Disclaimer: I do not own Transformers. Only the plot and OCs.
Holy Primus, I got a GG chapter done. Its only a little bit insanely late . . . yeah. Blame War, he's an argumentative aft.
Anyway, enjoy.
Chapter 20
The explosion of plasma burned down hot enough that when it struck the sand it seared it into glass. Blooms of rainbow shards arching from the red sand as thundering cannon fire lit up Bumblebee's whole world into a blue-hot rain of noise and heat.
Scrambling on the slick sand he just managed to roll up and out of the way of two blast that slammed hard enough to send him reeling again. Blue optics widening at the splatters of colored glass that took the sands place even as he desperately tried to get his feet back under him.
Part of him was aware of the snapping into action that started up around him. Aware of the sound of Hide's cannons, of the twins' blades, of Jazz's blaster, of Optimus whirling axe, of Ratchet's own weapons. More so then that though, he heard the hum of powerful flight engines kicking into weapons drive. Dustoff's long, black rotor blades whirling to life behind him. All under the roar of War's powerful engines.
He was stumbling around sliding sand like a drunk cat for another nano while the world went up and fire and noise around them. Only for a large black hand to once again close around the back of his scruff bar. He went totally limb before he even registered it.
"Useless tiny little runt! Dust! Take this! Again!"
Great.
War did not sound happy. Somehow, that was worse then the giant black ship raining fire down on their heads.
And then he was airborne. Tumbling head over feet with a squeak he would venomously deny until he was snatched up by strong tan arms. Yanked in and clutched close he had little choice to snatch hold of the sparkling-hold's in Dust's armor—and holy pit how weird was it to be beside a mech big enough that such things were still the right size for him—as the huge flier twisted under the plasma fire.
Huddling up close to the pounding spark on the other side of that thick, hot armor, he pinned his sensory appendages in an effort to get his head to stop spinning while explosions rocked the ground around him.
Dustoff was moving. Spinning, ducking, his rotor blades whirling, while plasma and glass shattered around them. It was only after a moment though that Bumblebee realized something. Shots were bouncing off them.
Bright blue optics widening he threw his gaze up and around.
Force field?
Dust . . . had a force field?
No fraggin' way.
Bumblebee blinked hard, but the pulsing wall of crackling blue energy around them stayed put. Deep in his chest, his spark pulsed hard, and he finally registered it.
Energy.
Pure, powerful energy.
That was all a force field really was after all. Bee had only seen one mech in his life capable of making one. Trailbreaker, and even then, he'd only seen him do it a few times. For it wasn't something a bot that was capable of it did lightly.
Force fields were no fancy mode one picked up somewhere. Oh no. They were a born with ability. Something along the lines of Bumblebee's spark—he guessed—and warp drives. Force fields were nothing more than an ability to funnel energy. To contort one's spark energy into a barrier that burned so hot almost nothing could get through it.
It came at a price though.
It drained a bot both physically and mentally. Pulling from not only fuel reserves, but plasma, and most importantly spark as well. It was a talent that could kill if it was used unwisely.
Bumblebee remembered only very vivid time of Trailbreaker ending up in the medical bay for cycles lost in induced recharge while his spark tried to slowly reboot itself and recover. He remembered Ratchet's tight expression while Hound had rung his hands and worried for his sibling.
He remembered how slow and tired the big black mech had been when he was finally released from the medical bay. He remembered how long it had taken him to act like himself again.
Bee remembered that he'd only held the thing for about twenty klicks.
An explosion to the left waved a wall of blue fire over them that made Dustoff grunt. The flashing field around them drawing in closer so that it hardly flickered over Bee's back. The whimper that escaped him at the pulses of fire around them made him want to kick himself, but it was there all the same.
His wide optics watching through the pulsing field of blue while Jazz was slammed by something and crashed backward into the sand. His spark leaping to his throat as he realized it was a mech.
Blaster shots fired, Jazz claws threw sunlight as they swiped, and energon splattered.
Dustoff spun again, his rotor blades humming as the turned swift behind his back, it was the arm he had raised over the back of Bee's back that he heard the most though. There, on his wrist was his tail rotors. Shorter, sharper, and more weapon in this form than anything else.
