8. Three Races At Once (Oh, And Something About Starscream As Well I Guess)
Previously:
Night Shift helped Orion to his feet as the others quickly rushed over, all glad to see the pair. Ratchet was all business as he asked "Are either of you hurt?"
"Not a scratch Doctor, though I'll admit we got out just in time."
"And what the Cons wanted our boy to work on, did you get it?" Agent Fowler asked next.
"Right here." Night Shift said, holding up the data drive and continued "Orion had already decoded three sets of coordinates for the Cons though, so we need to move fast to get to whatever's at them before they do."
"Then it seems we must wait to implement our plan to return Orion's memories as Optimus to him." Ratchet said before looking at Orion with a sigh and said "I am sorry old friend."
"I understand Ratchet, whatever lies at those locations must be kept out of Megatron's hands, at all cost." Orion said with a nod.
"Then we better get started." Night Shift said, handing the data drive to Ratchet who quickly went to his station to pull up the coordinates. They had to act swiftly, for this was one race they likely could not afford to lose.
Story Start: On Board The Nemesis
Megatron was literally stomping his way back to the bridge with a furious snarl on his face. One of the Autobot's newest recruits had not only retrieved Orion Pax, they had ALSO gotten a copy of the Iacon Database! He'd immediately sent out teams to the three coordinates already decoded when the pair had left the ship of course, but the thought of Orion Pax somehow turning back into Optimus Prime made the Energon in his veins BOIL!
Then he turned a corner and saw Starscream trying to sneak his way down from the other end of the hallway and his anger found a target he could actually hit. Gaining a vicious grin as Starscream's wings turned downwards and his eyes widened in horror, Megatron said "Starscream, how nice of you to finally return to us."
"L-Lord Megatron! It's so good to see you again!" Starscream stated nervously before he adopted a wounded look and said "You would not believe the amount of trouble I had making my way back to the ship after that wretch Airachnid abandoned me in the Harbinger, trapped in her webbing."
"Oh, I'm quite certain it's a true tale of woe Starscream." Megatron said as he stomped down the hallway menacingly. Starscream immediately started back pedaling as he continued "Why don't you come with me to the bridge and tell me all about it?"
"Eh-heh." Starscream nervously stuttered before the next instant he was an F15 tearing down the corridors, Megatron racing after him in his Cybertronian Jet mode. The sad thing was, Megatron MIGHT have actually let him come back if Starscream had followed him to the bridge. Oh Well!
Scene Change: First Coordinates
Bulkhead, Ground Quake, and Razor Wind was the team sent to the first coordinates by Night Shift. Even though he wasn't an 'original' member of Team Prime, the literally built to be a Black Ops Agent Autobot had somehow been the one to step up in calling the shots while 'Optimus' wasn't around.
Orion certainly didn't have anything to say about team assignments, the Archivist immediately going back to work on the Iacon Database trying to decode the rest of it before the Decepticons could. Ratchet had vocally approved, bringing up the likely possibility that Soundwave had been following Orion's progress cybernetically and so possibly knew how to decrypt everything else. Orion had somehow taken that observation as a challenge to his decoding skills and his focus on his task had somehow doubled from its already impressive determination.
Back to the three members of the away team, the Autobots came out of the Ground Bridge Portal with blasters out, Ground Quake and Bulkhead in front with Razor Wind behind them. Seeing no one around them, Bulkhead said "Clear."
As their weapons turned back into hands, Ground Quake noted somewhat unnecessarily "It appears we managed to arrive first."
Looking around at the quarry like area they had arrived in, the construction minded Bulkhead said "The Decepticons may have decided they require mining equipment to find whatever is at these coordinates. It would take a few minutes to get those big drills of theirs ready."
"Then let's not waste our fortuitous head start. Wind Razor, where's our target?" Ground Quake asked.
"This way." Razor Wind said, a scanner with the EXACT coordinates on it in his hand. The flyer quickly jogged over to the edge of a pit and leaped down the 'steps' the rock ledges made, the other two making the ground shake each time they jumped down after him but Razor Wind ignored it, stopping at a point just slightly off center and pointed at the rock beneath him as he said "Coordinates say it should be right here."
"Covered in rock sometime between being sent here and now. Because of course it couldn't be that easy." Bulkhead said with a frustrated sigh before his right hand shifted into mace form and he said "Alright you two, step back."
