Dark Tides Saga

Chapter 5 - Chaos

"So…why do you think Megatron's telling the truth?"

In one of the more prestigious energon refill stations*, Twilight sat at a small table with Soundwave. The latter was sitting erect, his gaze turned slightly aside. Ever since his cryptic declaration after the Decepticon leader's unsuccessful speech just a few hours ago, the navy blue robot had said nothing further about it. In fact, looking into his flickering ruby eye band, if the femme didn't know better she would have thought he was nervous. Yet, what could he possibly have to say that would make him so uneasy? Soundwave certainly was not the type to care about what others thought, and he was much too cautious to make claims without having something solid to back it up. It didn't make any sense.

What was even more surprising was that he was the one who suggested going to the energon refill station. He rarely ever went out, and when he did it was usually to obtain something for his project. Twilight had come to the understanding awhile ago that he simply wasn't the sociable type. So what was causing this sudden change of attitude?

As she took a small sip from the small bowl of energon, Soundwave turned his gaze back to her and rested his hands on the table.

"Source difficult to explain. I will make the attempt," he stated. Yet, his normally monotonous voice had a slight tinge, as if he was uncomfortable with what he was about to say. Twilight placed her bowl down and rested her hands on either side. A small pang of nervousness rose within her. This wasn't like Soundwave at all. What could he have to say that would cause even him apprehension? "I have the ability to read the thought processes of others."

The femme stared at him for a moment in confusion. Suddenly, it dawned on her. "You're psychic?!"

"Affirmative," Soundwave answered.

Twilight reared back in surprise, almost knocking her bowl off of the table. Psychic powers were vaguely described as an ability granted only to chosen organics. As often as their technology had strived to duplicate the strange phenomenon, it had never been achieved. Thought processes were simply too complex and random to be analyzed correctly. Yet, most Cybertronians had fancied this 'failure' as a blessing. Psychic abilities were considered taboo, as the potential that kind of power was extremely dangerous.

Suddenly, a terrible thought made its way into her awareness. What if…what if Soundwave had read her mind? What if he knew all of her fears, hopes, dreams…her feelings for him?! The thought of it was terrifying. She pushed herself off of her seat and stepped a few feet back. Turning her back to him, the femme bolted out of the refill station.

"Twilight-wait!" she vaguely heard Soundwave call after her. Yet, not even the surprising strain in his voice could stop her. Even the idea that he could know everything about her was overwhelming. What if all this time he had been reading her thoughts? What if he had been toying with her, doing different things and reading her internal reactions? Perhaps he knew of her intrigue and decided to see how he could twist it to meet his own ends?

Yet, the more she thought about it, the more foolish she felt. Why would someone as focused and intense as Soundwave waste his time on sadistic games? Why would he tell her that he had that ability if he planned to use it against her? If he had been reading her mind, he probably would have been able to predict her reaction. Her run slowed to a walk and finally to a complete stop. A small pang of guilt resounded within her. Despite Soundwave's generally stoic demeanor, he did seem nervous about telling her. Her outrageous and extreme actions certainly must have hurt his feelings.

How ridiculous I must have looked, she mused, running out of the station like that… He deserves an apology.

With that in mind, the femme glanced around to see where she was. She appeared to be near the outskirts of the colony, the lab was only about a ten millicycles* from her current location. Figuring that Soundwave was probably on his way back to the lab by now, she decided to go there. As Twilight began her walk, a sudden tremor threatened to knock her off of her feet. The ground was shaking! Having no body of water anywhere on the planet, Cybertron was incapable of natural earthquakes. So there was only one thing that came to the femme's mind - We're under attack!

She was not mistaken. As soon as her mind conjured the thought, missiles began to rain from the sky. Other neutral Cybertronians scrambled from the buildings nearby, screaming and preparing for the unseen enemy. Paralyzed by fear, Twilight could only stand still as the missiles exploded around her.

No, not again!

She watched as her brother was enveloped in the thick, black smoke.

She had stood paralyzed as he fell under the cascading missiles.

She had stood and watched him die, too terrified to save him.

With all of the strength and courage her chassis could muster, she made her way back to the lab. Soundwave was one of the only friends she had here, and she wasn't going to allow him to suffer the same fate as her sibling.

After what seemed like an eternity of missiles and smoke and screams, she finally found the lab - or what remained of it. The entire building was in ruins!

"Soundwave!" Twilight cried as she neared the dreadful sight. The tall and awe-inspiring building that housed Cybertron's greatest neutral scientists was now a wasteland of debris. Severed limbs and parts of the victims unable to escape the missiles and the collapsing structures were strewn about. The femme had to turn her gaze momentarily from the terrible sight, her internal mechanics whirling in horror. She prayed to Primus that Soundwave was not amongst the wreckage…

As she forced herself to look back at the gruesome image, something attracted her attention. Another Cybertronian had apparently just arrived, searching through the debris. He was a stocky, familiar robot…

"Soundwave!" At the sound of his name, the other android shot a glance towards her before renewing his search. Twilight rushed to his side and grabbed onto his arm. "We've got to get out of here!"

