Legend of Bruticus (Chapter 5)
War
"Are you ready to fight a true warrior, Optimus?" Megatron exclaimed. "I am ready, Brother, bring it on." The brothers continued to circle each other, waiting for the other to strike. Megatron's Decepticons engaged the Autobots that trailed along side Optimus Prime in his arrival. Evac (who chose a MH-53 pave low helicopter as his alt mode) transformed and took flight after his nemesis, Blitzwing. His enemy was one of the three Decepticons triple changers who alt modes consisted of a robot, tank, and jet mode. Blitzwing too took flight after Evac and took their battle to the skies. Prime's second in command, Ironhide, set his sights on the last triple changer, Tankor. "You're mine Decepticreep!" he screamed as he readied his large arm cannons. "You'll have to catch me first." Tankor back-flipped into his plane mode and flew over Ironhide's head. "Ha! I see you're gonna make this fun!" he said when he transformed into his Nissan Titan truck to hunt the Decepticon down. Soundwave's sworn enemy and counterpart, Blaster, was running straight at him. The two have been enemies since the beginning of the war; they both served the same purpose and both have similar alt modes. "You ready Decepticon?" "Autobots inferior…Decepticons superior…" "Is that all you have to say? It's been awhile since we've last met." "Your screams will be music to my ears." "Yep, you still haven't changed; you're still goin down!" With each Decepticon with their Autobot, this left the splinter faction on their own to watch the battle below. Ironhide, who was passing below Skywarp, was still chasing Tankor. The Autobot had his cannons deployed in vehicle mode, but they were not meant for anti-air. Ironhide tried to hit the Decepticon but was missing terribly and even managed to hit Skywarp who was above him. "Why you…" the renegade said as he pursued the black truck. "Skywarp, get back here! We don't need to be starting unwanted fights!" Thundercracker tried to get his brother to calm down, "Don't tell me what to do!" "Dirge, Thrust, help me with this." "Whatever, I just wanna fight!" With most of the Seekers distracted, the last two watched their new creation deal with the Autobot powerhouse, Metroplex, and the Decepticon war machine, Bruticus.
Metroplex was surrounded, he couldn't step back because Bruticus was waiting for him, and he could move forward for Devastator was walking to his position and fast. Metroplex may have been a hulking mass of circuits and metal, but he was surprisingly fast for his size. As Bruticus swung his arm back for a strike, Devastator did the same; they had planned to hit the Titan from both sides at once, but Metroplex had another idea in mind. Just as they were about to collide, the white Titan ducked out of the way, causing the Gestalts' fists to collide into each other's face. "Why Decepticon hurt other Decepticon?" Bruticus yelled in anger, "Don't stand in my way!" Devastator replied. Metroplex stood back up and grabbed both of the staggering Decepticons; one in each hand. With a great feat of strength, he lifted them into the air and smashed them together. Both mountains of metal fell to the ground, but remained intact. "Stand up Devastator, stand up!" Starscream screamed across the battlefield. Metroplex heard his obnoxious voice and turned his attention to him. He raised his mighty arm with his colossal gun in hand and took aim at him. "AH! No no no no no! Not again!" both Starscream and Sunstorm transformed and immediately left his blast radius. Metroplex smirked and looked back at the ground to finish off the two Gestalts. When he looked back, Devastator was still lying there, but Bruticus was gone, "Wait, where did he…" Bruticus jumped him from behind and proceeded to land a strong, heavy blow to his back, where his armor was considerably weaker. The war machine grabbed his nemesis head and bent his back down so he could deliver a powerful knee to that weak back. "AH!" he screamed in agony in pain as the crack now turned to a gaping hole. Bruticus's knee entered that hole and on its way out, brought any wires with it. He dropped the Autobot Titan and let him fall to his hands and knees. Bruticus picked up Metroplex gun that he dropped in the struggle, and stuck the barrel in his gaping weak point. The cannon began to charge at full power when Devastator tackled the Monster away from Metroplex. "Decepticon fool! Why stop Bruticus from killing Autobot?" "Because that is MY mission. I will crush all who stand in my way!" Bruticus, who was still lying on the ground, knocked Devastator off of him with a strong right hook to the face. He went in for another hook, but this time was parried and knocked back with a left hook from Devastator. "Prepare for Devastation!" he screamed as he charged the stumbling Beast. Devastator picked him up and carried him farther into the desert, out where the pyramids were. He continued at full speed, with Bruticus on his shoulder, towards one of the still standing pyramids. The two monsters collided with the large stone mountain, but Bruticus took the brunt of the damage. Devastator dropped his gestalt brother and left him for dead. "Hahaha! And you call yourself a war machine." As he turned around he was greeted with a powerful right hook from Metroplex, who had quickly recovered and caught up with their battle. "This isn't over yet Decepticon! I won't give up until both of you are down for good." While Devastator was unconscious for the moment, Metroplex returned to the fallen war machine. "You will be the first to go." He said as he charged his shoulder cannon, "Not yet!" Bruticus yelled as he chucked one of the large pieces of the pyramid at Metroplex's face. His cannon was still charging and with the Autobot now barely able to stand, his cannon fired. The seismic blast knocked him onto his crippling back. The three Titans were now all lying on the ground, barely online.
