a/n: Got hit with inspiration for this. Let's see where it goes.
Chapter 3: In for a PENNY
Megatron snarled as he looked over the notes on Aura Training.
"Status report," Megatron demanded.
"The training regiment has yet to produce any results," Sounwave reported, "We have yet to find the right balance between meditation and physical exertion to achieve the desired results."
"These organic lifeforms have a completely different physiology to our own," Shockwave pointed out, "Even if we are capable of generating this 'Aura', which I am not sure of, we probably would not achieve it via the same means as these 'humans' do it. It would be quicker and simpler to have them try to unlock our Auras for us to see if it's possible."
"I would rather not leave us entirely dependent on another species," Megatron replied, "If we are to employ Aura on a wide scale, we need to be able to utilize it ourselves."
"A valid point," Soundwave pointed out, "However, we do not have a baseline to compare to. We might not have a choice but to rely on Special Operative Zeki's assistance, if only to provide a kicking-off point."
"But if we do not learn how to harness this power ourselves, that would give the humans all the power in this alliance," Shockwave pointed out.
"Which would make uplifting this planet difficult, even with the General's cooperation," Megatron noted, "The last thing we need is to end up subservient to a less developed culture."
"Perhaps I could be of assistance, then," a voice spoke up from the doorway.
Megatron, Soundwave, and Shockwave pointed their weapons at the door, where a purple Decepticon with yellow optics was leaning against the doorframe, the wheels of his motorcycle mode plainly visible behind his shoulders.
"You're late, Mesothulus," Soundwave snarled as the three Decepticons lowered their weapons.
"And you left the door unlocked, opened, and unguarded," Mesothulas noted as he stepped into the room, "You're lucky James didn't decide to pop in for a surprise visit. I doubt he'd appreciate being called 'less developed'."
"He at least has respect for the proper channels," Megatron growled, "What took you so long?"
"My navigation systems were damaged in the crash, and my chronometer is out of sync with the ship's," Mesothulas remarked, "Besides, I haven't been out of my lab since we left Cybertron."
"I don't suppose you have any theories on how we could harness the power of this 'Aura'?" Shockwave questioned.
"Jhiaxus and I were working on something back on Cybertron," Mesothulas opened.
"Yes, the cloning project I was overseeing," Shockwave interrupted, "It was testing my hypothesis, after all."
"Indeed, but I was thinking of… Improving on the concept," Mesothulas remarked, "Ours is the only species in the universe to rely on irreplaceable relics from a bygone age for propagation. As Optimus Prime has demonstrated, this leaves us extremely vulnerable to extinction should either the Matrix or Vector Sigma be compromised.
"I was thinking we could try and create hybrids that do not have that limitation, though I would need a donor from another species to accomplish this."
"How does that relate to our 'Aura' problem?" Megatron questioned.
"A half-human hybrid could provide us with the data needed to adapt their methods to our physiology," Mesothulas answered, "It would let us generate Aura, and end our dependency on the Matrix and Vector Sigma.
"They would still be useful for massively increasing our numbers, but we would have options if one or both were to be compromised.
"So… What do you say?"
"I'm sorry, you want what?!"
"Mesothulas requires a sample of human cells of some kind, preferably freshly extracted from a living donor," Megatron repeated, "He wishes to create a hybrid using our extremely experimental cloning technology." The Emperor of Destruction sighed. "For context, we were only able to successfully clone one specimen prior to leaving Cybertron behind."
"And why does he want to create a human/Cybertronian hybrid?" Ironwood asked.
"He thinks it will make understanding your 'Aura' easier," Megatron replied, "And also that it could end our dependence on Vector Sigma and the Matrix for propagation.
"I remain skeptical of the viability of such hybrids, mind you, but Mesothulas pointed out that we don't quite have the resources for Protoform construction at the moment."
Ironwood pinched the bridge of his nose as he reclined at his desk, papers of various proposals his top minds had made for the future of Atlas' security scattered across his workspace.
"As much as I'd love to help you with this," he opened, "I'm afraid that collecting human cells would draw too much attention."
"That was the answer I was expecting," Megatron replied, "I'll let Mesothulas know."
Click!
