Author's Note:So it's a little on the shorter side, but hey, timely at least. I just didn't want to cram a lot of stuff into one chapter. Enjoy and please review!

Chapter 3

Weapon

Nightscream may have slept through the night, but he did not rest. He did not dream either as far as he could tell for which he was eternally grateful because he had a pretty good idea of what those dreams would be about if he had. Twelve hours later, when Blackarachnia shook him awake, he still did not feel like he'd closed his eyes at all. He shuttered involuntarily before recognizing her an instance later and blinked through sleep-blurred vision.

"Nightmares?" the spider woman asked not unsympathetically.

"I don't remember," he admitted. "Probably. Is it time for that meeting now?" Like Cheetor, he had completely lost track of how long he'd slept, but Blackarachnia shook her head.

"You already missed it, but it doesn't matter. The others went to take care of something."

He sat up at this instantly and tried to get up so fast that he nearly hit his head on the top bunk. His brown hair stuck out at odd angles and even running his hand through it did not help much, but at least Nightscream was fully awake now.

"They just left?"

"Not exactly on vacation," she chastised. "And they took Megatron with them, so don't worry about running into him. Get up and grab some food. You're going to work with me today."

Less than an hour later, he was following Blackarachnia to the lab.

"They could have woken me up," he grumbled. "I would have gone."

"You want to hang out with Megatron?" the woman countered.

"No," he had not thought of that, "but what if they need my help?"

"They're just backing up Depth Charge and Dinobot," she rounded a corner. "The five of them are more than enough to handle Rampage."

Five. It was not lost on the boy that she counted everyone but Optimus.

"Anyway," Blackarachnia went on, "I need your help. Remember?"

The moment they came into the lab and Nightscream saw the alien heart, his eyes widened. Following Blackarachnia around for a better look at the object, he gave a low whistle. It was kind of cool... and gross. The humans around ignored him for the most part, but the man he remembered as Doctor Khan, who was neither human nor Cybertronian in the classic sense of the word, turned an amused and clearly unimpressed eye on him as he entered.

"This is your brilliant idea, Blackarachnia?" his tone expressed what Nightscream read on his face. "I think you may think too highly of your boy."

"Shut up," the woman glowered at him.

Nightscream wisely kept his mouth shut on anything concerning the good doctor and nodded his head at the object on the table. "Is that's what Rattrap and Cheetor brought back from that alien thing? What do you need me for?"

"I want to know if we can build an effective sonic weapon against that."

"You can build an effective sonic weapon against anything," Nightscream grinned.

"This thing responds only to a very specific frequency," Blackarachnia held up the device Tarantulas had built. "Take a listen, then see if you can simulate and amplify that."

* * * * * * * * * *

"Man, I hope they're planin' to do some serious remodelin'."

It was the first thing Rattrap could think to say to the destruction of downtown Harrisburg which was considerably worse than what he had seen on tv. He found himself thinking that it was a wonder humanity had a singly city still standing considering that for several decades it had served as a battlefield for Autobots and Decepticons which were considerably larger than any Maximal or Predacon.

The military jeeps had dropped them and their Marine escorts off only a block away from the actual fighting. It was as close as they could get considering the debris of toppled buildings. The Maximals, Megatron, and the Marines with weapons at the ready climbed over the rubble towards the combatants who were clearly too occupied to notice them.

Depth Charge fired an energy disk from the center of his chest at Rampage who easily dodged it, causing the shot to hit a nearby car which instantly went up in an inferno. The crab turned and let out a hideous mocking laugh at his long-time hunter. Dinobot seized the opportunity of the Predacon's momentary distraction to come at him from the side with his spinning sword, but Rampage's reflexes where faster as he shot a missile sending the raptor flying through the air to dent the sidewalk a full block away.

"Okay, that's enough," Cheetor glanced at Rattrap and Silverbolt who nodded simultaneously.

