Caminus
Cybertronian colony world
The old Forgefire city
The planet of Caminus was quite the famous little world, but this was for a few different reasons.
Civilisations as old as time have ancient, and possibly unreliable records, that detail the days when Caminus was known as the peak of Cybertronian culture, during it's fabled golden age (These records were as old as the Covenant Of Primus, the Book Of Logos, the scriptures of something called the Antiholocaust, and the fabled poems of the supposed Eugenesis Epoch, but few truly believed in any of them anyway). The planet was known for it's art and culture, as well as it's tolerance of different faiths and ideas. The leading religion on the planet, the Way of the Flame (An offshoot of the Covenant of Primus religion), headed by the Mistress of the Flame, taught it's followers to be tolerant of other people's beliefs and ideas, and to be accepting of them regardless. Generations of painters, poets, sculptors, actors, calligraphy artists, so on and so forth, would be made on other worlds, but they would truly be born on Caminus. The planet was in the history books of many species for it's contributions to the arts, and son, it became known as 'The planet of culture'. Soon after that, it was fabled to have been a battleground against the legions of Unicron during the crusades of the thirteen Primes and their followers.
What was certain, was that when Nominus was in charge, Caminus was a place of intolerance, segregation, and functionism. Forgefire city became a central hub for a massive prison and labour camp that spanned the entire planet. Those without useful function to Nominus' rule was sent to Caminus, where the prisoners would be forced to mine energon from the planet, sucking it dry. The prisoners themselves would have numbers burned into their chest, and would have their T-Cogs torn out of them by force. Some of those whom went through this procedure didn't survive, due to Rossum's Trinity, or just because the doctors and medics there cared little about the survival of their patients. Most of those with beast alt-modes would be domesticated, and used as literal guard dogs by the guards of the massive planet wide prison. However, even then, overcrowding was a serious issue, and prisoners were regularly gassed to death, just to make room. Cosmic Rust. It's a nasty way to die. Though, no one would come to move the bodies. Despite the energon mining, the prisoners themselves received very little fuel, and were referred to as 'Empties', and, well, let's just say that they really didn't care where their energon came from...
During the Grand Uprising, a contingent of the New Autobots, lead by the fabled Hyper-drive, would bomb the planet, wiping out many of the prisoners (Most of whom were innocents), but also allowing the rest to overwhelm and kill their oppressors, and escape. Caminus became a wasteland, and in the following 2 million years, neither Nominus nor Sentinel would have anything more to do with the planet. The few energon wells that were left on the planet were mined and emptied by scavengers, and there were very few left on the dead planet whom tried to make it their residence.
And now, Hoist got to call it home.
It had taken a lot of convincing to certain members of the Primal Council to let him and a select team move to the planet. Hoist was convinced that the best way to monitor for attacks on Cybertron from invading forces was to set up a listening outpost somewhere in the colonies. A facility where they could look out for any incoming forces, and preemptively warn the CCP back on Cybertron, to allow them to prepare their forces. Ironhide, Slammoth, Hot Spot, and Silverbolt were all for the idea. They felt that it was best to be able to see the enemy before they come at you, so that they could prepare themselves in time, which did make sense. However, Slag, Prowl, and Cross-Cut did not, though it was for varying reasons. Cross-Cut was worried that Sentinel might notice them, and then trace them back to the council, Slag felt that it was better to fight any enemies on their turf, and Prowl felt that it was a waste of manpower and resources to allocate them to some base on another planet. Cybertron was on the verge of an energon crisis, and it wasn't like they had that many resources to begin with. Still, Hoist had been able to convince them to let him go to Caminus, and set it all up, though Prowl did warn them that if there was the slight chance of the outpost being too big of a drain of resources, they were being shut down, indefinitely.
So, Hoist gathered his team, and headed to Caminus. It was a relatively small lot, to be fair. He could remember each one of their names: Rev-Tone, Erector, Wheeljack (The Primal Council had been against Wheeljack going, seeing as he was one of their most prolific scientists, but Hoist had argued that they already had Quark, Ironfist, Quickmix, and about a dozen other Autobot Scientists working with them, so one tech head leaving wouldn't have made much of a difference), Suppressor, Alpha Bravo, Countdown (He'd been pretty happy about going to another world, but was saddened by the prospect of leaving his rocket base behind), Quickslinger, Ammo, and Firecracker. Still though, Prowl had said that it was enough, and he wouldn't be allowing Hoist to take anymore bots. Not that Hoist minded, as he had agreed with Prowl on one point; the team that he had gathered was more than enough.
When they got to Caminus, Hoist and his crew immediately got to work, turning the area around their ship- the Arclight- into something more permanent. However, what they hadn't expected was for there to be locals. At the time, he didn't know wherever they had always lived in the old city, or if they had crashed on the planet some time ago, but it didn't really matter. For a few days after they landed, Hoist and his crew were constantly attacked by the locals, until they made peace with each other, and stopped the fighting. A few of the locals even began helping Hoist's team set up. He remembered their names: Windblade, Firestar, Novastar, Chromia, Nautica, Skystriker, Velocity, and Lifeline.
Now, Hoist looked over the ruined city from the bridge of the Arclight, with those from his crew and the locals helping to set up a frame for a new building connected to the ship- Autobase 1, Prowl wanted it called- and a few others picking up metal shards and slabs from the ground, hoping to use the metal debris to build up the entire building. Well, he figured that it was one of the perks of living in a ruined city: Recycling.
Hoist felt a pang of sadness, commingled with guilt, as he looked over the ruined planet. He hadn't said to the Primal Council that him setting up a base on Caminus had an underlying motive of selfishness. Ever since he was Constructed Cold, during the final few years of Nominus' rule, he'd been forced to stay on Cybertron, and serve in the CCP for the whole of his life, to protect a populace that hated them, and whom also still held prejudices against Cybertronians who were Constructed Cold. Sure, nowadays people like to say that they're fine about the whole 'Constructed Cold vs natural born' topic, and that they'd moved past their prejudices, but Hoist knew better than that.
Yet, coming to this planet, those prejudices and violent acts didn't exist. Not like back on Cybertron. Here, Hoist could make a fresh start. A new chapter in his life. Here, with his crew, and a new home, he could find some kind of peace, away from the hate and anger of Cybertron.
Yet, he couldn't help but feel guilty. That's why he felt sad at the same time. It felt like he was running away from his duties as an Autobot. He should be protecting the people of Cybertron from the machinations of Sentinel and his assembly, even if the people of Cybertron were grateful for it or not. Instead, he was here, on a dead world, etching out a life for himself in an ultimate act of selfishness. His selfishness for a bit of peace in his life.
Hoist swallowed his guilt, and remembered his newfound responsibility to his team, the locals, and his new home. Self loathing can come later.
The door to the bridge opened, and Hoist turned around, to see Wheeljack and Nautica striding in. Wheeljack had a pair of electro-cutters and a electron microscope attached to a belt on his waist, while Nautica had either a hand made or customised wench in hand.
"Wheeljack", began Hoist, "If it's about your request for Prowl to send us mining equipment, I've already gotten the word back that it's not possible. Sorry", he had called Prowl last cycle on Wheeljack's request, for equipment to set up a small refinery. Apparently, there was a raw energon vein under the city, and the local that he had encountered had tried to set up their own gear to refine it, but that didn't work. Wheeljack had hoped to use the local's gear, as well as some raw materials from Cybertron to set up an independent mining system to full the new base, with Hoist's approval.
"Actually, me an' Nautica here came up here ta tell you to fergit it", said Wheeljack, in a rather gleeful tone, "She showed me a bunch of ol' minin' stuff left over from the last Uprisin' that they were usin'. It's all old an' broken, but parts of 'em all are still usable."
"Oh, really?" Hoist was genuinely intrigued.
"Really", went Nautica, "We- as in my friends and I, in case you... you know, weren't aware- tried to hybridise the old mining equipment together, but that didn't work. However, none of us had any real clue as to how to do it, and I only have limited knowledge in this sector."
"They, of course, didn't have me around", commented Wheeljack, "But, if we use all the gear on the Arclight, as well as the old minin' stuff that the locals got, we might be able to put together a lil' doohickey that'll refine the energon underground into a usable state."
"Well", said Hoist, "Are you sure that you can do it, Wheeljack?"
"I'm here too", muttered Nautica, "Just thought I'd let you know..."
Hoist didn't hear her, "I mean, I don't want to have to waste equipment and gear on a bogus."
"Aw, don't worry 'bout it, City Commander", Wheeljack had come up with the title as a joke, and now everyone was calling him it. Hoist really hoped that it wouldn't stick, "With Miz Nautica here-"
"Yay, me."
"-We can get a prototype sorted out in, oh, maybe a few orbital cycles. 3 or 4, dependin' on if we hit any snags 'long the way."
Hoist mused to himself, for a few moments. He remembered when he used to be like those 2. All eager, and ready to please. He used to be like that with Grapple, always thinking of new ideas, and pestering about them to Prowl or Silverbolt. However, Hoist eventually grew out of this, but Wheeljack- whom was born at the same time as Hoist- never did. Even so, the idea that he had right now was worth a shot, so Hoist said, "Alright then. But you've got 7 orbital cycles. Remember, the Primal Council is scrutinising this mission, and-"
A loud beeping then came from one of the monitors. Hoist turned to it, to see Ammo's faceplate and blue visor envelop the monitor. Without waiting for a response, or and preamble, he said, "Hoist, you're gonna wanna see this", Hoist's crew only called him by his actual name in major situations. More specifically, the most serious ones.
"What is it, Ammo?"
"Uploading it to the monitor now."
Hoist moved to the monitor, as did Wheeljack and Nautica. Outside the ship, through the viewports, he saw Velocity and Lifeline tending to a wounded Novastar, whom looked like she'd accidently burnt her servo with a welding tool. He then saw Windblade and Skystriker help Erector lift up a heavy looking metal beam, Firestar and Alpha Bravo take apart an old hut for spare parts, and all of the other Autobots and locals working together to help build the brand new home for them in the old ruined city. Hoist then turned his attention back to the monitor. Across it's screen, several low-res images flashed across the screen, blurred to the point of unintelligible. However, over the space of a few moments, the images focused, and the pictures became viewable.
Wheeljack's optics widened.
Nautica put a hand over her mouth in shock.
Hoist froze.
No...
Cybertron was burning.
Cybertron
Above Iacon
"Better get ready back there, soldiers!" yelled Star Dasher over his internal systems, as he ferried his cargo to their destination over Iacon, "You're out of here any second!"
As the Exiled shuttlebot bounced around, reacting and swerving around the various rounds of Artilery fire and explosions, Dirtbag mused to himself as to how his short life had reached this point. He was only a few hundred years old, and yet here he was, most likely about to die for a cause that he believed in. Well, a cause that he tried to believe in.
He heard his commander, a former Autobot called Scoutstinger, replied with gusto, and then began talking to their senior commander, Armoured Corps, but about what, Dirtbag couldn't hear. Too much noise coming from outside the thin walls of the mass shifted shuttlebot. He looked out of a window, to see the chaos of the skies of Iacon, as he saw the primary shuttle of the EHC- the shuttle's designation was lost to him- travel down to the city below, with covering fire from the warp guns on the Tidal Wave shooting down any Autobot craft or malfunctioning Vehicons that got anywhere close to it. He looked to his fellow soldiers in the shuttle, trying to remember their names. He found that he could only remember the name of one. An Insecticon flier by the name of Pantsir, though Dirtbag really couldn't say that he liked the bully for a bot.
If Dirtbag was to be honest, he found himself incredibly disappointed with his short existence. Over the span of his life, he'd either been on the run from Autobots and Vehicons, just for trying to help a few citizens prop up a home for themselves, or fighting against those Vehicons as part of the Exiled. It hadn't been a fun life. If anything, the green Constructibot really despised Colossus for his part in his failure of an existence. Him and his sweet talk. He had been conscripted into the Exiled by Colossus, right when he found him, though the Exiled leader tried to cover it up with his fabled charisma. Dirtbag had fallen for it, at first, but now, he really wanted to wrap his servos around Colossus's neck and rip his head off, as vengeance for wasting his life in warzones and dank holes and caves.
His life began to flash before his optics, for just a brief second. He remembered being born to parents who he couldn't remember, running away from a swarm of Vehicons, Colossus taking him in, taking his first life- An Autobot called R.E.V.- crawling through a dark and wet tunnel on Gargoid, and now here. To a cramped, dark shuttlebot to a city where he probably wouldn't live for more than a few seconds.
The Constructibot looked out of the window, hoping to try and escape the chaos of reality for just a brief second, but as soon as he narrowed his optics, he found that there would be no peace in his life anymore.
A Vehicon WARBIRD drone was barrelling right towards them.
Before Dirtbag could say anything, the WARBIRD impacted right into the side of Star Dasher, igniting his fuel lines, and creating an explosion that consumed the Shuttlebot and all of his occupants. Dirtbag's last conscious thoughts were to damn Colossus to the same fate.
