Author's note: All characters are copyright their respective creators. I do not own Transformers and I am not
affiliated with Hasbro or Takara, Mainframe or Alliance, nor should any affiliation be inferred, implied or assumed. Enjoy the fic.
Historian's note: "Indeterminate Timeframe" events occur shortly after when "Master Blaster" and "Crossing the Rubicon" would have occured.
Chapter Four
**Earth, Indeterminate Timeframe
Silently, Sin, Waspinator, and Calamity moved closer to the Ark, followed a few meters behind by the
bronze Transmetallic dinosaurian form of Megatron.
*\We shall be quick,/* Megatron ordered. */Sin, you have the Ark codes?\*
"Affirmative," the moth answered. "But I'm picking up a lot of Maximal
signatures from inside... seven or eight, at least, and three or four on the ridge above.
Might be a bit tough entering."
*/That, Sin, is what the three of you are for... diversionary tactics are rule number
one in the book of Predacon strategy.\*
Sin smiled grimly, knowing full well Megatron's idea.
The blast door burst open, allowing the flood of Maximals onto the field. Behind
them, the Autoguns whirred and clicked, trying to find their targets, but none appeared. "I
think we've been had," Tigatron growled after a moment.
"One way or another," a voice behind him snarled before the body attached bore
out of the ground and grabbed him around the neck.
"Unhand me!" the white tiger snarled, clawing at the wrists binding him.
"Maximals!" he choked.
Airazor turned around, claw gun drawn, but there was no way in the pit she could
fire and accurately hit Calamity. "Let... him... go!" she screamed, leaping into the air and
divebombing toward the grappling pair. She knew, with her slight frame, if she crasahed
into Tigatron, there'd be little damage, but if she could undermine Calamity's footing...
A mighty crash brought Tigatron down on top of his assailant, pinning her. With
his feline speed, he righted himself on top of her, grabbing her about the neck with one
massive hand. "You've brought friends!" he roared, lifting her high above his head.
"Predacons never work alone!"
Calamity merely gagged. A laserbolt to Tigatron's back confirmed the
assumption.
There holding Airazor about the neck in a similar fashion as Calamity had caught
him, was Waspinator, eyes glowing, that stupid expression hiding a sinister demeanor
below.
"Ztripeybot let go of Anteater... or Wazzzpinator shoot more!"
Tigatron threw Calamity to the ground roughly, and he was sure she bounced.
Waspinator did the same with Airazor, evening the odds. "Take the female, I shall handle
the wasp," Tigatron ordered quietly as Airazor took her place at his side. The femme
falcon nodded and rushed forward alongside her love.
Elsewhere, Sin was having troubles. Cheetor, Blancwulf, and Rhinox had
triple-teamed her. "Thank Primus for wings," she muttered to herself, leaping above the
fray to fire Curse Ring after Curse Ring at her opponents.
Rhinox was not giving up. The immense Holy Chainguns of Primus he wielded
prior to his being transmetallized had also been upgraded. Two sets of four spiked maces
rotated in alternate directions on razor disks as the chainguns fired. An extra four barrels
had attached themselves to each weapon, and the butt was now studded with energon
spikes. Subtlety and Rhinox did not go well together.
One of the chaingun's quarrels shot through her wing, sending her spiralling down
and crashing into Wulfie, grinding her into the dirt and deftly flipping off. The energon
knives untethered themselves from her collarpiece, blazing blue as she twirled them. "Ok,
honey, close quarters." The two circled each other, a deadly snarl pasted across
Blancwulf's faceplate, a sinister grin on Sin's.
"Wouldn't have it any other way." The two leapt at each other, Blancwulf's claws
shredding Sin's other delicate wing, the energon knives Sin held cleaving at Blancwulf
every chance they got. Sin put a foot against the wolf's midsection and pushed out again,
knocking Blancwulf back, but still the Maximal came, in a rage as she charged. Sin easily
sidestepped, and shoved her foot onto Blancwulf's skidplate, knocking her to the ground.
"Little girl, learn from your elders."
The energon studs from Rhinox's chaingun broadsided her, knocking her flat.
"Yeah... learn from your elders," Rhinox chuckled as Sin went into stasis lock.
Sin, Calamity and Waspinator had been ruses, of course, allowing the gold and
violet Predacon to make his way into the Maximal base. A few heavy energon bolts to
important items that remained in the broken bridge portion of the Axalon, and Megatron
jetted his way across the lava field to the front door of the Ark.
It was locked, of course. Locked out to all but those with the codes. Megatron
did not have the Autobot keycodes to open the doors, of course, but Blackarachnia did...
