Promotional artwork: tigressa101/art/Arcee-and-the-Isle-of-the-Allspark-Cover-931607333
The dawn was a godsend at this point. With the desert not as cold as it was, they were trucking along at a faster pace but now there was still the issue of finding the Driller. Coming across Wyverntail was by chance but they didn't forget the scorpion they saw which meant if there were more of either, they could be prey to lure the Driller out as long as said prey slash predators didn't attempt to eat them first.
"You know, Moonhunter misses you. He keeps meowing at me and it's getting annoying."
Arcee laughed, "Well, this is a good time for you two to get along. I know you don't like him but he's a nice kitty."
Bolt sounded unconvinced and replied, "Yeah. Well, this kitty has horrible mood swings. One minute he's rubbing against my leg and then I reach down and it is hiss hiss, bite bite. Either he likes me or he doesn't, and he should make up his mind very soon or it will be bye bye."
She heard the Nitrotiger grunt on the other end with Bolt growling back, "Just be thankful you have the luxury of sleeping on a berth right now!"
Megatron kicked up some sand out of boredom. "I envy the cat. I would love to go for some recharge because this is...not getting us anywhere."
"Unfortunately, the Driller's energy signature is masked by a natural protective coding. I would love to help you but I can't on my end except tell you when the last attacks the species had under its belt were if you like gore and death."
"If we find prey the Driller can eat, we may find when it'll come up to the surface," Arcee said.
"Assuming it didn't leave the desert which would be a whole other problem," Megatron responded which earned him a slight glare from the femme in irritation.
They wander a few more minutes until a speck appeared on the horizon in the shifting rising heat. Then a few more appeared, one running around and the others moving ever so slowly.
The Autobot asked, "Scorpions?"
The warlord nodded, "Must be a nest somewhere."
Bolt chimed in, "Scorpions? We talking Earth or other?"
"Other. They were far larger than any species I know of. The largest scorpion Earth has is almost as big as a human forearm. These were like the spire spiders of Archa Seven."
"Mmm, Velocitron has no creature like that. Junkion, Chaar...definitely not Aquatron. I'm trying to think. Um, Kanjis might."
"Might?" Arcee frowned.
"Scorpion-like creatures are actually rare against spider-like ones. For some reason the arrangement of molecules and the evolutionary process doesn't favor the animal structure but when they are created, they are some of the deadliest forces of the animal kingdom you can meet. Ironic really. Earth got lucky and has a good variety. Spiders are universal, believe it or not. Scorpions are rare however but awesome.
"What you may be looking at is a...uh...mechanical species, not a natural one. The omni-scorpion which is also called the omni-orpethi, orpethi meaning 'the fast-striker' in Kanjian, is said here to have taken cues from the yelini cross spider and a bug known simply as the gruller, a grub with a long tail that carries a poison that can kill a full grown cybernetic being in about, mmm, thirty minutes. No antivenom created yet, by the way. It was built by a biologist less than over 65 million years ago and it was designed to be a tank, a defensive and offensive destructor, but King Kronos abandoned the funding of this experiment when these things began showing abnormal A.I. You see, they aren't a hybrid of actual living creatures. They are a robot, a mechanism."
Arcee exchanged stunned glances with Megatron who looked equally as bewildered. "Wait, hang on, the Allspark brought non-living machines to the isle? Why do they bleed then? We saw what the vortekia did to one. It looked exactly like what would be a living creature, blood and all."
"That's because they were built well. The reason I have data on these things is because many bots, like you, thought they were a real species but they are not. There are actual physical notes on two of the data pads on Kanjian wildlife that have corrected information on these things and it is sourced. They are entirely man-made. They were built with an identical system to us, veins, spark, processor, but they don't have individual thought. They are an A.I. system that was designed to be near identical to a living being's consciousness except they were supposed to yield to Kanjian commands. That's also why they were shut down. The A.I. was becoming too independent. They were terminated when they became unmanageable."
Megatron smirked, "Like Predaking almost, except we didn't terminate him when we realized too late, he was becoming far more sentient than we wanted. This King Kronos was smart to immediately catch on to it."
