Across the far reaches of space there is a planet like no other. Instead of protein bonds and biological origins, it was derived from ferrous bonding and technological creations. Some devine spark embued itself upon the constructs and gave birth to a new kind of life. Over time, that life became known as...
The Transformers.
As war rocked the metallic planet, forcing it's inhabitants to chose either the side of the heroic autobots, or that of the trecherous Decepticons. However, in the midst of things, some chose not to fight. Others were forced not to. In the hopes of discovering power and technology that would lead the early Decepticons to glory, Megatron had sent a group of noble warriors to the heart of Cybertron. Those warriors never returned, and now, millions of years later, Megatron himself leads an expedition. They had discovered it before, but this time was different. The recent destruction left but one path open to them... the one taken by those soldiers so many vorns ago.
"Hurry up, Starscream, Prime is no doubt in one of these tunnels," Megatron hissed at his air commander.
The decepticon curled his lip, irritated at Megatrons ever present lack of respect for such a resourceful and successful warrior such as himself. "Well, MIGHTY Megatron, he would not even BE on this path had you not chosen to go here yourself instead of letting me be in charge of a raiding party. Prime would have sent one of his lackies like Jazz, or Ultra Magnus."
The constant complaining was beginning to gnaw away at Megatron's patience protocols. "Like I would trust YOU with such an important mission, and one that yeilds such a powerful resu-"
"Lord Megatron!" Soundwave interrupted with a emphatic yet monotonous exclimation. The two turned back, seeing what had caught the optics of Megatron's second in command.
In the darkness of the cooridoor, not much could be seen, but little had to be. What they witnessed was the lower portion of Blitzwing, the party's heavy hitter, being pulled through a mesh of tubes that hung from the wall.
"What?" Megatron exclaimed, immediately raising his cannon. A few thunderous crashes rang out, leaving the wall charred and molten, with no sign of Blitzwing.
"Niiice going, Megatron," Starscream chimed in, "you just sealed off our only means of following whoever it was that just abducted one of the toughest Decepticons in our ranks!"
Starscream's boldness was soon stamped out as he met with the flashing optics of his leader, who reminded him once more of why he was in charge.
"Starscream..." Megatron adressed, "one more word, and I'll do the same to you!"
On another branch of the same path...
"Huh? What was that?" questioned Jazz in his usual, rythmic tone, "Sounded like Ultra Magnus ran into a bit of trouble."
Prime turned around, and suddenly got a sickening feeling all through his circuitry. Kup was allready on it, turning round the corner, only to back up, firing away at the unseen threat.
"Kup!? What's going on?" Prime asked, readying his laser rifle. He looked on to the old war horse, his sunken eyes, his quivering lips, his shaking joints, and knew without words that-
"Something... something just came out and grabbed Ultra Magnus!" He exclaimed. "I... I couldn't see the blasted thing! I could see Ultra Magnus just fine, over there underneath that ventilation shaft. He.." he paused long enough to calm his nerves. "He was grabbed by nothing I could see, then the crazy thing pulled him right up into that vent." He shook his head, walking over to the group, "There was nothin I could do, not a damn thing"
The gentle hand of their leader patted Kup on the shoulder, and his soft blue optics managed to soothe some of the fear that wracked the autobot's system.
"We'll get him back, but for now... we must keep on. If Megatron reaches Vector Sigma first..." With that, Optimus turned about, looking down into the next section of the cooridoor, who's light fixtures had been destroyed, "then we Autobots won't stand a chance."
The three raced down into the dark depths, knowing that soon they would be at the center. Soon they would be within the basking warmth of the eternal light which fueled this world.
"You dissstuuuurrbed mee..." came a raspy voice, echoing through the hallway with no known origin. Every caution initiative in their systems kicked in as the trio spun about, clicking their weapons' on with a reassuring hum.
"Who are you?" Prime was the first to speak, directly adressing their tormentor. "Are you the one that took Ultra Magnus?" A low chuckle was the response, confirming their suspicions. "Release him right now! We have done nothing to you."
"You have awoken me!" the voice spat out, more agitated and nearly uncontrolled, "You taint my tunnels with your filthy Autobot presence, and now you must pay the consequences!"
Jazz became a bit twitchy, "That don't sound good Prime. Sounds like we're about to get neck deep in a world of trouble," he commented. Prime silently agreed.
