Hammerhead.
Warnings: Violence, bad language, gore and possibly some sex.
"Through this doorway what's on the other side, never knowing exactly what I'll find, locked and loaded, voices screaming: let's go, come on do it, here we go!" – Hammerhead, the Offspring.
Timing: Post season 2 finale, set few weeks after Beauty of the Beast in my very own BotB Prime Timeline (due to the fact that season 3 – The Beast Hunters is about to be aired at the end of March).
Rating: M (alternative – if there will be any – or extended chapters will go MA and will be available on my Tumblr account, the address is available on my profile page).
Pairings: Megatron and June, Bumblebee and Miko, maybe some Shockwave and Arcee.
Disclaimer: Transformers Prime © Hasbro. Story's plot and OC's © me. There may be some OC's that aren't mine – they belong to their respective creators.
Be Quick.
You've got to watch them, be quick or be dead
Snake eyes in heaven, the thieves in your head
You've got to watch them, be quick or be dead
Snake eyes in heaven, the thief in your head
Be quick, or be dead!
Be quick!
Or be dead! – "Be Quick or Be Dead" Iron Maiden.
Ripley was stretched in the driver seat of desert coloured ATV and drooled slightly in his sleep. It was already dark and boredom rendered him unconscious. It was way pass his shift anyway and he was too tired to move so he just passed out in his car.
The night was silent safe for occasional loud moan of that poor fool with sun burns, his skin begun to peel and no amount of any kind of ointment could help him at this point. Any touch caused him pain and he was forced to sleep on his belly. Few others snored quietly, and night guard shifted in his seat as he observed the facility.
The guard yawned; his shift would end in half an hour. Nothing was happening and he thought that it would be another boring night and another wasted day, but he wasn't the one making decisions and personally he was glad that there was nothing happening. Boredom meant that the chances of being shot, stomped on, electrocuted, arrested by Federal Agents or attacked by a horny porcupine (which happened once to his friend during one of M.E.C.H. operations); were minimal.
Five minutes later he was swearing loudly as he ran toward Ripley's car. Everything was calm and quiet and then this blue-green vortex appeared and those blasted Decepticons emerged ending his perfect, boring shift.
Another minute later M.E.C.H. camp looked like an ant nest when everyone (minus that poor sunburned fool) got up and proceeded with their tasks in silence. Only when they would be ready to go they would start up their cars' engines. Silia planned this as a surprise attack and as such it would be performed.
Megatron didn't know why he decided to take part in this operation. All he did was standing in one place and look menacing. And there weren't even any fleshlings to scare because Soundwave did his thing and replayed some warning or another and those fleshbags simply left. All Megatron could do was to look though before his own mechs, and they already knew him. He felt bored and useless, though he would rather deactivate than admit that to anyone. To a random observer he was just standing there overseeing the entire operation with watchful optic.
Bulkhead woke with a start, rolled and fell off his berth. The green giant muttered few curse words under his vent and got up, around the rest of the team was getting up. He and Wheeljack had the benefit of being Wreckers which meant that they could get up and lay down half of the enemy unit before they even powered up their optics.
"Uh? What's happened?" Wheeljack was looking around and noticing that the rest of the Team Prime was just gathering their selves from their own berths.
"An alarm." Arcee was the one to answer him. "And it's ours, not humans'."
"In the middle of the night?" Smokescreen stretched and almost knocked Bumblebee down. "Oh, sorry bro."
"You can trust Megatron to pick the worst time to cause havoc." Bulkhead rebooted his optics couple of times, a Cybertronian equivalent of blinking couple of times to get rid of the blurry vision.
Bumblebee only whirred something incomprehensible and was the first to leave their shared (and temporary) recharge area.
In the main room of Autobot temporary base Agent Fowler was showing Ratchet and Optimus some footage from the area that been assaulted. It looked unpleasantly familiar.
"And there're two of those generators in there. I don't know what Megatron wants to power up, but whatever it is it's got to be big!" Agent Fowler sounded agitated.
"Most probably it is something within his new citadel." Optimus was sitting on impromptu chair and looked a lot better than just days earlier. He already had his both optics in place, though his paintjob was still just a shadow of what it used to be.
"I will set the Groundbridge and perhaps it will work this time." Said Ratchet. He never looked happy but now he was simply miserable.