Ironwood picked up one of the papers on the desk, a proposal by Dr. Arthur Watts.
"Pretty bright for someone from Mantle," he noted, "Though it is pretty standard…"
He placed the paper down in the "Maybe" folder and glanced over the other proposals.
… rendering Huntsmen obsolete.
Ironwood did a double take and scooped up that proposal, giving it a more thorough read.
By infusing the device with this life force I have studied, I believe we could create a machine capable of generating its own aura. This could, in theory, turn the automated weapon into a protector with a soul. This would grant the machine's AI actual consciousness and the ability to reason, allowing it to perform more complex calculations than the drones currently employed by the military, potentially rendering Huntsmen obsolete.
The General checked the name at the top of the paper.
Dr. Pietro Polendina
"Okay then," Ironwood noted as he entered a code and pressed a button to call the Nemesis on his private line, "If this experiment works, I might just have our new project!"
"So, you said you had an experiment?" Megatron asked as he, Ironwood, and Special Operative Vine Zeki walked down the halls of the Nemesis.
"Yes," Ironwood answered, "We need to see if it's possible for a Cybertronian to use Aura, so if you would like, I could have Vine try and unlock your Aura for you."
"I'd rather set an example for my troops," Megatron as the trio came to a stop outside a door, "It would not be a good look if I need someone else to unlock that power for me if any of my subordinates unlock it themselves."
"Fair enough," Ironwood remarked, "Do you have someone in mind?"
The doorway slid open to reveal a purple seeker with yellow eyes.
"You wanted to speak with me, Lord Megatron?" she questioned.
"That I did," Megatron remarked as he stepped into the room, Vine and Ironwood cautiously following after him, "How would you like to be the first of our kind to receive extraordinary powers that none before us have ever so much as dreamed of?"
"Sir?"
"The inhabitants of this world have discovered a way to empower themselves with their very life force," Megatron explained, "And General Ironwood here has graciously offered to teach us how to utilize it.
"Are you ready to take the first step towards ending our war with the Autobots?"
"Whatever it takes, sir!" the Seeker responded with a bow.
Ironwood turned to his subordinate.
"Vine!"
"I know what to do, sir," Vine replied as he approached the Decepticon, "Please remain still, I'd rather not be kicked across the room."
The Ace Operative placed a hand on the Seeker's foot, and began to glow.
"I am currently reaching out to your Aura with my own," Vine explained as the Seeker also began to glow, "When I was younger, I was taught to recite an incantation during this process. I was told the words would not matter, so long as they held meaning to me. It was to help focus my mind and spirit, and to help you feel your Aura. Once you have felt it, the power is yours to control."
He removed his hand, and the Seeker glanced over her body as she watched the glow dim.
"Well, General, it looks like Aura is not exclusive to our world," Vine noted as he turned his back to the Seeker.
"Excellent," the General replied with a grin, "Megatron, I'd like to speak with you in private. I think I found a way Mesothulas and one of my top scientists could help each other."
Pietro had been thrilled when he learned that Ironwood had chosen the PENNY project to decide the future of Atlas.
"Oh! I wasn't aware you were confined to a crawling chair," Ironwood noted as soon as Pietro entered the room, "That would have been useful to know before I locked in our airship."
And thus, Pietro's glee gave way to dread.
.
The ride on the airship was awkward, given that Dr. Polendina had to strap his chair into a harness that was meant to hold crates for the entire duration of the ride, but they eventually arrived at a black, metallic wreckage, far larger than any airship Pietro had ever seen before.
Then, a door on the side opened, and a giant, metal man with glowing red eyes stepped out and onto the snow.
"Ah, General, I presume this is the scientist who'll be working with Mesothulas?" the mechanical man questioned, his facial expressions lining up perfectly with how a healthy and unmarred flesh and blood human or Faunus face would emote while speaking. (Even if he did appear to have a jagged scar around one of his eyes.)
What the blazes have I gotten myself into? Pietro questioned.
"Pietro, this is Megatron, the Lord High Protector of the planet Cybertron" the General introduced, "Megatron, this is Dr. Pietro Polendina, one of our Kingdom's brightest minds!"
"It is an honor to meet you," Megatron greeted with a bow.