They hummed, crackling energy as they turned in rhythm with blaster shots he was firing with his other arm.
Another turn.
Sideswipe's duel blades buried in some unfortunate mech's gut before he kicked the grey frame away from him. Spinning back from another blast of plasma burning into glass against the sand. Sunstreaker dancing around his back, guarding Ratchet with his own blaster leveled upward firing at the ship sinking dangerously close overhead.
Over the firing cannons he could still hear that thundering pulse of engines the likes of which he'd never come across before. Nearly drowning out all else.
Ironhide's wailing cannons, and Optimus' axe clashing against somebot's armor, Ratchet's saws slicing protoform, the splatter of energon over sand. And there, under it all, the powerful surge of War's flight engines.
He was airborne.
Somewhere.
Bee was too busy trying to get too dizzy as Dustoff spun and fired to find out where.
But there was screaming going on, other flight engines, and crashes into the sand. None of which sounded like anything he recognized. The thing he did recognize though, was the searing anger surging through the huge mech.
No matter the distance between them, Bee could feel it. Coursing through a link that was hardly there yet. Hot, and black, and thick. Dripping like acid from his spark to form a choke hold around Bee's senses.
It was hatred.
Hatred the likes of which Bumblebee had never come across before.
It seemed to swallow up every other thought and feeling Wardrums' had until he was left with only one coherent thought.
Kill him.
The question Bee didn't get though; was kill who?
Who the pit had that giant aft ship that was trying to turn them into red glass?
Most probably would have also wondered why Wardrums hated them so much, but while Bee was choking on the emotion the huge mech was broadcasting through his spark he didn't have enough of his senses left for that.
Then, over the explosions and fighting and surging engines the huge shuttle roared.
"LOCKDOWN!"
Dustoff cursed, stumbling, his force field finally flickering out. The hand clutching Bee tightened. His knees hit the sand, vents wheezing, whole frame trembling, and atop Bee's pinned antennas energon dripped.
Then the world went white.
White noise.
It hurt like all of pit.
Like a burn, mixed with a migraine, mixed with a system error, mixed with accidentally shutting his doorwings in a door.
For there was . . . nothing. But it was a different kind of nothing.
Unconsciousness and the blackness that came with it was a blessing. For it stopped everything. White noise was different.
For it was nothing, but at the same time there was everything. It was too much input, too much sound, too much feeling, too much . . . too much. All while none of it was processable. So it was nothing. Yet it wasn't.
And it hurt.
Bumblebee had never really . . . felt it before.
He'd heard of it, sure. Jazz and the twins had been hit with enough EMP blasts over the vorns that they were very through in his education of understanding them. So he knew what was happening to him. Laying there flat on his back in the sand choking on stalled vents, blinking at white spots, audios ringing with nothing but static, and spark stuttering off rhythm. That didn't mean he didn't slightly panic about it though.
Wheezing, fingers and toes flexing but not listening to him. He stared through bright, white flashing spots at the looming black shape hoovering now overhead. Long anchor cables had been shot from the bow and sides. Chain and wire woven together with sharp hooks. Drove with force into the splattered, hardened sand. One of which seemed to have drove down just inches from where Bumblebee lay blinking.
He couldn't work up enough coordination to even flail about that.
All he could do was blink through white spots at the huge anchor.
Slowly, audios ringing and every joint inside him aching, he managed to twist his head the other way. Then, he wished he hadn't.
Wardrums was fighting.
Raging.
Chains, lines, plasma ropes, prod irons, arrows with lines still attached, and more snatched into his armor. Energon streaming down holes, tears, and cuts in his armor cutting down to the protoform underneath. Most of it was his, a lot of it wasn't.
Dozens of bots were attacking him, most holding on to the chains and ties keeping him on the ground. All of them struggling to hold the huge mech as he twisted this way and that. Swiping and crushing anything he could get his claws on.
They hadn't managed to get him to his knees. His ped claws still dug hard into the sand keeping him upright. As Bee watched through the spots in his vision more mechs surged forward from the ship's open belly. Shooting more bolts of pure energy with hooks attached.
It was short range EMP's wrapped up in chain bolts.
