Across the Isle: Short Stories of Past and Present
Spider Webs
Blackarachnia crossed her arms as the ship passed over Chaar's fortress docks, their port they had just left. With the precious Energon they were carrying, it was vital they sent it to their base in the Archa system.
"Remember, Blackarachnia, I'm counting on you to deliver it. The Autobots have been spotted out there and I refuse to let one of my bases fall to the likes of Ultra Magnus and his Elita Guard!" Megatron growled fiercely on the screen.
The black and purple femme bot nodded, "It will be done, my Liege. Have I failed you yet?"
"No, but don't let your pride get in your way or you might slip up," he sneered before the screen went black.
A Vehicon approached her and asked, "Do you wish for us to engage the space bridge to the checkpoint at Archa Six, commander?"
"Yes, the faster we deliver, the faster we can leave that horrible sector of the galaxy."
The ship activated its bridge and flew into the portal. After a few minutes of green energy covering their view, they appeared in a red tinted nebula and among it, several planets and their sun, Archa Primal. As far as this system went, it was nothing but organic-laced primitive worlds will practically no use except for a hideaway from prying Autobot eyes. Why a Decepticon base was planted here, Blackarachnia couldn't understand.
"Set course for-"
The ship was suddenly rocked by a blast and all the Decepticon troops aboard looked confused as Blackarachnia stomped to the main controls that were beeping like mad. Upon silencing them and turning on the scanners, her optics widened when her ship detected an Autobot signal just behind them.
"What?! Evasive maneuvers and get us out of here!" She yelled.
The Vehicon troops scrambled to their stations and while the pilots steered out of targeting range, the more combative troops took to the onboard weapons. They fired back as the ship was turning broadside to outflank the Autobot vessel.
As they did so, Blackarachnia was a mixture of displeased and uncertain. She knew Megatron had warned that Autobots were spotted nearby, she didn't think they were this close. She wasn't ready...and Megatron knew that. He must have.
"Commander! Our shields just took a massive blow! We can't take much-!"
A loud boom sent everyone falling on the ground as the ship's thrusters erupted and the vessel itself drifted down towards the nearby planet of Archa Seven uncontrollably. It turned into a blazing comet as it breached the atmosphere and all Blackarachnia saw before the crash was a mountain and drop off at its base. Knocked unconscious, she barely felt its impact.
Awaking groggily, Blackarachnia placed a servo on her face with a grimace but slowly sitting up. The cabling of the ship's ceiling was dangling down and all the main deck looked rearranged with the controls overturned or missing and the larger windshield broken. The ship itself was creaking among a dark background. The only source of lighting was the ever-present red glow of the emergency lights. Peering around, she saw none of her Vehicons or other crew members.
Leaving the ship, she tried to deduce just where she was and upon seeing threads of soft light coming from above, it was obvious she was in some sort of cave. Energon her ship was delivering was scattered about and she didn't have the means of climbing out.
A hiss sounded far within the cave, and she paused. With no defense and no troops, she was probably a good target of the occupant's ire for causing such a scene. She walked backwards until she abruptly tripped over something. She let out a gasp upon seeing the body of a Vehicon sprawled out on the ground, their visor black signifying they were truly dead. Another hiss made her panic, and she placed a servo on their forearm before it began to glow.
Her downloading powers, capable of copying any bots' weaponry or abilities temporarily, she only used it in emergencies or battle, and she had a feeling both would be a problem. Her arm transformed into the Vehicon's signature blaster, and she grew slightly more confident.
An insectoid grunting was heard before eight thin legs skittered out to the glow of the Energon around it. A giant black spider with red undertones and five purple pupil-less eyes seemed to survey the invading object that was the ship before it set its sights on Blackarachnia. At first, it merely moved its mandibles around its fangs in thought but when the bot moved back a step, it raised half of its body with a hiss and its fangs clacking in anger. The spider sprinted at her before swiping with its front leg when she tried to hold out a servo to stop it. Voicing her displeasure, she opened fire on it. The blasts made it whine as holes appeared in its abdomen and head, collapsing immediately deceased.
Blackarachnia smugly grinned, "Organic life, such mindless brutes."