"… Pleasure's mine…" Pietro finally got out, "I suppose this is what the non-disclosure forms were for…"
Pietro followed Megatron into the ship and through the corridors.
Every now and then, they'd pass by other robots, each of them either bowing to or saluting Megatron as they passed.
The sole exceptions to this were a blocky, blue robot with a red visor and a faceless, purple robot with a single, yellow eye.
The blocky robot gave a polite nod and went on his way, whereas the purple one merely stood at attention and waited for them to pass.
"Interesting company you keep," Pietro noted.
"We're nearing Mesothulas' lab," Megatron stated as the trio approached a doorway, "I should warn you, he is a little… 'Eccentric'."
"What do you mean by–"
The doorway opened.
"Ah, welcome Megatron!" a yellow-eyed robot greeted, "I assume these must be the humans you speak of!" The robot glanced down at the two humans, kneeling down for a closer look. "Strange, I thought you said they were organics and bipedal. Oh well, if the species has evolved to incorporate metal into their physiology, I suppose the occasional quadrupedal specimen would be a possible mutation!"
"I only have the two legs," Pietro replied.
"Huh?" the robot leaned up close to the doctor and scanned both him and his chair, "Oh! That makes far more sense!" The robot backed off. "Please excuse me, I don't think I've been refueling or recharging enough lately, must be messing with my sensors!" He chuckled. "Oh! That reminds me! My name is Mesothulas! I know I'm supposed to be working with one of you."
"Megatron and I will be discussing the specifics of that," Ironwood chimed in, "Dr. Polendina, meanwhile, will be working with you on the project Megatron contacted you about."
"Oh wonderful!" Mesothulas replied with a clap of his hands, "I've not had an assistant since we left Cybertron!"
"Assistant?" Pietro questioned.
"In that case, I'll leave you two to your experiments," Megatron replied as he turned to walk away, "The General and I have much to discuss."
The door closed, leaving Pietro alone with Mesothulas.
"So, may I see the schematics you drew up for the project your General believed I should help you with?" Mesothulas requested, "I need to know what we're working on if we're going to make any progress."
"Oh! Certainly," Pietro replied as he took his Tome out of his pocket and flipped it open, "Do you have anything I could plug this into?"
"Give me one click," Mesothulas remarked, before folding into a motorcycle, rolling over to a desk off on the starboard side of the room, unfolding back into a robot, and rummaging through the draws, "I know I left it here somewhere… Aha!" He pulled what looked like a disk out of the drawer, slammed the drawer shut, and folded into a motorcycle to roll back to Pietro and unfold back into his robot mode to hold the disk out to Pietro. "Will this work?"
Pietro took the disk in both hands and looked it over. There appeared to be a loose panel. He flipped the panel open, revealing a cable, at the end of which was a device that could change its shape to match the port on his Tome.
"We're about to find out," he noted as he plugged the cord into his Tome. He flipped his device open and glanced over the screen, "Looks like it's connecting!"
"Excellent!" Mesothulas hopped in place and clapped his hands together, "Now! Upload the schematics! I want to see what we're going to be collaborating on!"
Pietro clicked a few keys on his Tome, copied the schematics for the PENNY, and uploaded it into the device.
"Thank you!" Mesothulas replied, "Now, if you would kindly disconnect your Tome from the device, I'd rather place this on the floor for a good sense of scale."
Pietro wasn't sure what Mesothulas was talking about, but nonetheless complied, unplugging the cord and shoving it back into the compartment on the disk he had pulled it out of.
Mesothulas took the disk back and placed it on the floor, taking a couple of steps back as it projected a 3D hologram of the PENNY.
"This… Might be too big," Mesothulas noted.
Pietro shot a confused glance at the robot. "It's about the same size as a Combat School-aged child would be!" he protested.
"Perhaps," Mesothulas replied as he tapped some keys on his arm, "But activating a protoform of this size would take more Energon than what Megatron put in my budget. We'll need to downscale this a bit."
The hologram shrank considerably, until the projection was small enough to fit in the palm of Pietro's hand.
"That's it?" Pietro questioned.
"Work smarter, not harder," Mesothulas replied, "I'll teach you about our biology while we work on this Micro Micro Master." He shut off the projector and turned to face Pietro. "As for how you could help me with my experiment, are there any pieces of your cellular structure you don't particularly need and/or would have an easy time regenerating?"
