Shockwave
Hun-Grrr and his soldiers had almost done an excellent job, members of House Onyx as well as their loyal servants and soldiers lay dead throughout the Draconyx Lair. The job would easily have qualified as excellent were there one more corpse somewhere in the vast estate built into the volcanic mountain, but the primary target, the one Onyx they truly could not afford to let get away, had gotten away. Emir Ogrus Onyx was nowhere to be found. Spies had observed him to be present in the Lair just prior to the assault, but by the time the Decepticons had penetrated the inner sections of the fortress, all trace of the emir had vanished. Hun-Grr's beasts were not up to the task of tracking down their emir, so it fell to Shockwave to succeed where they had failed.
Shockwave looked over the battle-pocked throne room, interested not in the carnage filling it, but in any indication as to where Ogrus could be. He transformed into a huge purple cannon and began emitting various forms of radiation, some of which bounced back as they penetrated different depths of the metal and stone behind the walls. The results came back with several secret chambers, but none housing anything beyond treasure and weapons, and none appearing to continue on to anywhere else. Of course, there was much more to the Draxonyx Lair than this throne room. Shockwave, in cannon mode, used various vents to emit radiation that propelled him off the ground, across the vast room, and up to and out of a large window, the ornate semi-transparent metal that used to cover the opening blown out during the earlier battle.
Shockwave continued into the air, turned and directed his large hexagonal-shaped barrel down toward the mountain housing the estate. Once again he emitted his waves of various forms of radiation, as broad a wave as he could to cover as much of the structure as possible, narrowing his search as readings came back with intriguing results. There were several possibilities, but one stood out. A series of secret rooms in the lowest levels of the mountain fortress appeared to lead to a series of secret tunnels that stretched for miles away from the Lair, under and around the mountain to the next peak of the Nagaxas Range that ran through southwestern Nyon. The subterranean tunnel continued on beyond another peak before seeming to come to an end underneath the third mountain stretching away Wyvern Peak, which the Draconyx Lair was built into. Shockwave knew this mountain covering wherever the tunnel led to be called The Wruen, a shorter but long stretch of a peak. The purple Harmonexian determined that the tunnel reached its end as it connected with a moderately sized chamber underneath The Wruen, and targeted the portion of the tunnel just short of the mountain's start. A powerful blast shot forth from his barrel and cut through the metal, rock and dirt of the planet's surface, boring deep through the ground until it cut into and through the tunnel. The expenditure of energy would have drained him to the point of stasis lock even before his blast reaching the tunnel were it not for the molten salt fusion reactor in his torso. As it was within his body, he had chosen the safest but also one of the most potent of fissionable power sources, a chemical element known in the north as Primordium, named for their sole god Primus, and in the south as Amunium, for Amunus, the Light-Giver and Life-Giver of the Guiding Hand. Shockwave cared nothing for religious nonsense, but the radioactive actinide metal was tremendously valuable and reasonably abundant, and with it he was capable of achieving feats considered to be impossible for the Cybertronian physiology while nearly negating the risks of any sort of melt down within his body.
Still in cannon mode Shockwave descended toward the ground and transformed to robot mode as he entered the hole he had created. Moments later he was within the tunnel his scans had revealed to him, the section he was in was dark save for the sparks shooting out from the battered overhead lighting his blast had destroyed. He proceeded onward, through the dark section, into the next section of tunnel where the lights were functioning. He continued on foot for another mile before nearing what he knew to be the end of the tunnel. As expected, he came upon a dozen guard standing for the door of the chamber at the end. One guard stepped forward, a golden and red brute that appeared to transform into some sort of bear-like creatue. "You…you traveled here alone?" He turned to his eleven companions and burst out laughing. "Let Full Tilt know that the Emir is in no danger." The other guards chuckled as well.
For the slightest sliver of a moment Shockwave considered replying with some sort of sarcastic remark, but the consideration was shelved and he simply advanced and began firing on them with his wrist cannon. The gold and red bear-bot took a shot to his throat, the blast cutting all the way through and leaving him to drop to the floor heavily. With medical attention he could easily survive, but for the moment he was no longer an impediment to Shockwave so the purple Decepticon continued through the barrage of weapons' fire and proceeded to target and destroy the bear-bot's comrades. As Shockwave got to within one hundred feet of the door, automated defenses sprang to life, whirring to target him. He immediately transformed to cannon mode and blasted the first cannon mounted over and to the right of the door. He shot himself forward and to the right ten feet to avoid the shot from the second cannon, targeted that one and destroyed it as it turned to follow him.
The surviving guards were frantically firing on him, but he had spent years honing his armor and enhancing his martial capabilities, and their standard weapons were doing little more than scratching him and leaving small dents. He transformed back to robot mode and spend the next two minutes eliminating the insufficient defense. As the last guard fell to the ground dead, Shockwave transformed again and blasted the door to pieces, revealing a dimly lit chamber beyond. His scans had revealed that there were no more passages; this room was the end of the line, and even before the bear-guard's arrogantly-stupid comment Shockwave knew that Ogrus Onyx was within. Shockwave stepped into the chamber and looked around, taking in the vast array of medical equipment, but settling his gaze on the two large robots standing next to a third robot laid out on a medical slab. The third robot appeared ancient, and looked like he had recently passed on. Shockwave looked to the large robot with dragon pieces hanging off of him. "Hello again, Emir Onyx." He then nodded his lone optic at the downed form. "I assume that this is Triptych, the brain-template."
"You traitorous bastard!" Ogrus growled in a low grumble. "You attack high houses, your own house, in the name of that slagging Macht miner?"
"Yes." Shockwave replied. "I follow Megatron of Tarn, I am one of his Decepticons, and yes, I am a part of the destruction of the high houses, even House Torrent." The purple Decepticon turned to the other large purple robot in the room. "Who are you?"
"I am Full Tilt, Captain of House Onyx Guard and defender of its assets." The robot replied, though there was something in his voice that made it seem as though he was not overly dedicated to his function. Shockwave then scrutinized his appearance.
"You possess features indicating a ground-racer alternate mode." The Decepticon observed. "I would expect a Nyonian, much less a captain of House Onyx's Guard to bear a bestial alternate mode."
Full Tilt turned to Ogrus, regarded him for a long moment, and then turned back to Shockwave to deliver his answer. "You are right, I chose not to cut my shell mode into a beast, as is the custom here. I was born in Simfur, I was large and strong so I came into the service of House Onyx, and I was capable so I got promoted, but I never loved House Onyx." He looked harshly at Ogrus. "I was a meager servant; a slave truly, yes, I received pay, but a servant has the right to leave, a servant has the right to some determination of his fate; I had neither. But fortunately I found a task I could enjoy, I found a master I did not abhor serving." Full Tilt stepped away from Ogrus and stood between Shockwave and the inert Triptych. "Do what you wish to Ogrus Onyx, I will not do anything to stop you, but I will die before I allow you to desecrate the frame of Triptych."
"Traitors!" Ogrus roared. "This truly is an age of treachery, and age of deceptions!"
"Full Tilt," Shockwave called out after regarding Full Tilt's words for several moments, completely ignoring Ogrus, "I accept your terms, though I need for you to recognize the difference between study and desecration."
"You refer to the plan to have him live on in the body of the dragon?" Full Tilt asked.
"A simplification of the details, but yes," Shockwave explained, "that is the plan that I would need to study his frame for. Specifically his brain."
"He will live on?" Full Tilt pressed for details.
"In a sense." Shockwave replied, looking closely at the graying frame on the table. "He is dead, his spark has passed on, and I cannot change that. But I plan to imprint his memories and personality onto an enlarged brain altered to mimic his." Shockwave turned his attention back to Full Tilt. "But it will not be exact. I intend to keep all of his memories, but alterations must be made to diminish his loyalty to House Onyx." Full Tilt stared at Shockwave for nearly a minute before nodding and stepping to the side.
Ogrus stared hatefully at the guard, and then at Shockwave, before he transformed into a four-legged dragon with a pair of arms, a pair of wings, and a long neck carrying a massive saurian head. The beast charged forward toward Shockwave, his jaws lined with dozens of razor-sharp teeth, all pointed at the purple intruder. Shockwave seemed unimpressed, simply staring at the oncoming beast before finally transforming and letting loose with a single shot. The energized blast darted into the dragon's mouth and blew the head to pieces. The beast slumped to the ground, and began a very painful transformation back to robot mode, a robot mode without lower legs, legs that had been made up of the dragon's head and upper neck. Shockwave transformed as well and walked over to stand above the downed emir. Ogrus looked up, ready to plead or rage or negotiate or whatever. It didn't matter, Shockwave had no interest in whatever Ogrus Onyx had to say, he simply leveled his wrist cannon to the emir's forehead and blasted shards of his brain module out the back of his cranial shell. Ogrus's upper body, held up by his hands, collapsed to the floor.
Shockwave looked over to Full Tilt and noted the guard staring down at the dead robot, a sense of subdued elation seemed to be coming off of him. Full Tilt, still staring at the dead emir, spoke. "Tell me of these Decepticons."
Delta Magnus
Decepticons, what a stupid name. A reference to some grand deception they played on Cybertron's highborn masters, or so the claim went. A grand deception consisting of their bombings and other terrorist attacks over the last fourteen years done in the Autobots' name that kept highborn and commoner alike focused on the previously annoying but harmless ragtag group while those truly responsible were able to grow powerful under everyone's noses, culminating in the attacks on the high houses, wiping many of them out of existence, and their execution of the Prime. The execution of Sentinel Prime had been broadcast, as was an almost nonstop barrage of gloating and threats. Of course, these Decepticons had nothing to gloat over to House Magnus; they had done their worst and been found wanting, very wanting. Yes, Magnus's had perished, as had many of their loyal subjects, but when all was said and done, the number of corpses bearing the Face of the Warrior outnumbered those that did not, and House Magnus remained standing and the unquestioned masters of the Tagan Heights.
Delta had lead the defense personally; Emir or not, he was not one to relay orders from the safety of a secured chamber. He was out in the thick of it, taking shots, killing the invaders, and providing an image of power and inspiration for his clan and their loyal retainers to rally behind. And ever at his side was his younger kinsman Ultra, providing almost as great an example of courage and power as he had. Delta looked over the aisle-way of the luxury transport at Ultra Magnus, sitting directly across from him still sporting scorches, lacerations and other battle damage from the defense of Citadel Magnus. Delta had repaired and cleaned himself prior to the trip, Ultra felt it unnecessary to do the same. They had differed on so much over the last fifteen years, ever since the Mistress of Flame, who was seated to Delta's right, had sought him out and informed him he was a prophesy come to life, 'The Devourer of The Devourer'. He had dismissed it, at least initially, but deep down he knew there was something to it. Ever since his birth he had been special. He was unquestionably brilliant, easily within the top five percentile of their species in terms of raw innate learning ability, retention and creative problem solving, he was exceptionally durable even prior to his incomparable armor being grafted to him, and was the strongest Cybertronian that anyone around him had ever known. He was completely unique on the Hydrax Plateau, and over the years he found no one else remotely like him in all the Tagan Heights. He had heard legends of others possessing super-Cybertronian abilities like him, terms like 'point one percenter' and talk of green sparks flowed, but his protoform had emerged from the hotspot with a completely encased spark, so he knew not the color of his life-force, and he had met many thousands of other Cybertronians without meeting another like him, so the nomenclature of the point one percenter term was not in statistical accuracy.
He was completely alone, until Ultra emerged from the pool. Ultra was as big, his frame accepted the vaunted Magnus Armor just as Delta's had, and he was unquestionably powerful. Far more powerful than the still young Delta had ever encountered, and strong enough to offer Delta a challenge in the training range…but he fell short of Delta's raw strength. He had heard the visiting polyhistor of House Ambus mutter the term 'load-bearer' when observing Ultra overpowering other challengers in the sparring ring but falling short against Delta. Ultra was brilliant as well, but again, not quite at the same level as Delta. But the slight inferiority of Ultra compared to himself mattered not to the young Delta, Primus had given him a kinsman, a brother, a comrade that could finally push him, who could finally keep up with him. They became inseparable, brothers in every sense, each other's most cherished and trusted friend.
House Magnus was not nearly the isolationists that the Maximus's were, but at the same time the Tagan Heights tended to keep to itself for the most part. Delta vowed to change that. They would become a part of the world, he would become known to all, his destiny was more than could be contained within a single emirate. He would be a great man, perhaps the greatest. There were many in House Magnus who knew Zeta Prime, and all said that Delta would in time be far more worthy of the title than the noble but unexceptional member of House Decimus. The only thing holding Delta Magnus back was his youth and inexperience, and that was fading with each quickly passing year. But the first true opportunity to claim what was truly his presented itself before enough years and inexperience had fallen away. He was still too young to be seen as a serious leader by anyone outside of the Tagan Heights when Zeta Prime was murdered. The 'obvious' choice to all but those outside of Magnus lands was the imposing and charismatic Sentinel Honorum, and because of Delta's youth and large-scale anonymity, Sentinel was swiftly ushered into the role of Prime.
It was during the funeral for Zeta Prime that Delta Magnus first met the movers and shakers of Cybertron outside his own emirate, and first came into contact with the Mistress of Flame. It was she that removed the distortive veil from his optics and revealed the true expectations their creator Primus has for his creations, as well as Primus's expectations for Delta Prime in particular. Though it was a shrouded revelation, the prophecies were ambiguous to say the least, as they always are, but she was without doubt that the prophecies were about him. His tremendous natural gifts and advantageous birth were given him for a reason. He was to be the savior for his people, Primus's champion. In what capacity, and what the challenges that faced him were unknown, but positioning himself in the most powerful, influential post seemed the best course of action. In a matter of months, Delta had easily gotten elected as Emir of the Tagan heights. The Mistress of Flame merely regarded it as a good start, and Ultra, despite his doubts regarding the Mistress of Flame, remained his most loyal and devoted comrade, and agreed that in time Delta Magnus should be Prime; though his convictions stemmed from more tangible and measurable criteria than those used by the Mistress.
But there were times when Ultra's lack of faith pushed even Delta's patience with his younger sibling. His choice to present himself to the rest of the beleaguered planet in an unwashed, unrepaired, and battle-scarred frame was more an annoyance than a true point of contention for Delta Magnus, but the Mistress of Flame did nothing to hide her disapproving glare of him as she looked his scorched frame up and down. "You are a representative of not just your emirate, but of your Emir himself, The Devourer of the Devourer, The Eroder of Chaos, The Prime of Salvation. You should have taken time to repair and clean yourself, Ultra Magnus."
Ultra displayed a disinterested grin as he replied. "There were injured to attend to, defenses to rebuild, dead to remove from the streets, and countless other tasks of far greater value than my appearance to attend to, my lady. And frankly, showing up as pretty as I can be while the rest of the planet is suffering may be seen as…well, I'd rather be seen as one of them than as above them, at least right now."
