Wazup y'all!
Welcome back! So Fanfic is having some issues right now, apparently, people are saying it's because it's a new year and stuff. Traffic graphs aren't working for me right now so according to fanfic not a single person has even looked at this story...
Anyway, if there are people here I hope you like what you're reading so far, I hope reviews can come through with all these issues going on.
Now something I forgot to mention last chapter, every chapter will be written in two sections, the first should usually be much shorter than the second. The first section will be a snippet of the future without a definitive perspective, with the second being the past/present with Corruptor's perspective. These two sections will be divided by a "- - -". I figured I might put a new spin on this story :). Tell me what you think!
Enjoy!
"Lord Megatron!" Shockwave intruded.
"Yes?" He turned, awaiting the news he had waited for.
"Corruptor has been spotted. With help."
"A rebellion?"
"Indeed."
"Very well. Inform Soundwave and bring us to him."
…
Corruptor was spotted at an outpost, attempting to broadcast a message to the Autobots. To warn them of something.
Megatron, Shockwave, and Soundwave led a small party to confront them.
They all transformed back into bipedal form at the outpost.
"Corruptor!" The Decepticon leader called out, "Care to show yourself?!"
Corruptor then stepped forward.
"I am right here, Megatron!" He replied.
"Would you care to explain to me why one of my most trusted commanders is attempting a rebellion?!"
"I don't need to explain anything to you that you don't already know. You are a deceitful liar trying to overthrow everything for your own gain. I always knew that. The Autobots need to know what's coming."
"You will pay for your treachery, Autobot." Megatron sneered.
"I am no Autobot. The Autobots took my brother."
"Then who do you fight for?!"
"I fight for myself. I fight against those who took from me."
"And what did I take from you?"
"Nothing, you just really piss me off."
Then Corruptor fired a blast of his rifle at one of the scouts. The life from within the bot slowly dimmed and it crumpled to the ground.
"Ha! You missed!" Megatron laughed.
"Did I?"
Then a purple glow slowly illuminated from within the corpse until it began to gurgle.
The Terracon then shrieked at what was once its fellow Decepticons. It killed three other scouts until it lunged at Megatron. Megatron then deployed his sword and held it straight in front of him so that the Terracon was sliced in half as soon as it made contact.
Megatron could've taken out the beast this entire time, he just wanted a show first.
He then turned to Corruptor and smirked.
"My turn."
Then he fired a blast from his fusion cannon at Corruptor's shoulder.
Corruptor doubled over from the force of the shot and groaned in pain.
"Take him to the interrogation room," Megatron muttered as he walked off.
— — —
Today was flight training. Jetfire was overseeing all the groups of Seekers train on this massive flight course. There were loops and tight curves, even obstacles that appeared out of nowhere. Best part was there's turrets that occasionally shot at you throughout the run. It was a thin strip of two metal walls about the width of four Seekers with jagged rocks at the bottom with the hidden turrets everywhere.
We watched as another group ran the course. Jetfire was yelling at them the whole time. One of the four crashed into an obstacle that appeared out of the wall and exploded. Another was shot in the wing and barrel rolled to his death.
"This doesn't seem very efficient. At this rate, we will have killed more Seekers than the Autobots." I muttered.
"Thank Lord Megatron for that," Sunstorm replied.
I learned all of my teammates' names after we left the recreation room. The yellow Seeker was Sunstorm, the green one was Acid storm, the red one was Redwing, and the others were Bitstream, Hotlink, Slipstream, and Nacelle.
"That's a little distasteful don't you think?" Slipstream asked.
"I guess, but I'm not wrong." He replied.
"So who are we betting is gonna bite the dust this time?" Hotlink mused.
"Well by some miracle none of us did last time," Bitstream replied.
"Then let's stay optimistic shall we?" I replied.
"Red team!" Jetfire called out.
"That's us." Acid storm said as he walked ahead, "nobody screw up."
"No promises," Redwing replied as we all lined up.
We all positioned ourselves on eight rectangles lined up for us to launch as Jetfire stepped forward.
"Today you will be flying a top-of-the-line flight course. This course will help train your reflexes and quick problem-solving skills along with your communication. You are expected to complete this course and move on to the next stage of training. If you do not bank hard enough on these turns, you will be dead. If you are unable to evade the obstacles that appear, you will be dead. And most importantly, if you are unable to avoid the weapon fire from below, you will be dead."
As he was talking, his eye contact was fixating on every one of us individually. He continued talking until he reached me.
"And always remem- Who the hell are you?"
I sighed and stood tall. "Corruptor, sir."
"Explain to me how someone of your… mass is about to complete a course designed for evasive Seekers?"
"Trust me, sir, I can be evasive," I replied.