Above the Tagan Heights
On route to Rodion
"I give him one job, and he turns the planet into a warzone", muttered Sentinel under a synthesized sigh, as he flew over the Tagan Heights, a region of Cybertron that had been renouned for once being responsible for 40% of Cybertron's industrial output. Nowadays, the Tagan Heights and it's encompassing cities and factories were used primarily for the manufacturing and maintenance of Sentinel's Vehicon army. But now, his army was in the grips of chaos, and was tearing itself apart. Whatever was happening to his drone army, it had spread across the entire planet, with the Tagan factories ripping themselves apart with the crazed fighting between the rabid drones and the Heights' CCP defence forces. Sentinel remembered putting Eronus, Neo, and Templar in charge of the Tagan Heights. He did not expect to see them in the Assembly again. Oh well. They could always be replaced. Gravitas, Kudon, and that one from Vos- Staryell, or something- Would be suitable candidates.
Sentinel's internal comms began to buzz, and he opened the call, to see the face of Infinitus appear. The cowardly little Cyberdroid began, "Sir- My lord- The- The planet is-"
"I am very much aware of the situation, Infinitus", coldly and callously said Sentinel, as he flew through a column of smoke, and dodged a rogue missile that flew from the ground, "Where the hell is Mindset?"
"T-The last time I heard from him, h-he was in Iacon", nervously stuttered Infinitus, "M-My lord, the Exiled. Those, um, terrorists. They're attacking Iacon. It's an absolute bloodbath."
"What?" the data drive. The evidence against him. It was all connected.
He couldn't let anyone get their hands on that evidence. Iacon would have to be destroyed. He could just blame the city's destruction on the Exiled, anyway. It wasn't like there wouldn't be any evidence to support it. Besides, if anyone didn't believe him, it wouldn't matter. It wasn't like he hadn't levelled a province before, and no one had done anything to stop him anyway.
"I am... fully aware of the situation in Iacon, Infinitus. Order the Yuss Naval Batteries and the Maxilla to target Iacon, and flatten it. Destroy it all."
"B-but sir. My lord", began Infinitus, "If the Maxilla and YNB target Iacon, millions of innocent-"
"I don't care about that. Right now, every single Cybertronian in that city is the same as you. Expendable."
The Straits of Yuss
Yuss Naval Batteries
Maxilla
Fort Scyk
When Drydock had received his new orders just a few minutes ago, he was only just able to hide his frustration.
His fort- Fort Scyk- Was one in a series of old fortresses, called the Maxilla, which protected the Yuss Naval Batteries, a series of cannons which had served to protect the small city of Yuss, and the much larger city of Iacon during the Grand Uprising and when Nominus made Iacon the capitol of the planet, and the seat of his empire. Now, the Batteries and the Maxilla were silent, used as a training ground for the CCP, and a glorified warehouse for old ammunition.
Drydock had been placed in charge of the skeleton crew that maintained the Maxilla and the Batteries, acting as silent guardians of Iacon and Yuss, both of it's straits, and it's city as well. The few Autobots that guarded the guns and forts made Fort Scyk their de facto headquarters, and they began a seemingly endless cycle of grunt work, which, to a basic level, amounted to checking the ammo count, polishing and oiling the guns, and whatever mindless drabble they could come up with.
But now, Drydock had received his first official orders in, well, forever: Load up the guns, and destroy Iacon.
Iacon. The once capitol of Cybertron, and home to millions of Cybertronians. Millions. How does one justify the murder of so many innocent beings?
The answer: One can't. No one can. And no one deserves the power to have to make that kind of decision in the first place.
Drydock contemplated his orders further, as he sat in his seat. Around him, the triplets- Claw Jaw, Scuba, and Ikard- Worked on the various consoles present to them, opening up lines of communications between the various Autobots present, and making sure that each of the guns was properly maintained. Dreadrock and Wing Saber stood side by side to Drydock's seat, while Evac stood guard by the door, Rotor Blaster and back missile pack ready for a fight. While they did this, all Drydock could do was sit, and muse to himself about this whole ugly mess.
The Vehicons were on the rampage, from what he had gathered. Drydock had used a lot of political manoeuvring around his superior officers to make sure that no Vehicons could be integrated into his crew. He just didn't trust them. And now, it looked like his distrust of them was for the best. From what he'd seen, right now, the Straits of Yuss- Encompassing the Yuss Naval Batteries and the Maxilla- was possibly the only safe haven on Cybertron, and maybe across the colonies as well (This might had been the thought process of many local civilians as well, seeing as how when the first shots were fired not too long ago, dozens of Cybertronians began to flood the entrance to the Maxilla, Macromasters, Micromasters, and Cyberdroids alike. Gripper, Ghibli, and Starbot- The Motorvators, as they called themselves- Had called up earlier to say that they and a few others had to try and herd the crowds just so no one was trampled to death).
However, this supposed safe haven mightn't last for too much longer. Iacon was currently under siege from both the Vehicons, and some new group. The Exiled, Drydock had been told. They'd come down in old, out of date warships, and torn the local CCP a new one. And now, it looked like they were trying to set up in Iacon. Take out the rest of the CCP lingering in the city, and establish a beachhead. But for what? An invasion? Was this the beginning of a takeover of Cybertron?
It didn't matter at the moment. What mattered now was that the fighting seemed to be spreading, inching closer and closer to the Straits from Iacon. And now, Drydock was under the orders to bomb Iacon to slag, "Cut the rot from it's core", Infinitus had propagated over comms, albeit with more stutter. On a tactical level, it somewhat made sense. If an enemy was landing troops, then the most logical thing to do was bomb the slag out of those landing sites. Take out as many enemy soldiers as you could. Deny them any chance of organising themselves. However, it didn't look like any attempts to evacuate the city were being made, which meant that there were possibly millions of innocents still in the city. So, if he were to order the batteries to destroy Iacon, those millions of innocent Cybertronians would die. Millions who most definitely didn't deserve it. Not only that, but the batteries would be identified as a key target, and come under assault as well. He'd have to get a completely inexperienced crew of Autobots to fight for possibly the first time in their lives.
However, even if he didn't give the order for the batteries to be fired, millions in Iacon would die in the fight anyway. And the Yuss Batteries would become a target anyways, most likely.
So, if he did give the order, millions would die, and the Batteries would come under assault.
If he didn't give the order, millions would die, and the Batteries would come under assault.
Dammit, he was a CCP officer. An Autobot to boot! He was meant to protect both the innocent, and those under his command. What was he suppose to do?
He looked out of the window, to see the naval forces of the Autobots floating in the vast rust sea. Depthcharge, Seaspray, Undertow, and Sea Spray floated next to the Broadside, a massive platform carrier, maintained by it's captain, a Cyberdroid by the name of Blunderbuss. The Broadside, as well as it's escort navybots, had much better targeting systems than the entirety of the Maxilla and the Yuss Batteries, which were designed for bombardment and nothing more.
An idea formed in Drydock's mind.
"Sir, we're ready to commence bombardment", solemnly said Scuba. It was obvious he wasn't keen on the idea of destroying his home town. Then again, when was anybody? He continued, "Waiting on your order."
"...Belay that", Drydock made up his mind, "Patch me through to Blunderbuss on the Broadside, as well as the navybot escorts."
"Um, sir?" began Ikard.
"Heh, patching them through now, sir", said Scuba, with a slight bit more vigour in his voice. He seemed to be catching on. Well, Drydock wasn't too sure if he was actually catching on to his intent, but maybe he was just hoping that this was indicating a change in the orders. A change of any kind.
Just a few moments later, the holographic heads of Sea Spray, Depthcharge, Seaspray, Undertow, and Blunderbuss appeared right in front of him, their expression mixed with solemn content, sadness, conviction, and now, confusion.
Sea Spray was the one to speak first, "Drydock, sir, what's going on? I... Well, I thought you were suppose to start the bombardment, by now?"
"Change of plan, soldier", crisply began Drydock, "I'm not killing millions of innocent Cybertronians, when I can think of a better option."
Dreadrock next to him looked to Drydock, and then to Wing Saber. Smiles formed under their faceplates.
"Sir", began Ikard. Drydock had suspected that the wheezily little bot wouldn't go along with this change of plan. He'd always been a bit of a coward, "What are you-"
"What've you got in mind, boss?" interrupted Depthcharge.
"The Broadside's- And all of your's, by extension- Targeting systems are much more advanced and precise then the Maxilla's and Batteries combined", he said, sparing a glance at Blunderbuss as he mentioned his naval carrier, "I'm thinking, that if we remotely cross your autotargeting networks with the Batteries and the Maxilla's systems, we can increase the accuracy of the guns, and use them to snipe the larger enemy warships out of the sky. If we can't destroy them, we'll at least force the enemy ships to move away from Iacon, and cease their attacks", and also draw them away from Iacon to the Batteries, he neglected to mention.
"Hm. Innocent people are still gonna get killed by the bombs", added Blunderbuss, "Just letting you know."
"Yes, but it won't be as many as it could be by outright bombing the city", countered Drydock.
"Sentinel will have our aft ports if we go against his orders", added Seaspray nervously.
"Well, what we tell him is that I forced you all to disobey your orders, and I am to shoulder all of the blame", said Drydock, "C'mon, guys, I don't like it as much as you do, but what other choice do we have? Do you really wanna be known as the bots who held murder millions of innocent people?"
"...Alright them", said Depthcharge, "I'm in. Always hated Sentinel anyway", a chorus of nods and muttered agreed with him, "We'll dock and head up to you. See you there."
"Roger dodger. I'll have a team head to the Broadside, and connect it's targeting network to our own. Drydock out."
The transmission closed off, and Drydock looked to Ikard. The whiny bot fussily said, "Sir, I cannot- We, cannot do this. You cannot do this. Sentinel Prime gave us an order-"
"His assistant gave us an order, Ikard", Drydock firmly said, "And I will be happy to listen to any of your complaints, as soon as we win this battle."
Ikard looked like he was about to say something else, but Dreadrock moved a step closer to him, intimidating the smaller bot. The fussy bot then sulked back to his station, muttering to himself, though about what, Drydock didn't hear, but Claw Jaw did, who had hit his sibling on the arm, and told him to shut it.
However, what Drydock neglected to mention was that with this decision, he was now painting the Yuss Straits, and by extension, the Batteries and the Maxilla, as an important target. He had essentially sacrificed those under his command to a callous and definite demise.
Well, they were most likely going to be targeted anyway. Why delay the inevitable?
Such was the price for the lives of the innocent, he tried to justify to himself.
Tried.
Iacon
Border regions
Iacon Archive Centre
There were so many other things that Slapdash could've been doing at the moment.
He could've been watching Median Metal Clamp on his TV (Well, at least the bootleg versions that he could find. Not very becoming of a CCP officer).
He could've been with his brother Road King, a keg of K-Juice in hand, and down by Sentinel's Folly, watching the Iacon 5000.
He could've just been in the White Flame with Getaway and Joyride, sipping down some of that Old Corroder stuff, and just sharing a guffaw together.
Instead, here he was, in a flaming oval building, which was on fire, trying to protect his comrades and a bunch of civvies from both the building that was on fire, but also apparently a bunch of rampaging Vehicons who were trying to kill them.
Did he mention that the building was on fire? Yeah, the building was on fire.
Another purple plasma blast rang past him, as he ducked back behind the intersection wall, while Road Rocket, whom stood in the opposite corridor in the intersection, fired 4 random shots down the hall, before ducking back behind cover as a series of laser blasts impacted with the wall near him. Road Rocket then looked to him, and yelled over the sounds of the fire and plasma blasts, "C'mon, man, shoot them!"
Slapdash quickly peeked down the hall, spotting 3 black and purple Vehicons marching down on them, their heads twitching, and sprouting out what sounded like binary coding as they marched. He quickly looked down at his rifle. He decided not to mention that he'd forgotten to bring his ammo with him. He pretended not to hear Road Rocket, and yelled to him, "We're pinned down! They're not letting us advance!"
"They're not letting up!" yelled back Road Rocket, "They're not even giving me a chance to applaud your brilliant skills of deduction!"
"Road Rocket! Time and place!" angrily shouted Manta Ray, whom was applying pressure to a wound that Rewind had gotten on his waist. Chromedome stood next to him, cracks, scars, and dents covering his body, while a large red and blue macromaster by the name of Orion Pax sat near Road Rocket, in the opposite corridor, both bots looking worse for wear. Not that Slapdash could say that he was doing any better. One of his wheels was missing, a lens for one of his optics was shattered, and he had multiple pieces of shrapnel embedded into his body frame. One of his fingers on his left hand was missing, and a shard of metal was impaled in his elbow joint, making it painful to move his arm.
Road Rocket yelled again, "I count 3 hostiles!" before throwing another orange blast of energy down the corridor.
Suddenly, the wall next to the Vehicons exploded, the flames and fragments destroying the drones completely.
"...I count 0 hostiles!"
Once the immediate fire had subsided, 2 figures- Both sharing the same bodyframe, but one of them was distinctly more female, with red optics and in black and blue colours, while the other had a blue visor, and a white and blue colour scheme- Then marched through the smoke, and saw Slapdash and Road Rocket aim their guns at them in caution. The black and blue femme then raised her hands, and said, "Hey, whoa whoa whoa, we're friendly! We're friendly! We're not with the Vehicons!"
Slapdash then heard Rewind's voice pitch up, "Nightracer?"
