Chapter 6

"No… no, you can't do that. I won't let you!" Hot Rod protested, shaking his head adamantly. He knew that changing Sentinel's mind was an impossible feat, and so he reacted in the only way he knew how. He gave Prowl and Kup one final pleading look before turning and running back towards the tower. Even as Blaster called after him to stop and reconsider his actions, he refused to listen. His mind was already made up.

"What does that intolerable cadet think he is doing?" Sentinel demanded. All optics were now on Hot Rod as the cadet scrambled back up the tower. "Get down from there, you fool!" he called out, "That's an order!" But his words fell on deaf audio sensors, and so he turned to his senior officers. "Well, don't just stand there – stop him!"

"Sir," Prowl began, hesitant to carry out the Autobot Commander's orders. "It is already too late." Even as Prowl spoke, Hot Rod had already managed to climb halfway up the tower. "I would strongly advise against the use of force at this time. Perhaps if you would allow him the chance–"

But Sentinel would not hear of it. "I gave you an order!" Sentinel interjected. "Forget about the cadet. Destroy that antenna now, or I will have your open disobedience of your Supreme Commander entered into your permanent record. Is that understood?"

"Sir–" Prowl's frustration with Sentinel Prime's stubbornness was obvious for all to see, though no one dared speak against the Autobot Prime for fear of his retribution. Despondent, the second-in-charge realized that he had no choice but to acknowledge his superior's authority. "Yes, sir." He looked at his fellow Autobots, and sighed in resignation. "You heard Sentinel Prime. Aim your weapons at the antenna and prepare to fire on my mark." Then he watched as those under his command did as he had ordered, reluctantly aiming their blasters at the middle of the antenna's length, though well clear of the two mechs atop the tower.

Prowl glanced back towards Sentinel, who stood waiting expectantly, before slowly turning to look up at the tower again, hesitant to give the command that would knock the antenna off its base and destroy it, while quietly hoping that Hot Rod knew what the hell he was doing.

As soon as Hot Rod reached the top of the tower, he noticed Nemesis observing the scene below, as several of the Autobots charged up their weapons and pointed them up towards the antenna. "Nemesis! Nemesis! Listen to me! If you don't turn off that antenna, they're going to destroy it!" he blurted out. "And then they're going to take you down!"

The Nemesis looked at him, and his red optics blazed with fury. "No one shall rob me of my destiny!" he proclaimed and then, even before he had finished his sentence, the drones on the ground below began to stir en masse, moving as one. The path they'd made quickly disappeared as the army of the undead began to move towards the Autobots behind them at a rapid pace. Hot Rod could see Prowl reacting in surprise and then quickly retreating, as the rest of the Autobots began to disperse and scramble to safety, Sentinel among them – all thoughts of destroying the antenna forgotten. Shouts of alarm and distress could be heard coming from the ground below.

"No… no, no, no!" Hot Rod pleaded with the Nemesis. "Please, don't hurt them! That's our friends down there!" When Nemesis did not appear to pay any heed to his plea, he tried again in desperation. "Nemesis – Optronix – please, in the name of Primus, please stop!"

That seemed to have gotten the Prime's attention. Just as quickly as they had begun to move, the drones immediately stopped in their tracks, obeying some unseen command. The Nemesis turned to Hot Rod, a faint glimmer of puzzlement in his optics. "Why do you call me that?" he asked simply.

Hot Rod was alerted to the sounds of several aircraft approaching from the west, and he looked up in alarm; the last thing he needed now was yet another hostile encounter with Straxus' forces. But as the jets came in to land nearby, transforming into their robot modes a safe distance away from the Nemesis Army, he realized that it was Decepticons. As far as Hot Rod could determine, the Nemesis did not appear to notice or care at all. "Call… call you what?"

"Optronix."

"Oh, right. Ah, well…" Hot Rod said, looking for the best way to answer. Then he sat down to gather his thoughts. "So, I mean… you don't remember any of what happened, do you?" When Nemesis just returned a blank stare, he released a drawn out sigh. "I call you Optronix because that's who you are!" He paused, shaking his head. "You're my best friend." After several moments of silence, he stood up to face the Nemesis, whose frame was much stronger and larger than when he was Optronix. "Look, it was Straxus… Deluge… who did this to you. They – they forced the Matrix into you and then it turned you into… into this!" he exclaimed, indicating with a sweep of his hand. "Into Nemesis Prime. But this isn't really you." Then, seeing that he had not elicited any further verbal response from the Nemesis, who instead seemed to be deep in thought, slowly sat back down again, saying nothing further.

Once the Decepticons had handed Deluge over to the Autobots in the Command Center, they continued on to the control hub without delay. "Please, this way," Alpha Trion moved surprisingly quickly, heading straight past the repository and further down the passageway that led away from the Command Center. He passed through several long sections of interconnecting tunnels and down along further passageways that took them beyond the command complex and into the north eastern part of Iacon Central. The group of Decepticons, led by Megatron, followed him in silence until at last the Autobot elder came to a stop in front of a large, secure structure. Alpha Trion unlocked the sealed entranceway and stepped inside, beckoning the Decepticons to do the same. "Well, here it is; the control hub for our power grid."

