Chapter 2:
1;
The majority of the Decepticon forces leftover on the Nemesis was the battalion of Insecticons that Bombshell had managed to clone in the final days of the war. There were just under a hundred clones left, each of them identical either to Bombshell himself, Kickback, the Insecticons' leader, Shrapnel, or one of the four other mute Insecticons which Megatron never bothered to remember the names of. The problem with the clones was their lack of durability though, meaning that only a shot or two from a standard issue rifle would end their lives forever. Regardless, weak disposable troops were better than no disposable troops at all. They were the first sent through to the Ark.
Warpath, Grapple, and Hoist were the closest to the breech itself, and so quickly armed themselves, and stood a short distance from the opening, weapons pointed towards it. Warpath was the only one of the three with even the slightest hint of confidence, also being the only one who was a soldier before anything else, Hoist and Grapple being part of the Ark's engineering guild. While Hoist had a small convertible hand blaster, and Grapple held a semi automatic (which was the strongest weapon Warpath guessed that the taller bot had ever handled), Warpath held larger rifles in each hand along with his two shoulder cannons, and the turret stretching out of the center of his chest.
"Ready, bots?" Warpath asked, knowing the answer, but not feeling overly comfortable with his otherwise entirely silent surroundings.
"Ready as I'll ever be… not that that's sayin' too much," Grapple responded, his optics never leaving the opening in the ship's wall. There was a horrible amount of anxiety filling him, and all three of them knew it. They could only hope that more bots showed up soon to back them up.
"I can't say I'm overly excited about getting shot at again either," Hoist replied. "I miss the days back on Cybertron when I could go years without seeing a blink of fighting. Back before we got sent into space."
Warpath couldn't say he remembered those days too, but Grapple certainly could. Warpath had always been on the front lines, always eager to help the Autobot cause by sending Megatron running, a couple hundred dead Decepticons with him. Grapple and Hoist though, they were just engineers, and not even weapons engineers. Prime had brought them onboard to help set up a fort on any potential planet where they might be needed, and to help with Ark maintenance. They weren't meant for fighting like Warpath was, and there was no hiding it.
The first sounds of mechanical bugs began to come from the other side of the tunnel, reaching the three young Autobots, and they started getting louder quick.
"Well," Warpath said, "doesn't look like you're gonna be seeing those times again today, Hoist."
2;
An instant after communications with Megatron had been disabled, Optimus was on his feet, giving orders, his plasma rifle in hand.
"Sideswipe, Sunstreaker, stay here and man the ship," he began. "Wheeljack, you're staying here too. We're going to need you to man Teletran O-"
"What do you mean, we're staying here?" Sunstreaker burst out suddenly, a look of angry agreement on his brother's face beside him. "You're gonna need us down there and you know it!"
"More than that, we need you to try and set us down safely on Earth," Prime responded while Ironhide gave an agitated growl. "You're not any use to us fighting the enemy now if the ship explodes in a ball of fire as soon as it enters the atmosphere. Wheeljack, you're staying with them to man Teletran One. Hound, you're staying here too. In case the Decepticons make it this far, the brothers might need your help fending them off."
"You've got it, Prime," Hound responded, as patient and respectful as ever. That's what Optimus liked about him, and what made him such a good adviser. He thought rationally, and would follow orders when they made sense, but would argue with them when they didn't.
"Everyone else, you're with me," Optimus finished, turning towards the exit into the hallway leading throughout the ship, but didn't make it far before hearing his voice spoken in a frightened tone by Sideswipe behind him.
He turned, and saw what must have been a dozen Seekers flying directly in front of the Ark. In what seemed like a second, they pulled up, and settled facing the Ark's giant cockpit.
"Autobots, get-"
Before Prime could finish, the hull of the ship was fired upon, the Seekers' ammunition suddenly blowing towards Optimus and the rest of the crew. Optimus was thrust forward from where he stood and into the vacuum of space, as was Jazz, the only other unfortunate bot not standing next to a command board. The instant that the two had been torn from the ship, bulkhead doors covered the breach behind them.
Optimus grabbed hold of one of some Seeker's wings, one of three that they each had, which dragged the Decepticon backwards a bit, away from the ship.
"Slag! Get off of me!" the Seeker shouted at Prime, of course to no avail.
As Jazz hurtled into the void with Prime, Optimus reached out his left hand and grabbed hold of the smaller bot, saving him from the horrific fate of burning up entering Earth's atmosphere. The Seeker went frantic trying to get the two Autobots off of him, calling for assistance from the rest of the battalion.
