There stood flamewar, a massive crossbow blaster in one hand in in the other, the controller with which she had deactivated shockwave. She bore a passive sneer on her face with the slightest hint of a sadistic smirk; a clear sign of her mental state not running on all cylinders. More surprising was that she was flanked by the decepticons shatter and dropkick, both with weapons trained on them. When the prime had first met with soundblaster, she agreed to ensure the duo got fare treatment after getting arrested. As it turned out, they had been caught red handed in the act of running weapons. They escaped custody and after a fire fight managed to slip away and remain under the radar. Far from entertained or in a mood for a battle, astrotrain suddenly brought his two blasters to bare and fired two full power shots. Flamewar barely flinched as the shots struck their marks on her enforcers, sending them flying backwards like rag dolls. Both landed in heaps on the floor near the rear wall, smoking and deactivated. It was clear that a battle was to come but now the gauntlet had been cast. Flamewar simply glanced at the fallen warriors, turned back and stood there smirking, as if victory was already hers.
"it matters not; none of this, none of you, and none of them. The decepticons ultimate victory is destined to come"
"I don't think so crazy. I, snowstorm prime, leader and protector of this city and its people, am placing you under arrest; we're shutting down your little experiment before it goes any further" she threatened
"ooooh, "prime" is it, pfft. But my dear, it has already come so far already"
She smiled sadistically and raised her arms upwards in a grand, horrifying gesture. They all soon realized the terrible truth; all those hundreds of stasis pods above were more failed clones, a legion of megaplex.
"me and those fools spent a lot of time attempting to perfect our…process, but every one was a failure. 386 total failed attempts to revive the great megatron. The megaplex you knew of was the most recent and successful, for a time that is. That iteration failed when, between my teachings and part of his shell program failing, he lashed out and killed that filthy degenerate couple"
"their names were bulkhead and slipstream" prime glared with fury
"I care not, they died and they deserved to die. From there, despite our best efforts, his shell program and sanity began to deteriorate like all the rest. We extracted him from his deep cover in the security force, but when that autobot detective caught our trail, I offlined him myself. I realized my associates were ill equipped for the task I desired. The fools even sealed their own fate by being the ones to tell me of shockwaves post-war condition. After I got that worthless bounty hunter to get his remains, I figured as many loose ends had to be tied up as possible. I terminated him in a way to look like the clone had done it then sent him after you to end the last threat. Yet sadly here you are. That failure couldn't even succeed at his final task. Ah well, the next will be better, he will be perfect; he will be...megatron"
"I wonder how many time she's said that" riptide whispered to lancer
"with a master scientist like shockwave here, I'm sure the process will be perfected in no time. However, to achive that task in privacy and move on to the future, I realize now how the past must be utterly destroyed; wipe clean the slate. You will all die, horribly, and this city will burn and from its ashes, the new decepticon empire will be reborn"
"and how you think you're gonna pull that off alone?" astrotrain mocked
She pressed another button on her remote and dropped it and her weapon. saistfied. She stood with a sadistic smiled and raised her arms again. The massive room was suddenly filled with alarms and warning beeps, the clanging of hundreds of pod latches unsealing. From the many pods above the swarm of mad and feral clones began to drop to the floor in every direction, snarling and yelling incoherently.
"slag, fall back, run, get out!" snowstorm ordered
They took flight for the exit, the only thing they could hear beyond the thundering of the clone horde was flamewars maniacal laughter.
"cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war!" she cried out
"jazz, come in jazz!"
"I'm here prime, what…"
"get all forces to the riverfront now. Every armed bot you can, the city is about to be under siege!"
She terminated the call, not waiting to hear his questions or objections. He had his orders and he would follow them; after all, she needed both hands to fire on the approaching clones. Luckily, jazz was still meeting with the other autobots in "little iacon" and it took little convincing for his old friends, war forged old autobots looking for a good fight, to join him. Team prime alternated between running and firing to keep the clones at bay. By the time they reached the end of the utility tunnel they had only taken down about 20 of the abominations, each one having thick armor. They rushed out and shut the large metal door and rushed away, knowing it would be easily breached in seconds.
Unfortunately that was when long haul made his return, scolding the group for their apparently unruly behavior. In the midst of their shouts for him to get clear the wall around the utility entrance shattered, spilling the frenzied clones onto the ground. In shock, long haul backed away as he was beset by some of the recovering clones. He activated missile launchers in his arms and opened fire, blasting a group and madly bashing the ones that got to close to him. There were however too many and he was soon overwhelmed. Panicked as they assaulted his armor, long haul stumbled backwards, falling over the guard rail. He, and the three clones still clinging to him, fell over the edge along the water spewing from the dam into the river below, his fate unknown.
The group continued to back up and fire continuously as the clones advanced, their blind fury apparently only overshadowed by their madness. Suddenly prime caught site of shadows overhead; three figures had leapt from one of the nearby building and entered the fray. Cutting down the clones around them, they bought team prime some time to breath and reset themselves.
"this is snowstorm prime to playback"
"playback here prime, how may i…"
"I am issuing a priority one alert on the city. I want the city locked down and all citizens advised to remain indoors or reach emergency bunkers. Broadcast it now, on all frequencies"
"as you command" he responded
Indeed playback sent out the signal and the city went into its emergency protocols.
"prime, what is the meaning of this, why is the city going into lockdown?" windblade demanded over the comm
"the city is in danger, I cannot explain now, remain in the command center"
She suddenly cut the call and radioed another call to the command center.