Both Optimus and Megatron's swords collided, locking them together and bringing them closer. "You should've gave up centuries ago, you are not fit to lead the transformers, Optimus. I will rule Cybertron as soon as I kill you. Peace through tyranny!" "One cannot successfully rule with tyranny. You will only bring more pain, there is no peace. And power will ultimately be your downfall!" "Heh…even if do not become ruler, I will at least get the satisfaction of killing you!" "One shall stand, one shall fall." They unlocked their swords and jumped back. Megatron pulled a pistol from side holster and fired it upon his brother. Optimus merely ran straight through the lasers and onto his counterpart. With Megatron's sword put down, Prime took advantage of the situation and sliced a part of his chest armor. "Ha! You think that that one strike will put me…AH!" he screamed as a shot came from the sky and hit him on his arm. "Starscream!" "You think your fit to rule the Decepticons? You are a coward; your men deserve a real ruler!" Optimus looked into Megatron's optics and Megatron looked back at his; they both nodded in agreement. The Decepticon Leader did his signature back-flip and transformed into his handgun mode. Prime grabbed him out of the air and held his nemesis in his own hands. Prime, with deadly precision, wielded his brother and took aim at Starscream and Sunstorm. He fired off four shots while Starscream looked on with awe and fear. One shot entered his shoulder, the other two went through his torso, and the last struck his head. The Seeker leader had fallen for good. Prime then shot at Sunstorm, but he tried to shoot down Megatron's own lasers with his own weapons. The shots collided in the air but Megatron was far superior to Sunstorm's meager null ray cannons. The lasers continued onto the renegade and two shots entered through his skull, completely obliterating his head which brought him down to the ground hard. Megatron changed his mass and transformed out of Prime's hands, "Now where were we?"
Evac was still chasing down Blitzwing. The Decepticon was running out of energon and could no longer keep up his speed, which allowed his nemesis to catch up with him. In a last ditch effort, Blitzwing dove towards the ground and transformed into his tank mode. With Evac still trailing behind, the triple-changer had enough time to rotate his turret around and fire at Evac. One blazing, molten hot plasma shot made a direct hit on Evac's back rotor; causing him to spin out of control and nail the ground hard. Before he made contact with the ground, however, he transformed and landed flat on his face, for he had a plan. Blitzwing returned to robot mode and approached his fallen enemy. "Some guardian you are. One little shot brought you down and offline; Hahaha!" just at that moment, Evac sprung his trap and grabbed a hold of Blitzwing's leg. He pulled him off-balance and removed his rotor blade off his back. With the Decepticon on the floor and still in shock, the Autobot pierced through his armor and onto the other side, into the ground. Burning oil erupted out of Blitzwing's mouth as he lay there offline. The triple-changers had another unique ability; if for some reason they were to go offline, then they would explode, destroying anything within its radius. Evac was unaware of the final defense and tried to remove his sword…but it was too late. The interior of the Decepticon ignited and burst, engulfing his enemy in hot oil and fire. Evac could not escape his own doom, he could not run or put out the fire, only endure the pain and agony until his spark finally gave way.
