Chapter 11- Relic race
POV: Rainjet
" " Normal talking
": :" Bumblebee talking
"Hi" over the comm talking
(Note: this chapter takes place during season 2 ep 11 "Triage" Of TFP)
To recap although I'm sure Twinwave did it for all of you in the last chapter, we and the Autobots are currently in a race to find and bring back to base all four of the previously decoded coordinates the ship did for us during the er small experiment we did with dark energon. Were currently Knockout and an insecticon are on the hunt on a human city for the first set, Dreadwing is looking for the second, a team of insecticons for the third and Soundwave and I for the fourth. Even if I would rather be in the ship decoding the data base it was nice to stretch my wings.
Right now he and I were flying above the cloud peacefully, all the while tracking and or soon to be engaging an Autobot ship that I recalled we'd "borrowed" from one Wheeljack about a year or so ago. "So we plan on doing anything about them or…?" I asked my partner, he did say anything back to me, mostly because he couldn't, but instead he flew forward and starting firing on the ship.
"That works too, I guess." I muttered and flew ahead to catch up with him, I started firing too. Although Air combat was much more difficult than on the ground, you had to worry about the drag, angles, your opponent flying higher than you, not shooting straight. Well I guess they all kind of apply to ground combat but they seemed to come into play more while we were flying.
The ship, once it realized it was being fired on, ascended higher than us. Straight upward in fact, unlike the humans fighter jets and such, our ships and alts wouldn't scrap out on us when we applied too much g-force on the engine and the pilots wouldn't be affected by it either. So, it accened and looped back behind us, a common tactic, before it opened fire on us with its dual blasters on either side of the cockpit.
Pretty useless if you were trying to hit something that could out maneuver you, "I always did hate these models, Twin adored the fact that she could finally have blasters of her own to control but I always found them to be useless in combat. This is a fairly good example." I thought as Soundwave and I moved out of the way of the blasts. I mean the guns were on either side of the ship and shot in a straight line, the easiest thing to avoid, ever.
He, being Wheeljack presumably, couldn't aim at the two of us when he was firing so I looped behind them and started firing while Soundwave distracted. It was a good idea in hindsight but when I looped above it and then fell into place behind the ship, it was much harder to hit anything because Soundwave was juking and dodging the blaster fire in front.
We went high, low, in and out of cloud cover, all the while Sounwave zig zagged ahead and I tried to hit the broad side of a scrap yard behind them, it clearly wasn't working. I did hit the occasional shot on the back of the ship but nothing important like the engine or back thrusters, so it seemed all for not.
My partner seemed to think so too because he eventually got tired of me missing and almost hitting him, so he dispatched Laserbeak. I watched her hit the wind below Soundwave and come flying backwards underneath the ship and next to me, before she open fired and I fell out of the drag of what I believe Wheeljack called the "Jackhammer" aka his ship and rejoined next to Soundwave while Laserbeak took care of them.
"Good distraction." I said to him as we disappeared into the cloud cover while the Autobot or Autobots took the bait, by the time he or they took Laserbeak out or she did the same to them we'd already be at the coordinates or gone with the relic. So for now it was nothing but open skies again and the occasional cliff as we got closer to the coordinates.
Eventually my partner and I dipped down out of the clouds and came swooping down across a mountain range, it was beautiful here but that's not what we were there for. We flew over the mountains and landed on a cliff side opposite to them, I gracefully untransformed and Soundwave just kinda jumped out of his arial mode.
When we landed he took a pause to use his visor to scan for the exact location of the coordinates before we went and dug up the relic. His vior beeped after a moment or two and he displayed the target location on his visor, or a few feet ahead of us. "Alright." I said before following behind him to the relics location. Again, a short walk so it took a few steps to the cliff below and in front of us before we were actually at the right location.
Soundwave dispatched two of his tentacles for drilling in front of him and a foot or so ahead of the first one, the coordinates had given us about a square meter of working room to find the thing so it might take us a while. "We're going to have to go back for Laserbeak if she doesn't find us first. Though I feel like the shit her down or something." I said to him as he drilled, Soundwave shrugged.
Laserbeak had enough programming to come back to him after she'd completed her mission or he recalled her but if she was damaged she might be harder to find, if her location beacon was damaged that was.
I noticed Soundwave had kind of paused the drilling for our one way conversation, so when he resumed it was much louder than before. The things kicked up dust from the rocky hole they were drilling into and taking extra effort to push through the thick rock, because unlike the mountain range we'd flown over to get there.
It was a barren wasteland so to speak, more of a dessert than the other green range had been. Suddenly Sounders (yes I know he hates being called that) visor displayed the locator beacon of the relic's location, the drilling paused as he grabbed onto it and then his tentacles moved outwards as they retracted to deliver the device to us.
I was assuming he'd broken the case and everything while he was at it so I was expecting the device and not the container. As he brought it up, bits of rock and dust flew everywhere to compensate for it bursting out of the ground suddenly, he retracted the tentacles enough so we could see the device before he raised it in the air and tuned it on. An awful noise, high pitched and shrill came echoing out of it. I winced and covered both my audioreceptors before he bothered to turn it off, "I hate sonic warfare devices." I muttered as my receptors rang from the noise.
