No matter how guilty he was, no matter how difficult he'd made the situation for his fellow Autobots, no matter how worried he was for his foster father, being out in the night air exploring someplace new always helped Bumblebee relax.

He was part of a four-person recon unit under the command of General Shakar of Median, known to his men as "General Gears," who'd deigned to drag himself out of the medbay and join them in the field, albeit with no small amount of grumbling about it in the process. Even now, as they traveled side by side on the primitive expressway leading away from the Ark, Bumblebee could actually hear the Transport Commander muttering to himself about some minor inconvenience or another through the rolled-up windows of his rugged 4x4 pickup truck form. Guarding their rears were Sideswipe, a famous racer-turned-warrior whose competitive spirit was still visible in every crisp line of his sleek new alternate form and every cocky, selfsure course correction he made as the recon team made their way West; and Windcharger, nearly as artistically minded and carefully crafted as his wingman, yet fully half as fuel-efficient as the expensive import form that Sideswipe had assumed. Windcharger's commlink still remained quiet and cool in Bumblebee's direction - evidently, the Outlier was still irritated about the display earlier outside of the Ark.

"Optics up and sensors on now," Gears said over comms as the recon convoy reached the highest point on the overpass. Below them, miles and miles of trees and foothills rolled on in every direction, and the Autobots got their first good look at the city in front of them - a carpet of lights concentrated around a bend in the river on the far side, with a chain of low mountains marking a clear border beyond the tallest structures in the settlement. "We're entering a high-traffic area that we know nothing about. We're lightyears away from home. We're stretched so thin back at base that the commander of the Transport division's leading a late-night recon mission into hostile territory. Chances of success should we come across any trouble at all are frighteningly low."

"There's the Gears I know," Sideswipe joked. "For a moment there, I almost thought you'd been replaced by some 'Con impostor. You went without complaining about something for almost twenty breems. That a new record?"

"Can it, jetpack junkheap," Gears snapped. "I might be an easy target, but I'm also your commanding officer right now. Show respect, hard as it might be for you."

The digital equivalents of sardonic snickers flickered like a spot of static over their shared commlink.

"As I was saying, we don't know what awaits us in the settlement. Bottom line, prepare for the worst and expect the worst. I've got fifteen credits for the bag of bolts who gathers the most intel on our new situation and fifty for anyone who picks up on an enemy recon agent doing the same thing we are - because I'm sure one's out here somewhere."

"Copy that. Megatron's a despot, but he's not stupid. I'll cover the east side of the city, make sure we weren't followed," Windcharger said.

"Dibs on the north side," Sideswipe interjected.

"And I'll take the south," Gears finished. "Bumblebee, that leaves you with the city center. Think you can handle it?"

"Yep, I'm on it," the Scout affirmed, not really listening too hard. He was distracted by the city and all the possibilities it stood for. And the Decepticons got to it first . . .

"Understood. Remember, elevation is our friend and, for the time being, the locals aren't. Stay quiet and stick to the background. Don't draw any attention to yourself, stay aware of your surroundings, and get high to get data, if you can. Keep within range of field comms. Otherwise, just . . . don't scrap this up like our best men did. We'll meet back up on this overpass at zero dark thirty, 4 breems after midnight. Got me?"

There was a momentary silence as the Autobots thought of Hound and Cliffjumper, held behind enemy lines while their allies scrambled to keep up with basic first-contact operations, and synchronized their chronometers. A chorus of "copy that, over and out" rose up between them, and their formation began to loosen up as they neared the final exit to the city.

The bridge's pylons rose up to meet the stars in the sky. They got more detailed, more colorful, with enormous stylized sculptures of eagles and whales resolving from the architecture. It was called the Thunderbird Overpass, constructed fairly recently by order of the city of Tranquility as part of an initiative to conserve natural beauty while simultaneously opening up more transportation possibilities. The acres and acres of virtually untouched wilderness, even on the edges of a major American city, below the bridge were a testament to the success of the project.

The bridge's stylized, almost ostentatious design was based on a legend told by the Quileute people of the region. The Whale, a malevolent leviathan from the sea, who had been chosen by a great evil to oppress the human tribes on land, starving them out by consuming their sources of food, of energy. Opposing the Whale was the Thunderbird, a creature from the stars who came down from its nest in the mountains to defend the defenseless civilians of the Quileute. For many days and nights, the Whale and the Thunderbird did battle all over the land, air, and sea, causing great destruction to their surroundings. The ocean tore itself apart and washed away whole villages on the coast, but in the end, Thunderbird was victorious and its many adversaries, including the Whale himself, washed up on the shore, lifeless and gray like so many tons of forgotten offal.

It was quite the story, to be blunt. And it was one that would sound so familiar to the Autobots as they got to know their new world sometime in the near future.

But for now, the myths and legends of Earth were wholly unknown to the robotic creatures of war who'd found themselves on a new world - and a new battleground.