"Thrust, you idiot!" called a voice in response that Optimus recognized to be Starscream, but the triangular planes began moving into formation in hopes of removing them regardless.
"Wheeljack!" Optimus called over the still functional com-link. "Activate the Ark's exterior gravity wall, immediately!"
"Already on it, Prime," Wheeljack responded, as quick to use reasoning as ever.
A small compartment opened up and ejected from the exterior side of Jazz's left arm, a grapple hook shooting out of it and sticking to the Ark's hull, just next to where the bulkhead shield was, and where the glass used to be. When Prime saw that Jazz was able to release the grapple and remain attached to the vessel, he leaped off of Thrust, landing directly next to his friend, and immediately lifting his rifle towards the enemy.
"Prowl, Ironhide, take command of the ship for the moment," Optimus said over the com again. "Jazz and I will be back shortly. We're going to make our way to airlock C. Wheeljack-?"
"Already readying airlock C for ya, Prime," Wheeljack responded before Optimus could even complete his command.
"Thank you, old friend," and with those words, Optimus was back to shooting Starscream and his air squadron out of the sky.
3;
The Ark was a very large ship, with many different intricate rooms and hallways, meaning that as soon as Warpath, Grapple, and Hoist failed to keep the Insecticons at bay at their initial entry point, the Decepticons were able to divide their forces across the ship. Megatron himself led one of the parties, Soundwave led another, Slipstream led a third, and a fourth was headed by Deadlock, who was both the finest duelist and marksman in the Decepticons' infantry, a promising young Decepticon that Megatron saw a great future in. Starscream had been sent with a number of his Seekers to do some damage to the Ark's bridge, hopefully taking out some of the Autobots' higher ups if possible, crippling their leadership. If nothing else, it would keep Prime distracted for a few extra moments.
Bluestreak ended up as a part of a party led by Blaster, which also consisted of Warpath, Grapple, Hoist, Cosmos, and Powerglide. By no means was it the strongest bunch of Autobots, especially when it could be said that Bluestreak was the third best fighter there. All the same, it sure could be satisfying to fire at Decepticons again.
A feature of the Ark courtesy of Wheeljack was that bulkhead doors could be partially closed when given the proper code, providing cover if there ever were to be a fight on board, and Blaster happened to know that very code.
"Okay," Blaster said, tapping his fist against his square chest, "everybody out. Steeljaw, Sunder, Eject, Rewind, Ramhorn, all of ya, get out."
Blaster's chest opened up and the four cassette-bots popped out, each looking at him, waiting for orders.
"Alright," Blaster said, ignoring the bolts blasting by just above all of their heads, their backs against the blockade, "Bluestreak, Powerglide, and Warpath, I want the three of you to run down the hall and cut off the Decepticons from the other side. We'll keep them busy here as well as we can until then."
"Roger that, Blaster," Bluestreak said as quickly as possible, transformed, and sped down in the direction which Blaster had gestured to. Powerglide and Warpath followed after him, and in the distance he heard the sounds of gunfire as Blaster and the rest of the group started emptying their magazines against Slipstream's party.
As excited as he was to get the chance to drop a few bodies, he couldn't help but be reminded of Protohex, and hoped that this didn't end up the same way.
4;
The Dynobots were perfectly capable of holding the line without difficulty, even if it was against Megatron and the Constructicons. Grimlock had never been one to call for assistance from another Autobot, and he wasn't going to start today. He was armed with a double barreled photon blaster, the only one on the Ark, and one of its strongest weapons, calculated to even be an equal to a fusion cannon. With Slag and Snarl on his left, and Swoop and Sludge on his right, they were even managing to push the Decepticons back. Forget taking cover behind the bulkhead doors, each of them knew how to use a shield after all, and that was their greatest advantage. Slowly but surely, they were advancing.
5;
Deadlock was positioned in the center of his party of what he considered to be mostly idiots. He couldn't tell you any of their names if he had to, but they were useful enough to distract the Autobots while he took aim with his sniper rifle. He had it positioned just above the other bulkhead door, where a bot named Prowl had ended up. Smart bot too, he knew that much about the cop car, he was an expert strategist from what he had heard, had a high kill count, and had even been appointed one of Prime's highest ranking officers by now.
He watched as Prowl rose, his head directly in the scope of his rifle. A half a second before he pulled back the trigger and ended the bot's life for good (there was no coming back from a direct shot like that), the rifle's barrel swerved over just barely, and as he pulled back the trigger, the shot went by right next to the Autobot lieutenant's head. Prowl was on the ground again in an instant, not because he was hurt, but because he was shocked by what he had just witnessed. Good enough for Deadlock.