"… What?"
Over the next few days, Pietro and Mesothulas collaborated on their projects.
Pietro ultimately decided to donate a sample of his own blood. Mesothulas distributed the tiny sample received between 24 pods, labeled Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, Epsilon, Zeta, Eta, Theta, Iota, Kappa, Lambda, Mu, Nu, Xi, Omnicron, Pi, Rho, Sigma, Tau, Upsilon, Phi, Chi, Psi, and Omega. Mesothulas added his own blood to each pod as well and powered them up, letting the naonomachines inside them get to work constructing a skeletal structure out of his own CNA to absorb the genetic materials from the blood samples.
In the meantime, Ironwood gave Pietro a hand gun, which the doctor used as raw materials for the PENNY Project's prototype. Outside of working through how to downsize the technology he had used in his previous prototypes, he also required some aid from Mesothulas to create a small enough CPU with enough processing power to match the design he had original sketched out for the Cores that would have housed his originally planned prototype's AI.
Mesothulas himself, meanwhile, added in the necessary technology to let the robot switch from robot to gun and back.
After just one week, it was time to try and activate it.
"Specimens Omnicron, Upsilon, and Phi have failed incubation," Shockwave coldly noted, "The rest are progressing ahead, though all but Gamma, Zeta, and Omega have developed potentially life-threatening deformities."
"Well, they're certainly lasting longer than I was expecting," Megatron remarked as General Ironwood stepped into the room.
"Is the prototype ready for activation?" Ironwood asked.
"You'll have to ask Mesothulas and Dr. Polendina," Megatron replied, "They're performing some last nanoclick diagnostics."
"Which we have just completed," Mesothulas announced as he marched into the room, Pietro following close behind, "Apologies for the delay, Dr. Polendina can't ride my alt mode, so I had to walk."
"Will there be any further delays?" Megatron questioned.
"No," Mesothulas answered, "All we need now is the Matrix."
Megatron nodded and opened his chest, the Matrix of Leadership proudly displayed within.
"Where is the blank?" he questioned.
Pietro held up a small, metallic body in the palm of one hand.
"… That's it?"
"It's the most we could make with the Energon allotted," Mesothulas replied.
Megatron sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose.
"Very well then," he declared as he reopened his eyes, "Let us begin!"
The Matrix's casing opened up as the sphere within glowed.
A ray of light jumped from the Matrix and into the metallic body in Pietro's hand, which also began to glow.
The Matrix's light dimmed and the casing sealed shut.
The robot in Pietro's hands opened its eyes.
One second, there was nothing.
The next, he existed.
The newly ignited Spark opened his optics and looked into the eyes of his creator.
"Welcome to your life," the kindly old man greeted.
So many thoughts filled his little head as he pushed himself up to a sitting position and scanned the room.
Still though, there was still the matter of what to say:
"Howdy world!" he declared with a wave, "Ah don't know who or where Ah am, but I reckon bein' alive is better than not existin'!"
One of the smaller fellows in the room stared blankly at him.
"Why is it talking like that?" he asked.
"… Well g'day to you as well," the newly activated bot remarked, "Honestly, yer not makin' a good first impression right now, ya hear?"
"You're certainly more… Verbose than I was expecting," the one holding the bot remarked.
"Why wouldn't ah be able ta talk?" the newly forged bot asked, "Also, still don't know who or where Ah am, so Ah'd appreciate an answer!"
"You're currently in a meeting room on the Nemesis," the nearest robot, the one with two yellow eyes, remarked, "We've spent the past few solar-cycles putting you together and preparing you to receive your Spark."
The newly born robot smiled.
"Ah have no idea what any o' that means," he admitted, still smiling, "But uh… Y'all did have an idea for a name for me before ya went and brought me to life, right?"
"I was thinking we'd call you Browning," the one holding the newly named Browning answered, "I'm Dr. Pietro Polendina, by the way. We used my schematics as the basis for your body! Mesothulas, the one who just told you where we are, helped me with assembling your body."
"Oh! Ah guess that makes sense," Browning replied, "Why Brownin' though?"