Minutes later, Bumblebee passed via another bridge into what seemed to be the downtown region of the city, straddling the banks of the Willamette River. He was welcomed by a bright neon sign sitting atop a building, situated in a place that made it utterly impossible for westbound travelers on the bridge to ignore. It was written in a language that he didn't understand, not just yet, but Teletraan One's rudimentary wireless translation stream being pieced together back at the Ark and fed to Bumblebee through his martial recon link seemed to interpret the eye-catching sign as a greeting. According to Teletraan, it read:

WELCOME TO TRANQUILITY, OREGON: OLD TOWN

The greeting was accompanied by the bright white image of some type of horned quadrupedal being leaping off to the right side of the sign, similar in form to the Plainstriders found all over Cybertron's fantastical terrain.

He opened up a private datafile, as he did at the beginning of most expeditions like this one, and began to speak.

"Personal log, Private Bumblebee of the Fifth Ring, Autobot Scout. I'm here in a Terran city, unknown name, seemingly called 'Old Town' according to Teletraan. Relatively small in size and embedded in a deeply forested river valley, Old Town is connected to base by a series of rustic roads and a modest bridge, well constructed by the planet's natives - who appear to call themselves "the Oregon" - even if it doesn't exactly hold a light to back home. Guess that's normal, though - it seems that the individuals making up the dominant Terran race are bipeds, similar in form to your average Cybertronian, possessing no natural defenses whatsoever, and measuring about half to three-quarters of a mechanometer in height."

He took the first right once he got off the bridge and maneuvered North through a few city blocks of low buildings, a little more than twice his height in robot form. Most of them were darkened, but a good amount still blazed with light, displaying a diversity of items in floor-to-ceiling windows facing the street. They were clearly shops, outlets, restaurants, closed for the night and preparing for the upcoming sales day. Eventually, Bumblebee came out near a vast green park that rolled right on down to the riverfront, which sparkled with the colors of hundreds of reflected city lights and shone with the dim illumination of the moon, even through a noticeable amount of grayish-yellow haze. An old steel bridge, topped with crimson pilot lights, rose up in the near distance, above the trees and above the green field of the park.

It was a sight Bumblebee hadn't seen for a while - the night sky above a world that hadn't been torn apart by centuries of war and eons of pollution. And although Tranquility's own light pollution and the ash in the air from the earlier eruption cast the stars and sky into much, much coarser relief than one could find elsewhere on the planet, it was substantially clearer than Cybertron's cosmos had been for . . . well, for as long as Bumblebee had been alive.

"I almost get tired of saying this sometimes," Bumblebee continued, "but it's beautiful here - the perfect blend of untouched nature and developed civilization. It seems like everywhere in the universe is prettier than Cyberton was, towards the end. Granted, it doesn't exactly scratch the itch that Iacon did in its heyday, but at least this place is still alive. More than can be said about the Rings on any given day, much less the end of the War.

"I'm looking forward to learning more about the native peoples and the world they live in, but . . ." He sighed. "We really need to get our house in order first. Hound and Cliff held hostage, Prime's forces overextended, the 'Cons loose even from our own basecamp . . . Ironhide down and out for the count . . . scrappit. Please, Primus, we need a win bad, no matter what it is."

Skyscrapers rolled on by in the distance as the Scout set wheels on an offramp heading West again. Perhaps he'd find some viewpoint to get a better picture of his surroundings . . .

"There we go," he exclaimed to himself, sighting a nearby clocktower attached to a greater complex that ran right up to the ramp he'd been traveling over. Even from here, Bumblebee had a great view of the dramatic hills off to the West, the skyscrapers in the distance blazing with light from hundreds of tiny windows. He smelled oil and metal in the air - a nearby railyard, with tracks passing directly under the ramp and leading straight to the clocktower complex.

"Highpoint located. I'm going in," he reported for the benefit of his personal log, then steered closer to the edge of the ramp. One quick check to make sure he was alone on the road, and-

He transformed, using his speed and uncomplicated transformation to roll cleanly over the concrete barricade and into a freefall that didn't last overly long before he landed on the clocktower complex's roof with a grunt of exertion and a relatively quiet sound of impact, thanks to his responsive hydraulics and rubber-soled pedes. He slid down the side of the complex's roof - it was clearly a railyard of some kind, only replicated on Terran scale, obviously - and slotted neatly into a shadowed hollow on the building's lower level. Seconds later, he crossed the roof, keeping to the shadows as he did so, and scaled the clocktower itself. He braced himself with one arm, hanging off the complex's pinnacle, and gazed over the city of Tranquility through a pair of flags, one stately with 64 white stars upon a field of blue, all set against an array of red-and-white bars. The other was a simple blue, bedecked with an ornate golden crest and big block letters that Bumblebee didn't bother reading, not yet.

Looking westward, Bumblebee scanned the city with his doorwings spread wide, gathering all the environmental info that they could. The clocktower, which read "GO BY TRAIN" in big white block letters, wasn't the tallest point in the proximity, but it commanded quite the view of the surrounding area. From here, Bumblebee could cast his gaze around more-or-less the entire downtown district of the city, instantly downloading the street plan and major landmarks for every area he could see - but as he passively let the download finish, he was actively cycling through several different light spectrums and energy sensors, searching for something else entirely - signs of Decepticon meddling in this rugged Terran settlement on the border of cosmopolitan and Arcadian.

