AN: Nothing new to note here except for one thing. I have decided on one of the final pairings for this fic and I was wondering if anyone could guess it correctly. Here´s a hint: It´s not that obvious except if one would look into an obscure line somewhere in this entire fic so far. So, any guesses? Oh, and BTW, any suggestions for future pairings? I´m happy to get any sorts of suggestions sent my way :)
Radical leaned back against the rocky wall and let himself slide down until he was sitting on the equally uncomfortable ground. Lucky him there was actually some truth to the human movies Mayhem seemed to enjoy and incessantly nagged him to watch. Zombies were indeed slow-moving, giving him enough time outrun his pursuer… for the meantime. Didn´t humans have a saying about running and hiding? Well, in any case, he couldn´t well do those two while trapped in that dimension.
"Hello? Can anyone hear me?" He attempted to establish a comm link with his Carrier, but to no avail. She couldn´t contact him and, apparently, neither could he contact her or anyone else. None of the channels worked, leaving him with nothing but static noise that scratched at his processor in a most uncomfortable way. "I have to figure out a way to contact the others. Scrap, I'm trapped with a zombie and this dimension has lousy reception to boot, my luck couldn´t be worse."
With no other obvious choice, Radical began thinking. Static meant communication wasn't impossible, but it could take him forever to find the right frequency and he didn´t have much time left. Maybe the others hadn't been able to see or hear him because he was moving at hyper-speed. His molecules vibrating so fast it was impossible for his interaction with moving objects, explaining why he could walk on the ground or lean against the rocky wall.
Suddenly there was light. "Maybe… Yes, that could work!"
If he couldn´t speak to the others he needed to find another way to communicate and the best alternative could be writing. Reading didn't require the audio receptors, only the optics, so all he had to do was send a text, but to whom? They weren't humans so cellphones were not needed… Mayhem! She'd been playing a PVP game with a messaging system for both online and offline players. All he had to do was log onto his own account and send a message.
Opening up his wrist keypad, Radical began preparing to send his message when he noticed the sound of footsteps approaching.
Turning back the sparkling saw the hulking giant and finally caught up with him. The Terrorcon let out a menacing roar, his intentions very clear, and continued advancing towards his prey.
Radical let out a yelp of fear and quickly got back to his pedes, running away at top speed, and only then did he finally take notice of an object that rattled in his subspace with every stride. He´d completely forgotten about the grenade his Carrier had given him to use on the humans! Taking it into his servo he caught the pin in his dentas and spat it out (of course she had to take inspiration in the human version) and turned to the Terrorcon for a brief moment, reaching back with his arm and throwing the explosive at the pedes of his pursuer, fully intending to incapacitate him.
Running away once again at top speed, the sparkling braced himself for the loud sound that was sure to follow and the force of the blast that was sure to knock him away.
An explosion disrupted the air… FRAG IT ALL TO CYBERTRON AND BACK, WHY HAD MOM ACTUALLY BEEN RESPONSIBLE AND GIVEN HIM A SHORT RANGE GRENADE?!
When Starscream had jumped through the groundbridge he'd had quite the undignified landing. Arriving and faceplanting into the ground in front of the Vehicon bridge operator was already bad enough and, for good measure, he'd even threatened the drone in case they decided to tell anyone else of his little escapade.
His arm was still missing upon his return and that would have to be taken care of, hence why he was once again in the medbay of the Nemesis thinking up an excuse to give Knock Out. He'd already removed the dark energon shard from his sparkchamber, not wanting to be found out on dabbling in reanimation, but he still couldn't figure out why his plan hadn't worked. Megatron had managed to rise an entire army with one shard alone, so why hadn't Skyquake been resurrected with half of a shard?
"Erm, Starscream, I don´t quite understand how this could have happened." The medbot brought the SIC back from his musings.