"Then I suppose it's good that Primus chose your kinsman, and not you." The Mistress replied disdainfully.
"Enough, the both of you!" Delta spat. "Ultra's appearance truly is a minor thing. And Ultra, repairs may have required more time than we had, but a quick wash would have done our cause good."
"I disagree." Ultra Magnus once again decided to run counter to the Mistress, seemingly just to run counter to the Mistress. "We need to show the other houses that we were bloodied too, but that despite sacrifices, a consistent defense can achieve victory. We need to inspire them."
"Yes, but to inspire them we should present ourselves as leaders, and leaders should look the part." Delta replied.
Ultra smiled. "You're the leader, I'm just a soldier, and I think I look that part adequately."
Delta wanted to smile, he truly did miss the playful banter he often shared with Ultra prior to him having to take on the role destiny had in store for him, but the Emir of the Torus Heights and the rightful Prime had to be above the silly and inappropriate retorts of his kinsman. He had to be Primal in every sense; given the state of the planet, there was a strong possibility that he'd be named Prime by day's end. The planet needed a Prime now more than ever, and there was now nothing to hold him back from taking his rightful place. Discarding the playful rapport with Ultra Magnus was a small price to pay, so he turned toward the cockpit, looked through the open door and through the windshield at the approaching Petrex.
The capital city of Ankmor and seat of House Decimus had been selected as a staging point for government forces primarily due to its location, the selection done by the outlawed Autobots, but their innocence in regards to the murderous terrorist acts was now nearly universally assumed, their assistance was needed, and their reasoning for choosing the staging point was sound. It was roughly one thousand miles directly south of where the mid-point between Polarus and Iacon lay, and fifteen million years ago, as now, Iacon was the largest and most influential city on the planet, and the likely target of the sparkeater army. Petrex presented an ideal location for the government to consolidate its military assets and prepare them to push north, and it also was a good location to assemble a large percentage of the northern civilians and move them south in an organized manner. And a strong, foreign military presence was necessary in Ankmor; of the seven truly northern royal houses, three had emerged from the Decepticon attacks strong and three had been nearly wiped out. House Decimus was one that had been nearly wiped out; according to the latest intel, only Mirage Decimus had survived, though Senator Rabattus Decimus remained unaccounted for, and was rumored to be a Decepticon sympathizer, if not a full out member of the group. Houses Solus and Ambus had not fared any better, for Ambus only Dominus and Minimus appeared to have survived, their survival being owed to them being in another emirate at the time of the Decepticon attack, and for House Solus, only Elita had survived, being named Elita One, Emir of Axiom by the dying Exponum. Her survival, at least according to reports, was far more interesting, a story involving her fighting off the Decepticon attack single-handedly by donning the legendary Apex Armor her ancestor had forged during the first sparkeater invasion. Aid had been sent to both Centurion and Hyperious, and the expectation was that the surviving Ambus's and Elita One would join them in Petrex at some point. House Honorum had sustained many casualties, but nearly half their house still survived. House Pax had been the beneficiaries of fortuitous timing from what had been reported to Delta Magnus, Tyger Pax had been evacuated at word of the sparkeaters breaking free shortly before Sentinel Prime arrived to attack them in force. Prime had been convinced of the sparkeaters, and it was while he and his forces were there that the Decepticons arrived to attack. At seeing the superior government forces the leader of the group of Decepticons, Lugnut Boltax, claimed to have been there to support House Pax and then left before word of the uprisings spread. Apart from Emir Roller Pax, who foolishly decided to remain at Tyger Pax, all other Pax's were unharmed and safely south. The remaining northern royal houses, Magnus and Maximus, repelled the attacks against them, House Magnus suffered the loss of a handful of their members and many subjects, as had House Maximus according to reports, but overall they remained firmly in control of their emirates.
House Torrent was considered a northern house, but the emirate of Praxus straddled the equator and over the ages they had come to be seen as 'too southern' for other northern houses but had never been accepted by the southern houses. But even if they'd been regarded as one of the north's own prior to the Decepticon attack, all Waves were confirmed dead with the exception of Soundwave and Shockwave. Soundwave, the traitorous bastard, was a confirmed Decepticon, and Shockwave, well, enough questions had been raised regarding him to make him suspect at the very least. The surviving descendants of Knight Fluctus could burn in the Pit for all anyone of worth cared.
The shuttle settled down and Emir Delta Magnus stood without a word and proceeded to the opening door, starting down the ramp as it was still descending toward the ground. He heard the heavy but controlled footsteps of Ultra following him, and the lighter and even more controlled footfalls of the Mistress of Flame taking up the rear. Ahead, through the sea of Cybertronians gathered on the outskirts of the city, he saw what had to be the command center with a large gathering of highborn standing just outside the main entrace, surrounded by their various guards, all seemingly focused on one individual in the center of the group, but as Delta Magnus got closer the members of the group would notice him and then regard him with great interest, until all had stepped to face him, moving enough to reveal Torenia Pax and Emir Accumenus Honorum in the center of the gathering, a large case cradled in Accumenus's arms. Delta delivered a sad and respectful nod to both before addressing the Emir of Nova Cronum. "Emir Honorum, you have the deepest sympathies of House Magnus, and all of the Tagan Heights at the tragedy that has befallen your house, and the loss of your many kinsmen and kinswomen, including Sentinel Prime." He looked to both Torenia and Accumenus. "It does my spark good to see you two together, the tensions between your houses have been a point of great sadness and concern for all of Cybertron. We must all come together in this time of great tragedy, great uncertainty, and extreme peril if we are to survive as a people."
"Aye, my friend." Accumenus replied with a sad smile to both Torenia and Delta before stepping to stand directly in front of the Emir of the Tagan Heights. "Despite your youth, you have proven to be an inspiration to us all. House Magnus was attacked like the rest of us, but accounts of your valor and leadership winning the day are being trumpeted all throughout the north." A wave of sadness washed over him, and he started to choke up. "When accounts of the sparkeaters' return reached House Honorum I set out to retrieve this," he gently raised the case in his hands, "our most precious artifact. I had intended to give this to Sentinel Prime, but alas that will never be." Emir Honorum started walking toward Emir Magnus. "You are not of House Honorum, but I can think of none more worthy to honor our house by wielding this, the greatest weapon of the Knights of Cybertron." Stopping before the much larger Delta Magnus, Accumenus Honorum opened the large case to reveal a glorious broadsword housed within. "The Star Saber, forged by Solus to kill the sparkeaters, and wielded by Honorius against their king as he and his fellow Knights drove them down into the steaming depths. You, Emir Delta Magnus, are the one to bear this weapon and lead us to victory over the ultimate evil, as our ancestors did so very long ago."
"Aye!" A few voices, Ultra Magnus's mixed in, rang out, and followed by all around them "Aye!" Another random voice called out. "Delta Prime!" The anonymous call caused silence and everyone to look around at one another, but was soon followed by more cries repeating it. "Delta Prime! Delta Prime! Prime! Prime!"
The calls attracted the optics of the crowds surrounding the group and the command center, and even caused many to walk out of the command center to see to the commotion, but they were silenced as Delta Magnus raised his hands. "My friends, I appreciate the trust and support, but now is not the time." He announced with what appeared to be genuine humility and surprise.
"No, now is not the time!" A gravelly voice called out from behind a large wall of citizens, who parted to reveal a large group walking toward them, and Delta Magnus tensed as he caught sight of the speaker leading this approaching group. "The time for Primes is over!"
Delta Magnus gripped the sword tightly and raised it to a defensive position as the rocket launchers mounted to his shoulders whirred upright to target the oncoming horde, the sound of the whirring echoed by the identical sound coming from the same weapons mounted to Ultra Magnus's shoulders. Delta glanced around him, most of the other highborn were stunned by their terror, only their guards and Ultra seemed ready to meet the threat head on. Delta stepped forward. "Megatron, I was hoping it wouldn't be long before I could deliver justice!"
"Justice its first step when I ended Sentinel Prime's life!" Megatron called back, now one hundred yards away. "Or are you going to tell me that he was a good leader that did not deserve the fate that awaited him?"
Delta shook his head and lied. "He most definitely did not! Mistakes were made, but he WAS a good leader. He was new to the pressures of being Prime, and in time could have become great!"
"Enough with your false humility and attempts to look magnanimous!" Megatron called back, looking to his Decepticons to the sides and behind him and nodding for them to stop and appear non-threatening. He then turned back to Delta Magnus. "You opposed what he stood for and you were jealous of his position. Had you been born even a pulse sooner you'd likely have been in a position to challenge him to be Prime, but alas, you were born in the birthquake that spawned me, and were too young, unknown, inexperienced to effectively challenge him."
"And fifteen years later so much has changed?" Delta barked back.
"It's been a tumultuous fifteen years." Megatron grinned, noting the military forces lining up against his own but doing nothing to stop them from taking position in front of his Decepticons. "There was nothing to test your mettle against until the Autobot terrorist acts and Sentinel Prime's pathetically childish and ineffective railing against them."
"You mean your terrorist acts, don't you?" Delta snarled back. "One of the few mistakes Sentinel Prime made was overlooking the evidence that clearly pointed not at the Autobots, but at another underground group, one linked to the illegal southern fighting circuit, one unknown to us until you broadcasted Prime's murder! His inability to move past the humiliation suffered at the hands of the Autobot-aligned Orion Pax kept him from seeing the truth! But it's all so clear now! In the wake of the monsters of our past resurfacing, you choose to attack us in force! Well, not all of us were easy prey! House Magnus still stands, the biggest impact of your attack on us is that our estate is covered in Decepticon corpses!" He grinned at the former miner from Tarn. "I'd order you to go and clean them off my lands, but instead it's time to administer your due punishment!"
Megatron quietly chuckled at the threat and raised his hands to calm the enraged emir down. "Delta Magnus, not that it holds any weight with you, but I give you my word that I was unaware of the events in The Torus Heights when I ordered my attacks, and when I did hear about the sparkeaters, I ordered my warriors to withdraw."
"We'd already finished withdrawing your Decepticons from the Hydrax Plateau for you by that point." Ultra Magnus called out with a grin on his battle scorched face.
Megatron nodded at the other large Magnus. "Yes, Houses Magnus and Maximus acquitted themselves well. But I'm not stupid enough to have thought every battle would end in success, or that I wouldn't suffer casualties." Megatron then turned to take in the forces that stood to either side and behind him, and then looked back at Delta. "Emir Magnus, you boast that you and your forces will overwhelm mine today. I doubt that you could accomplish that, in fact, I'm certain my Decepticons would end the lives of every last one of you today, but for the sake of argument, let's say that you do attack my Decepticons, and that you do win, wiping us all out and achieving what you consider to be justice. What price do you think that you would pay for such a victory?"
"Whatever the cost, it would be worth it!" Delta Magnus growled back.
"Would it?" Megatron asked genuinely. "You're assembling your forces here to prepare to take the fight to the sparkeaters. If the legends are even remotely accurate, then each sparkeater will be worth at least ten of your soldiers. At best, at BEST you would retain half your forces after combatting me. Those forces you have left would prove to be nothing but food for the sparkeaters. Remember, while you despise me, and while you do not trust me, the fact is that upon hearing of the sparkeater threat I ended hostilities with the highborn oppressors. Unlike you, I recognized the greater evil and set aside my fight with the lesser enemies, hoping that we could join and fight the common foe." Megatron crossed his arms, clearly displaying the shining black fusion cannon mounted to his right forearm. "So I ask again, given that you have the option of facing the sparkeaters with twice your current army, or at best facing them with half your current army, would the cost of attacking the Decepticons truly be worth it?"
Delta Magnus grinned malevolently as he tightened his grip on the Star Saber and took a step toward the Decepticon Commander, but before he could advance further a white and black robot came running out of the command center. "Emir Honorum…" he paused at seeing Delta Magnus and the stand-off with the Decepticons, Magnus chanced a glance and immediately recognized the robot.
"Prowl?"
"Yeah, I thought my joining up with the Autobots was pretty much a known thing by now." Prowl replied, quickly running forward to position himself in front of Delta Magnus, blocking his path to Megatron.
"Yes, it is," Delta Magnus replied, "but it's still surprising to see you here."
"Yeah, well, if you remember, we're the ones that sent out the invitations to this party." He answered. "And in regards to Megatron and the Decepticons…"
"Tell me you didn't form an alliance with them!" Delta roared. "The recent surge in goodwill toward the Autobots will immediately vanish if that's the case!"
"Not an alliance, a truce." Prowl replied. "Though given the odds against us, an alliance is definitely worth considering."
"What is it that you want, Prowl?" Emir Honorum grumbled the interruption impatiently.
"Huh? Oh, right." Prowl replied to the Emir of Nova Cronum. "My Emir, we've just started receiving a feed from Tyger Pax."
"Emir Roller?" Torenia gasped hopefully.
"I fear not, my lady." The former planetary security commander replied. "It depicts sparkeaters walking over the compound, and attempting to string a giant, limbless robot to the Spear of Paxus. Lord Commander Kup has confirmed that the giant robot is Omega Supreme, still alive, but severely wounded."
"They've overwhelmed and tortured the Guardian of the Gates." Megatron called out. "They're toying with him and boastfully broadcasting their victory to shatter our nerve. So Emir Magnus, I ask yet again, twice your army, or half?"
Delta Magnus glared at Megatron for a moment, then shifted his glare to Prowl, who only nodded, prompting Delta to glare back at Megatron and eye him for several moments before grumbling. "Stay your ground Megatron! We will never trust you, but for now…for now we will hold off on killing you and your vile Decepticons." He then took another threatening step toward the former gladiator. "You will come no closer to our encampment though! Confine yourself to the outskirts, or this tentative peace will end violently."
Megatron smirked. "Wise choice. We're here to help."
Roller Pax
"Much better." Roller muttered to Orion as the red and blue robot returned to the cockpit and took the seat next to him. "You'll thank me for telling you to hit the chemical wash, we'll be over The Torus Heights in moments, and probably with the rest of House Pax a few hours later when we get further south, and you don't want to make that reunion smelling like you've been living on a planet-fill for the last fourteen years."
Orion nodded as he looked through the front windshield at the planet of his birth. He had seen orbital views of the world on various screens during his lessons with A-Three, both in person for the first few months of his life and remotely in the months that followed, but this was the first time he had actually seen it from orbit. Roller liked watching the look of awe coming over his brother's face, though to be fair, the first time he had seen the planet in such a way was as he was leaving it a couple days before. Orion must not have realized the newness for Roller, as his comment seemed to be more to someone who was accustomed to the view before them. "It's magnificent!" He whispered. "I had come to believe I'd never be here again, but to actually see it…" He trailed off.
Roller grinned. "A stunned silence from the eloquent Orion Pax? Will wonders never cease?"