That was actually pretty clever. For they would bring a mech down, make him easier to catch, but they wouldn't kill him.
Not yet at least.
Horror was starting to creep into Bumblebee's chest.
War was yelling, he could tell that much from the movement of his mouth. That and all those trying to keep a hold of him as they shot him. All of them desperately trying to bring him to his knees while staying out of reach of those long arms. Many were not successful.
Laying there with his doorwings pinned painfully behind him he watched War tear six mechs from the ground by retching up the wire they were holding. Slinging them headlong into another bunch so they all went flying.
Bee's optics chashed the momentum to find Dustoff struggling on his knees. He wasn't that far away from Bee. A few hundred yards maybe. The little yellow mech wasn't all that sure how they got separated in the first place. There the huge helicopter was though.
Both arms yanked painfully away from his frame. Leaking heavily from the prong hooks digging into him. Tearing away armor from protoform in long rows that in some places Bee could see the struts under the protoform.
He thought he might be sick.
Long flashing purple ropes and chains were slung at him too. Pulling him down almost horizonal on his knees. He looked like he was snarling—Bee still couldn't hear over the buzzing in his head—but there was energon running down his lips. Near him Jazz was laying pinned beneath two much larger mech's feet. One with pulsing ropes wrapped around Jazz's upper frame while the other had a blaster shoved to the middle of his cracked visor.
Jazz spit energon at the mech.
Ironhide was just a ways form him. Pinned on his knees with pulsing chains. Energon pouring down from several shots torn into his chest. Both cannon wielding arms had been forced to the sand, one leaking lava like hardening plasma out to hiss against the red ground.
His cannon reserves were leaking.
That . . . that wasn't good.
Bee threw his gaze, still dancing spots, the other direction. Finding Optimus fighting for his feet and loosing against dozens of mechs throwing chains and ugly hooks like they were at War. He had a sword embedded deep in his left shoulder. His own axe slicing into his thigh. Energon rolling freely down his dark armor from both. The wires and chains holding him in an awkward half stumble he was attempting to fight kept him still no matter how much he was obviously fighting.
Behind him was the twins laying sprawled and still with pulsing chains wrapped around them. Energon puddled around them, and for a moment Bumblebee was terrified. Their color didn't fade though. They were just knocked out. Or maybe the same EMP burst that had him lying there unable to move with his audios nothing but static hit closer to them.
Ratchet was on his knees near them. His arms chained behind his back and energon dripping down his side while he growled at the handful of mechs chaining him down.
His blue optics fixed on the prone mechs in front of him before darting over to watch War. Bee followed the sight line to find War had been brought to one knee. Over two dozen more pulsing chains dug into and wrapped around his armor. Energon leaking even faster down the tears they were digging into him. Those fire red optics still blazed through. Burning with furry as they locked across the sand.
Bee tilted his chin as much as he was able, the slight movement making his joints ache and his spinning processor flash error after error at him. He managed to catch sight of the mid-sized slate-grey mech though. For a moment, confusion flashed through the young mech. Because . . . what?
What was this?
That mech . . . . He wasn't anything overly impressive.
Not huge, not bulky, not shiny.
He was . . . dull almost.
Normal.
But those emerald green optics shining from a stern, narrow faceplate burned with dark amusement and cruelty. A calculated kind of cruelty that bland expression his faceplate wore only made worse. He carried a rifle mode that looked more than a little impressive in the armor of each arm. Strolling from the bay door of the ship across the splatter and glass burned sand he made no move to lift it though.
He simply walked like he owned the world.
Glaring around at the collection of powerful mechs his bots had managed to pin down. When that calculating green gaze swept from one mech to the next they growled things Bee couldn't hear over the ringing in his audios, but when that sharp gaze found him they stilled.
For a nano, around the fading spots of white flashing through his vision, Bee stared back at the mech who wasn't as tall as the twins or Ironhide let alone War and Dust. His spark sinking in its chamber when he tried to move and couldn't. His rattled joints and stunned processor not able to coordinate the movements he wanted. All he could do was lay there and blink.
Under that sweeping bright green gaze until the mech huffed, and twitched his hand.
