If it were any other time on the Island of Rhodes, Fowler or Spitfire would have every right to be very concerned about hostile aliens being revealed to the public at large. Thankfully, it wasn’t a time to be concerned, as for one thing it was under cover of night the Decepticons laid siege to the island in search of a rumored Predacon, and secondly, currently there was a particularly nasty storm front coming through.
The ancient Acropolis, that was the battlefield as weapons fired under the howling, slashing winds and rolling thunder.
It was supposed to be a simple snatch and grab for the Decepticons involved, that’s all it was supposed to be. But as ever, things were often easier said than done. The rumors coming out of Greece told of Orthrus, a giant two-headed dog -Brother of the much more famous Cerberus- supposedly slain by Heracles. Evidently, that wasn’t entirely the case as shown by the poor Vehicon currently being cooked to a crisp and reduced to molten metal and slag by the Predacon’s plasma breath attacks. Nor was Orthrus a two-headed dog, as eyewitness reports and legends stated. No, he was actually a two-headed, twin-tailed dragon calling himself Sinnertwin.
Now, the legends around Orthrus stated he was a guardian of the cattle of some guy called Geryon. Personally, right now Breakdown doubted those myths even as he watched the aptly named Sinnertwin’s heads rip one poor Vehicon clean in half Energon flying everywhere. He suspected Sinnertwin would have more likely eaten the cattle.
“Rip Autobots! Rrr, rip and tear!” Sinnertwin snarled as he tossed the two pieces aside, before firing more blasts of plasma at the Decepticons. This led Breakdown to one of two conclusions. A, Sinnertwin wasn’t intelligent enough to differate between sides or B, he just didn’t give a damn. Breakdown honestly wasn’t sure which yet.
Swapping one of his hands out for a massive sledgehammer, he charged towards the monstrous Predacon. “Karma's a bitch, now think twice before attacking an innocent. You're nothing more to me then garbage and hey.... It’s garbage day! Time for you to have a little… Ahem, Breakdown!”
He slammed the hammer into the side of one of Sinnertwin’s heads and sparks flew as the Predacon staggered to the side, before one of the two heads lunged and grabbed Breakdown by the arm before raising him up high and then slamming him back down into the ground with a mighty earthshaking thud.
As Breakdown picked himself up off the ground metal groaning out in pain, Brawl pointed at the Predacon. “Concentrate your fire, take him out! I don’t care what the boss says, this mission’s a bust!”
For the record, the original plan was to capture Sinnertwin, throw an electro-shock collar around his neck like with Darksteel to ensure his loyalty but it seems Sinnertwin had severe objections to this idea.
With a shifting and whirring of parts, Brawl shifted to his tank form before firing off several rounds almost as loud as the thunder of the storm itself. “Heh, I’ve fought bigger monsters than you, you two-headed lizard! Eradicons, suppressing fire! Drive him back and box him in!”
Brawl may not have looked or sounded like it, but he was far more than just some brute with heavy metal muscle and powerful armament. He was Onslaught’s second in command for a reason. He knew how to work a battlefield.
Laser fire from the Eradicons drove Sinnertwin back, just in time for a tank shell fired from Brawl to hit and knock Sinnertwin back into some age-old mural, stone flying everywhere. Groaning, the Predacon picked himself up off the ground only to get slammed back into it by another hit from Breakdown’s hammer. He didn’t move, and Breakdown sighed in relief.
“Thought that’d never end, I’ll have to commend Brawl for his tactics. Shame, or perhaps not, about us not being able to bring this one in.” he thought to himself. He reached his hand out towards Sinnertwin to feel for a spark pulse and performed a little gesture in the air creating the Cybertronian Glyph for Light Follower.
“And stay down, you piece of slag!” Brawl shouted, only to be caught off guard when Sinnertwin’s crimson red eyes shot wide open -Evidently he was faking death- and his two heads lunged and grabbed Breakdown by the legs.
He then held him upside down right in front of the Decepticons’ guns, using him as a meat shield of sorts. He was using one head to hold him, and the other to speak.
“So, whatcha gonna do now, slaggers?” Sinnertwin asked, his unnaturally sharp fangs that no creature should have ever had now gleaming in the moonlight that was just barely peeking through the clouds. “You gonna shoot one of your own teammates? I know how much your kind value loyalty…”
Brawl hesitated, although he wouldn’t like to admit it at the time but he hesitated to fire. He may have had a lot of flaws his brutality chiefest amongst them but some of his old Autobot programmings still persisted. And that included loyalty to his teammates, no matter how much he may or may not have disliked them.