"And yet, it did!" Outrage seemed to be easily conjured up to rebuttal the comment made by the red Aston Martin. "Can you imagine my horror? There I am, minding my own business, when my arm just falls off! Clearly Megatron inflicted more damage upon me than you realized, doctor…"
Knock Out seriously doubted that was the whole, or even true story, but he wasn´t in the mood to be involved in another one of Starscream´s half-thought-out plans. With the big M back in business he would have to watch his step, least his finish suffer the consequences he had before him. The seeker was still scratched and dented all over, not to mention his now temporary inability to take flight, and it was not a look the vain medic would ever go for.
"Well, on the bright side, this provides an opportunity for an upgrade." Going back to his job, Knock Out pulled up a couple images on the screen next to him. "Let´s see, we could go with the sonic canon, it´s reliable, low-maintenance, although it lacks a certain flair. Personally, I´d prefer the null-ray, it has just the right mixture of flash and firepower-"
"I don´t want a new model! I want the same arm I had before!"
Oh joy, his patient had went from outrage to full-blown anger. Why couldn't he ever had one day that Starscream was on his lab and not doing what his designation implied? Oh, how his audio receptor scratched at the screaming and moaning about discomfort this and impatience that.
"Starscream, your equipment is a bit, erm… obsolete." More like ancient to the time of Predacons. Seriously, the seeker´s whole arsenal should be is display at a museum! "I´m not sure I have another one lying around. Of course, we could try to salvage yours. You kept it, didn't you?"
Thinking back to the fight where his arm had gotten blown off, the seeker held back from spouting insults at that miserable Prime. "It was… beyond recovery…"
"Well, in that case, rest here and I´ll be right back with a replacement." Knock Out reached from the life support tubes and hooked them onto Starscream, hoping that time his patient would actually listen to his orders as the official medic aboard the Nemesis. "And this time try to remain still, least your other arm suffers the same fate."
Walking out of the medbay, Knock Out almost prayed the seeker would be gone when he arrived, but that would make his trip pointless. His time could be better used with a buffer and carnauba wax but he still had his job to perform before going back to making himself perfect-looking. Oh, the incessant suffering he had to endure.
Starscream watched the medbot leave and could not do much other than remain still and contemplate his own life. The countless things he´d done and put up with to get this far and yet his dreamed position was held out of his reach once more. He barely had time to enjoy the full potential of his powers as the Decepticon leader before his dreams were cut short. Even incapacitated Megatron had managed to throw a wrench in his plans and come back angrier than ever.
Before the war had started he dreamed of receiving the Matrix of Leadership and become the Prime that would restore Cybertron to its Golden Age, revered and worshiped by all under his command. It had been why he´d joined Megatron to begin with, merely a stepping stone in his grand scheme for power. Back then he couldn´t have cared less for the caste system or the oppression countless faced under the Council´s rule, he´d been most comfortable as the Air Commander of the Energon Seekers, but lust for power had always plagued him.
Don´t humans say the higher they go the harder they fall? Oh, how truthful it was for him. Blinded in his quest for dominance he´d barely noticed when Megatron had dropped the charade for abolishing the caste system and making the Decepticon´s primary quest as one for power, leaving him forever trapped as number two, something he loathed to this day. Working under that mad mech was almost enough to drive one to madness, with the constant threat of punishment at the slightest failure.
Sometimes, in his darkest moods, he wondered if his sister´s words before she left in their youth rang true. That he would not amount to much if he pursued the path to power with disregard to everything else…
No! He could not give reason to that traitorous glitch! He was the true master of the universe, the one to whom everyone would bow to when he finally achieved his quest for power. Nothing would ever stand in his way, not words, not action and certainly not that oversized rusted bucket of anger that kept coming back to torment him.
Resigning himself to resting while waiting for his new arm, Starscream took out the piece of Unicron´s blood he´d acquired during his first attempt on Megatron´s life, only to notice it had started glowing.
"My dark energon shard… pulsing?" That was new. The only reason it could be reaction in such a way would be- "My warrior lives."
His opportunity had not been lost yet! All he had to do was bridge to the site of Skyquake´s tomb and retrieve his resurrected warrior.