"Negative. Must salvage project," Soundwave stated as he pulled his arm from her grasp and turned to look at her. It was then she noticed that he was not unscathed. There were small cracks in his chest, one small crack on his visor and one of his arms was dislocated, connected to his body only through wires.

Before she could say anything, a loud explosion temporarily stole her gaze. A nearby building had gone up in flames as a rain of missiles. She screamed in fear and grabbed her friend's functional arm again.

"Soundwave, y-you're hurt! We're about to get run down by an army here! Please - you can't complete your project anyway if you're dead!" Twilight begged.

The stoic robot pulled his arm once again from her grasp with a more vigorous shake of his head. "Must salvage project!"

As he returned to his search, Twilight found herself at a loss about what to do. She didn't want to leave Soundwave here, but he wouldn't budge unless he found what he was looking for. With a sigh and a prayer that a missile wouldn't fall on their heads, the femme also began to look. She had a vague idea of what the project looked like, and hope that it was indeed salvageable.

"Success," He suddenly declared as he pulled the electronic pieces and wires from the debris. It appeared damaged, but surprisingly in fair condition despite the circumstances. He then placed it down on top of the wreckage and hit a button on his left shoulder. His chest panel lowered, revealing a large, hollow opening. Twilight watched in surprise as he folded up the electronic pieces and placed them in his chest compartment. Afterwards, Soundwave climbed onto his feet, grabbed the femme by her wrist and took off into a run. His stocky body type did not allow him for a great amount of speed, and she easily kept up with him. A loud explosion resounded behind them as a rain of missiles fell onto what was left of the former lab and the wreckage exploded!

"We are not under army attack," He suddenly stated as he looked up into the smoke-filled sky. "All missiles launch from the same source."

"You're saying that one Decepticon is doing all this?!" Twilight asked, skeptical.

"Partially correct. Whether or not it is a Decepticon cannot yet be determined," The azure robot answered. A sudden flash of light and a bang resounded as the world around her was suddenly enveloped in smoke and flames. Soundwave's grip suddenly released and the femme felt herself crashing onto the rough terrain with a scream of pain and terror. As the smoke cleared, she pushed herself onto her feet, one of her legs protesting painfully, and looked around frantically for her friend.

"Soundwave?!" she cried. As the smoke faded a bit more, she could see him leaning back against one of the buildings not yet entirely destroyed. There were even more cracks on his chest, his visor was dark and his damaged arm was completely gone. She limped to his side. "A-Are you alright?!"

"A--Affirmative…" The damaged android raised his head slightly, his visor brightened. He pushed himself from the wall and took a step forward. As he moved, sparks shot from his damaged shoulder and chest. Watching him and feeling her own leg ready to give out at any moment, Twilight had a terrible feeling that they weren't going to make it out of this. All of her research, all of his, everything that they had ever gone through was going to be for nothing because of one, single, solitary monster!!

The burning crimson eyes glared into her soul. The creature threw its head back and roared. The thick, black smoke and the maroon haze of spilt energon floated about him…

No!

Twilight shook her head vigorously to clear away the awful thought. Even if she did not survive, she would not allow Soundwave to fall to the same horrible end as her brother. Never would she allow her cowardice to cost another life. Never again.

With a sudden, risky idea, she looked up into the sky and watched as a single, large pod of missiles was shot into the air. The pod split into multiple missiles and rained down on the colony. The pod had been shot north from their current location. Casting one last glance at her wounded friend and ignoring the terrible pain in her damaged appendage, she turned and dashed towards the direction of the attacker…

From the security of the mountain-like abandoned buildings on the outskirts of the colony, Arsenal roared as he unleashed other pod from the launcher on his back. Almost drunk with sadistic glee, he watched as the pod unleashed missiles onto the center of the colony. As the pathetic neutral scientists scrambled from their decimated colony, the monster looked for those on his leader's list.

Skyfire, Bombshell, Kickback, Wheeljack, Soundwave…Arsenal's burning optics scanned each of the fleeing robots. As those identified as Wheeljack and Kickback came into sight, he lowered his massive head and shot a stunning laser from both of his shoulder-mounted guns and struck Wheeljack. As he collapsed onto the ground, the other scientist looked up at the monster and backed away. Arsenal chuckled as he shot another laser and watched as he also fell.

The other scientists were hardly paying attention. As the missiles rained from the skies they were focusing all of their strength on simply escaping Terikon with their lives.

