XX - Legacy IV
The warlord's optics fell onto Smokescreen, "Who in the pits of Kaon is that?!"
The white mech cocked his helm at the larger mech, "Why? Who wants to know?" he simpered.
"Oh, I would like to make sure I spell your designation correctly on your tombstone," Megatron snarled.
Smokescreen jeered, "Nice try. I'll make sure to wear a name tag for the memorial."
Piqued, Megatron turned his attention back to me. "The matter of the virus remains a topic to be discussed, do not forget that. But for now, Starscream, as a test proving your loyalty and worth: destroy the Autobots or face the consequences. I can assure you they would be most unpleasant."
I transformed out my blasters and slowly stalked closer to them, "It will be my honor." I bristled. The others took on various wary defensive stances.
Knock Out's arm suddenly shot out and pushed my chest plate back, he had suddenly found his voice. "What the FRAG are you doing!?" He berated, stepping in front of me and shielded my view of the Autobots. I kept my blasters out. "YOU JUST THINK THAT YOU CAN GO RUN BACK TO MEGATRON AND THEN TERMINATE YOUR ONLY ALLIES!? YOUR FRIENDS, SEVEN, YOUR FRIENDS!"
"Get out of my way or I swear to Primus, I will shoot you." I growled softly, not wanting to repeat myself.
His optics widened slightly and his mouth opened in surprise, but he wisely sidled his way out from in front of me. I knew full well that the real reason Megatron had pitted me against my former allies was for his own entertainment; at the moment he couldn't care less whether I lived or died. An added bonus would be if we destroyed each other, but that was unlikely considering how there were five of them and one of me. If I had Starscream… no, I wasn't even going to think about that. I channeled all my grief and fear into anger instead, and let loose a roar I previously would've thought my vocalizer incapable of. If I was to actually fight the five Autobots and potentially Knock Out too, it was very doubtful that I would see tomorrow. To Pit with everything.
They all watched me through wary, cautious optics, unsure of my next moves. I raised my blasters, still wide out in the open. "He's lost it, completely, utterly, scattered his marbles…" I heard the red medic trail off beneath his vocalizer. My blasters powered up, and finally the Autobots, seeing that this wasn't a ploy after all, dove for cover and transformed out their own weapons.
"Seven!" Optimus called out to me. I swung my helm around sharply to see him.
"Seven, that is your new designation, isn't it?" Megatron said slowly, testing the word out like how one would a flavor that they didn't particularly care for. "So be it, but you shall always be Starscream to me, my dear Seeker."
"Seven!" The Prime called out again, ignoring the warlord's comment. "Stand down! We must not allow the relic to fall into Megatron's servos!"
I didn't realize I was walking until I was feet away from the Prime, no longer hiding behind the boulder for cover. I was within striking distance, but stood stock still, looking up to him with icy optics. "You all killed him. YOU KILLED HIM! YOU COULD'VE HANDED HIM OVER TO MECH BUT YOUR FRAGGING PRIDE DIDN'T ALLOW YOU TO, NOW DID IT?!"
There was a collective gasp among the Autobots. "That's not true!" Bulkhead protested indignantly.
"There was nothing we could've done!" Arcee spat.
Smokescreen jumped in, "Ratch tried–"
"And he failed!"
[He tried!]
"Seven, we tried everything we could to save him." Optimus shook his helm sadly, "Ratchet and Knock Out did their best, but it was not their fault, nor any of ours that he passed. And thinking otherwise will only create further division among us."
"Says one of the mechs that started this war in the first place." I replied scathingly, my wings flaring up.
"And you're crawling back to the other one!" The femme exploded.
I trained a blaster on her, "One more word…" She glowered at me with all the hate she could muster, which was enough to even debilitate Megatron, but fell silent.
"Finish them," The warlord ordered from behind me, a sneer permeating his tone.
I glanced back at him, then back to the Autobots in front of me. And fired.
The shot missed Arcee's shoulder plating by inches. She sprang away and transformed out a blaster, crouching behind a rock for cover. The others did likewise.
