Promotional artwork: tigressa101/art/Arcee-and-the-Isle-of-the-Allspark-Cover-931607333
The building toppled as a giant clawed green and silver servo made from a crane wrapped around a smaller rooftop. Standing up, a mechanoid finished combining as the last of their parts shifted together and a hulking green and purple figure overshadowed many soldiers. As big as Beta Supreme but aggressive and designed only to destroy, the battlefield was introduced to the mighty Devastator. A monster among Combiners and with a ruthless but trusted team to command together as a unit, their power was unmatched.
With several red optics spanning their faceplate to represent the many bots they were, they eyed a wide array of enemies simultaneously. With a growl, they narrowed all their optics. As Constructicons alone, they wouldn't have dealt with an army. Some of these individuals admitted that they were cowards in the past. But together, they feared no one.
Behind them, the noted Supreme killer and the most egotistical Combiner perched on a low, wide building to sneer down at the newfound victims. Bruticus, in all his dark rainbow schemed glory, made a snide remark upon hearing the building starting to crack from his weight.
"Oh, well, that's probably a sign I need to go on a diet," he smirked, tapping his stern abdomen. He then saw a cluster of soldiers and pretended to lick his scarred lips. "But maybe one more meal won't hurt."
Bumblebee's voice came through their comms. "Alright, boys, tear this army and that palace apart piece by piece if you have to."
Devastator chuckled darkly, "We're Constructicons; that's what we do best. Breaking things and putting them back to our liking."
The Combiner shook the ground as they walked across the battlefield. Deliberately, they targeted any stray soldiers and either stepped on them or brought their servos down to squish them like bugs. Bruticus, being faster with smaller sized individuals making up him, swatted the soldiers with his backhand in a cruel manner. But they weren't the only ones coming to play.
Menasor and the Caminus Combiner, Victorion, were also summoned to everyone's surprise. Victorion was comprised of Caminus warriors who helped their fellow warrior, Windblade, keep the peace as the ruler of Cybertropolis. The fact that she was willing to come to Cybertron's aid with the other Combiners proved her valiant nature extended beyond her required duty, courtesy of her components. Menasor with his ungodly mutilated appearance nodded to his equal even if it stung his pride before.
With the Combiners bearing down on the army like they were merely flies, the palace redirected its fire from the Supremes to the horde of oncoming enemies. Devastator stood in front of all of them, taking the brunt of the hits but they refused to slow even when some blasts knocked off pieces of armor. With a snarl, they pursued their mission determined to carry it out no matter what.
When they reached the palace, they made quick work of the wall Omega had already cracked upon his first assault. The cannons targeting them started to hit a blind spot in their mobility as the Combiner assaulted the palace. Victorion ran to their side and placed her servos in the nooks of any windows available before lifting with all her might. The roofs of several lower parts of the palace were torn from their beams before she tossed it aside.
Just then, Omega Supreme and Alpha Supreme emerged alongside Menasor and Bruticus. All the Combiners and Sentinels in one place even made the palace's defense systems confused on who to target. This allowed Omega and the others to get too close to counter and began their direct destruction of the palace itself.
The soldiers of Rockrider's army could only watch in horror as everything was spiraling out of their control. The citizens who helped all cheered as most of the remaining army began to surrender. But despite the brief victory and the two forceful units beating down the palace, the leaders below knew it wasn't over.
Bumblebee and Windblade both looked at each other among the cheering and dismissed fear of the soldiers they had been fighting.
"Windblade, as my trusted friend, I need you to do me a favor."
"Anything, oh noble leader," she smirked.
He matched her grin and said, "You and I are going into the palace once the Combiners and the Supremes take out all the weaponized towers. I'll call them off in a while, but I need to know before we head in if you're ready for this."
She lifted a servo to clasp hers against his as a sign of respect. "You think I'm going to chicken out this far in the game? Let's do this."
"Arcee, Megatron, do you know what that is?!"
"Enlighten us, Bolt, because this thing looks angry," Megatron said.