Megatron took a few moments to survey the room. It was a large space consisting of several banks of control terminals connected to large, cylindrical converters that hummed loudly with the sound of constantly churning plasma. He watched as Shockwave walked towards the nearest terminal to study it, whilst the other Decepticons; Astrotrain, Soundwave, and the six Constructicons, waited inside the entranceway.

Shockwave accessed one of the control terminals with a high priority authorization code, and then beckoned the others closer. As they all crowded around him, he brought up a map on the display in front of him. The entire sector's power grid was overlayed with an amber light at several junctions, which seemed to indicate that there existed some kind of instability throughout the distribution grid, including at the junction that supplied most of the War Academy's sector.

"Well, it sure looks like a lot of power is being depleted by the transmission tower," Scrapper noted, pointing to a particular section of the map that was flooded with amber light. "It's making the grid unstable."

"Okay, so if we shut down the tower, the instability should resolve… right?" Scavenger asked.

Alpha Trion shook his head. "Not entirely, no, though it would certainly help reduce the effects of the anomaly that I've been detecting," he answered thoughtfully. "I began to notice a glitch in our power grid quite some time ago… though, at first, I thought it was only a temporary imbalance in the plasma chambers, but when it only seemed to get worse I knew we were facing a far more serious problem."

Shockwave turned to the two of them to explain further. "Whilst operation of the transmission tower is placing a strain on the converters, the fact that Iacon's energy reserves are already low is compounding the problem and causing the instability, or the glitch that you have been noticing, Alpha Trion." Then he turned back to the display, brought up the master control program for the distribution system, and looked towards the Decepticon leader. "I will shut down the power grid upon your command," he said in his usual, methodical manner.

Megatron nodded and, after a pause, gave him the go ahead. "Shut it down."

By the time Starscream and his contingent of jets landed near the communications tower, the Autobots on the ground had already dispersed, having taken cover wherever they could to escape the advancing Nemesis Army; then, when the drones' advancement suddenly stopped almost as quickly as it had begun, Sentinel was the first to confront the Decepticons.

"What in the Pits do you think you're doing here? I thought I told you all to leave!" he barked, though without his Matrix he did not have the same power of persuasion that he'd had when he was still a Prime.

Starscream looked at him amusingly, as Prowl and the other Autobots quietly approached to listen in on the conversation. "Believe me, Sentinel Prime, we'd like nothing more than to just leave you here and let you battle Straxus, and these drones, all by yourself," he said with obvious sarcasm. "But the fact remains that you need our help. You're no better than a lowly Destron yourself without the Matrix!"

Sentinel looked back at the Decepticon Air Commander indignantly, and it was clear to the Autobots around him that his pride was under attack. Regardless, not one of them was prepared to speak up in Sentinel's defence. "How dare you," he barely managed to say, his gaze fixed upon Starscream and his team of seekers.

Starscream glanced at the top of the tower, noticed one of the Autobots in company with the Nemesis leader. Then he continued to berate Sentinel, ignoring the obvious ire that was being directed at him. "Unless you want to make the situation more difficult than it already is, I suggest you step aside and allow those more competent than you to do their job."

For Sentinel, that was the last straw. "I will not be spoken to like that from any Destron! You should have left when you had the chance. This is my domain, and I am in charge here!" he seethed, and then pointed towards the Decepticon seekers. "Autobots, arrest them!"

All Autobots present, junior and senior rank alike, dared not move or speak, obviously shocked by Sentinel's sudden power play in his attempt to show his superiority over the Decepticons, and in particularly the Air Commander, until Kup broke the silent standoff. "Sentinel, sir… it's probably not the best idea to–"

But Sentinel would not let him finish. "I gave you an order! Arrest them, now!" he repeated in an obvious rage, looking around expectantly at his subordinates, who still had their weapons charged and ready.

The Decepticons kept a wary optic on the Autobots, ready to charge up their own weapons in defence, though Starscream did not appear perturbed by Sentinel's demonstration of antagonism in the least. He stood with his arms crossed, waiting, as if daring the Autobots to do as they'd been ordered.

The tension and uneasiness that had arisen from the standoff between the two groups was palpable. Then Prowl finally spoke; his words were unexpected, though more than a little justified. "Sentinel, sir, it is my sincere belief that your ability to effectively lead the Autobot army as its Supreme Commander has been compromised… and until such time that the Matrix of Leadership can be returned to you in its original, unaltered state, I must insist that you stand down from your position–".

Sentinel spun around to face the acting second in charge, and was about to contest his belief when the lights from the streets and structures all around them flickered all at once before powering down, fading to darkness. It seemed that the entire city of Iacon had suffered a power blackout, as even the hum of distant generators slowed until there was only silence. After a second or two, a small number of backup systems automatically surged to life here and there, but other than that the city was completely still. Even the transmission tower had been affected by the blackout, as the powerful beam from its antenna receded and then disappeared altogether, releasing a final burst of energy as it did so.

"What in the Pits is happening?" Sentinel demanded, Prowl's daring confrontation suddenly forgotten.

The Autobots looked about them in confusion, while Starscream glanced at his fellow Decepticons in satisfaction. "Time to up the ante. Let's see what happens now, shall we?"