Chapter 13
At the coast of Oregon, in the year 1986
Gagestown was a middle sized American town at the coast of the pacific ocean. It was - in first line thanks to it´s practical location - also a regional industrial center with branch stores of a number of larger companies.
For this reason it was the base of most of the infrastructure of this region.
At first it seemed to going to be a normal day.
Until the attack happened.
A large group of Decepticons came in, flying.
Megatron himself landed on top of one of the larger buildings close to the harbor. Soundwave arrived a moment later and took his place right next to him.
Right behind them were the seekers Starscream, Skywarp and Thundercracker.
"This is the ideal place Soundwave," the Decepticon leader pointed out.
"The necessary materials are here Megatron," Soundwave confirmed.
After examining the device they had gotten from the mysterious captured Autobot, Megatron had started to realize his new plan.
One that would hopefully not only help him to win the war, but give him access to a completely new technology. And maybe over time itself.
The area below the Decepticons was crowded with humans. Some of them panicked as they saw the giant robots. Others were still in their homes or vehicles and hadn´t even realized the appearance of the Decepticons yet.
He watched the crowd on the ground below him with slight annoyance.
Many of the humans were running away terrified. Trying to get as much distance between the Decepticons and them as possible.
Did they not realize that they could turn the entire town into an inferno in seconds and they had no chance to get away fast enough?
Had they been Transformers or comparable creatures he would view this simply as cowardice and don´t show any sympathy for this behavior.
Organics like the humans on the other hand, especially civilians like this, had no chance against the Decepticons and he understood perfectly that it made only sense for them to flee, no matter how small the chance.
Even i fit was hopeless, a microscopic chance was still better than none at all.
But some of them were just standing around and looking horrified, others seemed completely apathetic from shock, as if they wouldn´t even realize what was going on before their eyes.
And a few seemed actually to be curious about the arrival of the Transformers.
Some of them, in their state of fear, didn´t even seemed able to decide if they should run away or not - too useless and pathetic to even move a limb.
Megatron was disgusted. How could somebody be even too cowardly to even try save his own life? The Decepticon Leader just couldn´t understand it.
He decided however to show this creatures mercy - his kind of mercy.
He charged his Fusion Cannon and was searching for the right object.
A moment later had found it and took aim.
On a highway bridge relative close to the Decepticons were about a dozen people standing and starring at the robots. Still they made no attempt to leave and bring themselves to safety.
A pile-up of a number of cars had formed there, since they had simply let their vehicles stand on the middle of the road.
The bridge was hit by his blast. It along with the people standing on it and everything around them was reduced to it´s particles.
Now all of the humans present had noticed them. For the moment, the panic was replaced with frozen silence.
Then the Decepticon leader raised his voice.
"Humans - this is Megatron. We the Decepticons claim this area for ourselves," he spoke loudly. "You have thirty of your minutes to leave."
It still took everybody a few more seconds to truly register what he had just said.
As the words finally dropped in however the confusion was over. Everyone was now trying to bring themselves to safety in wild panic. A few might possibly be trampled to death, but that was not his concern.
"You are giving the human a chance to escape?" Thundercracker asked his leader.
Megatron looked at his subordinate. He had given the humans time, that was true.
If he was honest, he didn´t understood himself why he didn´t simply destroyed them all. He could have. But instead he had decided to do this.
Of course he would never admit that he wasn´t completely sure about something.
It was all down to his own philosophy. He had given them the possibility – a chance. The form of mercy they deserved.
"Yes," he simply stated to Thundercracker, "every creature at least deserves the chance to fight for their lives. So I decided to give them three breem time."
"Approach insecure," Soundwave stated, "in 30 minutes the Autobots might already have arrived.
Megatron only laughed at this thought.
"We were planning from the beginning to engage them. Have you forgotten that Soundwave?" He reminded his communication officer.
"Our troops were hungry for a bit of entertainment my friend and now we are providing them with it. While the others are keeping the Autobots busy, we are getting our raw materials here. It will all go as planned," he explained.
"Why are you giving them time anyway?" Starscream pointed out. "We could just as easily destroy them all."
The Decepticon leader didn´t answer.
"What if when there are still humans left when the time is up?" Thundercracker asked carefully.