"Our planet is a gift, Brother, we must cherish it and see to it that all have the right to enjoy its gifts." Orion said as he continued to view the planet in amazement.
"You truly are a cheese-rod." Roller muttered. "Seriously, by all means have those thoughts and aspirations, but put them through the dork filter before actually giving them voice."
Orion's face took a grim appearance as he leaned back in his seat. "Tell me again about these terrorist acts and why the world thinks the Autobots are guilty of perpetrating them."
Roller shook his head. "The first occurred right after you…left."
"Interesting way of putting it." Orion growled.
"Yeah, well, due to the timing, you know, right after you interrupted the execution of a bunch of Autobots and me kidnapping you in front of some Autobots, it seemed like there was motive for the Autobots to lash out." Roller explained. "And, frankly, you guys were the only organization we were aware of that had the network to pull all these coordinated attacks off."
"If I had still been on Cybertron I could have made everyone aware of Megatron, his group and his aspirations." Orion snarled at his brother.
"Maybe, but maybe not." Roller replied back defensively. "Sentinel Honorum wanted you dead. Any claims you made would have been declared the lies of a traitor, an Autobot trying to push blame away from himself and his comrades, and unfortunately, until the last few years, nobody would have doubted him. Even Prowl wasn't believed by anyone for several years, and even now he's considered a crackpot by most."
"What evidence was there to implicate the Autobots?" Orion asked.
"Faces of the Common Man at every scene." Roller replied. "And, as I mentioned, there was no other group capable of this on anybody's radar."
"So the belief was that we signed our work, and then immediately made public denials that we were responsible?" Orion grumbled in disbelief.
"It's a loosely knit organization of individual cells." Roller replied. "The populace figured first that it was a case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand was doing, and then later they considered it to be attempts at mis-information. And by several months in there were so many killed and wounded, so much of our society disrupted, it didn't matter, everyone hated the Autobots and would not listen to any talk of exculpatory evidence." He stared his brother in the optics. "Look, apart from a few seconds of doubt at hearing the first reports a few days after kidnapping you, I never believed they were guilty. But it was years before I could think of any alternative group to blame."
"And who was investigating it on the government's end?" Orion grumbled.
"Prowl at first, but within a few years he knew it was all bullshit, finally stood up to Prime to tell him as much, and was shitcanned for his honesty." Roller replied. "There were others that followed suit, but Sentinel finally settled on a High Magistrate, Ekim Gnofin."
"Ughn. Of course he did." Orion grumbled. "The short time I operated in Iacon was enough for me to recognize Gnofin as the amoral opportunist that Prime could trust to look the other way on anything non-incriminating. I can only guess at the mountains of exculpatory evidence that he either locked away or destroyed."
"Yeah, he's a piece of garbage alright." Roller agreed. "He made claims that the Autobots were attempting to try the case in the media, that once he was selected they wouldn't want to go up against him, and other nonsense. Eventually some reporters started evaluating the facts of the case, actually grew some bearings, and confronted Gnofin on the facts of the case against the Autobots. He actually covered his audio receptors and yelled that he didn't want to hear it. But now with Sentinel Prime dead, he's probably shivering in a corner somewhere."
"With the sparkeaters walking the planet again, I fear most Cybertronians are shivering in corners." Orion added, looking out the windshield and seeing the seemingly endless stretch of land separating Taenarus and Polarus. He looked down and noted the groupings of oddly shaped forms marching south, barely visible from their altitude. "Are those them?"
"Yeah, freaky, awkward looking suckers, but according to Kup, they're crazy fast and crazy strong." Roller muttered as he too looked over the groups their ship zipped over.
"You know, now that you're the Emir, you should probably improve upon your vocabulary." Orion quipped with a grin.
"I'm not addressing the Senate, jerk, I'm talking to my brother." Roller replied. "And honestly, crazy is an apt adjective when describing their strength and speed from what I've heard."
"Scan to see if they're capable of transmitting communications." Orion suggested.
Roller did as requested. "Nope, nothing. Don't think they have any real tech."
"Probably not, but I'm sure we were seen by some of those things, so we needed to be sure they can't send word to Tyger Pax or any other outpost with weaponry that might be able to down the Stellar Spear." Orion replied. A light on the control console shown red, and Orion leaned over and pressed several buttons. "This may be my first spaceship ride…while awake at least, but I'm pretty sure that means something's being transmitted."
Roller quickly looked to the screen and relaxed. "Aye, but it's transmitting FROM Tyger Pax." He hit a couple buttons. "Autopilot on, let's take a gander." Roller replied before sending the transmission to a small screen between them on the control panel. They immediately recognized the Spear of Paxus, and Roller recognized the form of Omega Supreme, scorched, battered and sans limbs, chained to it. "Shit."
"Is that who I think it is?" Orion asked.
"Yup." Roller replied.
"How do you know, have you seen him?" Orion asked skeptically.
"Yup." Roller replied, watching the hideous sparkeaters walking around the courtyard he had spent so much of his life in. "Went to him awhile back to enlist his help against Sentinel Prime on your behalf. He felt being at the Gates was more important."
"We need to get him out of there." Orion stated, his tone making it clear that it wasn't a suggestion.
"Uh, sure, good idea." Roller replied sarcastically. "This way they can broadcast the execution the Emir of The Torus Heights and the hero cop of Rodion along with the already scheduled execution of the Guardian of the Gates."
Orion turned at looked intently at his brother. "We're not letting monsters murder a Guardian in our home." Again, it wasn't a suggestion. "NOT in our home!"
"Yeah I know!" Roller grumbled. "Do you really think I argue with you expecting to win? You're right, I know you're right, and I'd follow you into the Tartarun Pits…even back when these monsters were still in the pits. I just find bitching about it to be cathartic."
"Good." Orion smiled at Roller. "Now, any suggestions you might have on how we can achieve this would be most welcome."
"Oh no, this is your slagging endeavor, Orion, you best put that top tenth of one percent intellect to work and figure this out." He noted the look of confusion on his brother's face. "I figured your gifted brain module would remember me telling you I read your test scores."
Orion shook his head and grumbled. "Remind me to report you to the Emir for that." The red and blue returning Pax looked forward out the viewport as he thought. "OK, as Emir I'm assuming you still retain control, even remotely, over the computers, security and environmental settings and other facets of Tyger Pax, right?"
"Yup. You ever want the air conditioning kicked up in your suite, I'm your man." Roller replied, reaching forward to insert a cord emerging from his wrist into the control panel of the craft to begin remotely accessing Tyger Pax.
"I'm not complaining, but by no measure could that closet be considered a suite." Orion replied. "And we'll worry about the AC some other time. Right now I would like all cameras to transmit everything, not just what the sparkeaters intend to show. Maybe some weakness or intention of theirs could be revealed, and if there does happen to be a straggling civilian somewhere in Tyger Pax, we'll need to know. Also, have all the guns ready to go online and target the monsters,"
"Already doing that." Roller muttered.
"Yeah, suppose that was obvious." Orion replied. "I doubt there's any sort of self-destruct function…"
"Nope, just for our data, and I already wiped all that clean prior to launch." Roller explained.
"Yeah, didn't think so. But alarms, lights, water jets, chemical washes or anything else that could serve as a distraction, get those prepped." Orion continued. "And we should see if we can access the armory."
"Not much left there." Roller answered. "When I gave the word to evacuate, I sent most of our weapons out with the other Pax's and our guards. But I've got a lot of weapons in the cargo hold we can use, including a collapsible ion cannon that I had especially made for you."
"I do like me a good ion cannon." Orion smiled.
"You'll really like this one." Roller shot back with a smile. "Erector outdid himself with this thing. Obviously thermal blooming isn't an issue,"
"Blooming? Plasma breakdown doesn't occur with even shitty ion blasters." Orion interrupted.
"I did say 'obviously', didn't I?" Roller snarked back, eliciting a grin from his brother. "As I was saying, the toroid rounds are non-blooming, non-deflectable, and travel at nearly five percent the speed of light, packing a seventeen megajoule explosive force and a confined electromagnetic emission that disrupts electronics within a few feet in each direction, provided those electronics weren't already obliterated by the blast. All in a hand-held…at least for you, weapon that can fold up and fit in a compartment in your back…once we build and install that compartment."
"Fantastical," Orion quipped, "I'll bring my axe too. Never know when a good melee weapon will come in handy." In the distance they finally caught sight of Tyger Pax, just northwest of the much larger Polarus beyond it. "We should put down behind the northern outcropping and make our way home by wheel."
They made their way to the jagged projection of metal just to the north of Tyger Pax, the closest extensions to Tyger Pax of The Crown, the ice-capped polar mountain range that nearly covered the top of the planet, and after ensuring that there were no spark-based lifeforms more advanced than a cyberfox, put the ship down and began arming themselves. An hour later they were on the outskirts of the city-sized Tyger Pax and transformed to work their way in on foot. It had been over fourteen and a half years since Orion had last stepped foot in Tyger Pax, but he remembered every detail of the dark halls and the dozens of courtyards. The two silently but rapidly made their way to a supply building overlooking the main courtyard, across from the towering Spear of Paxus.
They carefully peered out a window to see Omega Supreme, still alive but battered to the point where not for his size, he wouldn't be identifiable. Throughout the courtyard were a multitude of different creatures. There were roughly two dozen of what appeared to be standard Cybertronians, very poorly maintained and not appearing to possess any sort of functional shape or equipment molded into their shell modes, scurrying about performing tasks and cowering at the other two 'species' that were snarling at them. The first non-standard species was composed of what appeared to be six sparkeaters, creatures that may have at one time been Cybertronians, but were now horrifically altered, snarling and snapping at the slaves and at Omega Supreme, but otherwise leaving them unmolested. And last species there was a pair of large beasts, smaller than Omega Supreme, but at roughly sixty feet in height towering over the other creatures, completely savage, bestial creatures with long snouts lined with razor sharp teeth like a saurian predator. These were all that were visible in the area around the courtyard and the Spear, but the Paxes both knew that other monsters were spread throughout Tyger Pax. At the very least they knew there was someone at least somewhat technically adept in the communications center broadcasting the signal.
"Can't explain it," Roller whispered, "but I feel the urge to transform when I look at those big guys."
"Feel it too." Orion replied. "Might be some innate instinct, maybe these aren't so much monsters as primordial predators that hunted our distant ancestors, and maybe our shell modes were used for hiding or protection."
"You're such a nerd."
Orion ignored the playful insult and took on a look of deep contemplation. "Begin transmitting signals from every camera detecting any sort of motion, and be prepared to slam them with every bit of illumination, chemical spray, water spray and weaponry Tyger has. We'll observe these guys for an hour, see if there's anything predictable about them, any weakne…shit."
Roller followed Orion's gaze toward the ground below and noted that something was agitating the sparkeaters nearest them. They were glancing around, seeming to be sensing something, and whatever they were noticing was directing their attention toward the building Orion and Roller were in. "What's going on?" Roller whispered.
"My slagging spark!" Orion grumbled quietly as he stood up and got his ion cannon and large axe ready for action. "They can sense it. Time to engage, but you stay here and direct Tyger's defenses as best you can. Hopefully they won't realize you're here too."
"Yeah, my pathetic blue spark is beneath their notice." Roller grumbled.
"You said it, not me." Orion chuckled as he took two steps back and charged through the window, sending glass spraying down. Three shots left the cannon before he landed, and all three scored head-shots on startled sparkeaters. Their heads virtually exploded, their lifeless frames went down hard, and Orion effortlessly hit the ground and rolled into the midst of the other three, subduing his surprise at the destruction caused by his cannon and cleaving the head off of one with his axe, sending a snap kick into the chest of another that sent it to the ground, and leveled his ion cannon at the face of the third sparkeater, firing on it at point blank range, incinerating the head and sending the frame crumbling to the ground.
Roller wanted to cry out with a victory cheer. He had often wondered whether his memories of Orion's physical formidability were accurate, or if maybe he had built them up to be exaggerated over what really happened. Seeing Orion kill five sparkeaters in a span of 2 seconds while knocking the sixth on its ass made it clear that there were no rose-tinted optics with those memories. Maybe the terror the planet was feeling was unfounded. Perhaps the destruction these creatures rained down on the planet fifteen million years before was due to technologically simple Cybertronians living in isolated tribal groups caught off guard? Perhaps…shit. They weren't dead. As Orion hacked up the sixth sparkeater and leapt toward the advancing…mutants, not sure what else to call the standard but brutish Cybertronian looking guys, the sparkeaters with head wounds started twitching and moving, the damage to their cranial shells stitching together before his optics. Even the decapitated sparkeater's body started moving, its disembodied head's optics glowing to life and mouth moving as the headless hands grasped it and planted it back on its neck.
Orion was tearing through the mutants, and unlike their sparkeater masters, once killed they seemed to stay killed. But one of the giant demons was advancing on him, the other was still obsessed with the captive Omega Supreme. Roller leveled his own ion cannon at the head of the demon marching toward Orion, ready to ignore Orion's command to remain hidden and…oh yeah! Roller engaged the anti-aircraft cannons of Tyger Pax and directed them inward, unloading one of them into the Demon a moment before he was within striking range of Orion. The explosive shells blasted the demon across the courtyard, but it remained in one piece. They were deep enough within Tyger Pax that the heavy perimeter cannons were too far and could not get a shot this far within, but the high towers did have anti-aircraft cannons mounted to them that could target ground based threats from both within and without, though there were limitations to what they could target within the walls of Tyger Pax due to the angles, proximities and structures.
Orion watched the demon bounce across the ground, but was immediately tackled to the ground by two sparkeaters that he had though killed. "Orion!" Roller yelled as he jumped out the window to help his brother, hitting the ground and losing his footing, but keeping his weapon in hand and recovering to fire on the closest sparkeater. He turned his weapon toward the two creatures on Orion, but couldn't get a clear shot due to the struggle. And a struggle it was; each of the monsters appeared to be as strong as Orion, and there were two…now three of them. Roller fired a shot at the third one, hitting it between the shoulder blades, but the shot did little damage and the damage it did do seemed to be healing as soon as the smoke cleared away. He then noted the other three sparkeaters that had been making their way toward Orion now turning to look at him. They seemed torn between continuing after the subdued Orion, or charging the threatening but less enticing blue-sparked Roller. A shot to the face of one of them convinced the still-standing two to go after Roller. "Defenses, target and destroy every moving target that is NOT Roller Pax, Orion Pax or Omega Supreme!" With that the other anti-aircraft cannons mounted on the walls of structures surrounding the courtyard turned inward and down and began picking off sparkeaters, demons and mutants, but those currently on Orion were not targeted due to their proximity to him.