The pair did so only for the three to look behind Razor Wind as a larger than usual Ground Bridge portal appeared near the wall of the closest step. Two large Decepticon mining drills drove through side by side flanked by a few Decepticon miners carrying 'pill drills'. (Long drill head with an equally long cylindrical casing to hold the motor and power source)
"Or we could just use their drills." Razor Wind said chipperly. Then, before the guards with the miners could form their blasters, the whole contingent of Vehicons fell to the ground from the blast of electricity the Flyer shot at them.
"We can, if you didn't just short circuit the lot of them." Ground Quake said, giving Razor Wind a flat look.
The Flyer chuckled a little sheepishly and said "Whoops, sorry, didn't think about that."
"Clearly." Ground Quake stated before he walked over to where the Vehicon bodies were and picked up a pill drill. A moment of inspection later, and he found the activation switch and the drill thankfully turned on. As it spun Ground Quake nodded to Razor Wind as he said "Consider my censorship withdrawn."
That got another, lighter hearted chuckle from Razor Wind and he and Bulkhead quickly grabbed their own drills to help dig up whatever it was they had come here to find.
Scene Change: Second Coordinates (Same Time As First Team)
Bumblebee and Night Shift came out of their portal by the side of a mountain road with Bumblebee's blasters out and Night Shift with his hard light projector generating a pair of tentacles. Seeing no one at their arrival point, Bumblebee lowered his arms and looked at Night Shift who in turn looked down at his scanner before looking up and pointing at the cave they had appeared in front of.
The pair silently entered the cave and walked in for a few hundred feet only for the faint sound of drilling to reach their audio receptors. Night Shift quickly signed for Bumblebee to wait twenty seconds before moving forward then kept walking, pulling a pair of his throwing knives out then cloaking as he did.
When he reached the area the drilling sound was coming from, it was to the sight of Airachnid overseeing a pair of Vehicon drones using pill drills to dig into the cave wall to free a grey and green container stuck in the wall. The container was halfway free already but Airachnid seemed impatient as she had her arms crossed and fingers of her right hand tapping at her left elbow.
Giving a theatrical sigh, Airachnid said "I do hope that whatever is in that vessel is worth all this hassle. It would be a shame if this turned out to just be some cache of historical documents or some shiny but useless trinket that belongs in a museum."
'Too bad you'll never find out.' Night Shift thought before he threw the knife in his right hand. The knife sank into Airachnid's right eye up to where the blade met the hilt and Airachnid let out a yell of surprised pain, right hand going up to her eye. That distraction cost her as Night Shift darted in, still cloaked, and rammed his left hand knife into her other eye, adding a quick palm thrust to the hilt to ensure that THIS one went all the way to the brain pan.
Airachnid dropped like a sack of bricks. Night Shift ensured she STAYED down by quickly stabbing one of his dueling daggers right into Airachnid's black spark before he whirled to deal with the pair of Vehicon drones. Said drones were staring dumbly at Airachnid's corpse, pill drills held slack in their hands as they tried to figure out what happened.
Then the Vehicon on Night Shift's right dropped from a blaster bolt to the head, the second doing the same as soon as soon as Bumblebee had a clear shot on him as well.
Dropping his cloak, the Black Ops Autobot nodded to Bumblebee and quickly collected his knives, cleaning them of Energon on Airachnid's corpse before sheathing them.
"Arcee's going to be disappointed she wasn't the one to do that. That monster killed her partner right in front of her while both were helpless." Bumblebee stated.
Night Shift let out a small hum at that then shrugged as he said "At least we can bring the body back so she knows for certain she's gone." Bumblebee gave a shrug at that as well then watched as Night Shift formed four tentacles with drill heads at the ends out of hard light and quickly dug the container they had come for the rest of the way out of the wall.
Scene Change: Near Third Coordinates (Same Time)
Like the other two teams, Arcee, Trip Wire, and Storm Rider came out of the ground bridge with their blasters out and powered.
Seeing no one immediately around them, Arcee brought her blasters up and turned them back to hands as she said "Clear."
Pulling her scanner out as the others also put away their weapons, Arcee checked it then looked up at the cliff they had appeared in front of and said "Coordinates are roughly five hundred feet straight ahead.
