This particular one-shot serves as a little bit of backstory for a character recently introduced in "Prime: Beast Saga" and what he was doing before he joined Team Convoy. (Ha, that's not really what the team is called, as far as I know, but since we call the other one Team Prime, I thought "Hey, why not?").
This takes place during a time of exploration, when Galvatron and his band of Predacons were just starting to get their legs under them, as it were.
(An explanation of the title of this one-shot: it's a song that Brave Kid and I thought reminded us of Razorback)
Solid Bullet
"Maximal Command, I would like to state for the record that if we die out here, it was all Razorback's fault!"
The red Maximal laughed and flicked a pebble at the aquamarine helm. "Maximal Command, disregard previous statement: my partner has apparently forgotten that stupid plans are his department." The two mechs ran side by side over the crumbling terrain of the asteroid, playfully shoving each other back and forth. The lessened gravity had increased Razorback's speed to the point where he could easily keep pace with his more agile partner, Finshot. The double crest on the erstwhile dolphin's helm rose indignantly. "I resent that remark! I'll have you know, sir, that I had everything under control that last expedition!" Razorback slid down a small rise, scattering debris as he went, and chuckled again. "Oh yes, because the part where the rock giant flung us completely out of the atmosphere for desecrating the temple was part of your plan all along!"
He skidded to halt and peered down into a crater at his pedes. He let out a low whistle. "Look at that," he said admiringly. "Beauty, ain't she?" Hidden away in the side of the cliffs were the rusted remains of a door. "What do you think? Autobot-era base?" Finshot leaned over his shoulder, squinting. "I dunno, Razor. Looks older to me. More like a temple than a base." The slight mech hoisted his supply pack higher on his shoulders and grinned. "One way to find out, right?" Razorback nodded and lowered himself down. Hanging on to the edge with one hand, he began punching the rocky wall of the crater, creating hand and pede-holds for himself and for his partner as they descended. "This would be much easier if you were a flying animal," he grunted as he dropped to the ground. Finshot smirked and landed next to him in a graceful crouch. "I'll remember that the next time you're stuck in zero-g! Let's see whether I swim out to help you then!" Pretending to be offended, he stalked away towards the door and rapped on it a few times, listening to the hollow boom of the echo. "Hm." he remarked, "Sound waves indicate a door at least three times the thickness of standard Maximal architecture, but not reinforced, like Autobot or Decepticon designs. We might actually be looking at an N.A.I.L. settlement, y'know." (a/n: N.A.I.L.: Non-Aligned Indigenous Lifeform)
Razorback shouldered his own pack and hastened to join the smaller mech at the heavy door. "Neutrals? You think? They stayed pretty far away from Cybertron during the War, Fin. I doubt they'd be on an asteroid this close." He tilted his helm to the side and considered the tri-fold, petaled appearance of the metal. "Well, let's try those old wartime universal overrides the museum gave us to see if there's anything still powering this slab." From his subspace, he took a fist-sized scanner and keyed a few commands into the orb. Small, flat panels emerged from its sides as it hovered beside the door, and a thin beam of light shot into the old control panel. After a few seconds of hissing and sparking, a dim red light flickered on in the small screen. "Well, it's got power," Finshot murmured, perusing the glyphs scrolling over the feed. "But...it looks like the codes aren't checking out. Mech, these are some old glyphs. Nobody says "bedight" anymore!" Taking a moment to record the ancient message in his processor, Finshot began running several historical-language-translation programs to aid in making the glyphs a little easier to understand.
"Aw scrap, it's gonna be one of those," he sighed after a moment. His partner raised an eyebrow. "Let me guess, we have to pass some sort of test to enter?" He leaned against the door as Finshot chuckled in disbelief. "Close. It's a riddle. A riddle, Razorback. You know I'm not fond of those, ever since the one set of ruins we found with that creepy little alien-thing." The warthog sidled over and elbowed his friend with a smirk. "You were ten times its size. Don't tell me that thing scared you, Fin!" Internal fans kicked on with a whirr as the dolphin grumbled under his breath about riddle contests and hungry ghouls. "Right, well, did you want to hear the riddle for this place or not?" he asked dryly. Razorback rolled his shoulders. "Fire away." Finshot took a deep breath and declaimed:
Death-dealer by death-dealing slayed,
By Mortilus, immortal made—
By titans ferried throughout space.