The femme- 'Nightracer', apparently- Heard him, and went, "Rewind?" immediately, she and the mech next to her then transformed into boxy looking car alt-modes, and drove down the uneven corridor. Before Slapdash or Road Rocket could react, they sped past them, and skidded to a halt in the intersection, transforming back into their humanoid forms, and looking around at the mechs assembled there, "Rewind! Chromedome! Orion! You're okay- Well, I mean, you're not okay, you're all battered and stuff, but I mean, you're alive!"
"It's- Augh", groaned Orion as he ambled next to the 2 new arrivals, "It's good to see you 2 again."
"Um, so", awkwardly began the blue and white bot, "What'd we miss?"
Rewind spoke up, "I'm dying."
Nightracer then yelled, "You're dying!"
Road Rocket then deadpan said, "He's dying."
Rewind then said, "Yep. I'm dying. I think. Not entirely sure. Have to get back to you on that one."
"Okay, that's not okay", went Nightracer in a panicking fashion, "How? How are you dying?! I mean, assuming that you're dying, how are you dying? How did we get to this point, where you are dying? I mean, I'm assuming that the fire and the whole explosion and stuff is probably the cause, but", Nightracer tried to inspect Rewind's wound from behind Manta Ray's hand, "Looking at this wound, it looks like more of a gunshot wound than anything else."
"Well, my money's on it being a gunshot wound", said Rewind, ceasing Nightracer's panicked rambling, "I don't really remember what happened, but I do remember waking up from stasis because of the pain from the- Ah", Rewind winced as Manta Ray shifted his hands in order to feel more comfortable, "From the wound. Then I heard some guy talking. Some guy that works for Sentinel. He was talking, and-"
Rewind then looked to Orion, who was shifting uncomfortably in place.
"Orion, he- He knew you. That guy working for Prime said that you had something that he wanted. Something that Prime didn't want getting out."
"I... I don't", Orion seemed to become even more uncomfortable, before looking down and saying, "I don't know what he was talking about", it seemed obvious that he was lying. Chromedome seemed to cringe at his excuse.
"Okay, look, questions later", began the white and blue mech, "We need to get out of here. The Vehicons are killing all survivors in the archive centre, and the entire building is falling apart around us. For repetition's sake, we need to get out of here."
"I'm assuming you've got a plan, Tailgate", commented Chromedome.
"Less of a plan, more of an objective: Survive", replied 'Tailgate', "Listen, not to far from here, there's a fire exit not to far from here, that's pretty clear of damage."
"We were heading there", interjected Manta Ray.
"Well good. Right, we'll head to the fire exit, get out of this mess, meet up with Bee and the others, grab a drink at Hardhead's or something, and make this day a good-"
Tailgate didn't get to finish his sentence. A piercing blue bolt of energy ended up striking him in the back of the head. His unmoving faceplate and visor remained inscrutable, but his body language showed that he was more surprised than in pain. The Minibot fell faceplate first to the floor, showing that the metal plating on the back of his head was completely blown off, and his cranial camber was blackened, but intact, meaning that his morphcore, brain module, and neural cluster were still intact.
At the end of the corridor, holding a smoking pistol in one hand, and a fully loaded rifle in another, stood a white and dark green Macromaster, adorned with missile tank kibble, a glowing silver Autobot symbol on his chest, glowing blue accents across his body, and a helmeted head with a glowing blue visor. Bullet and laser marks scarred his frame, and burn marks from an electric shock adorned him as well.
'Cliché good guys always talk too much."
Trion Square
The Memorial Centre
Fracas ducked behind the old memorial statue for Aequmm Prime, as a rabid Vehicon fighter flew over the streets, randomly dropping a bomb on a nearby street, killing at least 3 empties that hadn't had time to get to cover. The sky was alive with war, and the streets were no better. Just a few minutes ago, he'd watched a bot called Tappet get blown apart by a random Vehicon. Now, the streets were filled with the bodies of civilians, Vehicons, and the drones of these invaders.
Fracas looked around him, amazed that the memorial centre hadn't been that damaged during all of the fighting. The memorial centre was an open area which was always available to the public, that was constructed around a few million years ago. It was basically a memorial to those who died in the fabled Master Wars, between the forces of Aequmm Prime and his Autobots, and Zardak and his Maladroids, made up of Titanmasters and Targetmasters.
Except that it wasn't fables. It wasn't myth. Not at all. The Master Wars were real. Fracas should know. He'd fought in them.
Back then, Fracas had been a Targetmaster by the name of Nightstick, and had been binary bonded to Artmaster (Now called Artfire nowadays), while Nightstick himself had been bonded to Skurge, and was once called Nebulon back then, as a sort of thank you present to the Nebulans who'd helped the Autobots reverse engineer the Targetmaster process, and develop the Powermaster process, after the entire original research into the binary bonding process prototypes had been stolen by Kakuryu, who'd changed his name to Grimmaster, and defected to the Autobots from the Maladroid menace. Once the prototype research was in the hands of the Autobots, they asked for the help of the Nebulans, and began to reverse engineer the process.
While the Titan Master and Targetmaster Cyberdroids that were used in the Maladroids were tortured into submission, the Targetmaster and Powermaster Cyberdroids were all constructed cold from the power of the Matrix of Leadership, and were made for the specific purpose of fighting in the war. Between the Maladroids methods, and the Autobots methods, Fracas couldn't really tell the difference between the 2 factions. But the power output... Primus, the devastation of the brief war made the million years later a Grand Uprising seem tame in comparison. Entire cities were completely glassed by just a single shot from a Targetmaster, and the Titanmasters of the Maladroids were gifted with extraordinary and unique powers, while the Autobot's Powermasters were gifted with enhanced speed, strength, agility, and a slag ton of energy.
Fracas wasn't going to lie. He had liked the sensation of power that would run through his veins. The feeling of unleashing an entire volley of destruction unto the Maladroids was almost euphoric, only weighed down by the memory of all of his friends and acquaintances who'd died in the crossfire.
Still, it could've been worse. He could've been a Titanmaster. Those guys were eventually driven insane and destroyed themselves, What with the taxing power regulation and the fact that one's head turning into a smaller robot meant having to share mindspace in an extremely unstable and unsafe process and all.
The Autobots and their forces eventually won the war, but then... The Binary Bonded Extirpation happened, and... Yeah. It wasn't pretty. Skurge was presumed to have been killed, and Nebulan, Nightstick, and Artmaster went underground as the only survivors. At least, the only survivors that he was aware of. They ended up changing their names a few times (Artmaster now becoming Artfire, Nightstick becoming Fracas, and Nebulon becoming Nightstick), met up with Stepper, opened up the White Flame, and have been in hiding for millions of years. It wasn't a pretty life, but it was his life.
Fracas was still surprised Nominus had left this memorial up during his long tenue as Prime. He had been eager to be rid of the legacy of the Prime before him, so it would've made sense if he'd torn down this statue, and melted it down for slag.
He figured that this battle would do it for the late Prime, as a terrorist fighter crashed into the statues of Delta Magnus and the Iacon Engine Powermasters, named after the city itself. The statues were shattered and destroyed, the flaming wreckage of the fighter generating a fireball that consumed half of the memorial centre. Fracas made a break for it, the tiny Cyberdroid running down a back alley before the fireball destroyed the age old memorial centre, unaware that an armed figure was watching him.
The Cyberdroid found himself face to wall with a tall building that signalled an end to the alleyway. Recognising the alleyway as familiar, he decided to double back and head back to his home with the others, but when he turned around, he saw a green and bluish grey Macromaster with glowing accents and visor, and bulldozer kibble standing in his way, with a gun in hand.
"Y-You!" yelled Fracas, "You were from the White Flame earlier-"
"Ursa Major", said the Macromaster, "My name is Ursa Major."
"Um, right, Ursa", nervously said Fracas, "Can I quickly ask why you-"
"You called the Vehicons", calmly, yet angrily said 'Ursa Major', "You let the Vehicons see Sixshot. You got Sixshot killed."
"H-Hey, I-I didn't know that the Vehicons were going to-"
"You could've guessed. You could've used common sense", Ursa Major then raised his gun, "You got my buddy killed, and now, I'm here to even it out."
"W-Wait", Fracas quailed, wearing a look of consternation, "Can't we talk about this!"
"We just did."
Ursa Major didn't give Fracas a chance to respond. He fired his gun at Fracas, his head and chest ripped apart by the blast, killing him instantly, his torso and legs being all that remained. The Cyberdroid, torso and all, fell to the floor, his other parts blown apart and scattered across the floor, which was laminated in glowing blue energon.
However, Ursa Major had been unaware of Fracas' long forgotten Targetmaster biology, given that he'd removed all of his gun kibble. His unique Targetmaster biology had been storing up unreleased energy for millions of years, and now, it was being released. Fracas' remains began to crackle with energy, and then they began to light up, as the remains of his spark began to overcharge and overheat.
Ursa Major was surprised when he saw the Cyberdroid's corpse heating up, and then flabbergasted when he saw an expanding ball of energy consume the corpse. Transforming into his bulldozer alt-mode, he made a move to outrun the growing ball of energy, blazing down the alley and into the crazed streets.
The growing energy ball exploded into a massive fireball that consumed an entire city block. Those who were killed instantaneously were the lucky ones. The rest were given a pained and slow death.
High above Iacon
The Torment
Main laboratory
"Hm", hummed Shockwave as he looked to the city block explosion in the city below. Judging from the build up of energy leading up to the explosion, as well as the immediate reaction of the detonation, there must've been a massive stockpile of energy- Most likely stored in some sort of containment device- That was shot at, and then detonated. But what kind of containment device? A nuclear or atomic reactor? Too small of an explosion, plus no immediate radiation on scans. A mobile stockpile of explosives? Too focused of a detonation. A Targetmaster or Powermaster left over from the Master Wars? Most likely. The overload of energy and subsequent release matched patterns similar, if not identical to those of the death of a Targetmaster or Powermaster who'd been building up energy for millions of years.
Shockwave had always been interested in the binary bonding process, but mostly in the idea of the Cyberdroids being able to store and use mass amounts of energy, like a generator. That kind of energy generation would be beneficial in the grand scheme of Cybertron.
"Um, sir?"
Shockwave looked from the monitor, to see Vivisector, his lab assistant, looking at him from the entrance to the lab, a datapad in hand. Shockwave then went, "What is it, Vivisector?"
"Um, Loudpedal and Oil Slick have completed their experiments back on Master. I've got the results", sheepishly answered Vivisector, waving the datapad as he entered.
"Good", replied Shockwave, as he was handed the datapad. He had ordered the 2 scientists back on Master to continue his research on generating synthetic energon, but he didn't expect them to have made any progress. Truth be told, Shockwave knew that they wouldn't really make much progress without him. All they were doing was keeping themselves busy. Colossus had told Shockwave that he didn't trust them to be left to their own experiments after the Toxitron incident (Even Shockwave could tell that trying to forcibly make a crude gestalt out of the Combatibots- A captured group of Autobots- And infuse it with a crude formula of a painful Tox-En solution was quite untasteful), so all he'd done was give them busywork, and left them at it. Hopefully Knox was keeping them on task. He didn't need her letting them conduct whatever wasteful antics they wished.
Shockwave looked at the datapad, and began to read what had been written in the report, "SE Experiment #3057... Mixture #3057... Results inconclusive... Will continue experiments until further notice. Will update upon further results", he then handed Vivisector back the datapad, "Good. Inform them to increase the phlogiston solvent by 0.1423%."
"Yes sir", Vivisector said, before walking out of the lab, tapping away at the datapad.
Shockwave then went back to work, heating up the rheanimum gas over a Bunsen burner, and then placed a sliver of dutronium metal into the glass tube, recording down the results in his audio recorder, "Audio log #2491, experiment report #659B. Upon reacting the dutronium metal sample with heated rheanimum gas, results show that the already superdense metal has completely filled the spaces between it's molecules, becoming nearly completely indestructible. However, because of the extreme rarity of both elements, the possibility of wide usage of the resulting element within the Exiled's forces is nil. My suggestion would be to use the resulting element for specific occasions. End log."
As Shockwave put down the audio recorder, and began to shelf his equipment, his one eye gazed back to the only monitor in the windowless laboratory. Curiosity got the better of him, and with his one hand- His right hand, seeing as his left had been replaced with a cannon (Loudpedal's advice had led him to make the decision)- he reactivated the monitor, seeing the ensuing battle outside of the Torment. Out in that battle, Colossus had gone down to the surface. Colossus, the leader of the Exiled.
Shockwave had advised against him going down. If he'd been killed down there, then the Exiled would've been leaderless. Of course, if he was killed, then there were quite a few who'd be willing to take command. But almost none of them were suitable candidates for leadership. Soundwave was an adept leader, but he worked at his best as a second in command, Preditron was too focused on honour and valour to make proper tactical decisions, Glowstrike lacked the charisma to lead, Zarak was too caught up in his own scheming, and Bludgeon...
Shockwave just knew that Bludgeon shouldn't be leader. He always had a nagging feeling whenever the thought of that spiritual warrior being leader came to mind. It was the closest thing that he had to a gut instinct. He had always found something off about that Cybertronian. How he'd always lock himself away in his quarters. How he'd talk about spirituality in the most random of places. How he'd talk to no one in particular...