"If someone is stupid or inept enough to be still there when the time is over, they don´t deserve to survive anyway," Megatron replied.
xxxxxxx
Hundreds of miles away the Autobot Hound was on one of his trips through the landscapes of the planet Earth.
Since he came first here he loved this world and he didn´t try to hide it. It was beautiful and fascinating to him and different from the war ridden Cybertron.
For this time Hound had taken the human teenager Spike Witwicky and his girlfriend Carly with him.
Spike had been, along with his father Sparkplug, the first human the Autobots had encountered and he became a close friend to them.
In the beginning the two had been something like scouts and guides to them. They had explained the environment and the customs of the human society to the Autobots. The kind of things you can hardly learn from books or computers.
Over the time however this particular role of them had more and more dismished, as the Autobots became themselves more and more used to life on Earth and just didn´t need their help anymore to find their way.
At least in the most cases.
But they were still highly valued friends and allies.
It was a warm and sunny day. Hound was driving in jeep form with the two humans in the seats over the roads in the forests.
This was the way he liked to spend his time.
"Maybe we should do this more often. What do you think?" he asked his passengers.
"You say it Hound," Spike replied. "The you take us around the next time as well?"
Suddenly his communicator went active.
"Hound - do you hear me?" It was Wheeljack calling him.
`Typical,´ he thought. When he was on a trip of course something just had to happen.
"Yes I am here,",he answered. "What is it?"
"The Decepticons are attacking a town relatively close to you," Wheeljack told him. "I fear you will have to return to duty."
"You have heard him Spike," Hound stated.
"Yes I did," his human friend replied.
"I will leave you two at the closest gas station or some other stop and pick you up later," he informed them.
"But..." Spike wanted to say something for a short moment but then changed his mind.
He knew Hound was right. Taking them along to this town would bring absolutely nothing.
In the last two years he had been nearly killed more than once because he accompanied the Autobots to dangerous places where he was absolutely no help and had no real reason to be in the first place.
Of course there had been many situation where he, Carly or his father had been very usefull. But at all that had been times they had acted by a plan.
And this time they didn´t have one.
"Okay Hound," Carly told the Autobot, "we will be waiting for you there. And good luck," she said to him,
"Be careful."
xxxxxxx
Gagestown
The Decepticons saw a group of five human jet fighters coming in. This meant the US-military was reacting.
Another hopeless action. But Megatron knew they probably just wanted to buy time and distrect them from whatever they wanted to do until the Autobots arrived.
Even if those pilots knew they had no chance and they would probably pay for it with their lives. A part of Megatron respected this kind of bravery.
"Starscream, Skywarp, Thundercracker - destroy them," he ordered.
The three seekers transformed into their jet-modes and engaged the Earth fighters.
Skywarp teleported directly behind two of them and fired his lasers.
One of the jets exploded, the other was barely able to avoid the shots.
Starscream and Thundercracker were at the same time attacking them from the front.
Despite that their alt-modes looked identical to the Earth jets, the seekers were technically superior, much faster, better shielded and had far more firepower.
The outer form of the Decepticon fliers was ultimately not much more than camouflage. Too that came that they were far more experienced when a human could ever be.
The human pilots had no chance.
Starscream and Thundercracker both easily blew up one of the remaining jets and one of the others was shot down by Skywarp.
Here the pilot was able to eject and saved himself with the parachute.
The last one was shot down by Starscream. Here too the pilot managed to eject. This time however the remains of the jet crashed into one of the town´s buildings and set it into flames.
xxxxxxx
Decepticon base in the Rocky-Mountains
Rodimus was still in his cell and waiting for Megatron´s return. The Decepticon leader left for a mission some time ago, together with the most of his troops.
He had been left behind here.
It was obvious from the bits he heard that Megatron had a plan, a plan that was connected with the time machine that he had found in the mysterious alien pyramid.
Which meant that his presence was the reason for it. He had to get out of here quickly and he needed to get the device out of the hands of the Decepticons and return to his time.
Hopefully his presence had not caused any lasting damage yet.
Suddenly the door was opened.
He expected a Decepticon who was standing guard.
Instead who was stepping in was a complete surprise. It was a robot he had never seen before, but he was wearing the Autobot symbol.
"Rodimus Prime," the robot addressed him.
"Who are you? How do you know who I am?" Rodimus asked.
"My name is Cronus," the robot told him. "I am – you could call it a Guardian of Primus. For a long time I had been watching over his slumber while he lied deactivated at the Heart of Cybertron.