"Computer," he whispered into his micro wrist-comp. "Holochip zeta." The
binding that held his tail in place in beast mode swung around, a compartment on it sliding
open to reveal a silvery holographic display chip. A grin played across Megatron's
normally scowling visage, and he brought his segmented laser cutlass from subspace,
willing it to do the trick it had played before, the weapon end retracting and bringing out a
pair of spinner clamps. The disk seated itself in the middle, and began to spin, bringing
forth a holographic representation of the black and gold Blackarachnia. Green beams shot
from the faux's optics, into the dataport, and after a few moments of whirring and
clicking, the Ark's hatch trundled open.
"Excellent..." As the holo dissipated, Megatron replaced the cutlass and tromped
forward, chuckling frenetically as he searched out his quarry.
There it lay, seemingly dead, but with a pulsating energy that could be discerned
with the right tools, or the right intuition.
"Great and mighty Megatron," Megatron whispered, depressing the release button
on the Decepticon's chestplate. The panel slid open, revealing a silently pulsating blue
orb... the Spark of Megatron the Primeslayer.
It was like barbed wire, the snaking tendril that erupted from the Predacon
Megatron's spark chamber. It actively sought out a new spark, slithering this way and
that until it clamped its spiked hide around the mote in the Primeslayer's chest. "Yess..."
Megatron chuckled. The spark entering his body tickled somewhat as it the tendril
replaced in a secondary holding chamber.
"No, Megatron," echoed a voice in the corridor.
Megatron stood, feeling quite a bit more powerful and a hundred times as
confident, and looked at Tyrannix.
"You truly wish to die?"
He replied harshly, "No."
"Too bad..." Megatron was quick-- quicker than usual-- to draw and fire his
cutlass, but Mayhem proved even quicker, dodging the bolt with what seemed to be a
flicker of motion. Another bolt, the same result. Three more, and before Megatron
realized it, Tyrannix stood directly in front of him. In a flash, Megatron was lifted by his
face and flung into the far wall, crashing into it and leaving a tyrannosaur shaped dent. As
he charged, he shouted, "How you're able to dodge my fire is beyond me, Maximal, but
once I..." But as soon as he would have struck, the dragon-winged Maximal had
disappeared again, and Megatron felt his presence behind him. He then felt the presence
of an immense fist pounding Megatron to the floor.
The strategic-minded Predacon then did the most strategically-minded thing he
could think of: he ran.
Out of the Ark, with no Tyrannix following him, Megatron stopped to praise his
success at procuring the most coveted of trophies, even moreso than the Autobot Matrix
of Leadership: he had the soul of the Primeslayer beating in his chest.
"Going somewhere?"
Megatron whirled to see none other than Tyrannix standing at the doorway to the
Ark.
"Blast you, Maximal, will I never be rid of you?!"
Tyrannix silently shook his head and flickered to Megatron's side. "I suppose I
should feel consigned to my fate, then," he muttered, slowly activating his cutlass, but
setting it to another function. In a display of speed that seemed to match Tyrannix's own
ability, Megatron raised his cutlass, jaws open, and flashed a beam of purple light at the
dragon's face, right before he was launched into the lava field beyond.
The Predacon general screamed as the molten rock overtook him, pulling him
under into the embrace as warm as a smelter's. Tyrannix was... pleased?... to see
Megatron died, but it felt as if something was wrong. His intuitions had usually paid off
before, but of late they'd been somewhat lax, and Tyrannix decided that this was another
instance of overheightened paranoia.
He turned away from the lava pool and muttered, "Megatron is dead," then started
back for the main door.
Not so... not so at all... thought the floating Megatron as his body dissolved in the
lava. Never dead... no... I shall rise again, as I have before... yess! His hoverfans burst
forth, melting into wings that shot from his back. The Tyrannosaur head clamped between
his shoulders burst from its moorings and extended, brightening from its deep purple hue
to bright crimson, the lava dying it to its new color. The spindly, useless forearms
attached to Megatron's shoulder-pads extended too, the stubby silver claws stretching and
melting into long black talons. The purple claws on his feet, used primarily for traction,
also mutated into razor sharp black spurs. In a shifting mass of molten and hardening
metal, the beast was fully transformed. Upward it shot, its head bursting from the lava
field surface, wings spraying molten rock and ember everywhere. With a mighty roar from
the elongated, fanged dragon snout, Megatron caught the attention of the departing
Tyrannix. "Never dead! I am... ETERNAL!" The wings spread more as he let fly a burst
of liquid fire that scorched the ground at Tyrannix's feet.