An array of hissing caught her off-guard and it echoed this time around the entire cave. To her horror, thousands of eyes glowed among the backdrop of the cave enraged. The quick movement of them into the vacant light barely seen above made the femme realize she was outnumbered. She knew she had made a mistake now. All the spiders climbed down, surrounding her as she had no choice but to blast them as they came close. Several spiders fell but just as she aimed for a large one crawling at her vindictively, her blaster shuttered and transformed back into her regular arm.
"No!"
In a frantic search, she tried looking for the Vehicon body again but found several spiders dwarfing it among pursuing her. They were all around and she was defenseless. One snapped at her, and she caught its mandibles to try and hold it off. Out of fear and desperation, she gained a misplaced idea to try and use her powers, but the organic life was immune.
Suddenly, the fangs of a smaller spider sank into her arm as it glowed, and she received immediate warnings across her live feed. They sprung up like virus notifications but started glitching in error. The other spiders stopped their pursuit as another bit her other arm in her distraction. More warnings appeared until her arms started cracking.
Her power wasn't designed to take such an overuse nor an assault of foreign information it was trying to copy. She screamed in agony as her parts forcefully tried shifting to accommodate the organic DNA. Her red optics split into four as her spine grew spikes and protruded outward. Her winglets curved over her helm and shivered as they became thin spider-like legs. A second pair ruptured from her backside. Larger she grew as a cruel mixture of metal endoskeleton and unnatural bone formed to stabilize her abominable appearance.
By the time her pain died down, she was panting with a deep resonating rumble like an animal. She whipped around and gave a bellow akin to a roar, fangs prominent and multiple optics blaring red in mindless rage. The spiders seemed to grow weary of her, some frightened themselves and quickly fled at what they helped create.
Stomping around without any sense of direction, she couldn't fathom what she was. Alien movements of spider limbs on her back with the unbalanced strokes on her movement due to her size was too much for her to handle. She crouched down, unable to cry but unable to feel anything but dread and anger.
Megatron. Why did he forsake her for this? It was his fault. It was his fault! This never would have happened had she not followed his orders, right? He knew the Autobots were there. He set her up! He had to have done so!
"Megatron!" She bellowed darkly.
The Most Unusual Pet
Shockwave wasn't fond of the Council. Screw them! If he was to be this cyclops of a mech because they didn't trust him, just screw them to the Pits. He had plans and would let anything get in his-
His audial fins perked up as he heard a strange noise echo. When he heard it again, he followed its trail of sound to a subterminal network boarded off for construction. The trains down there were unmoving following a remodel of the network for upgrades. He heard the noise thrice and pinpointed it in a hole in the wall just next to the lifeless tracks. Since he had nothing to fear of being hit by a train, he hopped down onto the tracks and approached it. Peering inside, he was quite unsure of what he was looking at.
Another cry, loud and clear, was from a worm-like creature. It had little dots on its body made of a different metal than its main armor. Barbs for digging when it grew older, he assumed. It was a Driller grub. The little thing shifted in its bunker but wasn't afraid of him. Carefully, he reached in and held it with both servos. It curiously touched the edge of its leech-like mouth to his left servo trying to sense him. The grub, even for a newborn it seemed, was quite big for him to handle so he ended up moving it around in his grasp.
"Well, aren't you an interesting sight."
The grub moved slightly in response to his voice, "looking" at him despite no physical eyes to be seen. It dipped off his servo a little before coiling around his forearm.
Shockwave grew curious himself and peered inside the nest. There were no other siblings and he waited out of caution for a few minutes for its carrier...but no Driller appeared. Normally, Drillers hung nearby their nests and had a sixth sense for their young, sensing through said grubs if there was an unwanted foreign entity near the nest. On top of the cries the grub had produced, a Driller carrier would have responded well after the second it occurred. The subterminal was barren of any other life.
That was unusual. In his experiments, he had studied certain life like Drillers to produce more unethical creatures against the Council's wishes. He knew what Drillers did, especially regarding young. The silence of the tunnels gave him an ultimatum: he could either leave the grub to possibly die of starvation or he could take it and keep it as a pet. Although Drillers were not recommended as such, he knew enough to deal with one.
As the grub stayed coiled around his arm, unwilling to move from the warmth of his frame, he made his decision. The purple mech sighed, "I suppose it's just you and me. I'll keep you safe, I promise."
