Disclaimer: Hey everyone! It's DragonScouter here, late with an update as usual. Not a whole lot to say about life on my end of the spectrum but I do want to say that I hope you all will enjoy this chapter and the small surprises that it might bring to you all. Well, enough talking from me. You all may now enjoy the chapter!
"Can't you mechs give me five clicks of quiet?" I asked the two mechs with me as I laid in medbay, waiting for the actual two cycles to be up so I would have the all-clear to leave. In the almost two cycles since I had become unfrozen from the ship's control and had surprisingly met Rumble and Frenzy.
At that time, I had Lord Megatron and Soundwave both in here due to my finding out about the twins. After some very serious insinuations about what would happen to my current online status if I said anything about the twins to anybot not on the ship, the three of us had been left to our own devices. Of course, Rumble and Frenzy had not wasted a click in bombarding me with any and all questions that they could get out. Some were easy to answer. Others, however, I had to really watch myself in answering or reveal to the Decepticons about what I really was...somewhat. I knew that, eventually, they were going to find out that I hadn't always been a child of Primus.
Of course, there was a good side to them asking me all of these questions. They were keeping my processor away from what was probably already started. The four-part episode line from the show where everybot split up to look for the relics. Since I was a warrior for the Decepticons, I knew that I was going to be sent out on one of the missions. I knew that the Autobots needed to be kept on a level playing field so I really hoped that I wouldn't be sent on the mission with Soundwave. That wouldn't be good at all.
I was pretty sure that, given the timing that had already passed since the ship was returned to Lord Megatron's control, I was not going to be going to the mission with Knockout in New York. While a part of me was upset with that fact, give how that would have been the easiest mission for me to help out with, the rest of my processor reminded me that claustrophobia and I were really good friends now that I was a triple changer and I would have probably messed up that mission somehow.
That left just two missions to have a chance to be placed on, and I hoped that I would end up going to the arctic with whoever ended up going there. While the cold weather was not going to help my circuits in the slightest, it was going to be better than messing with the tox-en. That stuff was going to be terrible for whoever went with to deal with. Of course, I would also have to figure out how to make sure that the stuff got destroyed while keeping up the fact that I was now a Decepticon.
Of course, I could get really lucky and not have to go on any of the missions. I could stay back, do some training in, and try to stay helpful to Lord Megatron and our cause. That would be the best thing that could happen to me at this time. But, when do I ever get what I want?
"Well, since we get to be your shadow when the boss bot isn't around and you are, and sometimes even if Soundwave is around, then probably not," Rumble replied to my earlier question with a smart-aft comment.
Letting out a sigh, I was about to go back to sleep when my internal alarm went off, telling me that my time in solitude due to my run-in with the ship was done. Thank Primus. Holding out a servo for the mechs to hop on, I got up before making my way to the bridge. "What are you doing now?" Frenzy asked as I walked out of medbay.
I motioned toward the direction of the bridge. "I am going to see if there is anything I can do to help since I am now technically cleared from medbay."
"Really?" They both whined at me.
In turn, I raised an optic ridge at them. "Really. Why are you two so upset about this? You literally met me less than two cycles ago and you are bummed that I want to check-in?" I wasn't getting why they were upset at this.
Both looked up at me before Rumble responded to me. "You are the new bot though, and from what we saw spying on you femme you don't seem to be stuck up. Why would you go check-in when you don't have to and you could be getting to know us better?"
"And how would you suggest that I get to know the two of you better?" I was curious about where they were going with this.
"We'd see how good you are at setting up pranks, or how we can use you while we set up pranks." Frenzy answered.
Shaking my helm, I turned down a hall. "No. I want to have fun with you mechs. But, that seems a little too risky for me to get involved with. I won't snitch on you two, just don't get me involved in any sense."
"We'll try." Was their response to me that made me shake my helm. Those two were going to be the offlining of me.