If it were any other situation, like say if it were a Vehicon being held up as a meat shield he would have pulled the trigger and pumped Sinnertwin with megawatts of electricity from his rifle, but in this case…
“I… I…” Brawl started.
“Just shoot him, you pit-be-damned fool!” Breakdown shouted. Brawl fingered the trigger, but still he couldn’t bring himself to fire off a shot.
“Slaggit…” Brawl thought to himself, as he began to lower his rifle. No charged particle shots would be fired. At least... not yet.
Seeing Brawl’s hesitance, Sinnertwin gave out a vicious smirk. “Just as I thought. Here, catch!” he shouted, before tossing Breakdown into Brawl’s forces sending the Eradicons flying and Breakdown himself into the ruins of an old temple dedicated to the sun god Apollo.
Parts shifting and whirring to the classic sounds of Tsche-chu-chu-chu-tsche! Sinnertwin transformed to Robot mode, necks folding back with the entire rear section of his body becoming the legs, and his front legs becoming arms.
With a loud roar, he shoulder-charged Brawl like this American football player before Brawl simply side-stepped out of the way and fired his rifle sending what he thought would be enough pure electricity to take down Sinnertwin for good. But evidently not, given Sinnertwin seemed to be only even more pissed off than ever. Sinnertwin pulled out a rifle of his own and fired shot after shot at Brawl destroying the ancient ruins around them, bricks flying everywhere.
“Suppressing fire, take him down!” Brawl bellowed at his troops though inwardly he had his doubts given that nothing seemed to really slow down this monstrosity of a Predacon. Sure enough, he was right on the money on that aspect given that even with the fire laid down upon the Predacon, Sinnertwin just barreled through the forces, ripping and tearing them apart with his own bare hands if needed.
Like a lot of his fellow Predacons, Sinnertwin was this horrific insult to nature itself. Back on Cybertron, he’d frequently patrolled his little slice of heaven -or Hell depending on how you chose to look at it- looking for any intruders. And if he found any, he would rip, tear and maul them to shreds just because he simply wanted to. He was a humanitarian in that aspect. Given his multiple heads, and sadistic nature this was something nobody wanted to witness to be quite frank.
Brawl had to wonder what exactly Onslaught was thinking when he asked for this thing to be Darksteel’s replacement. At least the Hippogriff alt-moded Predacon once had some semblance of morals. This creature did not.
“Is that fear you are feeling, Decepticon? Yes... my spark, it feeds on terror. Let it grow! Let it consume your circuitry! Feel it, yes, feel it! Feel the fear!” Sinnertwin hissed out. “Your persistence is futile, I can only rise again ever the stronger!”
“Then in that case,” Breakdown shouted as he ran towards Sinnertwin with his hammer at the ready. “Let us give you that little bit further to fall!”
With that, he smashed his hammer into Sinnertwin’s face, armor shattering on impact and nearly caving in the Predacon’s head.
“You know what…” Breakdown growled as he and Sinnertwin grappled each other for dominance. “I’m really slaggin’ tired of you and your rhetoric.”
With that, he pulled back his fist, and slammed it into Sinnertwin’s face once more like a powerful piston or a piledriver making him stagger back. Sinnertwin growled and wiped away Energon from his mouth.
“Oh, so you can actually do something. You’re not just this big pile of oil and energon fluid ready to be spilled at my leisure. I do like it when my prey puts up a fight…” He smirked.
“Good, then you’ll really enjoy this!” Brawl roared, as he pulled one of Sinnertwin’s arms right off at the seams, sparks and energon flying everywhere as he did so before using this very same arm as a bludgeon and clubbed Sinnertwin in the face several times.
Finally, from the sheer loss of energon, Sinnertwin fell and slipped into stasis lock. Panting hard, Brawl dropped the arm and motioned for one of the surviving Vehicons to place the collar around Sinnertwin’s neck.
“Sure… Sure we shouldn’t make it one of those explosive collars like the ones we put on Steeljaw and Filch?” Breakdown advised in a wary tone of voice his spark beat slowly returning to the normal rate.