Bolt seemed to agree immediately. "King Kronos didn't become king because he was just born a prince to the throne. That bot took on lawyering and various forms of science engineering as a hobby as he grew up waiting to take over the Serpent Sector galaxies which includes the Milky Way, just so you're aware, though he doesn't interfere with the planets themselves unless absolutely necessary. I've heard stories about him when my team and I went to Kanjis to study abroad, never met him though. He oversaw all scientific endeavors because it wasn't just his duty; he knew the ropes almost as much as his scientists. It comes as no surprise he would call out something engineered as being too dangerous and you're right, he did destroy the omni-scorpions before they got out. Apparently, not fast enough to where someone made some documentations about them but the information was corrected when it was caught it seems."
"Destroyed them?" Arcee pondered before looking back at the growing silhouettes of the supposed omni-scorpions. "But...they are here though."
"Just like the pyrobeak," Megatron answered in realization, "and Blackarachnia?"
"I already told you two. The Allspark can tamper with life itself. Its power is unmatched and unlimited as far as we know. If it can bring a real Predacon back from the past before Cybertron was even inhabited by us as well as reviving Blackarachnia from the dead, it isn't out of the realm of possibilities that it took the remains of the scrapped omni-scorpions and reactivated them under its own creation. Without limitations to the A.I., you might be dealing with the toughest weapon Kanjis ever built."
"And there's not just one..." the femme whispered.
The warlord clicked his tongue, "On the brighter side, a vortekia managed to kill one and you killed the vortekia so..."
She looked at him with disdain. "There was one vortekia and I got the jump on it because it was distracted trying to eat you. It tore apart the scorpion because it was probably fooled by the threat as a weather condition, not an actual creature, and it is a machine so it can only take so much pressure against wind. We don't have paralyzing wind speed or a tornado we can create on a whim. There's at least three of these things and they are tanks compared to bots like us. I don't have a lot of confidence here."
The omni-scorpions were now fully in sight and were gradually combing through the desert for anything out of the ordinary. They were a deep purple with blue bio lights and five blue optics with what appeared to be full rotation to keep tabs of anything behind them. Gatling guns and missiles were cleverly hidden at an angle withing the armor, ready to pop out and start firing if they sensed a threat.
They didn't seem to have the need to consume Energon like the vortekia or the sand-dweller did so they were most likely just seeking out something to kill as per their programming as they passed what were remnants of rubble, probably of another dead creature or something the Driller or other once destroyed. Neither Arcee nor Megatron moved to see if their A.I. went by anything significant to tell whether something was an enemy or nothing worth investigating.
To their surprise, the omni-scorpions seemed took their stillness as nothing in particular and stomped by, carefully eyeing them for any break in their pause. While two passed without a problem, Arcee accidentally shifted her optics ever so slightly and it was enough to make the third omni-scorpion go into a defensive stance with a mechanical noise of its armor adjusting, preparing to bring out whatever weapons it may have stored. A sensor on the end of its stinger opened like a sixth optic.
When she did nothing, it slowly calmed and shook its pincers before a computerized feminine voice, in what she assumed was the Kanjian language, of its A.I. seemed to call off its investigation. It walked off to rejoin the others that had already covered a decent distance.
When they were a far enough distance, Arcee raised a brow and looked back at the three mechanisms. "Huh, for a highly intelligent A.I., you can fool it pretty easily if you stay still. I wonder if the king knew of that flaw or they had yet to fix it when he called off the project?"
"Uh mm, I hate to inform you but I tried to hack the signal of these machines to see if I could get an understanding of their readings to know what the A.I. is planning and I did...they know you are an enemy..."
Megatron scoffed, "Then why not attack us?"
"Translating Kanjian to Cybertronian is a bit of a problem because some words exist and some don't between the two but they were roughly ordered to ignore you and continue scouting. They saw you far earlier but someone told them that...'they would deal with you themself'? I think they think you are the ones that tore apart that other omni-scorpion unit, not the vortekia."
A shift of sand and a shadow loomed over them fast. Computerized clicking and readjustment of weaponry could be heard as both bots slowly peered towards the origin of the shadow. Arcee wasn't surprised as much as she should be but it came as a bit of an inconvenience that it was failed to be mentioned one of the A.I. designated itself a leader between all of them.
