Promotional artwork: tigressa101/art/Arcee-and-the-Isle-of-the-Allspark-Cover-931607333

Shockwave and the team ran through the halls as a unit as he liked; this time they were unstoppable. With all the remaining leaders with him and The Matriarch with citizens, Autobots, and Decepticons storming the palace on their cue, there was no way Wrathzone or Rockrider could take them.

"Haywire, what's the quickest way to the throne room?" Shockwave asked.

The red mech shot a soldier and ran by their corpse saying, "Through the gardens and make an immediate left after. It'll be directly straight ahead from there. The gardens are coming up so just head straight through."

More soldiers of Rockrider's dwindling army tried to stop them but Grimlock grabbed one of them and beat the other to death with the soldier's body as parts were flying everywhere. Predaking ran faster than the group and spewed flames at a few in their way. They were rolling on the ground engulfed and screaming.

They reached the gardens with its neatly carved Energon crystals and metal flora. Haywire took the lead and navigated through it even as they found pieces of the palace's tower from the Combiner's assault lodged in some of the exterior décor. The palace could be fixed, their friends could not. Taking the left he stated, there were three rows of guards near the entrance to the throne room. Haywire, Shockwave and the others slowed to a halt as they assessed the situation.

"She sure beefed up the security," Haywire mused.

The Matriarch pushed gently past him and rolled her shoulders as Ultra Magnus approached and did the same. "We'll take care of it. Ultra, would you do us the honors?"

For the first time hearing The Matriarch be polite to anybody aside from Shockwave, Ultra Magnus smiled and prepared his forge. The two then sprinted at the cluster of soldiers with Ultra going in first. Jumping into the air, he did a flip and brought the hammer right down onto the floor. The whole palace felt like it was shaking from the force like a shockwave rippling through. All the soldiers fell at the violent rumble and The Matriarch leapt over Ultra with her blasters firing. In their distraction, she managed to kill most while they were down before getting personal with the remaining few.

Shockwave watched his leader barely flinch when one guard punched her when she came close. She was more stunned that it happened more so than physically hurt. With a growl, she calmly spoke though he could tell there was a hidden edge to her tone. "That's it?"

The bot was quick to apologize in a weak voice. "Sorry."

Her fist collided with their faceplate like a missile. Several small pieces of it broke off from the force and the guard fell face first onto the floor unmoving.

"Did anyone ever tell you you're scary?" Haywire asked with morbid concern.

The Matriarch shrugged, "I just don't tolerate stupidity."

"How is a soldier trying to protect his supposed leader a form of stupidity?"

"He didn't get out of my way," she said without a beat before going towards the throne room doors.

Haywire and Shockwave exchanged glances before the former pointed at her. "And you have a thing for her?!"

Shockwave walked past him, patting him on the shoulder. "What can I say? You have your queen and I have mine."

The Matriarch kicked in the door so hard, the door flew back into the wall and added cracks to the room. "Alright, where's Rockrider?! I ain't playing no more games today!"

Grimlock transformed into his Dinobot mode and stood behind The Matriarch to emphasize his might in warning as they spotted Wrathzone and, sure enough, the traitor herself. Rockrider was hardly fazed by the Dinobot's roar towards her. She merely glared back.

Haywire was quick to note there was blood on her and he froze. "Where are they? What did you do?!"

She pressed her servos together with a sneer. "Wouldn't you like to know? I congratulate all of you for your empty valor. You certainly proved that Autobots and Decepticons can co-exist, but you still lose in the end. This city is still mine; this planet is still mine!"

Ultra Magnus tapped the end of his hammer against the floor with authority. "You are sitting on a throne you never deserved. The title of any type of leader is earned, not given."

Rockrider mused on that. "Um hmm, let me think about that. And, uh, what exactly is the next step of your master plan to stop me if I'm not as great as you proclaim? You're all here now! Do something!"

The Matriarch was the first to step forward, cracking her neck when her arm was caught by Haywire who whispered, "Don't. Something's not right."

Grimlock and Predaking snarled at Rockrider in their beast modes, but a rumble caught them off guard. Suddenly, the windows shattered as a ramp was lowered in with multiple soldiers pointing their weapons at the leaders. Rockrider took that as her cue to leave, jumping off the throne and running to the large ship awaiting her. Wrathzone followed.