And as he'd dreaded, yet expected, there it was - a faint but very noticeable trace of Energon-infused naphtha-kerosene in the air, arranged in a massive grid pattern overlaying the entire region in all directions almost as far as the eye could see, with several scatterbrained deviations from the norm but otherwise very neat and symmetrical. Unsurprisingly, the grid led to and originated from the tallest building in sight, a monolithic black-and-white skyscraper due south of Bumblebee's position. Down its side was a billboard displaying four simple characters that even Bumblebee, with his rudimentary grasp on the native language, could read, even if he didn't quite get their meanings yet:

OZ}X

Or it could have spelled ONYX. He didn't yet know about the grammatical customs of the Terran race at the time.

On the east side of ONYX Tower, there was a trail of Energon emissions, stronger, bolder than the rest, more recent. They were arranged in a recursive figure-eight - clearly the result of a Seeker or some other aerial-form Decepticon listening in on the goings-on of the tower's residents. Bumblebee was willing to bet, based on the tower's position and stature, as well as the density of the unknown Decepticon's contrail, that what had been said within it earlier that night was of some degree of interest to Megatron's forces.

"Bad news, guys," Bumblebee said, performing a clean front flip into the deserted parking lot far below and landing in his hardy vehicle form, "it looks like we've still got a lot of catching up to do. Signs of fresh Decepticon reconnaissance on the West side - actually, just look up at the sky. I'm pretty sure you can see it no matter where you are."

There was a momentary pause, then a collective groan. General Gears threw in a stream of heavily accented invective in his native Medianite Cybertronix. Bumblebee, for his part, stayed silent but dropped his position into the shared operations commlink.

"Every step we take, they've already flown a megamile," Windcharger complained. "Pit. Well, what's next, General?"

Sideswipe chipped in before his superior officer could get a word out. "I can't speak for Gears, but I'll bite. Bumblebee, switch assignments with me. I'll investigate the downtown strip, you cross the river and finish up with the north side. I'm the only one here who can actually fly, so I'll get up top and see what I can see on the tower's roof."

"Hey! Don't be like that. I can fly too, you know. 'Flight of the Bumblebee,' that sort of thing? Plus, Windcharger's got that-"

"Yeah, yeah, 'Bee, but what you do's more like handicapped hovering, and 'Charger just sort of lobs people as far as he can and needs to lie down for a while afterwards. Besides, this place looks like a college town in the fall, I'm getting too many weird looks from the natives in this form."

"The perils of being too pretty, Sideswipe?" Bumblebee joked, already crossing the smaller tributary to the east. It was a tense situation, but a little humor took some of the pressure off.

"Hey, you know it. Your crappy altmode will fit right in here, believe me. I'm going downtown, right where a sportster as sexy as me belongs."

Gears came in next. "Enough, you two. I've been in contact with Trailbreaker while you've all been laughing it up over there. He's deployed Sky Spy and is scanning for activity in the area as we speak. Maybe, if we're lucky, we'll get an idea of what Megatron's planning next."

Suddenly, Windcharger broke out into a mad cackle.

"What is it now, Outlier?" Gears demanded.

"Those IDIOTS! They didn't even TRY to hide their flight trajectory when they left the city!" he crowed.

"Really?" Sideswipe fell silent as he reviewed the information Windcharger sent over the link. "Nuts and bolts, you're right! They probably thought we'd be too blindsided to do a basic recon expedition, with everything that's been going on tonight!"

"Ha-HA, thank Primus for the arrogance of our enemies! Looks like the trail leads back towards the Ark. Trailbreaker'll be able to track it from there, no problem, and the A team can handle it going forward."

"At the very least, they'll be able to mark wherever Megatron and his goons have set up shop," Bumblebee said. "Maybe they'll even find Hound and Cliffjumper while they're at it!"

Phew. At least things aren't as dark as they could be, he thought to himself.

"We can't rely on them to do our jobs for us. Assuming our resident recon experts have not already been executed yet, or if the leadership of the Decepticon Army happens to be embroiled in an 'off night,' however, our allies in the river valley may be able to improve our situation. As unlikely as that seems," Gears pronounced with all of his trademark optimism, thusly killing the mood in its entirety.

". . . all right then," Windcharger said after a lengthy pause. "I've sent my readings of our Seeker ally to base. Trailbreaker says he's got it from here."

"I have notified First Lieutenant Jazz as well," Gears added. "With Trailbreaker's assistance and any other information Sideswipe may or may not find atop the Tower, A Team is virtually guaranteed to not fail their mission, even if they run into an occupying force in the process. We must follow in their footsteps. Keep canvassing the city - nothing in our mission, or our situation, has changed. Over and out."

But the other three members of B Team were still full of hope. It went unsaid, of course, but they all knew that their counterparts in the eastern reaches of the river valley weren't just there to do some light reconnaissance, but to run a search-and-rescue operation for the Hound and Cliffjumper in the heart of the Decepticons' camp. Some of the most competent, most storied warriors and infiltrators on the Ark were part of Jazz's team, and with Sideswipe himself among B Team's number, that was saying quite a lot.