"It's not buried in the rock surely?" Trip Wire asked with a frown.
"More likely it's somewhere up there." Storm Rider said, pointing up.
Trip Wire groaned and said "Which means we need to climb. Great. Couldn't Ratchet have dropped us off there?"
"He probably did it this way so that way we wouldn't appear right in the middle of a squad of Decepticons if they got here before us." Arcee pointed out.
"Yeah well, even if they aren't there already, they will be by the time we reach the coordinates." Trip Wire said.
"I don't think it'll take us nearly as long to reach the top as you think Trip Wire." Storm Rider said with a smile and when the pair of smaller Autobots looked at her, she transformed into her Beach Hawk vehicle mode and said "Hop on you two!"
"Now you're talking!" Trip Wire said, quickly hopping on to stand on the right wing of the Beach Hawk in a crouch. Arcee quickly hopped on as well, crouching on the left wing and Storm Rider quickly lifted off and ascended up the cliff side.
As they steadily rose up hundreds of feet up through the air, a ringing sound of metal on stone was soon detected and Trip Wire said "Sounds like the Cons weren't as worried about appearing right on top of us as Ratchet had been of us coming out in front of them."
"Sure seems like it." Arcee said with a nod before she lightly tapped Storm Rider's wing and said "Can you speed up Storm Rider?"
"If I go too fast then when I stop you might be thrown upwards you know." The jet said even as her ascent began increasing a bit.
"Think you could launch us onto the cliff on an upwards arc?" Trip Wire asked.
Storm Rider thought over it for ten seconds before she said "Uplink to Satellite Topographic Mapping engaged." A moment later, her wings waggled the smallest bit, so small the pair on them didn't have to adjust their balance at all and she continued "There's enough space on the 'level' of the cliff for me to do so. Brace yourselves."
The next instant, her ascent sped up even more so that way she was going roughly sixty miles per hour straight up. This had the effect of her VTOL system becoming noticeably louder but a bare twenty seconds later she reached five feet below the height the cons were and metaphorically slammed on the brakes, her tail section raising up over her cockpit and flinging the pair of Two Wheelers off of her wings in a tall arc. There were several energon blaster shots that went overhead but they all went wide as the speed of Arcee and Trip Wire's movement through the air was too fast to accurately track so quickly.
As Storm Rider heard the Decepticons try to correct their aim, she surged upwards so that way she came above the lip of the cliff, stopping twenty feet above it. She spent just two seconds identifying where her teammates had landed (right in the middle of a group of six Vehicons about three hundred feet away and absolutely WRECKING them) before she locked onto the much closer groups of Decepticon Drones and before they could realign in her direction began firing both her blasters at the closest Decepticons and two of her missiles at the further groups, using splash damage to disrupt their groupings long enough for her to turn her blasters on them next.
Further back, where the ledge of the cliff rejoined the cliff wall, Knockout and Breakdown were frantically trying to remove what appeared to be a giant hammer embedded in the rock, Breakdown using his own hammer while Knockout was using a pill drill that one of the Vehicons had discarded as they prepared for the Autobots' arrival.
They managed to get the large hammer free and the pair heaved it up with Breakdown holding the hammer head while Knockout was holding the end of the shaft. Knockout called out something, the words unintelligible due to distance and a Ground Bridge appeared a short distance away (Roughly thirty feet or so) The pair started to run for the portal only for Trip Wire to shout out "Oh no you don't!"
The next instant, Breakdown was a double amputee as Trip Wire's electrified wires cut his feet out from under him from sixty feet away. Breakdown let out a shout of surprised pain as he fell forward, jerking Knockout off of his feet as well. As Knockout quickly scrabbled up to his hands and knees, the sound of two motorcycle engines roaring had him looking over his shoulder only to shout in fear at the sight of Arcee and Trip Wire come charging towards him. He quickly began pulling Breakdown away to the Ground Bridge only to get help in his endeavor as Arcee and Trip Wire transformed and hit Breakdown hard enough in the back with flying kicks to send the pair flying into the portal, and not incidentally, away from the giant hammer. An instant after the two Decepticons were through, the portal snapped shut.
"Well, that happened." Storm Rider said as she flew over before transforming.
"So it did, now let's get this thing back to base before Megatron manages to send another group of Cons here." Arcee said and the pair nodded even as she contacted Ratchet. It took all three of the team to drag the hammer into the resulting Ground Bridge but they were soon making their way back to base with their prize.
