Chapter 3: Dark Shadow (Part 3)
Chapter 3: Dark Shadow (Part 3)
"Burn in the fires of Inferno!" screamed the manically insane ant as he burned two Maximals to the ground. There smoking and terribly burnt bodies sparked as he walked over them moving towards the planetary defence installation.
A burst of energy span up Infernos leg, he had been feeling these energy bursts inject into him ever since he had touched the soil of the planet, and it had been changing him, he looked down as his body slowly morphed from his pure ant and machine form to an incoherent mix of both.
He yelled in fury at the corruption the planet was infecting him with and laughed as he burned the plant life around him, "Weak and pathetic fools, the royalty will have their victory!"
"Not on my watch motor head!"
Inferno turned and felt a large hairy buffalo smash into him with its horns sending him flying backwards into a tree.
Tartarus smiled as the ant bot rose laughing.
"Pain is my friend, allow me to introduce YOU to it!" he said as he raised his two rifles but felt his body ping before.
Tartarus watched as a swarm of green and yellow energy exploded out of the ground and shot up into Inferno and his form glowed.
In a quick flash stood a newly reformatted Inferno, his entire body was a bright shade of red with his old head design kept but with insectoid flesh upon his body, he guns had vanished and his ant butt remained almost identical to what it was before.
"What am I?" he yelled before looking over at Tartarus and grabbed for his nonexistent guns, "No I cannot make you burn!"
Tartarus smiled, it was time.
"I am Transformed," Tartarus stated as his body glowed a bright white and he morphed into a tall warrior at about Infernos height, he had two massive shields on each arm with extendable blades, his head was massive with a mouth that could chuck explosives, his back also had four small jets used to propel himself upwards.
Inferno screamed and watched as his hands exploded into flames, "Ha ha now you shall burn!" he yelled in joy as he shot a fireball out at Tartarus.
The warrior brought his shield to bear and hit the fire shot aside as if it were nothing and began walking towards Inferno hitting aside the fireballs.
"For the royalty!" he bellowed as his ant butt broke open revealing his familiar helicopter jet and he sped forwards towards Tartarus with his hands in flames.
Tartarus locked hands with inferno as the two warriors pushed and pulled each other but found themselves at a quick stalemate before Inferno screamed and burst Tartarus's arms into flame. Tartarus yelled in pain before spinning around kicking Inferno in the chest knocking him several metres back.
"For Cybertron!" Tartarus bellowed as he shot out a blast of energy out of his mouth cannon blowing Inferno backwards again.
"I will deal with you afterwards heretic!"
Tartarus fired shots at the flee flying Inferno but to no avail, but took note of where he was heading. He tapped his chest opening a communications link to Cheetor, hoping the young general could stop him.
--
Cheetor along with several security bots stood within the main command center of the installation. If Inferno got here he could destroy the relay that gave the auto defence weapons instructions causing them to not fire at anything due to fail-safes.
"Keep the doors shut, if anyone wants in make sure you identify them first," Cheetor told the guard captain who nodded in compliance.
Cheetor kept thinking how Inferno survived, from what he understood, Inferno and Quickstrike (A fuzor from the beast wars who had a very Texan and kill happy lifestyle) were incinerated by the Nemesis (a ancient Deceptacon warship) before thankfully Rinox destroyed it.
A large explosion rung the room as the roof collapsed in, pieces of debris and wreckage fell from above platforms crashing on lower catwalks crushing a few of Cheetor's security crew.
Inferno flew down from above firing blasts of fire out of his palms incinerating two more bots before he spotted Cheetor.
"You! A enemy of the old royalty, burn Maximal burn!" he yelled shooting a blast of fire up at him.
Cheetor drew up twin scimitars and jumped down curving his angular athletic mechanical body so he begun circling the room as Inferno fired shots missing by metres.
"Hold still!" Inferno yelled before drawing up a ball of fire and throwing it blowing the command terminal.
"No!" Cheetor yelled as he circled the room and smashed into Inferno landing on top of him with both swords ready in a finishing pose.
"Do it, I did my job for the colony!" Inferno boasted before Cheetor got off him.
Cheetor nodded at two surviving security soldiers as they grabbed Inferno and dragged him off towards a prison as he laughed manically.
"Get this thing repaired!" yelled a guard.
"Too late," Cheetor said as he looked out of the hole in the roof, "The Dark Shadow is already here."
--
"So my servant succeeded… very good," said Shokaract as he sat upon his bridge throne looking down at the doomed Cybertron, "prepare to land."
--
Cheetor, Silverbolt, Blackarchnia, Rattrap, Botanica, Tartarus, Torca, Armadalis, and several others all rushed towards the Council Citadel, it stood up in the distance, a massive fortress.
"Why are we going here, shouldn't we be preparing the defences?" asked Rattrap.
Cheetor looked up at the sky spotting a massive warship coming down, "because I have seen who's invading Cybertron Rattrap, the Oracle gave me a vision, this thing is worse then even Megatron."
"But I thought the Oracle had fallen silent?" Silverbolt said taking in a few breaths while still sprinting.
"It has, but that's because what is invading holds some artifact which can even rival the Matrix apparently."
"I've been saying it from day one… we're all gonna die!" Rattrap yelled.