Well, of course, there were logical explanations for his strange habits. He'd lock himself away in his quarters to train and keep up his martial arts skills. He speaks of spirituality because he subscribes to those kinds of practices. He'd talk to himself because he was praying to whatever god he believed in (Shockwave had found the illogical principle of praying to be a waste of time and energy. He'd seen the entire point of religion as just that, too). However, nothing felt right with the bot, and Shockwave would be damned if he let that Born-Again Metallikato enthusiast take charge. He'd take control of the Exiled from him if he had too.
Shockwave mused at the fact that he was willing to take command if anything happened, even though he had no wish for it. He was a scientist, first and foremost, anything else second. He had dedecated his life to the pursuit of knowledge for one specific purpose: The survival of Cybertron. It had been his purpose ever since he had been constructed cold during Nominus' reign. When he was brought online, his brain module had whispered those honey sweet words to him: 'You will live for the survival of Cybertron, you will die for the survival of Cybertron'. Since then, all of his actions had been driven by that single purpose. Every step, every word, every movement, had been chosen from intense internal calculations on how much it would best benefit the continuation of his home world, and his own goals and plans as well, themselves beneficial to Cybertron's continuation.
If Shockwave hadn't had his emotions purged by the CC scientists at the very second of his 'Birth', he would've found it amusing that all of his actions had landed him here, with a terrorist cell, attacking Iacon, a city on the very planet that he was suppose to protect. If 'Protect' is even the right word to use. However, over the many years, the scientist had seen enough to come to the conclusion that with the recent succession of leaders, and their actions and attitudes towards their rule, the current government of Cybertron could not be changed from the inside. Not with the cancer that rotted away it's already poisoned heart. It would have to be influence from the outside that cured the disease. Even if that meant cutting away the rot. With guns. Lots and lots of-
The lab suddenly rocked violently, almost knocking Shockwave off of his feet. He grabbed hold of the table in front of him with his only hand, watching as his exposed flasks and chemicals smashed onto the floor, mixing together and creating a noxious odour. That would be a pain to clean up.
The violent rocking seemed to stop as soon as it started, and Shockwave got back up to his feet. He'd probably feel disoriented by the sudden movement of the Torment if he could feel anything at all. He picked up a shard of glass that had once been a test tube, and watched as traces of the substance that it once housed- furmanite- dripped to the floor, mixing with a puddle of obtenteum energon that had itself been stored in a test tube of it's own, and reacting with the liquid to create a small purple and green flame, that gave off a muddy grey stream of smoke.
"Sir!" yelled Vivisector, as he ran through the lab doorway, and into the cramped and dimmed laboratory, almost slipping up on the spilled liquids on the floor before regaining his equilibrium, and going, "Shockwave, sir! The Torment has been hit-"
"I am very well aware of that", calmly replied Shockwave, his expressionless face and tone of voice remaining as inscrutable as always. Ignoring his panicking scientific subordinate (Vivisector was always the cowardly sort), he pressed a finger against the fin on the side of his head, pressing a switch, and activating his internal communications, "Soundwave, do you read?"
"Copy", went the familiar voice of the Exiled's resident communications officer, "SoundBlaster and I are on the ground. We're leading a charge on the Autobots' Iacon stronghold."
"Confirmed", said Shockwave, as he watched the battle for Iacon on the monitor, while Vivisector, as fussy as always, was cleaning up the mess on the floor of the lab. Shockwave could see through the intense battle on the monitor that there was indeed a large surge of Exiled forces converging on the former Imperial Amphitheatre, though it was almost impossible to tell who was who. Shockwave continued on, "The Torment was just hit", whilst uploading a damage report from one of the Torment's engineers onto the monitor as well, "By a large ballistic round. Can you trace back the round from it's impact zone to it's source?"
"Hold... I've traced it back to outside of the city, to a location called the Straits of Yuss. The Autobots must be using the old fortifications there to shell out fleet."
"Ah, the Maxilla and the Yuss naval batteries. I am familiar with them", Shockwave paused, before saying, "Contact Alpha Team, and inform them that they have a new mission: Disable the Yuss naval batteries in the Straits of Yuss, and take the maxilla."
"Affirmative."
Iacon
Border regions
Near the Archive Centre
"This is insane!" yelled Swerve, as a purple laser bolt shot right through their cover, and almost hit him in his shoulder tire. They had taken cover in the nearby ruins of a building that had been destroyed by a rogue (At least, Swerve assumed that it was rogue) missile when everything went crazy, and as of this moment, he, Bumblebee, and Dust Up were keeping an eye on the Archive Centre, behind a ruined wall, with the corpse of a CCP officer next to them, hoping that the others would be coming out of the still burning building any minute now. Preferably before the dead tanker bot inevitably exploded, taking the entire block with it. Swerve just continued his panicked ranting, "I thought this was just going to be a nice old lovely day with my mates where we could go do whatever you and your girlfriend were gonna do which I assume is Cyberfly fishing judging from the Cyberfly fishing stuff and then we'd all grab a pint from somewhere and have a jolly good time and not get shot at and have to worry about dying and yet here we are getting shot at and have to worry about dying and the world is ending and-"
"Swerve, calm down!" yelled Bumblebee to his fellow Minibot, "Now is not a good time for ranting! Now is a good time for calm!"
"Calm?! SERIOUSLY!" yelled Swerve as a missile flew through the holes of the ruined building, and hit a hut on the other side of the street. He poked his head over the cover, and indicated to the surrounding area, "Have you had your head up your aft port, or have you been willingly forgetting all of this slag!?"
The 3 bots looked around them, to the madness that had consumed Iacon. Just under a dozen alien warships- Cybertronian in design- Were floating above the city, shelling the surface below them. Some new Cybertronian force were landing on the surface, taking control of the streets, and, from the looks of it, killing anyone they came across. The Vehicons had gone crazy, shooting at everything that moved. The air was filled with lasers, ballistic rounds, missiles, and dozens of other exotic weapon's fire. A massive fire was engulfing the middle of the city, and the tanker bot's nucleon load had almost completely spilled onto the ground, creating a large puddle of fuel, that could set alight at any moment. Vehicons and what looked like drones aligned with the new faction were violently tearing into each other, with the new drones almost always overcoming the Vehicons. Meanwhile. Cybertronians aligned with the new faction were relentlessly tearing the rabid Vehicon horde apart, though some of them were themselves overcome by the swarm of mindless drones, and seem to activate some sort of self destruct, creating an explosion that would take as many vehicons as they could with them.
"We're completely surrounded by crazed mobs of Vehicons, alien invaders, and probably looters as well, the air is alive with lead and plasma, I'm pretty sure I'm sitting on a corpse, and everything- EVERYTHING!- Is on fire! FIRE!" madly yelled Swerve, "Please, tell me how I am suppose to stay calm when the beach scene from Saving Private Ragtop has suddenly decided to that it wants to let everyone know how the bot who lost his arm feels!"
"Okay, so calm isn't exactly the first option to mind! Alright then!" went Bumblebee, as he turned his optics back to the Archive Centre through the gunfire and madness of the streets, "But at least control yourself! Regain, augh, what was the word? Equilibrium! Yes! Regain equilibrium of yourself, or something! We need to get into the Archive Centre, and get Tailgate and Rewind and the others out of there!"
"Are you kidding me? Do you- We need to stay here!" cried out Swerve, "The world's a warzone now! If we go out there, we'll be deader than a dead thing on a dead day! Let's just stay here, behind this nice, sort of safe cover, and stick it out until the war decides that it wants to move on and buggers off!"
"Wha- If we don't move, Rewind and Orion and the twins will die!"
"If we go out there, we'll die! If we stay here, we'll be safe! We cant help out the others if we dead!"
Swerve's point would be rendered moot when a alien orangey gold and grey drone with a red visor, blue shoulders, hind legs, and a glowing purple symbol on it's chest and shoulders, as well as glowing purple accents, crashed through the wall next to them, and smashed into the floor, it's visor and accents losing their glow, and turning off, as well as a large dent in it's neck, covered in black oil. Over the off lined drone stood Dust Up, an oily stain on her foot. Neither Bumblebee or Swerve noticed her leave during their arguing.
Another one of the alien drones then appeared behind Dust Up, harshly grabbing her shoulder, but the Torchbearer sorority sister delivered a sharp kick to it's leg joint, smashing the joint into an oily mess, and smashing the leg off, letting the drone release it's grip, and fall awkwardly to the floor, allowing Dust Up to deliver a slam from her elbow joint to it's neck, a satisfying {CRUNCH} following as black fluid began to weep from the gaps in the drone's neck, as it fell to the floor.
Dust Up then looked to Bumblebee and Swerve, their mouths agape, "What? I practice Chōryūken? Bee, I though I told you."
"I-I mean, you did", stammered Bumblebee, "But I... I didn't think you'd be so-"
"Bad aft port?" muttered Swerve.
"I was gonna say good, but that's a good one too."
A Vehicon, it's body adorned with fresh scars and burns, then clambered over the ruins, and aimed it's plasma gun at Dust Up. In response, she kicked up one of the alien drones' rifles, and aimed it at the Vehicon.
It didn't have any ammo left.
"Oh", muttered Dust Up, "Slag."
Then, a blue plasma bolt ripped through the Vehicon's head, sending a spray of green fluid across the wrecked wall next to it, and letting the lifeless husk fall to the ground. Bumblebee had picked up the pistol of the dead Autobot near them, and had found that this gun did indeed have a full clip.
As the thudding sound of the Vehicon hitting the ground dissipated through the air, Dust Up muttered, "Woah", and then said, "Thanks, Bee-Bee", to Bumblebee.
"Er", hummed Bumblebee, before going, "No prob, bob."
"It's Dust Up."
"I knew that."
"Right then", said Dust Up, as she threw away the useless gun, and picked up the other alien drone's actually ammoed up gun, and said to the 2 Minibots in front of her, "You 2 want a plan?"
"I sense that the word 'Idiots' was to be used between 'You' and '2', but I digress", said Swerve as he grabbed a battered piece of piping from the ground, and made a sword pose with it, "Yes, we would like a plan, if you would please?"
Dust Up just rolled her optics, and cocked her newly acquired rifle, "We're gonna hold out here. We're gonna fight off anyone who tries to kill us. And if Tailgate and Nightracer and all your other buddies don't get out by themselves, then we're gonna charge into the building, save their backsides, get out, find a bar, and get absolutely hammered, because as of this moment, I think we really deserve a drink at this point."
"You know what", began Bumblebee, "That is something I can definitely get behind."
"Same here", commented Swerve.
"Well, that's good to here", said Dust Up as she spotted a warring horde of alien drones and rabid Vehicons encroaching on their position, "'Cause we've got incoming!"
Amidst the newly acquired fit for survival, the 3 bots failed to notice the alien shuttle dropping off 3 figures near the Archive Centre.
City Centre area
CCP headquarters Autobase Prima (Imperial Amphitheatre)
{BANG}
The orange plasma round from Firestrike's rifle impacted with the chest of a red and black Exiled Macromaster, piercing through the armour and destroying his spark.
"Carnage!" Prowl heard one of the terrorists call out to the dead bot as he fell to the ground, over the sounds of laser fire, explosions, and crunching metal. He paid it no heed. That bot was another Exiled- Another terrorist, and not his concern.
He then felt a laser blast impact with his shoulder, causing him to fall to the ground on his back in surprise. He looked up to the shooter, to see a clawed femme bot with large wings on her back, raising one of her claws for a finishing move. Prowl quickly rolled to the side, avoiding the claw's killing blow, but the terrorist quickly raised her gun at his head, proudly proclaiming, "I don't think so, Autobot! Liftoff never lets her prey esca-"
The butt of a rifle impacted with the Exiled's head, knocking her into stasis, and sending her falling to the ground. Prowl looked up, to see Blue Streak holding his hand out to him.
"Thanks, Blue Streak", said Prowl, patting his fellow Autobot on the shoulder. Blue Streak didn't give a verbal reply. He just nodded, and joined the other Autobots holding the current front line of the battle. Prowl saw Bluestreak, Silverstreak, Getaway, Overshoot, Haywire, Joyride, Siren, Swindler, Blue Streak, Shatterpoint, and High Beam shooting away at the horde of Exiles and their drones- Prowl recognised the old designs as Galaman and Novaroid drones- while Stilleto was using her trademark knifes to hack and slash away at a group of malfunctioning Vehicons, and Windcharger was dragging away a escapee prisoner called Snapdragon, and cuffing him to a metal pole in the corner of the large, yet cramped room.
Prowl flipped over a table, and, using it as cover, fired off several shots from his shoulder launchers at the terrorist swarm, destroying several of the Galaman drones, and creating a little wall of corpses, which was starting to block up the wall.
The Primal Council member then reached for his communicator, and called up as many channels as he could, "This is Prowl, does anyone copy?"
"This is Ironfist here, boss! Me, Brainstorm, and Quickmix are holed up in the science lab, but we've got escapees knocking on our door! We need assistance!"
"Hold position! We need to seal the breach in the main offices before I can divert anyone to your location!"
"Sir, this is Subsea! Me and Flattop are engaged in the main entrance! We've got more drones incoming!"