Bolt then answered in a fearful tone, "That's an Aquatronian Leviathan! They live in the vast ocean of Aquatron and even the residents of the planet were scared to death of them! They live in hives of up to a thousand to five thousand members and their queen-oh, you two need to stay as far from the water as possible! These things will kill anything and like piranhas, any type of blood will attract them. One of the Leviathans will take a bite of a potential victim and if they deem it a good target, they will feed and they will summon their queen who will either join or will merely kill larger prey than its hive so they can feed."
The Leviathan had a similar appearance to the common Cybertronian albeit layered with more webbed based armor and glaring aqua green optics with constricted white pupils like a snake's. But when the Leviathan roared at them with jagged teeth that made Megatron's fangs look puny, all three Cybertronians knew this was not a species that could be reasoned with. Moonhunter was keeping his distance running along the edge of the wilderness inland rather than dealing with the massive predatory mer-mecha.
Suddenly, a second orangish-red Leviathan crawled onto land with its arms and shook its tail with anticipation. It made vocal chatter, mostly a rattling sound, that could have been mistaken as a dialect, but it was not even remotely distinguishable. A noticeable difference between the two Leviathans was one had two optics while the other had four. Whether or not this was a distinguisher for a type of Leviathan or just happened to be some were created with different parts randomly neither bot could guess.
"You guys see the Leviathans, but don't wait for the queen. She will be your biggest enemy here and Leviathan Queens are notorious for being vindictive, having permanent memory of people and creatures they meet and are the only type of Leviathan that have been able to talk or mimic talking. You ever heard the legends here on Earth of mermaids and their voices, luring sailors to their doom? I think these creatures are the reason for that. In fact, I think the Kraken and one other beast is based off the Leviathan Queen or something of her magnitude. Leviathans in general are the most aggressive of any Aquatronian species to exist. You thought the Quintessons were bad? These things are the only creatures the Quintessons ever feared!"
Arcee frowned, "Wait, you just said mermaids are based off them, yet they have never been on Earth until now. That doesn't make any sense!"
"They haven't been on Earth as far as we know. But looking back at the Predacons that Megatron sent to Earth thousands of years ago to defeat Autobots hiding here, do they not look like human-described mythical creatures? If we had influence on Earth's myths and culture, who's to say an Aquatronian Leviathan Queen and her hive didn't accidentally find their way to this planet via a faulty transport or someone intentionally released them? Earth has water; Aquatron has water; Leviathans thrive in water. And Leviathan Queens possess 'ghostline' communication, meaning they can communicate with other Queens to get a feel of where they are in a territory and choose whether or not to let them be or go after them as a threat even if the other Queen and her hive is in a hibernation state. That also means they can communicate knowledge of surroundings and tactics used to hunt prey...like humans."
The realization of this made both bots back away as the Leviathans gave another hiss in warning. However, they suddenly perked up at attention making a humming noise before quickly scurrying on their arms back into the water.
"Bolt, what's happening? Why did they leave?"
The Vehicon said, "If there's a hive, there's a queen which we just saw take out that Metal Head. The queen is superior and if she's ready to move out, the hive will follow regardless of their qualms with land-dwellers like us. Thankfully, this might be a good sign. I'm reading up on this species and the queen will eventually go into a stasis state for a few million years or so before awaking to feed, so will her hive. Bad news is that brings us back to the other problem of one potentially being here. If they have the equivalent of natural hibernation, that means the Earth's hive that terrorized sailors may have gone into slumber but who knows when they will awaken, or this is the hive that has been terrorizing sailors."
Arcee slapped her servos against her thighs with a huff, "Great, one more thing to worry about and to protect Earth from."
The Leviathan Queen's dark form went into the shallow area and climbed through to the sea again, her hive following like a school of fish beneath a whale shark. As they watched her fins go down beneath the water and hearing her rumble as loud as a commercial jet engine, both bots stared uneasily at her departure. The fact that this thing was guarding the gem or at least surveying the island for food around where the gem happened to be was the stuff of nightmares.