Within seconds all three stood in their robot modes. A glance in Optimus' direction, and Rattrap could see that he too had transformed, even if he did not look quite as battle-ready as everyone else. His new technorganic mode looked much like the old one, but there were definite traces of the Transmetal as well as the original robot mode he had in the Beast Wars. The only one who had yet to transform was Megatron, and he did not exactly look like he was in any hurry to do so.

"Problem?" Cheetor asked sharply.

"Only with you Maximals and your drama," the Predacon rolled his eyes. "I did tell you your presence was not required. Why fight hard when you can fight smart? But then what, would you know about that?"

And then to everyone's shock, he walked straight into the heart of the firefight. Human shape and all.

What was even more amazing is that the shooting stopped almost instantly. Depth Charge and Dinobot must have been too surprised, though Rattrap was hoping that one of them would snap out of it long enough to 'accidentally' send an energy pizza or eye laser shot in his direction. Why Rampage stopped shooting was beyond him, but there was Megatron, standing calm and relaxed between the combatants.

"My dear Rampage," at several inches over six feet he still had to glance up at the other Predacon though Megatron would never actually lift his head to look up to another being. "Would you kindly take some time out of your little play date? I am very much interested in speaking with you."

His tone left no illusion that this was any kind of request. The crab's features twisted into a grimace, but seconds later a large muscular man – still taller than any one else present – stood before them.

"I did what you asked," he hissed.

"And?"

The man before him glowered. He looked like he wanted to shred Megatron to pieces, which again Rattrap did not exactly mind, but instead Rampage moved to a pile of rubble to his right and fished out a thick folder. Right, the rodent recalled, Chopperface did say he stole something from the humans. With more cursing he stalked back and shoved the papers into Megatron's hands. The Predacon leader did not look at all phased by the rudeness.

"Thank you," he casually flipped through it. "Everything is in place?"

"Yes."

"Excellent," he turned to Optimus and handed him the folder. "Hold onto that, would you, Primal?"

"You swore," Rampage bellowed loosing his temper. "You swore you'd release me."

"And so I shall."

Instantly every single transformer who had been involved in the Technorganic War realized what was about to happen, but none had time to react. To the human Marines it looked as if Megatron suddenly thrust his bare hand into the other man's chest and tore out his still-beating heart. In fact, it was far worse. It was quick and brutal, but not a drop of blood was actually spilled. One instance they were just standing there and in another he was holding Rampage's spark in the palm of his hand.

The other Predacon blinked and made a motion to reach for the object, but Megatron, never dropping the eye-contact with his soldier, simply closed his fist around it, crushing the supposedly-immortal spark like a ball of dust. There was no glorious rise to the Matrix or fall to the Pit. Simply nothingness. Rampage fell forward with a thud and did not move again.

"There," Megatron made a motion of dusting his hands, and when he passed Lieutenant Myers, added, "just like I promised."

The humans were the first to recover, most likely because they did not understand the severity of what they had just witnessed, though the look on the lieutenant's face indicated she had some idea. Nevertheless, she replaced her weapon back in its holster and nodded to her men.

"I call this mission accomplished," she said. "Back to the jeeps."

"You're welcome," Megatron grinned and cheerfully followed the humans.

The Maximal combatants dropped back to their human guises and gravitated closer together, still staring after the retreating Predacon in shock. A chill had settled in despite the day's heat.

"What in the Pit did you unleash, Primal?"

Depth Charge's question was obviously rhetorical, but Cheetor answered nonetheless.

"The Pit itself."

* * * * * * * * * *

"Can we take a break?" Nightscream shifted back to his human form and dripped to the floor with one leg outstretched before him. "My voice is shot."

The lab had emptied of people an hour ago when it became obvious that their fragile ear drums could not withstand his sonic blasts even if they were not directed at them. Tarantulas had also disappeared somewhere, but Blackarachnia did not particularly care about that. She would have been perfectly happy if he dropped off the face of the Earth entirely, but that kind of luck she had not had recently.