No doubt, Hound and Cliffjumper would be back in the Ark by sunup, and, with luck, the Autobots just might get some intelligence on the movements of their opposite numbers. All B Team needed to do now was complete their recon mission and have faith.


In the East, another team of operatives made their way from dense, mountainous forest so thick not even Jazz could fit between any two trees to a dry, sandy prairie on the far side of Mt. St. Hilary. The locals called the area the Malheur Uplands. Crisscrossed with deep gorges and high foothills, inconsistently covered with patches of lonely pines, the vast rain shadow of the Cascadian Range was almost like another world entirely, save for Mounts Hood and St. Hilary still visible in the near distance, rising imperiously over the overgrown Northern rainforest that was the Autobots' new home for the foreseeable future.

"We're closing in on another point of interest, mechs," First Lieutenant Jazz reported over ops comms. They were approaching a low, deeply forested bluff straddling the point where the rocky, untamed thickets out West turned into scrubgrass and sandhills, providing a commanding view of the surrounding divide.

"Let's hope this is the last one," came Traibreaker's static-ridden voice from the Ark. "The Decepticons-" he devolved into radio interference for a moment, "-far, especially with two hostages. Preliminary readings of the area indicate-"

"Can't hear ya, 'Breaker. Volcanic interference's still playin' Pit with the comms. Over."

A moment of staticky silence, then Trailbreaker beamed a collection of Sky Spy images to each member of the group. "Copy that, Alpha leader. Good luck out there, we're all rooting for you guys back here. Going dark, but you're not alone. Over and out."

Trailbreaker's comm went silent, but his presence on the other end could still be felt.

"Looks like it's just us now," Jazz reported, going over the images as they rolled off the dusty two-lane main road and transformed, passing into a cluster of trees.

"Fragging pine pitch. Ruin my finish," Sunstreaker growled, mostly to himself, but continued on through the thick vegetation without hardly rustling a branch. He was holding his high-yield electron blaster at the ready in one hand, while the other was almost unconsciously resting on the hilt of his signature machete, polished to a shine and never leaving its sheath to hack at the trees that seemed to be attempting to suffocate the party of Autobot warriors as they walked.

"I don't like this, Lieutenant. It's a trap, I'm sure of it," the other bot in the squad, Mirage, confessed over silent comms. "Look at those readouts. We're assaulting a heavily-guarded position set underneath an entire mountain, virtually impregnable. Who knows how deep that bunker goes? And on top of that-"

"Yeah. No Decepticons in sight. An' yet, they left th' porch light on when they stepped out," Jazz said. At this point, the red light streaming through the pines from the direction of their target was beginning to shine off of their collective faceplates.

"They've dropped a flare at the entrance of the bunker," Sunstreaker noted. "Yep. We're in for a fight."

"Not necessarily," Jazz assured him. "We just gotta be smart an' savvy. We'll make it out with or without Cliff an' Hound, and if'n it's the latter, we'll spend all night findin' out where the Decepticreeps are stashin' them if we have to until our batch-mates walk free. My words, Primus' audios."

"If you say so, sir. Right, I'll take the high ground, clear out anyone on the slope, and provide air support if needed."

"Sounds good, 'Streaker. Remember, General Shakar says we might be gettin' some company pretty soon, so keep a sharp optic out. Mirage, you wanna put that invisibility cloak a'yours to work and see if you can't do a little light trespassin'?"

"I'm not very keen, sir, but I'll do it," the aristocrat grumbled, then effortlessly vanished behind an augmented reality veil so good that Jazz's doorwings couldn't even pick up on the idea that Mirage had ever existed in the first place. He turned to Sunstreaker instead to give the formal "move out" command, but the golden assassin had already gone too.

"Guess that leaves me on snipin' duty," he muttered, then moved West through the woods until he found a massive old tree with branches big enough to support his comparatively considerable weight. He set up shop leaning against the trunk on a thick limb about thirty feet off the ground, his trusty Nucleon Charge Marksman's Rifle leveled at the expanse of pitted blacktop and wrecked vehicles ahead of him, all illuminated by the sickly red glow of the guttering box of flares someone had left out as a tantalizing lure for the Autobots. One that, perhaps, they'd already fallen for. His perch had a good view of the bunker's gaping entrance, shuttered closed with massive slabs of concrete and steel that read "US ARMY" across their lengths in bold black lettering thicker than Jazz's entire body. Further to the mountain's South side, he could make out an egress point - an enormous portion of the hyper-dense bunker's wall just gone, hardly even any rubble to show for it, with the telltale pitch-black miasma of antimatter still staining the surrounding stone. It was visible even from this distance, and opened to a rough trail beaten into the earth and the military campus by several large, heavy, malicious alien warriors pretending to be Terran vehicles.

So it went for several dozen minutes. Jazz's knotted tensile-steel muscles trembled under the strain of holding his rifle up for so long, even with the weapon's Quantum Stabilizer working at peak efficiency to take some of the stress off. He hadn't blinked for a long time, despite the contaminants in the air, and didn't need to with his protective visor shielding his sensitive optics.