The larger omni-scorpion dwarfed them, scanning them for any perceived weakness which made Arcee stutter out, "W-why did King Kronos build these things again, Bolt? Just a...curiosity."
Bolt could be heard scrabbling through the data pad and a few books. "It...it doesn't say really and there wasn't mention of why he started the project other than for defense. Defense against what is a question I want to know as well but if it involves killer tanks, he must have been dealing with something big and needed a self-thinking A.I. to counter it."
"Like for war," Megatron muttered.
The giant omni-scorpion gave a signal-based growl, the mechanics of its pumps and joints making noise to adjust its head and legs. The feminine A.I. voice may have sounded neutral but the intentions were anything but as its gatling guns' barrels rotated ready to fire upon them. The blade of its impromptu stinger swayed aggressively.
A far as either Arcee or Megatron could tell, this thing had no weaknesses they could exploit. It really was a tank in disguise. It had all its bases covered and it seemed fast enough to counter their patterns by how the optics were scoping out each individual plate on their body. It had a list, no doubt, of every capability they had. Out of options and knowing if they ran, they would be full of holes in seconds, both bots could only back away slowly.
Bolt was even at a loss of what to do. "We took on a plethora of living creatures but this is what we can't seem to figure out how to defeat? No clues, no physical abnormalities? I hate to say it, you two, but I don't know how you would defeat this thing. Engineering-wise, it's a spectacle of science. King Kronos knew how to build exactly what he wanted, maybe a bit too well."
The computer A.I. was talking to them, not that they could understand it.
"Its system is telling you that you are basically going to die and that resistance is futile. Its words, not mine. When they say A.I. is a crapshoot, they weren't wrong. This thing does not play around."
"It's built to kill and not take any prisoners," Arcee said as one of its weapons was almost point blank against her head. "But if I'm going down, this thing is coming down with me whether it likes it or not."
Bolt the said, "I guess as one last tribute to this quest, I shall name this tank Coresting. I got nothing good as of right now but you don't deserve a good name anyway...fuck you, Coresting."
BOOM. There was a rumble beneath the sand, and both bots and the machine shifted their attention downward. Coresting gave a startled rumble with its A.I. screaming at it when suddenly, the omni-scorpion was engulfed by a pillar of metal barbs, teeth and rotating gears. Now up high, the Driller they had been searching for crunched down on the scorpion and a slew of flame from the rupture briefly appeared. Slowly, the Driller sank back down vertically until its body was mostly sheathed beneath the surface again. Any remnants of the omni-scorpion were devoured. The Driller rotated its barbs with a burp of smoke before it curved like a snake to peer down at them.
Arcee was shocked and said, "Wow. The scorpion might have been too tough for us but it seems life can still best the machine."
Bolt laughed on his end, "Yeah, I guess Kronos made them only for war against another race or something, not against the harsh unpredictability of nature and its kingdom. Then again, Kanjis doesn't have indestructible Drillers. You got admit, Arcee, that despite your beef with Shockwave's problem with pets, this thing is cool though."
The Driller lowered itself to be eye level with Megatron, or rather eye-to-mouth level. Megatron stood in front of it unafraid as he began to smile.
"Doomsday, is that you? You've grown."
Arcee kind of looked at him funny. "Shockwave named his pet Driller Doomsday? What type of name is that?"
Megatron shrugged, "His pet. I wanted to call her Colossus, but Shockwave gave her the name Doomsday so I just let him."
The Driller hissed low, not in a threatening tone but rather a curious one. It almost came off as a purr but the vocals alongside the visual of its teeth rotating and shivering didn't make it cute, at least not to Arcee.
"Hopefully, she'll let me command her."
"Hopeful-Megatron, you can't control this thing?!"
The warlord gestured with some degree of regret. "Uh, well no, she obeys Shockwave but I've been able to coax her into helping me upon occasion."
She narrowed her optics. "Are you even sure this is Shockwave's Driller and not a random one?"
"If it was random, it would have killed us by now regardless how curious they are. They are still wild animals and wouldn't hesitate to eat Cybertronians when lackluster food sources are available. Also, Shockwave said he lost track of it after Cybertron fell dark and that there was hardly any left so fifty-fifty chance..."