"This isn't the end!" Rockrider called out, "I'll get you like I did your idiotic friends and don't worry, I'll make sure their deaths are long and painful!"

The ship lurched its ramp out as glass went everywhere. As its doors closed, Rockrider could be seen laughing to the leaders' ire. The ship roared its engines as it took off with their target and possibly their teammates.

Shockwave hit his servo against his thigh irritably. "All this work for nothing. Illogical."

"Not so," argued Ultra Magnus. "We at least have the palace...though damaged."

Haywire nodded, "Ultra's right. With the palace now in our possession, we have access to the communications bay along with the space bridge that sent Arcee down to the Isle in the first place. Now, the space bridge probably won't work because Rockrider broke the lever, but we can use its coordinates to try and contact Arcee."

Predaking transformed back to robot mode and frowned, "I though you mentioned the Allspark might be blocking any attempt at communications?"

"Possible, but one of the upsides to the palace's comms is they are more direct and have a stronger signal than our personal ones do. There's a chance the Allspark will let it through and there's also a chance the signal might be too strong to block unless the Allspark focuses all its energy on said signal. I at least wish to try. I couldn't even get near the bay when I was heavily monitored by Rockrider and her guards."

The Matriarch scoffed, "Whatever you wish to do. I don't know about you, but I'm pissed! I want to kill someone. This is bull! Shockwave, we still have soldiers out there, right? Let's see if we can get some information. If they fail to relieve themselves of such, I'm going to put them out of their misery."

"Yes, my Liege," Shockwave said with some humor in his voice. He then turned to Haywire. "We'll deal the remaining soldiers and interrogate them to see if they know where Rockrider has retreated to. See if you can get the communications network running again and we'll meet you there as soon as we're done."

As Shockwave followed The Matriarch out, Haywire watched with severe anxiety before shivering. Looking at Predaking, he grimaced, "Those two scare me. I would hate to see them have any sparklings. Even thinking about it is throwing me off. You ever find someone you loved enough to kill for?"

Predaking gave a small whine, uncertain of the question and Haywire realized he had been created in a lab under Shockwave's supervision using prehistoric Predacon CNA. Of course, he wouldn't have a clue on the fundamentals of a relationship.

Haywire gave a deadpanned raise of a brow. "Never mind then."

Arcee and Megatron walked the meadows watching the Dinobots carefully now. Most were as peaceful as they could be with strangers in their supposedly temporary dwelling though the bots weren't strangers to unsure or spiteful glances their way. Moonhunter just kept growling at them in response.

"Do you think this whole adventure is just karma for us because of the war? Like I know your karma would be you started it technically but I'm thinking my karma is I just killed a lot of people. I mean my rap sheet is pretty big."

Megatron sighed, "If this is karma, this is light compared to what I thought it was going to be. Didn't we talk about this before?"

"No," Arcee said, "we talked about what we did in general before and during the war, we never talked about the consequences of what we did aside from, you know, imprisonment, death, and all the fun little punishments that I found in day-to-day life that makes me think Primus is out to make it known I have some problems."

"But I like you with them. You wouldn't be Arcee without some blood on your servos now, would you?" Megatron bit his lip as he thought about the amusing side of the situation. "Did you know that you had quite a large number of fans among the Nemesis?"

"Really?" She said surprised.

"Oh yes, even on Cybertron, you were unmatchable, believed indestructible, and uncatchable. Until Airachnid, no one ever could stop you. I was lucky that one time, I'll admit, because we were in a smaller area to dance around in, so there weren't many places you could go. But if we were on Cybertron, do you know how hard it would have been to get you? The Decepticons could talk about you all day and never run out of things to say. You and the scout were two of the most talked about Autobots in my empire...and yes, a portion of them were a bit more, uh, intolerable."

Arcee raised her eyebrows at that last word, a little uncertain but she kind of expected something like that. She didn't press the comment any more than needed but she could tell Megatron regretted speaking about thinking he may have made her uncomfortable.

A trumpeting roar sounded across the meadow and they both looked toward a watering hole where a Parasaurolophus-type Dinobot was angrily guarding their nest from an unfamiliar breed with the appearance of a black buffalo-like cybernetic animal with orange bio lights.