Movement shifted behind him, his slowly returning senses were aware of it. Desperately, Bee was internally fighting his overrides and failsafe's. Rerouting everything Jazz had ever tried to teach him in an effort to force his systems through the reboot they were running. To make himself be able to move and the ringing in his head to stop.
He managed it.
Seven nanos of programs and overrides burning through his processor and the last one clicked into place. Sound came rushing back, his vision cleared, and feeling returned. Just in time for a mech to plant a ped in the middle of his chest. The heavy step knocked what air he managed to suck in back out with hard whoosh.
His hands snapping up to latch hold of the delicate wiring to be found in ankle joints just like Chromia had taught him. Only for him to freeze up with a squeak when the burning bright point of a rifle blaster smacked him between the optics.
He went very still.
Hardly breathing as that step twisted a bit harder into his chest. Pressing far more weight than he had against the harder armor of his chest. His breathing wheezed. Vents hardly able to pump against the mech's weight, while he stared up around the glowing end of the barrel. Looking to find the faceplate of the mech holding him at a trigger point.
He was good sized, strong. Painted in a rich bright green highlighted in stripes of black. He had a mesh cape that was thickened by panels of armor wrapped around his shoulders. The billow of it blowing in the hard wind the ship's engines were giving off. The sound of them loud in the background of Bee's thoughts while he wheezed up at the mech holding him. Taking in the rounded, silver faceplate, but more than anything else, the goggles he wore over his optics.
They were sniper goggles of some kind. Bee knew that much from things Hide had taught him. One lens red, one lens blue, made to help a bot see further and more than any normal optics could do.
Those lenses were shifting and spinning as they gaze back at him. Hiding the optics behind him, but not the grim, hard line of the mech's jaw. He huffed, the rifle pressing against Bee's forehead with a warning whirl of energy.
Bee gulped, and relaxed his fingers against the mech's foot. But he didn't move.
Behind him, Ironhide and Optimus struggled, Jazz growled, and Ratchet seethed. Dustoff's heavy, pained breathing finally came to him.
It was Wardrums' that his audios focused on though. He couldn't dare turn to look, but he could hear the rumble deep in the huge shuttle's chest. The energy draining chains and ropes were singing as the worked with the grunt and growls of the mechs working to keep the others still.
Finally, a heavy bang and Bee knew they had gotten War on his knees.
The young yellow mech was almost glad he couldn't look back to see that.
"Well, well, well," The slate-grey mech chuckled. His voice a raspy kind of deep that made Bee's plating crawl far more than the blaster pressed between his optics did. "Look how the mighty have fallen."
War snarled.
"Really, Wardrums? Growling? Is that all you have left?" The mech snorted an ugly sounding chuckle. "I'm disappointed. I expected more of a fight from you, I'll admit. But you did cut through a good portion of my obviously overpaid help."
The frames littering the sand in various states of death and leakage mixing with cooling sand and plasma was a smell Bee wished he could get out of his nose.
Other than turbines turning over the massive shuttle was silent.
"I'll be charging you for that. Even if they were useless." The nonchalant way he said it was horrible. Like death of bots that worked for him, doing what he told them to, like it was nothing made Bee's fingers itch to clench.
From the corner of Bee's optics, he could see the slate-grey mech turn. His gaze sweeping over where they had pinned Dustoff. The green opticed mech let out another raspy laugh.
"You're not looking so good there, Dustoff. Didn't anybot every tell you force fields aren't meant to be played with?"
"Go to pit, Lockdown." Dustoff wheezed, pain in every syllable he spoke.
Bee bit back a whimper.
The mech pinning him shifted a bit in his stance. His gaze lifting to watch across the sand instead of the mechling at his feet.
"Aww, come now, Dust. Is that anyway to talk to an old friend?" Lockdown, as he was called apparently, cackled. The sound of sand shifting meaning he was strolling through the sand presumably toward where the massive mechs were pinned.
"We were never friends." Dustoff spit, voice gurgled with energon.
"Oh, now I'm hurt." Lockdown rasped, steps sounding like he turned away. By the growl War let out, it was likely near him. "Really, Dustoff. You've wounded me. It's a shame. I am curious though, what your two are doing out here. Shouldn't you be sulking around a cave somewhere like a good last of your breed?"
