks!" Knockout yelled, trying to draw the demolition expert's attention to the lack of glowing from the chassis plates of the incoming mechs.
The medic's words sinking in, Wheeljack looked back at the black and red painted mechs and noted what Knockout had. No sparks meant no consciousness's, these mechs were nothing more than robots, more than likely programmed like a human computer only by Shockwave's servos. "Well then they won't feel a thing will they?"
"No Wheeljack! Wait!" Knockout had seen pictures of the robots MECH had used to defend their first base, but they had been skinnier of frame than these machines of Shockwave's. There was something bugging at the medic's processor, and his optics quickly scanned the nearest frame, noting the size and width of the chassis before looking at the smashed cells around him, where the humans had been kept. "Something's not right."
Now, no one could accuse Knockout of being slow, as a medic and an espionage specialist he was required to think five steps ahead of what he was doing in order to be prepared for what would follow. Therefore, it was not surprising that his red optics opened wide in realization and he stared at the advancing robots with growing suspicion that he was very near the mark.
"Wheeljack!" Knockout shouted yet again, the demolition expert was obviously irritated, if the look he threw the medic while deflecting laser bolts was anything to go by. "I need to scan one of them! Throw me one to scan when you get close enough but don't destroy any of them!"
"Now is not the time to be a science geek, Decepto-Doc!" Wheeljack snapped, his blades well within reach now to slash through the nearest robot.
"Humor me!" Knockout bellowed, almost startling himself with how loud and earnest he sounded.
Wheeljack must have been startled too, for he actually did as Knockout wanted.
{Megatron and Bumblebee}
"What have you done to her?" Megatron asked, not needing a medic to tell him that Sparknight was not in her right processor. The slight seeker looked to be barely able to keep her frame upright, never mind the fact that she was showing no reaction to having a cannon pointed at her helm.
The Decepticon could only hazard a guess at what had been done to her, for she was a far cry from the warrior he had known all those years ago. Seeing her in such a state would break Soundwave, in ways that not even her supposed death had done… Soundwave! Megatron knew that his third-in-command was watching, he would be seeing all of this and for the first time since the warlord had come to know the telepath, Megatron could guarantee that Soundwave would act rationally.
Shockwave cocked his helm at Megatron, "Why would you concern yourself about her? What is she to you?" Shockwave's single optic did not move, but Megatron could not shake the feeling that the scientist was looking at Bumblebee, "Why would any of the Autobots warrant your attention at all? They have nothing to offer you, it is they who profit more from your alliance than your Decepticons do."
Megatron grinned, "Poor Shockwave. It doesn't compute does it? You can try to factor the numbers a million different times, but you will never see the logic in any of this." The Decepticon warlord was in his element, putting the enemy off-balance. Of course, dialogue was not the weapon of his choice but as long as Shockwave was willing to talk it was best to keep him yapping. "But if I must explain my actions to you, perhaps you would be willing to do the same. This entire endeavor of yours, Shockwave, has puzzled me exceedingly. Logically I could perhaps understand why you would want the slave code in order to imprison other Cybertronians to do your will, but the humans? Taking them defies logic, of which you were once renowned for."
Shockwave bristled, "Defies logic? What do you know of logic? You are but a youngling compared to me, the rest of your ragtag group a bunch of errant sparklings. What did you know of the old regime? A gladiator ring where you won prestige yet you were not satisfied with the role the council had given you, you wanted more. I was once blind like you were, emotionally unbalanced by the loss of my co-workers in the mines that I did not see the logic of the Golden Council's vision, but now I do. Holding complete control over its citizens is the only way a government can be sure to keep them all in line and stave off rebellions and wars. I have perfected their design and I can assure you that under my rule there will be no more fighting, everyone will live and do in the manner I deem for them to do, and there will be no dissention in the ranks. I saw the similarity between us and the humans and logic dictated that I fix their world before it is destroyed as ours was!"
Shockwave pushed Sparknight, still keeping the cannon trained on her, and they moved to the side, giving Megatron and Bumblebee room to see the various screens along the wall. "Come see for yourself that I am right, Megatron. The warriors known as Wheeljack and Knockout are surely learning by now who they are facing."