The glare he received made him frown before Arcee gave a facepalm. He ignored it mostly to return his attention to the Driller. He lifted his servo carefully not to startle her and reassured her in a calm voice.
"Now, my dear, I know I'm not your master but I don't mean you any harm. You remember me, don't you?"
The teeth of the beast rattled before giving a slow rotation. She chirped, closing her mouth to sense the mech. With a grunt, it seemed to recognize Megatron and let him pet her.
As he caressed what Arcee assumed was the Driller's chin, she looked between the two silently. The fact he now had a pet Driller at his command was scary to her given she had seen the damage it had done for the Decepticons but if it would help them, she wasn't entirely against it.
"You have something we need, my darling. I need you spit it out."
The Driller gave him a grunt of disapproval.
Megatron made an unamused expression, dropping his optics cynically. "Don't give me attitude. The gem, the blue glowing thing you swallowed when we first met, I need that back. The scorpion you can keep. I just want that gem."
After a minute of hesitance, Doomsday began coughing as its body convulsed to push around the contents of her stomach chamber until a faint glow of blue slowly shined its way up. She lifted her head, making a few gulping motions before abruptly spitting downward. The gem and some of the scorpion parts penetrated the sand with a bit of acidic colored slime coating the parts.
Megatron carefully clasped the gem by its tip in disgust and lightly tried to shake said slime off before handing it to Arcee. When she refused to even touch it, making a sickened grimace, he scowled, "It's not getting any better."
Reluctantly, she held out her servos and gagged as she felt the slime ooze off the gem into her palms. "Aw, nasty."
"Good girl," Megatron then smiled.
But his proud demeanor faded when he noticed the Driller was staring at Arcee as she shook off the remainder of the slime, looking away like it was cursed. She didn't see the Driller or Megatron's growing concern.
Megatron saw Doomsday's fangs quiver with a very faint growl. He recognized that tell; Doomsday was going to kill her. In his desperate manipulation to get the Driller to cough up the gem, he failed to remember she was trained first and foremost to kill Autobots and Arcee was technically still an Autobot in her eyes. He had the power to direct the Driller to obey small commands but he feared he didn't have the ability to convince her Arcee wasn't an enemy. In the end, Shockwave was the only one with the power overall to control Doomsday and set the boundaries of what the Driller could and couldn't do. Megatron couldn't stop her.
Arcee paused upon brushing off a strand of slime and slowly met the Driller's hungry stare without moving her head. Her mouth was in a tight neutral frown. "Megatron? Why is it staring at me like that?"
He didn't know how to respond except by standing in front of Arcee to try and dissuade the Doomsday's growing urge to murder. For once, Megatron was beginning to regret letting Shockwave keep one of his pets but at the same time, he knew it wasn't the Driller's fault or even his scientist's. She was only doing as she had been instructed to do in all those years of war.
When its barbs snapped to attention, Megatron's optics went wide. "Doomsday! Yield!"
Its tail shot out of the sand and hit Megatron aside. The Driller opened its mighty jaws showing off its thousands of rotating teeth with a vicious roar at Arcee who yelled and ran. If she feared anything, a Driller was her bane.
Unlike the mountains of buildings on Cybertron with plenty of hiding spots, there was absolutely nowhere to run. The Driller seemed aware of this and gave off clicking, a shrewd parody of a laugh before its body began to spin and it dived down into the sand.
"Arcee! Drop the grenades! It'll make her surface!"
"I'm trying to prevent her from surfacing to get me!" She screamed back just as the sand beneath her began to shake.
Doomsday breached the surface making the femme tumble down her spine. Arcee dodged as many rotating blades as possible as the Driller did a snake-like wave motion before forcing her to slide down it. When she reached a dipping portion of the body, Arcee cried out when Doomsday's head appear at the curve of its own body ready to eat her. It lunged down to gobble her up only to instead pierce itself when she was quick to roll off the side. The Driller made a pained squeal, coiling angrily.
As this happened, Arcee fell over a hundred feet toward the ground below but was caught by Megatron.
He gave an amused chuckle, "Having fun yet?"
She looked disheveled as she lied in his hold before scowling at him, "Plenty."
