Chapter 20
While Wheeljack, Ratchet, Perceptor and Rhinox are running down the catacombs of Cybertron, their bodies show greater signs of degradation. The holes created by the acidic gas grow slowly.
"My legs are barely functioning." Wheeljack says.
"We have to get to the surface. We'll be teleported to safety." Rhinox says, trying to reassure the others.
Ratchet glances at his hand as he runs, seeing it's heavily damaged and showing internal cables and circuitry, which is also showing signs of acidic damage.
"You have to admit, Megatron sure knows how to pick the most deadly forms of defense. This acid bonds to Cybertronic metal. It'll take a miracle to get rid of this stuff." Rhinox says as the group runs.
Inside the Predacon Command Center, Ravage looks up from his console and speaks in his famous Russian accent "Maximals are down in the catacombs."
Soundwave looks over to Predacon panther. "Activate drones."
Ravage types at his console and an alert pops up on the screen. "Negative Soundwave, all physical drones are fighting on the surface, and the holo-emitters were deactivated to concentrate holographic drones on the surface.
"I'll go!" A Predacon says from the door way with his extremely scruffy voice.
The rest of the Predacons turn to the door way, seeing Dinobot. Soundwave nods to him and Dinobot runs out of the room.
Inside the hallway of the Citadel, Starscream gets to his feet and looks at the window he crashed through.
He hears the sounds of blaster fire, clanging, and the sharp hum of energon blades swinging in the air. He walks down the hallway until he sees a partial open doorway. He gets on his knees and looks through the opening to see SilverBlade and Megatron fighting.
SilverBlade swings his claws at Megatron, who deflects the slashes by blocking SilverBlade's wrist with his own wrists.
"You will lose, Megatron. Give up now!" SilverBlade demands from Megatron.
Megatron laughs manically as he slugs SilverBlade in the stomach then kicks him away. "You Maximals are all alike. You are always challenging me to the death. One thing hasn't changed; no one has beaten me."
"Tonight is going to be different!" SilverBlade yells, running to Megatron, and slashing at his stomach. Megatron steps to the side, grabs SilverBlade by the neck and tosses him into the air, and firing at him with his arm cannon, missing a couple of times but eventually hitting once.
SilverBlade falls but gets on his feet, looking pretty damaged, but he is determined to defeat Megatron, even if it means he sacrifices himself. He bolts over to Megatron and slashes wildly, with Megatron using his arm cannon to deflect the slashes. SilverBlade then kicks Megatron in the stomach, then jumps and spin-kicks Megatron's head and watches Megatron fall to the ground, caught off guard.
SilverBlade quickly reaches down to grab Megatron, but Megatron jumps to his feet and delivers and uppercut to SilverBlade's jaw, and body checks him into the wall, creating a large indent.
SilverBlade dislodges himself from the wall and powers on his foot jets, and grabs Megatron's shoulders on his assent; he summersaults in the air and slams Megatron down onto the throne, knocking it off of its hinges.
Megatron activates his own jets and ascends into the air to slam his fist against SilverBlade's midsection. SilverBlade falls to the ground as Megatron descends.
SilverBlade gets on his feet, and takes out two light sabers from his body and activates them. Megatron drops his arm cannon, reaches for his two light sabers and activates them.
SilverBlade is the first to react as he charges at Megatron and swings. Megatron blocks the incoming slash easily. SilverBlade swings upwards towards Megatron's stomach and Megatron again blocks with his own saber. Megatron swings down and SilverBlade crosses his sabers above his head to block Megatron's swing. SilverBlade jumps up and kicks Megatron in the head, causing Megatron the stumble. SilverBlade quickly lands and sweep-kicks at Megatron's feet, causing him to fall backwards.
SilverBlade quickly jumps and raises his arms to prepare to slash straight down on Megatron, but Megatron uses his jets to quickly rise to meet SilverBlade with a harsh kick to the stomach. SilverBlade looses his aiming from the kick and falls to the side, landing in a feral position.
"You fight more aggressively than I could have imagined, Silver. I swear you were a Predacon." Megatron says with a smirk on his face.
"You will regret the day you built me." SilverBlade says as charges at Megatron once again and tries to use his two sabers as giant scissors to cut Megatron's head off, but Megatron uses his two sabers to defend this attack and separate SilverBlade's sabers from each other.
Starscream still watches from the partially opened door as SilverBlade and Megatron continue to fight.
The four Maximal scientists step off of an elevator and they can see the opening to the surface, but they see a figure standing in the way, holding a sword that spins in one hand, and a rotating blade in the other.
