JMJ

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Protecting the Nest

"Can you get up?" asked Smokescreen doubtfully.

While he spoke he was already helping Knock Out to his feet.

"I'm up, aren't I?" Knock Out tried to tease, but he ended in coughing up paint dust from Soundwave's surgery.

That broke any humor that may have resulted from it, but Smokescreen was not paying attention anyway.

"We gotta get out of here," he said. "It won't take Soundwave long to—"

"Wait," said Knock Out then stopping Smokescreen suddenly. "Where's Flare Up?"

"I'm right here," said Flare Up with a choke in her voice capacitator, and she grabbed Knock Out in a sudden awkward but deep hug on his side while trying not to touch the gaping hole in the chest.

Even still Knock Out winced, but it was not as painful as his body had anticipated. He looked down at Flare Up's tightly closed optics, and he sighed. He smiled. Although she was pretty much fully mature physically, she was certainly still a hatchling inside.

He had never thought about it deeply before, but now he could not help but think lightly, And so that was one of the things wrong with our society, after all, or lost anyway.

He shrugged.

That was neither here nor there at the moment.

He reached out a hand to hug Flare Up gently back.

"I called Smokescreen," said Flare Up, "before…" She lowered her head, "before I thought that you couldn't hold out anymore…"

"I took her through the wall first," said Smokescreen, "while Soundwave was busy with you."

"So who's fighting the beasties?" asked Knock Out almost to his normal tone of voice even if a tad strained.

"Ultra Magnus with Jetfire and Quickshift and the raptor-bots," said Smokescreen quickly as he began helping Knock Out forward; Flare Up helped to move him further. "And the Vehicons—bots… uh, sorta."

"What are we going to do?" Flare Up asked. "I saw him. In the hatchery. He was going to do something to them. He might've—"

Smokescreen paused, made up his mind about something, and then said, "I'll go back out. You stay with Knock Out."

"Believe it or not, Smokescreen…" said Knock Out looking down at the ugly hole in his chest.

He touched the edge of it with delicate care. Even the energon flowage was not bad. A main line had not been struck. It was the medial plates that held most of the damage, the plates that were supposed to be removable.

"…it's not quite as bad as it looks," Knock Out added.

Smokescreen smiled wryly.

"That's not what Ratchet would say," he retorted, "and it's weird enough coming from you. It's a lot more than your paint that's been scratched. He could've scuffed the chamber itself if I saw it right."

Knock Out could not help but smile back, but it was short lived. Suddenly there came the sound of firing from above.

Flare Up gasped.

"Arcee," guessed Smokescreen, and he turned to Flare Up. "Flare Up, take Knock Out."

Flare Up nodded. "I'll take care of him."

"Oh, will you?" said Knock Out.

"Come on, hurry," said Flare Up pulling Knock Out along underneath the floor. There would be a panel that could be used as a door when they went far enough.

"Help Arcee, Smokescreen," begged Flare Up calling over her shoulder. "I wish I could help too!"

"I got the phase shifter!"

"Just don't get cocky," said Knock Out, but Smokescreen was already gone.

#

Finally! Skywarp thought.

Flight-mode at last.

Skywarp did not fear fighting when necessary, but he found little pleasure in duels of endurance to the death, especially against a Wrecker, and especially also since their mission had failed. Already more banged up than Wheeljack, Skywarp felt sore and foul enough as it was.

"Soundwave," said Skywarp into his communicator. "We need the bridge."

No answer.

Wheeljack fired at him.

With a cry, Skywarp just barely missed a direct hit. A wing was singed just enough for a whiff of hot steam, but otherwise he was unhurt.

He continued to fly into the direction of the cave where Shockwave was trying to contend with Bumblebee and Bulkhead. Once he felt he was high and far enough away from Wheeljack, he tried again.

"I repeat, Soundwave! We need a bridge!" Skywarp hissed. "The mission's failed!"

Where was the standard procedure of the war for Cybertron! Still no answer, and worse, no bridge. The worst yet was Shockwave calling him. His tone revealed great lengths and pain to get to a place where he could speak without too much fear of being shot at for a few seconds, and what he said made Skywarp bristle.

"Skywarp, you must try to contact Soundwave. I cannot."

"No kidding," grumbled Skywarp.

Shockwave evidently understood Skywarp's tone.

"We must leave immediately," said Shockwave. "The sound-maker has been destroyed. We—"

Fear tingled inside Skywarp as Shockwave was unable to finish his sentence.