Taking care of a baby Driller was a learning experience. The Driller he called Doomsday was a clever girl. Shockwave found she wouldn't eat Energon plain like other bots. She desired a mixture of metal and Energon, living metal and Energon blood. It was safe to say, many bots gave him questionable looks when he ended up buying crates full of live, defanged scraplets and cyber-bugs. Placing a scraplet in the pen and watching it attempt to size up the Driller was funny...and it was even funnier when said grub grabbed it in a flash, crushing it like it was made of tin. With a burp, the grub swayed happily with a clicking noise.
Training the Driller was a bit hard. She was feisty. He tried using vocal commands, but she would just look at him like he was crazy. Physical gestures worked briefly but when he accidentally pointed at a bot to jab at their chest while arguing, the same gesture he used to make the Driller home in on a target, the miscommunication led to a fatal encounter and a cover up of said encounter afterwards. Granted, she was just trying to protect her master but still.
He developed a system. Gesture, vocal command, treat. Repeating this made Doomsday learn quickly to where he didn't always need to use gestures or the words depending on how fast he needed a task provided to the Driller done. She obeyed. When training was through though, he found the treats to be unsatisfactory to her because she outgrew them. No longer did small bugs and scraplets feed her. He tried cyber-cattle for a while, then larger livestock. She was nearly as big as Omega Supreme in her adulthood. By the time of the war when he chose to side with Megatron as his primary scientist, he found his alternate food source when everything else he could feed her dried up: Autobots.
A simple command was her favorite and it was his too. He pointed as she leaned down parallel with his arm's direction, swaying slightly in the background and hiss of steam emitted from her as he spoke in monotone. "Destroy them."
Doomsday rotated her teeth and raised up in a snake-like manner, prompting her large silver barbs out and rotating them around her body. With a roar, she dived right into the ground, tearing it up as she tunneled through the metal with ease. The rumbling of the ground sent many Decepticons the cue to fall back, not wanting to be her dinner. The Autobots were less than prepared.
The Driller smashed through the Autobot base, breaking through the floor and taking any unfortunate souls in her destruction. She breached the ceiling then dived back down for a second helping. Watching from afar, Shockwave stood proudly at what many considered his greatest abomination. But to him, Doomsday was his baby.
Megatron didn't seem to like the Driller much as did many others, but Shockwave could care less. After the one-sided battle, Doomsday coiled around him and lied her head on the ground for Shockwave to pet.
"Good girl," he praised.
She was one of the few that would ever get a compliment from him. She knew this too. Their relationship was humbling, and Shockwave could say he was very glad to have found her. She was his world.
Then...he lost her when Cybertron grew dark and both factions fled the planet. He found himself alone. Normally, he would have been happy about that. He worked better with no distractions. But Doomsday was a different company, an inspiration. Waiting for her to return for months, he grew uncertain. Like her carrier, maybe she had perished by accident or by something else. It was a harsh reality of the unpredictability of life, nothing he wasn't unfamiliar with. Waiting turned to hoping and that eventually faded to a sadness that he inevitably had to get over within a few years. Regardless of the situation, he continued with his work. He just felt a bit lost without her; now he knew just how she felt when she was just a grub in that tunnel.
A weird noise was heard one day as he was documenting the data on the Predacon clone he had created through samples of CNA, a rattling sound. He thought for a brief second...no, that seemed impossible. Drillers didn't rattle parts of their bodies. It was all in his mind. The sound echoed again, and it was coming from the walls. Pressing his audial fin against the loudest section he could pinpoint, he narrowed it to one spot. The other side of the wall led to Doomsday's hideaway where she would sleep. Only one access door went to it so he could visit her. She hadn't been in it since she disappeared.
He worked at a fast pace to break down part of the wall out of sheer adrenaline, not caring about any damage. Ripping layers of metal, he finally hit a pocket of space that looked to have been dug out sometime before Doomsday left. There he could see a blockage of a foreign metal; no doubt Doomsday had used it to hide the contents of the space. In the space itself, he was stunned to see what lied there.
Eggs! Eggs the size of Doomsday when she was just a grub. There was a dozen of them. Typically, a Driller had about five to ten offspring. He always assumed Doomsday's siblings had been eaten by predators they couldn't defend against, which was common. Surprise didn't even begin to describe the feeling he had upon seeing the eggs rattle briefly before settling. They were newly laid, at most three years old. Driller young took a few years to develop. It was around the same time Doomsday left too.