"Mirage shouldn't be taking this long." Sunstreaker's eerily calm, disconnected digital voice broke the silence in Jazz's mind, voicing the First Lieutenant's own thoughts on the subject. "He's a hunter and a socialite through and through - neither of those tend to stick around too long in hostile locations when they could be getting out of Dodge with their trophies."

"I know," Jazz said, barely audible even in the form of a silent transmission.

"I say we go in. This is a trap, I slit a watchman's throat on the Western ridge. Situation's only gonna get worse if the 'Cons come back home"

"Just wait a breem or two. That's an order."

More agonizing minutes ticked by, with not even as much as a signal blip or background interference on Mirage's end of the operations network. One could easily think that Mirage hadn't even left the Ark, wasn't a part of Jazz's excursion at all, and had never existed in the first place, if they didn't know better.

Finally, Sunstreaker spoke again. "Frag it. I'm going in."

"'Streaker-"

"Nope. Normally, I'm all for waiting, but this was a doomed op from the moment we left Iacon, and it's getting worse with every step we take. I'm not letting another Autobot be executed while we sit around with our pistons in our servos."

Just then, Mirage's data readout exploded into being again, almost overwhelming just by dint of there suddenly being something in a space where there'd previously been nothing, not even a whisper. Seconds later, the 'bot himself came screaming out of the ruined South wall of the bunker in vehicle form, spamming the ops network with urgent messages.

"RED LIGHT! RED LIGHT! It's the bloody Photonicons!"

"How many?" Jazz demanded, suddenly alert and coursing with adrenaline.

"All of them! And they've-"

He was interrupted by the massive concrete doors of the bunker rattling in their frames. Dust and rubble exploded outward, showering everyone in the vicinity with pulverized pebbles - even Jazz himself, dozens of meters away across a field of blacktop and wrecked military vehicles.

A one-armed giant, done up in traditional Decepticon war colors of black, royal purple, and green with tasteful touches of other shades like corpse-grey and blood red, wrenched one of the enormous blast doors to the side, which crumbled like a melting glacier with an equally earsplitting racket. Birds exploded out of the pines and winged, screeching, off into the night, terrified enough to seek solace in another state entirely.

Other than that, and the basso, industrial noises the Gestalt made just by moving its mass out of the bunker's tortured ruins, there was no sound. Jazz's ears rang with a subaudible droning sound, but he didn't move from his perch, just hunkered down farther. The Gestalt didn't even roar in challenge or spout off some inane pre-battle banter. It just stood there, dead silent and dead still in the rubble of its own making, a blazing red light on its forehead crest - one that brought to mind a camera's RECORD indicator - shining almost as brightly as the box of flares one of its components had left outside.

"Why isn't it moving?" Sunstreaker asked. His "voice" was terrified, but the steady hum of his spark still remained calm and slow over the comms system.,

The answer, of course, hit Jazz at the same time the drone in his ears reached a fever pitch. "It's waiting for something."

Suddenly, a full-size recon plane, sleek and slender in design, passed so closely overhead that the branch Jazz was sitting on snapped off, sending the Autobot First Lieutenant plummeting to the plant-choked forest floor. No problem - he hit the ground with a crisp roll and came up kneeling, rifle aimed precisely at the Gestalt's enormous head, just in time to watch the plane slam into the Gestalt's left arm stump, whereupon it ripped itself apart, spun around its axis, and turned into the other arm of the massive combiner, complete a cloud of pitch-black tentacles thrashing the air around it and a short spear that seemed to be made out of yet another Decepticon aircraft, albeit one much smaller than the recon plane itself.

Reflector's head snapped up, forcing Jazz to readjust his aim, and turned its merciless gaze to him, even concealed in the brush as he was. It almost seemed like the Gestalt was staring through the rifle's scope to make direct eye contact with the Autobot First Lieutenant - and then a massive black camera lens on its abdomen spiraled open, and Reflector began to move.

In an unceasing, straight line toward Jazz.

"Knock out his lights!" Jazz cried into the relative silence. His voice was easily heard, even over the sound of Reflector marching steadily closer to him, and the report of his Nucleon Charge Rifle was even more audible. It glanced off of Reflector's forehead, completely failing to do anything other than momentarily jerk the Gestalt's head to the side. The next few shots in Jazz's current position, deadly accurate but not as powerful as the first charged volley, were similarly ineffective, and Reflector reoriented on Jazz with a vengeance.

Sunstreaker, crazy robot ninja that he was, dashed off of the rocky overlook above the bunker's ravaged entrance where he had been camping and flew several silent meters through the air, an impeccably sleek and swift golden glider to rival the Seekers even without the use of his trademark jetpack, to land between Reflector's broad, angular shoulder pads. He rose his machete and began to hack away at the Gestalt's exposed neck wiring, seven times in half as many seconds, but Reflector barely even flinched besides its eyes twitching wildly as its sensitive machinery was chopped to ribbons. Several of the endlessly flailing combat tentacles spewing out of its left shoulder jerked, reoriented themselves, and shot off towards their attacker. Even with Sunstreaker's pitch-perfect reflexes and keen skills with the blade, it was all he could do to evade or counter them.