"And you thought my dislike of water was stupid," Megatron said as he looked down at her smirking.
Arcee just glared back, obviously not in the mood for the comment. She turned around to walk back to where they came from frustrated. Megatron followed but kept peering behind at the lagoon just in case.
"And where do you suppose you're going?" Megatron asked.
"Not near the water, that's for sure."
"We have to get the gem somehow. Look, I'll just throw you toward the rock and you can climb it. Problem solved."
Arcee sighed loudly and stopped. "This is going to be hell and you know it."
"All the more reason to get it done. You trust me, don't you?" He asked in a serious tone.
She couldn't resist the slight pout he gave her as much as she didn't want to deal with a Leviathan hive. Knowing like everything else she didn't have a choice, she turned on her heels in the direction of the offshore stack where the gem gleamed like it was taunting them. When she reached the shoreline, she looked back to see Moonhunter not daring to come with them, instead deciding to chill with a few seals that seemed not to fear him. She didn't blame him for refusing to go near the water after seeing what was in it.
Megatron offered her a servo in his plan to catapult her over but before they could do that, they heard the sound barrier being disrupted from above. They both stood shocked as a streak of light flew right towards the isle from the atmosphere. The sky flared bright white for a second before another noise came from it. They watched as it curved and hit somewhere past them presumably in the Rockridge Mountains with a sonic boom which shook the island itself. Megatron remained stable but Arcee was forced to sit in the sand. The seals, walruses, and sand lions were quick to escape into the water scared of the unnatural noise while Moonhunter immediately took shelter back towards the trees.
"What the hell was that?" Megatron snarled, uncovering the sides of his helm protected by his servos.
"Meteorite? A large meteorite?"
The warlord shook his head. "No, the density of the fireball is too great. Meteorites incinerate under such conditions or leave smaller trails as they try to break apart. This one was solid mass. It's an object."
As they talked, among Roughridge's terrain, a sizable impact in the snow and rock was visible on the side of the mountain. The snow that had collapsed over part of the object tremored when suddenly a bronze-gold three-clawed servo punched through as an alien roar of a machine echoed throughout.
"It might be a satellite that humans put in Earth's orbit. I heard some of them fall after a while," Arcee stated.
"That was still pretty big, even for a Cybertronian satellite."
Another rumble from the direction of the mountain made them uncertain until something in the distance shot up and hovered high above the island. Then they noticed it was a bot. Suddenly, said figure shot right at them and upon reaching the beach, it slowed to levitate off the ground with the boosters on its feet. Arcee and Megatron grew weary as they looked at none other than the Precursor Robot.
"That's not Cybertronian Predator, is it?!" Megatron asked unsure.
Bolt immediately cut in, "Absolutely not! Cybertronian Predators are more, uh, Predacon-like. This thing might look similar but it's definitely not one! It looks more like a Kanjian ridgeback minus the dragon-esque qualities. Whatever this thing is...I think it's staring at you, Arcee."
The blue femme could all but confirm that as the unknown machine narrowed its bug-eyed yellow optics, it was focusing on her. But why? She didn't even know what it was or who...
"Whoever sent the Cloaker must have sent this thing too! Goddamn it! Is nothing sacred?!" Arcee exclaimed.
Megatron paused. "Are you sure this isn't the Allspark's doing?"
"I don't know, but I'm killing it one way or another!"
The Precursor Robot bellowed at them before landing on the beach and stomping towards Arcee as she cracked her neck in spite. As it reached down to grab her, its head was pushed to the side as a log hit it. When it tried to turn its head towards the offender, another log made it look away. Furious now, it finally spotted Megatron who was in the midst of grabbing a third portion of a downed tree. Shifting its arm to a blast ray, it shot the sand just in front of the mech and sent him flying backwards to crash a distance away with a loud grunt. Upon being free from the distraction, the Robot looked down at Arcee...only to find she was gone.