Then, there was a flash of light, a short glimmer of... something within the dark tunnel. It was only visable for nanoclicks, for the purple energy beam that lit the mishapen hand lashed out, clamping onto Jazz's arm, and promptly yanked him back under.
There was a low click followed by a pair of illuminating beams that splashed down into the tunnel. Prime's headlights had lit up the ends of a couple of appendages of their mysterious assailant. They appeared to be twisted, taloned hands, one of them fimly around the wrist of Prime's second in command.
He and Kup leapt down to the section below, where Jazz had been pulled, to see the narrow space within the wall that the stalker had no doubt fled. Just large enough for Prime to squeeze though, they followed...
Back on the Decepticon side of things...
"First Blitzwing, and now Soundwave!" bellowed the ever condescending Starscream, "What a marvelous job you're doing here."
It was too much of a strain on his audio receptors, Megatron's patience had worn thin. His hand soon found itself wrapped around starscream's face, slowly crushing the tightly woven metal that made up his skin.
As starscream howled in pain, and pleaded for him to stop, Megatron just glared at him with his burning red optics.
"Did I not make myself clear, or did you actually think I was bluff-" His attention was snagged by a light clinking noise. He cocked his head to the side, dropping Starscream, and raising his finger at him to denote the importance of keeping that ever flapping trap of his shut.
He let out a stream of purple nuclear energy off into the darkness, momentarily lighting it up, and also blasting a hole into the panelling below. Out of the corner of his eye he saw something scurrying away, down the darkest depths of the cooridoor.
"He's guarding something... Vector Sigma!" exclaimed Megatron. He took off into the darkness, followed closely by Starscream.
'Hmph,' Starscream thought to himself, 'if he thinks I'll let him get there alone, he's fried a circuit.'
The two paths soon became one as Autobots and Decepticons met. In front of them, a pair of blast doors who's thickness was unknown. Megatron and Starscream came to a halt, seeing that Prime and Kup had allready made it.
"Prime!" called Megatron, hoisting his cannon into position, "Leave here, Vector Sigma is for me to exploit!"
Megatron's boistrous rhetoric did not waiver Prime's resolve. "You and I both know I cannot do that," he said, "From your small numbers, I assume your comrads have been captured by this... THING as well."
As much as Megatron didn't want to admit it, Prime was right. Just then, a gust of air pushed out from various spots along the door.
"Got it!" Kup said, stationed at the control panel, "Been awhile since I had to decode one of these. An L4-7 model, I thought they were all replaced."
"Prime..." hissed the Decepticon leader, preparing to fight his way to the core.
"Megatron.." pleaded Optimus, hoping that for a moment, Megatron could work with him to rescue their men.
"FOOLS!" Came the raspy voice who's source was no longer a mystery. The four transformers turned to see a ghastly creature with multiple, gangly legs, no apparent head, and a cannon mounted on it's back... aimed squarely at them.
FATHOOM! The laser fire rushed through the door, causing the remaining Cybertronian warriors to dive to the side. They had not expected their invisible assailant to be a walking, talking tank on legs.
"Blast!" Yelled Kup, readying his laser musket, "that thing's gonna blow us to pieces if we don't act quickly." Prime nodded in agreement before the two of them turned around the corner and let out a volley of surpressing laser fire.
Taking the moment of distraction to his advantage, Starscream flew above the crossfire and into the room. "Those losers will kill each other while *I* get to Vec-"
"Starscream! Get me ouuuut of here!" The voice was filled with pain, agony, and the face was a good match. Starscream let out a yelp of fear as he nearly ran into one of his fallen troops, Blitzwing, who was now strung up like some corpse within a web of energon. "What the??" He remarked. It was then he heard the others. "Help us! Get us down! Saaave us!" the others were all calling for him to be their savior, to free them from the prison that had left them so morbidly weak and weary. The voices were all around him, goading him, begging him, demanding his action, and finally, he snapped. "Shut up, shut up, SHUT UP!!!" He screamed, suddenly letting out a series of purple blasts, some of which managed to land on the dangling victims. As the four fell to the ground, Starscream started to shake off the feeling. "It's this whole place. It's just NOT where I want to be right now!"
