Chapter Five
**Earth, Indeterminate Timeframe
The chronometer listed the time as 600 hours. It felt like later, for some reason.
The sun had already mounted a good clip into the sky, irradiating the landscape in a
reddish-yellow glow.
"Baby sun," Fangstriker chuckled. "Lock..."
The bear-sized hyena snorted and rolled over to the other side, still fast asleep and,
judging from the twitching of his paws, dreaming heavily. A poke to his ribs send the
creature twitching, grumbling his way awake.
"Damn... I was just... killing Renegade." The hyena's optics opened slightly,
squinting against the rays. "What's up?
"We fell asleep... it's morning, and Megatron... Megs won't be pleased."
"Ah hush... it'll be ok. Lizard-lips isn't even at the Darkside. He was planning on
taking a sojourn with the bugs last night."
"Oh... s'pose he's back at the ship now? It was last night."
Lockjaw grunted again, and rolled to his belly, struggling under his mass to his
feet. "Gotta lose some of this," he complained, craning his neck for a look at the rest of
his body. "Not good for a fighter to have an extra few..."
"Quiet. I smell something..."
It was Dinobot. Crimson and bone, unmistakeably transmetallic. Unquestioningly,
the snitch himself. "No use hiding, bones," Fangstriker called, allowing the creature to
reveal itself.
With a raspy metallic growl, the raptor emerged from behind his mask of foliage,
certainly unhappy with the situation. "You dishonor the Predacons in your tryst here...
report to base or Megatron shall know of your dereliction."
"You and what army?" Fang snarled, bearing her teeth and flattening her ears.
With a click and a hum, Fangstriker was informed of the army. "Who needs an
army when a single nuclear warhead will do?" chortled the gravelly tone of Rampage.
"Should'a known..." Fang cursed, her back straightening and ears returning to
normal. Play dead, girl... that's right. Forget fighting, it's always counterproductive.
Fangstriker's logic circuits got the better of her emotions grid this time, but sooner or
later, logic would fall to passion. Soner, hopefully rather than later. "What do you want
with us?" she asked.
"I was simply looking for a tension release... Dinobot here had to follow me or
face horribly wrenching pain to his spark." Rampage's chuckle had begun to trod on
Fangstriker's nerves. Lockjaw, on the other hand, was ucharacteristically lucid and aloof
at the moment.
"So blowing up your fellow Preds is a good stress reliever? What about the
Box?"
Rampage pointed a clawed finger at Dinobot. "Do recall, the Box was emptied
into his stinking carcass."
Curses, foiled again... passion vs. logic? Let's go with logic, mmkay? Fangstriker
swore at herself mentally.
"So I suppose, now that the Box isn't in the picture anymore..." Fangstriker tested.
"I could make you wet yourself in fear whilst I point my cannon at your head."
Rampage lowered the barrel to the ground. "Or I could let you go with a warning not to
cross me..."
Rampage turned, holstering the five-foot long cannon in its subspace hutch, and
took a few steps. Fangstriker and Lockjaw, side by side in beast mode, issued low growls
as they stalked past the crab.
"Don't come back now, y'hear?" the King Crab joked, waving them away
sarcastically.
"Would't dream of it," Fangstriker snarled.
The tiny one and her companion, still nowhere near as large as Rampage himself,
left behind, the Crab made his way... elsewhere. He knew not where he was headed, but
away from here was definitely tops on his list.
As was away from the Darkside. Anywhere near Megatron would be a blessing
for him, yet he felt oddly... compelled.
"You will return with me to genuflect for the mighty Megatron," Dinobot rumbled.
"Or you shall face Megatron... and myself... in combat."
Rampage snickered, though he knew he was beaten. "And destroy the two of
you? Sounds like my idea of a good time."
Dinobot took a few clicking steps forward on the rocky ground and stopped cold,
sniffing the air.
"Him again," he snarled, head swaying as he sniffed the air. "Dinobot, beast
mode!" A shrill cry broke the muddy dawn air, followed by the sounds of metal and flesh
rearranging themselves. "Show yourself, Steeljaw! Show yourself or I shall..."
"Shall what? You can't find me, you can't even touch me. But apparently I only
fool the senses of touch and sight. Your nose caught me."
"That is not all that shall catch..."
Steeljaw's ghostly voice huffed. "Enough with the death threats, Dinobot!" he
barked, clearly exasperated. "You'd be lucky if I even showed myself in full! You'd be
dead before I even apparated."