But the red and blue robot blasted one of his assailants off with a thunderous straight right and grappled his way out from underneath the other, the creature tearing a portion of his outer armor off of his shoulder as he pulled free. He rolled to his axe and whirled around, raising it and immediately driving it down to split the head of the sparkeater he had punched. He then raised it again, allowing that sparkeater to drop to the ground and drove it down on the other sparkeater, who was advancing on him with his torn piece of shoulder armor still in the creature's long and clawed gray hand. The blade cut open the front of the creature's torso from throat to crotch, but the beast just gave a cruel smile as the massive gash in his body began stitching itself back together before their optics. It almost seem to be zipping itself up starting at the crotch and working its way up, the outer armor of the stomach started coming together to conceal the massive internal damage already being repaired, zipping up to conceal the cleaved fuel pump and the opened spark chamber emitting a blue…Orion's fist blasted through the cut before the armor could come together over the chest, the sparkeater let out an audio-receptor-shattering cry as Orion seemed to grasp and squeeze something, and then yank his fist out, a glowing orb clutched in his fluid-soaked hand.
The sparkeater stared down at his own spark in Orion's fist, it was a grotesque and polluted looking thing, glowing blue like most sparks, but dark, moving tendrils of…energy, chemicals, pure evil, whatever the tendrils were made of, they slithered over and through the spark, causing it to almost look purple at first glance. The creature kept his optics on it as Orion backed away, a stunned look on the fifteen year old's face at noticing the sparkeater very much still alive, though the repairs to his frame seemed to have ceased. The creature stepped toward Orion, his hands outstretched to recover his dis-embodied spark. Orion side-stepped him, lunged toward the other, now fully healed sparkeater and drove the spark into his chest, releasing it and prompting the still dizzy sparkeater to clutch it. It looked down at it, recognized what it was and raised it to his mouth, but was immediately assailed by the now frantic owner of the spark. As they started to snarl at one another Orion recovered his ion cannon and leveled it at the tainted blue orb, pulling the trigger and causing the spark to explode in the hands of the two sparkeaters.
The sparkeaters, Orion, two mutants and two other sparkeaters trying to attack Orion were all thrown to the ground by the blast, three sparkeater and Orion quickly getting back to their feet with the mutuants slowly getting back up as well. But one form remained unmoving on the ground. The owner of the detonated spark lay dead, its various scorches, laceration and other wounds now remained unchanged, the dark power keeping the creature alive seeming to have abandoned it. "This is being broadcast, right?" Orion yelled out.
Roller forced his optics away from the dead monster and up at Orion, barely whispering his answer. "Huh, uh, yeah."
"Yes," a deep voice boomed out to intercept the answer, "what goes on here is being broadcast, at least that's what my thrall tells me." A forty foot, three-faced terror called out from the viewing deck overhead before leaping out and landing gracefully on the metal ground. "Much of this technological world is yet unknown to me." He grinned at them with all three faces. "But rest assured, your friends out in the world now know that destroying the spark of a sparkeater is the only way to kill one. It won't be enough to keep them from my swift and brutal devouring of them all, but it will offer them hope. To whom do they have to thank for that hope?"
"Defenses, stand down." The smaller blue robot called out hesitantly, taking a chance that they may learn something that would be of value to those receiving what was being transmitted from Tyger Pax. "I am Roller of House Pax, Emir of The Torus Heights, and Lord of Tyger Pax, and you are intruding in my home!" Roller announced loudly as he stepped forward and stood next to Orion. "This is Orion of House Pax, Lo-Gar of…Refurb…" Roller looked to Orion for clarification.
"I think they'd prefer not be mentioned." Orion replied, keeping his optics fixated on the forty-foot monster.
"Pax?" The beast asked. "Of Paxus, you were spawned from the metallico that spawned him?"
"And the metallico that he was returned to after his noble death fighting you monsters." Roller replied, his voice devoid of fear.
"He died fighting me personally, and I enjoyed killing him." The creature smiled through his fanged teeth. "I see the resemblance." He said as he looked at Roller, but his face changed as his gaze shifted to Orion. "But not with you." The giant inhaled deeply through all his bestial nostrils. "You," he pointed at Roller but continued looking at Orion, "you are definitely of Paxus, but you," his clawed finger twitched to Orion, "you are something else entirely." He then looked down at one of the battered but still living mutants. "You, go retrieve the thrall Mindwipe!" The mutant scurried away into the building to do as he was bid.
Orion watched the mutant leave before nodding. "Yes, I'm adopted." He then looked to Roller. "Well, not yet, but I was given the name." He then looked back at the leader of the beasts. "And who do I have the honor of addressing?"
The beast smiled. "Still gathering intelligence for your fellow Cybertronians?" He chuckled, nodding to the various security cameras mounted throughout the courtyard. "No matter, they will know the name of their god or destroyer one way or another, so I might as well share it now. I am Violen Jiger. Apparently the name has been lost over the last fifteen million years to all but the Wardens, but my role as King of the Sparkeaters is remembered in myth and legend."
The king of the enemy turned his head as a winged Nyonian came running out of the building behind him. "You summoned me, oh great one?"
"Mindwipe, you told me that the house founded by Onyx had exterminated the House of Convoy." Violen Jiger accused.
"They…they did, my king." Mindwipe nervously replied. "I am of Nyon, it was one of the earliest truths to be thrust upon me, though I believe two survived. But as I understand it, those two have not been see in in over a million years."
The three-faced beast nodded toward Orion. "Is this one of the survivors?"
"I…I don't know." Mindwipe replied. "I know nothing of the survivors, or of…wait, I know this one."
"You do?" Violen Jiger asked, genuinely intrigued.
"He is Orion Pax," Mindwipe answered, "he was a cop, a police officer, one born in the last pulse. He humiliated Sentinel Prime…twice. He vanished fourteen years ago."
"If he was born in the last pulse, he could not be one of these survivors, now could he?" Violen Jiger asked condescendingly.
"I've been told I have the look." Orion called out. "I am not born of the metal that formed Paxus, but I am not a Convoy either. I was born…well, that doesn't matter, but I only look like a Convoy."
The king of the sparkeaters regarded him with a long stare before inhaling again, his gaze dropping to the ground where the piece of armor torn earlier from Orion's shoulder lay. "You more than have the look." Violen Jiger nodded to one of the sparkeaters and then to the chunk of metal, the beast immediately gathered it up and delivered it to his master. Violen examined the piece, smelled it closely, and then put it into the mouth of his left face and slowly ate it, savoring the flavor. "Wherever your spark emerged, you were born the old way, like me."
"The old way?" Roller asked, more curious than scared.
"His spark is strong, strong enough to pull non-sentio metal and alter it to make it life-compatible." The creature explained, staring intently at Orion. "It's how the giants were made, their star-colored sparks could pull in lifeless chunks of planet and form their bodies with ease, but the strongest of the green sparks could manage it as well. Over millions of years the giants would die, almost always killed by other giants, usually by energy-sucking cyber-predators like my demons, over time their bodies decomposed and rejoined the planet, but their remains mixed with certain metals, and what we know as sentio metallico came into existence, providing weaker sparks compatible material with which to form bodies. Though formed the old way, like with me Orion did have trace amounts of sentio metallico to shape his frame. And I've tasted that metallico before. It was the first I ever tasted. I was created, I was released, but prior to my release I was given advice. There was one tribe that was responsible for organizing the mechanicals of this world against their semi-organic masters, one tribe that led them to victory over my creators, one tribe that could possibly be seen as a threat to me. I may not have sought the destruction of their birthing pits the way the one called Deathsaurus did, but I fell upon the Convoy and wiped out every last one of them, feasting on both frame and fire. I tasted spark and metallico from all over the planet before being sealed beneath the frozen mountains, and over the last fifteen million years I've devoured many a subterranean cousin of yours, but Convoy has always remained my favorite flavor, and I thank you, Orion Pax of House Convoy for bringing it back to me."
"Look, I don't know what to tell you." Orion stated emphatically. "Your description of being born the old way, that makes sense. That fits what I know of my origins perfectly. But me being a Convoy…"
"Corallium Furvus." Roller whispered.
"What?" Orion looked at him questioningly.
Roller looked to Orion and then back to Violen Jiger. "Nothing, let's stay focused on this guy." He then looked to Mindwipe. "Or maaaaayyybe, this guy." Roller stepped forward and pointed at the dark Nyonian. "Hey Wings, you're the guy who was operating the equipment in the control room, right? You're responsible for broadcasting the signal of the cameras out here?"
"Yes." He replied. "Though someone else activated all the other cameras and started sending signals from them."
"Yeah, that was me." Roller replied. "But you're the guy, right? You're the most technologically adept monkey in this travelling zoo, right?"
"Yes." Mindwipe shot back, but gave a sarcastic grin. "Are you hoping to get an army here unnoticed and unmolested by the perimeter cannons while I'm away from my post?"
"An army?" Roller replied, looking at Orion as if sharing a joke of his own. "We don't have an army." He then took a more serious look and started tapping some buttons on his wrist panel. "We do however, have an air force."
"Kill the Pax, subdue the Convoy!" A suddenly bored Violen Jiger called out to his minions and leaned back against the wall expectantly.
"Defenses, re-engage!" Roller yelled out as he and Orion sprang back into defensive action. Orion started firing his ion blaster, scoring head-shots on the sparkeaters, causing their bodies to fall, though only temporarily. He then directed his aim up at an advancing demon, landing a round in its left optic and causing it to roar back in pain, clutching its damaged optic. Unlike the sparkeaters, the damage didn't seem to be immediately under self-repair, but the creature was also vastly more powerful and continued on toward the much smaller red and blue robot. Orion lunged away, whipping his axe at another sparkeater that was making his way toward him, decapitating the creature with the powerful swipe and landing into a rolling position to spring back up to his feet and continue firing on the oncoming killers.
The blasts dropped his attackers temporarily, and Orion used that time to turn and cleave the already decapitated sparkeater near him nearly in two, splitting his torso from its headless neck to its abdomen. Once again Orion reached in, wrenching out the entire spark chamber, and whipped it at a pair of sparkeaters recovering from the shots he had downed them with a second before. The spark chamber landed between them, and Orion pointed his ion blaster and fired, the blast of his round and the exploding spark scorching the sparkeaters slightly and causing all movement from the decapitated body and bodiless head to cease. Orion started to move, but it was too late to avoid the swipe from the one-eyed demon's left claw, a blow that sent Orion bouncing across the ground, but he still held tight to his weapons and was on his feet a moment later, whatever impact the blow had seemed to be ignored.
Roller watched this happening but quickly realized he had his own problems demanding his attention. Two sparkeaters and two mutants were working their way toward him, so he raised his smaller but still very lethal ion blaster and squeezed off four rounds. His aim was true, but only the mutants went down, both still alive by writhing in pain and would no longer be a threat to him. The sparkeaters were merely thrown back by the rounds, and as they recovered and continued forward toward Roller the blue emir could see their gaping wounds stitching themselves shut. "Shit." He muttered, realizing that as potent as his weapon normally was, it would be of little use to him right now, nothing more than a way to buy a few seconds. Of course, that's all he really needed. He directed his weapon at them again and began firing repeated shots, eventually knocking both creatures to the ground, knowing they'd be getting back up, but not before the sound of the approaching Stellar Spear could be heard through the mid-afternoon air. Roller raised his wrist communicator to his mouth. "Open fire on every spark-based lifeform excluding Orion Pax, Omega Supreme and Emir Pax!"
"You already gave that order." One of the injured mutants grunted from the ground.
"Not to this." Roller replied as the Stellar Spear shot overhead and began strafing every moving thing in the courtyard other than the Pax's and the Guardian. The ship targeted the two demons with its most potent cannons, but smaller cannons rained down ordinance at all other hostiles. Even the unmoving Violen Jiger was targeted, but he leapt to avoid it with astounding speed and agility for his size. The few remaining mutants in the area were killed quickly, the sparkeaters would rise again, but it would be minutes for their bodies to pull themselves together after being blasted by ordinance meant for destroying ships or fixed fortifications. The giant demons were sent sprawling and bouncing away by the blasts; they were far more resistant to the barrages than the sparkeaters, though they didn't heal supernaturally quickly like the smaller beasts, and though durable, they were normal, natural creatures that could be killed by conventional means. They were also on the receiving end of the ship's most powerful weaponry, and after the initial strafing run, the one-eyed demon lay dead, the other wounded but able to fight on.
"Roller, give me authorization to command the ship!" Orion yelled out.
"Emir Roller Pax providing Orion Pax authorization to command Stellar Spear and Tyger Pax defenses!" Roller commanded the artificial intelligence systems of the ship and estate.
"It will do you no good, Convoy!" Violen Jiger roared as he lunged out and slammed Orion, a bot barely more than half his height and nowhere near his mass, into the metal ground. Orion started back to his feet, but a lightning fast kick from the giant forced him to drop his weapons and sent him flying back and slamming through the wall of the building that he and Roller had been hiding in prior to their engagement with the monsters. "Submit, become a thrall, surrender that ship, and I will let the two of you live!"
"Eat shit, Triplebagger!" Roller yelled as he unloaded his blaster at the vastly larger creature. Violen Jiger laughed off the rounds and started to march ominously toward the emir. Orion burst forth from the hole he had created a moment before and ran directly for the forty-foot monster. "O, what the slag are you doing?" Roller called out in shock.
"Tyger, target the chains holding Omega Supreme!" Orion called out as he reached Violen Jiger and looked to lunge at him, but instead dove to the creature's side and rolled into a run to the side and behind him, reaching down to scoop up his weapons one at a time before turning and targeting the monster. Only one of the defensive cannons could target into the courtyard, and then it could only hit the chains on one side of the Spear of Paxus that was holding the Guardian up, but the cannon spit forth several rounds and a moment later Omega Supreme was dangling by a pair of chains, the two both linked to a post drilled to the tower one hundred-thirty feet off the ground. "Spear, unload everything you have on three-faced intruder!" The ship returned, whipping around the Spear of Paxus and opened fire on the huge creature. "Release hooked tether in proximity of ground in front of Omega Supreme!" Orion called out as he added his firepower to the ship's barrage on Violen Jiger. A deep thud could be heard at the base of the Spear of Paxus as the released hook and thick tether landed. "Roller, get the hook, shimmy up there and securely attach it to Omega!"
"He's still chained!" Roller yelled back as he charged for the hook to do as ordered.
"I'll take care of that!" Orion answered as he began charging the besieged invader. "Spear, cease fire!" The ship stopped its attack just as Orion leapt up at the head and upper torso of Violen Jiger, maintaining his fire as he slashed at the beast's head. His axe blade sliced through the left optic of the creature's central face, but the wound was healed almost immediately. Orion's leap carried him up high enough for him to plant his left hand on the giant's right shoulder and vault him past and behind the creature, narrowly missing the beast's clawed grasp. Orion somersaulted on his way to the ground behind the beast and landed in a run, again narrowly missing a back-hand strike from the invader. Orion whipped back around, his axe-blade swung in a wide arch, and sliced off a finger of the reaching hand of Violen Jiger. The beast's face took on a surprised look at the speed and power of the strike, but seemed unaffected by the damage caused by it, and smiled as they both watched a new finger grow forth from the stump. Orion's optic-brow arched upward, a display of being impressed, but he immediately shot back into a blur of motion as he called out again. "Spear, re-engage!" He leapt up as the ship's ordinance slammed into the back of Vilen Jiger, Orion took full advantage of the creature's surprise and suddenly divided attention to plant his foot on one of the creature's wrists and leap over him, narrowly avoiding shots from the ship and flinging his axe toward the Spear of Paxus.
