Disclaimer: I do not own Beast Wars it belongs to Hasbro
Chapter 12: Escape from Unicron's Belt
"Trypticon? The asylum is wait… Triptych Asylum is Trypticon." Iguanus said as the dots connect.
"Rather obvious in hindsight." Snarl said in agreement.
"Wait a minute Trypticon was destroyed in the Great War and his remains recycled. How did he end up like this?" Buzz Saw said confused.
"Wouldn't be the first time the history tracks were altered to suit someone's needs." Blackarachnia said recalling Starscream.
"Less talking and more fighting please!" Scorponok said. Torca charges and tries to impale Tarantulas with his tusks. To the fuzor's shock Tarantulas effortlessly grabs them and brings him to a halt.
"Yeah we're kind of getting our skidplates kicked here!" Rattrap said as Torca is tossed away by Tarantulas.
That was when the donut shaped equipment activated and a glowing light appears in the center.
"A space bridge?" Blackarachnia said before an idea occurs to her. "Toss him through the portal!"
"Easier said than done webs." Rattrap said
That was when the chamber not the entire ships shakes as Trypticon rocks his body back and fourth and Tarantulas is thrown towards the portal landing several feet away from it.
"BLAST HIM!" Rattrap said and starts shooting. Everyone still alive and in robot mode follows suit firing away. Tarantulas is knocked back but manages to return fire forcing his attackers to scatter. Torca charges again and this time knocks Tarantulas into the portal but not through as the spider clings to the interior and blasts Torca with his shoulder guns forcing the Maximals to back off. That was when a red beam focuses directly onto Tarantulas's chest. Tarantulas looks down at his chest then back up locking eyes with Dinobot who then fires his laser eye and sends Tarantulas through the portal.
"The threat has been removed." Dinobot said.
Now floating in the void of space Tarantulas finds himself staring down the now activated head of Trypticon who's open mouth was building up with a brilliant light.
"No… Noooo!" Tarantulas said screaming even as Trypticon's fire engulfs him. This was followed by a second scream of rage as Unicron felt another of his heralds destroyed.
Unicron seethes furiously to himself. He had been so close to a new body, but those accursed children of his 'brother' had ruined everything! He had nearly lost his footing in the hangar and the last of his heralds had been destroyed leaving him with only his weaker spawn to do his bidding and now the blasted Titan was awake. It wouldn't be long before they purged his presence from the Titan and escaped! However he cools his rage and forms a new plan.
"Well fine then, if I can't leave this asteroid field than neither will they." He begins to give his minions new orders.
"THE HERALD HAS BEEN DESTROYED, BUT I CAN STILL FEEL THE TAINT OF UNICRON STILL INSIDE ME. PLEASE REMOVE IT." Trypticon said his voice a deep bellow that could be heard throughout the ship even by Megatron's and Optimus's team.
"Yezzz Trypticon. We will do that right away." Waspinator said.
"Can you get us out of Unicron's Belt? That'd let those of us who can't be able to transform to robot mode again." Buzz Saw said.
"ALREADY ON OUR WAY OUT. THOUGH THE SPAWN OUTSIDE ARE MAKING PROGRESS SLOW."
"Great and all our flyers are too banged up for another assault." Rattrap said looking over to where Waspinator and Terrorsaur were literally pulling themselves together. Echo was running around with one of Terrorsaur's arms. Injector, Buzzclaw, and Air Hammer weren't in much better shape either.
"And even then there is just way too many for us to fight." Optimus said looking outside via computer monitor which shows the approaching swarm of Unicron spawn outside as a little purple dots just throwing themselves at the hull of Trypticon in a kamikaze run blowing themselves up. They weren't doing much damage on their own, but all together they were slowing down Trypticon's pace. Trypticon's external weapons took out several but due their speed and size were difficult to hit and the kamikaze tactics disabled several of the external guns meaning soon Trypticon would be defenseless.
"I'm open to suggestions." Optimus tells his group.
"Unicron mentioned that you were 'touched by the Matrix' perhaps you have some of its power left in you that you can use to resolve our current situation." Megatron said.
Optimus thought about that for a moment and slowly nods in agreement. "It's a crazy idea, but sometimes crazy works."
"Even if you have some traces of the Matrix inside of you. You'd have to get at close as possible to either Unicron or that swarm outside for it to work." Rhinox said pointing out the biggest issue with that plan.
"Not really a problem in the case of the second one there since they're coming to us." Snapper said and if to emphasis that point there was the sound of explosions in the distance.
"We can't let them get inside." Megatron said.
"What do you want us to do? Go outside and start swatting?" Rampage said.
"Well since your offering Rampage…" Megatron said.
"I utterly despise you all so much right now." Rampage said, as he exists through a hatch with a tether attach to him to keep him from floating off into the void of space.
"Don't worry big guy we'll reel you in once things start looking bad." Spittor said to him over the comm. unit. Snapper and Razorclaw were standing next to him.
"Your care just warms my spark." Rampage said sarcastically. Though he did feel something stirring in his spark towards his fellow amphibious warriors something he hadn't felt since Transmutate. He immediately squashes it. He didn't like anyone, he hated everyone, and now wasn't the time to be thinking about such things anyways.
"Enough chatting with your 'friends' X we got a job to do." Depth Charge said to him as he hovers alongside him in vehicle mode.
"…Let's just get this over with so we can get back to killing each other." Rampage said and without another word pulls out both his missile launcher and rifle and starts firing away at the approaching meteors ands fish bugs.
"For once I agree with you." Depth Charge said before zooming off to engage the enemy more directly on the other side of Trypticon as he flies over he spots Waspinator and Terrorsaur covering Trypticon's rear.