Not wanting Shockwave to get too close to them, Megatron and Bumblebee edged towards the screens, maintaining the distance between the two groups. Tilting his helm, so that he would still see Shockwave, Megatron saw that Knockout and Wheeljack were battling a squad of mechs. Or rather, Wheeljack was fighting them while the medic was holding one down and seemed to be examining it.
"I knew you were behind supplying MECH with the robots Silas had defending his base."
"Blind, obstinate fool," Shockwave said. "Look again."
Bumblebee, even though he wanted to look, kept his blasters trained on Shockwave while Megatron took another look at the screen. The quality of the screen was such that the Decepticon warlord could see the look of horror on Knockout's faceplate, and he felt his own spark tighten, "What have you done?"
"I have perfected the human race," Shockwave answered. "Now they will live for a very long time, and all their needs will be seen to and no reproduction will be necessary for a great many years. They will not have to struggle to survive anymore, once their bodies submit to my implants their suffering will be over for ever."
Bumblebee choked, and Megatron did not blame him, "You cannot inflict such a regime on them all. The very act is monstrous and you will destroy that race of everything that makes it what it is. You have not thought this through. Surely not all your test subjects survived such trauma."
"The strong survived," Shockwave conceded, "such is the way of things. My society will have no use for the elderly, infirm or the young, they would not survive the process anyway so by my calculations it would be better to exterminate those who will not conform with my rule sooner rather than later. Why delay the inevitable?"
"And they say I was mad," Megatron looked at Shockwave, wondering if it was the time spent in hiding that had driven the scientist mad, or the dark depths of the Tarn mines. "You knew I would oppose you, you knew that Optimus Prime would not accept this either, that was why you blatantly sent out Starscream, to draw us out."
"Yes, but not even the many scenarios I drew up could fathom how desperate you would be to ally yourself with the Autobots, I thought that feud too deep for such."
"So your logic is not omnipotent. Despite your effort to replace Primus, you are just like the rest of us, susceptible to making mistakes."
Shockwave jerked Sparknight to the side, still keeping his cannon trained on her but no longer holding her frame as a shield in front of his own. "Mistakes? I will show you mistakes, Megatron, self-proclaimed lord of the Decepticons. Look and see the doom you have brought to your troops by leading them into my domain. Watch them fall one-by-one, and know that it was you who led them to this fate."
{Arcee and Dreadwing}
There were many times Arcee had felt fear during her life, and most of them had had to do with the spiderbot, Arachnid. Since the death of her first partner, Arcee had lived in dread of meeting Arachnid again and had almost forgotten the torture she had undergone until the interrogations officer had landed on Earth. When Arachnid had escaped Arcee had known there would be continuous clashes between them for the rest of their lives, until one of them fell.
And meet again the two femmes had, several times in fact with one or the other barely surviving the encounters.
Arcee stood in front of the imprisoned Dreadwing, whose limbs were glued to his sides by the sticky webbing, and she took a protective stance. Dreadwing however was not about to out his fate in the servos of someone who was so much smaller than himself, and a femme at that, so he kept his peds firmly planted on the floor as he struggled with the bindings. The echoing tapping sounds along the floor and wall, signaling Arachnid's approach, would be forever remembered by Arcee and Dreadwing. While the ex-gladiator did never feared Arachnid, he was not stupid enough to not be somewhat apprehensive to his situation now, and he was even, surprisingly enough, a little worried about the biker in front of him.
"Arcee," Arachnid's sugary tone was sickening, "it's been too long."
"Not long enough," Arcee bit back. "Why didn't you stay buried in whatever hole you had crawled into?"
Arachnid chuckled, "And miss seeing you again? Why I couldn't do that, especially not when Shockwave promised me a little one-on-one time with you. How could I refuse such a generous offer from the mech who gave me this very pleasing form?"
"Arachnid," Dreadwing growled, "you're a fool if you believe anything that Shockwave has told you. Haven't you seen what he's done with his allies? Didn't he reduce Starscream to a slave and then drop him when he no longer needed him?"
Arachnid laughed, "Starscream got what was coming to him. I am not under any influence of Shockwave's, save that I agree with what he's doing. But enough talk. I am going to kill Dreadwing, Arcee, and when he's dead I'm going to kill you. So try to stop me if you can."
Arachnid lunged, her extra curling in before straightening out in order to propel her forward. Arcee's initial reaction was to duck, but that would have left Dreadwing open, so instead she stayed where she was and opened fire. Megatron had recommended all the Autobots to upgrade their weaponry and those Decepticons who had expertise in the area had offered their assistance to do so. So Arachnid was in for a bit of surprise when Arcee started firing at her.