"What is your alternate mode?"
"And F-15 fighter and an A-class marauder tank."
"And? Are you a triple changer?"
"Of sorts," I replied.
"Those two modes don't normally pair up..."
There was a short moment of silence before he continued, "Well son, the only advice I can give you right now, is don't die."
"Thank you sir that is very helpful."
He huffed in some sort of chuckle and walked away.
I then got back into position with the rest of my group.
"Hold onto your tailpipe, this is gonna be a bumpy ride!" Hotlink exclaimed behind me.
The platform below us then fired an antigravity wave to send us upward, as we were mid-air we all transformed and sped into the course. My tank slammed back into the ground after the platform deactivated and sped behind us in pursuit, ramping off of and crashing through large rocks. We flew in almost perfect sync, turning at the exact same time and weaving into each other if we ever had to bank out of the way of an obstacle.
I let my guard down for half a second just as a smaller wall appeared from the right side at almost two meters ahead of me.
"Woah!" I exclaimed in surprise as I just managed to roll over the obstacle.
"Easy rookie," Redwing mused, "This ain't no cruise flight."
The others chuckled at his remark.
At one point, Sunstorm wasn't fast enough to avoid a bullet from one of the turrets and was shot in the wing.
"AHHH! MAYDAY MAYDAY!" He screamed into the com.
"SUNSTORM!" Acid storm exclaimed.
Sunstorm dropped instantly, and instinctively I followed. I matched his spin and flew under his belly and pulled up once we were aligned right before we hit the ground.
We both crashed beside a large rock hidden from the turrets. Sunstorm was much less damaged than he would've been if I hadn't done anything.
The others just finished the course when we stopped tumbling. My tank part then sped over and I transformed back into my bipedal form.
"You ok Sunstorm?" I asked, tilting up his other wing checking for any damage on his underside.
"Ugh… yeah… I think so." He groaned through the com.
"Why'd you… Why did you… save me?"
Before I could answer I heard Jetfire yelling from afar.
"Is he dead?" He called out.
"Negative," I called back.
Jetfire approached Sunstorm still in his alternate mode.
"Can you transform?"
He shifted painfully a few times but eventually transformed, what was left of his left wing completely fell off.
"Are you damaged?" Jetfire asked me.
"Barely, just a few scratches from the impact."
"Good, then this won't hurt as much." Then he punched me in the face.
"What were you thinking? Abandoning your squad?"
"I was saving my man!" I yelled back.
"If your man is rolling he is gone! It's almost impossible to save a Seeker from a fatal shot like that. Be happy your not dead along with him."
"But neither of us died!"
"If you were in the field and this happened what would you do? You could've crashed right into the enemy, and if not, you would be stuck with an injured Seeker without the ability to fly away. You would be killing yourself. It would've been better to let him die."
"Do I not get credit for doing the right thing? He would be dead if it weren't for me!" I shot back.
"Sometimes people don't care if you do the right thing. You need to follow orders. That's what people care about."
I growled at that last part.
"Oh, and one more thing, you didn't tell me that you turned into both your alt modes at the same time! How the hell do you expect to survive when you need to land and run on foot?"
"My tank form is fast enough to keep up. It can take out targets I can't see in plane form." I refuted.
"You know what, I don't have time for this. Since Sunstorm is injured and you didn't complete your training, now you have to do the course all over again, on your own."
He ordered me to follow him, and I did.
He led me to a new course, not the same one I just did.
"This isn't the same flight course I was supposed to do," I said.
"No, it isn't. This is a new course we just had installed for elite Seekers." He replied gesturing to a group of three in the distance, one of them I recognized. Starscream.
"In this course, you will not only be expected to execute tight turns and evade obstacles and fire from below, but you will also have to fire for yourself. There are targets placed everywhere on the course, if you do not hit them, a missile will be launched and you will be dead. Do I make myself clear?"
"Yes… sir." I muttered.
Starscream and his two companions then approached.
"What's this? Jetfire making you run the big boy course, huh?" Starscream mocked.
"I bet he won't even clear the first turn." The black one chuckled.
"How do you know he'll even be able to start?" The other blue one said before unnecessary frantic laughter.
"Skywarp, Thundercracker, all of you shut up!" Jetfire exclaimed.
They backed up, Thundercracker still giggling.
"Have fun, rookie." Starscream sneered.
I ignored him and positioned myself on one of the middle sections of the platform.
I was sprung into the air and blasted through the course. I immediately had to do a sharp right 180 into a two-wall strip of nothing but machine guns and retracting walls.
I managed to aileron roll to evade the weapon fire and had to bank a few times to avoid the walls. It was a little sloppy but I managed to emerge unscathed.