Overwhelmed with the fight? Offline?

He hovered a moment and waited, but his pause was interrupted by the sound of snarls beneath him.

The Predacons.

He did not bother looking back before flying higher still, but as he looked down and saw their flight, they did not seem to see him. From this height Skywarp could easily see the entrance to Predaking's lair.

Shockwave emerged from the cave followed by the firing of Bumblebee and Bulkhead. The Predacons darted faster towards their destination and were already firing towards the trio with blazes blistering with retribution. They still could not quite reach, but they would before long. For them, of course, this whole situation would be likened to a violation against the Primes of old of the gravest degree to have these non-Predacons attack their master when he was down in his very home and sanctuary.

Bumblebee and Bulkhead stopped firing suddenly and looked behind, however instead of ahead at the incensed. Shockwave also stopped.

Not caring the reason for this, Skywarp readied his missiles for the Autobots to give Shockwave a chance to escape being trapped between the two pairs of adversaries, but the sound of rumbling and growling from the cave soon stopped him too.

The Predaking was not as helpless as his servants had feared… Deep and spark-trembling, the boom of the Predaking's roar filled the valley and miles beyond. It shook Skywarp's casing and he winced despite himself.

Evidently having transformed into robot-mode, Predaking's furious voice from inside bellowed, "Do not harm them!"

The Predacons immediately obeyed; though, they growled angrily.

"Hmm?" murmured Skywarp.

"I will destroy the perpetrators myself!" So commanded the Predaking.

His two subjects growled in agreement.

Then the Predaking emerged from the cave.

Shockwave was in the midst of his doorstep. He had no way to fight back, already damaged as he was. Although Bumblebee and Bulkhead were also injured, they were not in the line of vision of the terrible predator having ducked to one side behind the shelter of the rocky opening. Only Shockwave was.

Neither Bumblebee nor Bulkhead could have assisted him if they had wanted to. Skywarp thought of firing as a distraction if nothing else, but if he missed… he did not care to think further.

"I would have preferred more than not," said the Predaking in his theatrical boom, "to allow the one who brought us back out of extinction to live, but his treachery under the insignia of death in the name of Megatron has led him too far even when his lord is destroyed!"

What happened then was too fast for Skywarp to comprehend at first. One second Shockwave stood motionless before the Predaking in robot-mode. Shockwave, knowing full well that to argue would be illogical. He did not fire back, but perhaps he felt his end inevitable surrounded by enemies on all side as he was with no bridge coming from the Black Hole. The next moment the beast's fire and teeth devoured him hardly having been fully transformed. Although, at last, Shockwave fired into that great oral vent, he could not contend with the head and jaws which fought the pain. His weapon, though one of the most powerful Skywarp knew, took too long to load.

Shockwave was no more. The Predaking himself let out a snarl, nearly a scream, of agony as a piece of his hide blew out from the inside, but there was no Shockwave emerging.

Skywarp remained hovering motionless, unable to think. Unable to move.

The Predaking writhed from the pain as Bumblebee and Bulkhead got out of the way. Even Darksteel and Skylynx were apparently disoriented by this storm coming from below rather than the quiet sky above where Skywarp watched. It was as though, he watched through a screen from another part of the universe.

Not even emotion could be felt as he stared. He might have remained there hovering and staring in his jet-mode until the Predaking noticed him and he would have remained in a state of shock right up until the Predaking flew up at him as though tearing through a computer screen in an impossible feat and destroyed him as he had Shockwave, but something sharp stung him from behind.

His right wing sizzled.

With a jagged cry, Skywarp fell downwards. His jet-mode was in full alarm inside the cockpit instantly as he was brought violently to the present and the world of his immediate surroundings. There was no stopping the decent, but as his mind adjusted to full military mode again, he did catch a glimpse of Wheeljack as he sailed on his inevitable plunge.

Only experience saved him enough to level himself enough at just the right moment to transform and tumble into the ground without too much further damage far away from the Predaking's lair. His wing sparking and hissing behind him as he moaned, he had no chance to recover from anything as Wheeljack suddenly stood above him from a ledge a few Cybertronian feet away.

Wheeljack's face was fully shielded— his swords held with precision at Skywarp's head. One was right between the optics. The other aimed for the back of his neck.

With a gasp, Skywarp recoiled like an animal with teeth tightly clenched. He stared stupidly for a second or two, but with as much dignity as he could muster to keep him separate from his fellow model Starscream, he murmured calmly, "I surrender."