The familiar gear shifting noise of a transformation came from the hallway, and the spider tank soon found himself having to shift his position as a speedy little blue truck came racing straight to him. The warn out tires were still tough enough to tear up the track as Kup raced by without so much as a scratch on him from the multi-legged assailant.
"8 legs, and none of them useful, must be REAL proud of yourself," he muttered with a sly chuckle. Much to his surprise, the ground next to him was blown away as hot plasma energy touched down. "Yeeow!" he yelled, transforming onto his feet, next to Jazz and Ultra Magnus.
"You would have thought he'd be MORE worried 'bout Megs and Prime," Jazz spouted, getting himself to his feet. A rattling came out of the barrel next to him as Ultra Magnus attempted to push the tank back.
"Yeah, well now he's got eight instead of four to worry about, even if us four WERE half-drained," was Ultra Magnus' reply.
The monster soon found himself under fire of everyone, and could scarcely find the time to dodge, let alone shoot. After a few holes had been blasted into his armor, he decided it was time to change tactics. He transformed, revealing the six armed atrocity that had abducted the others. As soon as his feet touched the ground, his hands went out. Each one lashed out a whip of purple energy that snagged either Autobot or Decepticon. As Prime and Megatron watched, slowly backing up, the beast rushed towards the gate, screaming at the top of his lungs.
"YOU CANNOT HAVE MY POWER!!!" He bellowed in the most horrific, raspy tone to ever be emitted by a transformer as he dragged all the transformers with him, scraping their metal hides across the ground, throwing sparks up as he did. With a final burst of energy he hurled himself, and all the troops, into the cooridoor, resulting in a very unsettling clash of bodies.
When they had managed to right themselves, they saw the enemy in his tank mode once again... this time his cannon was pointed slightly above the now closed blast doors.
"This place..." he began, "belongs to Cataraks!" With that, he fired, bringing down a mass of metal, vents, and panels, completely burying the entry to that which the eight had fought so valiantly to reach. The whole scene left most of the transformers bewildered and disoriented, but Optimus and his crew managed to come to their senses.
"It's too late, we'll need help to get through this mess," Optimus stated, sighing a bit afterwards. Jazz, Ultra Magnus, and Kup agreed, transforming into their vehicle modes and proceeding to peel their way out.
Leaving only Megatron and his crew.
Soundwave and Blitzwing, the two Decepticon victims of Cataraks' energy syphoning, were making their way out of the tunnel allready. Soundwave hesitated, turning back to his commander. "Megatron...?" he questioned, as if asking permission to leave their most capable leader behind. He nodded, and with that, Soundwave turned and continued on.
Starscream was backed against the wall, both arm lasers pointed at the dangerous new foe. "Are you mad, Megatron? We should leave now, with them!"
A sinister smile was placed upon Megatrons lips as he took a step towards Cataraks. The step had added enthusiasm, and he ground his foot into the metal plating below. "Now, no distractions, just me and you."
Cataraks took a step back, placing one pair of arms on the rubble behind him, while another held the plasma blaster which his cannon had converted into. The last pair was poised, ready to intercept anything that came at him. A hiss was the only verbal response he gave Megatron.
The titanic tyrant stormed down to Cataraks, and then lept to the side as a blast of plasmic energy shot through the air. Quickly springing off the wall, Megatron plowed his entire body into the comparatively lighter framed Cataraks, grinding him into the wall of debris behind him.
"GAAAH!" exclaimed the multi-armed freak, who promptly tried to fling Megatron off with two of his hands. Two, however, did not do the job, and he was forced to use another pair. He threw Megatron but a short distance, luckily it was barely far enough for Cataraks to escape. Springing from wall to wall, he climbed his way up to the cooridor the Decepticons had allready taken.
"After him!" Megatron screamed out, firing a trio of blasts from his nuclear fusion cannon. There was a flash as the scent of charred metal filled the air. Cataraks howled and covered his shoulder protectively, reaching back with another set of arms to fire back. The shots fell short of Megatron, but managed to keep him still long enough for Cataraks to get away.
He made it to the surface... how long had it been? Countless vorns, it seemed. So much had changed! No... this wasn't right... All the destruction and mayhem he saw was not signs of a long waged battle... these were fresh scortch marks, engines and machines still warm from the explosion that demolished them, the remains of autobot and decepticon corpses on the ground... decrepit prematurely.
