I didn't think this chapter would take as long as it did, but I ran into some hurdles both in life and while writing it, so I had to do a substantial rewrite to get everything as I wanted it to be. I even had to give the last chapter a slightly extended ending, so if you haven't seen it I'd recommended looking it over again before going on.
But I think the wait will have been worth it when you see what character I've brought along ;)
xx
As the glare of the Bridge faded, Optimus saw that the battle was already half over. Vehicons who hadn't managed to get away lay torn apart and trampled across the ground; swatted aside by Grimlock's tail, speared through by Slag's horns or caged in by Snarl's plates. Even those who managed to take to the air quickly enough were swiftly chased down by Swoop.
"Finally, someone else who can fly…" From afar, Dreadwing huffed at the sight of another pair of wings, before leaping up and transforming to join the aerial effort.
In all the chaos, Optimus first thought the flash of supporting blaster fire was from his own soldiers. But all of them were still frozen, unsure of how to even jump into the fray. Instead the shots came from Grimlock… more specifically, from Wheeljack riding on his back.
Before Optimus could even wonder how Wheeljack stayed on without being flung halfway across the planet, another dust cloud kicked up and covered his optics as Smokescreen pealed to a stop in front of him.
"Sorry we're late." He transformed, letting the devices stored on his seats fly up in the air before he caught them in his servos. "Anyone want a relic?"
The sight of the Iacon relics spurred the Autobots out of their lingering shock, and they surged towards Smokescreen. Bulkhead grabbed the Polarity Gauntlet while Arcee helped herself to the Immobiliser. Bumblebee was left with the Spark Extractor, and Smokescreen kept the Phase Shifter to himself. Optimus didn't need any relics to fight, but he took hold of the Omega Keys just to know that he still had a chance at saving Cybertron.
"It is good to see you, Smokescreen," he said with a relief-soaked smile, storing the Keys deep in his subspace.
"Thank Ratchet for that." Smokescreen rolled his shoulders as Grimlock shook the ground behind him. "I just managed to get through the Bridge before it closed with a bunch'a humans on my tail." A fist suddenly popped out of his intangible chest, distracting him for a nanoklick as he grabbed it and pulled the unwitting drone through his body, firing a shot through his spine as he slammed into the floor.
"Looks like we came just in time, too." Smokescreen stepped over the fresh corpse and surveyed the others left scattered by the Dinobots' rampage. But there were still some stragglers left, not quite willing to desert just yet as they homed in on the Autobots.
"Well, what are we waitin' for?" Bulkhead banged his servo on his chest, waking the Polarity Gauntlet as it started to hum on his wrist. "Let's kick the dust off these things with some Decepticon aft!"
"Right behind you, Bulk." And Arcee meant it literally as she vaulted onto the Wrecker's shoulders, just aimed the Gauntlet at a group of Vehicons attempting to flank them. One nanoklick they were spaced apart, the next they were smashed together into a useless mound of scrap, a perfect target for the Immobiliser as paralysing energy enveloped them all.
With the rear covered, Bumblebee and Smokescreen took on the bolder drones head-first; Smokescreen distracting with punches that never managed to land on the ghost of his frame, allowing Bee to throw the Spark Extractor right in the middle of them. Smokescreen sank through the floor just before the weapon activated, avoiding the veil of death and springing up just outside its area of impact.
Optimus had the most powerful weapon of them all, yet he hardly needed to use it. A single swipe of the Star Sabre sent any advancing soldier flying backwards in a heap of tangled electronics. Another squadron was sent careening as his comm link fired with a message from Dreadwing.
"Prime. Aerial forces have been neutralised, but there's one left in the air. Too fast for me or the Dinobot to chase down. It may be Starscream attempting desertion."
Optimus looked up, struggling to pick out anything in the murky mess of stars and smoke. But he eventually spotted the drone as it flitted away from battle.
"I see it, Dreadwing. Though seems too small to be Starscream…"
Before he could look closer, heavy footsteps approached behind him, and he had to look away to deal with the assailant trying to ambush him. Arcee finished him off with a blast to the head, just before Optimus' Sabre struck through his chest.