Scene Change: Nemesis
Starscream's head creaked in Megatron's grasp before it crumpled inwards as the Silver Gladiator snarled in anger. Three groups of Decepticons sent out, and only one had managed to have any kind of report come back, and that was because Knockout and Breakdown had had the dubious fortune of the Autobots deciding to metaphorically toss the pair out a door rather finish the job one of the new Autobots had started by cutting off Breakdown's legs. Even more infuriating, in between doing his best to stabilize his bodyguard/partner Knockout had reported that the object residing at the coordinates his group had been sent to had been a massive hammer that sounded very much like the Forge of Solus Prime! The only consolation Megatron had was that without his memories of being Optimus Prime Orion Pax was extremely unlikely to be able to actually USE said Forge.
Stomping onto the bridge, Megatron threw Starscream's crumpled head into the corner of the bridge as he snarled out "Soundwave, give the task of decrypting the Iacon Database using everything Orion Pax showed you the highest priority. We will NOT fail to acquire the objects listed in it before the Autobots can reclaim them again!"
Soundwave's fingers didn't stop their rapid typing but in the top right corner of the screen of his station a Cybertronian hand appeared and gave a thumbs up.
Megatron gave a sharp nod and then turned around to stomp out of the bridge as he said "Inform me the moment you have the next entry decoded. In the meantime, I find myself in need of stress relief. Thankfully Starscream was kind enough to volunteer his corpse as a target for blaster practice."
As the door to the bridge shut, Daffy Duck appeared on Soundwave's visor, wiping his forehead as he said "Well, better him then me."
One of the Vehicon drones chuckled nervously at that then quickly went back to work when Soundwave and the rest of the Vehicons on the bridge glanced at him.
It would be quite some time before all of the Decepticons stopped walking on egg shells around Megatron…..
END
Author's Notes: I had a bit of trouble coming up with what Decepticon Forces the three teams would come across. I finally decided to keep the large mining team for the first coordinates and the group that went after the second coordinates small like in the show but then tweaked the third coordinates a bit. Also, I cannot BEGIN to state the amount of contempt I have for Airachnid. As far as I'm concerned, anyone who makes entire populations of sentient creatures 'Endangered' for sport deserves to be put down as soon as possible. Though that does leave the question of what to do with that Colony of Insecticons up in the air...
Also, I actually almost forgot to show what had happened to Starscream, only remembering when I had switched to my mom's laptop for proofreading to add the last part…..whoops? At least I DID remember in the end….Though now Megatron's short a First Lieutenant…
Anyways, apologies for the delay for this one. It should have been done about a week ago but Work has been giving me weird schedules where I work at 4 am for a couple of days and come in at 4 pm for two or three days immediately afterwards and it really messes with my sleep schedule as I walk a tight rope balancing getting things done and getting enough sleep to not conk out at work. Still, I've only got another week to deal with this before my schedule SEEMS to go back to early mornings only so here's hoping I can get more done soon.
One final thing, will, two related things. First off, I dismissed the Story Roster Wheel and instead got a cork/white board combination board and put all of my stories on it with each story a number. (Currently up to 45, yeesh I have a lot of writing projects!) I now ask Siri to give me a random number and work on the corresponding story, putting a thumb tack beside it once done. This means that I will get through ALL of my projects before returning to a story so if I've been quiet on this site for a while, it's because I've been working on a story that either will be posted on my Deviant Art or is an incredibly long one shot. My latest one is a My Hero Academia one shot. I've got from that playground scene when Izuku is four to the final exams dealing with the B&I fight against ALL MIGHT. Thankfully, it's mostly dealing with scenes where Izuku's Quirk usage is prevalent but it's still a monster to work on.
Anyways, the true final point is which project I'll be doing next. Let me just wake Siri up...
35, which is...Flames on the Ocean...Well, Potential Stories will be updated soon at least...
Anyways, see you guys once I have the first chapter for that done. It'll be another One Piece Insert (Like I have any other kind of One Piece story right now) but has instead 'me' being inserted an OC, one who's inserted into the Paradise part of the Grand Line so at least there's some Variety coming your way...eh, we're all subject to the whims of the RNG anyways so for now this is Tac signing out!