Ripping out the life support equipment once more, the seeker jumped out of the medical berth and headed out. Time was of the essence before he lost track of the brute that rejected him in life.
"Ah, look what I found in storage." Knock Out barely had time to enter his lab before his patient almost ran past him. Seriously, again?! "What are you doing?!"
"You were right, Knock Out, I´m much too attached to my original appendage. I will retrieve it." Starscream hurriedly said before heading back to wherever he was going in such a rush.
The medical bot was then left holding onto the, much better, replacement arm. Resigning himself to his never-ending torment at the servos of the mech, he headed back in and set the appendage down in favor of a buffer. He would never understand the mood swings of the SIC even if he tried for a thousand eons. And he didn´t feel like trying either, not when his armor needed polish.
"Why are you blaming me?!"
"If you'd been here Radical wouldn't have been able to get past us!"
"How?! You're his Carrier, you should've noticed he'd followed you lot."
No one had expected the fight that had blown up the moment Airachnid appeared.
In a few short seconds Doomsday had went from distraught to fully enraged, focusing all her pent-up emotions on tearing down her friend. She missed Radical and was worried about him. Unsure on what to do about his sudden disappearance she felt so powerless about her situation, a big one-eighty from her usual stance, proud and unshakable from her foundation based on her pride as a Forger. It wasn´t fair, why did her sweetspark have to suffer because of someone else´s mistake?!
"You're never here for anything, always either holed up on a dark corner of the base or literally underground! If you'd been here I might've been able to stay behind with him!" She shouted, tears welling up in her optics.
Airachnid wasn´t having none of Doomsday´s attempt to shifting the blame on her. She wasn´t responsible for a never-aging sparkling, her supposed friend was! "Please, that processor of yours can't focus on anything that isn't new and exciting. Remember back on Cybertron, he was always going one way or the other while you looked away and pretended he was still young!"
That had not sit well with the Forger. SHE ALWAYS DID HER BEST FOR HER SWEETSPARK! "Are you saying I'm irresponsible?!"
"I'm stating you are uncorrectably irresponsible!"
"Oh, and you aren't? Just because he left you now you can't even stay under the same roof as everyone else! Solus be damned, for someone who back in the day proudly declared to have gotten over it at every chance she got it sure doesn't look like it!"
It was at that moment time seemingly froze for all Makers. Out of all the low blows to take a shot at...
Airachnid´s past was a sensitive topic, with the spider-femme avoiding talking about most of it at every try to unearth it. Bringing it up was very painful, especially since she hadn´t been sparked in the district, originating from the ´normal´ society of Cybertronians that populated the rest of their planet. Her accident had left her scarred, both physically and mentally, and with trust problems with almost everyone that wasn´t either Solarflare or Doomsday, the ones that took her in and vouched for her integration within Maker society.
The Forger had quickly brought up a servo to cover her mouth but the damage was done. Eons of friendship damaged with a single moment where she´d exposed Airachnid´s biggest wound. Even she couldn´t forgive herself for uttering to damning words but time could not be turned back.
"Watch what your words, Doomsday, or they might be your last." Airachnid had a threatening look about her. Optics narrowed, fangs clearly showing digits curled into claws, ready to attack at any moment. Doomsday had no right to say those things to her, in front of the entire Autobot team, no less.
Uncomfortable with the whole argument, Mayhem had averted her gaze from the scene the two femmes were stirring up, feeling very out of place at the sight of two proclaimed best friends going at each other's neck cables like old enemies. The guilt was eating her from the inside but saying anything now would only turn the hostilities onto her. Her optics eventually landed on her game, forgotten when Radical was declared missing, but the screen showed a message alert pop-up. One with a familiar nickname attached to it.
"Rad sent me a message!" The heavy duty seeker shoved her brother aside and ran up to the controller. Opening the inbox to check on her friend's long-awaited words she was briefly confused. "In alternate dimension with zombie. Help."
Everyone else had focused on the hyped femme, including the squabbling Makers, but none could believe the words they´d just heard. Radical, their Radical, was in a parallel plane of existence being chased down by a reanimated corpse.