"Shouldn't you be selling out your own kind?" Dustoff growled back.
Lockdown snorted. "Oh I am. Do you have any idea how much Sentinel's youngest is worth? Not to mention a pair of twins? Oh yes, this has been a happy little accident for sure. Getting you two out of the mix just makes it even more fun. Though I wonder . . . ."
The sand shifted again, and the green mech with the goggles holding him down pinned his hidden optics back on him.
"What is it about some half-grown runt that would make Dust nearly drain himself dry, huh?"
Ironhide snarled, Jazz hissed, Optimus' deep baritone started only to be cut off in a choke of what Bee didn't know was an energy drain rope around his throat.
"He's nothing." War said it blankly. There was none of the anger, and the fury that had been there just a few short klicks before. There was just this empty black nothingness in this tone that made Bee shiver.
"Nothing?" Lockdown scoffed. "Really? He doesn't look like nothing. In fact, he looks very familiar."
Ironhide snarled even louder. His cannons trying to pulse, but with one severally damaged he was doing himself more harm then good.
"He seems to mean a great deal to them." Lockdown added, his steps coming closer in the sand. "Wearing a Bot brand and all."
The mech holding a gun to him tightened his hold on the rifle's handle.
Bee swallowed hard.
"He's a complication." Wardrums' rumbled, the words like a punch to Bee's spark. "Nothing more."
He's lying. He hissed to himself. Trying to stay as still as possible. He's lying. He's trying to protect you. He doesn't like you, sure, but he . . . he doesn't think your that. He's saved you before. That's all this is. Dust said it, he's an aft. That's all.
That didn't make it hurt less though.
"Oh . . . a complication you say?" Lockdown was close now, the taunt in his voice scary in a way nothing else Bumblebee had ever heard was.
This wasn't the same kind of scary as his home falling out of the sky. The same fear that came with living a life of war. Of Megatron looming ever in the background waiting for whatever he'd do next.
This was a . . . cold kind of fear. Something drug up from deep down in Bee's chest. A fear he couldn't put a reason or a right too. Just blind terror surging up through his chest until he couldn't think straight. Staring up at the blue glowing rifle pressed against his head.
"Yes. I imagine something that looks that much like your sparkling sister would be that for you. You know, considering what happened to her. Deathtoll got a little more than he bargained for in spiting you didn't he?"
Deathtoll? Bee's spark clenched. What?
"There was a price out for this little mech, wasn't there? A very high one."
Dustoff hissed.
"You two responsible for ending that?" Lockdown laughed. "Oh, that's rich. War reduced to guarding his bastard nephew. A nephew by Deathtoll! Oh, this is just too good! I wouldn't have thought you'd care, War."
"I don't." War's frame shifted in a shrug. Or at least that was what Bee thought he did. The hooks and holds pinning him down squealed so he was either trying to stand, or shrug. One or the other.
"You don't?" Lockdown mocked, the sand sliding under his feet as he turned back to face the massive mech on his knees. "Well then, you won't mind if I kill him."
It was like all the air went out of the clearing.
Silence, somehow, under the thunder pulse of the ship hoovering above them when Wardrums huffed back.
"You'll save me the trouble later."
Bee choked on the feeling the words stabbed through his chest.
Ironhide shrugged against the bots holding him. Breaking free of enough chains to get halfway up only be brought back down even harder after two steps. A pained grunt left him for half a nano but that didn't stop him from shouting.
"You touch him I'll melt you alive, you damn glitch!"
Optimus fought and failed to get free. Jazz was twisting against those pinning him, hissing all the while. Ratchet snarled, his saws spinning, but he couldn't get his arms free. The twins had yet to so much as twitch.
Lockdown huffed a laugh. "I'm not going to touch him."
The mech above him pressed his foot harder against Bee's laboring chest.
"Crosshairs?" Lockdown called, the mech pinning Bee huffing at it. "If you please? I have no use for a youngling runt. Especially one that Deathtoll is looking for. And since I obviously can't use him against you, War, I doubt you'll mind watching. Crosshairs, get rid of him."