Maybe this was her gift to him. He would keep them safe like he promised he would her all those years ago. Now wasn't a good time for them to wake up with no food to supply them. His plan was to put them in stasis though a type of reverse incubator to stall them. When the time was right, he would rejuvenate them so they could live on a hopefully habitable Cybertron.
"I promise," he whispered holding one of the eggs.
With no time to lose, he moved all of them to a stable nook at his desk as he set off to work on keeping them safe and secure.
A New Leader
A dream came to him. He didn't know how or why. It plagued him but reminded him of hope that no matter what the circumstances of the upcoming future, a new leader would prevail. A new leader. Perhaps that was just the stretch he needed to know it was time to retire. He wasn't opposed to it at all. But it did make him wonder just who could take on a future burden, one he didn't even know what it was or when it would occur.
Watching the dawn of a new day on a gradually rebuilding Cybertron, Optimus breathed solemnly. After years of battling Megatron, dying twice, and overall surviving a horrific war that nearly wiped out their entire race, he was quite tired. As the Autobot leader, many things had been expected of him and many times he delivered results at the cost of much of his willpower and strength.
He was done. There was nothing left for him to do. His service as a Prime was no longer needed. As coincidental as it was, he had heard of the newly instated Council wanting to elect instead a single ruler to watch over Cybertron as a whole. They were talking about putting him in charge. He didn't want to be that mech. It wasn't that he was ungrateful of the gesture, but it just wasn't for him. It was time to leave. But maybe this was the leader his dream mentioned and maybe the candidate for the position was within his own team.
Arcee, Bulkhead, Ratchet and Bumblebee didn't know about the decision yet. They just assumed he would continue to be Cybertron's leading force. Optimus didn't want it to be a surprise, but he didn't know how to break it to them.
After a lengthy talk with the Council over the course of several days, he finally managed to convince them to reconsider and instead accept his teammates as better options. But that also meant taking one of them as the Autobot leader upon announcing his retirement. The best two options for each were Bumblebee and Arcee for the ruler and Bumblebee and Bulkhead for the Autobot leader. Ratchet, he knew, would opt out like him. Now, it was only a matter of convincing any of them to take the role.
"You look stressed, Optimus. Is something wrong?" Bulkhead asked.
Optimus then said, "Everything is fine but there is something I wish to discuss with you. Nothing bad, just something you all need to hear."
Arcee sat up from her position on a chair while Bee stood, crossing his arms in concern. "If we accidentally did something stupid, it was Bulkhead's idea."
The green mech stared Bumblebee down agitated.
Optimus waved with a shake of his helm, "No, nothing you did. The Council and I have found that we will not be returning to the old system that failed to help those like Megatron from going mad by trying to correct its flaws. We believe a monarchy might be a better option. If it still doesn't work, we will try other methods, but we need someone to take command."
"So, why not you?" Arcee immediately asked.
"Because...I am no longer in command of the Autobots. I have put in a permanent notice of leave which I will bestow the title of leader among one of you as well."
There was an uproar of shock and disdain.
"Optimus, you can't serious!"
"What?!"
"When was this a decision?!"
Optimus at first listened to them but then became annoyed. He finally shouted in a firm tone, "Enough!"
All three bots went silent, but he could tell they weren't at all pleased.
"I am old. My time as leader is over and I do not wish to pursue leadership over the whole world. You three are my best choices from how far you have come each. Obviously, one of you might not get either but I have other positions that will be open soon as well among the Council and among the representatives of the various workforces across the planet. Please, I need you three to keep Cybertron safe and functional."
The blue femme scowled, "A little bit of a warning could have helped here, Optimus. Ruling a whole planet? It's hard enough leading a faction."
Bumblebee then interjected, "You've done it before, Arcee, and you were a natural when you got a chance to shine. Optimus, who do you think would be the best for each, in your own opinion?"
Bulkhead awkwardly coughed, "Uh, if it's all the same to you, I choose neither. I'll stick to my lead construction job. That's about as high up as I think I can take."
"Okay, between Arcee and I, who would you pick?"
Optimus peered between the two and he found it hard to pick. Arcee was the most formidable option for both. However, Bumblebee was more reasonable, especially for a leader. Both had various flaws and attributes. In his mind, that made it a draw.
