Chapter One
Eletron's Log
Supplemental
The herd is still cautious of me, more so when I'm in my regular form. But little by little, they're warming up to me. Their leader is female, a matriarch of sorts. It seems that she'll have the ultimate say if I join the herd or not. I can only hope that I'll eventually be allowed to join. If not, it's going to be a long lonely road I travel.
There's still no indication that any other Cybertronian, whether Maximal, Predicon or somebot otherwise affiliated is on this planet, much-less which planet this one actually is.
"Hmm?" a lone Predicon looked down at one of his many drones as it approached him. Picking the drone up and placing it on a cleared panel of his cave-turned-laboratory, the Predicon eagerly awaited to see what the drone had to report. Within a nano-klik, the drone plugged into the nearest port and brought up images for its creator to view. "Oh, ho... another Maximal stasis pod had landed and no one's picked up on it, hmm? This shall be a very interesting venture indeed!"
Chortling to himself, Tarantulas transformed into his beast mode and sped off to the latest landing site of a stasis pod.
'Programming block deleted,' an internal voice resonated within Eletron's core processor, moments before she raised her trunk and released a trumpeting elephantine call.
"Ah, that's better." Eletron sighed. Having felt like she was stuck staying in beast mode more often than not due to the staggering amount of energon this planet had, the Maximal decided that it was necessary to get rid of the programming block that inhibited the very urges that her beast mode would be inherent to as a member of the pachyderm species. Rather than risk going crazy when robot programming and elephant nature collided & clashed for dominance, Eletron was all in favor of both sides working together.
Sighing again, she blinked her beast mode eyes open and looked at the herd before her. Removing the block had actually taken place half a deca-cycle ago. With little else that she could do - forcing herself into the elephant herd wasn't her way of getting along with the local populace - Eletron randomly replayed a memory or two. There was only so much that she could do to the stasis pod with the limited tools she had available. What she could do, was already done. What couldn't be put to use, wound up being hidden under a pile of boulders for the time being.
Lost in her thoughts, the Maximal didn't hear the incoming sound of wheels tearing up the dirt and gravel until the shiny metallic arachnid screeched his wheels to a halt and transformed into robot mode. Taken aback, Eletron blinked a few times and focused on the present situation before her. She wasn't sure what kind of customization this... Cybertronian... had, having never known a bot, no matter the faction, to have it, much less knowledge about the change that some had to transmetal forms. She wasn't even sure which faction this newcomer was, but in the next few moments, she heard him mutter about finding the stasis pod and getting off this forsaken planet. The following cackle made her shudder internally. His vibes gave her the impression that he had to be a Predicon.
Before she knew it, a male youth from the elephant herd became a bit too curious for his own good and took it upon himself to investigate the newcomer.
"Slag it all! He's going to get himself hurt, if not killed." Eletron muttered to herself.
Silently heading in the direction of the scene before her, she heard an almost indistinguishable rumbling noise from the rest of the herd. It was as if they were trying to warn the wayward youth to get away from the foreign anomaly that was the searching Predicon, while at the same time she picked up on a plea for her to help get the youth back to the herd.
"Consider it done," she said more to herself as she continued forward.
"Well, well," the Predicon chortled as he turned to face the elephant that hadn't even had his tusks beginning to grow as of yet. "Welcome to my lair said the spider to the oh-so-succulent pachyderm."
Stepping away from the buried stasis pod, the Predicon virtually salivated as he headed for the young elephant.
"Yes, it is better to work on a non-empty stomach," the Predicon continued.
"Eletron, maximize." the pachyderm Maximal uttered quietly, activating the transformation into robot mode. Within yards of the Predicon, Eletron reached behind herself for her ivory tusk-like pair of blades. "Hey, Spider-bot! Leave him be."
"What?" Startled, the Predicon's optics widened as he partially turned around to face the new Maximal.
"Are your audio receptors malfunctioning? I said leave him be!"
"Perhaps I shall..." came his response. "For the right price."
"What would I have that you'd want?" Eletron was confused for all of a few a few nano-kliks, then the realization hit her with the force of a meteor crash landing into a planet. "Oh, for booting up cold! My stasis pod is non-negotiable."
The young elephant chose that moment to try and get closer to the two robot-mode transformers and gave a low trumpeting sound.
"Young one, get back!" Eletron urged the pachyderm youth. The warning stopped the elephant in his tracks at the very least.
Within the time it took her to speak with a brief glance at the young elephant, Tarantulas whipped out his own weapon, point it at the elephant and began to chortle once more.