"My sweetspark is where with a what?!" Doomsday was the first one to react to the news, although in a rather explosive way.
"Alternate dimension with a zombie." Mayhem quoted the text once more. "Weird, I always thought I'd be the one doing that."
"If you were smaller, yes." Silverbot slowly nodded. His sister and zombies would make a rather unstable mix.
"That… doesn't sound possible." Arcee was even unsure that she'd just heard the correct words, because if so now she´d seen almost everything.
"Never mind that, we have to find a way to get him back." Solarflare put her servo on the Forger´s shoulder, attempting to steady her friend. Leave it to Doomsday to raise someone who would one day land on another dimension.
"Ratchet, can we triangulate the geographical position of the sent message?" Optimus didn´t want to waste any time in bringing back the small mech. Tensions were running high and he had the responsibility to maintain a balanced team, even if they didn´t belong to the same faction.
"In a parallel dimensional plane?!...Let's find out." Ratchet went straight to work at the main console, doing his best to speed up the process, and ended up with a very familiar set of coordinates. "Calculating for relative time delays and ionospheric distortions the signal emanated from the exact location as the original groundbridge coordinates."
"But he wasn´t there when we looked." Doomsday approached the medbot to look at the location being displayed. "How could he still be there?"
"He was not in the correct dimensional phase, as the message stated. If I can recreate the feedback loop which triggered the event I might be able to generate a rescue portal, allowing passage from that dimension-"
"Back to base?" Bulkhead finished the phrase.
"No!" Ratchet shouted. "We're talking about interdimensional travel here, Bulkhead. Attempting to redirect the vortex´s trajectory would be far too risky."
"Everyone knows that." Arcee interjected sarcastically.
"If the coordinates aren´t precisely the same who knows where Radical could wind up?!"
"Bisected in half?" Mayhem threw the question out in the open
Everyone looked at her with expressions clearly indicating they were not amused by her theory.
"Not helping." Silverbot whispered.
"What? I saw it in a human movie once."
Radical had been running for a while now. Was it him or the Terrorcon was actually somehow getting faster? The grenade he´d thrown looked like it added a slight limp to his pursuer be he couldn´t be too sure.
With a sense of déjà vu the sparkling ran past a familiar pile of rocks. He´d either just ran in a circle or the dimensional plane he was in only encompassed a certain area and it kept sending him back to the ´starting point´. Whatever the case may be, he didn´t know for how much longer he could keep up that pace.
While attempting to look back, Radical immediately tripped over something that sent him to greet the ground faceplate first. Getting up he looked at the place where he´d tripped to find Starscream´s missing arm lying on the ground, likely having been caught in the explosion if to him it was solid. Looking at the appendage, and noticing the missile was still locked in place, he got an idea. The grenade had only sufficed to give a sort of limp to the zombie-Con and make him angrier, but what about a missile with a bigger fire-power capacity?
"Starscream did something his digits…" Picking up examined the severed limb, Radical began trying to understand how it worked. It seemed to be a simple mechanism activated by a certain movement in the digits, very easy to work with.
Hearing a roar from behind the rocky wall, it was evident the Terrorcon was getting closer by the second. There was only one shot and he had to make it count. Holding the appendage like a gun, he waited for the right moment. Aim at the spark, that was what his Carrier had always told him.
When the Terrorcon came into view Radical braced himself, took aim and pressed back the index digit. A distinct ´click´ sound was heard and suddenly the missile wasn´t in his servos anymore and was flying straight at Skyquake. Straight at his spark. The reanimated monstrosity lifted up an arm to protect itself but he caught the blast straight on.
An explosion sound rang though the air, accompanied by a large wall of smoke…But then a set of dangerously sharp claws cut through it and the beast once more roared in anger. Its other arm cut at the elbow and fell down with a shower of sparks, evidencing why it was so angry.
"Well, better than nothing…" Radical trailed off.