"Looks like Laserbeak to me, Optimus," Arcee said, only with a slight huff from her vents. Of course she would know best, with her scouting optics. "Which raises the question of where Soundwave might be."
"Probably sent his bird looking for easy targets," Bee suggested by her side.
"Or to find Airachnid before we get to her!" Smokescreen added. Optimus looked at the Autobots gathered around him, only now noticing that every Vehicon was gathering rust on the ground. Dreadwing landed amidst a carpet of corpses, paint scuffs marking where he'd been shot at but otherwise unharmed. Were the relics and Dinobots really that powerful, or was Megatron's army that easily overwhelmed?
In any case, Wheeljack seemed very proud of himself.
"I think our job here is done, Grim." He dismounted with a careless leap, landing amongst the fresh graveyard as he sauntered up to the Autobots, flanked with the other Dinobots. "You startin' another war without us, Prime? I'm hurt."
Behind him, Grimlock grunted as he shifted from beast mode to his more compact, but no less intimidating, robot mode. "Dumb Prime still alive," he noted with a sniff. "Maybe not so dumb after all."
Wheeljack glanced over Optimus' shoulder, optics silently counting the bots gathered behind him. "The gang's all here…" A brief scowl showed through for the brief moment that he looked at Dreadwing. "But where's Airachnid?"
"She ran off when Megatron was sighted," Optimus answered. "Hopefully she has hidden herself somewhere safe." Optimus would know instantly if she was in danger, but other than his own anxiety roiling away his spark remained silent.
Grimlock leaned down so he could glare right into Optimus' optics, as if he was examining the glow of his spark through them. "Spider lady better be safe, else Prime gonna get scrapped!"
Optimus wasn't about to draw the Dinobot's anger out any further, but before he could even beat back the threat there was a commotion behind him as the Autobots shifted into battle positions.
"More reinforcements?" Smokescreen grumbled. "These guys don't know when to give up!"
Ahead of them all, the Nemesis' elevator was descending from where it still hung like a bloated insect in the sky. It was too far away to see who was being delivered, be it another squad of drones or Megatron himself.
The Autobots tensed with blasters at the ready, but all that greeted them was Knockout scrambling off the platform like there was a bomb on it.
Bulkhead wasn't too disappointed. "Finally, someone to beat up who isn't a drone." He rubbed his wrecking balls together in anticipation, but Optimus held him back with a hand.
The medic had no ranged weapons that Optimus knew of, but that wasn't what told him to stand down. This wasn't some last-ditch attempt to attack, this was a retreat right into enemy arms. Where Decepticons were concerned, that meant something had gone horribly wrong for them.
Seeing that their Prime had folded his shotgun away, the other Autobots hesitantly followed suit with the Dinobots still bristling at the frontlines. Ironically, Dreadwing was the only one still armed as he carefully trained his thermal cannon on Knockout's approaching frame. But as the distance between them closed, he holstered it behind his back.
"Don't attack!" Knockout called out in a vent-laden beg, slowing his frantic run to a jog and finally a slumped walk. "Please… I'm not here to fight you. It's clear I won't win anyway."
Arcee narrowed her optics at him, still cautious even though he was doubled over in desperation. "What do want, then?"
"I've come to warn you…" Knockout swelled with a gulp, barely managing to balance his spinal column. "Megatron has retreated back into the Nemesis."
Bulkhead scoffed. "Coward."
"Why should we be worried about that?" Arcee asked.
Knockout shook his helm, as the processor inside struggled to keep up with his glitching vocaliser. "You don't understand, the Nemesis-"
"It isn't just a warship," Dreadwing finished in a hushed realisation, pushing himself to the front with optics stretched wide. "Knockout, are you saying Megatron has reactivated-?"
He never had the chance to finish his question; despite his rush, Knockout's warning still came too late.
"Prime!"