"So, you have a soft spot for the local populous, hmm? Let's see what happens when they get a dose of cyber venom." Tarantulas pulled the trigger on his weapon sending a glowing projectile towards the way-ward elephant.
"No!" Eletron dove into the line of fire with her swords crossed in front of her to deflect the projectile.
As it hit her swords, a portion of the projectile slid past them and slammed into her upper right arm. With a pained yelp, she struggled to right herself before standing up again. If her hands weren't already full, Eletron would have rubbed her now aching arm. Instead, she released a compressed air blast from her mini-trunk cannon, knocking the Predicon over and leaving a sizable dent in his chest plating.
"Let's start over, shall we," Eletron suggested as he got back up. "The name's Eletron. Who are you and what are you doing here?"
As if I didn't already know.
"I am Tarantulas." the Predicon replied, mentally debating on how much to reveal. "The stasis pod that you emerged from would be the perfect means for my escaping this Pit forsaken planet."
"There's something you're not telling me. I can smell it like an over-ripe dung heap."
"How perceptive." Tarantulas chuckled deviously. "But my information doesn't come cheap."
"I'm not usually prone to repeat myself but my stasis pod as a whole is non-negotiable and would be worth more than all the information your datatrax contain. I might consider a few parts if it isn't used against me - including this herd of elephants - nor anywhere in my vicinity."
Too easy, Tarantulas mentally grinned. "Is that all?"
"Tell me what you plan to do once you set up what I'm willing to part with."
"Depending on what I've got to work with, I could upgrade my laboratory, spy on Predicon and Maximal alike - sans you of course!"
The last part of his sentence came out rather rushed as before he knew it, Eletron had one of her swords dangerously close to his neck, while the other one scratched a jagged line below the freshly created dent in his chest plating.
"You better be keeping your word on that, especially that last part." Eletron eased away from Tarantulas, and warily walked over to where she buried her stasis pod.
"I may have lied to plenty of 'bots before, created cyber venom which wreaked havoc to foe and supposed 'friend' alike and caused undue mayhem to many, but this is something to not to fool around with. Would the knowledge of knowing that this Pit-forsaken planet is ancient Earth work?"
Eletron made short work with removing a few of the more non-vital parts from the pod before covering up the pod once more. With the parts in one hand and a sizable rock in the other, Eletron walked back to the Predicon.
"That better be the truth, Spider-bot." Eletron held up the rock-wielding hand and clutched it to the point that it started to have several stress-induced cracks all around the surface area before she dropped the item, hearing it break apart into many pieces as it made an impact onto the ground.
The Predicon gulped quietly and nodded his head. "If anything happens, I better have a hiding spot in the darkest part of the Pit."
Eletron glared at the Predicon with anger and concern before handing over the parts she had extracted from the pod.
"You're a psychopath."
"I prefer creative." Tarantulas snickered as he reverted to his transmetal arachnid form.
Before he could speed off, Eletron placed a heavy foot onto his torso.
"If I find that other Predicons are going to pay a visit..." Eletron placed her double blades within millimeters of his optics. "...even if you didn't tell anyone, I'm going to play 'I'll Slag Him, I'll Slag Him Not', starting with your multiple arachnid appendages. Is that clear?"
Tarantulas once again attempted to not audibly gulp.
"Clear as a crystal energon blade."
"It had better be." Eletron uttered with a scowl before removing her foot. "Now, get out of here before I forget to let you go in one piece."
As the Predicon sped away as fast as his wheels would let him, Eletron placed her blades back in sub-space and reverted to beast mode. Turning her attention back to the young elephant, she motioned with her trunk towards the herd.
"Go on, young one. Back to the herd with you." Eletron nodded her head towards the herd. "Your family is waiting."
As the youth went back to his herd, the herd met him halfway, running their trunks over his body to make sure he was okay. Eletron kept her distance and gave a wan smile. Her herd was safe. Her herd. Even if they didn't accept her into the tight-knit group, the herd would always be the one she stayed with. After a while, Eletron made to turn and leave when she was stopped by a low rumbling sound - much calmer than what she had heard earlier. Curiously looking over her shoulder, Eletron saw the lead elephant of the herd walk towards her.
What in the world? Eletron turned to face the matriarch. "Chaitanya? What are-"
The matriarch lightly bumped heads with the Maximal before running her trunk over Eletron's shoulders and back. Continued low rumbles grew in numbers as several more members of the herd surrounded the two. Suddenly it occurred to Eletron what was going on. Eletron gave a small smile as she intertwined her trunk with the matriarch's. Their eyes met and stayed in constant contact & she knew. This herd was where she belonged, regardless if she joined into the Beast Wars.