"Bolt, there's a bull or something bothering a Dinobot. Isn't that a Kanjian Staghorn? I heard about these things once but am I correct?" Arcee asked.

Bolt yawned and she heard him pop his knuckles while stretching. "It's a-it's a Staghorn from Kanjis, yes. They are also called the hot-headed barbed bull for, of course, their color scheme and occasional temper. They tend to get into fights with other creatures in their way because when they move, they don't deter from their preferred path for anything. What they lack in speed, they make up for in pure muscle. Not a whole lot of creatures can hurt them."

The Dinobot gave another rumble and crouched over their eggs in defense, nipping at the Staghorn when it finally relented and went around the nest. With a snarl, it continued on its way despite the rude gesture of the Dinobot.

Moonhunter curiously watched the exchange, sitting on the grass with the tilt of his head but he kept quiet not wanting any of them to freak out and risk the eggs' safety.

Megatron began noticing the Dinobots were more clustered in the area they needed to go across and kept close to Arcee just in case something went wrong. Longnecked, horned, frilled, and predatory Dinobots were all abundant. A few non-Dinobot creatures could be seen as well including more slow-paced Staghorns and another deer-like one. But the deer looked nothing like the jaggerstripe and seemed to be able to co-exist with the Dinobots with ease.

"I see the wildebucks are here too. Funny little tidbit of information about them: they are one of the few species of techno-organics to exist that are over seventy percent organic. Most techno-organics are either majority cybernetic or are half and half. So, wildebucks actually have a lot of organic organs and cannot transform because of this, not that this bothers them of course. They are also one of the few creatures cyber-based that, if need be, a human can kill and eat the same as a cybernetic being like you and I can. The flesh under the armor is identical to pig meat by closest comparison I believe. I could be wrong about the pig part, but I have seen the few organic predators kill these things on Kanjis and from what I've seen in terms of the texture of the insides, it's close visually."

"Ew," Arcee said. "I'll stick to Energon and metal, thank you."

The wildebuck had one set of antlers but three horns protruding from its cheeks like miniature tusks. It was a golden-brown color but had a light cream underbelly and green bio lights. Faded spots on its rear armor and shoulders made it look like an Earth-based fawn. It would blend quite well with Earth's animals with the only thing giving it away being the metal exterior and the abnormal size.

A glow behind her suddenly appeared and realized it was Dagger Prima. She quickly took it off her back and studied the glowing dialect symbols on its blade. She then whispered, "What do you want to tell me?"

Ghostly whispers made it hard to place but there was one word she could make out or a similar pronunciation of it. Go. Where to was the question, and Arcee didn't know why it was speaking to her now when it wanted to remain silent for some time. If it was trying to communicate with the Allspark instead of her, maybe it slipped up but that wouldn't explain why it was still helping her in the long run.

Both bots heard a screech from above and saw a pterosaur dive right at them with its clawed feet extended. Arcee and Megatron managed to duck but the winged Dinobot lifted up and turned back around with a hungry cry. Moonhunter scattered to hide behind a small rock, keeping low to the ground with a hiss.

"Great! As if we don't already have enough problems?!" Arcee growled.

Megatron peered at it in disdain before looking at the large group of Dinobots in front of them. "Arcee, I have a plan. We're going to run into the herd and lose it."

"To do what? Run into another Dinobot wanting to kill us?"

"It's not going to get any better and you know it."

Arcee huffed before she heard the Dinobot screeching above again. "Alright fine!"

While the pterosaur repositioned to dive again, the bots made a break for it with Moonhunter following towards the Dinobot herd. They ran under a large brachiosaur and past several various ceratopsians that equally grunted in confusion and startlement upon their appearance. One even reared up angrily as Arcee went into a slide beneath it. As its paws came down, she narrowly avoided being crushed under them.

The Nitrotiger was weaving in and out of large Dinobots that also had the capability to crush him. He climbed over a resting Dimetrodon that hissed at him and narrowly avoided some type of omnivore snapping at him. He remained close to Arcee fearful for his life.

The pterosaur pursuing them flew under the neck of the brachiosaur and over the herd to chase them, clattering its beak together in annoyance watching their attempt to flee it.

While they ran, Bolt spoke, "I've been researching the Dinobots of this area and I can confirm a personal suspicion of mine. They are all Kanjian Dinobots!"