However, I had to focus so I entered the bridge and made my way to be in sight of Lord Megatron. I needed to make sure that he saw me so he would know that I was ready to serve. As soon as the twins hopped off of my servo and onto the console next to me, it seemed that my leader was ready to address me. "Pandimala, have you fully recovered?"
I nodded once. "Yes, and I am ready to serve you, my Lord."
His optics stared at me for a nano before he nodded. "Very good, because there is an errand that I need you to complete. As the report that you received earlier stated, the ship was able to decode four of the coordinates from the Iaconian database when it temporarily took over. Teams have already been sent out to retrieve some of these. I will be sending you and one other to go and retrieve one of these relics."
"Of course my Lord," I responded before I decided to try and find out who I was going with. "My Lord, if I am not stepping out of line, may I ask who I will be on this mission with?"
I flinched at the briefly annoyed look that crossed Lord Megatron's optics at my question. Thankfully for my continued health, that look was very brief before it turned neutral. "You may. You shall be accompanying the fiercest of the insecticons on the ship to retrieve the relic at the final coordinates. Hardshell."
I felt a shiver go down my backplates when I heard the slight rumbling sound the insecticons seemed to make come from above me before said scarred insecticon dropped down. "My Lord, I do not need this femme to watch as I am capable of retrieving the relic on my own."
This coming from the bot that was destined to be killed by Miko? Ha! But, I couldn't say anything about that. Before I could say anything in my defense, however, Lord Megatron decided to respond to Hardshell. "My orders are as stands Hardshell. Those who do not wish to follow my orders will cease to exist." I barely held back a gulp at that. Scary. "The two of you are to make sure that the relic does not fall into the Autobot servos, no matter the cost."
Wait, that wasn't right. When Lord Megatron gave Hardshell the order in the show, he said to pretty much annihilate anything that Hardshell came across. What was with this change? I wasn't sure if I liked it or now but, what I did know was that this was going to be a long mission. I was going to offline.
"Yes, my Lord," I responded to our leader before Hardshell gave a similar response. Once we did, Lord Megatron opened the ground bridge and the two of us walked through.
On the other side, I saw that this was the same place that it was in the show and I was ready to offline myself. I really hated this episode. Hopefully, with my recent injuries newly healed, the tox-en wouldn't offline me.
"While on this mission, I am in charge, femme," Hardshell demanded in a harsh tone and before I could refute that order, he transformed. "We shall divide and conquer all that fall in our paths." He then started to fly away.
"We shouldn't split up!" I yelled after the idiotic bug. But, he was already out of sight. While I could technically catch him, I knew that there was no getting through Hardshell's thick one-track processor.
So, with a sigh, I started to move across the landscape to where the relic should be. One thing that I noticed immediately was that the heat from the equator was definitely going to take some getting used to after being on the almost arctic-temperature ship. Secondly, I noticed that…"Ugh! That smell is definitely worse than Shadow after a day at the gym." Eh, she wasn't here to kill me for saying that so I didn't feel bad in saying it.
About twenty clicks into my walk I heard buzzing coming from my side and I turned to watch Hardshell flying overhead, probably toward where Bulkhead was at the location of the relic. Well, the supposed location of the relic. I knew, from the show, that the relic was actually carried with a lava-flow and would be exposed. So, while Hardshell was going lone-ranger and fighting Bulkhead, I was going to get the tox-en and report to Lord Megatron.
After another ten clicks of walking, I finally got the relic within my sights. "Finally," I sighed as I stopped in front of the canister. Carefully, I opened the canister and, once I glanced inside, the fumes alone made me back away. Slag that tox-en was powerful stuff. Figured I should report in. "Lord Megatron, Pandimala reporting in."
"Proceed." I heard my leader's reply.
So, I did just that. "I have located the relic. It is tox-en Lord Megatron."
"Exactly how much is in your possession?"
"My lord, I have about a servo-full in my possession." I knew what was about to be his order and I was not going to like dis-o,
"Clearly not enough to work with. Bringing that substance aboard my ship in such low quantities would be more of a hindrance to the functioning of my ship than a benefit. Where is Hardshell?"