Ironhide was in the worst predicament of the all. He was in pursuit of one Decepticon and was being followed by three Seekers; if he turned around, the Seekers would obliterated him, and his energon would only keep him moving forward for a certain amount of time. He had to make a choice: turn around and die or keep moving until his energon ran out…and die. But Ironhide was well known for beating the odds; the only other Autobot with that reputation was Optimus Prime and he was fighting his own battle. With the Seekers hot on his trail, Ironhide finally gave up chasing down Tankor, "You guys want some of Ironhide? Fine come get some!" In a flash the black titan transformed and flipped forward. He used a unique tactic by front-flipping and then used his own cannons to propel himself high into the air, right in front of the Seekers. Dirge was surprised but at the same time very impressed. Skywarp had actually flown quite a ways past his enemy and therefore was not present when he launched into the air. "What the?" were Thrust's last words when Ironhide blasted a molten hot hole straight through his face. He was closest to Dirge who tried to grab him, but Ironhide countered and flipped him around so he was now the Autobot's hostage. Ironhide tried to use Dirge to keep himself afloat, but he was too heavy and they both started to plummet to the earth below. "Let go! Let go of me!" Dirge screamed as he saw the ground approaching faster and faster, "Not a chance Decepticon." Dirge let out one more "Nooooo!" just before he slammed into the crust. The Seeker had broken Ironhide's fall, but in the process was completely disintegrated by the impact. "Two down, three to go." He said as he stood back to his feet. "Skywarp, get back here!" Thundercracker yelled at his brother, "You wanted revenge, well here take it! You've already used that trick once Autobot, you think we'll fall for it again?" "Actually I had something else in mind; one of my favorites to be honest." Ironhide then detached both of his arm cannons and combined them into one big, under slung gatling laser. Both the Seeker Brothers looked on in fear as the enemy proceeded by unloading shot after red hot shot of plasma at his them. Accuracy no longer mattered, there were too many rounds flying in the sky for him to miss. The barrels turned red hot as Ironhide relentlessly fired each shot; the Decepticons could not escape the barrage of plasma. One shot after the other penetrated the Seeker's light armor. Both of Skywarp's arms were blown off by the impact of the rounds and his brother was completely demolished by the wall of plasma. Out of the sky fell the two once proud Seekers. As soon as they hit the ground, what was left of the Seekers shattered into many pieces. Ironhide had only one more enemy to take down, the last triple-changer, Tankor. He didn't have to fight Astrotrain for he immediately left for Cybertron as soon as the fighting started. Tankor had completely ran out of energon and landed his plane on the earth. He had flown so far that he landed in the sand instead of the solid ground that was created by the Titans. "Gotta…keep…movin…" Tankor said exhaustedly, "Move Tankor…move! Do you wanna become a pile of scrap? No so keep moving!" he tried to convince himself, but he was doomed for he knew that he was no match for the Autobot second in command. As he lay on the soft sand in his robot mode, Ironhide finally caught up with him. "Gotta get away…can't let him get me…" he said unaware that his enemy was standing over him. Ironhide raised his gun to Tankor's head when he turned and looked up at him, "You're not going anywhere." In one quick blast, Ironhide's current job was finished.