Spark hammering hard in his throat, Bee gapped up at the blaster pointed down at him. His fingers tightening in the ankle joints above him only to have the mech stamp his foot down hard. All the air was knocked out of him, his vison swimming. Spots dancing around his vision again as he listened to the rifle above him charge.
There was a flick of emotion for the first time through the field above him. Or maybe his was just so widely pulsing he was picking up things that weren't there. He could have sworn, for half a nano though, that the mech holding him there at rifle point felt bad.
But then the feeling was gone, and he was whimpering with his vents heaving as the rifle above him charged. The hot energy whirling as it warmed and the trigger straining under pressure.
Ironhide along with the rest of his family were screaming.
Bee squeezed his optics shut. Quickly walling up his spark to try and not scream his terror back at them.
Then suddenly, the weight on his chest was gone. The mech tumbling into the sand with a yelp of pain, a dagger lodged in his chest. The rifle blast slamming into the sand two inches from his head.
He stared.
He was . . . loose?
Crosshairs was cursing, struggling upright in the sand. His blaster charging another shot as those goggles spun to find him again.
Bee blinked back. Not comprehending what it was he was looking at. Then War's roaring caught his audios. That thundering voice pitched into something between anger and fear. The mix of emotion wrapping up around his spark with almost as much strength as the sudden grab through his bonds.
"RUN! YOU DAMN LITTLE RUNT!"
His frame surged into action with no thought on his part. The hot-cold grip that had wrapped around his spark shoving him into movement without his processor knowing it. Scrambling to his peds he nearly went back down on his face when a blaster shot clipped his shoulder.
The sharp whimper leaving him as he stumbled. Arms wind milling in an effort to keep his balance. His doorwings aching as they lay pinned against his back just like his antennas in his grooves.
He forced them up.
Overriding his frame's response to the confusion and fear rolling through him. Because he needed them.
The roar of noise and movement behind him suddenly coming in clear even if he didn't look back.
He couldn't.
No matter how bad he was shaking. How much he wanted to turn back and run to the safety of Ironhide's field space. No matter how much he wanted to tuck himself behind Optimus leg's and hide like he was a sparkling again. Or how much he wanted Jazz to hold him. Or Ratchet to fix it.
He simply couldn't.
Not with how hard each of them were pushing that shot of War's at him. That one simple instruction that balked everything inside him.
Run.
But they couldn't.
He stumbled in the sand again. Spark hammering, breathing tight. Ducking under the grab of some random mech as he bolted forward again. Throwing a glance over his shoulder to find War had somehow managed to fight his way back to his feet.
Several of the chains and ropes that had held him snapped, or caught in his hands. Pitching his weight back up taking almost all the mechs that had brought him to his knees with him. Flinging, crushing, energon flew and screams lit the air. The massive shuttle grasping anything close enough to him.
Ripping into armor, protoform, and anything else while blaster shots rained against his armor. His engines booming with his anger while he fought the last caught lines holding onto him.
"Shot him you fool!" Lockdown's greedy green optics cutting across the sand. Locking on Bumblebee while he sprinted away from the center of the fighting. Through his winglet sensors he caught the buzz of energy behind him. Just managing to duck from the shot Crosshairs leveled at the back of his helm.
That duck put him back on his knees. Forcing him to struggle back up through the thick sand. Pausing in the jarring digging his way back to his feet to look back to find his family still trapped, to Dustoff sagging and tied while bots around him threw more pain his way while War struggled, and Wardrums'—the strongest mech he'd ever seen in his whole life—was slowly being brought back under control. Lockdown standing there in the middle of it glaring through burning green optics.
Smug.
Fear surged with anger. His jaw tightened, his spark hammering, he almost brought himself short to turn back when War snarled again. This time it wasn't out loud though.
"I told you to run! Now run, runt!"
The words came with a harsh burn of emotion through his spark. The burning feeling spurring him back into motion.
So, he ran.
Dodging through blaster shots, anchor lines, and bots. Pulling up every trick Jazz, the twins, and Mia had ever taught him to slip his way out of Lockdown's trap. Hearing the mech shout after him.
"He's just a runty mechling, you fools! Catch him! Shot him!"