"Do you always have to see the bright side of things?" Armadalis said as he ran beside them.
"Cybertrons populace doesn't have the military training to take on this thing if it's as powerful as Cheetor says it is!" Rattrap bellowed as they arrived at the front gate.
Cheetor stopped and walked up towards the massive citadel gate.
"Rattrap head inside and tell the elders what's happening, Silverbolt transform and get to the military war center and get some of our soldiers out here, the rest of you… hold this position!" Cheetor ordered as they jumped to work.
The Warship flew down from above, it was a kilometre long with hundreds of holes from many ancient and forgotten battles, it's bridge staffed up near the back, Cheetor noticed it struck a very similar resemblance to the Nemesis but more damaged and with a large Predicon emblem on one side.
It stopped and held itself roughly 400 metres above the other end of the citadel approach, it was a thin stretch of land, which had seen many battles during the battle for Cybertrons, sparks.
A beam of purple energy glowed down shaped like a cylinder towards the ground and they watched as nine figures floated down before landing.
Out of all nine only one was truly remarkable, he stood easily as tall as the ancient Optimus Prime, which was as tall as a small building, he was a massive crab, which sortive resembled…
"Rampage!" Blackarchnia yelled spotting the huge enemy leader.
Cheetor paused while looking out at the Dark Lord, "No… hes something worse…"
The ground trembled as the crab moved forward upon it's six small legs snapping its claws as it moved forward towards it's potential meal.
It's soldiers took the form of a few standard animals which like the Maximals were all technorganic, they all formed up behind their massive leader as he moved forward.
Cheetor held a hand up in defiance, "Not a step further crab cake, the Council Citadel is off limits."
The huge crab claws shifted backwards as the beast transformed into its massive robot mode, it's head emerged up above and looked down at the small Maximal.
"Scavenger, show him our pass," the Dark Lord said softly.
One of the Dark Lords servants, a huge mechanical ant chattered and transformed into his robot mode in a flash of purple light, he stood tall with red energy drills for hands, a menacing head with two horns, his ant legs forming a array of energy blasters sticking up around him, and his ant head splitting and becoming missile launchers on each arm.
"A pleasure master," Scavenger said softly as he raised a hand and fired a beam of red energy out at Cheetor.
Cheetor drew his two scimitars and moved them into a X position deflecting the beam against them, his feet gripped to the ground but his eyes went wide as he begun to slide backwards.
Blackarchnia looked over at Scavenger and moved her legs and appendages into position, she directed her energy into the ground and fired a web-like beam of energy directed by her through the ground before it exploded out of the ground blowing Scavenger backwards into another one of the Dark Lords followers.
Shokaract smiled at the small Maximals, "quite the spirit you have, the Oracle was right for choosing you to defeat Megatron," he said before reaching backwards and drawing up two Fusion cannons.
Cheetor was ablaze as he flew forward drawing up his swords stabbing both into Shokaract's chest, but faced disappointment as they shattered against his body, Shokaract looked down at the Maximal and hit him to the side with his arm before drawing up the two cannons and fired two shots blowing the Council Citadel's gate open revealing the inside.
"No!" Cheetor yelled as the rest of the Maximals charged forward drawing weapons, but it wasn't enough.
Blackarchnia jumped upwards trying to fly over the gigantic Transformer but watched as he grabbed her leg and swung her hitting Armadalis and Rattrap aside before throwing her behind him in stasis lock.
Botanica looked over at Rattrap, "You will pay for that!" she snared as her sides glowed and fired bolts of lightning outwards striking against Shokaract's chest plate doing no damage.
Torca and Tartarus drew up their weapons and fired towards Shokaract's chest hitting it and they too did no damage. Shokaract drew up his two Fusion cannons and fired hitting the ground in front of them and blew them backwards smashing into the wall of the citadel.
The massive behemoth walked forward ignoring Botanica's strikes against him and grabbed her in his hand, "such a small and insignificant plant you are but yet you fight, why?"
Botanica looked up at Shokaract's face before looking over at Rattraps offline body, she looked down in weakness as Shokaract laughed.
"Love is why you fight? What a weak reason, the gift of power, the rule of might is why I fight, and it is just that I, the most powerful being in Transformer history destroy Cybertron!"
"Why invade, why do you fight for power when it will only bring destruction?" Botanica pled to the Dark Lord from within his grip, he looked down upon her.
"Because the Dark Matrix asks for it," he replied smugly before throwing her away like dead weight.
Shokaract smiled as he looked up at the Council Citadel, he moved his hands over his chest and watched it as it cracked and sparked revealing the thing Cybertron would learn to fear most.
"May the Dark Matrix's shadow cover this entire world!" Shokaract bellowed holding up the device sending huge blackened streams of energy across the sky.
Cybertron's citizens looked up watching the massive beams of light fly across the sky, thousands screamed as single beams of light extended outwards striking their chests and tearing there sparks out.
From orbit several beams struck against the ships orbiting Cybertron causing them to spin out of control and fly down towards the planet. Thousands of deadly silent Transformers dropped from lack of life as the planet grew dark.
Cheetor looked up watching thousands of sparks fly into the device the being had called the "Dark Matrix," which Cheetor knew was bad news.