"I see you have grown weary... you barely missed that shot. But I..." Megatron
roared, wings ablaze with the light of the lava below, "I have only just begun to fight!"
The dragon dipped its head and soared downward at Tyrannix, but as the Gold Dragon
sidestepped, Megatron's jaws clipped his wing, crumpling the metal and tearing the flesh.
"We all get tired," Megatron roared with laughter, "but perhaps you... should take a long
hot bath." The dragon circled around, but Tyrannix was even slower still, this time.
Megatron caught him full force with his rear talons, lifting him into the air and flying over
the lava pit. "If I let go, you'll be too weak to even spread your wings," Megatron
shouted.
"We'll see..." Tyrannix responded, not even offering any resistance.
"Your unwillingness to fight is... unconvincing. Perhaps putting you in the lava is
exactly the opposite of what I should be doing... Dragons of your caliber hate ice..."
Megatron swooped back to the island in the lava and dropped quickly, grinding Tyrannix
into the pumice floor. "Ice..." Megatron lifted off again in a scirocco of embers and ash,
to prepare for another strike. The head lowered, drew itself back like a bowstring, and
threw forth a voluminous blast of superchilled air that struck Tyrannix's midsection like a
comet.
The Maximal screamed in agony, drowning out the echoing laughter of Megatron
in a symphony of anguish.
"RELEASE HIM!" came a shout from the Ark's doorway. There, puny and frail,
stood his former lieutenant, Copperhead, upgraded-- if such a word could be applied-- and
pathetically furious.
"Little worm, there is no way you can harm me..."
"Indeed?" Copperhead chuckled. Soon, pouring from the Ark, came the forms of
dozens upon dozens of Autobot warriors, lead by the immense First Convoy, Optimus
Prime himself. Behind him, Megatron could recognize the shapes of Ironhide, Wheeljack,
Bumblebee... all characters he'd read about in history books; some of the greatest warriors
in Cybertronian history.
"The entire Maximal defense fleet could not stop me when I escaped with the
Golden Disks," Megatron chuckled, "what makes you think a tiny band of
understrengthed Autobots could?"
A searing pain running through Megatron's mind, the consciousnesses of a dozen
or more sleeping, send the transmetallic dragon crashing to the stone floor. "What... are
you... doing?!" Megatron howled.
"Presenting you the minds of all those you seek to destroy... placing their souls on
your conscience." The illusory Autobot band dissipated, as did the horrible pressure
placed on Megatron's core processor. "That is what I am doing." Copperhead stood at
Tyrannix's feet, wielding the remnants of his beast form-- transformed into a seven-foot
long, axe-bladed staff-- above his head. He brought the tip, a gleaming metal tuning fork,
down onto the ice, shattering the substance immediately with the high frequencies. "Are
you all right?" Copperhead asked to the rising Tyrannix.
"Let me... destroy him..." the Maximal roared, but Copper put a hand up to stop
him.
"As much as I'd like to see that, I noticed something when I scanned his brain... his
spark and Megatron's are linked. Should you destroy him-- extinguish the Predacon
spark-- the Decepticon spark dies too, and time space will be altered irrevocably."
"The worm is correct," Megatron laughed, getting to his feet. "Kill me, kill
history... and yourselves. The choice is yours." The red dragon reared up on its hind legs
and roared, its parts breaking their seals and reconfiguring themselves. The mighty,
claw-tipped tail moved up, revealing the visored face of Megatron. The large orange
globe-- the storehouse of the Primeslayer's spark-- shifted, becoming a chestplate beneath
the dragon-tailed head. The wings flipped over, retaining their draconian imagery, and
two arms sprouted on the sidss of the newly unveiled robot form-- on the left, the head
and neck of the beast, seemingly with a mind of its own, and on the right, a normal arm
covered with the metallic belly plating left over from the beast. "You have insured my
defeat this day, but I warn you: this war has not ended! It will never end!" The beast
took to the air, firing the ice beam from the dragon head before Copper and Tyrannix,
trapping them. Returning to beast mode, Megatron took wing and flew off.
A roar sounded, and the blast doors swung open, broken from their hinges. "Sin,
Waspinator, Calamity, to me!" he bellowed, roaring a warning to the five Maximals
engaged in battle. The three insects were freed from their grapples, and those that could,
took wing after the dragon. Those unable were taken up in the beast's grip and ferried
away.
"Should we follow?" Blancwulf asked as Rhinox helped her up.
"No... he's far too powerful for any of us to stand much of a chance," the elder
replied, patting Blancwulf on the back.
Copperhead walked through the battered door and took in his comrades. "You all
look like hell," he joked. "You should get back inside."