Megatron stood miles above them on the prow of the Nemesis, yet his voice shattered through the air and stabbed shards through every Autobot's audios, as if he was bellowing inside their helms. The Dinobots winced and clawed at the ground in pain, and Optimus almost lost his grip on the Star Sabre as every tense nerve node packed into his frame was squeezed even tighter.
"You think adding a few beasts and toys to your arsenal will help you now?!" Megatron glassed his optics, burning a vicious purple from the very pit of his rotten spark, over the torn and fallen bodies of his soldiers, barely even registering that he was the only Decepticon left. Perhaps Unicron had blinded him.
"You are outmatched, Megatron!" Prime called out, barely matching the warlord's world-quaking pitch. "Even if you outnumber us, your power is dwindling! Not even your own soldiers will fight for you!" He swept a servo towards Dreadwing and Knockout, though the medic tried to hide himself behind Bulkhead, and held the Star Sabre aloft with the other.
The sour glow of Dark Energon tried to match that of the Sabre, and Megatron's denta glinted from the distance like a sheath of knives.
"You may say that now, Optimus… but I still have one bot under my control. More than a mere soldier... a titan whose very shadow will have you drowned in fear!" With each word his scowl morphed more grotesquely into a smirk, like a crooked valley lined with rocks.
"What is he talking about…?" Smokescreen seemed scared to even ask, as if he sensed the tremors before anyone else. They didn't come from the ground; again they vibrated through the air itself, a violent crash of airwaves being battered by the crunch of ancient shifting gears and the screech of metal. Beneath the chaos was a single distinctive sound, one that every Cybertronian recognised by instinct. The sound of a T Cog.
Every Autobot looked to each other, wondering where the awful cacophony was coming from, but Dreadwing and Knockout already knew. They looked to the Nemesis- not in shock, or in awe. Etched into each faceplate was nothing but pure fear and horror as they watched the Nemesis shift its massive plating. The stern separated into two halves, swinging down to touch the planet as a pair of supports, and the entire hull split apart with a mighty groan. Somehow Megatron managed to stay standing on the prow, even as the metal pulled back to reveal an orange horn that jabbed towards the sky, accompanying Megatron's claws.
"Yes… yes!" The warlord bled the vile purple light that seemed to bleed through his peds, infecting everything he touched. "Arise, my warship, in your true form! TRYPTICON!"
Optimus had already realised who was being brought back from the dead, but hearing his name was an all new shock to his systems. His spark seized, burning against the back of its chamber like it was trying to flee from his body. Not even the Matrix gave him courage, not when it balked from such a heavy presence of Dark Energon.
A tail crashed against the ground, the planet itself sinking beneath the titan's weight, and when his optics opened they were the exact same shade as Megatron's, and seemed to lead to the Pit itself.
"Trypticon obeys his one true master." He didn't move his jaws as he spoke, didn't need to when his declaration carried itself out like a crack of thunder. A single swipe of his tail sent a dust storm across the plains, and a single step could have easily flattened an entire force of Autobots. Optimus knew that because Trypticon had done so enough times during the war.
Faced with such a towering beast, even the Dinobots and Grimlock cowered. "That… big, big Grimlock…"
Trypticon's arrival seemed to take an age, yet time slowed to a crawl as everyone watched it in dreaded disbelief. Now the crawl ended, and everything seemed to go even faster now to make up for the lost time. Trypticon was already starting to advance on them, just one step away from trampling them all.
"Autobots, fall back!"
Only a handful of the bots present could have even recognised the infamous titan before them, but everyone knew when to run with or without being ordered. Almost everyone, at least.
"Like Pit I will!" Wheeljack marched forwards as if his blasters would do him any good. "That oversized can opener don't scare me-!"
A single giant ped slammed down almost a mile in front of him, but the dust cloud from its impact reached him in nanoklicks. Even if Wheeljack was suicidal enough to push on, the shockwave of air sent him flying backwards to where the Autobots were already retreating. And as the ground was flattened, the very dirt under Trypticon seemed to swell with the taint of Dark Energon.