Dinobot lowered his head as if ready to strike, pulling his nonexistant lips back
over his ivory teeth in a snarl more menacing than usual. "Show yourself... fight
honorably."
Rampage found this entire situation extraordinarily funny, and made his
amusement known with a dignified snort.
"Do you have something to say," Dinobot hissed, "appetizer?"
"You're poking at thin air, but I can see him clear as the antennae on my head.
He's leaning against that treetrunk right there, arms crossed and smirking like he knows
what he's talking about... repugnant bastard," the crab spat.
Dinobot whirled around but still saw nothing.
"He's afraid of me," Rampage muttered, "that's why he's visible. Fear... fear
makes for excellent radioscopy."
"An item you could have informed me of sooner, crustacean," Dinobot muttered,
lunging at the nearest treetrunk but finding his toeclaws passing through the aether and
burying themselves in the wood. "Feh!" he snarled, dislodging his talons and turning back
toward Rampage. "Find him!"
"Behind you, sword brandished, waiting to strike."
Lightning fast, Dinobot's low slung raptor body swung around, tail sweeping a
broad swath, but still making contact with only the vapor.
"Damnation!" Dinobot screamed, scratching at the stones below with his toeclaw.
"Show yourself, you dishonorable cur!"
A humming noise arose from above and behind, and Dinobot looked up to see a
silver and blue blur descending on him from a treebranch. With a loud thud and the
scream of a blade being unleashed, Dinobot was on the floor, pinned, the Grim Lach's flat
pressed against his neck.
"Cur's a word for dogs, Dinobutt," he chuckled. "And this cat doesn't like the
comparison." Steeljaw hefted the studded pommel of the Lach into the air and, after a
moment's hover, the butt of the hilt came crashing down, crushing Dinobot's arterial
main fluid line. The bone steel raptor was out cold and Rampage was chuckling madly.
"Oh, the pain! You honor me, kitten!" he roared cheerfully. "What a feast!"
"Sick bastard," Steeljaw snarled, returning to his invisible hiding place. Rampage's
beady green optics were still set on his position, something that unnerved Steeljaw in all
his confidence. "You'll be next." With a catlike roar and the sound of rustling branches,
the Maximal was gone, leaping through the trees with more grace than the crab could
muster.
"We'll meet again," Rampage chortled, "as sure as I've used a stupid cliché."
"Can you work a little faster?" Skyfire whined impatiently. "I'm about to start
molting."
"Patience, little one," Rhinox chuckled, looking over the interface slot welded onto
Skyfire's arm. "This tech is amazing... who built it?"
"I don't remember. It's always been there."
Inuarai scoffed, looking over his physical workup records. "Your spark's older
than your shell, Skyfire," she noted, "by a couple dozen stel."
Only a couple of dozen, Skyfire mused internally. I'd've thought several million,
but... whatever. Morons.
"It happens," he responded. "I was... in an accident... as a kid, and they moved my
spark."
As Rhinox continued to examine the interface attached to Skyfire's wrist, Primal
returned from his office.
"Any luck identifying him?" the Maximal leader asked, crossing his arms.
"He's Skyfire of Beta Cybertronia. The Ax's dossiers list him as a third class
ensign signed aboard the MDV Trifecta..."
"That's Firedare Magnus's ship, isn't it?" Primal interjected.
Rhinox nodded and continued. "But, since we left before the Trifecta was even
out of spacedock, we have no idea what happened to it, or how he got here."
Optimus Primal knelt and looked Skyfire straight in the optic, a cold glare playing
from the hot lava field nearby. "How did it happen, Skyfire? You're hiding something
from us, I know it. I don't want to confine you to quarters, or throw you in the brig, but
you'll leave me no choice if you're not forthcoming."
Skyfire's expression soured and his gaze turned as cold as Optimus's. "You really
want to know? You want me to tell you the fate of the future?" The words, spoken
coldly and without emotion, held as much weight as a sledgehammer to his core
processor. Destructive rage seemed to dance behind every syllable, hidden discretely
within his almost amicable dialogue.
Optimus nodded. "Tell me what's happened."
Skyfire complied.
"Galvatron, highest Liege of the Predacons, was searching for a way to grant
himself dominion over Cybertron. He'd succeeded, having located three icons of Primus's
power-- a shield, a helm, and the coveted Sword."
Optimus Primal knew the impetus behind the words 'Sword of Primus'-- in all
legends, the Sword of Primus was the gold enshrouded gem known also by the name
Matrix.