"Hold them off for as long as you can, and then fall back to-"
"Prowl, it's Crosswise! Me and X-Car are pinned down by Vehicons and rioters near the entrance to the Great Dome! Senator Ratbat's Overcharge Terrorbots are holding them off as best as they can, but those old buckets of bolts are falling faster than a Hyenabot at a shooting range! We need backup!"
"All of our units are already engaged, Crosswise! We can't-"
"Prowl! Where the hell is First Aid, Fixit and Hotwire! I've got patients piling up by the dozens here, and not enough doctors! Velocity and I can't do this all by ourselves!"
"Ratchet, just-"
"PROWL!"
"WHAT!?" Prowl yelled at the familiar voice. He'd probably get reprimanded later on for talking to Senator Ratbat that way, but he was too stressed out to care.
"Don't you talk to me like that, Prowl! Where the hell are your men!? We've got filthy terrorists knocking on our door! We're about to lose the Great Dome! You better be sending in support, otherwise I will have your head on a pike!"
Prowl was really getting sick of listening to Ratbat's annoyingly whiny voice. The Senator was making it sound like the Vehicons going nuts and an invasion by terrorists was somehow his fault, "Senator, all of our officers in the city are already engaged, protecting civilians and holding off all other opposing-"
"I don't care about civilians, Prowl!" Ratbat almost screamed through the communicator. Prowl could just (Unfortunately) Imagine the lubricants and spittle coming from the Cassettebot's mouth, "I want you to tell your forces to abandon their positions and reinforce the Great Dome and Celestial Spires, effective-"
"Prowl!" went the voice of Firefly over the comms, thankfully interrupting the Senator's coming tirade, "I just shot down an old Orbital Assault Carrier, but it's on an impact trajectory with the headquarters! You need to move!"
"Firefly, what are you-"
"GET THE HELL DOWN!" Siren yelled out.
Not even a moment later, the flaming hull of an Orbital Assault Carrier smashed through the ceiling of the building, creating a explosion that ripped apart the room, sending everyone and everything in the room flying, and allowing the Exiled to finally gain entrance to the Amphitheatre.
"F-FALL BACK!" yelled Prowl, as he and the other Autobots in the room began to pour out of the ruined offices, and into the corridor, firing off rounds at the Exiled, while the terrorists shot off ballistic and laser rounds at the fleeing Autobots. As the Autobots ran down the corridor, purple rounds of energy chasing them, Prowl activated his communications, and signalled to all channels, "This is Prowl, signalling to all units in Iacon, be on high alert! Our defences at the headquarters have been breached! As of this moment, we're all on our own! Be advised, the Vehicon forces have gone rogue, Exiled terrorists have invaded, and local civilians are starting to riot as well. It appears to be safe to assume- Very safe, can I add?- That we are at war."
Meanwhile, Soundwave and his sibling SoundBlaster entered the ruined offices, seeing the corpses of Autobots, Vehicons, and Exiled drones scattered around the room. While one of the Galaman drones went to free the white, purple, and aqua green bot in the corner, Soundwave saw the dead body of Carnage- A loyal, yet sometimes sadistic member of the Exiled- Lying front first on the floor.
"Drill-Bit", began Soundwave, to a nearby Micromaster, "Have someone move Carnage's body to a ship. We'll need to store his body for a funeral on Rebirth."
"Got it, boss", said Drill-Bit, who then motioned for Heavy Load- A nearby Constructibot Macromaster- And 2 other Micromasters, Rockblade, and Refuser, to help him carry Carnage's body away.
Soundwave then looked at another Micromaster, who was helping Liftoff up, "Pan-Handler, make sure that Liftoff is properly functional. We'll need everyone fully operational for this task", he then looked another Constructibot Micromaster called Skipjack, "Signal everyone in the city: Stun as many Autobots as you can, but eliminate them if you have too. There need not be any unnecessary killings today", Soundwave then looked to another Constructibot Micromaster by the name of Steam Hammer, and ordered, "Access the files of the CCP, and start singling out any potential recruits. Anyone who meets the standard qualifications is to be freed from their cells and approached. All those whom have committed no serious crimes are to be freed as well."
"Um, what about all the other prisoners?" asked Steam Hammer.
SoundBlaster then spoke up, "Who? The murderers and looters? The terrorists and anarchists?" he then primed his shoulder cannon, "They've had their chance at life and ruined it. Kill them where they stand."
Outside of Iacon
Approaching the Straits of Yuss
"Right then, fellas! You've got 2 minutes!" yelled Astrotrain over his internal speakers.
A Micromaster called Starcatcher then poked his head out of the door to Astrotrain's cockpit and yelled out, "If you lot aren't of this boat by then, I'm chucking you all out!"
"Heh, roger that!" replied Scrapper, as he looked to the rest of Alpha Team: Jolt, Aquablast, and Thundercracker. Jolt was young, and eager to prove himself as the skilled hacker that he was, but he was still too scared to step out of the shadow of his superiors. Aquablast was once a lowly ne'er-do-well, who had just been drifting around Cybertron, but now he had been hardened into a soldier under the tutelage of the Exiled, though he still had a long way to go to prove himself as truly ready for a full on war. Thundercracker was once been nothing more than a petty thief that was on the run from the authorities, and had joined the Exiled out of desperation, but now was a proper flier for the Exiled, but his spark was still not terribly up for the job, and still had his reservations about the goals and methods of the organisation.
It was a wee bit of a motley team. Very miscellaneous. But Scrapper was proud to be their leader. Regardless of all of their differences and faults, they'd stuck through the thick of it all so far, and he had no intention of letting them down now. Hell, he'd even turned down Colossus's offer to shunt him with the new Constructicon subgroup (Only Gravedigger, Buildmaster, Road Hauler, and Hightower were present in the subgroup so far).
"Alright then, lads", called out Scrapper, "We've got a new objective! In case ya'll didn't hear Soundwave's voice in your audio receptors- In which case, you all need to get them checked!- Here's the objective: The Yuss Naval Batteries are shelling our fleet, and if they keep it up, soon, our ships are gonna drop like stones! Our objective is to shut down the batteries and clear out the Maxilla, a series of forts that guard the guns! Since there are Autobot naval assets guarding the Straits, and by extension the guns, we'll have air units engaging those elements, so we're gonna have no air cover, so Thunders, you keep your eyes in the skies, roger?"
"Roger dodger", answered Thundercracker as he slammed his fist against his chest where his cockpit kibble laid, his jet wings on his back instinctively twitching.
"Right then, once we get out there, follow my lead. We'll land in the courtyard, storm the forts, neutralise any hostiles we come across, and take down the guns. Copy?"
A series of confirming nods was his answer.
"20 seconds, boys!" called out another Micromaster, Astro-Sinker, as he slammed his fist against the side of the troop bay, signalling for Astrotrain to lower the ramp. Indeed, in a matter of seconds, the ramp lowered, showing the world beyond the interior of the triple changer. Through the deafening sounds of Astrotrain's engines at full power, and the blur of the ground below, Scrapper could see the city of Iacon in the distance, flashes of orange, red, blue, and purple filling the air, as the Exiled's fleet hovered in the sky, several large flashes of blue flying past Astrotrain, and carrying themselves towards the fleet.
Then, on the ground far below, small huts and houses could been seen whizzing by. They were passing over the town of Yuss.
"10 seconds!" yelled Astro-Sinker.
The light on the side of Astrotrain's hull turned red. Aquablast slapped Thundercracker in the back, signalling him to move forward to the front of the group.
"Ready, fellas?" Scrapper confidently asked.
"01110010 01100101 01100001 01100100 01111001 00100001" Jolt yelled at almost the speed of light. For some reason, the purple pint sized Minibot would only talk in binary code. No one really knew why.
"I'm good!" called out Thundercracker.
"If we live through this, drinks are on Jolt!" proudly went Aquablast.
"01010111 01101000 01100001 00101101 00100000 01001111 01101000 00100000 01100011 00100111 01101101 01101111 01101110 00100001"
"5 seconds!"
The air outside of Astrotrain began to fill up with orange and blue bolts of energy.
"4!"
Alpha Team's guns primed.
"3!"
Jolt's Laser Rod blade began to crackle with energy
"2!"
The whirl of Thundercracker's T-cog filled the air.
"1!"
The light on the side of Astrotrain turned green.
"Go! Go! Go!"
Thundercracker was the first out, slipping into his jet mode, and zooming out of the triple changer with a boom. Scrapper was next, leaping out, into the sky, and falling to the ground, with Aquablast and then Jolt following as well. Down below, Scrapper could see the courtyard that lead up to the entrance to the Maxilla and the Yuss Naval Batteries. As they got closer to the ground, Scrapper could make out the few rusting old Omega Sentinels that stood silent around the guns like statues.
The massive Omega Sentinels, from what Scrapper had read in the old myths and fables, had been the greatest of Cybertronians during the Golden Age, leading expeditions into the stars, and defending Cybertron from many threats, like whatever the old Autobots were up against during the Master Wars. However, what is more concrete, is that Omega Supreme, the greatest of them, and the rest of the Omega Sentinels, sided with the New Autobots during the Grand Uprising, and helped to lead the charge against Nominus Prime's forces. But, they were captured, and put into permanent stasis. Most of them were made into the guns that make up the Naval Batteries during the brief Hydrobot uprising that took place in the last thousand years of Nominus' tenure as Prime. There were few Omega Sentinels left that hadn't been turned into immobile guns, and even then, the gargantuan statues were being cannibalised for parts by the people of Yuss. From up in the sky, the only immobile giant that was still somewhat intact was the deactivated and energon starved Omega Supreme, while the other 4 giants were almost stripped of parts and taken down to it's bare components.
An orange blast of plasma soared past Scrapper's head, bringing him out of his reminiscent thoughts. His optics refocused, pushing past the occasional buzz fly that impacted with his visor, to see several Autobots on the approaching ground aiming various weapons up, and aiming at the coming Exiled. Bolts of blue and orange flew towards the Exiled, forcing them to barrel roll and dodge the various laser bolts and missiles that flew towards them, and throwing their own volleys of fire down to the Autobots as well, aiming their weapons to the courtyard and releasing purple blasts of energy towards the Autobots.
Thundercracker soared past his 3 comrades, and fired off a succession of missiles towards the Autobots, creating balls of fire that, from what Scrapper could see, knocked all visible hostiles to the ground. Good. He softened them up. Now it would be easier to land.
Scrapper sent out a short wave remote signal to Jolt and Aquablast, and immediately, they activated their attachable thrusters, softening their inevitable landing. Steering themselves towards the courtyard, they reangled themselves foot articulators first to the ground, instead of front first, and repositioned themselves into a triangle formation, Scrapper first, Aquablast to his left, Jolt to his right. Below, Scrapper could see a blue and red Autobot with shoulder cannons and a yellow faceplate and visor getting himself up, recovering from Thundercracker's explosive volley. He was in Scrapper's flightpath. No matter, he thought to himself, as he reactivated his attachable thrusters, and prepared for a soft landing.
The landing was actually a lot harder than Scrapper had figured. His foot articulators harshly collided with the chest of the red and blue Autobot, the sound of metal impacting on metal echoing through the courtyard. Sparks flew as the Autobot harshly fell on his back, his chest crippled and dented, traces of Energon weeping from fresh wounds.
"Decibel!" Scrapper saw and heard a green and dark blue Autobot yell as he jumped off of the red and blue Autobot, and aimed his gun at the crowd of recovering Autobots, Aqualight and Jolt joining him.
"Legout…", muttered 'Decibel', "Protect the civvies...", the Autobot then seemed to go into stasis, his visor going dark, but his bio lights and armour not letting go of their colours.
Thundercracker then strafed over the courtyard, dropping bombs on the crowd of Autobots, dispersing them, and off lining a few. Scrapper, Jolt, and Aquablast then transformed into their vehicle forms, Scrapper's payloader alt mode smashing into 3 Autobots and knocking them down, driving over them and crushing them under his wheels, while Aquablast and Jolt's race car and hot rod alt modes drove circles around the Autobots, their built in weapons shredding their armour, crippling limb joints, and even killing a few of them who were posing too much of a threat. Scrapper saw the wreckage of what looked like an Autobot flier fall to ground, impacting with another Autobot, crushing him to death. Thundercracker must be doing his work well up in the skies. Either that, or Astrotrain or one of the Novaroids was doing strafing runs on the courtyard.
The thought distacted Scrapper long enough for an Autobot to land a blast on his tire joint, separating the wheel from his body, and flipping him over, instinctively transforming back into his humanoid form, and slumping onto the ground.
There was no cry of panic from the other members of Alpha Team. His spark signature was still green, and he was showing signs of consciousness. Aquablast drove up to the squad leader, transformed into his robot mode, and tapped him on his shoulder where his wheel should be, "You okay, boss?" he asked, synthesising a sharp intake of breath as a laser blast chipped his own shoulder.
"Yeah, I'm good", replied Scrapper, converting his other shoulder wheel into a rocket launcher, and fired off several projectiles at a red Micromaster Autobot with tank kibble, impacting with the small Cybertronian, killing him. Scrapper heard someone yell out a name in panic, being 'Heavy-Tread', though he wasn't sure if it was the Micromaster's or someone else's. These guys seemed to have a bit of a habit of talking in name only, for some reason.