And, as always, with Dark Energon came the zombies; clawing themselves out of the grip of death to amble towards the Autobots. Even those without legs pulled themselves across the ground like leaking slugs, entire limbs squirming forwards as they searched for their owners, or for Autobots to bludgeon and poison.
Not slowing for a moment, Arcee looked backwards and tried to aim the Immobiliser towards the shaking horizon. She managed to hit some of the re-animated Vehicons, though she wasn't aiming for them. Despite Trypticon being a massive target she missed him three times, but even when she landed a hit the energy didn't even reach over a quarter of Trypticon's plates.
"The relics aren't working on him!" she cried out.
"I'm not surprised, considering how big that thing is!" Bulkhead called back, as his attempt at using the Gauntlet on Trypticon also met with failure and even pulling the Terrorcons together wasn't effective enough. Bumblebee didn't even try throwing the spark extractor when its range wouldn't even reach Trypticon's knee, let alone his colossal spark chamber, and he doubted it would even work on the zombies when their sparks weren't moving them anymore. As for Optimus, he wouldn't waste time trying to push them back with the Star Sabre. One swipe from the sword managed to damage the ship before, but anything fueled by Dark Energon was almost immune to the power of a single Prime.
Dreadwing was slightly ahead of everyone in the race for shelter, but he slowed as he pulled a detonator from his subspace.
"Allow me to assist!" He dug his peds into the ground, twisting to face Trypticon as he pressed his digit down on the trigger. A chorus of explosions rang out as light and smoke poured from Trypticon's helm, and he started to tilt precariously. Dreadwing must have planted mines along the Nemesis' bow during the battle, and they stopped the titan right in his tracks...
For five nanoklicks, before the smoke cleared and showed Trypticon with barely a plate out of place. Megatron had been knocked off his helm by the blast, but now he stood on the titan's shoulder as he continued his march onwards.
"...They didn't even dent him…" Dreadwing held his useless detonator limply as an all new breed of fear gripped him, one that he had no idea how to deal with. The only solution available to him, the same one forced onto the Autobots and Dinobots, was to flee.
But just because there was only one solution didn't mean there was only one way to do it.
"Optimus, wait!"
Optimus stopped running just moments after Smokescreen called out to him. The Prime had to skid to slow his momentum, twisting to see Smokescreen trying not to crash into his leader. The other Autobots and even Dinobots paused when they saw Optimus falling behind, each one fixing Smokescreen with various levels of disbelief depending on how well they knew what he was like.
"I have an idea…" He looked at the Phase Shifter still clamped onto his wrist, and he twisted the dial with optics far too bright for a mech being chased after zombies. Then he thrust his servo out towards Optimus. "Grab my hand! And Dreadwing, you take my other one!"
Optimus blinked once, but one look at Smokescreen's relic told him what his plan was. He smiled proudly behind his battlemask.
But Dreadwing only gave the rookie a confused glare. "What?"
"The Phase Shifter makes its wearer and everything they're touching intangible," Smokescreen explained in a hurry. "If we all link up, we can slip right through the ground and no one can follow us!"
Dreadwing eyed the relic skeptically, but eventually let the Autobot grab his claws. Knockout instantly latched onto his other hand with a crushing grip as he muttered. "This better work, Autobot…"
"Come on, quickly!" Smokescreen urged with optics on the advancing horizon. Optimus was already joined with the other Autobots, and Bulkhead linked them to the Dinobots. The last to take hold was Wheeljack who tentatively joined hands with Knockout, reluctantly completing the circle.
Smokescreen wasted no more time putting his plan into action. "Brace yourselves… now!" He pushed himself forwards, faceplanting right through the ground and, as he'd hoped, taking everyone else down with him. Entire layers of Cybertron's underworld slipped away around them with every nanoklick, each bot holding on tighter as they fell through the planet; but no matter how far they went, Megatron's sneer followed them.
"Yes, Prime, run and hide! Show your Autobots how fearless you really are! My army will still find you, even in death!"