With a growl, the Robot peered around, clasping its servos open and closed in an irate manner. Then it felt the tiniest ding against its shin and shot its upper half around to glare down at her as she attempted to climb its leg. With a rumble, it twisted its upper half back in the correct direction and tried to kick her off.
Arcee hated when she had to do this and despised whatever this thing was. When one swing almost dislodged her, she began to climb quicker. "You are not getting the best of me! You can tell whoever you work for to come down and face me themselves!"
It stopped and tried a different tactic, reaching out to her with its servo at a lightning-fast pace. She avoided its grasp every attempt by maneuvering around across, up, and down its leg before it tried to catch her off-guard and predict her movements. She barely missed one of the digits impaling her when she got it in her head to jump on its lower arm. The Robot lifted its arm to see her clinging to it and made a grunt of confusion as she laughed.
"Being small has its advantages, didn't anyone teach you size does matter?"
As it brought its arm to stretch horizontally, its other servo hit its wrist trying to crush her before following her as she sprinted. Arcee jumped when its servo slammed down on its upper arm to block her and kicked it in its anteater-like snout. However, the kick did nothing but turn its head unfavorably and it rebounded to glare at her less than a second later. Out of options, she began shooting at it with her gatling gun, but the blasts did nothing but annoy it. She had to put it away when it tried to strike at her again.
Arcee then used its snout to swing up and crouch on top of its head as it frantically tried to look up and around to pinpoint her location. That was a typical machine-like move which tipped her off that it was not a Cybertronian-built mecha. Then she noticed the faintest symbols engraved in its collar armor behind its head. That was not a language remotely like anything she had seen prior, the letters, assuming that they were at all, were far too thick and curved to be any cybernetic language. It was like Dagger Prima's language but at least that had similarities to the language of the Primes; this matched nothing she had ever seen.
In her distraction, she was suddenly grabbed and forced to face the Robot as it held her in its grasp. With a rumble, it began to squeeze her, and the grip was threatening to crack her armor from the pressure. It reminded her immediately of Megatronus' fiery grip and she started to hyperventilate even though such a panic was making the grasping servo's job easier. She could only stare into its yellow optics as it gave off a mechanical noise.
"Get your damn hands off her, you son of a-!"
The Robot was abruptly hit in the chest by a blast through a ground bridge that appeared equal to its line of vision. It let go of Arcee who hit the sand and gasped as her spark slowed back to a normal pace. She was surprised that Bolt would take a risk like that, especially shooting through a ground bridge with a high-powered weapon of the Endeavor's caliber. Hitting the walls of the ground bridge within would have caused untold damage and possibly backfired on him, destroying him and the ship entirely as well as the marshlands.
"You can thank me later. I'm just kidding. Call that my repayment for my attitude. Now, I watched this thing for a minute through Megatron's feed and I noticed something about it. It may be too powerful to verse physically but it relies on a type of sight sensory to keep it on target. When you went behind it after it threw Megatron, it froze up unsure. When you went on top of its head, it knew you were there but stalled upon not being able to track you visually. Use that to your advantage and maybe you might be able to trick it into revealing a weakness you can exploit physically. It doesn't display the same coordination as a living being, that means it's you verses the machine...despite being, well, machines ourselves...never mind, I'm confusing myself just thinking about it."
The Precursor Robot sat up and twirled each servo individually before planting one after the other onto the ground to push itself to stand.
"Destroy the Robot, Arcee, no matter what you need to do to accomplish that!"
Arcee scowled at its persistence when it looked her way as Megatron ran up to her. "What exactly is our plan now? I don't have any ideas at the moment, and this thing isn't going to stop until we're dead."
"Like always," she muttered as she thought hard on what to do. Suddenly, a very risky idea came to mind, one she knew could be regrettable in the long run. She peered towards the stack holding the gem up high and then at the water where the Leviathans presumably resided. If she couldn't defeat this thing, maybe someone else could.
"Follow me!" She said running away from the Robot.