...Say what? He didn't want to keep it? Before I could delve into that though, I knew that I needed to respond to my leader. "I do not know my Lord."
"What?!"
Uh-oh. Time to cover my aft...and quickly. "When we exited the ground bridge, my Lord, Hardshell said that he was in charge and for us to split up before he flew off. I apologize for not being able to stop him, my Lord." Explain and apologize. The best thing for me to do right now.
"I shall deal with Hardshell upon your return. For now, your mission is to make sure that all of the tox-en is destroyed. The Autobots have become more ruthless in recent solars and I would not put it past our enemy to use the tox-en to their advantage."
"Of course, my Lord," I responded before I heard my leader close the call on his end.
I wasn't sure if I was supposed to be surprised, or cry. On one servo, Lord Megatron didn't want the tox-en to use against the Autobots and wanted me to destroy it. That was surprising and good because the tox-en wouldn't be a part of the story. However, the bad news in this was that I now had to take the tox-en up the volcano and destroy it. Plus, given my lack of decent flying skills and just getting out of medbay, I knew that I was going to have to walk.
Wait...medbay…I was on this mission and was going to be in rough shape after this…
Knockout was going to offline me after this!
"Pandimala. Surprised to see your treacherous faceplate out here in a place so dangerous."
I focused as I heard the familiar set of vocals and narrowed my optics as Bulkhead stopped so the container was in-between both of us. "Bulkhead. Surprised you made it away from Hardshell." Actually, I wasn't but I had to make sure that I kept up the banters to the Autobots. I had to make sure that they still wanted me offline.
"I've dealt with plenty of bugs in the past." He then took a step forward and took out his mace. "And I've snuffed plenty of traitors too. You'll be easy to take out to get to the relic." He then finally seemed to get in view of the relic. "Tox-en!" He sounded very surprised at that and, when he quickly glanced up at me, I knew that I had to move quickly.
The two of us seemed to launch at the container at the same time before we clashed, fist meeting mace. Frag that hurt! But, it didn't hurt nearly as bad as training with Soundwave so I simply used the weight of the mace to my advantage and hit Bulkhead with a series of hits that forced him back. After one really strong hit on him, I faltered.
I knew I was a Decepticon now, and that I had betrayed them. But after that hit, I saw the damage I was causing to a mech that, not too terribly long ago, I had called a friend and had fun with. Why was I pushing so hard against him?
That one nano of hesitation was all Bulkhead needed to slam the side of my helm with his mace and I was thrown away from him. As I stood up, I noticed that I was leaking energon from my helm. This wasn't good at all. Frag it! Glancing next to me, I saw the canister and knew that I had to take my chance.
Priming my cannons, I quickly fired a stream of fire at the ground in front of Bulkhead. Some higher being had to be looking out for me because, for some reason, the ground actually caught fire in front of the wrecker. Not wanting to waste this opportunity, I reached into the canister and grabbed the tox-en before running toward the side of the volcano which, eventually, would lead to my climb to the top. My hope was that, by leaving the canister there, I would distract Bulkhead a little to get a head start. I figured that he was going to follow me to get the stuff away from me.
As I ran, I started to feel heavy. This must be the side-effects of the tox-en setting in already. This was not good. I just got to the base of the volcano. I couldn't risk stopping, unlike Bulkhead during the show. If I stopped, then I knew that Bulkhead was going to be right on my aft. I had to get to the top of the volcano and destroy this damned rock. I couldn't trust it to Bulkhead. With the change in the fact that I was with Hardshell, then I would have had to hunt Bulkhead with Hardshell, making his chances of getting to the top even less. In the scenario we had now, I was being chased by Bulkhead who was being chased by Hardshell. So really, the only one who had a disadvantage was me, given that I was getting weaker with every nano that I was holding the tox-en.