The axe spun end over end through the air until its blade thunked into the metal of the tower, cutting through the post and the two chains linked to it. Roller had just gotten the hook slid into an opening torn into Omega Supreme's armor, and was completely surprised as the giant limb-less Guardian dropped toward the ground. He clutched the giant tightly as they started downward. "Spear, lift off!" Roller heard Orion call out as he stared down at the rushing metal ground with the Guardian falling after him to crush him, but just as he was about to hit the ground moved quickly away, and he then watched a red and blue blur shoot up and latch onto the Guardian a few feet from him. "Fly south, a fifth the speed of sound!" Roller looked over and saw Orion peering back at the king of the sparkeaters for several moments as the ship pulled the three of them quickly away from the enemy. Orion then looked back at Roller. "When we recover Tyger Pax, I expect to get my axe back. I worked pretty hard on that thing."
"Sure." Roller smiled. "Are we going to be hanging like this all the way to Petrex?"
"No, let's put about thirty miles between us and them, then we'll set down and get back in the ship." Orion grinned.
"I greatly appreciate the rescue," the booming voice of Omega Supreme called out, "but when you set down, could you remove the hook and reattach it in a less painful manner?"
Orion smiled. "Of course, Lord Guardian."
Bumblebee
The evacuation was a Primus-damned mess. House Honorum still survived, but it had taken large casualties and those that did survive, including Emir Accumenus, had left Nova Cronum to rendezvous with the remaining heads of Cybertron in Petrex. They had left a handful of Honorum guards, and there were some government forces, but ultimately it was the Autobots that were leading the evacuation of Iacon. Hated, hunted, maligned pretty much since their inception, and especially since the first terrorist attacks attributed to them fourteen years ago, the outlaw group was now the only chance these civilian masses had at getting away from this would-be feeding ground before the sparkeaters arrived en-masse. Word was that Guardian Spaceport in Cybertropolis had fallen to sparkeaters. That was only sixteen hundred miles away, and Polarus was even closer. The last thing these poor, ungrateful jerks needed was to be sandwiched between two armies of cybervoric monstrosities.
Bumblebee drove through the tetra-level subterranean autobahns verifying that the residences were empty. Iacon went down a total of seven subterranean levels, each more vile and unlivable than the level above it. Blaster, Sideswipe and Sunstreaker had spent their formative years in subterranean Iacon, and even thousands of years later still called the lower levels their home. Bumblebee had initially thought that due to their familiarity with the area one of them should be down here, but Blaster was in Petrex with Prowl, and even if he was in Iacon, his alt mode would not be adequate for high speed area sweeps. The siblings were needed muscle to keep things in order at the transit terminal, and while a surface dweller, Bumblebee was an Iaconian and reasonably familiar with how the subterranean levels worked. He couldn't check house to house, that would take weeks at best, but he had spent the entire day zipping through the main streets of each level blasting a pre-recorded evacuation announcement. Most residents had gotten word from friends on the surface about what was happening, but the Honorum government had done nothing to get word down here. Even prior to the Decepticon attack there was no effort to spread the word to these lowborn of the lowborn. It fell to the Autobots to get the word out and get them out of here.
Most Bumblebee had encountered were resistant to leaving, but he had managed to convince nearly all of them he was telling the truth. But there were many that didn't trust him, the Autobots as a whole, the Honorums or the planetary government at all and just drifted back into their ghettos. There was nothing more Bumblebee could do for them, nothing other than pray that Primus kept them safe. He had cleared, as best he could, levels seven through five and was almost down with the fourth. Just three more to go…his estimate put that at another seven hours. "Ugh." He wished he had the tools to be 'needed muscle' so that he could at least be on the surface with others. "BZZZ" A comm-request was coming through. He examined the source point, saw Petrex and opened the channel. "Bee here."
"Hey Bee, Prowl." The former head of planetary security announced.
A lot of Autobots didn't like Prowl, for various reasons. Some couldn't get past his prior relationship with Sentinel Prime, some didn't like that with a head's up of a Decepticon attack and facilitating the recruitment of Grimlock's group he could just join…and let's be honest, Grimlock's group never really joined the Autobots, they were more along the lines of sharing the enemies of the Autobot's enemies. But mostly many Autobots didn't like Prowl because he was a bit of a jerk. Of course, all these reasons seemed kind of petty given Prowl's contributions. The guy was very smart, one of the smartest guys Bumblebee knew, and he was more aware of what the government forces were going to do that even the government forces were, and he was great at figuring out where their assets needed to be placed, though that probably falls under the very smart umbrella…, anyway, better reply. "Hey Prowl, what do you need. I'm away from the Iacon HQ, going through the subterranean levels wrangling up stragglers."
"Well get out of there and head to Petrex with the rest of the Autobots. We need to organize with the other forces here." Prowl ordered.
"But what about…"
"They've been told. Everyone in the catacombs has been informed of what's heading their way." Prowl cut him off. "They either believe it and are on their way out, or they don't and anything you have to say to them won't amount to a bucket of slag, so head to the surface. If it makes you feel better, continue playing the message as you go, but you're to head topside and get south now."
"Those that stay won't stand a chance." Bumblebee grumbled.
"No, but if you do happen upon anyone unwilling to run, let them know that there are three distinct species they may have to contend with." Prowl explained. "Lowest rung on the monster scale are what we've taken to calling mutants, and from what we can tell they're just standard Cybertronians born in the pits beneath the polar mountains, trapped into servitude or being prey to the sparkeaters. They can be killed just like we can, and they don't appear to have any useful alt modes beyond their initial shells. Next group are the sparkeaters, from what we can tell they used to be Cybertronians, but they've been changed significantly, and those changes make them stronger and faster that we are, along with an insatiable hunger for sparks. Oh, and it appears they can sense sparks, and are drawn to stronger ones. And they recover from virtually any injury, even the most fatally damaging wound heals in moments – they're almost un-killable."
"How do you know this?" Bee asked.
"They're inhabiting Tyger Pax, and transmissions showing them have been sent." Prowl answered.
"How much stronger and faster are they than us?" Bee sped toward the closest ramp leading to the tertiary-level.
Prowl chuckled. "You remember Orion Pax, don't you? Pretty strong, right?"
"Yeah, pretty strong is a ridiculous understatement." Bee cut back. "Why?"
"Some of the footage out of Tyger Pax showed him fighting these things." Prowl explained.
"Orion is alive?" Bee cheerfully yelled out.
"Yeah, anyway, it looked like basic, run of the mill sparkeaters were at least as strong as he was." Prowl continued. "About as fast too, and having overseen much of his academy training, that's probably more impressive than matching his strength. But they seem stupid, and aside from their natural gifts they don't appear to use weapons."
"They're strong and fast like Orion and are un-killable," Bumblebee grumbled, "doesn't sound like they need weapons."
"Almost un-killable," Prowl retorted, "Pax found a way to kill them though. Tear their sparks out of their chests and destroy the spark. They drop dead and stop getting up."
"Oh, that's all?" Bee quipped sarcastically as he zipped around the autobahns three levels below Iacon's surface.
"Yeah, so tell anyone you come across to just cut them open and kill them that way." Prowl joked back. "Next species is something we're calling demons, some of us anyway, others have taken to the name primordials. Big monstrous creatures, range from forty to nearly one hundred feet in height from what we can tell. Perceptor thinks they may have walked the surface in our very distant past,"
"Yeah, Orion told me something about giant creatures killing off the dracosaurs dozens of millions of years ago or something."
"Yeah, great, we'll let the nerds figure out their origins, but they're big, they're incredibly strong, they're faster than you'd think given their size, and we believe they can syphon energy from spark-based lifeforms, but we've yet to confirm that." Prowl explained. "But they appear to be mortal, at least as mortal as we are. They can be killed with powerful weaponry. Nothing that the commoners you're trying to warn would have, but if you are able to kill one, you only have to do so once."
"OK, sounds awful." Bumblebee spotted signs for the secondary level ramps. "So that's it, just the three kinds?"
"Well, there's actually a forth, but we think this guy's unique."
"Great. What makes this guy special?" Bee asked as he sped toward the ramp, many of the overhead lights flickering.
"He's their king, and, yeah, we don't know where to begin countering this thing." Prowl explained. "We'll worry about that when you get here. The rest of the Iacon team has been apprised and should be ready to depart once you arrive."
"What about the rest of the surface evacuation?" Bumblebee protested.
"They're either leaving or they aren't." Prowl grumbled. "Right now, we need to focus more on the fight than the flee. Do you understand?"
Bee hesitated, wanting to do something to ensure those still in Iacon got evacuated, but realized they didn't have time to do everything. "Yes sir."
"Good. Prowl out."
Trepan
He was close, but 'close' was a matter of interpretation. Given the scale of what was being asked, and the fact that nothing like this had ever been done, three to six more years of work wasn't that much. But by Megatron's timeline, it was very, very late. He had arrived to the project thinking Shockwave was almost done…mainly because he had been told, by Shockwave no less, that they were almost done. But despite his absolute brilliance, Shockwave wasn't as familiar with the fine-points of neuro-reconstruction as Trepan. Oh, he could whip something together if need be, but to do it right, to make it perfect, it would take time. But given what they were doing, what was another half decade? Trepan continued studying the two holographic images of brains, the one depicting what the brain in question currently looked like, the other depicting what Shockwave had determined it should look like. And at an aggregate level, Shockwave's approximation was accurate, but when dealing with brain modules, the aggregate level meant little, everything had to be drawn down to the finest detail. Heavy but controlled footfalls echoing through the hall just outside the Fortress Trypticon control room let Trepan know that Shockwave was approaching. That must mean that the matters at the Draconyx Lair had been resolved. Trepan waited for the large purple scientist and warrior to enter. "Greeting's Shockwave." Trepan noted that his fellow Decepticon was carrying a corpse, one fully grayed out, its life having passed at least a day before.
The hulking Shockwave walked over to the table in the center of the room and laid out the inert frame in his arms. "Greeting's Trepan, I bring you an asset to help expedite your work here."
"Is that who I think it is?" Trepan muttered, marveling at the frame that was likely older than any other frame on the planet.
"It is Triptych, the template for our brain module." Shockwave stated.
"It's too bad he's dead. There are so many questions I would ask of him." Trepan mused as he leaned over the body on the table in the mid-sized room. "Oh well, I guess I'll have to save my questions for several years when I can ask Trypticon."
"Several years?" Shockwave asked ominously. "You're still holding to that?"
"Yes, I'm afraid I must." Trepan answered. Were it Megatron, or to a much lesser degree, Soundwave, he would have been frightened. But Shockwave was a fellow scientist, he understood not only that Trepan's timeframe was reasonable and that the mnemosurgeon had only just gotten started with the great beast, but he knew that no one was more eager to see this finished than him.
"That's unfortunate. Please let me know if there's any asset you need to improve the timeframe." Shockwave responded.
"I could use your input on a few matters." Trepan suggested. He probably didn't need Shockwave's help, but it was always good to let colleagues feel appreciated, and ultimately it would be well within the realm of possibility for Shockwave to come up with suggestions that would be beneficial.
"That is acceptable, what can I assist you with?"
Elita One
She walked into the sea of cybertronity, her newfound companions on either side of her and hordes of commoners pushing and shoving all around them trying to protect their position in the multitude of lines leading to shuttles, ground transports, energon-kitchens or the recharging beds laid throughout the hastily made and quickly overwhelmed Petrex refugee camps. Even her own shuttles were swarmed when they landed, the masses hoping they could be used to get them farther south. Elita had been gracious in trying to let them know that the shuttles were to be used for the military effort against the sparkeaters, but the masses weren't having it. She attempted to reason with them, but they continued shouting over her. Her patience was worn thin to begin with, she had just spent the last several hours prior to the launch returning every other member of her house back onto the Pool of Solus and covering each of them with the ceremonial shroud of House Solus. Thirty new shrouds had to be created to fully accommodated the dead members of her house, never before had so many of her name perished at once. It would be years before the last of them fully degraded and rejoined the metallico from whence they came, but they were all laid to rest, and Elita, last living member of House Solus, had no patience for irrational and demanding commoners, nor did the surviving House Solus guards.
Fortunately, just as things were about to turn ugly the reclusive House Maximus intervened. Emir Pious arrived with his own house guards as well as a couple dozen of his Maximal vassals, but it was the presence of his kinsman Fortress that truly got the unruly horde to back away and disperse from the plains serving as one of several landing fields away from the cluster of camps. He was massive, just a bit smaller and slightly less hulking than the Rodion criminal Overlord, and like with Overlord, his body moved with the grace of a much smaller bot. His frame exuded power, and the heated glare in his optics let the commoners know he was ready to spring into violent action. It was merely a matter of moments before they had all vanished.
Elita was now being escorted by Emir Pious and lords Helonix and Fortress, a mixed conglomeration of House Maximus, House Solus and Maximal security forces followed after them at a respectful distance. The commoners parted as they noticed the approaching royals, their optics possessing a wide range of emotions, from admiration, to fear, to relief, to outright hostility and contempt. Elita could not care less. She was there to do her duty to Axiom and Cybertron, and to demand justice. Almost as though sensing her thoughts, Fortress Maximus's voice cut through the loud hum of activity around them. "Elita One, you have my deepest condolences for the horror that has befallen your house. It boils my energon pump that the other houses have entered into a truce with these bastard Decepticons."
"Fortress, it is a necessary evil, and no member of House Maximus will break the peace, distasteful as it is." Pious scolded. "Emir Elita, you have the deepest condolences of all of House Maximus as well as Fortress's. I knew few, but I treasure having known Exponum One and having had the honor of calling him friend."
"Thank you Emir Maximus." Elita replied, catching sight of a handful of unwashed robots marching toward them bearing smirks…and Warrior brands!
She started toward them, but Pious Maximus caught her arm. "Elita One, do not let them goad you!"
"Goad her?" One of the Decepticons, a gray and black twenty-five foot beast of a robot with a rectangular, box-like helmet covering his head, cruelly snickered. "I just wanted to give the pretty lady a shoulder to cry on."
Fortress Maximus charged forward, towering nine feet over the large Decepticon. "I've slain twenty-seven Decepticons over the last thirty hours, what's five more?" He smiled malevolently at the large speaker and then to the other four members of the group, all mid-sized and bearing vastly brighter coloration than their apparent leader.