"Browning."
"That's what Ah said, Browin'."
"So, you didn't program the accent?" the rude one remarked.
"No, James, this is all Browning," Dr. Pietro Polendina answered.
"Aw shucks," Browning rubbed the back of his head, "So… Now that Ah exist, what's next?"
Mesothulas, Pietro, and Browning left the room, leaving Megatron alone with Ironwood and Shockwave.
I felt my Energon levels drop after I used the Matrix, Megatron noted, I'm going to need to find a workaround to that.
"So how come you only have the one Matrix?" Ironwood asked, "It seems like it'd be useful to have multiple."
"Unfortunately, we do not currently have the means to replicate the Creation Matrix," Shockwave answered.
"Whatever the Thirteen Primes did to create this one has been lost to the mists of time," Megatron elaborated, "As useful has having additional Matrices would be, we're stuck with just the one for the time being."
"Regardless, we can now leave Mesothulas and Dr. Polendina to their devices, and shift focus to the true purpose of our alliance."
Megatron nodded.
"The destruction of our common enemies."
A red car with yellow flame decals and a yellow "fin" attached to the back sped down the dirt road, broiler pipes on either side of the chassis.
It was followed shortly after by a green pick-up truck with bulky tires.
"Are they still following us?" The red car asked.
The green truck adjusted a rearview mirror, reflecting the image of a pack of shadowy wolves in boney armor.
"Damn! They're just not giving up!"
"Switch with me!" the red one offered, "I have an idea!"
The red car slowed down, letting the green truck pass him, before engaging smoke began rising from the broiler pipes on his sides.
FWOOM!
The creatures were engulfed in flames as the red car sped up, and shadowy wheels of boney spikes rolled through the burning bodies to give chase.
"Scrap!" the red car muttered.
"Can't you do that again?"
"I haven't had the chance to reload since we abandoned ship!" the red car replied, "I honestly have no idea how many more blasts like that I have in me!"
"Maybe we can trick them into rolling off a cliff?" the green truck suggested.
"We don't know the local geography well enough to know if there IS a cli-"
"OUT OF THE WAY!"
A green jeep with a machine-gun mounted on the top burst out of the woods and took aim at the spiked wheel monsters.
BRATATATATATATATATATATATATATATATAT!
The gunfire shredded the spikey wheels apart, revealing their porcine faces as they unfurled, and the three vehicles sped off to leave the fading monsters in the dust.
.
"Thanks for the save, Brawn," the red car remarked as he unfolded into his robot mode. The trio had relocated to a cove out of sight of the road under a heavy leaf cover.
"Don't mention it, Hot Rod," Brawn remarked as he unfolded into his own robot mode, revealing a domed head, yellow years, and a blocky body, "Those monster things are more persistent than the cons! You and Kup are far from the first travelers I've had to rescue from them!"
"So you've found some of the other Autobots?" the green pick-up truck, Kup, questioned as he unfolded into his own robot mode.
"Can't say that I have," Brawn admitted, "I've just been hiding out in my vehicle mode and helping out the locals when those monster things go after them."
"You call that, keeping a low profile?" Kup questioned.
"Look, it's better than letting innocent people get eaten by monsters!"
"Besides," Hot Rod cut in, "We don't even know if the Decepticons survived the crash. All we need to do now is find the others and figure out a way to get the Matrix back from Megatron."
"If we can get it back from Megatron," Kup noted.
"Don't think like that," Brawn noted, "The Decepticons haven't won so long as we're still kicking!"
"If Optimus couldn't stop them…"
"Optimus didn't have back-up," Hot Rod reminded him, "We're gonna have to stick together if we're going to make it through this!"
"Hmm…"
"Regardless, we're probably gonna want to stay on the move," Brawn remarked as he folded into vehicle mode, "C'mon, there's an abandoned town nearby we can nab some raw materials from!"
Hot Rod glanced over at Kup, shrugged, and folded into vehicle mode to follow Brawn.
Kup sighed as he folded into vehicle mode, but nonetheless followed after the other two.
.
A blue and white car remained under the cover of the trees, "Police Department of Mistral" proudly displayed on its side, "To Punish and Enslave" tucked away underneath, watching quietly as the three cars drove past on the dirt road.