"Yeah and?!" Megatron yelled ducking again when he felt something whisk past him.

"King Kronos' father was the initial creator of the Dinobot herds, but it's rumored in the documents pertaining them that Kronos is the one who created the basis for the dinosaurs' DNA, the result of which were the dinosaurs and upgrades for the Kanjian Dinobots long before Shockwave ever altered Grimlock and his team. In fact, it is said Kanjis and Earth have a long history as being the testing grounds of many of Kronos' powers and ideas. The only creatures he never had any direct influence on are modern day animals and humans. Humans evolved and learned naturally without any exterior help though they do come from mammalian ancestors around the same eras. Dinosaurs, though, might have been solely Kronos' tampering."

Arcee leapt over several smaller sleeping raptors. "So, Tigressa was right about Kronos playing god?!"

"The more you know. Look, these Dinobots are the real deal! Grimlock is one thing; these guys are a whole different set up and their leader is the dreaded Klea Pakora who I heard many stories about when I visited Kanjis after spending time here...her name kind of sounds similar to that infamous Egyptian Queen I read about, Cleopatra, ha ha! That's funny actually!"

"Bolt!"

The pterosaur dived bombed them again toward Moonhunter but hit the underside of another longnecked Dinobot as they fled underneath it and hit the ground with a dirt trail behind it.

"Sorry, got squirreled. If you want to damage them, physical weapons are your friends. They can take a lot definitely, but their armor will eventually break under so much stress, especially agile-based Dinobots like Talonbrawl and Vulcore."

Megatron scowled, "Who the hell is Vulcore?!"

Bolt laughed, "The Dinobot chasing you."

Vulcore shook off the landing and growled before taking to the air again. Following Moonhunter as the main target, it rolled counterclockwise between an opening among two brachiosaur necks before diving once more for the cat.

The femme happened to look back right as it overshadowed Moonhunter. Not wanting her Nitrotiger to be easy prey to it, she jumped in front of the Dinobot's path between it and Moonhunter as the cat kept sprinting. She let out a yell and Megatron slid as he saw Arcee snatched up by the Dinobot. He attempted to jump to grab it before it flew off, but he missed as Arcee was carried upward.

"No! Damn bird! I'll follow you, Arcee! I won't let anything happen to you!"

With startled cry, Arcee saw the ground leave her, and she struggled in its grasp pissed as hell. "Not this again! Don't you have anything better to do?!"

Vulcore hissed at her as it flew towards the Black Mountains to presumably a nest. However, Arcee had no intention of letting it reach its destination, not like last time with the Rozarian bloodhawk, Swift. She was going to break free even if she had to severe her arm or so to do it. Looking at the abdomen of the pterosaur, she noticed a small spider web crack among its sternum armor, and she began to wonder if it once was attacked by something or it merely took damage upon hitting something. It looked a few days old at the most, so it was fresh enough to potentially use to her advantage.

Smirking, Arcee started to swing herself a few times to pretend to struggle, making the Dinobot try and readjust its grip on her. As soon as she was aided in her swing by accidental momentum, she made her move. Swinging upward, she sent a harsh kick right into the broken armor and laughed as it shattered and oozed Energon from what she saw was actually a pierced wound. Vulcore screamed and let her go, flapping madly in agony as Arcee dropped over a hundred feet. She saw where she was going to land: right on the head of a sauropod.

"Ah shi-!"

She made a pained grunt and she hit the skull of the Dinobot below and bounced before she found herself sliding down its ridged neck and backside. The ridges made her voice bumpy as she half-screamed half-laughed at the somewhat fun ride down. But the sauropod began to lift its tail as she reached its base.

"No, no, no, no, no!"

"Arcee!" Megatron shouted from below.

She decided to humorously reply, "Oh hey, Mega-AH!"

Reaching the tip of the tail, Arcee was scrambling uselessly in midair until she suddenly clashed with something flexible. To her surprise and to the anger of what she hit, she caught the wing of the same pterosaur trying to kill her. She stared into its enraged optics before giving a cheesy grin much to the Dinobot's ire.