The spiderbot cried out as the biker's blaster bolts actually put dents in her armor, forcing Arachnid to abandon her forward attack and try another way. Arachnid spun and used the wall to pull herself up and over Arcee, lashing out at the small femme with her spare limbs as she did so. Being highly trained not only in the arts of interrogation but assassination as well, Arachnid was more than capable of inflicting damage and scoring hits past even the most experienced of fighters' defenses.
Arcee's cries of pain reverberated off the walls of the hallway, and Dreadwing winced in sympathy and alarm when he noted the energon spray from the wounds Arachnid had inflicted. Arcee stumbled and dropped, her pain receptors overloading and Arachnid was past her and coming toward Dreadwing. If she thought Megatron's second-in-command was going to go down without a fight she had another thing coming.
Dreadwing, while being a tall mech, was a very agile fighter and he crouched easily without losing his balance. Using his servos as best he could, he braced his knuckles against the floor and pushed his legs up, catching Arachnid by surprise. The spiderbot went flying backwards, her yell of outrage and pain a welcoming sound to both the Autobot and Decepticon.
Arcee stumbled to her pedes, ignoring the energon flowing down her frame from the small cuts Arachnid had made in between her plating. Dreadwing was also on his feet, his optics watching the spiderbot while he tried to work out a small blade on his left arm.
Arachnid's legs righted her frame and she glared at both Arcee and Dreadwing, wiping a trail of energon from her mouthpiece. The sizable dent and fractured metal where Dreadwing had smashed his ped was quite noticeable in the dim light, "No more games."
{Sunstreaker and Sideswipe}
The Twins had been programmed for battle from the beginning, their frames having been made after Megatron's rebellion had started. They were born fighters, literally, the council having their newly formed sparks immediately put into adult frames and skipping the sparkling stage, but their destructive combat skills had been largely geared towards taking down seekers. In the short years of their existence the Twins had earned a reputation and were largely feared by seekers on both sides of the war, even Autobot seekers had largely stayed clear of them due to a healthy amount of fear and uncertainly since the Twins were mainly viewed as being a little mad and paranoid of everything except one another.
Since their targets were mainly seekers, Sunstreaker and Sideswipe were more use to an open battlefield to move around in. Their fighting style was built around the assumption that there would be plenty of room to move about for them to use their jetpacks, which were a handy tool for giving them some flight capability. While they did have some close quartered experience in fighting, it was not their preferred method and the Twins found it harder to watch each other's back and fight to the best of their ability at the same time.
Lockdown had been a bounty hunter for more than three thousand years, where he had come from or what he had been before had been forgotten but most who had seen him were sure he had lived for at least five thousand years. He had traveled the galaxy extensively, either hunting down bounties or perusing planets for his own enjoyment, and he had more than enough one-on-one fights and small skirmishes to give him experience in all types of fighting styles on different terrains. There was no denying that he was a deadly force in his own right, and no matter how the Twins had been programmed from the start to be fighters, they were, compared to him, nothing but sparklings in the art of war.
The Twins came at Lockdown from two sides, no doubt hoping to keep him between the two of them and therefore easy to attack without hitting the other. The bounty hunter was no novice though and let them come with a wicked grin. Just Sunstreaker was within range, Lockdown grabbed the yellow mech and spun them about, throwing Sunstreaker into the oncoming charge of his brother.
The Twins crashed into one another, falling to the floor in a tangled mess, but they were quick to regain their footing as best they could. Lockdown gave them very little time to recover, letting them get up before descending on them again. He grabbed the red mech this time, using his height as an advantage and threw Sideswipe as hard as he could. The red twin smashed into the table Shockwave had used to enslave Starscream, and Sideswipe bulk actually managed to move the table a few inches before the momentum from the throw drew the red mech over it.
Sunstreaker came at Lockdown then, swinging powerful punches that the bounty hunter merely dodged or batted away. Lockdown was like a cat, playing with the mouse and letting his prey struggle and fight back but the outcome was inevitable. The yellow mech did manage to score some hits, but he might as well have been punching a thick wall of concrete for all the good it did him. Sideswipe came up and primed his blasters, opening fire on Lockdown's exposed back. The bounty hunter's answer was a verbal exclamation in some unknown language, but both of the Twins had a good idea what he said.