"I will destroy you Autobot…" "You gotta get near me first." Soundwave and Blaster taunted as the circled each other. "Ravage, Rumble, Laserbeak, Frenzy deploy and attack." Soundwave pressed a button on his left shoulder and multiple cassette-bots jumped out of his chest lid. Ravage transformed into a panther, Laserbeak a very small pterodactyl, and Frenzy and Rumble into two mini-bots with pneumatic hammers on both arms. "Well I guess I'll just have to fight fire with fire." Blaster said as he too deployed his cassette-bots. Steeljaw changed from cassette to a T-rex, Ramhorn turned into a Ram, and Eject and Flipside were the counterparts of Frenzy and Rumble. While the cassette-bots battled it out, and with Blaster momentarily distracted by his allies, Soundwave charged and tackled hi nemesis. "Get off Decepticreep!" Blaster tried to hit him with a hard right hand, but Soundwave caught it and delivered a right hook of his own. Blaster tried a different approach, he swung his legs up and wrapped them around Soundwave's head and forced him off. As soon as he was on the ground, the Autobot stood, pulled out his gun, and immediately shot his counterpart. Soundwave dodged it and then kicked Blaster's left knee-cap in. The hinge broke his leg fell off. He had only one option left. Blaster transformed into his alt mode, which was a boom-box, cranked the volume and unleashed a seismic blast that deafened his enemy. The huge blast even caused one of Soundwave's cassettes, Laserbeak, to explode. Disoriented and confused, the Decepticon communications expert fired off one shot in hoping to hit Blaster and stop the pain. Luckily, he did manage to nail a direct hit on his speaker which was located on his right leg. "Ah! Ow! I…can't…" he struggled to transform back to robot mode. Soundwave looked around to discover all the cassette-bots lying on the ground, offline; but still proceeded to approach his nemesis. Blaster was soon looking down the barrel of Soundwave's large rifle; it all happened so fast that the Autobot didn't even have time to compute what was happening, but it no longer mattered…Soundwave finally won over his nemesis. Megatron, who was still in combat with Prime, looked at his loyal Decepticon and said, "Ready the warp gate!" "As you command Megatron." Soundwave raised his arm and pressed a few buttons on the top of his wrist and soon their escape would arrive.
After a while the three Titans automatically came back online. Rising to a sitting position, Bruticus was the first one up. He looked around to see his enemies only barely moving. The war machine gathered enough strength to stand up and return to his master, but was soon stopped by the metal mountain, Metroplex. He had grabbed his leg and yanked him back down to his hands and knees. "Bruticus will stand tall…Bruticus will win." He was resilient as he returned to his feet, but once again Metroplex grabbed his leg. Bruticus's rage finally kicked in and he completely lost all control. The Decepticon glared back down at the Autobot with a look in his optics that made him seem almost possessed. Bruticus clenched his fist and brought it down as hard as he could on the Autobots head, smashing and completely obliterating his skull. "Hahahahahaha! More destruction!" he said as he walked over to the Renegade still lying on the ground. Devastator barely turned his head to look at the demented Gestalt. For once there was fear in his optics as he tried to crawl away, but Bruticus caught him by the head and lifted him one handed. With enough force, Bruticus crushed Devastator's cranium within his own hands. The remainder of the Gestalt disengaged and attempted to flee from the deranged Decepticon. He only laughed manically as he crushed one by one under his large and heavy feet. Only Long Haul was left, and he got the farthest out of all of his companions. He transformed and tried to drive as far away as he could, but Bruticus had one weapon left that had never been tested: his back rail gun. He fell forward, catching himself and remained on his hands and knees. Clamps around his arms and legs tried to dig into the sand as much as they could, but Bruticus did not wait and instead charged the gun. Electricity shot from side to side as cannon built up to full power. Faster than the blink of an eye, the rail gun fired and nailed Long Haul, disintegrating him in the process, but Bruticus was also thrown far back from the power of the blast. He stood back up, completely unharmed, and returned to Megatron.
"Why do you lead the Autobots the way you do? Why do they respect you when you give them nothing to fear?" "Because I do not lead like a dictator or tyrant. I respect and trust my men and they do the same for me; it's how we were programmed. Autobots were formulated for keeping the peace while the Decepticons were prioritized for war and destruction." "You are still a coward Optimus, you will fall from your leadership position and I shall assume role as leader of all transformers!" "Megatron…the warp gate is here." Soundwave interrupted. "It looks like we'll have to postpone our battle for another time." "I'm not going to let you just walk away from me." "O you're still gonna fight, it just won't be me that you'll fight." "What do you mean?" "Turn around, Prime." A hulking shadow appeared over the Autobot leader; his curiosity caused him to turn around and see the menacing Bruticus standing before him. Before leaving, Megatron left Prime a gift: a knife in the back, literally. "So long Prime, that is if you make it out of this alive." Megatron laughed maniacally as he and Soundwave entered through the warp gate.