"What... what has happened to my Cybertron?" he asked himself. One pair of his antler-like view ports shifted down and locked in place. His vision was filled with various luminous shades of white and black. He looked from one place, then beyond it, then further still. Finally, he came to the place he searched for. Behind the industrial district there was... a huge battle! An army of grotesque, slapshod transformers firing upon a squadron of those ever present Autobots.
"Decepticons?" He asked himself aloud.
"No," came the deep, powerful voice of Megatron, "The Scrappers is what we call them." Cataraks spun around, only to see that Megatron was not about to blast his head off. Instead, he was staring out over the horizon. "They showed up on Cybertron one day, hailing from the planet Junk. They are rejects, as far as we can tell, made up of dead transformer parts."
Cataraks nodded a bit. His eyes were dimmed, even behind the visors, and his actions were lethargic. Nonetheless, he stood up. "You're him, aren't you?" He asked Megatron.
A broad grin of satisfaction grew onto his face as Megatron confirmed Cataraks' suspicions. "Scorponok mentioned you, once or twice," he confessed. "A liuetennant that had the potential to gain his level of rank within the Decepticons. So he decided to have you "removed."
Suddenly, dispite his exhaustion, Cataraks burst out in anger. "He! You mean it wasn't an accident! That treacherous-!" He could barely contain himself, and quickly transformed into his spider tank mode. "Where is he!?! I'll mow him down!"
Megatron and Starscream backed up, readying their weapons. "Gone! Lost in space, so I've heard," Megatron replied, cautiously stepping back.
Starscream edged closer, whispering to his commander, "He's flipped a diode, hasn't he?" he asked.
Megatron's reply would reveal part of the reason, "he's been lost down there since before we went to Earth, you fool. Isolation of that magnatude usually takes one's life LONG before now."
Calming down, Cataraks transformed back into his robotic state. "You... hnn." His mind was cloudy, and his words indiscernable save for one, "energon..."
FWUMP! The mass of arms slumped over onto the cold plated ground. The incapacitated Cataraks proved a tempting target for Starscream, who promptly positioned his weapon for the kill.
"No," Megatron said with that familiar devious smile. "I have plans for him. Bring him with you."
With that, the three were off.
The Transformers.
As war rocked the metallic planet, forcing it's inhabitants to chose either the side of the heroic autobots, or that of the trecherous Decepticons. However, in the midst of things, some chose not to fight. Others were forced not to. In the hopes of discovering power and technology that would lead the early Decepticons to glory, Megatron had sent a group of noble warriors to the heart of Cybertron. Those warriors never returned, and now, millions of years later, Megatron himself leads an expedition. They had discovered it before, but this time was different. The recent destruction left but one path open to them... the one taken by those soldiers so many vorns ago.
"Hurry up, Starscream, Prime is no doubt in one of these tunnels," Megatron hissed at his air commander.
The decepticon curled his lip, irritated at Megatrons ever present lack of respect for such a resourceful and successful warrior such as himself. "Well, MIGHTY Megatron, he would not even BE on this path had you not chosen to go here yourself instead of letting me be in charge of a raiding party. Prime would have sent one of his lackies like Jazz, or Ultra Magnus."
The constant complaining was beginning to gnaw away at Megatron's patience protocols. "Like I would trust YOU with such an important mission, and one that yeilds such a powerful resu-"
"Lord Megatron!" Soundwave interrupted with a emphatic yet monotonous exclimation. The two turned back, seeing what had caught the optics of Megatron's second in command.
In the darkness of the cooridoor, not much could be seen, but little had to be. What they witnessed was the lower portion of Blitzwing, the party's heavy hitter, being pulled through a mesh of tubes that hung from the wall.
"What?" Megatron exclaimed, immediately raising his cannon. A few thunderous crashes rang out, leaving the wall charred and molten, with no sign of Blitzwing.
"Niiice going, Megatron," Starscream chimed in, "you just sealed off our only means of following whoever it was that just abducted one of the toughest Decepticons in our ranks!"
Starscream's boldness was soon stamped out as he met with the flashing optics of his leader, who reminded him once more of why he was in charge.
"Starscream..." Megatron adressed, "one more word, and I'll do the same to you!"
On another branch of the same path...