It was at that moment the universe seemed to give an advantage to the already overpowered side of that chase. The fallen arm began twitching and came to life, running at the frightened Maker like a twisted version of a spider.
"Wrong!" The sparkling chucked the seeker´s useless appendage to the side and turned back to start running like a mad mech once more. How did a zombie arm move faster than the actual zombie?!
It took his everything not to look behind and try to see where his now two chasers were but, putting all his effort in the escape, Radical managed to outpace the severed limb…only to end up back at the site where he´d dropped Starscream´s arm.
"You have got to be kidding me!" He yelled out into the air.
Why, just why, the one time he tried to pull a Mayhem he´d ended up trapped in another dimension with a resurrected Decepticon infected with dark energon?! Couldn´t he have ended up at the bottom of a random ocean?! It would have been far more pleasant and easier than to run a marathon attempting to avoid a pursuer than turned into two!
"Skyquake? Your master summons you." The voice of Starscream echoed throughout and his frame was soon spotted up ahead.
Radical let out a scream and took a step back before realizing the Decepticon couldn´t see him. An undead Con was already bad enough, add a still functioning one to the mix and it would be game over for him.
Speaking of the devil the sounds of the approaching arm began intensifying and, looking back on his track, Radical saw the dismembered spidery arm had caught up to him. Guess he had no choice but to keep running.
"Never thought I´d run towards a Decepticon." He mused aloud while picking up speed to make another lap in the demented merry-go-round he´d landed in.
Just as the sparkling was about to pass the taller seeker a groundbridge opened up in front of him, making him stop dead in his tracks. They´d received his message! And sent help too!
Starscream, on the other hand, wasn´t as joyful to see the green vortex open up in front of him. "What?" He snarled and examined his predicament closely, wondering about the origins of that particular groundbridge. "Mine or theirs?"
On the other dimension, Radical´s processor ran a million miles per millisecond. If he went ahead he´d surely get caught by Starscream, and he didn´t fancy meeting Megatron once more in person, but if he didn´t take this opportunity… Looking back for what seemed like the millionth time he gazed at pursing animated limb gaining terrain on him. Thinking up a quick solution on what to do he decided to go through, but it had to be timed just right.
He waited.
The zombie arm was coming closer at top speed.
Just a little more.
It was almost upon him.
That´s it, a bit closer and-
"Solus save me!" Radical jumped into the portal and immediately came out the other side in his dimension, crouching to slide right though the Decepticon´s legs with only two words. "S´cuse me!"
"The sparkling!" Starscream was caught by surprise but his intent to pursue the small mech didn´t last for long when a dismembered Terrorcon arm jumped at him just as the green vortex closed and shoved him ungracefully into the ground "Gah! This isn´t mine! Unhand me!" He struggled one-armed against the limb that he deducted to belong to Skyquake, barely able to hold in his screams. Why didn´t his plans ever worked?!
The seekerlet was glad his plan had worked but kept running none the less, when another groundbridge opened up again in front of him, but this time his Carrier came running through and scooped him up in her arms.
"My sweetspark, my ray of sunshine! You´re alright! I was so worried!" Doomsday kissed every available surface on her son´s faceplate as she squeezed him against her, unwilling to let him go until they were safe back at the base. "You´re here, you´re here, I´m so glad you came back to me!"
The Forger had never felt so relieved in her lifecycle. Her sweet little sweetspark, her ray of sunshine, was back! She felt the unshed tears throughout her spark and felt liking it was singing in relief at having her precious little mech back safe and sound.
Optimus, Arcee and Bulkhead came through the vortex as well and, although glad to have Radical back, still saw the threat in Starscream, even if he seemed otherwise preoccupied with what seemed an animated arm. That day kept getting weirder by the minute.
"Autobots again?!" Starscream had finally managed to throw the offending appendage away from him to be able to see properly. So that was the seekerlet´s Carrier… Unfortunately it would have to way. "Requesting emergency groundbridge now!" He had no idea what to tell Knock Out that time to get the vain doctor to believe his lies.