Getting onto his foot articulators, Scrapper opened up a side compartment in his leg, and pulled out a pistol, firing off a round that impacted with a Cyberdroid Autobot, blowing him apart. He then fired another series of blasts at a Macromaster Autobot, each shot impacting with a shoulder joint, shredding his arms off. An orange laser shot impacted with his wounded shoulder, the blast and heat making the leaking energon boil, cauterising the wound. Scrapper gave out a quick yelp, before blasting the shooter in the neck, not killing her, but causing her to kneel down and grab her throat, trying to stop the rapid leaking. Scrapper noticed Jolt transform quite near him and Aquablast, stabbing his energised sword into an Autobot they hadn't noticed sneaking up on them, sending electricity shooting through the Macromaster, sending him slumping to the floor, and going into stasis. Jolt then removed his sword from the Autobot, and absorbed an incoming bolt with the blade, his sword charging up again, before releasing a bolt of electricity towards a Micromaster, sending him into stasis as well.
Noticing an entrance to the Maxilla near the end of the courtyard, the 3 squad mates charged towards the door, Aquablast blasting a Cyberdroid that came out before he had a chance to reach for his gun. Several Autobots began to chase them, firing orange and blue laser bolts their way as the Alpha Squad members sprinted towards the entrance, blasting at the Autobots behind them. 2 Autobots got to close to the group, but then 2 purple laser blasts each impacted with their heads, rupturing their cranial chamber, making their heads detonate. Thundercracker then came soaring down, quickly transforming into his humanoid form, and impacting with another Autobot as he landed, rupturing the Autobot's insides. No one would be surprised if that Autobot died from internal bleeding not to long from now.
The squad made it to the door, Scrapper slamming the door to the side, and the team filling in, Thundercracker blasting at the Autobots behind them, before filing in through the door, into what looked like a corridor, and slamming the door shut behind them, using his null-rays to melt the sides of the door, mixing it in with the door, meaning that the Autobots would have to use a laser cutter to get through, which would take a while.
The squad ran down the corridor, to see 2 Autobots locking the door at the end of the corridor. Upon seeing the Exiled, one of the Autobots- A bright red and yellow Macromaster with sports car kibble- Pulled out his gun and shot the panel that the other Autobot was using, and then turned his gun to the Exiled, letting out a shot that impacted with the side of Aquablast's head, not killing him or wounding him severely, but shredding the armour and glowing green visor on his head. In retaliation, Jolt let off a charge of electricity at the Autobot, shocking him into stasis, and letting him fall to the steel ground.
"Ghibli!" (There it was again...) Yelled the other Autobot- A bright red, blue, and yellow Macromaster with a red visor and sports car kibble- As smoke wept from the other Autobot, and his paint began to rust from the heat.
"He'll live, Autobot", calmy said Scrapper, as he and the other members of Alpha Squad aimed their guns at him, "And you will too. But, only if you do exactly as we say."
Iacon
Border Regions
Within the Archive Centre
"TAILGATE!" yelled Nightracer, as she raised her fist at the white and green tank Autobot, running at him, declaring, "You're gonna pay for that, you slagging-"
The white and green Autobot then just smirked, and harshly grabbed Nightracer's arm, smiling as he said, "No, I ain't."
Without a shred of effort, he slammed his foot articulator against Nightracer's chest, and ripped her whole arm out of it's socket, spraying loose wiring and energon across the nearby wall. Letting out a scream of pain, she was then slammed to the crumpled and searing hot ground, her chest armour bruised, the socket where her arm once was being cauterised by the burning heat, and the force from the impact knocking her into stasis.
The Autobot then levelled his still smoking pistol to the other Cybertronians in the room, and fired off 4 shots at the group, one blast hitting Chromedome in the neck, sending him falling to the ground in stasis, another hitting Slapdash in the chest, tearing apart his chest kibble as he fell to the ground, joining Chromedome in stasis, and the last 2 skimming the sides of Manta Ray and Road Rocket's heads, shredding the metal plating on their heads, and sending them tumbling to the ground into unconsciousness. He then levelled his gun to Rewind, but as he pulled the trigger, he found that the pistol's charge was empty, so, he just substituted shooting the cassettebot for marching up to him and pistol whipping him to the ground, slamming his foot into the smaller bot, almost crushing his head, and everything within it.
Meanwhile, Orion had fallen to the broken floor in surprise, unsure of what to do, as the white and green Autobot marched up to him, discarding the empty pistol, and crushing it under his foot.
"Hey there again, 'Optimus'", smugly said the Autobot, placing annoying emphasis on his nickname, "Time we continued our lil' talk", he paused for a second, before saying, "I'm Mindset, by ta way. Thought you'd like ta know da bot who's gonna kill ya 'fore you bite it."
"W-Who the hell are you?" stammered Orion in a fit of instinct.
"Juz said ma name, moron", 'Mindset's' smile faded, replaced with a sneer, "'S Mindset. 'Member it. You ain't got dat long ta worry 'bout it."
"Did- Did you do this?!" yelled Orion as he got up, pointing an accusatory finger at Mindset, more fuelled by instinct and rage at this point then logic and reasoning, "Did you-"
"Blow up ya lil' hidey hole? This place?" Mindset's smile emerged once again as he gestured to the fire and burning building around him, "Yeah. Yeah I did. Felt good, if I will admit."
Orion paused for a second, before, not saying a word, throwing his fist at the white and green Autobot, his blue optics burning pure with rage. Mindset's smile just widened at this, before catching the fist in his own hand, and landing his foot articulator into Orion's leg joint, twisting the metal joint back. Orion didn't have time to scream before Mindset landed a punch into his upper torso, sending him crashing through a wall, and landing on the floor of another room, next to a dead triple changer Macromaster with what looked like byke and submarine alt modes, who Orion knew as Piranha.
"Wasn't a good idea now, was it?" asked Mindset in a caustic manner, as he stomped into the room, the hot metal floor underneath him twisting at the weight of his boots.
"The hell do you want?" Orion asked weakly in defiance. He wasn't about to start puling to this guy. If he was gonna die, he'd rather do it with his pride still intact.
"I already told ya, idiot", said Mindset, "The data drive that you an' ya buddy over there picked up", he lazily gestured to the unconscious form of Chromedome, whom Orion could see was being seen to by a barely functional Rewind. Mindset continued, "An' the info on it. Me an' ma boss wan' it back. Now."
The data drive, Orion thought to himself. His memory brought up the image of this thug standing over him not too long ago, waving something called an 'Infernus bullet' in his face, and boasting through his thick accent about searching his place, though when that was, he wasn't sure.
"D-Date... Drive?" Orion heard Rewind weakly say, as the wounded cassettebot looked up from the unconscious form of his husband, his blue visor cracked and broken.
"I-I burnt it", muttered Orion, before saying at the top of his voice, "I burnt it. I threw it in my fireplace and watched it turn to ashes. There. It's gone. The evidence against Sentinel is gone."
"Is it?" asked Mindset, his rifle resting on his shoulder as he shuffled in place, trying to get comfortable in the midst of all of the fire and smoke and such, "Well, like I said, me and ma boys looked aroun' ya place, and couldn't find it's ashes in ya fireplace, even if ya burnt it. Unless ya cleaned it all up real good. But, I ain't guessin' you burnt it, am I?" Mindset then pointed an accusatory finger at Orion, saying, "I's guessin' that you's still got in on ya."
"E-Evidence?" stammered Rewind as he weakly limped into the damaged room, a piece of the metal frame within the broken wall bending slightly as he balanced his weight on the shard of metal, quietly saying, barely audible, "O-Orion, w-what, ngh", he placed his hand over the bleeding wound on his waist, "W-What the hell... Did you do?"
Orion ignored him, and said to Mindset, "Fine. I found a bunch of empties around a campfire at the edge of Sentinel's Folly, and threw the data drive in there. Let them fight over the ashes. There, happy?"
Mindset waggled his finger, as he said, "Well, if ya did do what ya jus' said, then why'd you lie the firs' time? Why not jus' start wiv that lil' excuse? Either you're a terrible liar, or jus' a real big moron, or both. So, wiv all that ou' of da way, I'mma think it's real safe ta be assuming dat you've still got da data drive, an' all da nasty evidence on it, on ya persons."
Orion didn't say anything. He didn't know what to say. It seemed that the full gravity of the situation, and his own actions, had finally come down on him. He found his optics trailing down to his foot articulators.
Mindset chuckled, before saying, "Here's da thing, 'Optimus'", there was unwanted mockery and emphasis on Orion's nickname, "Like I said, I really don't care about what you was gonna do wiv da data drive an' what's on it. I'm assuming that you and ya bud over there was gonna release it to da common masses or somethin'", he gestured to Chromedome, "So, ya know, ma boss says that can't be happening, but once again, I don't care. I just get ta kill a whole list of people, and you's be on da top of dat ol' list."
Mindset then lowered and chocked his rifle, pointing it at Orion's head.
"So, I find maself repeatin' again, be ma guest an' smile for da bullet dat's-"
"Excuse me."
Mindset looked to the new voice, and was about to yell at them for interrupting him again, when he saw who was standing there. 3 Macromasters, standing in the broken doorway on the opposite side of the room. The lead Macromaster was a dark blue/green colour, with purple and orangey gold colours across his body, glowing purple accents and highlights, glowing green optics, and what looked like a truck alt mode. Another was purple and green, with a faceplate, glowing red visor and purple accents across his body, and what looked like a biplane alt mode, and the third was black and red, with glowing red optics and purple accents, and tank kibble. The only 2 things that seemed to unite these 3 random Cybertronians was that they shared a similar symbol (Being a upside down purple triangle, with a head crest on the top of it, 2 triangles cut out of the pyramid, and 2 other triangles attached to the side of it)… And they were all armed.
The lead Macromaster spoke, "We're a group of disenfranchised rebels looking for a drive that contains enough evidence to help us overthrow the hopeless autocracy that we reside under."
His gun then raised to meet the sights of Mindset's head.
"Is this the right room?"
Mindset didn't get a chance to make a coherent response. As soon as a single syllable left his mouth, a purple blast of plasma erupted from the stranger's rifle, rushing towards Mindset, and piercing his head in twain, before that same head exploded into a million pieces of wiring, broken pieces of brain module, and energon, splattering all over the careworn and burning walls. What was left of Mindset's head was a bloodied lower jaw, some loose bits of wiring, a broken backstrut, and a shattered vocal processor, spewing out sounds of groans and garbles, before going silent, his bio lights going dark, and the affects of aggressive depigmentation taking hold, his body finally falling to the ground, dead.
The stranger then lowered his rifle, took a step forward, the taut floor groaning under him, and looked at Orion, who had become fixed to the spot in shock. The stranger, in a calm and collected voice, then said, "Hello there, Optimus", he said Orion's nickname like it was his actual name, "I am Colossus. Before you ask, yes, we were standing outside the whole time, listening to your conversation. My associates and I just needed to confirm that you indeed were the one we were looking for."
It took a few moments for Orion to gain equilibrium over himself, before, trying to sound calm, said, "I-I'm going t assume that you're after the same thing as-"
"The data drive", said 'Colossus', "We would very much like to have it, if you may", although he then paused for a second, his green optics looking as if he were in deep thought, before saying, "Although, I suppose that you don't actual have to give it over. After all, it may seem that our ends align. In a way."
"I have no idea what you're talking about", said Orion in a haughty manner.
"Well, from what Mindset had said", did Colossus hear Mindset say his name, or was he already aware of him? Questions for later, "You had the data drive on you, and, he had theorised that you might wish to release it to the 'Common masses', which I wish to do, as well."
Orion tilted his head slightly, and said, "You want to release the data drive as well?" he decided not to bother with lying at this point.
"W-What the h-hell is going on?" weakly asked Rewind, as he stumbled to Orion's side, and leaned on his leg.
"Why, my small friend", began Colossus, looking down at the cassettebot, "Your friend Optimus recently acquired a piece of information against Sentinel that would be beneficial to the future of Cybertron. If this information is released, then the people will finally gain the will to rise up against his reign, and-"
"And Sentinel will be impeached", said Orion, looking down to Rewind, "With the information on the data drive, he'll be forced to step down, and someone more responsible will be placed into Primehood."
Colossus looked genuinely surprised, and then said, "Ah, my dear boy, your words speak of idealism, but they also speak of hopeless naivety. Those with sparks of poison will never back down when they have acquired power. They'll fight to the bitter end in arrogant defiance. Their souls crave the suffering of others, and they will ensure that they will be able to prolong that suffering and injustice for as long as they can. Same goes for Sentinel. Him and his associates in the Assembly will never give up all their undeserved power. This", Colossus spread his arms wide, and gestured to the burning Archive Centre and bodies around the group, "Is just one instance of the Assembly's unwillingness to let their rule slip away from them. Not as long as they live."
"Which won't be for long!" almost yelled the black and red Macromaster behind Colossus, his arms in the air.
"Which won't be for long. Well said, Skullgrin."
"W-Well, then why?" nervously asked Orion, "Why release the data drive? What's to gain, if Sentinel won't back down?"