"Fortress Maximus!" Pious called out. "We will not break the peace!"
Fortress stood his ground, glaring hatefully at the Decepticons for nearly a minute before finally emitting a low growl. "Get the hell out of here or I will kill you all." The group of Decepticons gave him defiant glares, but they turned and left as ordered.
"It is an unfortunate state," Pious muttered as they watched the instigators leave, "but we are in need of them. Even in light of the bit of hope we received today."
"Hope?" Elita asked, but tensed as she noticed another dozen robots pushing through the crowd and approaching them.
"Emir Maximus!" The head of the group, a mid-sized gray robot with maroon shoulders and upper arms, called out. "A word, if you would."
"Of course Ramulus." Pious Maximus smiled at the approaching group. "What can I do for you?"
"My Emir, in light of…the news…the…possibility anyway, I…I" Ramulus paused, uncertain of how to proceed.
"House Maximus has always been aware of where the true loyalty of the Maximals lie, and should this possibility turn out to truly be news, you and your people may choose your destiny." Pious replied in a reassuring manner. "And the lands provided you by House Maximus will remain your lands. Our friendship was given not just to your people, but to your liege lords as well."
"Excuse me, Emir Pious," Elita interrupted, "I apologize, but I will continue on to the command center."
"Of course Elita One." Pious replied, pointing out ahead toward a makeshift facility that was significantly larger than most of the others. "That is it right there. I will join you shortly."
The Maximal Ramulus continued as Elita walked away. "If he's anything like his ancestors, he won't be comfortable being referred to as a liege lord."
Elita pushed through the crowds, her House Solus guards catching up and making sure no harm came to her. She was seconds away from the headquarters when a familiar voice called out. "Elita!" Elita turned to see Torenia Pax running toward her through the crowd. Elita could not control the emotions from flooding out of her, and wept tearlessly as she ran forward and embraced her friend. "Easy Elita, you need to do this, but let's get you into private."
"No," Elita immediately composed herself, "no, I'm fine." She forced a smile.
"You poor thing." Torenia hugged her again but pulled back quickly in a show of decorum. "I heard Exponum died in your arms." Elita nodded, prompting both femmes to look down sadly. "I'm so sorry. I can't imagine such pain." She looked back up at Elita. "But despite this horrific tragedy, House Solus will recover. New protoforms will emerge from your pool, and those protoforms couldn't hope to have a better One. Exponum always knew you would lead your house one day."
"Perhaps, but not like this." Elita grumbled.
"No, my dear sweet Elita, not like this." Torenia replied, raising her hand to gently cup her friend's face. "I almost feel ashamed for feeling joy on a day like this."
Elita stared at the ground. "What could possibly bring you joy today?" The younger femme's gaze lingered on the metal ground for a bit longer before finally raising to meet the stunned optics of Torenia.
"You don't know?" Torenia whispered, a smile spreading slowly over her face. "You haven't heard?"
"Heard? Heard what?" Elita asked. "Pious Maximus said something about hope…"
Torenia reached forward and grasped Elita's hand, pulling her toward the command center. "Elita, no one needs good news right now more than you!"
In moments they were inside the quickly assembled facility, dozens of robots marched around full of purpose, many of them high lords or royals, and many others manned a wide array of equipment spread throughout the expanse. Torenia marched them around the busy individuals, finally stopping behind a large orange, red and yellow robot seated at a control panel with a large screen in front of him. He seemed familiar to Elita, she knew that she had seen him before, but could not quite remember where. He turned his head as he heard them approaching, his helmet possessing a visor that covered but left visible his optics, and left his lower face exposed. He chuckled lightly at seeing Torenia, the expression inviting and almost sharing in the joy Torenia seemed to be feeling. "Another viewing Lady Pax?"
"It's not for me this time." She replied cheerfully, prompting the robot to turn and look upon Elita.
His smile immediately vanished and he bowed his head. "Elita One, I'm so sorry to hear what has befallen your house. The Autobots always respected and admired House Solus; were other houses like those of Pax and Solus, my group would never have needed to exist."
"I thank you, Autobot." Elita smiled at him. "I also have great admiration for your group. I agree with your goals, and as One, I will strive to see them achieved."
"Blaster, please play the footage." Torenia asked politely, but insistently.
"Of course my lady," Blaster turned back around, his smile returning slightly, "any starting point in particular?"
"Quit teasing me young bot!" She grumbled playfully, delivering a light slap to his shoulder. "It's the same starting point as it's been for the last couple of hours!"
The screen came to life, a courtyard, it took Elita a moment to recognize it as the courtyard laid out before the Spear of Paxus. She had been there once years ago while visiting Torenia, but now instead of Pax's and other northerners walking about the beautiful yard, there were hideous creatures, two massive, and attached to the Spear itself was an even more massive form, one battered and missing all of its limbs. She was completely confused as to why Torenia would show her this until it happened. A red and blue blur shot out of the building and began fighting the creatures. "Orion!"
Blaster turned and looked at her at the sound of her exclamation, then turned his gaze to Torenia. "She didn't know?"
"Sweet Primus, no!" Elita spat out, ignoring Blaster, and watched as the creatures all seemed to descend toward Orion.
She felt Torenia's hand squeeze hers reassuringly. "I would not bring you in here to watch him die." Torenia stated, prompting the worried Elita to look to her and see the equally reassuring smile. Her head snapped back to the screen and she continued watching the violence that was occurring…or rather had occurred. When had this occurred?
"Lady Torenia, there you are!" A voice called out from behind them. Torenia turned, but Elita could not take her optics off of the fighting on the screen.
"Yes Roadbuster?" Torenia asked.
"My lady, you asked to be informed when the Stellar Spear was inbound." He stated.
"You've got them on your sensors?" Torenia asked with frantic excitement.
"We had them on our sensors several minutes ago." The deep-voiced Roadbuster replied. "I couldn't find you. I believe they're landing in one of the southwestern fields as we speak."
Elita turned her head to see Torenia's head drop and felt Torenia's hand pull away from hers. She looked down to see the ground cruiser that Torenia had transformed into speed away, through the large facility, weaving through many robots and even bouncing against a few as she sped toward and then out the exit. It finally dawned on Elita what had just happened, and she immediately transformed and followed after her friend.
It was tricky maneuvering through the crowd inside the command center, it was virtually impossible making her way through the throngs outside in vehicle mode while at their knee level. She tried for nearly a minute before transforming back to robot mode and pushing through on foot. She could see the landing field in question a mile and a half ahead, as she got closer she saw a ship with an appearance worthy of the name Stellar Spear; it looked like a smaller, flight-capable version of the Spear of Paxus. A few seconds later she could make out the crowds surrounding it, and the vast, bulbous form of the creature that had been strapped to the Spear of Paxus in the footage. She finally pushed through enough to see Torenia get allowed through by the security forces keeping the crowds back from the ship and the limb-less giant it appeared to have towed there. Torenia ran forward and a moment later she was embracing Roller Pax. Elita finally made it through most of the crowd and could hear much of what they said. "Oh thank Primus you two are alright!" Torenia nearly wept out.
"You sound like there was some doubt as to our success." The cocky Roller shot back, and grinned as he caught Torenia stealing glances up toward the open doorway of the ship. "What? Is there something other than me that has piqued your interest?" Elita pushed through the guards as she watched, and they must have recognized who she was because they let her through.
Torenia slapped his shoulder. "It's been over fourteen years, damn it, where is he?" Elita slowly made her way toward them, looking up at the open doorway as well.
Roller chuckled and jerked his thumb back toward the giant. "He was helping to secure Omega Supreme. Apparently he thinks himself a doctor as well as a cop, a regional governor, a general and the greatest prisoner rescuer of all time."
"Ratchet taught me a few tricks." The voice caused everything within Elita to freeze. It was deep, and kind, and reassuring, and confident, and powerful…it was perfect, and it awakened feelings long buried in her. Elita One's optics watched as Torenia pulled away from Roller and darted out toward Orion Pax, as gorgeous…and battered as she remembered him. Torenia threw herself at him, and he caught her as though she weighed nothing, the two embracing each other tightly. It was whispered, not meant to be heard by any other, but Elita barely made out "Mother."
Elita watched intently as the two embraced tightly, her feet slowly carrying her toward them, passing Roller as she went, until finally she felt it, her spark tingled, and she saw him raise his head, his glowing azure optics locked on to hers, and they silently stared at one another. "Are you going to go to her or not?" Torenia's voice broke the lock they had on one another, and a moment later they were throwing themselves at each other, an embrace, a deep kiss, an action so alien yet so familiar. The world stopped, nothing else existed but the two of them…at least until their bodies shuddered under some sort of mild physical blow. They broke off their kiss and looked over to Roller, the hand he had just slapped against Orion's un-wounded shoulder still clutching the shoulder. "Way to go O, that's the Emir of Axiom you're kissing!" He then looked to Elita and grinned. "And you too Elita, you're kissing the mayor of a heap of garbage."
Orion ignored his brother and peered deeply into Elita's optics. "We heard about House Solus flying in. And…about Exponum. I'm so…" Orion froze as he caught sight of something behind her in the crowd. Elita scrutinized his face, and noted a transition in them from a flash of recognition, rage, deep contemplation, and then what appeared to be one of resolve on some course of action, all of which occurred in the span of less than two seconds. Orion gently but authoritatively directed her to the side and then behind him with his hands on her shoulders and started toward the crowd, and as the confused Elita looked up she saw what had drawn Orion's attention. She had caught footage of Sentinel Prime's death as she flew in to Petrex, and clearly recognized the murderer of the Prime. Megatron stood near the front of the crowd surrounding the make-shift tarmac, dozens of his Decepticons pushed in around him, shouldering their way through the civilians but otherwise seeming to behave themselves. Orion marched straight toward this gladiator turned rebel.
"Officer Pax, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that you'd turn up right after Sentinel Prime's death, but I am nonetheless." The chrome warrior called out with a grin. "I am honestly glad to see you alive, and I hope fourteen years' worth of maturity has made you more receptive to my offer, because it still stands."
"Over seven hundred acts of terrorism murdering tens of thousands of innocents, just to throw the government off your scent!" Orion roared as he drew near the Decepticons, all of whom tensed and several stepped forward to intervene, but Megatron waved them down. "An unprovoked coordination of attacks on high houses and their subjects, murdering tens of thousands more, including those actively trying to increase the rights of commoners!"
Megatron shrugged. "You seem surprised. I'm pretty sure I remember telling you, in a general sense anyway, what I was planning on doing." Megatron gave a slight grin as the irate Orion finally reached him and stopped before him. "Did you think I was joking?"
The hundreds surrounding them watched in nervous anticipation as Orion looked up and glared deeply into the optics of the twenty-four foot tall Decepticon Commander, all around them, civilian and Decepticon alike backing away from the two. Though every optic was glued to the two of them, none of them, not even Megatron, saw the blur of a blue fist that knocked the Decepticon into the air, back several feet, and onto the ground. To his credit, Megatron reacted immediately and was back on his feet sending his own black right fist in a blur, but Orion was expecting that and ducked under, sending both fists forward as he did so landing two distracting punches, one to the abdomen, the other to the nose. Orion immediately came up swiping his right fingers across Megatron's optics and following right away with a left cross to the distracted warrior.
Megatron was sent staggering back but again recovered immediately with a swipe of his own, his right balled fist catching Orion in the chest and sending him back to the ground. Megatron stepped toward the downed foe, but almost impossibly Orion sprang back up, seemingly using only his upper back and shoulders to propel himself off the ground, and drove his helmet crest into the bridge of Megatron's nose. Megatron once again stumbled back, and was sent to the ground again by a blur of a snap kick. Elita had been trying to push through to help, but spectators had lined up in front of her, allowing her to see but not to get to the combatants. She suddenly lunged through as she witnessed an enraged Megatron level the giant black cannon on his arm at Orion. "No!" She yelled as she ran to get between the two fighters, Roller at her side with the same intent.
They barely got in front of Orion when they felt his hands clamp on each of their chests and push them back behind him. Elita stared in horror as Orion, a look of almost victory in his optics, thrust his chest forward toward Megatron and held his hands out to the sides. "Do it!" Orion roared over the gasps and protests from the crowd. "Do it, coward! Show these people your superiority! Show them the might of your expensive weapons, armor and enhancements! Drive home the FACT that your ideology and dogma and propaganda is utterly without merit, that it's nothing but ruthless savagery that makes you worth following!"
"Without merit!" Megatron roared back as he stood, lowering his weapon to point toward the ground. "You stand with the Prime, the royalty, the nobility and a senate that exists solely to enforce their will while making a show of placating us? You deny their corruption and stand with those bastards?" Megatron snarled, but his face immediately made it clear that he realized his error and regretted the accusation.
Orion grinned at his bait being taken. "Some of my last memories of being on Cybertron were of standing before the Prime, before the Senate. But I think I made an adequate job of demonstrating that I did NOT stand with them! You may have missed the broadcast, you were likely in Militus Macht's dungeon for failing to have murdered me at that time, but I opposed the Senate, I opposed the Prime. And someone I treasured paid the ultimate price for it!" Orion snarled. "So if you choose to once again suggest that I am aligned with what Sentinel Prime stood for, I suggest you follow it up with a shot from that cannon, because I will be over there in a flash to knock you on your ass again!"
"Enough!" Prowl charged through and stood between the two brawlers. "Megatron, you promised to keep the pe…"
"I HAVE kept the peace!" Megatron snarled. "It was Orion Pax who attacked me without provocation!"
"You have a truce with this bastard?" Orion asked, though Elita could sense that his surprise was a bit less than genuine.
Prowl turned, looked Orion up and down and then nodded. "Aye, we do. A necessary evil, Orion Pax. And where in the Pit have you been all these years?"
"Hiding from you." Orion snapped back, but then looked down and noted the face of the Common Man on Prowl's chest. "What the hell?"
"Things tend to change over the course of fourteen years." A new voice called out, and the crowd continued to part to finally let Blaster and several other Autobots into the inner circle. He walked over and offered his hand in greeting, which Orion immediately grasped with a broad smile. "Great to have you back, kid."
Prowl looked intently at Megatron. "I think everyone can agree that Orion Pax has been out of the loop regarding the situation here in Petrex, and that you cannot blame him for feeling salty over what you and your band of…Decepticons have done, right?"
Megatron glared at Orion for several moments before a forced smile came over his face. "I suppose so. It's to be expected that Orion would be confused by what the Decepticons have tried to do while he's been in hiding."
"Of course I'm confused." Orion replied. "You've existed for at least fourteen years in some form, but from what I've been told you've addressed no grievances publicly, you now claim to fight against the highborn hierarchy, but you've spent nearly a decade and a half murdering lowborn and blaming a group truly out representing the commoners, and your first action you publicly undertake is to attack any semblance of authority at the moment of the planet's greatest peril." Orion turned and started walking toward the structures in the center of the outer Petrex camp. "Yes Megatron, it's hard not to be confused by what you and your murderers have been doing."