Those seeking entrance to this place
Speak the names of they who crusade—
False answer with destruction paid.
"Slayed isn't a word." Razorback corrected Finshot. The pale blue mech snorted. "Take that up with the ancients. Nice sort of chiastic structure though, don't you think?" Razorback stared his friend down. "Do I look like I care about poetry?" he asked flatly. Finshot snickered and agreed, "No, you certainly do not." The pair stood back, mulling over the question posed by ancient technology. "Made immortal by Mortilus...well, if you go by the really old legends, that could be any spark, since Mortilus was the personification of Death in the oral traditions of the First Generation," Finshot suggested. Razorback shook his helm. "Nah, couldn't be just any spark. "Titans", remember? And it said something about a crusade." The answer dawned on him and he grinned, thankful, for once, that he had paid attention to the historical lectures in the Old Iacon archives. "What kind of mech goes on a crusade, Fin?" he asked pointedly. Blue optics brightened even further as Finshot understood. "The Knights of Cybertron!" he gasped. Agonizingly slowly, the door panels parted and slid open, revealing a long, dark hallway.
"Well Fin, I think you were right," Razorback said in a hushed voice as he slipped into the shadows. "It's got to bea temple of some kind. Why else would they even mention the Knights of Cybertron?" He took a lamp from his subspace compartment and held it up. By hard and sometimes humorous experience, he and Finshot had learned to check very thoroughly for traps when entering old ruins. "Pressure sensors on the floor here, watch it!" he warned, gesturing to four panels with a slightly different texture than the rest of the floor. Finshot nodded and trailed his servos over tiny openings in the wall. They came back coated with a fine red powder. "Eeugh. Looks like those pads trigger a spray of Cosmic Rust out of these holes." He shuddered, shaking the residue off his hands. "Sure makes you feel sorry for whatever poor fool might've tried to trespass during the War, doesn't it?" He carefully skirted the pressure sensors to join Razorback, who grunted. "Yeah, they didn't have a vaccine for it back then, did they?" Remaining vigilant, the two mechs made their way to the heart of the temple. On their way they barely avoided three more pressure-traps, one set of spiked, collapsing walls, a giant furnace, and what had at one point been a pit of bubbling acid. Long centuries had rendered most of the traps inoperable and in varying states of disrepair, which was fortunate for the explorers.
The passing of several hours found Razorback forcing open a large, ornate door long enough for Finshot to slip inside. "Hey Razor?" his voice echoed back, slightly muffled as he searched for something to prop the door open. "Yeah, Fin?" the warthog grunted, "What's up?" The dolphin hesitated a moment before answering, a touch of trepidation in his tone. "You get the feeling we aren't alone out here?" The faint glimmer of his headlamp twinkled momentarily in the gloom of the darkened chamber before he moved out of the line of Razorback's sight. "You're jumping at shadows, Partner," the red mech replied with a snort, "Who'd be out in a ruin like this?" The answer echoed back, distant and slightly strained as Finshot found a large beam to hold the door up. "I don't know, Predacons, maybe." With a grunt of effort, the data scavenger forced the crossbeam under the thick door, allowing Razorback to let go and slide under. "Predacons, seriously? You're worried about those clowns?"
"You're not?"
Razorback's plating flared slightly in a display of teasing bravado. "Of course not! They're a mangy band of renegades—pirates! They're barely organized enough to take energon from a sparkling." He strode through the small audience chamber, arms swinging. If the Maximal Council didn't believe that the so-called "Predacons" were a major threat, neither did he. Finshot, on the other hand, had been growing increasingly more concerned over the scattered reports from the colony worlds of this "Galvatron" that supposedly led them. "Mech, I don't know. They're starting to get pretty serious with their raids. I've heard some terrible things from out near what's left of Aquatron!" The scanner in his hand began pulsing rapidly, an alternating beam of blue and red light flashing from its primary sensor to indicate one last door standing before them. "Oh scrap," they breathed in unison. It stood four times their combined height and six times their width. Made up of seven interlocking plates, it obviously wasn't going to move without energon, and there had been no energon on the tiny asteroid for many decades.