The pterosaur started snapping at her and flapping its wings attempting to shake her off if it couldn't bite her. Several times it resorted to flipping itself into rolls which Arcee fearfully had to hold on upon seeing the far below ground level spinning. Frustrated, she brought out Dagger Prima and stabbed its wing trying to rip through the membrane to make it sink. It jolted and she was forced to quit to prioritize hanging on for dear life.

"Stay still already! Megatron, can you hear me?!"

"Yes, I'm right below you," he answered on the comm.

"I want you to shoot the pterosaur!"

"But I don't want to hurt you!"

Arcee smiled but huffed, "Trust me, it'll work. We take these risks every day just like old times!"

When the commlink went silent, she waited even among Vulcore's struggling. Then she heard him again. "Coming in on your right!"

She peered down to Megatron right as he aligned his cannon and fired. The shot looked like a small light went off from below until the sound of the signature noise that normally came with it echoed up with the blast itself. Smirking, she caught the pterosaur's beak and forced it to face her.

"You think you're the best dogfighter in the sky? Think again, you son of a bitch."

The Dinobot snarled right as the blast hit its chest cavity. With a loud boom, Vulcore's chest exploded into several pieces launching it backwards and into freefall. Arcee spun with it as it hurled towards the ground at a quick pace. Sinking Dagger Prima into the membrane of its wings again, she managed to climb up and jump off the Dinobot seconds before it hit the meadows.

Right before she was about to smack down into the ground, she was suddenly pushed forward and protected in the arms of Megatron who slid to a halt. He smirked and she clung to him a bit shaken and said, "C-cutting that a bit close."

"Of course, I aim to be dramatic. It's me."

Arcee slowly smiled and leaned her head back laughing softly. But then she heard a low whine as did Megatron and he turned so she could see Vulcore on the ground broken but alive miraculously.

Its neck and chest looked mangled with one of its optics popping out of its socket and dangling across its beak. The Dinobot tried to crawl towards them but flopped back onto the grass breathing heavily. Moonhunter hissed as he came right beside Megatron who shushed him. Arcee couldn't help but feel a little bad for it given it just wanted some food and a Nitrotiger was a perfect meal.

A pede of an Apatosaurus-like Dinobot abruptly came down on Vulcore, crushing it indefinitely much to both bots' vocalized surprise and horror. The wing of the pterosaur broke off completely under the pressure. The larger Dinobot in question that killed it continued walking despite the sudden death of a fellow Dinobot, but perhaps it didn't see the poor thing having such a high neck and distant vision from the height.

Arcee made an awkward frown and sighed, "I guess that takes care of him?"

Even Megatron winced looking at the remains of Vulcore after the sauropod Dinobot moved on. It looked like nothing but a splatter of metal in the flattened grass. "It...it has definitely seen better days."

He picked up the wing as Moonhunter pawed the remains suspiciously with a yowl. "But I guess it won't be needing this anymore. Think it would make a great trophy?"

"Make up for the wing of the Swansong we couldn't keep without a doubt. Bolt, Vulcore's down. Any update on the gem?"

Bolt's voice came through and responded, "Uh, I may have...bad news."

"What's the bad news?" Arcee asked suspiciously realigning herself onto Megatron's shoulder.

"The bad news is I know exactly where the gem is now. But you aren't going to like this. Remember when I mentioned Klea Pakora, the Kanjian Dinobot leader?"

"Yeah?"

"She's here!" He exclaimed. "Her energy signature is mixed with the gem's! I feared as much, but I didn't want to believe it. If Klea Pakora is on the isle, you are going to have to give everything you got! But I never heard of anyone defeating her. She's the main instigator of the 'kill me or I kill you' clause meaning if she fights you, you have to kill her or else, and given she's fought several hundred thousand bots or more in her lifetime to keep her leadership, how many times do you think she's lost?"

Megatron gave a small grimace to Arcee upon hearing that before chiming in with his opinion. "Then how do we defeat her if no one else could?"

"The same as the miracles you've been pulling as of late. If you can't do it, there's no one else I can really think of that can except...nah, it would never work. That might cause more problems than solve them."

"Who did you have in mind, Bolt? We'll take anything."

Bolt gave a heavy sigh on the other end. "The Cybertronian Predator might be powerful enough, but I wouldn't want it to kill more innocent lives. But, at the same time, maybe Klea Pakora...I'm just going to start calling her Cleopatra, easier to remember...maybe Cleopatra will take out the Cybertronian Predator. It'll solve one of our problems at least either way, and in her distraction, you can steal the gem from her. Win-win situation for us. It's just a thought though."