Colossus gave off a sigh, out of clear exasperation of Orion's supposed naivety, and said, "Revolution, son. When the public sees the information on the data drive, then they will finally be delivered the courage to rise up against their oppressors. Protests will become mobs. Mobs will become riots. Riots will become armies. Armies will flock to our cause. The cause", he pointed to the purple insignia on his shoulder, "Of the Exiled. We will be united under a single banner. A single purpose. A single blade that will slice Sentinel's army in twain, and tear him and the Assembly asunder, and from it, we will build a new golden age, free from the corruption of the Primes."
"You would have war?" Orion's factor of defiance began to rise once more. He wasn't buying Colossus' rhetoric.
"What would you have me do?" Colossus' question seemed sincere, "I do not take pleasure in the act of conflict. I do not savour it. But, I understand the necessity of it. Sentinel will never go down peacefully. Not while he still walks this world. The entire concept of peace is so foreign to his diseased processors, it might as well be alien."
"You're-"
"Exaggerating? Hardly. I've seen enough of what his kind have done to know what they are."
"Cybertronians?"
"Tyrants."
"If you get your war, innocent people will die."
"If we do not fight, then Sentinel will kill us all. Give it another 100,000 years or 2, and our race will slide towards blissful extinction, and we'll become gargoyles and metal statues on a dead world. Not a bang, but a whisper. That shall be how the extinction of our species shall be remembered. Unless we free ourselves from the tyranny that we reside under."
"You keep saying 'We'. I want nothing to do with your 'Cause', or whatever", Orion defiantly stated.
"A shame", Colossus never lost his calm demeanour, "For I wished to offer you a boon."
"What?"
"To join our cause. To join the Exiled. I wish not to fight you for the data drive, but I do feel that you would-"
"Save it", snapped Orion, "You're not going to cajole me into joining your little fool's crusade. I may not have lived for too long, but I've seen enough today to know that if Cybertron falls into civil war, we'll just be digging ourselves into a grave we won't be able to climb out of. If we fight, we'll all die. But if we choose peace, we have a chance to live. To prosper. To make something good out of our world. So, will I be giving you the data drive?" he made a sweeping motion with his hand, "No, Colossus. The answer is no."
"...", Colossus then let out a loud sigh, and said, "Oh, Optimus, I did try to make you see past your blind idealism. I really did try to help you. But, in the end, you just couldn't help yourself", he then signalled to his 2 compatriots, "Take the drive off of him."
The 2 Macromasters took a step forward, but then Orion made a sweeping motion with his feet, in an attempt to throw Colossus off balance. It didn't work, however, and the 2 Macromasters ended up in a scuffle with Orion, throwing fists at the red and blue bot.
Colossus then walked up to Orion, and slammed his fist in his chest, tiny streams of green light from his spark shining through his shattered metal plating. But Orion was unfettered, as he grasped hold of Colossus' rifle, trying to snatch it from him. The struggle between them lasted for a few more seconds, before...
{KA-CHOOM}
Colossus had pulled the trigger of his gun, sending a purple blast of energy into Orion's chest, tearing apart his outer hide, leaving his inner components and green spark visible. Now soaked in Orion's energon, Colossus threw his body onto the ground, steam erupting from the whole in his chest.
"ORI-" began Rewind in surprise, but a split second after he started, a kick from 'Skullgrin' sent him tumbling to the ground, his visor going dark.
"Do not interrupt the boss!" yelled Skullgrin.
"Steel yourself, Skullgrin", said Colossus, as he knelt down next to Orion, whispering, "Damn you, Optimus. Damn you for making me do that", before saying to Skullgrin, "If you wish for violence, then go find some Vehicons to tear apart. We have no need for it here", he then grabbed a piece of Orion's torso, and ripped it off, sending energon over the floor, as he looked for a compartment where the data drive could be. Then, a wheel was removed, then a headlight was smashed, before Colossus took notice of an irregular panel on his cracked visor, and peeled it off to reveal the data drive inside, "Bingo", he said as he took it out of the face plate, and pulled out a datapad, and connected the data drive to it, meanwhile signalling a known frequency over his internal comms, "Soundwave, do you read?"
"Affirmative", went the electronic voice of the chief communications officer of the Exiled.
"I have the data drive, and the files on it. I'm sending them to you now. Once you have them, begin uploading them to the Interchannel."
"Affirmative. Receiving...I have the files. Uploading them now."
"Roger. We'll get going, then", said Colossus, "Tell Onyx Primal to bring the Kiro down to the Archive Centre", Colossus then hung up, and said to his 2 compatriots, "Our task is done here. Let move out before the Vehicons sober up."
The 3 Exileds began to leave the tattered room, but then looked behind them upon hearing a loud groan, spotting the Autobots in the opposite hallway beginning to come into consciousness.
"Those guys are gettin' up, Colossus", said the purple and green Macromaster.
"Then do with them as you will, Blitz", said Colossus, as he and Skullgrin began to walk out of the room, "One less Autobot is good for us in the coming war, but be quick about it. We can't stay here for long."
"Heh", went 'Blitz', as he slammed his foot articulator into Chromedome's head, "Sure thing boss."
Once Colossus and Skullgrin left the broken room, and ran down the shattered and crumbling corridors, Blitz smashed his domed arm against Chromedome's chest, and tore off the front part of the armour, revealing his still glowing blue spark.
"Gonna kill you", muttered Blitz, the ends of his domed arms converting into claws, and grasped his hand around Chromedome's spark, squeezing, watching the innermost energon trickle down his claws, "And you know what? I don't think anyone's gonna remember-"
{BANG}
"Ugh", was Blitz's response to the strange sudden feeling in his neck. Huh. Was he just shot?
Then, he began to feel warm. Then hot. Then searing.
He looked down to his arms, to see smoke and steam erupting from every part of his body. Then, he could feel burning hot liquid pour from his optics and through his visor, and from his joints as well.
Then, the fire came.
It erupted from his joints, and then from his optics, and from the bloodied hole in his neck. The energon within him had somehow been set alight. He head been blinded by flames. He could feel the metal in his body melting away. He could feel the flames licking away at his brain module. The pain was agonising.
"Augh, AUGH, AUUUUUUGGGHHHH, AAAAUUUUGGGGGHHHHH, AAAAUUUUUUGGGGGGHHHHH!" Blitz screamed in shear pain as he felt one of his arms melt off, his burning energon spraying across the wall, like a unholy light show. His limbs and joints began to melt off, the ugly display falling and withering on the ground, continuously screaming in agony until his voice box and vocal processors melted away, leaving him silent, yet still screaming in his mind, until the flames burnt away his spark and brain module, his mind breaking apart and destroying itself, before his life left his prison of agony, and his last coherent thought was to see his killer, and scream, his lifeless body melted in place, his exostructure visible and burnt in place as his face was frozen, locked in a constant, never ending scream.
Rewind dropped Mindset's emptied rifle, and fell back to the floor. What was that? Bullets don't work like that. That shouldn't have happened. He just wanted to incapacitate the Cybertronian who was attacking his husband, not... That.
He grabbed his knees, and held them close to him, rocking back and force in place amongst the still raw flames. It took him about a good minute to remember the still bleeding wound in his waist. He tried to apply pressure to it, but found that it was too late. He could feel his systems going offline at the lack of energon and his wounds.
As he toppled over, the grasps of stasis pulling him away, he saw Orion, covered in energon, and practically falling apart at the seams, get himself up, and march to the smashed doorway, "O-Orion", weakly muttered Rewind, "P-P-Please..."
"I-I-I can't", Orion stammered, as he tried to transform, but found that his T-cog was jammed, so, he just starting limping down the corridor, "I can't... Let... Colossus... Win..."
"W-Wait, Orion", he quietly strained, as he fell into the maw of stasis, his last words being, "You'd... Leave us to... Die..."
The Straits of Yuss
Yuss Naval Batteries
Maxilla
Fort Scyk
"Blunderbuss is reporting multiple casualties on the Broadside, sir!" Wing Saber reported as he stood next to Ikard's station, spying on his monitor, "And we've lost contact with Sea Spray!"
"Fizzle is reporting a breach at one of the Maxilla entrance", went Scuba, "Heavy-Tread, Cogman, D-Day and several others are KIA. Dozens are injured. Medix and Panzer are reporting that Deduce, Beacon, Snowblind and Steelshot might not make it."
"Tell Medix and his crew to put those with serious injuries into stasis pods, and start working on those who can be fixed in a short period of time", ordered Drydock from his chair, who then looked to Claw Jaw and asked, "What of the civilians?"
"Offshoot's reporting that the civilians are getting exceptionally rowdy. Someone called 'The Man Terror', or something, and a few other civies tried to raid the armoury for guns and hold everyone hostage, but Landshark's unit was able to stop them. But the rest of the civies are getting desperate. They're gonna start rioting in a bit if we don't do something!"
"Well, order Offshoot to calm them down, then! We can't deal with rogue Vehicons, terrorist invasions, and rioting civies at the same-"
Then, the door to the command room went {KNOCK KNOCK}, and the room went silent.
Evac went to the comm panel in the wall next to the door, and pressed down on a button, going, "Who's out there?"
"It's, um, it's Starbot, sir. I need to show Drydock something", went the nervous voice of Starbot. Drydock was immediately suspicious.
Before Drydock could say anything, however, Evac calmly opened the door, only to be greeted by Starbot being flung at him, knocking them out as they fell to the ground. Seconds later, a flashbang rolled into the room.
Drydock yelled, "SCRAP, RU-"
{BANG}
A blinding light and a loud bang and ringing sound overloaded his senses, as he tried to get up from his chair, and ended up tripping on a large cable on the ground. When he tried to get himself up, he heard through the ringing in his ears gunshots through the air, and once his optics had readjusted themselves, he saw Wing Saber and Dreadrock, with bloodied holes in their chests, lying on the floor, and the cowardly Ikard puling to an unseen individual, saying that he'd cooperate to the best of his abilities, to which Drydock heard a quick series of 0s and 1s, and a voice agreeing, and telling Ikard to realign the batteries.
Drydock got himself up to his knees, but felt the muzzle of a gun caress the back of his head. He quickly looked behind him, to see a blue, grey, and red flier Macromaster pointing his arm cannon at him, who then said, "Nuh uh, Autobot. Move again, and you're dead", the flier then said to a green and orange Macromaster, "Aquablast, I've got a bot who's still conscious here."
"Well, you know the drill, Thundercracker", said 'Aquablast', whom himself was watching over the unconscious forms of Claw Jaw and Scuba, "If he moves, make sure he doesn't."
Drydock then looked to the consoles, to see that Ikard was nervously working with a purple and grey Minibot on the gun targeting systems. Next to them, a grey and green Constructibot Macromaster with purple highlights was standing over them, who then said to a flip up holoscreen on his wrist, "Have the naval carrier been taken?"
"AFFIRMATIVE", went a robotic voice over his comms, "PRISONERS HAVE BEEN TAKEN."
"Good. Are the carrier's targeting systems intact?"
"AFFIRMATIVE."
"Good. It looks like the carrier's targeting systems have been linked to the naval batteries own systems. Make sure those systems are still online until we pull out. Once we're out, destroy them."
"AFFIRMATIVE."
The Constructibot shut off his communications, and then turned to the 2 working at the consoles, "Jolt, got sight on any potential targets?"
"01011001 01100101 01110000 00101110 00100000 01000111 01101111 01110100 00100000 01101100 01101111 01110100 01110011 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01010110 01100101 01101000 01101001 01100011 01101111 01101110 01110011 00100000 01100011 01101111 01101110 01110110 01100101 01110010 01100111 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01110100 01101111 01100111 01100101 01110100 01101000 01100101 01110010 00100000 01101111 01110101 01110100 01110011 01101001 01100100 01100101 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01001001 01100001 01100011 01101111 01101110 00101110 00100000 01010000 01101111 01110011 01110011 01101001 01100010 01101100 01111001 00100000 01100110 01101111 01110010 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100011 01101111 01110101 01101110 01110100 01100101 01110010 01110011 01110100 01110010 01101001 01101011 01100101 00101110 00100000 01001100 01101111 01101111 01101011 01110011 00100000 01101100 01101001 01101011 01100101 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01001110 01001111 01000001 00100000 01110110 01101001 01110010 01110101 01110011 00100000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01110111 01100101 01100001 01110010 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01101111 01100110 01100110", went 'Jolt' at almost the speed of light.
The Constructibot then looked to Ikard, "'Ikard', right?"
"Um, er, yes sir". fussed Ikard nervously.
"Right, good. I need you to target the Vehicon force amassing outside of Iacon", the Constructibot took a step forward, and asked, in an intimidating nature, "Can you do that?"
"Er, er, y-yes sir. I-I can do that, sir, b-but I'll require the activation code."
"And where's the code?"
"C-Commander Drydock h-has it, sir", Ikard then pointed to Drydock, "H-He remotely sends the c-codes through the command network t-to the, um, to the guns."
The Constructibot hummed in response, and then asked Jolt, "How long will it take to get the codes?"
"01000111 01101001 01101101 01101101 01100101 00100000 01100001 00100000 01110011 01100101 01100011", went Jolt, who then responded several seconds later, "01000111 01101111 01110100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 01101101 00101110 00100000 01000011 01101111 01100100 01100101 01110011 00100000 01100001 01110010 01100101 00100000 01110010 01100101 01100001 01100100 01111001 00101110"
"Right then, where are the Vehicons setting up?"