"Four damaged Maximals against me? This is hardly a challenge." Dinobot scoffs as he acts like this fight is beneath his skill.
Rhinox is the first to react as he retrieves two chain guns from his back, though weakly, and begins to fire at Dinobot. Dinobot adjusts the speed of the rotating blade to act as a shield for the rapid fire as he walks towards the Maximal group.
Wheeljack is the first to jump at him, and Rhinox stop firing for fear out of hitting a fellow Maximal. Dinobot is knocked over and the rotating blade is thrown out of his hand as he and Wheeljack his the wall. Wheeljack repeatedly punches Dinobot in the head until Dinobot throws Wheeljack off of him. Dinobot reaches for his rotating blade when Perceptor fires at it and disables it.
Dinobot gets up and looks pissed. He fires his optic beams at Perceptor to send him flying against the wall, heavily damaged. Dinobot dives for his spinning sword but Wheeljack holds it in his hands. "You'll have to kill me for it."
"It'll be my pleasure!" Dinobot says as he fires optic blasts at Wheeljack, who dives out of the way
In Megatron's throne room, SilverBlade and Megatron both fire on one another, hitting each other and falling over. Both bots are heavily damaged.
Starscream busts in and readies his arm-mounted blaster, pointing it at SilverBlade.
"Kill him Starscream, and you'll be reinstated as my Second in Command." Megatron says to the flyer.
Starscream then points his blaster at Megatron's head. "My true calling is to lead the Predacons, not just simply be taking orders from you. You've failed oh mighty Megatron."
SilverBlade gets to his feet and activates his knuckle claws. Starscream hears the hum of the energy and turns his head to SilverBlade, preparing to fire. Megatron sees this opportunity to use his cannon to fire at Starscream chest, totally blowing off one of his arms.
"Megatron?! Megatron?!" Starscream attempted to plead for forgiveness but Megatron again fires at Starscream, this time with a different beam setting. Once Starscream is hit, his body turns into shades of black and grey, and crumbles into dust.
Megatron stands over SilverBlade and prepares to fire another. "Like I said, you will never defeat me."
SilverBlade jumps up and slashes at Megatron across the stomach with his claws multiple times. Megatron then grabs SilverBlade's arm and prepares to fire at point-blank range to SilverBlade's head. SilverBlade electrifies his body quickly so that Megatron is stunned and lets him go. "Who said anything about defeating you? I'm here to kill you!" Silver says as he sends another electrical bolt right at Megatron, hitting squarely in the chest.
Megatron falls to his knees. SilverBlade coldly says "You shouldn't have killed your own Commander. You did have the man advantage. Not that it would help much.
Megatron slowly gets up "You think some electricity can take me down? I've lived for tens of thousands of years. You will not kill me." He takes aim with his fusion cannon. SilverBlade leaps out of the way of the blast, hearing the wall behind him get destroyed. SilverBlade jumps again out of the way of another shot and into the air. Megatron aims carefully and hits SilverBlade in the chest, sending him at the wall. SilverBlade collapses onto the ground following by part of the wall partially burying him.
Megatron stands mid-way between SilverBlade and the opposite side of the room. He raises his fusion canon and aims it at the pile of ruble that SilverBlade is buried under. "You've failed." The canon begins to power up when he hears the wall behind him get destroyed. He turns around to see Optimus Prime hopping off of Swoop's dinosaur mode. Swoop transforms in mid-air and lands beside Optimus.
While Megatron has his attention focused on Optimus, SilverBlade eventually crawls out of the rubble, his torso heavily damaged, his face half-melted off. His computer, internally gives him a warning. "Warning. Power regulation unstable. Secondary elemental chip unstable. Using elemental or weapon reserves will lead to a 90% chance of spark failure. Seek CR tank."
Optimus and Megatron sprint to each other, with Optimus swinging his fist at Megatron's head fist, connecting with his head and making Megatron stumble. Optimus swings his fists at Megatron's chest and stomach a few more, connecting each time, eventually sending Megatron to the ground and knocking the fusion canon out of his grip.
Megatron gets to his feet and also takes swings at Prime, hitting Prime in the face and stomach, and then slamming his knee into Prime's stomach, causing Prime to double over onto his knees.
Swoop started to raise his blaster, but Prime stopped him. Megatron pulls out a hand held blaster and aims it point-blank range at Prime's head. Prime, being the least damaged bot there, quickly swings his fists right up at Megatron's head, incredibly hard, sending Megatron back half way across the room.
Prime stands up and aims his ion blaster at the heavily damaged Megatron.