Soundwave shot me a "really?" looked and I rolled my optics, "Your autoreceptors are more accustomed and high tech than mine 'cause of that fancy visor, it doesn't hurt as bad for you like it does for me." he just shrugged in response. I knew he wouldn't understand which is why I never saw a point in bringing up these kinds of conversations nowadays, maybe he would've before that thing was put in but now he was much different less sweet and more ruthless, I blame Twin for that.
The cliff above us had engine noises echoing off the sides of it, "Great, he's here." I said transforming my blasters as Wheeljack's vehicle mode untransformed, produced his swords and landed right on top of Soundwave and I. We jumped backwards to avoid his attack and my partner kept a good grip on the relic we'd uncovered.
"You dropped something." Wheeljack said to the two of us, Soundwave immediately glanced at his tentacle that was supposed to have the relic in it but found it to be empty. I moved my helm lower, as in below the cliff ridge where we now stood lower. To find that it had in fact landed at the bottom of it, which was less good news for us because now we had to keep this pesky Autobot away from it.
Wheeljack lowed his swords in a fighting stance and my partner produced his blade as I did mine, "This should be fun." Wheeljack said. "Yes it should be." I replied before he came charging at us full speed. He went after both of us at once, big mistake, it meant his attention was divided. He smashed and cut, making good attempts at hitting us but none that I hadn't already seen from Twin and trained for. It ment easy dodges and the occasional hit for us as we danced around on the platform avoiding his attacks and landing some of our own.
At one point Wheeljack spun around and landed the tip of his blade on Soudwave's visor before I scratched the paint on his chassis. If that had been Knockout there would be cruising and a lot of ranting happening right now. But instead he just advanced on the two of us,swinging both swords a little blindly as we moved back and forth avoiding them.
Soundwave used his tentacles and arms to block the hits while I used my blade and the dodging skill Twin had gifted me instead. Wheeljack got close enough to the two of us that he tried to stab Soundwave which backfired because my partner got hold of the Autobots sword and pulled it from his servo and then sent him flying to the ledge of the rocky platform, we watched him teater a little bit before regaining his balance.
Soundwave held up the sword he'd borrowed for the bot and when Wheeljack charged at ys he sent it flying for the Autobot to block with the other one, leaving him open for attack. One tentacle snaked through the gap in Wheeljack's stance as he charged and grabbed him by the helmet and threw him to the ground beside us and then again to the ledge. Soundwave approached and I followed closely behind for backup, my partner dispatched another tentacle and turned it's drill on, pinning him down with one and trying to drill into his helm with the other.
Wheeljack grabbed the drilling tentacle and slammed it into the one pinning him down so Soundwav released him and WHeeljack used his helmet to slam right into Soundwave's visor and crack it's glass. "Here I go again, shattering expectations." he said, I smirked and slashed his chassis while he was distracted.
Knocking him out of balance enough to toss him over the edge we were ever so close to now, before I jumped down after him and I assumed Soudwave followed. On the way down Wheeljck managed to get his bearings and landed on his pedes with Soundwave behind him, Wheeljack sweaped his legs and my partner landed with a thud and a blaster pointed at his visor. "Any last words? Right I forgot, the silent type." he said charging up his blaster, "I've got one actually." I said holding up the relic we'd uncovered and set it off.
The same shrill sound echoed through the air and made Wheeljack scream and squirm, as much as standing behind it was painting my audio receptors I couldn't imagine what he was going through. But I still didn't turn it off until he was on the ground and not moved, then I helped Soundwave up and gave the relic to him. He attacked it to his wing, "So what are we going to do with him?" I asked my partner.
Soundwave charged his blaster. I forgot he had and pointed it right at Wheeljack for a little payback, I guess. We stood silent for a second as the weapon charged fully or before Laserbeaks statistics and vitals finally popped up on the cracked visor. Immediately Soundwave turned and transformed and headed to where Laserbeak's coordinates were, I followed quickly behind him just leaving the Autobot for the scrap yard.
We jeted to the coordinates and came down in a fast descent to where she was supposed to be, during our fight and the ride over everything had gotten dark. The earth's sun had set and now it was a little harder to see but I could still make out somethings about the clearing where we'd landed. "The Autobot ship from earlier." I nodded towards the wrecked thing, Soundwave walked over it expecting to find Laserbeak crushed underneath it.
I had to admit, whatever she'd done had caused a very devastating crash for the thing. He reached out to touch it before we both heard movement and I immediately transformed my blasters and pointed it right at whatever it was, except Soundwave rushed in my way and picked up Laserbeak who'd been causing the noise.
He reattached her onto his chassis like a vest and headed back towards me to leave before spinning around again, "Clearly he hears better than I do." I muttered as two tentacles slithered towards a very large rock ahead of it, on beside the other over to grab a missing piece of Laserbeak that was quickly brought back to Soundwave and placed into his subspace. Then transformed and headed back for the ship.