WHY DIDN´T HIS PLANS EVER WORKED?!
"Look, if you´re gonna blame anybody, blame me." Mayhem looked at the group of bots in front of her. Autobots and Makers, fighting together and also sticking together… against her. "I was the one who convinced him to do it."
The heavy-duty seeker felt terrible at the thought of having put her friend through such a dangerous situation, even if unintentionally. A part of her always seemed to scream for adventure and bending the rules to fit her way and that part was also responsible for both her best and worst decisions in her lifecycle. Her little plans never seemed to harm anyone else other than her but to think Radical could have ended up… She didn´t even want to think about it.
Upon seeing Mayhem so downcast, the guilt clearly written in her faceplate, Radical decided it was time to step in. Makers always stuck together, even if one of them made a terrible, stupid, idiotic dare… and when another was stupid and idiotic enough to take on said dare. Taking a place at the side of his friend he put a comforting servo on her leg to draw her attention.
"Don´t put the blame all on her. I could have said no but I didn´t. Besides, I´m old enough to take the fall for my mistakes." The small mech gazed up at his Carrier, her optics so unsure on what to think. "I´m sorry for what I did and I promise to never do it again."
"Do you really promise?" Doomsday asked her son. She was lost on what to do in that situation, never having grounded him for any misdeed. In her mind she knew all she had to do was hear those words to immediately forgive him.
"I promise and I´m sorry." Radical gave a comforting smile to his Carrier before gazing back up at Mayhem. "I also didn´t manage to get any zombie shots. Sorry."
"Aww, really?" The femme pouted in disappointment but was quick to receive a smack upside the helm, curtesy of her own brother. "Ouch, what was that for?"
"You´re incorrigible." He said. But also getting on the right track, he mused to himself.
"I forgive you." Doomsday crossed her arms and smiled. Now everything could go back to normal.
Solarflare didn´t want to believe it but at the same time was already expecting it. How could that Forger be so irresponsible even now?! "Just like that?! He should be grounded for what he did!"
"Well, he promised not to do it again and I believe him. Besides, running from a Terrorcon in an alternate dimension is punishment enough in my book."
"Again, how did you ever manage to raise him all in one piece is a mystery."
"So… what happened exactly while you were on the other side?" Mayhem picked up Radical and set him on her shoulders and began walking away to the crates in front of the gaming console. "You´ve got to tell us everything. I need to know if human movies really tell the truth"
The others began walking alongside the heavy-duty seeker, also curious to hear a tale involving interdimensional travel and a zombie (and zombie arm!) until only Optimus, Ratchet, Solarflare and Doomsday remained behind. The group of the older bots watched as the younger generations were wrapped in attention in the tale told by the youngest of all, their optics mirroring curiosity and wonder at the words being spoken by the seekerlet.
"Are you sure she isn't yours?" Solarflare nudged Doomsday, commenting on her daughter´s seeming lack of focus on the danger that had just passed.
"Pretty sure." The Forger chuckled before putting on a more serious composure, her small smile falling to be replaced by worry. "By the way, where´s Airachnid? I have one or two apologies in order to give her."
"No idea. She may even not show up for a few days after what you said." She knew the situation they had at hand and, given the spider-femme´s temper, her words would likely ring true.
"You previously mentioned her getting over something?" Optimus addressed Doomsday in a knowing tone. Everyone had their past, including himself. "Some past experiences could be traumatic enough for someone to never forget them."
"You two always get along so well, was it so bad that she will not forgive you?" Ratchet asked, more than curious to know about the past of the femme that incessantly pestered him with innuendo. Perhaps she was more than she appeared after all.
"Yeah… A long time ago she, erm, was abandoned by her intended and it was always a sore topic." Doomsday had no idea why she was divulging that information, if only to make the weight of her actions be truly felt by the Autobots. "She won't forget this. Not now or ever."
What had been done was one of the most hurting thing of all. Used the past to try and win a present fight. Not even she could forgive herself for doing something that cruel.
AN: Nothing here, onward to the next episode ;)