"01001010 01110101 01110011 01110100 00100000 01101111 01110101 01110100 01110011 01101001 01100100 01100101 00100000 01010011 01100101 01101110 01110100 01101001 01101110 01100101 01101100 00100111 01110011 00100000 01000110 01101111 01101100 01101100 01111001 00101110"
"Target them, and let the cannons rip", the Constructibot said to the both of them.
"01010010 01101111 01100111 01100101 01110010 00101110"
"Ah, er, y-yes sir", said the ever-a-coward Ikard, who began to prime the batteries for firing.
Drydock couldn't let these terrorists win, and he certainly couldn't let that traitorous little Ikard go unpunished after this blatant betrayal. Drydock quickly swatted away 'Thundercracker's' arm cannon, and got himself up, ready to pounce on Ikard, but a purple laser blast from the Constructibot's pistol went straight through his head, making him fall to the floor, dead.
"You okay, Scrapper?" asked Aquablast.
"Ugh, yeah", replied 'Scrapper', wiping away a drop of energon that had gotten on him, before going to Jolt, "Are the guns primed?"
"01010000 01110010 01101001 01101101 01100101 01100100 00100000 01100001 01101110 01100100 00100000 01110010 01100101 01100001 01100100 01111001 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01100110 01101001 01110010 01100101 00101100 00100000 01010011 01100011 01110010 01100001 01110000 01110000 01100101 01110010 00101110 00100000 01010111 01100001 01101001 01110100 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01101111 01101110 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 01110010 00100000 01110111 01101111 01110010 01100100 00101110", went Jolt.
"Let them have it", he ordered.
Jolt began to tap away at one of the consoles, the clicking and tapping of his keyboard accompanied by the sounds of the Yuss naval guns realigning themselves. Just a minute later, a bright flash of blue, and an deafening bang filled the command room, and over a dozen massive blasts of plasma soared through the air, towards the horde of Vehicons that gathered outside of Sentinel's Folly. On the monitor a few minutes later, they could see in the telescope the laser blasts impacting with the Vehicon hordes, obliterating them all in a fiery blaze.
"Job's done, guys", said Scrapper, as he turned to the door, "Let's plant charges around the guns and bail."
"Um", whined Ikard as he rubbed his hands together, "W-What about me?"
"Oh, right", Scrapper turned back round, and looked at the slimy bot, "Thanks for your assistance", he said, before pulling out his pistol and whipping him with it over his head, knocking the white, blue, and purple out with one blow, his yellow eyes going out.
Jolt looked to Scrapper, asking, "01010111 01100001 01110011 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100001 01110100 00100000 01110010 01100101 01100001 01101100 01101100 01111001 00100000 01101110 01100101 01100011 01100101 01110011 01110011 01100001 01110010 01111001 00101100 00100000 01010011 01100011 01110010 01100001 01110000 01110000 01100101 01110010 00111111"
"Couldn't trust him to look away as we left", said Scrapper, as he and the rest of Alpha Team began to leave the command room, "Better safe than sorry."
"01000110 01110010 01101111 01101101 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01101100 01101111 01101111 01101011 01110011 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01101001 01110100 00101100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100001 01110100 00100000 01100111 01110101 01111001 00100000 01110010 01100101 01100001 01101100 01101100 01111001 00100000 01101100 01101111 01101111 01101011 01100101 01100100 00100000 01101100 01101001 01101011 01100101 00100000 01101000 01100101 00100000 01110111 01101111 01110101 01101100 01100100 01101110 00100111 01110100 00100000 01101000 01100001 01110110 01100101 00100000 01100100 01101111 01101110 01100101 00100000 01100001 01101110 01111001 01110100 01101000 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01110011 01110100 01101111 01110000 00100000 01110101 01110011 00101110 00100000 01001010 01110101 01110011 01110100 00100000 01110011 01100001 01111001 01101001 01101110 01100111 00101110"
Scrapper ignored him, and he and the rest of Alpha Team ran through the door and into the corridor, Aquablast sparing a moment to unload the ammo in his gun into the consoles in the room, destroying them all in a satisfying explosion, and letting those still alive in the room burn to death in the ensuing fire.
As the sounds of Alpha Team transforming into their alt modes and speeding down the corridors echoed through the burning command room, several figures suddenly arrived in the room in a bright flash, and surveyed their wrecked surroundings. One of the figures, their leader, saw the bodies of the triplets, and scanned them for life signs, finding that they were still alive.
"9K", said the leader, their voice was stern and filled the room with a mixture or respect, yet also encouraged a sort of worship, the sound of their voice impossible to tell if it was male or female, "Gather those 3 bots there. They will serve well in our Maximal forces."
"Yes sir", said '9K', a white, gold, and blue bot, before moving down to the triples, gesturing 2 other 'Maximals', K-9 and Air Hammer, to help him carry the triples away to safety.
The leader then looked to the unconscious forms of Evac and Starbot, saying to 2 other Maximals, Getout and Dragoyell, "Bring those 2 with us, as well. They will be converted into our ranks as well", the 2 Maximals nodded, and went to retrieve the Autobots. The leader then looked to the dead bodies of Drydock, Wing Saber, and Dreadrock, and said to the Maximal Thunderhoof, "Salvage any sparks, T-cogs, or brain modules from the dead Autobots. They will be useful for the creation of more of our kind."
Thunderhoof muttered to himself, "Ugh, do I's gotta-", the piercing stare of the leader silenced him immediately, and with a gulp, he said, "Um, er, yeah boss", before moving to the corpses, and digging his hands into the bodies, covering his hands in blood.
"Um, Convoy, sir, if I may ask", began the last Maximal in the room, "We know where the rest of the Constructed Cold spark stockpiles are. Why can we not just-"
"Because they will be discovered by the combatants of the coming war, Lio Minor", the leader, 'Convoy' swiftly spoke, "I have told you this before. And besides, even if we did take claim of all of the stockpiles, we would still not have enough sparks and bodies for our tests, and to make up our forces. We will need all of the able and unable bodies that we can."
'Lio Minor' hesitated, before asking, "With all due respect, my lord, how would you know thi-"
"Are you questioning me, Lio Minor?"
"Wha- No, Convoy, sir!" Lio Minor quailed, "No, never, I-"
Convoy cut him off immediately, a firm hand clasping Lio Minor's shoulder, "Please, Lio, do not question our methods. If our goals, being the survival of the entire universe, are to be achieved, we must take every precaution, and take each step carefully, and logically. If we do anything rash, or commit to any action that would jeopardise us, we put all life at risk.l
Lio squirmed under the gaze of the Maximal commander, before muttering, "Yes sir."
Convoy then moved away from Lio Minor, and observed the room once again. Suddenly, the room shook, and pieces of the ceiling began to collapse. The Exiled must've planted their explosives and detonated them. A few of the Maximals looked to the leader in worry as, through what was left of the monitors and viewports, the guns and the naval ships began to explode and fall apart. The leader gave off a hint of surprise, and then raised their arm, and spoke into their comms, "Orcanoch, GroundBridge by 13."
A blinding flash followed, and then, in the blink of an optic, the Maximals were gone.
Iacon
Border regions
Outside the Archive Centre
{SLAM} was the accompanying sound, as Swerve's pipe impacted with the side of the Vehicon's head, green analogue bellowing from the point of impact, and sending the drone tumbling to the floor.
"Got another one!" Swerve yelled back to Bumblebee, who himself had just shot an alien drone through the chest, oily black fluid spraying over the shattered wall near them. Swerve then said, "That's about, ooh, 7!" he quickly dodged a fist from another alien drone, letting a nearby Vehicon finish it off with a shot to the head. Swerve quickly dropped his pipe, shifted into his alt mode and, using a fallen piece of wall as a ramp, smashed into the Vehicon, shattering it's chest, and smashing his own front, dislodging a wheel, and instinctively transforming back into his robot form, sparing a moment to sooth over his newly dented parts, "Ow, that's- Ow, damn- That's 8 now, for me!"
"Oh yeah", loudly replied Bumblebee as he let out another round from his pistol, the shot going through an approaching Vehicon's chest, off lining it instantly, "I've got 10! Top that!"
"Guy! Focus!" yelled Dust Up, as she rolled behind a piece of broken wall as cover, and threw a large rock at the head of a Vehicon, disorienting it, and letting 2 alien drones tear it apart. Dust up then indicated to the Archive Centre, "Take a look at the building!"
The Archive Centre was still aflame, and almost done for. The shell of the building was almost gone, letting it's skeletal structure show. All of the columns that had stood at the sides of the building had now fallen, and the giant antenna that stood at the top of the building was tilted to the side, looking like it would fall over at any minute. Parts of the building's frame had collapsed, creating piles of burning rubble that helped to spread the already expanding flames. Ash smothered the lands and buildings around it, and smoke flew to the sky, shrouding the air in dust and black smog. Around the building, and most likely across the entire city, Autobots, Vehicons, and these new invaders battled in the streets and in the sky, filling the air with laser blasts and projectiles, accompanying the smell of ozone and fresh energon spilling to the ground.
Swerve trudged past the heat being given off by the massive blaze, and yelled, "The building's falling apart!"
"Yeah, we could tell, Swerve!" replied Bumblebee in an equally loud voice.
"Guys, seriously!" Dust Up went, joining in on the loud voices, "I know that earlier I said that we shouldn't go in there, or something, but right now I'm too high on adrenaline to care!"
"So we go in there now!?"
"Yeah, Bee-Bee! We go in there now!"
"Yeah, sod it!" Swerve jumped over the rubble of the building, picking his pipe piece up as he legged it to the Archive Centre, "Let's go!"
"Let's do this!" Bumblebee shifted into his alt mode and sped past Swerve to the building.
"Let's move it out and get this-"
They were all knocked down by a massive explosion erupting from the building.
The ruins of the Archive Centre
Colossus looked through the new hole in the Archive Centre (Curtesy of Skullgrin) to the battle of Iacon, his prize in his bloodied hand. He could see the fires and smoke spread through the city, creating a thick smog that spread through the air. Lasers and missiles and bullets soared through the air, cutting it in twain like a knife through the most fragile skin. Around the city, the careworn surface of Cybertron was picked away by the explosions and laser fires, the fossilised skin being chipped away to reveal the inherent, still raw blisters of Cybertron, Alpha Centauri was obscured by the thick clouds and warships of the Exiled blockaded the light from reaching the ground, only the rare follicle of light escaping to the ground.
Colossus figured that it was a good time as any to get rid of the name. 'Exiled' didn't really seem terribly fitting anymore, seeing as they were about to finally free Cybertron from it's tyranny, and lift away the self deception that the people had used to shield their eyes away from the horrors of today.
'Deception'... Huh. He could work with that.
Colossus heard his comms chirping, and opened the calling frequency to hear the ever familiar voice of Soundwave, "Sir, data transmission has been accomplished. The information on the data drive has now been transmitted to every site on the Interchannel."
"Excellent work, Soundwave", Colossus replied, as he could see the Kiro park near the hole in the building, it's hatch opening to reveal Black Omen and Swift awaiting them. As Skullgrin and Colossus boarded the craft, he said to Soundwave over his comms, "Begin recalling the troops, and divert them to their crafts. We have one groon to do so. Living troops first, Soundwave. Any Galaman or Novaroid drones that are left behind are to initiate their self destruct protocols."
"Affirmative. Transmitting now. I shall rejoin you on the Banner of Hope, Colossus."
"I look forward to seeing you there, my friend."
As Colossus boarded the Kiro, he heard a loud clanging as rustling behind him. He looked behind him, to see a battered and broken Optimus looking at him, rage in his eyes, but his point one percenter spark visible for all the world to see. Black Omen, Skullgrin, and Swift raised their guns to meet the red and blue Macromaster, but Colossus wordlessly ordered them to lower them, with a lazy wave of his hand.
"Well, the prodigal son returns", he chuckled to himself.
"Y-Y-Y-You haven't... W-Won yet... C-Colossus...", the poor boy could barely finish a sentence without stammering, as he lost precious energon to the affects of gravity, as they seeped from his wounds and met with the red hot floor.
"Yes I have, Optimus", said Colossus as the hatch to the Kiro closed with a hiss, "You are simply too stubborn to see it."
As Colossus' ship took off, the side slam of the winds from the blast impacted with Orion, forcing him a foot back, and fanning the flames around him. As the taut floor bent and creased underneath him, he looked to the world outside, the sky bruised in black and purple, only barely able to see the always nascent sunset fall over Cybertron. The sky was alight with flashes of blue, red, orange, and purple, and hadean hues engulfed him in their bright light and heat.
Then, he felt himself drop to his knees. He'd lost too much energon. He could barely move. He tried to move his arms, but felt that they were useless too. The pain that shot across his bloody body was immeasurable, but he found himself unable to cry or scream. His voice box and vocal processers must be too damaged to function.
He felt his conscious slip away, his optics becoming duller and duller. Every second spent awake felt like a chore. He found himself falling sideways onto the floor, his vision becoming tilted 90 degrees.
The ground underneath him gave way, and his vision became a single white beam of light.
In case anyone is wondering about Scrapper, he's basically in a Prime/WFC version of his IDW Don Figureroa design, but in his Classics colours.