"He gained them all and made his wish at the sepulchre of the First Convoy."
Skyfire smirked and chuckled grimly. "Little did he know that Primus Himself would take
control of the First Convoy... so rose the Angel Convoy to battle the Dark God Unicron."
Primal's mech fluid froze upon hearing the name Unicron. Something about the
child before him-- speaking in such an exalted tone, with such ornate dialect-- bore an
inherent deadliness he'd never met among the younger generation, as if he were someone
else entirely.
"So Unicron and Primus grappled then as they had for aeons before, and will for
aeons to come, and Unicron was overcome, as it always happens. The consequence of
His Vanquishment shattered the fabric of time itself, sending us to all points of history. I
do not know the fates of my comrades."
Primal's spark leapt.
"So YOU'RE responsible for the atemporal anomolae!" Rhinox declared. "I knew
there had to be some sort of chronometric interference involved. Cheetor, switch the
communications array online. Inuarai, open a comm channel to Cybertron's location."
Inuarai and Cheetor worked on opposite sides of the console at the tasks Rhinox
had assigned while Primal continued Skyfire's interrogation.
"This is the crew of the MEV Axalon to anyone who can hear this..." Inuarai
began.
"Who was aboard the Trifecta with you?" Primal demanded.
"We've recently found the capacity to traverse space-time in our trasmissions--"
"Do you know if anyone else was stranded in this timeframe?" he asked again.
"--and we are requesting anyone who can pinpoint our exact temporal nexus to
send assistance as soon as possible--" she continued.
*/Axalon?*\ belched a staticky transmission through the speaker.
"Hello?" Inuarai queried.
*/You're barely coming through, Axalon!*\ the communications array sputtered.
Skyfire stood up and mantled his crimson and white wings against his chest. "The
captain, his senior crew-- Fathom, Drachen, Kierus, Bash," he listed, turning to Inuarai's
position and placing his hand on the small antenna array.
"Can you hear us now?" he quipped.
*/Yes! Much better now!*\ the other end reported. Inuarai looked up at Skyfire
with a scowl, though she couldn't contemplate why.
"Please identify yourself," she ordered.
*/MDV Trifecta II here. Captain Sixleague Magnus speaking.*
Primal raised an eyebrow. Sixleague Magnus? A glance at Pantera told him she
had no idea who that particular Magnus was, either.
"I'm a crewbot of the MEV Axalon--" Nari started. A snort from the other end
stopped her. "What is it?"
*/The Axalon was lost decades ago. Never recovered, either. You're full of
slag.*
"Check my commtag, sir."
A moment passed and Magnus returned.
*/You're cloning the tag,*\ he responded indignantly. */Get off this channel or I'll
alert the CoE of the violation.*
The comm abruptly cut out as Sixleague Magnus shut off the incoming.
"Slag!" Inuarai cursed, slamming her fist on the panel. "So close, too."
Rhinox placed his massive hand on Inuarai's shoulder comfortingly. "Don't worry,
kid, Hawksbill Magnus said he'd be sending out a search party soon enough. We'll get
found one of these days... or find another way home."
Inuarai nodded defeatedly. "Yeah... one of these days..."
***
Elsewhere in the Ark, Copperhead sat, a feeling of helplessness overcoming him.
The effects of his transmetallization had worn off, and he was faced with the grim reality
of who he was now: neither a Maximal nor a Predacon. Not Decepticon any longer, but
not an Autobot by any stretch of the imagination. He felt very grey. Grey, he thought,
not only in allegiance, but in mind, and in body. He realized that with his precursor's
existence in this timeframe, his spark was not young. Somehow, in those millennia on
millennia, Parseltongue, Fangrel, Skystryke and Copperhead had managed to survive,
under one name or another. Snakes and survival, partners till the end of time.
"Something's bothering you," came the deep tone of Mayhem's vocoder.
"Possibly," Copperhead replied, chin in hand. "What's going on, anyway?"
"Well, the others found a kid--"
"No, I know everything about that two-faced little charlatan... Primal's in for a
shock. That's not important, though... not pertinent at least. Who are we? You got
reprogrammed when the wave hit, and I've lost my place among the Preds." Copper's
eyes narrowed and widened as if to blink something away. Tears, perhaps?
"I am a Maximal and shall always pledge allegiance to the Maximals... yet,
somehow now, the allegiance seems empty. You seem to be all that matters."
Copperhead smirked somewhat at the sentiment. "If you're going to be mushy
about it."