Arcee caught on to his unsure expression and said, "Look, running a planet isn't really my thing, but I think I can handle the Autobots."
"Arcee," Bumblebee pleaded, "please take the ruler position. I'm too young-"
"And you want to be the Autobot leader, don't you?" Bulkhead smirked.
Bee stuttered, "Ah, well, y-you see...um...y-yes, yes, I kind of want that position a bit more. Besides, Arcee, how long has it been since we had a competent leader for the planet, not counting the factions themselves? I think you would do better than me."
"Is this your spark talking or your eagerness for the Autobot leader part?" She replied.
"Both."
Arcee seemed skeptical but something in Optimus was telling him that she was the right person to take up the mantle of a new leader for a new age. He smiled and placed a servo on her shoulder.
"Arcee, Bumblebee is right. You are very competent, and I have the utmost trust that you will do your best and succeed. I ask that you at least give it a try if anything. Can you do that for me?"
The smaller bot seemed to grow confidence and nodded, "For you, I'll do it."
Then she pointed at Bumblebee. "But if something stupid happens, I'm punching you."
Bee made a gesture of disbelief. "After all we've been through? Tsk, can't even trust your teammate? I'm heartbroken."
As they playfully bickered, Optimus watched with interest but slowly thought about the situation. He was sure his decision was best. Whatever came into fruition, he just hoped it wouldn't come to something bad. That was the last thing Cybertron needed in its sensitive state.
But he paid the remainder of those thoughts no mind when Arcee and Bumblebee started taking jabs at one another in their usual pseudo sibling fashion they were known for. The Prime couldn't help but be amused by it.
The Other Worlds
A purple wolf techno-organic ran down the hall of the castle. On the chunkier side, the bot was a bit slower, but he wasn't fazed by the run. He passed the silver colored and gold-engraved royal guards, who came in all types of forms, who simply stood with their weapons up as they were designated. They cast a line of shadow over the bot as he passed them. He nearly bolted the last stretch to the throne room doors and guards timed it to where the doors opened so he could continue past without delay. The throne room was wider than any main deck of any ship built, and its head chair towered over most bots in the room, emphasizing its occupant's giant size.
"Word from Cybertron, your Highness. They have gone into a civil war with one another. Two leaders, Megatron and Optimus Prime. Decepticons and Autobots as they call themselves," the wolf-based mech said.
The four hundred-foot black ridgeback dragon with white stripes and markings had his optics closed sitting straight in his chair with one leg over the other. His tail spear end calmly patting the floor. The nostrils at the bridge between his optics huffed smoke while the white gem at the end of his anteater-like sharp-tipped upper snout pulsed along with the rest of his bio lights throughout his body. When he opened his greyish white optics, his crocodilian lower jaw slightly separated revealing his sharp fangs as he let out a deep rumble.
"The Cybertronians at war? What presumably set off such a thing?" His voice resonated through the room despite his nice demeanor though it came with a hint of sarcasm.
The smaller bot stood at attention and replied formally, "The one called Megatron believes he was snubbed out of receiving a title belonging to the existing recipient and true heir to it, the title of Prime. It seems Orion Pax was Thirteen, the youngest of the Primes without his memories. Megatron has waged war and Cybertron is paying for it."
King Kronos laughed, "The young Prime has returned. Cybertron's destiny will finally be fulfilled. It is unfortunate what will happen, but we cannot intervene, as much as I would like to. They must learn from their past arrogance to provide a better future and hopefully fix their wrong doings through this war, or they will be destroyed."
"But what if the war destroys them regardless?"
"Then there is nothing we can do. When the Primes built Cybertron up to its current state, their pride spread like a virus resulting in them being outmoded by their refusal to see reason and shunned by all who tried to befriend them. Optimus Prime is Cybertron's only hope for a successful survival. If anything goes wrong, Cybertron will be lost permanently. He is the only one who can undo the corruption that has forsaken Cybertron long before."
A guard raised a servo and the king nodded to her to speak. "Forgive me, your Highness, but what about this Megatron? I heard he's trying to fix the system too. What would happen under his reign?"
"Both Megatron and Optimus are important to the cosmos. Megatron is right, but his methods of doing so will only make Cybertron divulge in chaos, and everyone will perish. There must be balance to a functioning planet or no species can survive regardless of the rights and wrongs that functionality brings. Megatron will hurt more than he saves," Kronos lamented. He peered out of the window to his right in the direction of Cybertron's location among the starry sky. "Let us hope that the war does not consume them."