"Second Pit-condemned time I've had t' fight a Combiner in a deca-cycle," Jazz muttered, sizing up his goliath of a foe. His Nucleon Charge rifle transformed, its long barrel and streamlined design expanding and widening to be replaced with the much larger Crescent Blaster Slug Repeater.

"Sunstreaker, clear out on my mark - any way you can get down!"

"I'm a little busy here, Lieutenant! Might even be - ngh - might even be winning right now!"

"That's an order, Sergeant, bug out, NOW!"

"Why should I?" challenged Sunstreaker, one last time, as he sunk his machete hilt-deep into a chink in the Gestalt's armor.

Jazz snarled. This kid was enjoying himself way too much. "Aside from me bein' your commanding officer an' all that . . . this gun I'm gettin' ready t'shoot in your general direction is reverse-engineered from the Chaos Rift Combustor."

Immediately, Sunstreaker engaged his jetpack and blasted off into the low, ashy clouds above the battlefield, clearing Jazz's line of fire in less than a second. Reflector, which had still been moving in Jazz's direction, its greedy camera lens still wide open and interminably focused on the Autobot First Lieutenant, didn't even register that Sunstreaker had left, and kept marching towards Jazz.

He waited - waited - and then, when Reflector's back foot lifted up into the air again, fired a single chunky Chaosmaster bomb directly at that smooth black lens in the center of the combiner's chest.

The mechanically amalgamous monstrosity saw it coming but was too big and too slow to do much more than shift slightly to the side. The bomb exploded against its left shoulder, eliciting a high-pitched shriek of pain to emanate from the tentacular appendage. Reflector itself didn't react, at least until the sticky bomb sent its deadly payload - dozens and dozens of smaller explosive charges - absolutely cascading over its head and chest, effectively blanketing the creature's entire upper body in 24 shrapnel grenades all going off at once.

"photonicons - disengage," Reflector all but whispered in voices ranging all the way from a low, feminine contralto to a raspy monotone best described as "soulless" to a loud, staccato baritone. The Gestalt began to fall, but on its long path to the broken ground, it raised its right arm to point at Jazz - and a torrent of blue-orange flames spewed out of no less than four nozzles attached to a flamethrower longer than Jazz was tall.

Jazz's eyebrows shot up in fear, and he flung himself to the ground as well, raising his Crescent Blaster and its accompanying blast shield up in front of his relatively slim, narrow body. He tucked his sensitive doorwings as far into his body as he could manage, and braced himself for-

Pain.

Just a moderately-sized ocean of pain, a wave of fire so hot it felt like it froze over his body at first, then quickly "heated up" until Jazz was immersed in the heart of a volcano, not unlike the one the Autobots had set up shop in. True, his Durasteel Crescent Blaster's blast shield took the brunt of the initial wave, but Reflector's flamethrower had a Pit of an output, even in the relatively short time it had to fire before the Gestalt hit the ground.

Then, abruptly, it stopped, and Jazz was sitting in a pool of melted, burning tar. His Crescent Blaster's remains sank into it, melted into slag beyond recognition. An acrid stench surrounded him, made up his very existence, even as what had previously been blacktop melted into his metal skin. He couldn't move well, but tried to crawl out of the sticky, burning tarpit as well as he could.

A pair of rough hands grabbed him by the doorwings and wrenched him out of the muck, heedless of his cries of agony. Jazz blacked out for a moment - odd, he distinctly remembered the years of training he'd gone through to not do that sort of thing under duress - and came back to himself half-buried in the remains of a military vehicle, several Decepticons standing over his limp body.

"You messed up the picture, idiot. It's gonna take vorns to get our lens back to peak form," the deep male voice in Reflector's chorus of insanity growled.

"A shame, First Lieutenant Jazz of Staxis. Now we'll simply have to record your death in much lower quality. 360p, perhaps. You could have had a starring role in one of Reflector's masterpieces," the Photonicon leader, Viewfinder, lamented. He stood slightly behind his heavily armored enforcer, Spectro, who dominated Jazz's failing field of vision, and was cleaning the enormous lens embedded in his midsection with a compressed air nozzle that came out just above his wrist.

"Our Decepticon batch-mates would have come from lightyears across the galaxy to watch the lights in the Autobot First Lieutenant's optics go out for the last time - don't you have any sense of artistic merit, man?" a third, younger male voice asked. Jazz couldn't see who it was.

Viewfinder looked up from his careful, meticulous task. "What a pity. Photonicons, unite."

A symphony of shifting metal and whirring electronics later, and Reflector stood in front of Jazz once more, blocking out the ghostly moon filtering through the filthy sky and casting the entire world into deep, dark shadows. There was another, distinctive clicking sound as the Gestalt's chest-mounted lens spiraled open once again, and that hellish red RECORD light flicked on, brighter than the moon, brighter than the guttering box of flares outside the military bunker, brighter than anything else in Jazz's sight by a wide margin. The Gestalt raised its short spear over its head, dropped to a knee with a tremor that even shook the ruined suspension of the vehicle Jazz was embedded in, and began to swing the spear downward at what, for the enormous Gestalt, was a slow, devastating terminal velocity.