Mayhem crouched very low before the much smaller snakebot, so they were face
to face. The plate that normally covered Mayhem's chin-- a copper colored representation
of the mask of the Convoy Knights-- slid away to reveal a pair of smiling lips.
"Hello, Little Snake," he chuckled.
"I didn't know you could do that," Copper laughed, reaching a hand up to touch
the dragon-bot's face, moving his fingertips slowly down the bridge of his broad, almost
muzzle-like nose, to his cheekbones, lined with the edges of the faceplate, and on down,
brushing the tips of his fingers over Mayhem's lips, then caressing his chin, before falling
off and landing on the rising and falling collarbone of the Maximal.
"I did," he smiled, leaning in and pressing his lips to Copperhead's.
The kiss lasted no more than a few seconds, which seemed to stretch, for the two
of them, into a blissful eternity. As they parted, their optics wide, both smiled and began
to laugh quietly.
"I... I didn't know I was gay until a few years ago," Copperhead began. "It never
occured to me that I could even feel for another 'bot in any way other than malice and a
lust for destruction, the perverted pleasure I got from torture, but then I realized why I'd
been chasing Pantera all these years, and why... why I'd left Liege Furio. I was trying to
escape my feelings for so long, trying to deny who I truly was."
Immense gold-copper arms enshrouded the snake as Mayhem-- no, Tyrannix; he
was himself again-- cradled Copper carefully. "I feel secure... having you around this past
day or so... I feel at ease again."
"You make me feel safe, too, Little Snake," Tyrannix murred softly. "Don't ever
leave me."
"I won't, as long as you promise not to leave me. It's too early to part..."
"I will be here."
***
Livid. Enraged. Out of control. Words could not begin to describe Megatron's
mood at that very moment. There was little that any of his "loyal" subjects-- not Sin, nor
Quickstrike, Calamity, not even Inferno-- could do to quell the furor spewed forth by an
angry Megatron.
"Simpletons... I am surrounded by singly-minded, incapable simpletons. I used
you two and Waspinator," he roared to Calamity and her sister, "as a diversion against all
the Maximals, but still you failed! I risked life and limb-- and sanity!-- to procure that
which I have gained, this power that grows within me, but you ungrateful whelps must do
WHATEVER is in your power to undermine my glory!" A spurt of flame from the
Predacon tyrant's dragon-headed left arm punctuated the tirade.
"The lot of you are worthless. May the Pit find you all if another, more capable
stasis pod does not make planetfall soon." His wings cut a razor-sharp arc as the beast
turned on his heel and trod off, leaving inch-deep gouts in the deckplating where the rear
talons on his feet had landed.
Sin merely glared his direction, long after the door to Megatron's quarters had
closed and-- with a more audible than usual whirring click-- locked. "Hope you're happy,
skidbrain," Sin growled, without so much as an over-the-shoulder glance at her sister.
"You've made him angry. An angry Megatron is an unforgiving, irrational Megatron. No
matter HOW hard we try to appease him now, he's gonna hold our butts to the fire. If
you--"
A piercing shrill voice answered Sin.
"I think I speak for all the Predacons when I tell you to shut the fuck up."
The moth turned rapidly to face the new voice, and was met with... herself?!
"What in the pit?"
"Like it?" the mirror-Sin grinned toothily. "I got if off the rack at Nieman
Marcus... I think it makes me look like a two dollar whore, who'd give out change..."
The doppelganger raised an eyebrow and caught the rapidly approaching three-fingered
fist in her own three-digit mitt. "Ah ah ah," she scolded, the stubby metal fingers
clutching the true Sin's hand, extending to needle tipped talons, "we mustn't strike a
lady..."
"You're no lady, Constrictor," Sin hissed sharply, throwing another punch at the
doppelganger's midsection.
"Too predictable." The fist, instead of striking hard dermal plating, was absorbed
into the anti-Sin's stomach plate. "Now to never let go."
Sin's eyes were white with rage; her lips had narrowed to a thin black slit on her
chin. "I've had enough," she snarled, as, in a blossom of green and orange, the mock-Sin
exploded in a shower of mercuric embers, skittering across the deckplate like spilled ball
bearings, and pulling themselves back together-- although in a less eye-catching form--
across the room.
"Looks like that curse energy of yours packs a whollop to my systems, bitchbot...
now I know who not to mess with. Mark my words, babe, you're goin' down."
A hiss later, and a metallic green snake was slithering out of the chamber.
Constrictor had returned home with a message: same bitch, new tricks.