"tailgate, blitzwing, lock down the command center now and protect the council at all costs, prime out"
As she finished, she could finally see who their aid had come from; it was spittor, snowcat and nightbird. Spittor, after being inspired by the primes previous kindness to him, had chosen to watch her back from a distance. He had recruited the other two bots to aid him based on snowcats meeting with her and nightbirds task by jetfire. Nightbird had in fact, moments ago, sent a request to her fellow earth bots for aid with the crisis. Team prime and their new allies backed from the horde, growing larger and larger as more spilled from the dam. Their backs to the city, they were all that stood between it and possible destruction. Suddenly a wave of fire spontaneously erupted to the left, engulfing the clones on the far right flank and through it burst the three dinobots. They smashed, clawed and bashed the clones before them before transforming and entering a mad melee. Streaking above providing cover wire was jetfire in his shuttle mode. Scores of the clones, still capable of transformation, took to their jet modes and rose up to accost him.
"security force attack!" a voice shouted
Behind team prime, the security forces, as well as jazz and the autobot war horses, had arrived. On jazz's orders, they formed into a solid firing line along the edge of the city limit. They opened fire with everything they had to bring down the violent mass of clones. The clones advanced, attempting to swarm and terminate all the adversaries that had risen against them. Some would come to close or breach the firing line and be forced to be dealt with hand to hand, at which they were at their most dangerous. As the clones bore down more and threatened to overwhelm the security forces, they were suddenly joined again. Looking to his left, jazz saw that a new party had arrived to join the protective wall for the city; a mob of decepticons, led by sounblaster. Still as prominent at his trade, the decepticon officer had intercepted the primes communications and rallied as many of his comarades to fight. From behind the armed forces, blaster, reflector and other media professionals had congregated to broadcast the battle.
The combined strength of the security force, autobots and decepticons proved to be the needed drive to turn the tide, and the clones began to dwindle in number. Soundblaster, to the shock of many, joined the fray personally. With the click of a button, he had reformed his life support chair into a massive battle armor that wrapped around his damaged body. He charged forward alone, crushing and blasting every clone that crossed his path. On her request, the expanded team prime pushed through the clones, making their way back towards the dam. She had realized that with all this happening, flamewar could easily slip away; she could hide and start this all again. She would not let that happen, not let her city or people be at risk again. The aquatic bots, having seen the raging battle, had made their way up the river to add their own firepower. From the safety of the water they rained death up into the skies, taking out the airborne clones, their flaming and broken bodies raining onto the battle field.
Flamewar, confident in her victory, had come to watch the slaughter from the dams top. She now stood scowling, fuming in her hatred at the utter failure of her plans. She turned to take her leave, intending to collect shockwave and the needed materials to start again from a more secure location.
"perhaps the depths of trypticons husk will prove an ideal home" she thought
As she turned away she heard a furious battle cry as she saw snowstorm charge her. As far more battle hardened and skilled as flamewar was, the weight of the bulkier femme tackling her was more than she could handle. Both went over the edge and tumbled along the slanted side of the damn until they hit the ground back down on the courtyard. Both had just narrowly missed going over the edge along the water fall; a almost fatal plunge.
"prime?!" drift shouted from above
Both taking a moment to recover, they rose and glared at each other. Having lost her blaster in the fall, flamewar unsheathed blades in her forearms and attacked. Snowstorm was not that fast or skilled and could barely dodge the blade swipes. She received multiple cuts and slashes in her armor but managed to evade any mortal strikes. Managing to get hold of her gun from her back, she brought it about and clubbed the enemy bot hard across the head with it. With the decepticon dazed, prime kicked her in the dissection to put some distance between them. Rolling back to her feet and regaining her senses, flamewar looked up to see the prime with her gun trained on her.
"you don't have the bolts for it" she challenged
"try me" she frowned back
"kill me then, but the decepticon dream does not end with me, I have ensured to that" the decepticon smiled
"the decepticons can have their dreams, and so can the autoboots, and all the other bots here. That's what this city is; a dream made real, one of equality. But bots like you just want to tear it down for some outdated rhetoric. The universe has evolved, and there's no room for bots like you anymore"
"hm, then do it" she sneered
The prime tensed as if to fire then relaxed her grip.
"I'm not like you, I'm not a killer"
Snowstorm stood aside and before she could respond, flamewar saw a massive fist from behind the prime barrel right at her. Striking her right in the face, she was flung backwards into the dam wall hard. Cracking at her impact, she remained imbedded in it for a few seconds before falling to ground uncountious as bits of concrete and medal fall around her. Snowstorm turned to the assaulter and smiled.
"thank you soundblaster"
"my pleasure" he said flatly
And with that, the city was silent; the last of the megaplex clones had been terminated and the battle was won. It was far from an easy victory and they had suffered casualties of their own; springer, pipes, cliffjumper, Dust Up, vortex and some of the colonist officers had been killed in the battle. Among the civilian autobots and decepticons they had lost kup, whirl, star saber, roadbuster, tankor, dirge, thrust, slugslinger and diabla. With the battles end the many groups broke apart; the aquatic bots returned to their own territory, as did jetfire and the dinobots. Nightbird declined rejoining them, as she and her new teammates had been offered to join team prime. Prime put in the call to end the lock down and soon emergency and labor crews were on the scene. All bots worked to dispose of the clones, repair the damage and gets things back to normal. The autobots and decepticons added their help to the efforts, which did prime spark good to see them all working together towards one goal. Just like what she said to flamewar; that was the dream this city represented. The news crews of course made their way to get the scoop on all that had happened. Still not brave enough to face them, she pushed the spotlight to her team, who enjoyed the attention and publicity.
With the moment of piece, she walked along the edge of the walkway overlooking the river. With the inclusion of its new members, she intends to reform team prime to act as a special operation unit to deal with more serious threats posed to the city. She, never having been part of it, believed war to be unnecessary but the trials she has faced in these last few weeks had proven that one must always have a strong sword as well as shield.
"did I really do it, did this really work out. Is this what it feels like to be…a prime" she thought