On Velocitron, several Velocitronian representatives of the various regions of the planet were present alongside their high leader, Override, as a messenger walked in in the middle of the meeting.
"As you all know, we've been having an outbreak of vortekia across the planet, and they are attacking our ground units like crazy-"
"Override, you need to see this!" The messenger bot stated.
"Can't this wait?" She asked impatiently.
The messenger shook his head, "No, this is really important. It has to do with Cybertron."
The red and white femme quickly grabbed the data pad as her attendees gasped in surprise. She scrolled through the update and placed a servo over her mouth. "Optimus and...how long?"
The mech answered, "Just started and they're issuing a mandatory briefing on any foreign bots to see if they have helped one side or the other. Blurr's there and we can't get him out because the Decepticons are hunting him like livestock for slaughter. I recommend we cease all visitation there until they sort out their own problems."
Override looked between the data pad, the messenger, and all her representatives. Noticing they weren't fond of Cybertron to begin with because of sticky relations, she knew they would favor simply leaving Cybertron to its own devices. After all, it wasn't their problem Cybertron was such a cesspool of corruption. She knew her decision had to be for her people, not her beliefs.
She sighed, "Retract any remaining Velocitronians from the planet that you can then shut down the Space Bridge Nexus on our end. They are not welcome here until they sort out this feud."
The messenger bowed and took a few guards with him out to coordinate the safe return of their people.
On the far reaches of the galaxy, Wreck-Gar sat tuning the junk he had turned into a radio. On his home of Junkion and as his people lived harmoniously, he ruled as carefree and delighted as ever. There was no strife on his planet...well, half a planet given Junkion was missing half of itself. But that never dulled the mood.
His shack was littered with various junk that made its way from various worlds like stained glass depicting a regal beast, a twisting mechanism that moved automatically while it hung from the ceiling, and other random stuff.
He tuned his radio with a silly hum and began toiling with the button. Static, some music stations, and various alien chatter was found but nothing of real interest that caught his attention until...
"C...all Autobots! Calling all Autobots! Cybertron is a warzone!...need reinforcements."
Cybertron. The mismatched parts bot had heard of the planet surely. Some of his citizens used to be from there until they left after complaints about an unfair system. He welcomed them with open arms and a sincere personality. He loved new friends as long as they behaved.
It's a pity Cybertron was sunk into a war...
"Oh well," Wreck-gar shrugged cheerfully as he continued tuning his radio.
Elsewhere in the galaxy, Caminus had its citizens partying and socializing. The Mistress of Flame sat on her chair with a nice drink in hand. The orange, red and gold femme with her cape of royal red watched as her associates talked to one another and laughed. A perfect evening.
Windblade squeezed through a few bots as the crowded ballroom proved a little difficult to navigate. Zigzagging through, she finally stumbled right up to the Mistress of Flame and made a slightly winded bow.
"Mistress, you know how to throw a party!"
The leader smiled, "How may I enlighten you today, Windblade?"
The Seeker held up a digit to catch her breath before putting on a more formal pose to the amusement of her leader. "I unfortunately have some...bad news but not bad bad. It's more, uh, neutral bad?"
"Speak."
"Cybertron just declared war-"
The Mistress of Flame jumped up and smashed her glass on the floor. She angrily shouted, "How dare those wretched idiots go against me!"
Everyone went silent as Windblade waved off the sudden miscommunication with a rapid-fire comment. "NO! No, no, no! They're going to war with each other! The planet divided itself into factions! Autobot and Decepticon! It's not towards you, Mistress! I assure you!"
Upon hearing the explanation, the Mistress of Flame calmed down with a small expression of thought. "Oh, I see. Such a pity but not surprising."
As the party slowly regained its joyous atmosphere, Windblade nodded, "Kind of...yeah, they aren't the brightest, but I know Optimus is a good bot...Orion? Optimus? Thirteen?...The Prime."
However, the Mistress of Flame seemed uninterested. "Sure, The Arisen will do just as he's meant to do. That is not my concern, however. Solus Prime endorsed him greatly but after her death, well, I don't see anybody on Cybertron really standing out as heroic or a savior since the rest of the populace are idiots. Without their Primes, they are helpless. Let them fight. It's their own fault and highly predictable that it would happen. Cybertron is nothing but a fallen empire now. Let me know who wins."