"Huh? What was that?" questioned Jazz in his usual, rythmic tone, "Sounded like Ultra Magnus ran into a bit of trouble."
Prime turned around, and suddenly got a sickening feeling all through his circuitry. Kup was allready on it, turning round the corner, only to back up, firing away at the unseen threat.
"Kup!? What's going on?" Prime asked, readying his laser rifle. He looked on to the old war horse, his sunken eyes, his quivering lips, his shaking joints, and knew without words that-
"Something... something just came out and grabbed Ultra Magnus!" He exclaimed. "I... I couldn't see the blasted thing! I could see Ultra Magnus just fine, over there underneath that ventilation shaft. He.." he paused long enough to calm his nerves. "He was grabbed by nothing I could see, then the crazy thing pulled him right up into that vent." He shook his head, walking over to the group, "There was nothin I could do, not a damn thing"
The gentle hand of their leader patted Kup on the shoulder, and his soft blue optics managed to soothe some of the fear that wracked the autobot's system.
"We'll get him back, but for now... we must keep on. If Megatron reaches Vector Sigma first..." With that, Optimus turned about, looking down into the next section of the cooridoor, who's light fixtures had been destroyed, "then we Autobots won't stand a chance."
The three raced down into the dark depths, knowing that soon they would be at the center. Soon they would be within the basking warmth of the eternal light which fueled this world.
"You dissstuuuurrbed mee..." came a raspy voice, echoing through the hallway with no known origin. Every caution initiative in their systems kicked in as the trio spun about, clicking their weapons' on with a reassuring hum.
"Who are you?" Prime was the first to speak, directly adressing their tormentor. "Are you the one that took Ultra Magnus?" A low chuckle was the response, confirming their suspicions. "Release him right now! We have done nothing to you."
"You have awoken me!" the voice spat out, more agitated and nearly uncontrolled, "You taint my tunnels with your filthy Autobot presence, and now you must pay the consequences!"
Jazz became a bit twitchy, "That don't sound good Prime. Sounds like we're about to get neck deep in a world of trouble," he commented. Prime silently agreed.
Then, there was a flash of light, a short glimmer of... something within the dark tunnel. It was only visable for nanoclicks, for the purple energy beam that lit the mishapen hand lashed out, clamping onto Jazz's arm, and promptly yanked him back under.
There was a low click followed by a pair of illuminating beams that splashed down into the tunnel. Prime's headlights had lit up the ends of a couple of appendages of their mysterious assailant. They appeared to be twisted, taloned hands, one of them fimly around the wrist of Prime's second in command.
He and Kup leapt down to the section below, where Jazz had been pulled, to see the narrow space within the wall that the stalker had no doubt fled. Just large enough for Prime to squeeze though, they followed...
Back on the Decepticon side of things...
"First Blitzwing, and now Soundwave!" bellowed the ever condescending Starscream, "What a marvelous job you're doing here."
It was too much of a strain on his audio receptors, Megatron's patience had worn thin. His hand soon found itself wrapped around starscream's face, slowly crushing the tightly woven metal that made up his skin.
As starscream howled in pain, and pleaded for him to stop, Megatron just glared at him with his burning red optics.
"Did I not make myself clear, or did you actually think I was bluff-" His attention was snagged by a light clinking noise. He cocked his head to the side, dropping Starscream, and raising his finger at him to denote the importance of keeping that ever flapping trap of his shut.
He let out a stream of purple nuclear energy off into the darkness, momentarily lighting it up, and also blasting a hole into the panelling below. Out of the corner of his eye he saw something scurrying away, down the darkest depths of the cooridoor.
"He's guarding something... Vector Sigma!" exclaimed Megatron. He took off into the darkness, followed closely by Starscream.
'Hmph,' Starscream thought to himself, 'if he thinks I'll let him get there alone, he's fried a circuit.'
The two paths soon became one as Autobots and Decepticons met. In front of them, a pair of blast doors who's thickness was unknown. Megatron and Starscream came to a halt, seeing that Prime and Kup had allready made it.
"Prime!" called Megatron, hoisting his cannon into position, "Leave here, Vector Sigma is for me to exploit!"
Megatron's boistrous rhetoric did not waiver Prime's resolve. "You and I both know I cannot do that," he said, "From your small numbers, I assume your comrads have been captured by this... THING as well."