However, Bumblebee had the gap he needed. Bright blue optics setting on the hole carved in the sand just a way away. Running with everything he had toward the huge, black Shark tunnel. At the anchor line that was shot down into it.
Shooting through the black opening and taking a running leap. Falling down into the darkness with a quiver in his spark as the shouting faded into murmurs.
At the surface the bright green painted mech slide to a stop. One hand lifted to clutch at the new hole dug into his armor. The dagger War had miraculously managed to toss laying forgotten in the sand as Crosshairs snorted at the energon dripping down his front.
Beside him two more lackies slide to a stop next to the Shark tunnel. Staring down into the darkness, he ignored them. Focusing instead on shifting through his goggle programs until he found the inferred.
Gaze sweeping through the now cool blue world below him. Narrowing through the tinted lens in search of a small red blob of heat that even if he managed to himself smashed on the rocks below would still radiate heat.
He swept his attention left and right.
Searching while the mechs around him tried to make since of the blackness. They wouldn't be able too, and Lockdown was the master of underestimating that which he thought was below him.
Still, Crosshairs was running out of time.
The others had managed to get Wardrums back under control and Lockdown was fuming.
Then, there!
Snapping his gaze back through the shades of blue temperature scale he found it.
A small blob of red and yellow heat clinging to the face of cliff in the darkness. Standing there, staring down, Crosshairs watched as the blob that was a mechling get a good enough hold to lever himself up. Scrambling as quietly as he could up the smoothed stones and shifting sand.
It took Crosshairs a moment to figure out what the little runt could possibly be planning to do now that he'd trapped himself in a hole there was no way he could get out of on his own. But then, he realized it. That little shape latching hold of the base of one of the anchors that had shot down into the tunnel. He climbed around it. Slipping himself through the support wires until he was tucked safely inside, and likely out of sight.
Standing there watching Crosshairs couldn't help the slight flash of admiration that ran through him.
Smart runt. He scoffed to himself. But this has barely begun. Stay still, if you know what's good for you.
Rising his rifle he lazily aimed it into the darkness. Shooting off four quick shots far from that little blob of red, but was relieved to see the young mech was still smart enough to duck down. Wedging himself deeper into his hiding place just as Crosshairs hoped he would.
With a loud huff, he turned away. Paying no mind to the several other bots that has clustered around the hole. There was nothing they could see, and it wasn't them that Lockdown was now glaring out.
Standing there in the middle of a finally placed trap looking smug as he ever did, but with anger gleaming in his optics.
Crosshairs was not surprised.
For the two of them were alike in more ways than Crosshairs wanted to admit; his older brother and he.
They both hated to loose.
"Well?" Lockdown snarled, the tell-tell sounds of his own heightened rifle protocols spinning. The enhancement mask tucked away at the moment shifting along his facial plating. If he decided to take his own look there would be nothing Crosshairs could do to save that youngling.
And he wasn't the only one that knew it.
Wardrums struggled as well as he was able against the pulsing drain lines digging into his protoform now. His head hanging and his vents heaving as energon dripped down from his nose. That glare in those fire red optics still burned as bright as it ever did though.
Searing across the space between them in a mix of fury and question. It had been vorns after all. There was no way for the massive shuttle to know if things had changed. If Crosshairs had changed his mind. That, and there was that tiny little detail about the fire fight they got into last time they say each other and the scar that ran across his chest protoform.
Crosshairs scoffed.
"Well, what?" His thick drawl making the words slide. "Little runt jumped down a fraggin' abyss. Ya want to chase after, be meh guest. Ah ain't."
His older sibling snarled. Predictably. His weapons protocols spinning as his fists clenched.
Crosshairs waited.
Mentally figuring.
There was nothing else he could do. Somebot would die, that was the way of it. If Lockdown didn't take what he had hunted and be happy with it. The mechling was never a part of the game. He was a new wrench in the plans that was for sure. Honestly, Crosshairs wasn't sure what to make of him.
Just like his elder brother he'd know what he was looking at when he'd pinned him in the sand. Wardrums had a nephew. A fraggin' nephew. And didn't Deathtoll make that a whole other bag of grenades.
Frag. He mentally cursed. I did not sign up for this slag.