Such fools! Arsenal mused. Their neutral babble and pacifistic ways will cost them their lives!

With that in mind, he fired a barrage of missiles purposely onto the running scientists and watched as they all erupted into flames. The entire colony was in ruins, and for a moment he wondered if some of those on the Prime's list had fallen under his mindless assault. Oh well, it didn't matter anyway. He did manage to obtain two of the listed scientists and there were no survivors and, therefore, no witnesses. Arsenal leapt down from the abandoned buildings and landed with a loud clank next to the two unconscious victims.

Suddenly, he was struck by a small bullet-like beam that landed on his side. It caused very little damage, but the object stuck onto him. Being out of his forearm reach, he could not remove it. With a growl, he turned to face his surprise attacker. There, standing right next to the building as if waiting for him, was Twilight.

When she first had seen him, he was but a silhouette firing missiles into the sky. Yet now, as he looked upon her with shock and hatred, she recognized the burning crimson eyes…

It was the same monster that had attacked Duero!

It was the same monster that had killed her brother!

He did not seem to recognize her. He wouldn't. He had never met her and yet had made such a powerful and terrible impact on her life! She suddenly hated him. Hated him with all of the strength that her body could muster. Here, is where his reign of terror would end. Even if it ended with her death.

"It's over."

Upon hearing her heroic words, Arsenal threw his head back and laughed. His massive jaws opened wide and it looked more like a roar than anything else. Finally, he lowered his head and rested his fiery gaze upon her. "Do you think I am that easy to conquer? This is not the first time I have ever been challenged, and you don't even have a weapon. Yet, you think you can defeat me?"

"I don't have to defeat you physically," his adversary suddenly stated.

Looking at her for a moment, the monstrosity's eyes flickered, as if curious. "This will be interesting. Entertain me."

Never had Arsenal had a worthy opponent. Yet, at the same time, he never really strived to find anyone of his caliber - he had simply decided that no other would ever be as powerful as him. He was invincible.

So to see one as puny and defenseless as this pearl femme challenging him was very entertaining! He simply had to see what she planned to do…

Twilight took a step back, despite her surprisingly calm outward appearance, she was internally terrified. Her high of anger and rage had quickly dissipated, yet she was still left with the determination to stop this horrible wretch from hurting anyone else. Although she had decided to give her life if she had to, it certainly wasn't something she wanted to do. If there was any way to survive this, she hoped to find it. Unfortunately, looking into the burning, hateful eyes of her enemy, survival did not appear to be the likely outcome.

"I will let you have the first attack, just as amusement…" the monster stated softly. Suddenly, his voice tinged with sadistic pleasure. "…then I will kill you."

Her optics rested on the small object she managed to plant onto the monster's side. She had no real weapons, her only option was to activate her special ability.

Trying to still her internal mechanics as death lingered before her, Twilight transformed.

Arsenal tilted his head slightly as his adversary's limbs and body began to change into her alternate form. He wasn't by any means surprised that she had the ability, as all Cybertronians including himself had it. Yet, in his mighty opinion, most alternate forms were varying stages of useless. What in the world could she turn into that she would figure herself a stronger threat?

As she transformed, he found himself incredibly unimpressed. She was…an airwave transmitter?* Cream color in appearance and fairly small compared to most transmitters, the femme looked un-intimidating, even comical.

The monstrosity didn't know whether to laugh at her pathetic attempt at heroics, or feel insulted that she somehow believed that she could defeat him in such a useless alternate mode. He decided on the former. Yet, the laughter died in his throat and erupted into a strangled cry as Twilight's special ability automatically activated.

The radars of anyone within a ten mile radius suddenly became hypersensitive, picking up Arsenal's presence almost immediately. Having a stealth internal system programmed into him from the beginning of his creation, the monstrosity never had to worry about anyone being able to lock on him through any means other than direct optical vision. The secret to his successful attacks had been the element of surprise compounded with the fact that no one knew who or what was attacking them until it was too late. As long as he himself kept out of sight, it was incredibly difficult to locate him, and even more so to track him. It had allowed him to properly maintain his status as the Autobot's secret weapon.

Now, standing before his pathetic adversary, for the first time Arsenal felt terrifyingly aware of his own presence. Suddenly, he could almost feel the world's eyes upon him, and it frightened him. Panic overtaking his senses, he rushed forward and rammed into the airwave transmitter, breaking the signal and sending her crashing onto the floor. She immediately transformed in order to break the fall. Although her ability had been active a mere few seconds, it was ample time. Now, anyone who might have survived would know.

They will know that it was Arsenal, not the Decepticons, who had attacked all of those colonies.

If they are granted the time to do more research, they may even be able to link him to the Autobots.

His life and status would be ruined.