Megatron moves onto his hands and knees and begins to crawl slowly towards his fusion canon. He looks up at Prime pleadingly. "No more Optimus Prime. Grand me mercy, I beg of you!"
SilverBlade, from the opposite side of the room, activates his energy claws and gets onto his knees and nods to Prime. Megatron is oblivious to this as he looks pleadingly at Optimus Prime. Megatron quickly grabs his fusion canon, but before he could activate it, Prime fires at Megatron, hitting in the arm.
"Not today." Prime says coldly as he fires shot after shot at the damaged Megatron, forcing Megatron to step back more and more Megatron turns around as his front side shows heavy damage. Megatron was about to turn around, but is fired on yet again, pushing his body towards SilverBlade.
SilverBlade sees the opportunity to punch through Megatron's shoulder. Megatron yells out in pain as SilverBlade's hand goes through his body.
SilverBlade begins to electrify his body, and his computer alerts him again. "Warning, elemental use detected, spark in danger. Stasis lock imminent." SilverBlade yells out "override!" as Megatron desperately, and in a panic, attempts to free himself from SilverBlade's grip, only for SilverBlade to trap Megatron more by tightening his grip. "All power to elemental chip." He cries out as the electricity intensifies, and now a mixture of flame and lava begins to seep out of the electricity. Megatron once again tries to punch and knee and jab at Silver, trying to escape.
"Silver! Stop! You'll kill yourself!" Prime calls to SilverBlade
"Do it Prime! Just fire!" SilverBlade yells back, determined to finish this once and for all.
Optimus Prime's face fills with sadness, as he knows this is the only way. He sets the Ion Cannon for full power and fires right at Megatron, hitting him in the spark chamber, further pressing Megatron against SilverBlade's electrified and lava-coated body.
"You're finished, Megatron!" SilverBlade says as he activates the claws on his other hand and jabs it right into Megatron's spark chamber. Megatron lets out a sharp scream from the intense pain of electricity, fire, lava and energy weapons all hitting his internal circuitry and spark. Megatron's optics fade to black fade off as electrical energy surges from their sparks, building rapidly and wildly.
"Optimus!" Rodimus calls him over the comlink. "We're detecting serious energy buildup near your location. It is going to explode. Get out of there now!"
"But..SilverBlade can still be saved!" Optimus tried to run over to him, but Swoop, in bot form, grabs Prime and pulls them out of the hole in the wall. "No, wait!" Prime says as they fall from the side of the building and begins to fly.
A few seconds later, a high energy energon explosion occurs from the throne room, sending a spherical shockwave in every direction.
Just as the explosion happens, all of the Predacon holo-drones stop moving. All of the physical drones power down.
On the surface of Cybertron, some of the physical drones head inside an entrance, and bring out Dinobot, with his hands in energon bindings. The Maximal scientists; Ratchet, Rhinox, Pereptor and Wheeljack are carried out on hovering metallic stretchers.
Optimus looks up at the Citadel. "Find SilverBlade." He says over the comlink.
Hundreds of Maximals and Maximal drones converge on the Citadel and a few are teleported down from the Command ships.
Rodimus begins to clear off some rubble by his feet and notices something purple. It isn't SilverBlade, but he digs the purple object out of the rubble. He picks it up, noticing it is Megatron's head. He walks out to the ledge of the hole, and holds up the severed head of Megatron. "He is destroyed!" He yells out. He hears everyone below cheer and holler out in triumph.
In the Predacon Command center, Soundwave sees that his leader is destroyed. He looks around to the other Predacons. "Retreat. Retreat!"
The Predacons begin to destroy the consoles and attempt to make their way to the door, but it shuts suddenly. Ultra Magnus, General Tassadar, Gold Bug and General Martok are teleported in, aiming their blasters at the Predacons.
On the surface, the remainder of the Predacon Generals are quickly taken down and put into energon bindings.
Different planets, from Kronos, to Tattoine, to Coruscant, to Earth to Auir, the citizens of the galaxy celebrate with fireworks and tearing down statues of Predacons in their cities.
On Cybertron, Ultra Magnus and other Maximals escort the remainder of the Predacons into jail cells. He looks over to Cyclonus coldly. "You will be here for a long time."
In an intact medical bay, the various parts of SilverBlade are arranged in a CR tank, all connected together properly. His optics are still off and his spark chamber doesn't glow.
Prime walks into the bay and looks at SilverBlade, then to Protectorbot First Aid. First Aid looks at the scans, and shakes his head.
"Let me know of any change." Prime says.
"Yes Sir"
The End