"Did we make the great big bounty hunter curse, bro?" Sideswipe asked.
"I believe we did, brother mine, I believe we did." Sunstreaker brought his blasters up, watching Lockdown stagger a bit. Sideswipe's shots had left singeing holes in the bounty hunter's back, but they had not gone deep enough to draw energon.
Lockdown eyed both of them, looking at the blasters contemptuously, "Brats! Enough playing around, I have better things to do!"
Lockdown's assault drove the Twins back, his blasters were of a heavier make than the Twins', even if they had upgraded them, and so they were forced to retreat. They danced around each other as they would fire at him and then give ground, most likely trying to get back to the hallway where they would be able to take cover behind the wall. Lockdown let them make it halfway before his helm transformed into his primary cannon, locking onto the red mech first.
Sunstreaker and Sideswipe had always been close, having a split spark between their forms they were always mindful of the other. Each knew the other's thoughts and feelings, if one experienced pain then so did the other. So when a blast tore its way through Sideswipe's right shoulder joint, leaving his arm to dangle by a few intact cables, Sunstreaker's own pain receptors overloaded with his Twin's agony.
"Sides!" Watching his brother fall, feeling his pain, drove Sunstreaker towards that anger of which he mad always been more susceptible too rather than Sideswipe had.
Sunstreaker charged Lockdown, yelling and firing his blasters with all the power that he had. The bounty hunter's chassis erupted with puncture shots from the blasters, his frame jerking back from the onslaught but he kept his balance. Lockdown did not have to use his target sensors to lock in on Sunstreaker, the yellow mech was almost on top of him when the bounty hunter fired again, practically point blank.
Sideswipe screamed from his position on the floor as Sunstreaker's frame nearly folded in half backwards as it rocked back from the blow. A smoking crater, practically taking up the entire left side of the yellow mech's chassis, was just barely visible to Sideswipe's half shuttered optics. Sunstreaker made no sound as his frame fell to the floor, the heavy thud echoing not only in the room but in Sideswipe's spark as well.
Lockdown's cannon retransformed into his helm, his sneer of victory missed by both Twins, since Sunstreaker's optics were shuttered and Sideswipe was looking at his brother. No matter, neither Autobot would live long anyway. Lockdown brought his blasters to bear, knowing the yellow mech still lived no matter how tenuous his hold was, but a little pressure to pull apart the spark's protective casing and that would be taken care of.
"Don't you touch him!" Sideswipe pulled himself up to his knees, using his good arm for support but he soon transformed his servo into a blaster and did his best to level it at Lockdown, swaying slightly from his own pain and that of his brother's.
Lockdown chuckled, "Do you expect to stop me when you can barely defend yourself? Foolish Autobot." Then Lockdown regarded the shaking red mech and his yellow optics gleamed, he stepped over Sunstreaker's still form, "Still, perhaps I could be prevailed upon to show him mercy, of you would beg—"
Lockdown was cut off as a ground bridge opened up, so close to him that he staggered from the gravimetrical pull. He had barely enough time to look up, let alone bring his blasters to bear, as Soundwave came flying through the green swirl of light. The telepath grabbed hold of the bounty hunter and a second ground bridge opened up to swallow the pair of them in the blink of an optic.
AN: Man, I thought the battle would end this chapter but it didn't. Oh well, review, critique, follow, favorite, every little bit is appreciated and welcomed. Well, the critique is welcomed to some extent. Also, don't forget to vote if you haven't already.
Hug Vote:
Bumblebee – 24
Starscream – 15
Soundwave – 10
Megatron – 9
Miko – 9
Raf – 6
Mckeown –6
Orion – 5
Roberto Esquivel(Raf's dad) – 3
Knockout – 3
Dreadwing – 3
Arcee – 2
Bulkhead – 2
Ratchet – 2
Jack – 2
Sunstreaker – 2
Sideswipe – 2
Vehicons – 2
Wheeljack – 2
Laserbeak - 1
Favorite character vote:
Bumblebee – 10
Megatron – 8
Soundwave – 7
Knockout – 5
Blurr – 2
Arcee – 1
Wheeljack – 1
Starscream – 1
Orion Prime – 1
Silas - 1
Faction vote:
Decepticons – 27
Autobots - 11