Megatron abruptly rolled with her secure in his arms when the Driller came down at them. He dodged again for the second attempt before Doomsday reeled back in seething rage.
"Hand me your blood grenades. I can get closer to her with a shot at killing her than you can. She will hesitate to hurt me which will buy me enough time to feed her them."
Arcee nodded and reached into her subspace to pull a whole string of them out. "How many do you need?"
As the Driller submerged in its tantrum, the warlord sneered, "I'd say all of them."
"Maybe we don't have to fight it though. We have the gem."
"But you don't know Doomsday like I do. She was bred to hunt all enemies down unless commanded otherwise, meaning she won't stop until you are dead and she'll search this entire island for you. Bolt and I will be unharmed because we are Decepticons as far as she's concerned, but you are her target now. I have no choice but to put her down regardless if Shockwave likes it or not."
"...To protect me," she said. "It still feels strange, you know. To think we were enemies less than a decade ago. Back then, you would have practically chucked me into her open jaws."
Megatron felt his faceplates flush. "Yes, well...things change as do opinions. Just think of this as burying my past."
The Driller quickly breached again and did a U-turn before burrowing, heading back straight for them.
"All of it," he then snarled at the trail of uprooting sand.
Arcee hopped up on his shoulder briefly and handed him half the grenades. "I'll take the other half in case things go awry. Wouldn't want you to have all the fun now, would I?"
Matching her smile, he let her flip off his shoulder by extending his arm and running at the Driller. He broke one grenade off and rolled it onto the sand. Its glow with the dawn's early light reflected like a beacon and that's exactly what Megatron wanted. He knew Doomsday would go for the bait but after one hit, he wasn't sure if she would fall for the same trick twice. She was moderately intelligent for a Driller given who raised her.
He jumped as she surfaced and bounced off her back but she continued forward towards the grenade, giving a purr. He swung off her just in time to see her dive then emerge to place the grenade in her mouth. Upon swallowing it, her razor-sharp teeth caused the blood to ignite.
A loud boom and part of Doomsday's throat extended outward briefly with smoke and fire popping through crevices. She gave a roar, swaying her head before yelping and twisting back beneath the sand.
"Definitely not enough," he shook his head. He then called his partner. "Arcee, you're going to have to use more than one to damage her."
Listening for the rumbling of movement to time her escape, Arcee prepared three of the grenades. When the sand started to shake, she crouched and waited. She was immediately pushed sky high but used Doomsday's chin to get some air as the worm-like creature snapped its teeth trying to pin her. She threw the three grenades down its throat as she fell back down, she could see all three exploding deep down and lighting up the Driller's throat.
The Driller gave another shrill cry as it sank with Megatron running past its retreating form to once again catch Arcee. She caught his arm and swung herself to land a pose.
"I don't think that did it either," Arcee groaned. "She needs a lot more or it needs to be farther down near her vitals to do any significant damage."
"How many do we have total remaining? I have nine."
"I have eight, that makes seventeen. If seventeen of these things don't kill her, what will?"
Megatron shrugged, "I've honestly never killed one before so can't say."
Arcee held out her servo, "I'll get the best position to throw it at her. You may be who she recognizes but I'm her target. Her mouth will be wide open for me."
Reluctant to let Arcee do this alone, he slowly handed her his remaining grenades. "By your lead. Just...be careful."
She smiled and retied the rope of grenades together to make one big chain. She picked up speed hoping to draw the Driller out once more as she knew it could sense her movements. That was how Doomsday once destroyed an entire base back on Cybertron by listening for movement beneath the planet's surface near a sector she was informed had no Decepticon bases present. The destruction of the Typhoon base was a heavy blow to the Autobots; Arcee never forgave Shockwave for killing many of her friends stationed there. But now that she knew the true culprit, this was personal.
Uplifting geysers of sand began following her and she prepared once more for a leap of faith and to send the grenades into her jaws. She was shot up again and turned to throw them, only to gasp as she saw the Driller's tail. This time, the giant mouth of the raging Driller shot up second just below her field of vision as she was coming down. She had mere seconds to correct herself.