As much as Megatron didn't want to admit it, Prime was right. Just then, a gust of air pushed out from various spots along the door.
"Got it!" Kup said, stationed at the control panel, "Been awhile since I had to decode one of these. An L4-7 model, I thought they were all replaced."
"Prime..." hissed the Decepticon leader, preparing to fight his way to the core.
"Megatron.." pleaded Optimus, hoping that for a moment, Megatron could work with him to rescue their men.
"FOOLS!" Came the raspy voice who's source was no longer a mystery. The four transformers turned to see a ghastly creature with multiple, gangly legs, no apparent head, and a cannon mounted on it's back... aimed squarely at them.
FATHOOM! The laser fire rushed through the door, causing the remaining Cybertronian warriors to dive to the side. They had not expected their invisible assailant to be a walking, talking tank on legs.
"Blast!" Yelled Kup, readying his laser musket, "that thing's gonna blow us to pieces if we don't act quickly." Prime nodded in agreement before the two of them turned around the corner and let out a volley of surpressing laser fire.
Taking the moment of distraction to his advantage, Starscream flew above the crossfire and into the room. "Those losers will kill each other while *I* get to Vec-"
"Starscream! Get me ouuuut of here!" The voice was filled with pain, agony, and the face was a good match. Starscream let out a yelp of fear as he nearly ran into one of his fallen troops, Blitzwing, who was now strung up like some corpse within a web of energon. "What the??" He remarked. It was then he heard the others. "Help us! Get us down! Saaave us!" the others were all calling for him to be their savior, to free them from the prison that had left them so morbidly weak and weary. The voices were all around him, goading him, begging him, demanding his action, and finally, he snapped. "Shut up, shut up, SHUT UP!!!" He screamed, suddenly letting out a series of purple blasts, some of which managed to land on the dangling victims. As the four fell to the ground, Starscream started to shake off the feeling. "It's this whole place. It's just NOT where I want to be right now!"
The familiar gear shifting noise of a transformation came from the hallway, and the spider tank soon found himself having to shift his position as a speedy little blue truck came racing straight to him. The warn out tires were still tough enough to tear up the track as Kup raced by without so much as a scratch on him from the multi-legged assailant.
"8 legs, and none of them useful, must be REAL proud of yourself," he muttered with a sly chuckle. Much to his surprise, the ground next to him was blown away as hot plasma energy touched down. "Yeeow!" he yelled, transforming onto his feet, next to Jazz and Ultra Magnus.
"You would have thought he'd be MORE worried 'bout Megs and Prime," Jazz spouted, getting himself to his feet. A rattling came out of the barrel next to him as Ultra Magnus attempted to push the tank back.
"Yeah, well now he's got eight instead of four to worry about, even if us four WERE half-drained," was Ultra Magnus' reply.
The monster soon found himself under fire of everyone, and could scarcely find the time to dodge, let alone shoot. After a few holes had been blasted into his armor, he decided it was time to change tactics. He transformed, revealing the six armed atrocity that had abducted the others. As soon as his feet touched the ground, his hands went out. Each one lashed out a whip of purple energy that snagged either Autobot or Decepticon. As Prime and Megatron watched, slowly backing up, the beast rushed towards the gate, screaming at the top of his lungs.
"YOU CANNOT HAVE MY POWER!!!" He bellowed in the most horrific, raspy tone to ever be emitted by a transformer as he dragged all the transformers with him, scraping their metal hides across the ground, throwing sparks up as he did. With a final burst of energy he hurled himself, and all the troops, into the cooridoor, resulting in a very unsettling clash of bodies.
When they had managed to right themselves, they saw the enemy in his tank mode once again... this time his cannon was pointed slightly above the now closed blast doors.
"This place..." he began, "belongs to Cataraks!" With that, he fired, bringing down a mass of metal, vents, and panels, completely burying the entry to that which the eight had fought so valiantly to reach. The whole scene left most of the transformers bewildered and disoriented, but Optimus and his crew managed to come to their senses.
"It's too late, we'll need help to get through this mess," Optimus stated, sighing a bit afterwards. Jazz, Ultra Magnus, and Kup agreed, transforming into their vehicle modes and proceeding to peel their way out.
Leaving only Megatron and his crew.