"Finshot, you know I hate damaging ruins, but I think we're gonna have to cut through this one," Razorback gulped. "Yeee-ep. I think you're right," Fin squinted up. "Good Primus in the Allspark, how big were the Cybertronians who built this place?!" Razorback shook his helm and took a small, concentrated mining charge from his subspace. A simple changing of the blast radius on the charge's counter and it was ready to go. Razorback fastened the grenade to the door and darted away from it, closely followed by Finshot. The pair leapt over a fallen pillar and crouched, waiting for the blast. "Seriously though, you're worried about Predacons?" Razorback asked after a second, arching an eyebrow. Finshot crossed his arms and leaned against the stone. "We're still talking about this?" His partner shrugged and made a face. "I'm still trying to wrap my processor around the idea of anyone actually being afraid of them. But I don't think we've got anything to worry about out here. Even if they were enough of a threat to do any serious raiding—which they're not, by the way—they'd be going after weapons caches or energon depots. They're not going to come poking around some old archaeological ruin like this."
With a wide grin, he pulled a pair of X-12 Scrapmakers from his back. "And even if they did, between your Dorsal Rapier and Sturm'n'Drang here, they wouldn't stand a chance." They both ducked as the grenade detonated, sending shrapnel flying overhead. Finshot stood, brushing himself off. "You are literally the only mech I know who carries Civil War-era pistols around and actually uses them," he chuckled. "They belong in a museum!" "You belong in a museum!" Razorback joked, moving to inspect the damage. "Really though," he remarked as he wriggled through the hole, "Your Dorsal Rapier would be all we needed. It's one of the finest blades ever created!" His smaller companion nodded absently as he crawled through—with considerably less difficulty. "I suppose it is, after the Star Saber," he said. He missed the odd look that crossed Razorback's face, but there was an unmistakable note of condescending in his friend's tone. "The Star Saber, right. Now would this be the magic sword given to the Thirteen by Primus?" Finshot was mildly caught off guard by the words. "Both, actually. I forgot, you don't believe in Primus, do you?" It was true that they hadn't often discussed beliefs: it was on Razorback's list of forbidden conversation topics, along with politics and what exactly went into the drinks at Maccadams's. "I believe in things I can see, Fin," the warthog murmured, holding up his lamp. "Well I can't believe what I'm seeing right now," Finshot gasped as something shone in the darkness.
On a platform hovering above a bottomless pit knelt a statue of the most incredible workmanship either of them had ever seen. It was a likeness of a femme made up of titanium, crystalline shards forming the optics. Under a winged helm, cephalic wiring fell in a gentle cascade over elegant shoulder guards and layered armor. Finshot hopped from a promontory to the floating pedestal, windmilling his arms to keep his balance before kneeling beside it. "Razorback, it's a Cor Nostrum!" he whispered reverently. "I never thought I'd find one of these all the way out here! These were almost all destroyed during the Civil War!" He pursed his lips and gazed at the likeness of Solus Prime critically. "I daresay Megatron didn't have much use for art, barbarian that he was." From the other side of the gulf, Razorback whistled appreciatively. "She's gorgeous, Fin. What's that she's holding?"
The statue's faceplates were turned downwards with a tender expression, and a long slab lay across her forearms, balancing. "Scans show it's organic," Finshot answered, "Looks like cloth! I'm taking some pics for posterity." He knew that if the velvety-looking substance had been there as long as he thought it had, it was likely going to crumble to dust the moment he touched it. Curiosity overcame him, however, and he could not resist running a servo over it. In the instant before it dissolved to nothing, his sensors retained the impression of something softer than the sky. He knew in that moment that he would spend the remainder of his life trying to recapture the feeling. There was something beneath what had been the fabric, and as he gently blew the dust away, a sharp, glittering form took shape. "Hey Razor?" he called over his shoulder, "You might want to get a retrieval capsule out." From behind him, he heard the larger mech's disbelieving exclamation. "We're not taking the whole statue with us?! She'd never fit in one of the pods!"