"Fine . . ." Jazz mumbled. Even speaking took a toll on his strength. "You want a show, ya freaky snuff-film cinephiles? You got one."

He got ready to activate every last one of the myriad colored lights and flashing strobes he'd used in his career as a musician back home in the elite taverns and nightclubs around Staxis' many docks on the Mithril Sea, cranked everything up to 11, and prepared the most annoying, most repetitive SynthAxe piece he personally knew to play on an earsplitting, permanent loop over his onboard speakers until the tiny mechanism, independent from his actual lifeforce, that controlled his AV system was physically unable to keep up the beats.

He knew that it wouldn't kill Reflector, or even cause the thing physical harm. But it would certainly ruin the video file of his own death and possibly even cripple the Gestalt's capacity to take video and record audio - and Jazz knew that would hurt the Photonicons more than anything else he could do in his current condition.

Thankfully, Jazz's final lightshow never had to play - a golden blur, like an angel sent by Primus to personally collect Jazz's spark, shot down from the heavens and alighted on the Decepticon Combiner's brow graceful as could be, and buried a distinctive machete in the blazing indicator light - and the blinding thing finally went out like a snuffed candle. Reflector's short spear slammed into the ground directly to Jazz's left, carving an enormous sticky trench of broken, melted blacktop and sending both Jazz and the military vehicle he was embedded in flying a short distance through the night air.

In an avalanche of metal bodies, Reflector collapsed again, the Photonicons now completely limp and lifeless. They sprawled out on the tortured ground as if their cybertanium skeletons had disintegrated into dust, and seemed to become nothing more than thirty-foot-tall ragdolls strewn over a fussy child's messy bed.

Sunstreaker came jogging over, barely even breathing hard, and knelt down by his commander's side, adjusting him into a more comfortable position despite Jazz's hisses of protest.

"Ah! Watch it, goldenboy . . . I ain't ready ta move like that jus' yet."

Sunstreaker, despite wearing a mask, conveyed the impression that he was wrinkling his nose in disgust. ". . . You are absolutely covered in tar, sir. We should get you back-"

"Yeah, yeah, I been covered in worse befo'," Jazz interrupted hoarsely. "Check th' area. Get some cuffs on th' 'Cons. Make sure we're in th' clear 'fore you start worrying about me. Jus' need a breem ta catch my breath. Again."

"FIRST LIEUTENANT JAZZ OF STAXIS!" a voice boomed from within the pulverized ruins of the bunker. Two forms, bound and gagged with stasis restraints, were shoved roughly outside, sliding down a pile of rubble and rebar in the process.

"Primus slaggit, what now?" Sunstreaker moaned. Jazz just pulled his photon pistol out, leveling it squarely in the bunker's general direction.

The Photonicons began to stir. Weakly, yes, but they were moving.

A heavily armored Decepticon Hoplite stepped out of his ruined lair and navigated gracefully down the slope. The two Autobots he'd thrown out were, unsurprisingly, Cliffjumper and Hound, looking bedraggled and slightly beaten, but otherwise none the worse for wear. The Hoplite produced a double-barreled machine gun from his left arm and shoved it practically up Cliffjumper's nose, pinning the archaeologist to the ground, whereas his right arm became a bladed claw weapon. It slipped around Hound's neck and lifted the Recon specialist into the air until his feet dangled ineffectually a few feet above the earth.

"You will release the Photonicons - all of them - and allow us to leave," the Hoplite demanded. Despite the timbre of his voice, he sounded young and was petrified in more ways than one - but he'd done violence before, and would again if given the chance. "Then, I may or may not release your compatriots - but make a move, and I'll kill them in an instant, make no mistake!"

Jazz struggled to his feet. Everything hurt, and it probably wasn't even Wednesday yet, according to his chronometer. "You'll let 'em go, huh? Simple as that, of your own volition? Now, what'll Megatron think of that, I wonder?"

The Hoplite was tellingly silent for a moment. "My Lord Megatron has other plans, greater machinations than these two Scouts. What he doesn't know won't hurt him."

"Oh, but I'm not concerned as ta Megsy's well-being, my mech - I'm worried for yours. You ever hear th' stories of what he does ta those who displease him? I have. So has my buddy here. Isn't that right, Sunstreaker?"

"Death would be a mercy for a sin as grievous as letting prisoners go without express permission," the golden Autobot agreed, hand resting once more on the hilt of his machete.

"We have to do something now, Lieutenant," he said over silent comms. "I can probably take this guy out, but not before he-"

"Cancel that," Jazz replied. "We gotta wait just a second or two longer."

"Better jus' turn yourself in," Jazz announced aloud to the Hoplite. "You cooperate, we can help ya disappear into the ether, like a Mirage, no problem," he said a little louder.

But there was nothing. The Photonicons clumsily attempted to get up, only to slip again.