Soundwave and Blitzwing, the two Decepticon victims of Cataraks' energy syphoning, were making their way out of the tunnel allready. Soundwave hesitated, turning back to his commander. "Megatron...?" he questioned, as if asking permission to leave their most capable leader behind. He nodded, and with that, Soundwave turned and continued on.
Starscream was backed against the wall, both arm lasers pointed at the dangerous new foe. "Are you mad, Megatron? We should leave now, with them!"
A sinister smile was placed upon Megatrons lips as he took a step towards Cataraks. The step had added enthusiasm, and he ground his foot into the metal plating below. "Now, no distractions, just me and you."
Cataraks took a step back, placing one pair of arms on the rubble behind him, while another held the plasma blaster which his cannon had converted into. The last pair was poised, ready to intercept anything that came at him. A hiss was the only verbal response he gave Megatron.
The titanic tyrant stormed down to Cataraks, and then lept to the side as a blast of plasmic energy shot through the air. Quickly springing off the wall, Megatron plowed his entire body into the comparatively lighter framed Cataraks, grinding him into the wall of debris behind him.
"GAAAH!" exclaimed the multi-armed freak, who promptly tried to fling Megatron off with two of his hands. Two, however, did not do the job, and he was forced to use another pair. He threw Megatron but a short distance, luckily it was barely far enough for Cataraks to escape. Springing from wall to wall, he climbed his way up to the cooridor the Decepticons had allready taken.
"After him!" Megatron screamed out, firing a trio of blasts from his nuclear fusion cannon. There was a flash as the scent of charred metal filled the air. Cataraks howled and covered his shoulder protectively, reaching back with another set of arms to fire back. The shots fell short of Megatron, but managed to keep him still long enough for Cataraks to get away.
He made it to the surface... how long had it been? Countless vorns, it seemed. So much had changed! No... this wasn't right... All the destruction and mayhem he saw was not signs of a long waged battle... these were fresh scortch marks, engines and machines still warm from the explosion that demolished them, the remains of autobot and decepticon corpses on the ground... decrepit prematurely.
"What... what has happened to my Cybertron?" he asked himself. One pair of his antler-like view ports shifted down and locked in place. His vision was filled with various luminous shades of white and black. He looked from one place, then beyond it, then further still. Finally, he came to the place he searched for. Behind the industrial district there was... a huge battle! An army of grotesque, slapshod transformers firing upon a squadron of those ever present Autobots.
"Decepticons?" He asked himself aloud.
"No," came the deep, powerful voice of Megatron, "The Scrappers is what we call them." Cataraks spun around, only to see that Megatron was not about to blast his head off. Instead, he was staring out over the horizon. "They showed up on Cybertron one day, hailing from the planet Junk. They are rejects, as far as we can tell, made up of dead transformer parts."
Cataraks nodded a bit. His eyes were dimmed, even behind the visors, and his actions were lethargic. Nonetheless, he stood up. "You're him, aren't you?" He asked Megatron.
A broad grin of satisfaction grew onto his face as Megatron confirmed Cataraks' suspicions. "Scorponok mentioned you, once or twice," he confessed. "A liuetennant that had the potential to gain his level of rank within the Decepticons. So he decided to have you "removed."
Suddenly, dispite his exhaustion, Cataraks burst out in anger. "He! You mean it wasn't an accident! That treacherous-!" He could barely contain himself, and quickly transformed into his spider tank mode. "Where is he!?! I'll mow him down!"
Megatron and Starscream backed up, readying their weapons. "Gone! Lost in space, so I've heard," Megatron replied, cautiously stepping back.
Starscream edged closer, whispering to his commander, "He's flipped a diode, hasn't he?" he asked.
Megatron's reply would reveal part of the reason, "he's been lost down there since before we went to Earth, you fool. Isolation of that magnatude usually takes one's life LONG before now."
Calming down, Cataraks transformed back into his robotic state. "You... hnn." His mind was cloudy, and his words indiscernable save for one, "energon..."
FWUMP! The mass of arms slumped over onto the cold plated ground. The incapacitated Cataraks proved a tempting target for Starscream, who promptly positioned his weapon for the kill.
"No," Megatron said with that familiar devious smile. "I have plans for him. Bring him with you."
With that, the three were off.