"Hmph, good choice," Wheeljack remarked.

Skywarp snorted and helped himself to his feet to be led. He held his head high in defiance otherwise.

#

Arcee tried to make the hatchlings stay, but there were two or three that decided to follow—older ones with weapons developed. They would not stand a chance. She had no opportunity to get angry with them as she was flung suddenly so hard against the wall that it tore through it into the medical center. The young ones began to fire. She could hear them, and she heard one of them cry out from electrocution from Knock Out's stolen electro staff.

"No!" she cracked.

She ripped herself upward through the rubble with all the force she had, but before she was entirely upright, she felt a tug at her waist. She was would have fell again, except that the tentacle dragged her back out and threw her into the floor of the hall again.

She moaned, but fought furiously the blinking of her vision. The hatchlings. Her hatchlings. The one's given to her! She had to save them! Rage had her head upright again despite pain, despite wooziness. Her fears for the others were so far greater.

To her surprise however, it was not Soundwave who had the electro staff. Just as she recognized who did wield it, she was released from the tentacle's hold. She leapt to her feet with agile stealth.

With the use of the phase shifter to avoid the oncoming tentacle and laser fire, Smokescreen swung the electro-staff right for Soundwave. He might have missed his head, but the bonk on the visor was undeniable behind the electric pulse.

Crack, it went. A veritable hole was visible of the right side of Soundwave's narrow chin tightened with anger.

One of the uninjured hatchlings gasped to see such a normal looking chin beneath that visor, and even the injured one had to open his optics in amazement.

Although he spoke not a word, as he shook from the electrocution, Soundwave's rage was more than evident regardless of his naked face, but his pain was also. All attention now was on Smokescreen, and Soundwave forgot all the others. Besides, the other nearly grown hatchlings were surrounding their fallen comrade now and trying to pull him away from the fight.

Arcee scrambled towards them, but had not gone a few steps before there was a deeper crack than that of a visor. Looking up, she saw the dust from the ceiling, and then it broke right in.

Laserbeak fired at her before the break had even been completed.

Soundwave broke the ceiling further, and he leapt from his mostly defensive fight with the phase shifter. Arcee fired at Laserbeak, but Laserbeak quickly withdrew from sight outside.

It was only an escape. Soundwave transformed and bolted skyward.

She fired at him. Smokescreen joined in, but Soundwave remained as slippery as ever and escaped being hit.

She growled, but as soon as Soundwave disappeared, Arcee turned around. She made for the damaged hatchling gasping for cool air from the overloading heat he had never experienced before.

"Scooter!" she gasped, helping him to at least into a seated position. "Are you alright?"

Scooter nodded quickly. "I'm okay, I'm okay…"

Arcee sighed with relief only after she examined him for herself, but she did not ease in any other fashion.

It wasn't supposed to be this way, she thought angrily.

Like Bumblebee, like Smokescreen, they were born into conflict and pain. Would the conflict and pain of her generation go on to hurt every generation after them?

She shook her head. We weren't supposed to raise just another line of soldiers!

#

Outside, Soundwave bolted out of the Hatchery roof like a missile.

Ultra Magnus turned to Jetfire. Most of the beasties were destroyed. The only major one left since Laserbeak disappeared was Ravage. He seemed to be the prize of them all, but Soundwave was another matter altogether.

"Jetfire!" he ordered.

Jetfire did not even turn but gave a quick nod before transforming and bolting after Soundwave.

The Small but powerful lasers of Laserbeak showered after him. Jetfire swerved as best as he could, but his speed was not what it once was. He was not sure he could catch up with Soundwave; though he fired his missiles at him through the rain of Laserbeak's laser fire.

Soundwave swerved around the coming missiles with ease.

Another blast.

It came from Ultra Magnus and knocked Laserbeak enough for Jetfire to blast him down himself.

Inwardly, Jetfire smirked and took on full speed towards his adversary.

Soundwave's annoyance at the loss of his pet, though only a second was enough for Jetfire to try again. At least one could say his aim had lost no precision. As he fired this time, it struck just between the wing and the body of Soundwave's flight-mode.

Down he fell.

Not without firing back, however. His precision was equal even injured. He struck Jetfire squarely enough to make him fall with him.

The howl of Ravage echoed suddenly as he leapt from a rooftop ledge. With snapping teeth and rabid fury, his target was Jetfire's engines.