Finshot turned around with an awed expression on his faceplates. "Not the Cor Nostrum, Razorback, this." He held up a spar of metal about three hand's lengths, covered in glyphs and channels. As Finshot hopped from the pedestal back to the promontory, Razorback got a good look at the odd shard. "That," he breathed, "Is part of a sword! Look at that, see those grooves? That's for letting the enemy's energon drain away so it doesn't run down the hilt and make your hands slippery. I don't know where the rest of this thing is, but if this is just the part that goes over the hilt, then all together it's probably as long as you are tall!" Carefully, Razorback took a cylindrical pod from his back and opened it. "Is it gonna fit?" Finshot wondered as they slid the shard into the tube. It was a bit of a squeeze at the end, but they managed to get the lid on. "Maximal Command, this is Razorback and Finshot, archaeological patrol B_CW2 reporting in," Razorback broadcasted over a wide comm range as the two confidently strode back towards the doors of the temple. "You are never going to believe what we found! I'm not completely sure what it is, but it's definitely important!"
Finshot elbowed his companion and grinned broadly as they stepped into the cold exterior of the asteroid. "The museum will be grateful for this, I'll wager. Maybe even enough to give us the rest of the cycle off, you think?" Razorback heartily seconded the hope as they climbed out of the crater and made their way back to their ship. "I don't know about you, but I'm going straight to Maccadam's after this!" Razorback yawned, stretching until his back struts popped. Finshot smiled softly. "I will too, but I intend to ask Scylla to go with me." With a raucous laugh, Razorback ruffled the dolphin's green-blue helm playfully. "Scylla? You don't stand a chance, mate! She's only got optics for Scuba, remember?" He walked ahead a few paces, chuckling at the thought. "Why don't you ask Sonar instead? She's a nice femme, right?" There was no reply. "Right? Fin?" Thinking his partner was sulking, Razorback turned to apologize.
Finshot lay facedown on the rocky soil, a smoking crater in the middle of his back.
He hadn't even heard the shot.
In a half-rational state of mind, Razorback desperately scanned the area for the shooter. His advanced tracking systems picked up the electromagnetic field imprint of a cloaking shield for 2.476 seconds, then it was gone. Pushing the matter from his processor, Razorback hurried to Finshot and knelt beside him. "Fin, Fin mate, can you hear me?" But Finshot had been dead the moment the blast struck him.
It wasn't supposed to be this way. In the stories, the holofilms, the plays, the good guys didn't die. And if they did, they went out in a blaze of glory, offering some last, spark-felt words to their friends. This, this was meaningless. Talking about off-duty plans one second, snuffed out forever the next. The aquamarine armor began to fade to a dreadful pallor. "No, no no no! Don't you go gunmetal on me, Fin," the Maximal begged, coolant tears streaming down his faceplates, "Don't you do it! Come on mate, come back! You've gotta come back!"
In desperation, he turned his helm to the stars. "Primus, please! Give his spark back! If you have to take a life, take mine and give him back his! Please!" The relic that Finshot had been carrying was gone, most likely taken by the sniper. Razorback couldn't bring himself to care at all. He gently lifted his partner's frame—too light, too cold—and pressed his fore-helm to Finshot's. "I swear, Fin," he whispered brokenly, "I swear on my spark, and on your spark, Pit, I swear on the Allspark, that I'm going to catch the coward responsible for this." He looked down at the scanning screen on his arm, still holding the signature of the cloaking shield. Such devices were mostly illegal, and therefore custom-made. No two cloaks had the same electromagnetic field, making them easier to track. Razorback carried Finshot's still form into their ship and laid him in the cargo bay, arms crossed over his ruined spark chamber. With a savage snarl, the warthog tore a piece of twisted metal from the dolphin's chestplates and crushed it into a rough sphere.
He stared grimly out over the asteroid's surface as he clutched the sphere in one hand. "I will find you, assassin," he hissed, "And once you're in my sights, there's no escape! Maybe it's a bit old-fashioned, but—" he held up the metal ball. "I've got a bullet here with your name on it. Finshot's revenge, we'll call it." Trembling with grief and with rage, Razorback turned away and initiated the ship's liftoff sequence. "You can't run forever, assassin," he growled, "No matter where you run, I will follow, and I will personally deliver the Pit itself to your door! This I swear to you, Finshot." He pulled his fearsome battle-mask down over his faceplates and locked it in place, inflamed golden optics staring accusingly at the stars.