I then saw my first target on the left turn.
I deployed one of my rifles and fired, landing the target perfectly.
There was another strip that forced me to do the aileron roll again, but much higher this time in an inverted loop. I misjudged the angle and just scratched the tip of my wing on the right wall. I think I could hear the group of 'elite' Seekers laughing at me from afar. I've had enough of this.
The next stage was a strip of three 180 turns with targets everywhere. I deployed my machine guns for this part.
The first turn had targets all along the inside corner you have to shoot at sideways while turning. My machine guns did not have much rotating ability so I had to improvise. There was a trick my brother taught me when we would race each other, if wanted to maintain high speed around a sharp turn we would do what we called the "air drift". You'd speed up, and just before you hit the turn you would bank left or right as hard as you could and full throttle into a drift.
I sped up to my turn and saw the edge of one of the targets in my peripheral. I banked left and went full throttle, spraying gunfire onto all the targets once I was halfway through the turn, facing them head-on. Not one bullet missed, perfect. The second turn was the same. Once I made the final turn, however, I missed the final target.
I heard a boom behind me and saw a decently sized missile speeding toward me propelled by a thin column of fire. I pulled up and did a loop to try and evade it, but it was still gaining on me. I tried deploying flares but it didn't damage it. I had to bank left and right outside of the course to dodge it, but it held strong and was getting closer by the second. Then I had an idea. I flew directly upward and once they were following vertically, I killed my thrusters and doubled over, dropping past the missile that just barely missed me in pursuit. I then engaged my thrusters again and flew right toward the ground, gaining speed extremely fast. I pulled up at the last second, but the missile was still on my tail. My tank sped quickly from behind me. I banked left and sped toward it, with the missile following. Once close enough to my tank, both of my forms began to transform and connect into my bipedal form. While mid-air just above the ground, I caught the missile just as it was passing me. I tumbled but managed to stop with my knee to the ground, holding my grip with the missile resisting me with its thruster. I thrusted my servo into the back of it and ripped out its thruster.
I noticed shocked expressions on the bystanders watching, the elite Seekers included. I walked up to Starscream and his two companions and tossed him the decommissioned missile.
"You're right, that was fun," I smirked.
"Wha- how- That's cheating!" Thundercracker complained. "You're not supposed to-"
"Catch the missile? You're right nobody's ever really done that before." I refuted.
I then walked up to Starscream and hunched over so we were at eye level.
"How's that for a rookie?"
I think I heard him growl at that.
Jetfire walked up to me without any expression and without a word. He put one servo on my shoulder and said, "Never in all my cycles have I ever seen anything like that. Those missiles are designed to never be outmaneuvered or destroyed… or decommissioned."
"Does this now show you what I'm capable of?" I asked.
"We'll talk after you've finished your training, cadet," Jetfire replied before he turned and walked back to the first course to oversee the next group.
As I walked back to my squad's room, I noticed my squad just beside the hangar door to the recreation center to intercept me.
"Corruptor!" Nacelle shouted once he noticed me.
I looked up and saw them running toward me.
"That was crazy man, saving Sunstorm?" He exclaimed.
"And dominating the elite course? Like, who are you?" Bitstream continued.
The others praised me as well before I interrupted, "Is Sunstorm ok?"
"Yeah he's fine, they're looking him over in medbay," Redwing replied.
"Good," I replied and began to head into the recreational center.
Once we all flooded the room, there were questions after questions.
"How did you learn to fly like that?" and "How is a walk-on this good on the first day of training?" Stuff like that.
Then Hotlink asked, "How'd you learn to shoot?"
"He makes guns idiot, how do you think?" Nacelle sneered.
"Most of what I learned, I learned from my brother. We taught ourselves how to fly and how to shoot. He was a member of the Decepticon military before me." I replied.
"Who was your brother?" Redwing asked.
I sighed before replying, "Persecutor."
"Oh, wasn't that one of the commanders that was killed like a vorn ago?"
"That wasn't that long ago, Bitstream." Slipstream replied.
"Nonetheless, you're right," I replied somberly.
"Oh, well… sorry for your loss." He replied awkwardly.
To break the awkward silence, Acid Storm invited the others to the holo table.
My fellow squad members all huddle around the holo table, occasionally cheering in unison. A very familiar kind of cheer.
I stood from the bench I was brandishing my rifle at and saw that they were watching a Cube game on the holo table. I didn't bother trying to ignite a conversation about it, I don't want to be reminded any further of anything related to my brother.
Besides, I can't be only focused on how others view me. I need to focus on why I am here in the first place.
To take blood for the blood I lost.
If you have any questions at all, feel free to ask via review, I'll answer them in the following chapter.