Rhinox nodded. "Copper, has anyone seen Primal?"
The snake shook his head. "Not since our ill-fated conference... I don't even know
if he's in the Ark."
Indeed, the Maximal general was nowhere to be found, either in the Axalon's
remains or the Ark proper. Not even the scanners-- what remained of them after
Megatron's tantrum-- could locate his communcations signal.
Pantera was gone as well.
"Slag... the comm tracker was one of Megatron's first targets... Primal and Elder
Tera could be on the other side of the planet and we wouldn't be able to find them.
Copperhead..." Rhinox spun in his chair to face the ex-Predacon.
"No. Already tried." Of course he knew what Rhinox was about to ask. He was, after all, a telepath. "They're either shielding themselves from me, or..."
"I hate the 'or'," Rhinox groaned.
It wasn't the 'or', thank the Matrix. Just as Rhinox said, they were on the other
side of the planet.
"You got a communique from home?" Primal asked, landing just outside Pantera's
junked starhopper. "Maximize!" he shouted once the elder exited his cockpit.
"As much of a communique as 'sending' could be..."
"But you confirmed it as a signal from Cybertron... with Maximal Council record
tags?"
"Yeah... fat lot of good it does us, though, if there's no way to respond."
"Like hell there's no way to respond. We could send a message to the Autobot
Temporal Control..."
"Autobot Temporal Control hasn't been established yet," she muttered. "Not for
another two thousand stellar cycles or so. Remember, at this point in time, the Decepticon
Spacebridge was only a pipe dream. Unless we can get ahold of some transwarp cells..."
"What about the one in your starhopper?"
"Slagged the moment I crashed. It's still got all the energon required to operate,
but some of the connectors were damaged... too dangerous to use now."
Primal nodded grimly. "Is there a way to remodulate a communications packet so
it can't be received until our era?"
"No," Pantera replied, but then her optics widened. "But... there is a way! We
just send it with a Maximal encryption algorithm. It can't be deciphered for another two
and a half million stellar cycles, and when it's finally opened, it'll tell them where and
when we are. Oh, Optimus, you're a genius."
Primal looked at Pantera oddly. "It was your idea."
She shook her head. "You made that remodulation suggestion-- if you hadn't,
there's no slottin' way I would have..." Tera's aural pricked up and she took a defensive
pose.
"Something wrong?"
"Maybe," she whispered. "There shouldn't be any Transformers around here for
megaklicks..."
Primal stood stock still, listening, but didn't hear a thing. "You sure something's
nearby?"
The bushes behind Primal began to rustle a bit more audibly, now, and the large
Maximal turned around to see them part.
"Hi!" a youthful voice spoke at Primal's feet.
The gigantic Maximal looked down to see a very small animal-- compared to him,
at least-- crawling across his toes. "Uh... hello..." Optimus replied.
"Skyfire... Maximize!" The creature leapt into the air, a fluffy, feathered ball of
bird with an oddly reptilian tail, and hit the ground a short and skinny robot.
"Hello... where did you come from?"
"I dunno," Skyfire responded. "One second I'm at the Mall in Cybertropolis, the
next, in some freaky jungle somewhere... it's muggy here."
"Wait... you came here from Cybertron?" Primal asked.
"Optimus, get over here, quick!" called Pantera from the cockpit of her crashed
ship.
"Follow me," Primal ordered, turning on his heel and going to join Tera. Skyfire
was shortly behind, almost running to keep up with Primal's pace. "What is it?"
"Full communication with Cybertron, that's what! The commboard just
suddenly... lit up with traffic!"
Primal looked at the board. "Open a channel," he ordered. Tera complied,
pressing the key to send a transmission. "This is Optimus Primal of the MEV Axalon to
anyone who can hear this transmission."
Static for a moment as the two of them looked impatiently at the transceiver.
Then, a voice.
*\Op Primal, ya say?/* came a voice on the other end. Optimus nearly jumped for
joy.
"Yes... to whom am I speaking?"
*\This is Hawksbill Magnus of the MDV Ophiacus... where are ya? I'm not getting
a return coordinate on the comm./*
"It's a long story, Captain Hawksbill," Optimus responded. "Get word to the
C.O.E. that the Axalon and its crew are safe, but lost!"
*\Understood! Sending a transmission as we speak./* Over the open line, Primal
and Pantera listened to Magnus send out the communique. *\This is the Ophiacus to
Maximal base./*
//*Lionspaw here*\\ came the reply, if a bit garbled.