The Medic began to manipulate with various controls and the coils started to glow, but it took several minutes before the device generated stable wormhole.
Two pairs of ground based Vehicons entered the facility's hangar. Every Decepticon soldier seemed rather relaxed; everything seemed to go according to the plan (for a change). Starscream grinned widely and it looked like he was actually pleased. Megatron had to admit that the Air Commander looked younger when he smiled like that, and the Decepticon Overlord realised that Starscream wasn't as old as it would seem. The almost constant scowl added the slim seeker age.
The Groundbridge opened as the first pair of Vehicons carrying a massive generator emerged from one of the hangars, trotted into the vortex and disappeared.
And then everything ceased to go according to the plan.
Two things happened at the same time. First thing that Starscream noticed was roar of car engines. And he could tell that those were not Vehicons' engines. The sound was lower, louder and definitely not Cybertronian in origin. Second thing he realised was that those were not regular engines, nor heavy diesel truck engines, nor even sport cars of the kind that Knockout liked to race with and could been heard from the distance as they drove by. No, those were heavy engines of off road vehicles. The third thing that Starscream noticed was that the sounds didn't come from the direction of the nearby road; the roar came from the desert.
Before he could think about what was happening he found himself transforming his servos and powering his cannons. "Incoming attack!" He screeched loudly and pointed in the general direction of where the sound was coming from.
The second thing that happened was one of the Vehicons that formed back up forces that were to guard rears; noticed opening Groundbridge and yelled that there were incoming intruders.
Megatron heard two warnings coming one after another and only sighed a heavy vent, it was so typical that he managed to get used to it – every time something went according to a plan, someone or something happened and everything went out of the window.
The Warlord powered up his fusion cannon and pointed at the nearest target – it was one of those desert coloured ATV. One second later the car was sent back in tiny, burning pieces.
Autobots emerged from the Groundbridge and started to fire at the Decepticons, but what they received as an answer was only half of what they expected. Arcee, who assumed role of field commander, pointed one of her blasters at Starscream's back, but the seeker didn't even notice her. Despite the temptation to just shoot him she took a second glance at what the Decepticon SIC was looking at and froze.
"It's M.E.C.H.!" Her voice caused all Autobots to look at her.
"What's M.E.C.H.?" Smokescreen gave her funny look, but she didn't answer him. Her face turned in a mask of hate.
"Human equivalent of Decepticons, only worse." Said Bumblebee in series of clicks and beeps.
"Yeah." Agreed Bulkhead. "Arcee, Jack and Optimus have some personal issues with them."
"But they were out of the game after Silas vanished." Beeped Bumblebee.
"And now they're back." Arcee tapped her com link. "You heard us Ratchet?"
"Yes. But who is commanding them?" Ratchet brows furrowed as he recalled their last encounter with Silas.
"We managed to confirm Silas' death after that failed attack on Rafael's house." Agent Fowler tapped on a human sized keyboard and displayed a coroner's report. "There was no official cause of death, he was found near one of military facilities and it was clear that someone tried to help him but failed. He was tortured, dissected before he died, but even before that he underwent some serious surgery. All in all there wasn't much of him left."
"Then he had to have some sort of heir." Said Optimus Prime as he rose to his full height. "Ratchet, open the Groundbridge…"
"Eeep, eep, eep, you're not ready to take part in any kind of action." Ratchet quickly stopped his Prime. "I mean it!"
"Ahem." Fowler cut in before Optimus could answer. "We know that Leland Bishop was once married to British aristocrat named Lucy Westenra. They had a daughter named Laura before they divorced, she is engineer but according to our sources she didn't leave European Union."
"It could be any of his officers." Optimus sat down. "We don't know how big the M.E.C.H. was before Silas' demise and how fast they could reorganise themselves."
"Whoever took over, they don't waste any time." Fowler pointed out. "I wonder if they are after the same generators Megatron is or they set up a trap knowing that Megatron will be after ampule power source."
TBC.
I decided to cut this piece in two and turn it into two separate chapters. Hope you won't hate me for doing so, but I had my reasons.
First of all – Easter, I simply had less time to finish it.
Second of all – other projects that also require my time.
Happy Easter to all of you who celebrate it, and for those who don't – my best wishes anyway (because why not?).