But then I noticed your arrival through my connection to the Master."
"I see," Rodimus replied.
He knew that this part was true. He himself had together with a few others found the Chamber of Primus under Cybertron´s surface in the future.
But he had never seen this robot before.
Of course there was a chance that something could have happened to him between now and then.
"You shouldn´t be here," the robot calling himself Cronus said to him. "I will help you to get out of here and to return to your time to prevent possible damage to the time-line."
Rodimus nodded.
"Thank you."
Cronus blasted the lock of the cell.
"I am able to teleport," he told him. "That was how I got inside here unnoticed. Give me your hand and I will get you out."
Rodimus reached out to him and they both disappeared.
xxxxxxx
Gagestown
The time was over.
"Constructicons," Megatron called out.
At his order the six Decepticon engineers flew down and started to take one of the buildings apart.
"Soundwave - prepare the energon-cubes," he ordered.
The Communication Officer, along with Astrotrain and Thundercracker had just landed at at the area of the local power-plant and were about to take the energy.
While Starscream and Skywarp were still guarding the air-space.
The entire point of this attack had been to acquire raw materials and energon for the realization of Megatron´s new project, something he had found in the databanks of the small time-machine.
xxxxxxx
At the borders of the city, the Autobots were already fighting the rest of Megatron´s warriors. The Combaticons, Blitzwing and the conehead seekers were holding the Autobots off.
In opposition to them stood currently the Protectobot team and the Dinobots.
It was clear from the start that they wouldn´t be able to hold back the entire Autobot team forever.
But that wasn´t necessary either. It would be enough to slow them down until the others would have gotten away with the material.
The Autobots on their side had to operate with special caution to not hit the town that was right behind the Decepticons.
Exactly like they had speculated.
"This is exactly the kind of action Megatron had promised to us, right Vortex?" Brawl - a Decepticon who lived in first line for fighting and mayhem - called out.
"Yes. But slowly it´s getting time to get serious," Vortex - the Combaticon´s helicopter - answered him.
"Combaticons - form Bruticus." The order from their leader Onslaught finally came.
They transformed into their combined form and became the gestalt robot Bruticus. Parallel to them the Protectobots did the same thing and formed Defensor.
"Two gestalts are now fighting each other. But with the assistance of the Dinobots it is safe to say that our fighters will win the fight after a reasonable time," Prowl analyzed the situation.
Optimus Prime however - together with a small group of Autobots consisting of Prowl, Ironhide, Jazz, Wheeljack, Mirage and the newly arrived Hound – was about to bypass the defense ring of the Decepticons, while Defensor and Bruticus were fighting.
They had a good chance to break through when the gestalt was distracted.
xxxxxxx
Rocky Mountains – close to the Decepticon Base
Rodimus and his mysterious new companion were now outside and moved down the mountainside, away from the base.
Rodimus was not sure how long it would take for the Decepticons to realize he was gone. But at that time he intended to be as far away as possible.
They had just reached solid ground and now transformed into car mode and drove away.
Rodimus with Cronus right behind him.
Inside The Fallen was grinning. It had been a stroke of luck that he had run into this Priest Cronus and killed him to take his form.
Since he knew that Rodimus had met Primus in the future, there was a chance that he knew his true appearance. So this disguise would serve it´s purpose for the time being.
Important was right now that Megatron didn´t find out more about the future than he needed to know. So it was a good idea to remove Rodimus from here.
xxxxxxx
Gagestown
Everything went so far as planned. Megatron was satisfied. They had what they wanted.
The Constructicons and the seekers had just finished loading the energon and the material in Astrotrain´s shuttle-mode.
"Astrotrain," Starscream addressed the triple-changer, "you can start now."
The Constructicons were still inside.
Megatron wanted them to bring the cargo back to the base and from there to a secret building place from where his plan would be realized.
The shuttle lifted of into the sky and was soon out of sight.
"Megatron."
The Decepticon leader heard someone calling him.
"Optimus - as I see you have made it behind my defense ring," he said. "I fear you come too late Prime. We have already gotten what we wanted."
As readers of the old version will notice, there are a few more changes in this chapter. The character Cabal from the story Nightmare does not appear and his role is taken over by The Fallen/Cronus.
This it meant to make the story less convoluted and the plot more straight.