". . . I don't want to die," the Hoplite finally admitted. "I just want to-"

Suddenly, a flash of silvery metal flicked through the air, interrupting whatever the Decepticon was about to say. A head flew off, bounced several times on the pavement, and rolled to a stop at Jazz's feet.

"WHAT THE-" was all the Hoplite got to say before his right arm, the one with the claw weapon holding Hound in midair, went limp. Hound crashed to the ground. The rest of whatever came out of the Hoplite's vocoder were screams, at least until an invisible assailant's katana ran him through just below his dense chest armor.

Jazz and Sunstreaker didn't stick around. The golden warrior disappeared in a rush of wind, only to rematerialize several yards away in a baseball slide, kicking one of the Photonicons' unsteady legs out from under them. Jazz, for his part, launched his grappling hook again with a short cry of pain, jerking Viewfinder off balance again and using the force of his pull to get closer to the cell of recovering Decepticons. It was over in just a few seconds, with each of the Photonicons momentarily cowed. Sunstreaker's machete was resting, gently but firmly, underneath one of their necks, the polished blade pressing into the Decepticon's vulnerable jugular vein just enough to draw a very thin stream of vivid purple Energon.

The Photonicon leader struggled for only a second or two, pulling like a savage, rabid, entrapped animal at the energized cable that was now wrapped around his neck. Jazz discouraged him with a sharp upwards jerk of his grapple hook and jammed the barrel of his pistol into Viewfinder's temple.

"Enough of that, now," he spat, feeling sick to his stomach and burned all over but letting none of either show. Viewfinder promptly complied, then calmly raised his hands.

"Ah, tsk tsk . . . Looks like you've beaten us, Autobot. It would seem that we're at your benevolent mercy," he whispered in a creepy monotone. "By all means, captor mine, take us in. I'm sure your leader will be quite pleased . . ."

Jazz's doorwings, though still in pain, overly sensitive, and discombobulated, picked up the presence of a quick series of messages sent over what he assumed was the Photonicons' gestalt bond. As one, the Photonicons raised their hands.

"Shut up. Don't do that again. I feel a message flyin', a random limb o' yours is gonna be the next thing that sails through th' air, mark my words."

Viewfinder chuckled, a dry sound with no real humor in it. "Oh, First Lieutenant Jazz of Staxis, don't threaten me with a good time, now. Very well. You have my word, Southerner, that I shan't communicate with my brothers and sisters from here on out. I'd hate to be an inconvenience for you-"

"Cut the scrap, shutterbug," Jazz barked. "Where's the main force o' Megatron's army? Why demolish a perfectly good base camp like this? Answer me!"

"You poor Autobots. Always behind the times," Spyglass, Photonicon reconnaissance agent, replied. "We're already flying high to greener pastures while you're still spinning your wheels in the mud. This?" she added, gesturing at the ruins of the military base surrounding them, "This was temporary. Barely a red herring, so to speak. And you three fell for it - as if we were constructing another superweapon in that boring hole!"

Viewfinder's head twitched just enough to regard Jazz out of the corner of his cold red eyes, like drops of frozen blood on an otherwise smooth and clean slab of concrete. They sent a small chill down Jazz's back strut even as he produced a pair of stasis cuffs and roughly apprehended the Photonicon leader. "And while we're glad you managed to rescue your friends, First Lieutenant, it would seem that you somehow failed at that task as well . . ."

"Deal with the rest, Sunstreaker," Jazz said, tersely, then, almost reluctantly, turned with his pistol raised at the gruesome sight he knew was awaiting him. He fired two shots - warnings, mostly, but also aimed at the space directly above where his damaged doorwings reported Cliffjumper was. The location one would stand if they were to execute the archaeologist.

The last mech left standing didn't react, other than a slight flinch when the photon rounds sent concrete chips flying off the bunker's destroyed doors just off to his right. Energon dripped off of his katana, splattering on the dusty ground beneath him, where the mutilated corpse of an Autobot lay, gushing a viscous dark purple gel from a dozen gaping wounds to cover and overwhelm the lighter pink fluid already strewn around the grisly scene.

Nearby, Cliffjumper sank to his knees, clutching his neck, where Jazz could just make out the shape of a dart protruding from his durasteel musculature. He was hissing something despite the stasis dart, which only thanks to his overtaxed doorwings Jazz could just make out:

"traitor . . . slagging Pit-damned psychotic fragging rich elitist traitor . . ."

Mirage, too, raised his hands, his invisibility cloak forgotten entirely. He turned towards Jazz, slowly, away from the mangled corpse of Hound. Though he still held his sword in one hand, he gave off an air of complete nonhostility as he regarded his superior officer with serious yellow eyes.

"Mirage . . . what the . . . what the Pit have you done?"

Some Photonicon began to laugh behind them, a sardonic, mocking sound that the others took up in their own various fashions as well.

"I can explain," Mirage said calmly. "Trust me, Lieutenant. It looked like him. It moved like him. Probably still believed it was him, for a while anyway. But I'm certain of one thing. That creature wasn't Hound anymore, and I've just saved him from himself."