As I grew closer to the top, and I felt myself getting weaker and weaker, I suddenly had a thought. I had literally just met the twins a couple of cycles ago. I had better not offline before I got to talk with them more. Do you hear me, Primus? I had better not offline because of this! "Fragging l...l...luck." I barely got out as I grabbed the edge of the volcano. Where the frag was Hardshell? I was half-offline and he was a no-show!? He could have at least followed the energon trail that I was sure that Bulkhead was following at this click. "Almost there " I whispered in relief.
My pedes were heavy beneath me as I moved closer to the opening of the volcano that I could ditch this tox-en in. Thank whatever being allowed me to get this close to doing this. I needed to destroy the energon. No matter how much pain I was in right now, my chassis practically screaming at me to stop, I had to keep pushing forward.
"So, couldn't get a signal down there so you thought you'd call your 'Con buddies up here." Frag it! Slowly, I turned to see Bulkhead approaching me. When I was at full health, I knew that dealing with Bulkhead wasn't easy, and in this state, I actually feared for my continued online status. Before I could even try to defend myself, Bulkhead ran up to me and threw me towards the heat. I wasn't close enough to drop the tox-en in, but I was close enough to feel the heat against my faceplate. This...this wasn't good.
Panic flooded my systems when I heard pedesteps approaching me. Scrap. I was done for. Bulkhead was going to offline me now and do who-knew what with the tox-en. I knew he could throw it in, but I couldn't completely trust that he would. Lord Megatron was right. The Autobots were much less predictable with the stress that we Decepticons had been putting on them. My betrayal, of course, being one of those. If Bulkhead didn't offline me, then he would probably take me back to base as a prisoner and then who knew what would happen with the plan.
Why did I get the hard part of Alpha Trion's plan again?
"Wrecker!" I never thought I would be so happy to hear the sound of Hardshell's voice. But look, I was. "Stay away from the rock, and allow me to put you out of your misery." Through my blurry vision, I noticed that the bug was looking toward me. "You, keep your servos on the relic. The only useful thing you can do is to make sure we deliver it to our lord and master." Nevermind. Not so happy. Did the bug not see that I needed medical attention ASAP? Also, if he had checked in with Lord Megatron, he would know that we needed to destroy the tox-en. Not keep it.
Oh, and one more thing...
Holding onto a dangerous substance was not the only useful thing I could do! I was going to so make Hardshell…
I barely kept my vision online as another bout of nausea came over me. Slag! I had to destroy the tox-en! Before it killed me! Pushing my systems to move, even more, I crawled slowly across the ground. Every time I felt my wings scrape the ground as I pulled myself forward, tox-en in servo, I kept telling myself that I had to destroy it. I had to get rid of this scrap, and now!
A cry of pain coming from Bulkhead distracted me temporarily and I glanced to barely see that Hardshell must have hit him pretty hard to leave as big of a dent as I was seeing on his leg. But, that was as distracted as I could allow myself to be. The fight was drawing close to a finish and, regardless of the winner, I had to destroy the tox-en. I was ordered to do so and I was not going to disobey an order from Lord Megatron. He was my leader. I had to succeed.
Finally, with a cry of joy, I shoved the tox-en into the opening. The heat from the volcano was starting to heat up my servo, but right now I could care less. I did it. The…
"What have you done?" I heard Hardshell yell at me. Oh, the anger in his vocals was clear. But, as angry as he sounded, I knew that his anger was nothing at the anger that Lord Megatron would have at him for his irresponsibility during this,
"Ack!" I gargled out as I suddenly was lifted off the ground by my neckplates. The adrenaline that was pumping through my lines at this new danger helped clear my vision enough to see that Hardshell was holding me off the ground, which if I wasn't being killed by I would think was impressive since I am a triple changer.
"You idiotic glitch! You have destroyed the relic that Lord Megatron ordered me to retrieve!" I struggled the little I could as his grip tightened around my neckplates. "The punishment for going against my orders is offlining. And after I finish you, I'll take care of the Autobot and report to Lord Megatron of your treasonous act."