"Seven, surrender!" Optimus barked in a commanding tone. None of them had returned fire yet. For a moment everything was at a standstill, save for the Nemesis struggling to lift the boulder that was more so worthy of the title "mountain" by a sturdy cable that was a thread in contrast.
"Same to you, Prime!" And I opened fire again, diving behind a stray boulder. None of the Decepticons behind me or even Knock Out stepped in to help, merely watching with an almost eager anticipation. Lucky for the Autobots, all my shots missed badly, whizzing past their helms and fizzling off into the distance.
A sudden blast of blue plasma wedded the right side of my helm and I went sprawling. My vision blurred for a second and one of my blasters transformed back into a servo and jumped up to the injury instinctively. I winced slightly at the touch of hot metal, small spikes of pain driving into my helm.
I ignore it and scrambled back up to my pedes again in a crouch, lower behind the same boulder this time. I saw Arcee had fired the shot, wispy tendrils of smoke curling off the tip of one of her blasters. She looked mostly rueful but her expression was conflicted; she clearly had aimed to hit me, but didn't want to cause damages either. But I didn't fail to notice that there also was a small glimmer of satisfaction in her optics. I never will understand femmes, or females of any species, I thought wryly.
I fired a few more shots at them but they had all crouched lower behind their rocks. As soon as I stopped, afraid of overheating my blasters, Optimus sprang to his pedes. I shot a glance over my shoulder plates and saw, to my relief, that Megatron seemed otherwise occupied with the drones. I hurriedly transformed one of my blasters away and made sure to get the Prime's attention. He looked to me in surprise, and I pointed to the sword lodged in the boulder. His optics widened slightly, then he nodded in understanding.
"Go!" I hissed. The Prime nodded and tossed the container he was carrying to Bumblebee, then tore off towards the ascending rock. The sword was still lodged firmly inside of it. Little wisps of tawny-colored dust trailed off the floating mountain like it was bleeding from the stab wound.
Knock Out looked to me from my side, a new hope kindling in his optics just as Megatron swiveled his helm back over to us. I glared at the medic and transformed out my blasters once again. He quailed, all signs of hope immediately extinguished.
The Nemesis creaked and groaned in protest while it slowly hauled the immense boulder into the air. Optimus drove up the side of the mountain that it once was a part of, growing steadily closer to his dangling prize. "Starscream! We must not allow the relic to fall into the servos of Optimus Prime at all costs!" He bellowed at Seven. "AFTER HIM!"
"Understood, my liege." The clone answered obediently and transformed, rocketing off up after the Prime. "Keep Prime from the relic!" Megatron barked at his drones before transforming and followed behind his former second's clone, thrusters blazing with purple fire as he pushed his thrusters to catch up with the speeding jet.
Smokescreen transformed out a blaster and aimed it at the warlord, but a drone behind him transformed his out as well, leaving them at a stalemate. Then out of nowhere, a blue shot of plasma materialized and connected with the drone's helm. He crumpled to the ground and in his place stood Bulkhead.
The green mech smiled at the younger mech as he transformed a smoking blaster away, "I got your back, newbie."
I poured on speed as Optimus drove by beneath me, trying to shield him from Megatron's blaster fire. "Starscream!" He snapped, "Why aren't you shooting!?" I hadn't wanted to waste my precious missiles, but now I was being forced to. I fired the one on my left and it spiraled down towards the Prime, and exploded behind him. The blast was enough to rocket him into the air like a projectile and towards the suspended mountain. He transformed, battle mask sliding out.
I halted in midair from shock. I knew I wouldn't be able to rescue him–frag, I was too light of a build to successfully carry a mech of his stature.
Somehow, impossibly, his outstretched fingertips caught the hilt of the Star Saber. His grip tightened around it and he swung violently, threatening to slip off but held firm.
"Inconceivable!" Megatron roared, firing at him once again. Optimus swung back and forth, dodging the shots, until the sword began to glow with a soft, blue light. But it slowly became blinding. I saw all the other Autobots and Decepticons on the ground pause their fighting to watch in awe and horror.