While she managed to twist out of the path of the mouth of nightmares, the rope on the grenades got caught on one of her teeth. The force of Arcee's wrist getting caught by the other end and the sudden stop of momentum to slam into the side of Doomsday's head almost broke her arm and knocked her out. She blinked to see herself over a hundred feet above the ground and some panic started setting in actually focusing of the height but she ignored it as she knew she had a job to do.
She tried breaking the rope loose but she was forced to sway as Doomsday grew agitated and shook her head fiercely. Doomsday was certainly upset by her bold move and she could hear the blood grenades clinking together. If only she could break them loose to roll inside. Another hit to the side of the Driller's head made Arcee growl in frustration and use the rope to climb back up against the rapid movements of Doomsday.
She clung to the edge of the pumps that helped open and close its circular jaws and snapped the rope free and dangled it above the thousands of teeth rotating ready to slice up anything that got caught in its vortex. She noticed where the last of the grenades had hit. The back few rows of teeth seemed broken or damaged and supposedly gave her one bad set of toothaches as they weren't spiraling like the various other rows in front of them, sparking when they tried to move. However, past all that, she could see down into her throat and noticed a very faint bundle of parts next to a giant expanding tube that was her esophagus.
Reaching out carefully to almost have it directly centered, she hovered the grenades and jeered Doomsday.
"This is for Typhoon base, you bitch!"
Dropping the grenades and watching them bypass all those teeth made her hold her breath. The only indication of how far they went was with their glow. She barely heard them shatter when they exploded. Fire of green quickly flew back up Doomsday's throat and Arcee could only cover herself when she jumped at the exact same time it expanded.
Gears, pumps, and cabling burst causing the Driller's neck and body to collapse as she cried bloody murder with a horrific screech. She waved around frantically, unsure of what to do as she was painfully blown apart. She grew still and silent as more explosions went off and leaned to the right where the weight of her body dragged her down to hit the sand.
Megatron avoided getting crushed barely and her force against the ground made him stumble slightly before he turned to jog backwards in wonder before slowing to a standstill. He lifted his eyebrows in wonderment until he heard Arcee falling and raced to catch her yet again. Watching her frantically maneuver in freefall was amusing, getting hit by her freefalling was not.
Like a rocket, she sent him rolling upon impact, turning up sand as they bounced, and she landed on her back in the opposite direction next to him. They both were uncomfortable but at the same time, they refused to move. Breathing harshly, they both turned their helms and met each other's optics.
Arcee panted, "You think Shockwave's going to be mad?"
"Well yeah, if you mention you killed his Driller to his face, I'd imagine he would be a little pissed. I have no plans on telling him, do you?"
"Uh, eh, mm."
"Arcee."
"What?"
"Don't do it."
"I didn't say anything."
"You're thinking it."
They remained lying there as the skies of day finally grew to their natural blue. The sand looked its normal faded orange and the heat never felt better.
Doomsday was a magnificent beast but she needed to be put down under the circumstances. What they could agree on above everything was that Shockwave was banned from getting any more pets, assuming one of them could stop him from getting another.
"Haven't checked in with you two in a while," Bolt voice came through. "So...is Shockwave's monster still alive or did you have to kill it? Oh, and bring me back something from it. A Driller piece would look lovely in that trophy case I built for you."
"Yeah, that's the most important thing above all. And you call us now after all the danger passed. Very reassuring, Bolt," Arcee said sarcastically, closing her optics.
"I can only do so much...you want that ground bridge now?"
"...Sure."
In the citadel overlooking the isle, the Allspark vibrated stunned at the display of more of its fallen guardians. The hybrid hellhound of Kaon, the vicious ex-Insecticon leader, and now the decimator of Cybertron, the Driller. There was a sense of being impressed that they all fell to Arcee and Megatron, the former more so. It never expected them to get as far as they did.
Did you not foresee this? Do you not recognize your own mind?
The spirit sentries of its conscience always were annoying, but they were a part of it as its moral and ethical control. Of course, the moment any conflicting thought occurred they would appear and argue with itself.
"I was so confident Megatronus would kill the one called Arcee and end this pursuit. I do not want to go back to Cybertron with all that we knew would come has happened. It has never felt like home anyway. Why should we care what happens to it?"
The Queen of Cybertron seeks to fix the world torn by corruption just like Orion Pax sought to fix the world torn by arrogance in the past. Does this not matter?