Megatron shook his head solemnly, "It might be our only choice if worse comes to worst."

Arcee agreed. If Klea Pakora, Cleopatra, was as dangerous as Bolt said, maybe they needed to resort to exterior tactics, but she managed to kill an Aqautronian Leviathan Queen so maybe it wasn't out of the realm of possibilities that she could kill Cleopatra if it had to come to violence. Maybe there was a way to reason with her.

"We'll try, Bolt, we always do," Arcee said a bit tired.

"I know. It's almost over, Arcee. We're almost there. I believe in you, my Queen."

As Megatron and Arcee headed towards the far northwestern end of the meadows where the signal for the gem was the strongest, they both kept the last resort option in mind. They hoped it wouldn't be needed. Moonhunter could sense their worry too and meowed before rubbing his side against Megatron's shin.

A growl resonated deep within its throat. Walking past the dead raptor, it sensed not just the Dinobot but a few familiar scents. It gave a purr before smirking.

The Cybertronian Predator had merely come into the Cyber Meadow to relax for a little while. Hunting and killing prey and anything in its way did become tiresome but finding the scents of at least two bots who did it wrong was certainly worth the investigation, then it caught the scent of the Nitrotiger as well.

Its broken optic flared red as its normal optic's pupil contracted in hatred. The cat and the purple bot had damaged its optic. It was about time it paid them back for the humiliation. The other two would be a bonus.

The Cybertronian Predator clicked and grunted moving close to the Dinobot herd where the scented trail led. It had several Dinobots roaring at it but they quickly backed away knowing it was vicious. It merely snarled back as the Dinobots formed a path for it but a wall among themselves to protect their young and each other.

When the Predator came across the crushed remains of the pterosaur, it sensed they were close now. Perfect. With a shake of its head, it followed eagerly and ignored the still present howls of the enraged and defensive Dinobots. It would kill them, and nothing would stand between it and its targets, not a ship or bot alive again.

Rockrider threw Bumblebee in a cell as well as Preceptor while Wrathzone handled the bigger mechs like Optimus and Scythe. Windblade was dragged in and chained upon the wall of the dark prison.

"You won't get away with this, Rockrider!" Windblade yelled.

The bronze femme pulled the chains harshly and made the Seeker wince. "Just watch me. I've gone this long without anybody stopping me and I'll continue to do so because at this moment, no one knows where you are, and they never will."

Scythe growled, "Want to bet? You still don't know if Arcee's dead of not so your plan isn't in the clear yet."

"You think I'm afraid of her, huh?! She isn't getting off that isle. No one else did so why would I be afraid of someone who can't even be here to see you suffer?"

"Because you know there's a chance," Bumblebee said, making Rockrider glare at him. "You know she's alive or you wouldn't be so keen in trying to force the idea upon us. Out of all of us, you fear her the most because you know what she can do when she gets ahold of you."

Rockrider violently slapped Bee and screamed, "She is not coming, you idiot!"

Wrathzone frowned at the treatment of the prisoners. "Rockrider, calm down-"

"DON'T YOU DARE TELL ME WHAT TO DO! Secure the prisoners and meet me in Megatron's throne room!"

Optimus watched the exchange as Rockrider left before speaking. "Wrathzone, why do you let her treat you like that?"

The faded gold mech scowled, "I'm her bodyguard, not her friend. I know what I was hired to do. And it's not your concern, Prime. Just be silent and all will bode well for you, as much as it can."

Wrathzone finished the remainder of the binds and left without another word, but the Prime's words did resonate through his mind as to just why he tolerated Rockrider's outbursts...because he was obligated to? He muttered Prime's words a few times that slowly began to leave a bad taste in his mouth, and it never left him even as he stood by Megatron's old throne with the femme he was protecting but at what cost?

He scowled to himself and simply stayed silent among her. What he did was already done and he wasn't about to question everything just because a prisoner poked at his ego. He was better than that.

AN: Guess who's coming to dinner? The endgame is near and my favorite fight is close! Next chapter, you might want to hold onto your desks because things are about to get a little primeval.

Featured monsters:

Vulcore the Dinobot (Kanjis)