Megatron was unsure of the plan but made no arguments when the Robot turned its attention towards him since he was the closest to it. He sprinted fast enough to catch up with her in no time as the Precursor Robot pursued with a roar.
"Uh, why are we going to the water? I thought you said we were going to avoid it considering what lies within it at the moment?"
"Exactly," she smirked.
He grew a concerned expression and switched between watching where he was going and staring at her. "Arcee, you're crazy!"
She didn't respond as she heard the Robot starting to outpace them as they reached the edge of the beach. She didn't hesitate to run into the water and paddle out to deeper areas. Megatron reluctantly followed and they both sawm out to a point they were sure was at least decently safe. The Robot grunted in frustration upon pausing at the shoreline and aimed its blast ray at them but decided not to go against its programming, instead desiring to take a more personal approach.
Meanwhile in the water, Megatron and Arcee circled one another to assure the other they were okay knowing if they stopped swimming, they would sink. They couldn't do long strokes like professional swimmers as the balance of their weight would make their legs sink. The only motion that stabilized them was the equivalent of a 'doggy paddle' technique Arcee had heard it called before. All of their limbs had to be under and moving to keep them afloat as embarrassing as it was. They then redirected their path towards the rock stack just a hundred meters out.
"I feel like this a step backwards," Megatron complained, "just saying."
Arcee snarled, "Just shut up and swim!"
As they reached the rocks, they were quick to climb part way to at least get out of the water. Megatron shook off the excess while Arcee stood at an angle on one of the barely walkable ledges. Upon hearing the Robot bellow again, they turned to see it contemplating what to do before activating its boosters and flying over. It slowed to hover just next to the rockface and seemed to make a noise almost as if it was amused at the attempt to escape.
Arcee, however, didn't mind the mockery when she noticed faint movement to her left seemingly turning from heading towards the beach to heading towards them. It was giant; it had to the Leviathan Queen. She needed to distract the Robot before it could kill them to buy the Leviathans time to attack...unless Bolt was wrong about their nature to kill everything they could get to.
"Hey, motor-breath, tell me something, who do you work for because it's quite sad you have to carry out their deeds instead of them facing their own problems!"
The Precursor Robot stopped in its tracks of hovering closer to reach them and stared.
"I don't know what you are or where the hell you came from but this, chasing after a bot you don't even know, is ridiculous and if you had half a processor, you'd be kicking the one who sent you because I guarantee they lied about anything they promised. Take a look around, let me know if this is worth it to you."
The Robot was silent. She didn't know what it was thinking as its optics adjusted, but as long as it was focused on her, it couldn't be aware of the shadow in the water moving towards it. It pulled out its weapon again without warning and she looked it dead in the eye upon its choice.
"Hope your choice was worth it because mine was."
It blinked uncertain of that when to all their surprise, a giant, monstrous pale sea green Leviathan leaped out of the water with its arms outstretched and rows of teeth present. Unlike the Leviathans, most the same size as Megatron, this was undoubtably the queen herself.
Four green optics, a natural head crest akin to a ceratopsian's that appeared to fan out like coral with jagged spikes and holes, and large fins decorating her backside all the way down to her tail, she was larger than the Precursor Robot itself and Arcee watched with some regret and horror as the Precursor Robot even grew shocked upon being pushed right into the water by her. The Leviathan Queen clawed its chest and arms trying to render it unable to defend itself as she snapped her massive jaws near its face. The Precursor Robot burst out of the waist-deep water and held the Leviathan Queen up high but struggled to keep the strength needed to do so.
Megatron and Arcee used their fight to climb up to the top of the stack though they watched between pauses to keep track if anyone was winning. Right before they reached the gem, the Precursor Robot slammed unwillingly into the rockface as the Leviathan Queen sank back down in the water. But it struck again continuously aiming for the omnidroid's head, pushing it against the rock over and over with each attempted strike before it could retaliate.
Arcee suddenly lost her grip from one jolt of the rockface and began to slide down until Megatron's servo caught hers. He pulled her up to cling to his shoulder as they heard the two monsters bellow at each other.