"One less thing to worry about." Depth Charge said to himself before locking his weapons onto a swarm of fish-bugs. "Primal you better be able to light our darkest hour or this is going to all be for nothing." With that last thought he starts to fire away.
Meanwhile Optimus was sitting as best he could in a meditative position to try and find any embers of the matrix within his spark he hadn't just been contact with the physical matrix within Optimus Prime. He had also been in contact with the metaphysical matrix that existed in the center of Cybertron after his death in the transwarp explosion, otherwise known as the All Spark or Primus. There was still a connection there however faint. Like a loose wire he just couldn't reach. If he could just grab it then maybe he could expel Unicron from Trypticon.
However observing all this from where he was leaning against the wall a few feet away Megatron being Megatron got impatient and decides to give Optimus some added incentive to help hurry things along.
Cheetor's sudden shout broke Optimus's concentration and he opens his optics to see Megatron lifting Cheetor up in his dragonhead hand.
"Megatron what are you doing?" Optimus said fear for Cheetor and anger at Megatron mixing into his voice.
"Helping you as only I can, now either find the power within to save us all or I start killing Maximals starting with pussy cat here." Megatron said back his voice casual like they were discussing the weather.
Rhinox, Sonar, Quickstrike and Inferno found themselves in a Mexican stand off pointing their weapons at one another waiting for someone to make the first move.
Those in beast mode either watch the scene play out helpless to do anything (Polarclaw, Razorbeast, Cybershark, and Armordillo) or in the case of Retrax curl into a ball to protect himself from the impending fire fight while Powerpinch was focusing on the monitor and the battle outside seemingly unaware of what was going on around him.
"Pretty dots…" He said.
"Clock is ticking Primal." Megatron said and starts crushing Cheetor.
"NO!" Optimus said lunging forward to save Cheetor. Then everything came to a halt even the battle outside came to a pause. No one moved as they couldn't move all of them now frozen in time.
There was a flash of light and from it two figures emerge and look at the scene before them.
"It looks like we got here just in time." Airazor said to Tigatron who nods before giving a light growl in Megatron's direction clearly unhappy with what he was doing to Cheetor.
"Let us hurry, we don't have much time." Tigatron said and the two walk over to Optimus and Tigatron touches his leg and a blue aura surrounds Optimus allowing him to move again.
"NO!" Optimus said still in the middle of shouting.
"Optimus wait its alright we're here to help." Airazor said flying up in front of Optimus bringing him to a sudden halt. He barely caught his footing in time.
"Tigatron? Airazor? How?" Optimus said confusion written on his face.
"The Vok, I mean the aliens aren't so bad once you talk with them. They sent us to help." Tigatron said.
"Though we'd have been here sooner, but they got into a debate about interference and the prime directive or something. They're very by the book." Airazor said with a sigh. The mega-cycles that were wasted listening to the Vok argue felt like stellar cycles honestly.
"How can you help?" Optimus said.
"By giving you access to the Matrix." Tigatron said and reaches out with his hand to touch Optimus's chest specifically the cockpit where Optimus Prime's spark once resided.
Optimus felt that invisible circuit connect and he could feel the Matrix answer his call for aid. Time unfroze and everyone turns to stare as a brilliant blue glow began to emerge from Optimus's cockpit.
"Excellent, yesss…" Megatron said before unceremoniously drops Cheetor to the ground and gave a smug smile thinking that his plan worked. Cheetor scrambles to his feet and runs over to Optimus.
"Now light our darkest hour!" Optimus said.
The brilliance of the light increases and begins to spread throughout Trypticon and beyond. One after another dark energon crystals and any remaining zombies were destroyed cleansing Trypticon's insides. The sparks of those corrupted and consumed were set free and rejoined the All Spark.
Unicron could only scream in incoherent rage as he was purged from Trypicon and forced back outside, but the light of the Matrix didn't stop there it continue to go and spread throughout the asteroid belt destroying anything of Unicron's it touched: dark energon and fish-bug spawn alike were obliterated.
"THIS IS NOT THE END I WILL RETURNNNN!" Unicron said screaming as he was banished from the belt to someplace beyond time and space.
"Primal did it, he turned the tide." Depth Charge said honestly impressed. With no enemies left to fight he flies back to Trypticon.
With their battle for survival finally over the united forces of Maximals and Predacons cheer in joy while others simply sit down exhausted. However Optimus Primal knew they couldn't rest just yet.
"So do we resume fighting each other now?" Optimus said to Megatron who shakes his head in response.
"No, I think not aside from the fact both our forces are too injured and low on energon to fight. I don't think Trypticon would like it if we start tearing up his insides." He said motioning to the titan around them.
Meanwhile Cheetor and Tigatron were having a reunion.
"Its great to see you again big cat." Cheetor said.
"Likewise little cat." Tigatron said smiling.
"I like the transmetal look on you Rhinox. Very ultra gear as Cheetor would say." Airazor said.
"Thanks I think so too." Rhinox said with a chuckle.
Suddenly the entire titan lurches to the right and everyone either falls over or struggles to catch themselves on the wall or something to avoid falling.
"Trypticon what's going on?" Optimusa said.
"GRAVITY OF NEARBYE PLANET PULLING ME TOWARDS IT. THRUSTERS DAMAGED CANNOT ESCAPE IT. PREPARE FOR EMERGENCY LANDING." Trypticon said.
"Isn't that just another way of saying 'crash landing'?" Rattrap said. Next to him holding Echo close to his chest Waspinator lets out a whimper.
"Oh great here we go again."
Down below some of the inhabitants of the planet would look up into the night sky and see a shooting star coming down towards the land below none of them realizing their world was about to enter a new era. The era of the BEAST WARS!