*\Got someone you might want to talk to on the other end of my comm, Special,/*
Magnus chuckled. *\Go ahead, Op./*
Pantera smiled. Primal smiled. Skyfire twiddled his thumbs impatiently.
"Shock Special, you old energon sink," Optimus chortled, "hpw're things at
Lionspaw?"
//*Optimus Primal?!*\\ Special choked over the line. Regaining her composure,
she continued. //*Glitch my circuits, where are you?*\
"Would you believe me if I said the Ark?"
//*Slot no,*\\ was the jovial reply.
"Good... I'm actually about 500 klicks out. The transwarp explosion sent us back
in time a 2 million years, give or take a millennium."
Laughter from the other end lifted Optimus's spirit a bit more. //*Ain't that a kick
in the skids, huh Mag?*\
Magnus responded in the affirmative from the other side. "So..." Primal started.
"Rescue operation?"
//*Been underway quite some time. The problem was finding you... got twenty
billion stel of history to go through, y'know, past and future... Any idea as to your exact
temporal nexus?*\
Primal answered with a no, but offered his best guess. "I'd say right at the
beginning of the 3rd Great War, on Terra."
//*We'll do what we can to find you guys... be safe, ok? Got any battle logs to
transmit? Lionspaw's been boring since Drexus Prime got promoted.*\
Primal looked at Tera. Drexus Prime... on the Council?
"You're kidding... Drex?"
//*Took Elder Tera's spot... Beamer Magnus took over for Elder Steeljaw.*\
Oh, what a world, Tera chuckled to herself. She'd have to pummel Drexus Prime
when she got home.
//*It might be some time before we come to your rescue, Op... Transwarp's a
tricky thing; too much of it and space-time collapses, ya know?*\
Optimus nodded. "We'll try and hold out 'till then. Transmitting our battle logs
now, descending order."
With a button press, a data stream sent itself through space-time and lodged itself
in the Lionspaw communications buffer.
//*Got 'em...*\\ Special made a surprised squawk. //*You guys are going to have
a --- of explaining --- when you--- home!*\\ she shouted. The signal had started to
degrade.
"I think our window's closing," Tera growled.
"Listen, Special, Mag, whatever's allowing us to communicate with you is going
down the tubes."
*/Okay, Op...\* Hawksbill's voice crackled. */We won't--- forget you...\*
With that, Hawksbill Magnus's voice fizzled out into static, and the comm board
went dark again.
"Going home," Optimus sighed. "After all this time, we finally got through to
Maximal command."
Pantera nodded. "Where'd the kid go?" she asked, looking around. Skyfire had
disappeared into the forest.
The speed was nice to have, even in this form, he thought. If he'd only been nearer a
more powerful beast, things would definitely be different. An even faster beast mode,
more powerful, with a better latent ability. Though the potential to petrify with a look,
and that little tweak the Maximal gryphon had offered, were good things to have. "I'll
simply bide my time among these peons," he muttered, leaping over a felled branch.
"Then..." A disturbing chuckle broke out among the forest, scattering flocks of birds from
their perches, and warning woodland creatures this was not the kind of beast to be trifling
with.
"Skyfire?" Primal called into the woods, primitively cupping his hands to his lips
for amplification. For some reason, the moment the comm between times had faded out,
so had their interlinks. Verbal communication was all that would work. "Skyfire?!" he
bellowed again. Pantera had gone off, stalking him silently, her own brand of
search-and-rescue underway. Optimus needed to stay near the junked hopper, just in case
the communications array kicked in again, but the chances of that, Pantera calculated,
were pathetically slim. "Blast it," he muttered.
Free as a bird, she thought. Wish I'd never run into these goons... Wish... no, he's
too important to me. Haven't seen him of late, though... worriesome. "Big Blue," she
muttered. "Where are you?"
The sound of something closing in alerted her again. "There you are," she
thought, leaping from her treelimb lookout straight into the kid's path.
"Going somewhere, flyboy?" she chuckled, transforming rapidly and blocking the
way.
"Just out on a sightseein' tour, ma'am," the kid replied, shifting to robot mode and
folding his hands behind him politely. "Sorry if I worried you."
"Be sure to tell someone next time you want to run off, got it?" Pantera scolded,
remembering all the times she'd yelled at Inuarai and Blancwulf and... Jaxyl... for
disobeying her. Another kid... maybe she'd be able to lighten up again. Something about
this kid, though... something didn't quite seem right to her. "Follow me," she ordered,
returning to beast mode and stalking off. The kid followed at her heels, not daring to run
off... something about her seemed familiar in exactly the same fashion.
"Bide your time," he repeated internally. "Bide your time."