The Precursor Robot had damage to its waist and chest as it tried to push the Leviathan Queen away to prepare its blast ray. But just as it aimed the weapon, the queen lunged and encased her fangs around the narrower upper arm. With so much bite force, the weight of the queen, and the Robot unable to pry her off, the arm of the dense alien metal twisted then broke, severing its limb. But the queen refused to just take the limb only. She spit out the arm and circled around still bloodthirsty. The Precursor Robot couldn't stop her when she jumped at it one final time.
Megatron reached out to the gem just as both the Leviathan Queen and the Precursor Robot hit the stack and the whole rock structure broke off at the base, tilting towards the sea. The warlord frantically tried to stop the gem as it bounced toward the edge leaning towards the water but to no avail. It slipped from his grasp and sank into the water where its glow slowly faded. But both bots were met with a secondary problem. As the stack tilted, they were going down with it alongside the Leviathan and the Robot.
Hitting the water, Arcee clung to Megatron as they fell through with the rocks. They had no choice but to sink to the sea floor. Thankfully, the area they were in was a deep coral reef and not the darker abyss where seldom light ever reached. The light still shined down where they were, and it was enough to see the Robot sink down several yards away as well.
But, to their dismay, the gem was not visible, or it was buried beneath the sea sediments. Then they heard the Robot turn over on its front sluggishly in the water. That's when Arcee realized its weakness was lack of speed. On the surface, the Robot was too fast to counter and if they could, it did nothing. In water, actions were slower, and the Robot was clearly not made for such conditions, especially when they saw the Leviathan Queen swimming in the distance.
Like a graceful but deadly shark, the queen maneuvered around the area flawlessly as she was designed to do. But that also proved both bots and the Robot itself were all out of their league in an environment they weren't native to.
The Precursor Robot attempted to stand up when the Leviathan Queen instantly whipped through the water close to its position and this time used its slower movements to take hold of its head. With a brutal twist of its neck, wiring and circuitry were revealed as the Robot's head was torn from its body. Surprisingly, the Robot still functioned but it could no longer see, and its arm grasped blindly at where its head once was trying to figure out its predicament which made both Arcee and Megatron realize it didn't have the same type of processor as they did. Its processor was somewhere in its body. Slowly though, it succumbed to a defeated stillness, not death but it couldn't move without its senses. It sat uselessly on the sea floor broken.
Then they watched the Leviathan Queen swimming around with an audible growl that carried through the water when most sound couldn't. She held its offline head as she circled it, eying it for any movement. When it barely lifted its chest up in response to sediment being blown against it, the queen made a quick strike to its shoulder in warning. When the body didn't move again, the queen slowly left in the opposite direction of the bots. In the distance, they saw several shadows starting to dart around her and they knew that it was the hive; she was protecting her hive against a perceived threat that was too big for them to handle.
"Huh, guess Bolt failed to mention the Leviathans don't always lure their queen out first," Arcee said through the commlink since neither of them could understand the other in the water.
"Yes, but it's only a matter of time before they figure out we are down in their territory too. Bolt, do you know if there's any way to get rid of a Leviathan hive or at least scare them off for a long period of time?"
Bolt laughed, "Not unless you have anything short of a bomb...don't ask me to make a bomb."
Arcee smirked, "Bolt, can you make a bomb if it's the only way?"
"What did I say? I mean I can. Between communicating with you and doing my own thing, I have enough Rozarian blood in my storage to blow almost an entire environment into a crater if not the entire island. Detonating it in water will lessen the blast...but...you might create a tsunami and if you do, I don't want anyone pointing figures at me."
"But will you?"
"...Fine, give me an hour. I have a large container I can fill with the blood, and I can send it to you once I'm done but remember, any force, pressure, heat, or blast will trigger an immediate reaction. If you are caught in the blast radius, well, it was nice knowing you. Whether it will kill the queen, however, I'm not sure. She's pretty big and if you want to use it against that weird, evil machine-"
Megatron scowled, "The droid's headless. It's not a problem anymore."