"Showtime," he chuckled as he engaged his siren and swerved out onto the road to give chase.
.
What the… Kup swiveled his rear-view mirror to get a good look at the noisy car with the flashing lights, "DECEPTICON ON OUR EXHAUST PIPES!"
"What?"
"Ya sure?" Brawn asked, "Could just be a local in their vehicle, even if I've never seen a vehicle like that before…"
"THERE'S NO DRIVER!" Kup shouted as the pursuing car deployed two guns from above its headlights.
"Evasive manuevers!" Hot Rod ordered, smoke sputtering out of his broiler pipes.
A small, green car exploded out of the woods and slammed into Hot Rod's side.
"You'll have to try harder than that!" it boasted before firing off an electric bolt at the red Autobot.
"Oh this is gonna be fun," Brawn chuckled as he swiveled his machine gun to point behind him, tilting it downwards to aim at the small Decepticon.
"Ah scrap," the green Decepticon muttered.
BRATATATATATATATATATATATATATATATAT!
The green Decepticon screamed and swerved out of the way of the gunfire, circling around Brawn as the stream of bullets slowly followed behind him.
"Oh for the love of… USE YOUR DAMNED STINGER ON THE BIG ONE!" the blue and white Decepticon shouted as he continued firing at Kup.
"Oh right!" the green Decepticon remarked, before ramming into Brawn and sending an electric pulse into the large Autobot's body.
"Heh," Brawn chuckled, "That tickled."
WHAM!
The larger Autobot slammed into W-459, sending the small Decepticon spinning out of control.
"IT DIDN'T WOOOORK!" W-459 lamented as he slammed into a tree.
"Ha!" Brawn chuckled as something zipped past the sun in the sky, "You cons make this too easy!"
"He was only supposed to slow you down anyway," the blue and white Decepticon noted as he unfolded into robot mode, revealing a mouthless face with two, golden eyes.
"That's strange," Kup noted, "Barricade isn't typically the type to just give up on a chase like that."
"INCOMING!" Brawn shouted, before unfolding into robot mode and spreading his arms to his sides.
Several missiles struck the ground in front of him.
KRATHWOOM!
Brawn took the brunt of the hit, though all three were still sent flying by the shockwave.
"You Autobots make it too easy!" the Seeker responsible for the missiles declared as she dropped out of the sky and unfolded into robot mode, skidding to a halt in front of the trio, "Finishing the job will be child's play."
Brawn smirked as Kup and Hot Rod unfolded into robot mode.
"Big mistake," he declared, before throwing a punch at the Seeker.
She disappeared in a flash of yellow light before his punch could connect.
"What?"
CLANG!
The Seeker delivered a kick to the back of Brawn's head, sending him tumbling forwards, before teleporting out of the way of a gunshot from Kup.
"What the Pit?" Kup remarked.
"She must be using some strange tech!" Hot Rod declared as the Seeker materialized behind him.
CLANG!
"Gotcha!" Brawn declared as his punch sent the Seeker tumbling through various trees, before taking out his machine gun and firing several shots after her, oblivious to Barricade walking up and raising his gun.
BANG!
Brawn winced as smoke rose from his shoulder.
"You've still got me to worry about," Barricade remarked as Hot Rod and Kup trained their guns on him.
W-459 rolled up and unfolded into robot mode as well, deploying his own guns to point at the Autobots.
To make matters worse, the Seeker materialized behind them both, her dents and scratches healing before the Autobot's optics.
"So sorry," the Seeker declared as the last of her injuries healed, "But I'm afraid my new abilities put me lightyears ahead of you."
The Autobots growled as they raised their weapons and charged.
The Seeker smirked, and vanished in a blink of yellow light, letting rockets soar right through where she had been standing seconds ago.
BOOM!
Both exploded on Brawn's chest as the Seeker sent Hot Rod reeling with a backhand, before firing a null ray at Kup, allowing W-459 to sting him as two white trucks pulled up.
Both trucks had harpoon guns manned by armored humans on the backs.
BANG
Hiss…
KATHUNK!
The harpoons embedded themselves in Hot Rod's left shoulder and Kup's right as the trucks began to drive away from the battle, and another barrage of rockets impacted Brawn's armored hide.