Prowl, Blaster, Elita, Roller and others followed after Orion, but just before clearing the circle Roller turned to Megatron. "Megatron, round two goes to Orion."
Twenty minutes later, what constituted the leadership of the various groups was gathered in a smaller structure adjacent to the main control center. The main control room was still needed for the constant communication and surveillance of other parts of Cybertron, and would have proven too loud and distracting for the discussion that was about to commence. Orion and Megatron sat across from one another at the oval-shaped table, other leaders regarding them carefully, clearly afraid that hostilities could start again between the two. But Megatron bore a genuine grin as he looked upon the red and blue robot, who had Elita at his right and Roller Pax at his left. "It's hard to imagine, but you fight better than you used to. Both your hand to hand combat and your rhetoric seem a bit…dirtier."
Orion half shrugged and gave a half-smile. "Too much at stake to risk losing at either."
"You would have us believe that what happened out there wasn't just you lashing out like a child?" Emir Accumenus Honorum questioned almost laughingly from the center of one side of the oval, seated directly across from Emir Delta Magnus.
"Whether you believe it or not means nothing, Emir Honorum." Megatron replied, his optics still fixed on Orion's. "Everything Orion Pax did and said out there was a calculated move. Wasn't it?"
Orion shrugged. "I needed for two things to happen. I needed for everyone to see through your lies about what your group stands for, and I needed to demonstrate that you could be beaten."
"You didn't beat me." Megatron stated in a way that invited argument.
"No." Orion nodded in agreement. "But I wasn't trying to beat you, only show the people that it could be done. I think I succeeded. I guess I'll know in a few hours after the gossip has had a chance to spread."
"He's not dirtier," Elita stated, glaring at Megatron as her hand laid upon Orion's, "he's savvier. He's no longer the child you tried to murder."
"Enough." Prowl, sitting farther down the table, put an end to the sniping. "We're here for a purpose, and bickering with each other will only ensure that we fail."
"True Prowl," Emir Honorum stated, but was staring heatedly at Orion, "but before we get started, I would know where Orion Pax has been for the last fourteen years."
Orion met his stare and nodded. "I have been off-world. It was not by choice, but it was done…" he sent a side-ways look to Roller, "with my best interests in mind. Or so I was told."
"I too have a question for young Orion Pax." Emir Pious Maximus asked from the other end of the long table. "Is it truly Pax, or are you to be called Orion of House Convoy now?"
"It's Pax!" Roller answered insistently.
Orion looked over at his brother and gave an odd smile, but then looked back at Emir Maximus. "It's Pax."
"The sparkeater king seemed quite sure." The enormous Fortress Maximus, standing behind his emir, stated as he peered intently at Orion.
Orion looked over to him and shrugged. "I've been told I have the look. I suppose it was enough to convince Violen Jiger." A look of confusion came over the young returning expatriate as he shifted his gaze around the table at the interested looks on the faces of the others. "I'm sorry, why is this being given credence? None of you can seriously be considering this as possible, can you? Convoy metallico was removed from existence over twelve million years ago."
"It likely is impossible, Orion," Delta Magnus answered, "but it was pointed out that the surviving members of House Convoy, Big Convoy and Lio-Convoy, disappeared without a trace roughly one million years ago, and the possibility was raised that perhaps one or both of them died and that their frames were on Insula Avalonius at that time or moved to it sometime later,"
"I can definitely see House Onyx murdering them and placing the bodies in a cave on an uninhabited is…"
"That's enough, Fortress!" Pious scolded his younger kinsman for the snarled outburst.
"You're suggesting that the trace metallico in my frame came from the corpse or corpses of one or both of the two surviving Convoys?" Orion asked. "I know it's tradition for many houses to place their dead into the metallico sources that spawned them, and that their elements can go on to future generations, but they're more…an additive to the material. Disintegrated frames can't become viable life-metal on their own."
"We know," Accumenus Honorum stated emphatically, "but scientific fact seems to hold little weight against Maximus sentimentality."
"Hold your tongue, Honorum!" Fortress Maximus snarled, this time Pious was not inclined to chastise him for the outburst.
Emir Accumenus glared at the huge and powerful looking robot and was about to emit a snarl of his own, when Torenia Pax, who had been standing behind Roller and Orion, stepped forward and made her voice heard. "Enough! These insults and threats will cease now!" She stared down the table inviting a challenge, but after several seconds of silence she allowed her stern glare to soften and she continued. "The metallico that partially went into making up Orion's frame did not come from the corpses of Big or Lio Convoy." She smiled. "We have evidence that it was placed there."
"What?" The question was blurted from nearly every mouth, including Orion's.
"Lady Torenia," Roller harshly whispered, "now is not the time for this discussion."
Torenia glared at Roller, a look of disbelief mixed in with the anger. "Emir Pax, I could forgive an oversight given all that's happening, but willfully keeping this from your brother?"
"Yes, my brother!" Roller hissed. "He's a Pax. He's been a Pax since you led him into Tyger Pax, and he'll be a Pax until his dying day, and he will be laid upon our birthing grounds with full honors in hopes his traits continue on." He slowly turned his head toward the other members at the table, and addressed them. "This is an internal matter for House Pax, it concerns none of you."
"If he is a Convoy," Pious Maximus started.
"You'll what?" Roller interrupted. "Demand he serve you as a vassal?"
"The Convoys were NEVER our vassals!" Fortress snapped. "They were friends, equals to us all, though only House Maximus believed such! They were our guests, and we have several hundred Maximals out there wondering if their rightful lord has reappeared."
"I am nobody's lord." Orion stated. "I have no idea what Emir Roller and Lady Torenia are discussing, but it matters not. I am to be judged by my words and deeds. Where the metal that makes me originated from is of no consequence."
"Those of the land, and those of a house,
be born of equal worth.
A mech's value set by words and deeds,
not by the spot of its birth."
Megatron's haunting and somber voice silenced the room as he lightly sang the words well known even outside of Nyon. Orion glared at him, but his angry look was only met with a smile.
"To be the last surviving Convoy," the tall, mysterious Mistress of Flame took that moment of silence to saunter forward from behind Delta Magnus, "that would make you a high lord, the last of an ancient line that our legends as well as the monster king depict as the driving force behind the expulsion of the five-faced demons that killed and enslaved our kind, and are likely the basis for the false religion of the southerners. As Convoy you would be far more than you ever would as an adoptee into an inconsequential polar house."
"Inconsequential?" Torenia snarled at the tall, beautiful femme.
"You would no longer need to continue your affiliation with the Autobots." Megatron commented, glossing over the sudden animosity between Torenia Pax and the fiery priestess, and maintaining his smug smile at Orion. "As Lord Convoy, your every desire would be granted. The commoners would love you, north and south, the lowborn have always romanticized House Convoy. As the last of your kind, that kind being a Convoy, you'd be treated as a royal by the royals. Should it all be true, it would be most fortuitous for you that it all came to light prior to getting the face of the Common Man branded into you."
Orion stared evenly at Megatron for a moment before replying. "My convictions are my convictions because I believe them to be true, not because they are advantageous to me." His optics narrowed. "I am NOT a Decepticon."
Megatron lost his smile and a dangerous look came over his face. "You suggest I am less than sincere in my beliefs?"
Orion displayed a slight grin. "Would you hold with your current ideals were you born a weakling? A simpleton?"
"I wouldn't have been able to come up with my ideals were I born a simpleton." Megatron sneered. "And were I weak, I'd have honed some form of usefulness. And should I have failed at that, then so be it, I'd have been forced to acknowledge my inferiority and accepted whatever justice my betters…my true betters, chose for me."
"I don't believe you." Orion stated. "Your own braggadocio makes you out to be the greatest deceiver on the planet, and I can't for a moment imagine you offering yourself up for another's greater good." Orion then looked to the other leaders at the table. "I apologize for continuing to keep us off course. I believe we should discuss our defense against the sparkeaters."
"Orion Pax is right." Delta Magnus took charge, but seemed to be distracted a bit as he glanced up to see the Mistress of Flame staring intently at Orion. Elita failed to notice Delta Magnus's slight faltering as she too was a little put off by the priestess's attention on the newly returned Pax. "It is essential that we devise a strategy to fight these creatures."
"I think our course is clear." Emir Honorum cut in. "We intercept them on their way to Iacon, likely at Peptex, our soldiers cut them open and then blast their exposed sparks."
"Ha!" Megatron emitted. "You think that because you saw Orion Pax kills some sparkeaters, that your soldiers will be capable of doing the same?" He shook his head. "You're a fool, Emir Honorum, and those that follow you are doomed. The footage from Tyger Pax was extremely useful, but it is not to be seen as a 'how-to' for the common foot soldier. I can kill sparkeaters, Shockwave can as well, Delta Magnus, Overlord, Grimlock, possibly Ultra Magnus, and from what I hear from the few Decepticons that survived the assault on Protihex, Fortress Maximus likely can as well. And beyond them, maybe a handful more warriors on the planet. But a dozen lesser soldiers, even marginally lesser, going at a single sparkeater will just wind up as food.
"He's right." Delta Magnus agreed. "Ultra Magnus and I have spent some time in the training ring with Orion, and he easily held his own against the two of us."
"He didn't hold his own," Ultra Magnus chimed in, "he flat out beat me."
"It appears I should remove Ultra Magnus from my list of sparkeater-killers." Megatron snidely added.
"It did take a great deal of force to cut them open." Orion added. "With all due humility, I am quite strong, and quite fast as well, and after nine years of melee warfare against enemies with multiple redundancies built into their frames making them very difficult to kill, I'm quite battle-hardened. And even with my physical advantages, battlefield sharpness, and the aid and weaponry of Emir Pax and the Tyger Pax defenses, it took everything we had not to get killed. So yes, we will need to devise something more elaborate that just cut and shoot." He looked them all over. "But I don't disagree with Emir Honorum about intercepting them at Peptex. Guardian Spaceport has fallen, but the reports we have are that it was only a single small aerial freight hauler that delivered the sparkeaters, and that their numbers in Cybertropolis are tiny…to the point where we've received no reports of them outside the spaceport. So barring that small number likely sent solely to take command of the planet's primary spaceport and possibly the Capital Spires, the bulk of their army is still north of the Mithril Sea. Emir Pax did a good job of evacuating most of House Pax's personnel and assets, and while there are other aerial transports in and around Polarus, they are few, small, and for the most part quite modest. But should the sparkeater army reach Iacon, they'd find more than enough transport methods to get them quickly south of the sea, and once done there are no more natural barriers to confine them. As far as I know there haven't been any ships leaving Guardian Spaceport since it fell, my guess is that's due primarily to a lack of pilots to bring the ships that are there back to Polarus or Taenarus, well, just Polarus I guess, there isn't enough space to put multiple ships in front of what's left of the Tartarun Gates. But whatever the case, we also need to send a force to reclaim Guardian Spaceport, or at least take or destroy every ship there so that they can't use them once they get their pilot shortage sorted out." Elita gently squeezed Orion's hand and smiled at him, causing a nervous look to come over him. "I did not intend to speak out of turn, nor do I mean to presume anything. I will be silent as the proper authorities discuss matters and only answer questions asked of me or to provide any insight into our enemies that I may have observed at Tyger Pax."
"Do not apologize, Orion Pax." Megatron replied in an almost scolding manner. "Even prior to your exchange with this Violen Jiger and his forces, your voice should carry far more weight than those of anyone else at this table. You, Shockwave, Soundwave, Delta Magnus, Ultra Magnus, Fortress Maximus, Roller Pax and Elita One are the only royals to have shown themselves to be of any worth in battle, and Elita One's inclusion is based solely on the magical armor in her possession."
"Am I to understand that you stole that cannon on your arm from a common armory?" Elita hissed back.
"Touché." Megatron chuckled. "But back to my point, Orion, should you have something to say, do not hesitate to do so. Your birth, whether low or high, means nothing in the coming war, or ever now that I've put an end to the hierarchal status quo. Do not look for permission from the likes of Accumenus Honorum, Dominus Ambus or Pious Maximus before adding your valuable contributions."
"Enough!" Delta Magnus growled. "This meeting has been overrun by not-so-passive aggressiveness, and it ends now! Orion, you have more than proven yourself worthy of contributing, and I completely agree with your assessment. What we need to do first and foremost is to devise a chain of command, unite our various forces into a single army with a single goal."
Megatron chuckled, prompting all to look at him. He provided a shrug and rolling of his optics along with a sardonic grin. "Decepticons, government forces, Autobots, surviving high house guards, leaderless southerners, northerners and everything in between all bowing before Delta Magnus, or Delta Prime, or whatever your aspirations may be?" Megatron shook his head. "I agreed to cooperation, not assimilation. You come up with plans involving coordination, or joint strikes, or any other form where we rely upon one another to destroy the common enemy, absolutely. I would even be willing to place some Decepticon warriors temporarily under the command of competent non-Decepticon officers should the need arise. But we will not be joining you. Your dominion over me and my followers has come to an end."
"We will not defeat these creatures with various fractured forces!" Delta grumbled back. "I'm not suggesting bent knees, but a unified front is essential."
"My lords?" A small predominantly blue robot entered the structure. "I apologize for interrupting…" He stopped talking as Soundwave pushed past him and walked right up to the table, his optics on Megatron the entire time.
"Lord Megatron, we have received word from Tyger Pax. Violen Jiger requests a parlay with our leaders." Soundwave stated to his leader, ignoring everyone else in the room.
"Good, I would like to get the full measure of this demon king." Megatron replied with a grin. "Though I don't think us leaders would be willing to go to Polarus without our armies at our backs."
"He claims to have the means to travel to a neutral area." The smaller blue robot chimed in as he took a step further into the large room.
"Thank you Eject." Emir Honorum said, reasserting himself at the table. "I have no doubt this beast has some sort of treachery in mind."
"There are many islands on the Mithril Sea." Delta Magnus added. "It would be impossible for him to get his monsters close to us there without our knowing it."
"He has already stated where this neutral meeting place is to be, and yes, it is an island in the Mithril Sea." Soundwave replied, turning his gaze to Orion Pax. "He wishes to meet at Insula Avalonius."
Polar Claw
"You do understand what I just told you, right?" The arrogant blue and yellow homeworlder asked condescendingly, as though stunned that Polar Claw's reaction to his statement wasn't to instantly jump up, gather the troops and follow this guy into the jaws of death…literally.
"I understand completely." Polar Claw politely but firmly replied to this Nightbeat. They were on the bridge of the long-downed Axalon, the starhopper that Nightbeat had arrived to Helios-3…or Earth as the natives referred to it, was parked out on the polar ice a half mile away. "But what do you expect from us. Our numbers are a few dozen. Our ship is inoperable, our knowledge of Cybertron is a million years out of date and our knowledge of sparkeaters is damn near nothing."