While it seemed like I was going offline, I had to make sure I corrected this fragging bug. "I...only take orders...from...Lord Megatron." That took a lot of energy to get out and I started to see the warning signs of temporary stasis incoming if I didn't have relief from the pressure Hardshell was putting on my fuel-lines. As my vision started to grow darker, I found myself strangely relaxed. At least...dying this way...I wouldn't...I...I…
A large booming sound suddenly caused the pressure that was on my neckplates to be removed. Acting on instinct, I found myself gagging as I now slouched against the side of the volcano inner-wall. What the frag had…
My optics...or rather the only working optic I seemed to have right now, widened as I saw what was in front of me. Standing between Hardshell and myself were two fairly slim looking bots. One was mainly blue with orange on the outline of his wings and silver servos while the second was just a bit more black than purple, though not by much, and had black servos. Their resemblance to Starscream was strange, though not identical. The blue one was taller than the black and purple one, who was probably just a bit taller than Starscream.
It was thanks to the resemblance to Starscream that I knew who was in front. "Who dares interrupt me?"
The response from the blue one was immediate. "You should be grateful that we stopped you when we did, you insect. I am lieutenant Thundercracker and this is lieutenant Skywarp of the Decepticon army. We are following orders from Lord Megatron to locate the two of you and return you to the ship. The femme has seemingly followed orders that were given to her by our leader." From my one working optic, I could feel the intensity of the glare that Thundercracker sent Hardshell. "Unlike you."
"Slag."
That word from Bulkhead caused all of us to turn to him. Yeah, even with me half-offline over here, he was in probably a worse position than I was at the click. Three healthy bots on one weren't the best odds he could hope for.
"Autobot," Seemed like Thundercracker was very calm about taking over the situation here. "Our orders are simply to return these two Decepticons to the ship. You have one chance to leave here peacefully. Make any move toward us and we will take you out. Your choice."
Bulkhead only hesitated for a nano before he seemed to get on his comm. "Base, I need a bridge."
"Smart choice Autobot," Thundercracker said toward Bulkhead.
While that was happening, Skywarp came over to me. "Femme, are you functioning?"
I could barely even budge my helm for a nod at this point but somehow found some words. "Yeah...barely."
"Can you walk?"
"N...no." I could barely move. There was no way in the Pit that I was going to walk out of here.
My processor went blurry for a while after that as the world around me seemed to move forward. A bridge for us must have been called after Bulkhead was gone and I had been surrounded by drones to help me. When I was moved onto the ship, I was able to answer Lord Megatron's questions about what happened with simple yes or nos. Of course, with my condition, I was barely able to do that. But, all the pain and suffering was worth being allowed to stay and watch as Megatron beat the scrap out of Hardshell for so many things he did wrong during the mission. Separating from the group, assuming he was in command when Lord Megatron did not assign anybot to command of the mission not checking in with him, and attacking a fellow Decepticon with no cause to name a few. Plus, there were a number of things that he got in trouble for after giving his report. Oh, I loved it.
But, my vision had decided, not long after the beating started, to start going out on me as my chassis was practically screaming at me to rest. I wasn't sure how I got to medbay, but I looked around and briefly caught optics with Thundercracker. Our looks held for a nano before he walked out.
My optics, with my chassis finally in a safe place to rest and get fixed once Knockout was back, finally shut down for some much-needed recharge.
And here is the end of the chapter! I was so happy that Shadow agreed to let us bring in Thundercracker and Skywarp and now they are here with you all! I hope I did them justice so far. I really do need to give 'Mala some R&R. Poor femme. Oh well. The next chapter is Hurt and it will be both written and posted by the amazing Shadow! *Cheshire grins* Oh, and with the plans we have for the rest of this season, I'm sure that we will keep this story entertaining for you all. *evil laughter*
Shadow and I: Don't forget to Review, favorite, and follow this and all of our other works. You guys are the reason we do this! TTYL! *waves goodbye to readers while eating cookies*