She hanged the boy a plastic cup with cool water which he practically inhaled and sat down on the floor next to him as both of them eyed the alien artifact. Nightscream had to grudgingly admit that he had been overconfident about the whole thing. He was used to his sonic blasts shattering everything in sight, but all he'd accomplished in breaking was most of the equipment in the lab. Right frequency, Blackarachnia had said. Apparently he had yet to find it.

"What are we going to do?" the boy asked rather helplessly.

"Try again when your voice recovers," she replied.

"I meant about... you know... Optimus."

"I don't know," her voice was more than a little distant as if she was distracted, but the answer she gave him was honest, if not comforting.

"I'm so... mad," Nightscream went on, "but at the same time, he's Optimus. He saved my skin more times than I can count. Like I owe him or something."

Blackarachnia gave him a quizzical look. If there was one eternal truth it was that children tended to be absolutists. The world was very black and white to them and if they did not like something, they cut it out of their lives, pretended it did not exist. Nightscream had done that more than a few times in the Technorganic War when he fought with the others and just walked out. He had always come back, of course, but the fact that he was trying to deal with the problem head on now said a lot about his character.

The kid was growing up.

"I think most of us feel the same way," she finally said.

"Do you think you'll forgive him?"

Blackarachnia shrugged. "If it was just me? Probably. I can deal with Megatron. Dealt with worse."

"Like that Tarantulas guy?" her gaze hardened. "Hey, I listen."

"Then learn when to shut your ears," she told him sharply and got back to her feet. "Let's try this again."

Nightscream sighed but did as he was told without complaint. He listened to the high-pitched frequency several more times and when he finally thought he had a handle on it, transformed and sent several more sonic blasts in the direction of the alien heart. The first few waves did little more than shake the object a little. He stopped, collected his thoughts, took a deep breath, and...

The structure exploded with an audible splat, sending pieces of technorganic matter all over the already decimated lab. None of the individual pieces showed any sign of life.

He blinked once, then with an excited laugh at a job well done, turned back to Blackarachnia and shifted into a human once again.

"So it's a little tricky," the boy said proudly, "but yeah, I can definitely bring those things down for the count. Just tell me where."

"Nowhere, for now," Blackarachnia observed the damage thoughtfully. "We don't even know how many of those things there are on the planet, and we need something to take out the whole structure, not just he heart. I'll have to talk to Rattrap. Maybe we can coble together some kind of sonic bomb to be dropped right on top of the things."

"Won't work," Nightscream shook his head. "I counted. I had to hold that frequency for about... twenty seconds at close range."

"Then we'll come up with something else," she already had a different idea but was not up for sharing just yet. "Whenever they get back."

She glanced up at the clock high on the wall, probably the only thing still intact in the room. It was fairly late into the evening. Even with a four hour or so flight to and from Harrisburg, she expected the others would return soon, unless they ran into significant difficulties. It occurred to her that while she had briefly seen Rampage on the news report, she had no idea just how powerful the Predacon was. Megatron had brought him and only him along. Did that mean that the crab was that much more powerful? Then again, as of the Technorganic War, the Predacon commander had become quite independent himself, preferring not to rely on other individuals.

As if on cue, the cell phone at her hip vibrated. Blackarachnia unclasped it from the holster and glanced at the caller i.d. before flipping it open.

"Everyone still alive?" she asked her brother.

"Everyone's fine. Rampage isn't a problem anymore," Cheetor's voice was curt and to the point, like he was keeping his anger in check. "Is Nightscream with you?"

"Yeah," she shifted the cell phone to a more comfortable position.

"Get him and anything you need and meet us outside. We're moving."

"Moving?" she was confused. "Where? Why?"

"Because I'm sick of working with humans who deliberately keep information from us. I'll fill you both in when you come up here."

"Okay," she said slowly and motioned for the boy to follow her out of the lab, "and where exactly are we moving to?"