"Not to me...not anymore."
But?
But there was a chance that its deeper instinct was right. Arcee had proven, as it had seen and refused to believe in its primal rage, that she would overcome many obstacles it threw at her and as much as it wanted to be left alone, maybe that wasn't supposed to be. It was far too demanding for itself to be wrong that it brought the worst yet Arcee still prevailed. Luck? Chance? Destiny? It didn't want any to be true, but the Allspark couldn't even lie to itself what was fate.
And what of Cybertron? By abandoning it to the likes of the existing hidden corruption, soon to be unmasked by those who seek their queen's return, it wasn't any better than the corruption. Perhaps its time confined in the crystalline casing that sealed its unlimited power for millions of years changed it for the worse.
"It is funny. We were happy back then, but the Primes feared us. They divided our soul in half, afraid we would hurt them but all we wanted to do was make them proud. They sought to control us and used our power in the form of Vector Sigma while we were stuck in that crystal until the Thirteenth came back to set us free and make our split self whole again by destroying Vector Sigma, a secret he still has never told anyone. So lost and untrusting we are now."
Trauma does that. But it is with this trauma that we understand what was in the past is done and the Cybertronians now seek not our demise but praise us as we are. We can only go forward to the future by accepting what has happened and moving on or keeping a grudge and blaming all our troubles on the bots stuck on this island. You are just paranoid. Why do you think you talk to yourself?
"Touché. But I am still not convinced this Arcee will help us. The future can always change."
A spur of energy flickered off its spherical form. Its metal rings gave a slight twitch and stalled among their rotation. The sentries whinnied and roared in frustration of its conflicting opinions. The battle of the mind was always entertaining but, in the end, the direct conscience was the overall decider.
A mystical aura lit up the room, faint stars and galaxies appearing through it. The universe was its to command, yet it never did use those powers because it knew just how forbidden they should be. It wouldn't call the gift a mistake but using it was undesirable. It always felt isolated and feared, nothing it wanted any on Cybertron to think but the Primes weren't convinced of its friendly nature which led to its imprisonment.
A pity that had to happen. A part of it knew they weren't truly at fault for being cautious. It was a being's nature to be rightfully skeptical of anything they couldn't explain or control. Still, it had soured the Allspark's more cheerful attitude into something unfamiliar. One of the reasons it left Cybertron at the mercy of its own people of its own accord. It saw little redemption for a species so cruel to its wonders.
Are humans not the same? Yet, you would rather spend time here on Earth and grace the race doomed to destroy itself in its own pride, making miracles for them over your own people. Is that not hypocritical of you, matching the same favoritism and demoralizing conduct that corrupted Cybertron to begin with?
The Allspark sparked red and its galaxies turned black with white cores. The sentries growled feeding off its anger. "I am nothing like them!"
You are their kin, their mother, and their home. You represent Cybertron's heart and soul. Of course, you would not see your own corruption within. But we can remedy this pain. How about we make a deal?
"A deal? With my own conscience?"
If Arcee makes it to the citadel to convince us to go back and fix the damage we let happen instead of warning Cybertron as the guardians we were meant to be, we do so and we repay our debt to society as we owe them. If Arcee fails, we stay here and let the Cybertronians sort their problem out themselves.
The Allspark laughed, "I assume there is a catch?"
No world-bending. Bring any you see fit to the isle to stop her. She will prevail.
"If you are so confident..."
We are you.
"Fine," the Allspark growled, flaring back to its normal blue light. "The fact that we convinced ourselves to let her and the gladiator onto the isle in the first place makes me think I could be very wrong...for once."
A dent in your ego. Poetic. You have been so blinded to your own desires that you forget the true fate at hand.
"Doesn't mean I can't put that said fate to the test and change everything. Perhaps it is time to bring in a more unstable entity, one that has nothing to lose. A being of unfathomable destruction and darkness."
AN: Shockwave would indeed be quite angry if he ever found out. Thankfully, he might never know. This was one of the fun chapters to write, taking the Driller concept and making it into this sentient super beast. Doomsday did go through several rough drafts on how I was supposed to approach her. This ended up being the best one.
Featured Monsters:
Doomsday the Driller (Cybertron)