I stayed behind a second to do one last sweep of the arena in case any other Autobot travelling with Wheeljack was still here, but when nothing moved and no one showed their faceplates I transformed and followed the smoke trails of Soundwave into the night sky. I wondered how the others had failed in retrieving the relics, had Dreadwing gotten what he was going for and how scratched was Knockouts paint job because I had a feeling it wasn't going to be just one small scratch this time.
The ship, thankfully, was close enough to where Soundwave and I had been dispatched that it took me no more than five minutes to get back to the flying fortress. I landed gracefully in the hangar to find Soundwave untransformed and waiting for me instead of bringing the relic straight to Megatron.
When he heard me transform he shot me a look as if to say "took you long enough.", in response I rolled my optics "Yeah yeah, I did another sweep, let's just get this thing to Megatron." and with that I left the hanger with him following behind. We entered the bridge to see a swarm of Cons already back from their mission, eradicons, insecticons and Dreadwing, all standing behind Megatron and all turned when they heard us enter.
"We come bearing gifts." I said moving out of the way for Soundwave to give the relic to him, he reached onto his forearm and plucked the device off and handed it to an outstretched servo from Megatron at the computer.
"The resonance (pronounced rez-o-nance) blaster, crafted by Decepticon scientists formaximun sonic devastation. Soundwave, Rainjet, you two have performed admirably. Unlike Dreadwing here who somehow managed to lose the apex armor to Starscream. However two more decrypted coordinates remain in play and I have every confidence that Knockout will bring us back one of them." Megatron said before moving his helm to look at us.
"Thank you, Megatron. The device performed well in combat against one of the Autobots and proved very destructive to the autoreceptors." I replied for the two of us, mostly because Soundwave doesn't, uh, really talk. Speaking of Knockout and relics, the mech came walking just as I finished speaking. When I turned to look at him I had to hold back my laughter, his paint job, once glimmering and polished, was now duled with the white from hundreds of millions of scratches from whatever the Autobots had done to him.
"CAN YOU BELIEVE WHAT THE AUTOBOTS DID TO ME!?" he yelled all so drastically, I let out a snicker and his helm shot in my direction and gave me a death glare which was interrupted by Megatron who'd walked over to him and was almost faceplates to faceplates with him yelling. "DID YOU OR DID YOU NOT RETRIEVE THE RELIC?!" Megatorn yelled at him, "No, master. He managed to squeak out of his intake before the pits layed down on him.
"Then I suggest you convince me of your continued usefulness by examining Laserbeak, Doctor." Megatorn said in a calmer tone, Knockout gulped "Right this way." and then he turned for the door with me, Megatron and Soundwave following behind him. We headed down the halls to his lab, and once we were there Soundwave stood himself up on the examination table and Knockout brought out his scanner to scan Laserbeak.
"What is it?" Megatron asked when Knockout brought the handheld scanner closer to his optics to read the reading, "An obstruction of some sorts." he said, stepping down off the steps on the side of the examination table. "Soundwave, maybe open up Laserbeak to see if it's in there." I suggested to him as he got off the table.
Without missing a beat or as soon as his pedes hit the floor Soundwvae opened the small subspace on the back of Laserbeak, almost instantly the glow of a grenade core shone it's glow onto everyone.
"GRENADE!" Knockout scrambled and then ran for cover, he got a few meters from SOundwave and the rest of us before he flung himself onto the floor and covered his autoreceptors in anticipation of the explosion. I just calmly walked over to the core and plucked it out before passing it off to Megatron for him to examine, "Ahhh, that is clever. Knockout, prepare to properly dispose of the obstruction." Megatron said.
The three of us slowly watched him get up and creep over to Megaton, who promptly handed him to core and opened the door for him. Knockout went running out and down the hallway to get to the hanger to drop it off the back of the ship before it blew, I could hear him screaming as he did so. But back in the lab Soundwave closed Laserbeak's subspace and the calm air resumed.
"Soundwave, Rainjet, if we are to maintain any advantage over the Autobots-" Megatron was cut off by a sudden explosion in the distance, I assumed Knockout hadn't made it to the hangar in time. "Decoding the remainder of the Iacon database must remain your top priority." Megatron continued after the explosion had stopped, mostly as if nothing happened. My partner and I both nodded and headed for our stations quietly, abd without objection.
I had basically been told I wasn't leaving the ship until this was finished and for some reason my usual hunger for adventuring didn't kick in, for once I was kind of happy to go back to my station and do some peaceful decoding. The hallways as I walked back to the computer room were emptier than usual, I guess more bots were helping recover the relic than I had previously thought.
Once I was back in the computer room with Soundwave close behind him plugged into his station and stood myself at mine before I went back to mindless deciphering at my computer.
And unnoticed to both of us Knockout returned slightly charred with Megatron to watch us work, and little to the knowledge of all of us Knockout had started hating my partner and I a little more for our successful recovery of the relic. But that's just how being a Con goes, everyone likes you until you surpass them in praise.
I hope you enjoyed this chapter, feel free to leave some feedback for me so I can make it a better reading experience for you guys!
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