6;
Snarl ended up being the one to fire the shot that finally ripped another hole in the Ark, and Megatron of course was the one who was directly next to it, meaning he was pulled out immediately, as was Gravedigger, who would never be seen again. Wheeljack had augmented the Ark's settings so that whenever the hull was broken, the inner plating of the ship would cover those breaks, which is what happened after Gravedigger and Megatron were pulled out of the ship. Megatron was pulled against the side of the Ark by the gravity wall that Wheeljack had also implemented, per Optimus's instructions. Gravedigger, however, had his foot crushed by the newly implemented bulkhead door, trapping him, little to Megatron's own dismay. He was by no means critical to the cause.
"Skyquake," Megatron radioed to the Nemesis, Skyquake now being its commanding officer, "find me an entry point back into this ship."
"Actually, my lord," Skyquake began, seemingly pleased with himself judging by his tone of voice, "it appears that Prime might also be on the outside of the ship with you. Perhaps I could guide you to him instead?"
7;
Optimus had taken cover beneath a loose panel on the Ark's exterior, firing at the three Seekers that Starscream had left behind while he and the rest of the group had moved off to fight the main battle, ravaging the mighty ship's interior. Jazz was at his side all the while, and now they stood only a few dozen meters away from the air lock, exactly where they needed to get to.
"On my command," Optimus said, firing two quick blasts from his rifle before ducking below the piece of metal again, "transform and get to the airlock, I'll cover you. Get inside and close the door behind you, I'll be there momentarily."
"You sure you can deal with these 'cons yourself?"
"I'll be right behind you," Prime responded, glancing over at the still firing Seekers, "and they are by no means the fine warriors that Megatron's propaganda makes them out to be, only grunts that make up most of his air force, no different from any other Decepticon. Now go, old friend."
There's a certain tragedy in a plan which, when considering all available factors, will be a success, but fails simply because of the addition of another, impossible to foresee variable. Cybertronian historians living far into the distant future would look back upon the Cybertronian Civil War, and recognize Optimus Prime as one of history's most brilliant strategists and leaders, but all the same, Prime didn't make it back into the Ark until about twenty minutes after Jazz, contrary to his plan.
Jazz quickly made it back inside the ship, and after a direct hit into the center Seeker, sending Starscream's goon crashing into one of the other two, Prime sprinted for the airlock. He was two steps away, when he was hit in the side by a blast from a fusion cannon.
The Seekers, having seen Optimus hit the ground, stopped firing, and gave space as Megatron began to approach the Autobots' supposedly great leader.
Prime slowly lifted his head to gaze at the former gladiator, the barrel of the fusion cannon on his arm, the very gun that Megatron had carried with him since the Decepticon movement's early days, pointed at the Matrix bearer's head. In a moment of instinct, Optimus felt his right head form into an orange energon ax, and slowly got to his feet.
Megatron, seeing his opponent without a blaster of his own, lowered his own gun, and converted his own right hand into a mace, a loose chain connecting where his wrist once was to the ball covered with horrific, brutally painful spikes.
"You really thought that you could escape from me?" Megatron finally asked after they had been staring each other down for what seemed like all of eternity, his voice capable of chilling even the most experienced soldier.
"You have no right to stand here," Optimus replied, stony strength and concealed rage bristelling in his voice. "This is my ship, with my soldiers. Just a few moments ago you called me your friend, and yet you spit in my face and the face of your world simply by standing in my presence."
Megatron smiled.
"A friend?" Megatron asked, less anger than joy in his own voice. "No, Optimus, regardless of what I might've said in the council chamber all those years ago, family is forever. So, I ask you, brother, how did you ever think that you could make it to that planet just below us, that disgusting ball of mud, without me knowing?"
Optimus Prime, the last of the lineage of Prima, first to wield the blade with a fragment of Primus's own spark in its hilt, began to walk forward toward the very bot claiming to be his own true brother.
"You're a disease, Megatron, a rabid dog that I should've put down centuries ago. So stop speaking of family, because you were right before, back on Cybertron. We aren't brothers. Not anymore. So fight me here and now, and let this finally be over."
Optimus Prime, born and raised in Iacon, and Megatron, born in Tarn, and raised in Kaon, charged towards each other, weapons slinging at their mortal enemies, with no intention of ever letting the other see the world below.