"You killed it?!" Bolt asked loudly.
Arcee said, "No, the Leviathan Queen did incapacitate it though. It's still alive but it's not doing anything."
"Better than nothing, I guess. One hour, don't die, and don't kill yourselves. I'll be working on it as soon as I hang up right about-"
The comm went silent and Arcee peered at Megatron amused. While the Precursor Robot's headless body flicked a few rocks out of boredom, they resumed their search for the gem. But they didn't realize they weren't the only ones hunting for something.
From the deep, beyond the drop-off of the reef, a large fish was attracted by the commotion, rising from the depths to investigate the noise. As it swam, sharks that simply moved around the area for food grew alerted to its presence and fled as it sailed by a Cybertronian shipwreck infested with sea creatures. Sensing danger but also fear, it grew aggravated.
Rockrider snarled at the sight of her army being humiliated by lesser bots. Watching them work together when they should be mortal enemies or at least the likes of Predacons and Dinobots being treated as equals when they were nothing but lower lifeforms was appalling to her. It was never like this during the days of the caste system. She was right where she wanted to be back then.
Slamming her fists down, she asked impatiently, "Is the transport ready for Optimus and the others? I am solely tempted to just put a bullet in that fragger's head and drop his friends out of the ship in our retreat, but I still need them alive for practical reasons. The one that got away will no doubt warn of our traps, so we need to act fast."
Wrathzone seemed as frustrated as she was. "I'm trying! You're the one who started this so it's not my fault it's hard to get a transport when half our army is gone! You didn't think this completely through. You wanted too much and now that we're close to being imprisoned or killed, you can't take the fact that it might be over."
"Were you not just on my side before with the plan of dunking Optimus into the smelting pits in Kaon?"
"That was when we had a chance. Now, they have the edge, and we don't have as many resources as we thought. I made a promise to you as your bodyguard assigned by Alpha Trion that I would do anything to protect you, even kill but at some point, we have to see the reality of the situation and that is we are in trouble."
Just then, they heard rumbling and both Rockrider and Wrathzone peered out towards Crystal City's building line. Their optics widened as a couple Combiners breached the battlefield with a mighty bellow. That made Rockrider purse her lips and Wrathzone stared terrified at the notion that they managed to summon not just Sentinels but Combiners, the most ruthless tyrants of transformation to exist with their combined, unethical mindsets.
"Oh, that's not good," the faded gold mech muttered. "You see? This is why we needed a better strategy. Firing at them pissed them off and now we have Combiners after us. Our defenses won't last long against three Sentinels and four Combiners. The palace isn't designed for this much opposition."
Rockrider thought silently for a minute before narrowing her optics. "The game still isn't over. When they come to our gates and start wrecking this place, they will have to call those giant brutes off in fear of killing their beloved friends along with us. They will send in some of their leaders to intervene and rescue them. That's when we take them on ourselves. Bumblebee is wise but still young enough to be foolish, even among being the protégé of the great and powerful, Optimus Prime. He will come and that's exactly what I want."
Wrathzone wasn't as impressed as he was previously but still saw the logic in her plan. He could take on Bumblebee and most of the other leaders. He was trained to do so for millions of years, but a few leaders were questionable either because he never dealt with their kind, or their methods weren't known much in battle. Grimlock, Predaking, and The Matriarch were the wild cards. He would still take them, but he needed a backup plan for each in case mere fighting didn't work. Omega Supreme and Devastator? Absolutely not.
Watching the Combiners rip through the palace wall and their soldiers growing frantic, unsure of what to do while some gave up, Rockrider and Wrathzone backed away into the shadows to prepare for any onslaught that would be attempted.
AN: Da-dum, da-dum, dun-dun dun-dun dun-dun dun-dun...who did I bring to the isle. I won't tell...
Featured monsters:
The Precursor Robot
The Leviathan Queen (Aquatron)