Honestly, one bastard runt's life did not mean much to him in the grand scheme of things. All it did was complicate his plans. Wardrums had fought for that little life though. That spoke enough of what was going on here.
So the runt needed to live.
Crosshairs realized that when he'd had the pest pinned in the sand. It was why he hesitated. It was why he gave War enough time to think of something. Now, he was going to have to think of something else. At least for the short term. Otherwise all this scheming was for nothing and Crosshairs could kiss his freedom goodbye.
Ah ain't got no plans of dyin' for this glitch. His optics narrowed behind the safety of his goggles. Not then, not now.
"If the fall don't splat him, the cold will." He shrugged, lazily swinging his rifle while watching his brother. "Ya really want to compromise this score over a runt? What's he worth anyway? Nothin' out there buyin' younglings. Ah mean, unless you want to deal with the harbinger of death himself?"
It was quick. Almost unnoticeable. To anybot that wasn't related to slat grey glitch, it wouldn't have been. However, Crosshairs had been trailing after this arrogant aft-hole his whole life. He knew him better then Lockdown thought, and in that moment, he saw fear.
For powerful predators were near fearless, but even they were wary of stronger predators.
And Deathtoll? He was the monster all other monsters feared.
He was death itself.
Crosshairs hid a smirk.
Letting out a dismissive sound, Lockdown turned away. "If he isn't dead the dessert will do it in a matter of breams. We stick to the plan."
Yeah. Crosshairs thought. That's what I figured.
Deathtoll . . . that mech was out of their league. Even if the new contract Lockdown had found among the stars was written in glyphs that were no longer supposed to exist. The mech that tore down the Guild and frayed the very fabric of the universe was not something bounty hunters could take on. Lockdown might know where the big dark bastard was, but that didn't mean he was willing to go running to him.
No one willingly went to Deathtoll. For the attention of death was not easily escaped. Not once one was in it.
And death didn't haggle.
It simply took.
The mech that was it was no different.
Lockdown was cruel but he wasn't stupid. Oh no, he was far from stupid. That was the only reason Crosshairs was still stuck beside him doing his dirty work.
Smirking at what was likely the truth had the little mech not been smart enough to latch hold of that anchor, Lockdown strolled through the sand. Swagger ever present as he stopped before Wardrums. Even on his knees with his head hanging the huge mech still towered over Lockdown.
Somehow though, the slate grey mech still managed to look cocky and victorious as he reached up and dug his claws into the underside of Wardrums' jaw. Energon bubbling up under the pressure as he yanked the big mechs jaw around the puncture points.
He managed to yank that massive helm around until those burning fire red optics, no matter how dim they were getting, sliced into his deep green ones.
"I've waited to see you on your knees for a long, long time." Lockdown chuckled.
Wardrums glared.
"Nothing, you said, wasn't it? You wouldn't leak for nothing, War. It's a shame really. Maybe I really do know you better you then you think."
And with that, he shoved him away. Spinning on his heels to wave a hand at all those around him.
"Tag them and bag them. Places to be, bots to see."
As the bounty hunter strolled away back toward the ship, Crosshairs let his goggle covered gaze drift from War to Dust. Finding them both watching him through narrowed optics as the Autobots fought loudly against leaving that little mech behind.
He stared back. Hand flexing around his rifle for a few moment before he scoffed and turned away. Let them hate him. Let them think what they want.
He had a plan.
Well, he sort of had a plan.
It was going to have to be reworked now, but oh well. He'd figure something out.
And the little mech clinging to the inside of an anchor line as it was pulled back into the ship was something he was going to have figure out how to work with. If the little thing was smart enough to jump for the anchor line he was smart enough to sneak onto the ship.
Turning his back to the mechs being rounded up he followed after his brother's back with a smirk hidden in a well learned mask.
Well, this should be interesting.
In far more ways than one.
Crosshairs makes his appearance. *bounces* So yeah, I made him Lockdown's brother. How is that for a twist? ^-^ You'll find out why later.
Lockdown's got them all in chains and Bee's clinging to an anchor hanging under his ship. Like Crosshairs said, this should be interesting.
Thank you for reading and reviewing. See you all next chapter.
-Jaycee