Twilight scrambled onto her feet as quickly as her wrecked body would allow. Her antagonist was incredibly strong, and she was already wounded. The fierce blow had done nothing to improve her condition. Arsenal stepped back and unleashed a torrent of blasts from shoulder-mounted guns. Paralyzed by a mixture of fear and exhaustion, the femme could only cover her face with her arms and curl up in a semi-fetal position. She cried out as the blasts connected all around her. The multiple impacts sent her skidding several feet back.

Suddenly, the rain of blasts ceased, and curiosity compelled her to lower her arms. Arsenal stood a short distance away, his eyes burning with uncontained ferocity.

"You will pay for your insolence! You dare to think that your actions could stop me?! I am invincible!" the monstrosity roared. With that said, the massive canons on his back prepared to take aim. The distance between Arsenal and his victim was just enough to allow him to use his missiles. Twilight tried to run away, tried to do something, anything, to stop what appeared to be inevitable. Yet, terror held her still. She could only watch as the missiles prepared to launch.

Arsenal watched gleefully as the wretch before him cowered in fear. His burning optics yearned to see the wrecked remains, his audio systems strained to hear the inevitable scream of death. He grinned inwardly as his missiles locked on. Suddenly, his thoughts were scattered as internal scanners picked up an intruder. It was too late. Before he could turn to meet his new adversary, a series of shots nailed him on his left side. The shoulder-mounted gun, overheated by use and damaged by the series of blasts, exploded. The impact knocked the monstrosity onto his right side. Arsenal lifted his head to see a badly damaged Soundwave half-kneeling several feet away. A thin line of smoke erupted from his shoulder-mounted canon.

How in the world could an injured neutral robot sneak up on him so successfully?! The haze of rage and arrogance had made him blind. Now, noticing the injured Wheeljack and Kickback stirring out of the corner of his optic, fear gripped the rogue Autobot as realization dawned on him. His mission had been a failure. Rage threatened to overwhelm him, and for a moment he considered killing all of them. If he could get away, and unleash his missiles upon them, no one would ever live to see his failure.

Arsenal. The monster's inner mechanics whirled as he faintly heard Jazz through the communicator. Return to base immediately.

"I'm not done with them yet!" Arsenal cried. He pushed himself onto his feet. "There is still time!"

Sorry, man. I feel for you, I really do. But Prime's got direct orders for you to come back to base right now. Jazz replied.

The monstrosity's eyes blazed, every ounce of his being wanting to drive all of his missiles into all who dared to cross him. He wanted to torture and kill all those who dared to humiliate him. Yet, he was compelled to comply. Casting one last glare at his damaged antagonists, Arsenal retreated…

Twilight watched the monster's retreat with a mixture of anger, shock and relief. She wanted to chase him, to stop him and make sure that he would never again harm another. Yet, at the same time, she felt enormously surprised and ultimately relieved that Soundwave was there. Not only had she saved him, he in turn had saved her. Together, they had won. She had helped to defeat the one who had destroyed her home, her brethren, her life.

It was when her internal mechanics slowed down that she felt the severity of her injuries. Her body was wrecked, her energon levels were far below recommended levels. Twilight had, literally, up to this point been running on nothing other than sheer determination and an iron will that she didn't even know she possessed. But now the fight was over, and she had nothing else to give. The femme barely had enough time to smile weakly at her companion and raise two fingers in victory before her systems failed and she collapsed to the hard, tainted floor.

* - It's like a restaurant, except that it only serves energon.

*millicycle - minute.

*airwave transmitter - The Cyberton equivalent of a space satellite.

Author's Notes - Sorry it took me so long to complete this chapter. I have had, literally, little to no free time this past few weeks. Between work, doing artwork for various contests, and my pathetic attempts at a social life, I have found very little extra time. Hopefully, this chapter was worth the wait. I did want to spend a little more time and focus on Arsenal, since the previous chapters only touched upon him. I hope I did manage to make my villainous original character to be interesting and not overly 'MarySue-ish'. Same thing goes with Twilight. I wanted to give her a power that was strong, but also went with her personality. Since she is a Mary Sue (hence the fanfic challenge), her personality must be similar to my own. I am not an argumentative, fighting type of person, so neither should she. So I decided to give her a power that enhances the stats of others, instead of herself. It would allow her to stay on the sidelines instead of rushing into combat, just as she (and I if I was in her position), would prefer. Twilight's alternate transformation is a space satellite. It's not supposed to be cool or overly useful (Mary Sue's are generally 'influenced' by the canon character that she is supposed to hook up with. Since Soundwave's alternate form isn't overly useful in combat situations, I decided to make Twilight the same way.) Arsenal's transformation has not yet been revealed. But it will be, soon. Very soon. insert evil laughter Anyways, hope you liked the chapter and that it was worth the wait.