"I don't expect anything from you and your Maximals!" Nightbeat snapped. "Nothing beyond telling me where to find the greatest warship, leader and warriors Cybertron ever produced!"
Polar Claw looked Nightbeat up and down. "I have no idea of what you're talking about."
"Cut the shit, Polar Claw!" Nightbeat growled. "The Manifest is here, on this planet! You've been guarding it for over a million years! You've fought wars over it for the last quarter of those years!" Polar Claw glanced over to Rattrap standing near the entrance of the bridge between Bonecrusher and Cybershark, who just shrugged apologetically in return. "You want to remove or destroy the Ferrotaxis, fine! You want to remove Jhiaxus from the ship and keep him in your custody should he still be alive, then fine! I don't care! I have no interest in the galactic ambitions Guardian Prime may or may not have had. All I'm interested in is the ability to destroy sparkeaters that ship has. The hope and inspiration the population of Cybertron will be filled with, whether deserved or not, by the return of Guardian Prime. Galvatron, Cyclonus, their army! They may be the only thing that can save our home world, and you're going to let us all die because you were told that Guardian Prime's astounding and unequalled contributions were all offset because he was allegedly getting a bit too ambitious in his later years!"
"We have orders." Polar Claw growled back.
"By a dead house following a former Prime who in all likelihood orchestrated all this just to become Prime again!" Nightbeat snapped. "None of whom could have imagined the sparkeaters re-emerging in the midst of some sort of southern commoner uprising powerful enough to kill the sitting Prime!"
"You know nothing." Polar Claw replied.
"I'm right, Primus damn it all!" Nightbeat yelled. "Tell me I'm wrong, I slagging dare you!"
Polar Claw stared silently at the homeworlder for nearly a minute before looking past him toward the entrance of the bridge at his three soldiers standing there. "Bonecrusher, Cybershark, take Nightbeat into custody and place him in the brig."
"You're dooming your world." Nightbeat hissed.
"I'm cooling you down, and giving me time to think this through." Polar Claw angrily explained. "Though frankly, given all that the home world has done, this may just be their rightful comeuppance."
"You can't possibly believe that!" Nightbeat protested as the hands of Bonecrusher and Cybershark clamped onto his upper arms and started dragging him away. "Even if you are that myopic, there are other Maximals still on Cybertron!"
Polar Claw looked away as the prisoner was led off the bridge, leaving him alone with Rattrap. The imposing Maximal knew that it was only going to be a second or two before the little twerp chimed in. "You know he's right." One second, not two.
The white and red robot turned his head and glared at the much smaller Maximal. "You suggest we simply release them? Ignore our vows to Big Convoy? Unleash the Ferrotaxis on the universe?"
"Destroy it, like Nighbeat said." Rattrap replied.
"They'll just make a new one!" Polar Claw roared. "Even if we make sure Jhiaxus is dead, they have enough of his notes to piece together another one."
"Chances are they're all dead, even Guardian Prime and Galvatron." Rattrap muttered. "We go in, do a sweep, verify they're dead…one way or another, and give Nightbeat the ship. The ship alone can wipe out cities, it should have no problem mopping up a few thousand spark-suckers. And hell, it's plenty big to finally get us all of this mud-ball. We get Nightbeat to keep his mouth shut, and as we'll be returning heroes, nobody'll bother to accuse us of any wrongdoing."
"I…I cannot kill those in stasis." Polar Claw grumbled quietly. "Either by my hand or through hands under my command. Nor can I wake them and give them a chance to defend themselves. It would be an option were it anyone else, but I cannot hope to defeat Guardian Prime or Galvatron. Even Cyclonus would likely be more than I could handle. And the stakes are too high to allow a possibility of them getting free."
"Ya' need to shelve that honor of yours." Rattrap stated. "You can't acknowledge the stakes, and then let your honor hold you back from what needs to be done."
Polar Claw thought silently for a few moments before shaking his head. "No, that's just it." He looked intently into Rattrap's optics. "Nothing needs to be done."
Orion Pax
"Black coral?" Orion whispered as he stood at the mouth of the cave looking into the darkness.
Torenia, Roller and Elita were gathered behind him, Elita reaching forward to grasp his right hand with hers. Torenia's voice gently rolled out. "The scientific nomenclature is…"
"Corallium Furvus, yes, Roller whispered it at Tyger Pax." Orion interrupted as he continued gazing into the darkness within. "I've heard of it, how it used to be used to fashion urns or casks to hold sentio metallico, but twelve million years?" Orion muttered, getting them back on track. "Black coral's preservative properties aren't anywhere near that potent."
"I know, buddy." Roller said as he walked past the others and entered the cave, shining a light from his frame to illuminate the cavern, but then focusing it on the ground. He leaned over and began brushing away dirt, finally revealing a piece of the black coral jutting out of the ground. "I tested a piece I broke off of this one. It dated to over twelve million years since being removed from the sea, and it was definitely fashioned into a shape, it was definitely not some natural bit of coral brought up here by some animal, something intelligent fished it from the sea, shaped it, and put it here." Roller shut off his lights and walked out of the cave, stopping in front of Orion and peering up into his optics. "Whatever you are, wherever you came from, it changes nothing. I know what I said earlier, but if you're a Convoy, and you want to take the name, then do so. But we're still brothers, we'll always be brothers, no matter what you call yourself."
Orion smiled and placed his hand on Roller's shoulder. "Of course, that will never change. Nor will my name. I am and always will be Orion Pax."
"Well hold one there…" Roller grinned, "I'd be OK with you changing it to Orion Prime at some point."
"Ha!" Orion let out a genuine laugh and pushed his brother away playfully. "That's a big step up from mayor of a garbage heap. That's more a next-step for an emir…" he looked to Elita and grinned, "or a One."
"Not a chance." Elita grinned as she squeezed Orion's hand, but they all looked up as a shadow fell on them. The skies over the island had been abuzz with the jet modes of two dozen flying Cybertronians, all but three of them Decepticons. It seemed Megatron had spent a fair bit of time, energy and expense finding, recruiting and altering those with shell modes that would be flight compatible with the right alterations. The fliers were there to monitor for the arrival of the sparkeater king or any treachery that he may have in store. The flier descending upon them now was a dark blue jet transforming into a sleek robot nearly identical in shape to Starcream. Orion noticed Elita wince, recognizing the similarity to the orchestrator of her House's demise was beyond unsettling to her. "Who the hell are you and what do you want?" She snarled at the flier as he landed gracefully on the rock, dirt and metal ground.
"I am Thundercracker of Centurion, and Lord Megatron send me to retrieve you all." The blue robot stated indifferently. "Three large insect-like creatures were detected flying at a high rate of speed toward the island."
"I thought he was to come alone." Torenia stated.
Orion looked to his companions. He wanted them off, but as emirs, Elita and Roller were expected to be there. "Roller, please arrange to have Lady Torenia returned to Petrex."
"Absolutely not!" Torenia growled back. "I came with you three, I will be leaving with you three."
"Is there any sign of anything coming here beyond these three bugs?" Elita asked, her tone less threatening than before.
"No, but we will remain vigilant and alert you should that change." Thundercracker stated. He turned to take off and leave, but paused and shifted his head back slightly in their direction. "I've overheard some Autobots mention that Exponum One provided them aid."
"It's true." Elita replied. "We had to do it quietly as they were an outlaw group, but Exponum and I funneled resources and information to them when we could. Why?"
Thundercracker looked her over a bit, something resembling uncertainty in his face for just a moment. "They are expecting you on the beach." With that he leapt to the sky, transformed and shot away.
The four robots made their way down the mountain, through the jungles, and were soon approaching the beach that Torenia and Elita had first set foot on more than fifteen years before after their ship went down. The crowd of Cybertronian leaders stood on the beach, looking out over the ocean facing the northwest expectantly looking for the three forms they'd been informed of to arrive. Orion sent a mental command to the compartment hastily built for him by a pair of smiths back in Petrex while they waited for their transports to Avalonius to be arranged, and at feeling it open reached back and took hold of his collapsed ion blaster, snapping it into shape as he pulled it forward to the front of his body. "Lady Torenia, I must insist that you stay back, off of the beach, as far from…"
"You do as I say, Orion Pax, NOT the other way around!" Torenia insisted. "And that will be the case even when you truly do become Orion Prime." She whispered playfully as they drew near the assembled Cybertronians, her comment too low to be heard by anyone, but the Mistress of Flame turned and peered intently at them the moment it left her mouth, as though she knew exactly what was said.
The four joined the rest of the group, and turned their gaze to the horizon like the others, finally catching sight of three tiny pinpricks in the distance. But as the seconds passed the shapes grew larger, until finally they could make them out clearly enough to take in the terrifying features of three insectoids, each the size of a very large Cybertronian, each with dark blue/gray shells and monstrous heads lined with horns and teeth. The crowd tensed collectively as the beasts reached the beach and converged into one giant and familiar form. Violen Jiger stood tall in the sand, and pulled out a long cloak that was the color his bestial shells were and wrapped it around his shoulders, attaching the ends to make a cape that went down almost to the ground. He provided the group a hideous smile. "I may have started life as a tribe-less Pentiathan spawn, but I do enjoy my finery at times."
"Yes, you look quite regal." Roller stated sarcastically.
"So nice to see you again, Emir Pax." The massive enemy said.
"Violen Jiger, I am Delta Magnus, Emir of the Tagan Heights, and the agreed upon foreman of the leaders of Cybertron." Delta called out waving his arm toward a large table with many chairs arranged around it, the chairs ranging in size to accommodate the smaller than average all the way up to the massive king of the sparkeaters. "We have a table and chairs arranged for this discussion. While we all have our doubts, each one of us genuinely hopes to come to some sort of mutually agreeable accord here today."
Violen Jiger smiled and nodded. "That is excellent to hear." The massive creature made his way toward the largest chair at the table, and the rest of the group took their places at the table as well. Just as the last seat was filled Violen Jiger continued. "My spark's desire is to unleash myself and my minions upon Cybertron, conquering all and devouring most, but recognizing the need to ration what's consumed and allowing your population to replenish itself. You all wish for me and my army to cease to exist, or to at least return from whence we came and never bother you again. You cannot simply sit back and allow me to accomplish my goal, and I have no intention of allowing what you would have happen come to pass. So I've conceived of a compromise that I feel to be acceptable to all sitting here."
Accumenus Honorum smiled broadly. "That is wonderful to hear. We should have known that the legends of our forebears had depicted you unfairly. You truly seem reasonable and fair-minded."
"Let's hear the compromise." Prowl stated, almost cutting Emir Honorum off.
Violen Jiger leaned forward and seemed to stare them all down with all six of his demonic optics. "You will all remain in your positions of power. You will pay homage to me and do as I say, but otherwise you will rule your lands or groups or whatever as you do now. I will even allow each of you to select one hundred individuals to remain unmolested by myself, my sparkeaters, my demons and my thralls, and another thousand who are not to be killed. The land and possessions of these one thousand will be fair game to my thralls; the demons and sparkeaters care nothing for land or possessions, but their lives will be protected. But all others on the planet not on these lists will be fair game, and the hunts will not be interfered with. I will even allow you one offspring per pulse at each of your spawning grounds." The monstrous central visage of the creature settled on Orion and smiled. "For you Lord Convoy, I will allow you to choose a hot spot as your own. I chose this island for our meeting to see if it would suffice as a hot spot for your future generations, but even my senses can't detect more than the most minimal of trace elements of metallico on this rock beyond all of you and the other living Cybertronians you brought with you. So I will allow you to choose any site you wish and lay claim to one protoform per pulse from that location." He looked away from Orion and scanned the rest of them. "And that's it. I suppose there may be details to iron out, but I don't see anything that could pose a problem should you choose to accept my generous offer."
"It is most gracious, your grace," Accumenus offered with a slightly bowed head, "but please allow us to confer amongst ourselves."
Violen Jiger smiled and started to offer a nod, but was stopped by "No!" All optics turned to Orion, who was glaring down at Emir Honorum. "Are you insane? You would offer up over ninety-nine percent of our population to cybervores? You call that a fair and reasonable compromise? I do not speak for House Honorum, I do not speak for anyone by myself, but I will not be accepting that offer."
"Nor will I." Megatron stated calmly but authoritatively. "Cybertron will have a master, but that master will not be you."
"House Magnus and all of the Tagan Heights rejects your offer as well." Delta Magnus asserted.
"As does House Pax!" Roller followed.
"Your offer is rejected, Violen Jiger." Elita One announced. "We take our stewardship of the people seriously, and we will not be offering them up to you."
"Not a single spark." Orion stated.
Violen Jiger smiled and nodded. "So be it. I'm not entirely surprised. After my run in with Emir Pax and Lord Convoy, I knew there were those of you with courage. I had just hoped there were more of you with sense."
"Sorry to disappoint you, asshole." Fortress Maximus stated with a grin on his face.
Violen Jiger stood from his chair and nodded to them all. "Very well then, at least I know that I tried. What happens now is entirely due to you and your intransigence."
"And what is to happen now?" Delta Magnus asked as he too stood.
"I return to Tyger Pax." The monstrous giant announced. "Then tomorrow I lead my army to Iacon and decimate what's left there. I'm assuming the city will be evacuated for the most part…" Violen Jiger paused and looked up, seeing a gray, red and blue jet drop down, transform, and land on the beach. Starscream nervously walked toward the group, specifically toward Megatron. Everyone noted the strange way the demon king was studying Starscream, but couldn't fathom why. "What is your name?"
Starscream stared at him in terror, then looked to Megatron, who shrugged and nodded. Starscream looked back at the giant. "Starscream…of House Nexus."
Violen Jiger cocked an optic-brow and inhaled deeply. "Another adoption I assume. Which of these leaders do you fight for Starscream?"
"I am a Decepticon." Starscream replied nervously, nodding toward Megatron.
Violen Jiger nodded and smiled. "I will see you again, Starscream of the Decepticons." The huge creature then turned toward the water, ripped off his cape and made to separate, but a voice calling out stopped him.
"Violen Jiger!" The giant turned and gave a look of annoyance at Orion's voice. "My axe, is it still embedded in the Spear of Paxus?"
Violen Jiger chuckled, not bothering to turn around as he answered. "Yes. It's a nice axe, would you like me to send it to you?"
"No." Orion stated. "Leave it there. I'll retrieve it myself after we've taken back Tyger Pax." With that Orion turned and started marching back toward the clearing that they had landed their transports in. He heard Violen Jiger chuckle before the sounds he assumed to be his transformation into the three insects. This parlay had been a waste of time, as Orion knew it would be, and they had a lot of preparations to make if they were going to defeat these creature on the morrow.