The rockets came from four rocket launchers, each one wielded by two humans working in concert, that were surrounding him on all sides.
Barricade pointed his gun at Hot Rod's head as W-459 took aim at Kup.
"Oh no ya don't!" Brawn shouted as he fired his guns at the Decepticons, toppling them over so he could fire at the feet of the humans who were reloading their rocket launchers, knocking all of them off their feet. He folded into vehicle mode, drove between Hot Rod and Kup, and yanked the harpoons out of their shoulders. "C'mon! We gotta make ourselves scarce!"
"Oh no you don't!" the Seeker declared as she materialized and blasted all three with her null rays. Hot Rod and Kup sparked, sputtered, and twitched in place.
"Is that the best ya got?" Brawn asked as he forced his right leg forward, "I'm not goin' down that easily!"
He lunged forward and grabbed the Seeker's face.
"Wha-"
THUD!
Brawn forced the Decepticon to the ground.
"Get on you two!" Brawn shouted as W-459 and Barricade trained their weapons on him, "I'll be right behind you!"
"But-"
"No buts Hot Rod!" Brawn interrupted as the Seeker grasped at his fingers to pry his hand off her face, "Just go!"
Ka-CHINK!
Hot Rod whirled around to find the harpoons click back into place in their respective guns. The Autobot growled, but nonetheless folded into robot mode and drove ahead, followed closely behind by Kup, both Autobots kicking up clouds of dirt as they fled.
Brawn tried to use his free hand to point his gun at W-459 –
Bzzt!
– Only for an electric blast from the smaller Decepticon's weapon to cause him to lose his grip.
KATHUNK!
A harpoon buried itself in the back of his left shoulder.
"Bullseye!" the soldier manning the harpoon gun shouted as Brawn felt a tug tear him back, giving the Seeker the space needed to blast him with her null-ray and back away.
Brawn attempted to take a step forward –
KATHUNK!
– Only for a second harpoon to embed itself in his right leg.
"Is that it?" Brawn asked as he took a step forward and reached for Skywarp with his left arm, even as W-459 and Barricade unloaded their weapons into him.
The Seeker grinned and teleported behind him the second his fingers was a few inches from his face.
"Too late," she hissed as she reached around his head and dug her fingers in under Brawn's chin and pulled.
Brawn grunted and reached for his neck as the eight soldiers gathered in front of him and opened fire with their four rocket launchers. He strained against the harpoons as the trucks pulling him back accelerated. He felt more and more strain on his neck.
Gotta make it out of this, Brawn thought, They still need my-
SCHKREAHGHK!
Clunk!
Optimus stared wordlessly at the severed head of Brawn, the frayed neural cables dangling from the neck indicating that it had been ripped out of his chassis.
"This was your doing, Optimus," Megatron stated, "Had you just let me do what was necessary to save Cybertron in the first place, he would still be alive!"
Optimus said nothing in response.
"Starting to have second thoughts?" Megatron questioned, before scoffing, "It's a little late to show remorse! Your actions have consequences, and they have only just begun!"
The Emperor of Destruction turned to leave, leaving the door open to illuminate Brawn's head.
A few clicks later, Counterpunch stepped into the room.
"I understand things look bleak right now, sir," he stated, "But things aren't entirely hopeless."
He projected a holographic screen from his shoulder, revealing a recording of Pietro and Mesothulas standing by the pods from their experiment, Browning seated on Pietro's shoulder.
"It looks like Gamma survived to term," the recording of Mesothulas stated.
"Looks like you're going to be a big brother, Browning," Dr. Polendina stated as he opened the pod.
Something inside the pod began wailing.
"Shh… It's alright little one," Dr. Polendina remarked as he removed the small being from inside the pod and cradled it in his arms, "I understand it must be scary to end up in such a big and unfamiliar world, but I promise you, you'll learn to love it in time."
Counterpunch shut off the recording.
"Thank you… Punch…"
a/n: So yeah, that all happened, and Penny has both a different origin and an older brother now!
And for the record, Penny's called "Specimen Gamma" here as a nod to Blades and Roses.
And now for reviews:
Z-King: Thanks!