Windblade kept her smile but after bowing and turning away, she somewhat rolled her optics. The Mistress of Flame was never nice to Cybertronians. Windblade didn't believe they deserved all their hate but she kind of agreed it was hard to find a lot of good things about them. Maybe she could have a word with Optimus Prime, the hero she knew he would be, and see if she could help.
Tigers Can't Change Their Stripes
Her Metal Heads ravaged the countryside, tearing at every creature that stood in their way. The skull gem on her chest pulsed as she felt all the power and moods of her soldiers. Born of her blood, they recognized her as more than just their creator. She was their god, their leader.
"Tigressa, Kronos' forces have been drawn back to the deltas. He's running like a coward," Captain Silos sneered.
The corrupted Horaquan commander didn't hesitate to berate Kronos. Tigressa knew as much as he did that his statement was merely an exaggeration. King Kronos...her sire never ran away, and it was only some of his forces that they fought today.
"Hold your tongue, Silos, we'll get him. He must face me someday. I have plenty of patience and can kill plenty of people in that amount of time."
The monstrous-looking Rozarian chuckled in thought. "It's funny. I remember when you were younger. You used to be the most impatient youngling ever. I'm amazed how far you have come. I would be proud but maybe that's my psychopathic half talking."
"Oh, you have jokes now, huh?" She smiled.
Even among bloodshed and agony, the two still had their friendship since he was Kronos' Captain of the Royal Guard and she was a young princess. They had come far but he knew that she never changed. She was always a being of death and darkness. It just took the right push to really get her motivated.
"However, I do have one question for you."
Tigressa peered at him with a raised brow, "Yeah?"
"When we kill King Kronos after these many years, what exactly are we going to do with your mother? Kronos is the main target but Kiara, I don't really harbor much ill-will towards her other than her being in the way. She's always been the sweetest person I knew since I started working among Kanjis. What do we do then?"
That made Tigressa pause even as more Metal Heads caused a ruckus in front of her and she heard the cries of dying Kanjians. Queen Kiara, her carrier, was indeed very sweet. One of the only people she respected. King Kronos was, for too long, a god among mortals almost and she believed he needed to be taken down a notch. No one should have that much power...but Kiara was not someone Tigressa wanted dead even if she had similar powers. There just wasn't anything to truly hate about her, and that drove Tigressa mad.
"I...I don't know. We will, uh, cross that bridge when we get there."
Captain Silos stared at her before narrowing his yellow eyes. "You won't kill her even if you have the chance, will you? You know, she always used to ask, before I joined you and when you turned on them, whether or not you would come back. She missed you...even after everything you did up to that point. Still does, so I heard. You're her daughter. She can't see you as anything else."
Tigressa was silent at that as she watched one Metal Head tear out the spark of a deer-based techno-organic mech. Her mother had always asked if her violent decisions were absolute, like she expected her to rebound on her ways and change. But what her mother never considered was there was a difference between trauma violence and natural violence. Tigressa had always loved the thought of hurting others, not at any fault of her parents. It was just what it was. Deep down, she loved her mother, but Kiara couldn't understand her passion to remake the universe to her liking and getting rid of the master of the galaxies, Prometheus Kronos, was just a big leap of that.
"I can't," Tigressa whispered. "Not anymore."
The dark blue Horaquan hummed to himself in understanding. They both stood there watching their army conquer. They both remained silent.
If Tigressa did come home one day, it wasn't going to be in welcoming arms or simply walking into the city she grew up in like nothing happened. She expected the palace of her father to be in ruins when she walked those halls again. It was unfortunate but it was to be done no matter how long it took to do so.
AN: Another round of interlude stories, now with perspectives of the leaders of the other worlds! Just so you know, the Cybertronian Predator and King Kronos' species look similar because they come from the same ancestor but were separated when Primus interacted with Kanjis billions of years before. The only difference is King Kronos' species evolved to be bipedal like us while the Cybertronian Predator never had to because of Cybertron's flat terrain. Theory of Evolution. And Blackarachnia's story mirrors her Animated counterparts albeit Elita One and Blackarachnia are completely separate characters.