Optimus' optics widened in shock, their blue glow matching that of the sword perfectly. And then he was falling, its hilt still in his servo, followed by the blade. It had an open space in the middle to allow for less air resistance in difficult maneuvers, long enough that it was nearly as tall as myself, and tapered to a cruel, curved point.
I gasped as the massive blade finally came all the way out and he began to fall. I dove after him, not caring that Megatron had flown up to his ship, pursuing Optimus as if fleeing death. But I was too late. He crashed in a heavy plume of dust, a faint blue glow still emanating from somewhere within it. Stricken, I screeched to a halt in midair and transformed, landing nimbly on my pedes and began to look for the Prime. I coughed sharply after getting a considerable amount of dust into my intakes. The ground seemed to shake with aftershocks, and a gust of wind quickly quickly made the scratchy dust a memory.
Optimus wasn't a Cybertronian pancake after all, I soon learned. He knelt on the ground, helm bowed, sword lodged halfway up to its crossguard into the earth, still glowing with that iridescent blue light. He slid it out as if the rocky ground beneath our pedes were butter, examining it reverently. Awestruck, I gazed at the sword, riveted to its otherworldly glow.
Arcee's anxious voice snapped me out of my reverie. "Optimus, retreat!"
"NOW!" Bulkhead bellowed, slashing a servo through the air.
I whirled around at the sound of a deafening cracking and rumbling. The massive boulder that the sword had been stuck in was now rolling down the mountainside straight towards us.
Optimus turned around almost calmly, with something new in his optics that I'd never seen before. It was terrifying. I screeched, trying to bolt out of the path of the mountain bearing down on us, but the Prime raised his sword… and with one clean slash, he cleaved it right in two.
"Did he just…" Bulkhead trailed off, dumbstruck.
"I'm seeing things… that can't… that couldn't have…" Knock Out trailed off, shaking his helm in disbelief.
A burning pain suddenly erupted in the back of my helm. Then the world did a front flip and the ground decided to say hello to my faceplates.
Arcee transformed her smoking blaster away and Seven's form crumpled to the ground. Everyone looked to her, aghast.
"What?" She huffed. "He'll be fine."
Optimus glared up at the Nemesis, his expression transmitted through a camera on the warship's hull to a screen on the bridge, where it met the warlord's astonished faceplates. But then it fell into a snarl and he roared in anger, whirling around and charged through the halls of his ship to the flight deck. Megatron transformed, shooting up into the sky then back down with Soundwave on his tail, rocketing towards the ground. His blasters blazed in fury. They both transformed, Soundwave with the resonance blaster aimed at Optimus, Megatron with a pede planted on top of Seven's unconscious chassis.
The Prime fumed, looking ready to impale Megatron with his new toy. The others trained their blasters on him. "Ah, ah, ah, I wouldn't." The warlord snarled softly and pressed down on the clone's chest plate a little harder. The Prime and the rest of the Autobots took a reluctant step back, but he kept the Star Saber at the ready. Megatron scooped the Seeker's chassis up with ease, and Soundwave motioned to Knock Out.
"What do you want me for!?" The red medic protested.
Soundwave merely opened a ground bridge in reply and shoved him through. Megatron ran after them with the unconscious Seeker still in his arms.
The Autobots were dumbfounded when the bridge closed, their elated mood falling into a grim one.
"Now we've lost three," said Bulkhead.
"We will get Seven and Knock Out at all costs!" Optimus rumbled, stabbing his sword into the ground. The blue glow diminished slightly. "This I vow."
High above them, Megatron's warship flew off into the distance, reveling in its own small victory. Beneath it, the Star Saber started humming in the Prime's grasp. He lifted it up, staring at it as the blade as it glowed brighter than ever.
"Optimus?" Arcee asked.
"Sir?" Smokescreen added tentatively and waved a servo in front of the Prime's optics.
"I am receiving a message," Optimus answered, his gaze unwavering from the glowing blade.
"From whom?" Bulkhead wondered.
"Alpha Trion."
A/N: Ah, references.