“Onslaught’s specific orders were for this type of collar, but looking at the fight he put up, I’ll advise him on it. This one… he’s going to be a loose cannon. That much is for sure…” Brawl grumbled, signaling for a Groundbridge and dragging Sinnertwin through it. Breakdown grabbed the arm and followed.
Unknown to them, they were being watched by this massive silver griffon-type transformer with a sword for a tail, who with a shifting of parts turned into this chainmail-clad knight transformer with an Autobot sigil branded over his former Predacon one.
“So, seems the Decepticons are getting just that little bit more active,” the wizened old warrior mused to himself, rubbing his faceplates with a finger. One of his hands briefly went for his sword, wondering if he should ambush the Decepticons and finish them off knowing they were undoubtedly tired from the battle with his former comrade, but the Autobot decided against it. Best to watch and wait, see what they did. “Perhaps… Just perhaps it’s time for the Knights of Cybertron to step in once more.”
This Knight knew the locations of all his former comrades, like Scylla and Sky-Byte. The question was, were they still online or if so did they even want to join the battle once more? Most of them, they’d had enough of the war and the shedding of energon and wanted to be left alone.
“Graah,” the Knight mused to himself. “Won’t know unless I try. Time to see if I can find that old snake Snaptrap... “ he continued to think, before shifting back to his griffon form and taking to the sky. Stormreign, he’d love to know about this new development. Maybe it was time to bring the scourge of the dragonfire back to the earth and wipe the slate clean. It seems even with Megatron’s banishment of the Predacons to Earth, there would always be a past that would come back to haunt their kind. Dragonicus just hoped he didn’t have to involve the humans in his war against the Decepticons, this was their world after all. The Predacons may have been here first, but humanity took Earth for their own and Dragonicus respected them for that. They were a persistent little species, and he’d love to see how they evolved. And if needed, maybe an old knight in shining armor would be there to protect them.
Perceptor honestly didn’t know quite what to expect when he stepped onto the floors of the Van De Graaff but what he certainly wasn’t expecting was the unmistakable rusting stench of the dead. Even as he ducked his head to avoid some low hanging wires, he saw the body of a Cybertronian, sea blue and lime green in color resting up against a wall, with one of his arms blown off. Next to him, was an old friend Perceptor recognized and did his old spark well to see still functioning. Hoist, having temporarily dropped a medical kit and was shutting the dead Autobot’s optics one last time.
“Oh Tow-Line, how little you got to live, and how sad your life was knowing nothing but endless war,” Hoist whispered, shaking his head and closing his own optics briefly as he drew the Cybertronic glyphs for light-follower in mid-air with his finger. “May Primus in all his grace show you mercy in the Allspark when this world did not.”
“I’m… sorry,” Perceptor stated softly, as he rested a hand on one of Hoist’s shoulders. He’d never been good with comforting others honestly. There was a reason why he shut himself up in his labs so often, so he wouldn’t have to face the realities of the real world. “A friend?”
“Not really, no,” Hoist sighed. “Just a fellow refugee, I barely knew him as it was. But he was a kind-sparked one, that much I did know. From what Smallfoot told me, he did idolize me and wanted to be a medical officer just like me.” he continued. “Mechanic, that’s what his job on the ship was, at least according to the crew manifest.”
Hoist held up a small datapad, and Perceptor sadly noted that there were so many names he recognized over the years with a red strike through them. Torca, Alpha Bravo, Rook, Rust Dust, Dust Up, Stratosphere, Greasepit. Just to name a few, really.
“None of them, they weren’t just another member of Cybertron’s many gun-toting conscripts to me, Perceptor, Some of them… Maybe not all of them w-were my friends.”
“I understand your grief, all too well Hoist, lost a friend of my own recently you must understand. But remember and forgive me if this sounds cold but we have to… No, we must concern ourselves with those we can still help. The living.”
“Sounds like you’ve been taking a few cues from Ratchet,” Hoist remarked as he turned to look at his old friend. “You were never nearly this nice before. You were always cold, logical. Shut up in those labs of yours.”
“Maybe I just didn’t have the luxury of that. Being kind, I mean. When you’re no longer at war for a time, you can change. Plus, fight’s just become that much more personal these days. It’s no longer people I barely knew, it’s old friends now.” Perceptor replied.
“That could do it,” Hoist sighed as he began walking down the corridor with the others following. “Only just recently woke up from the stasis of space travel, only now just recently finding the bodies and beginning repairs. With a little bit of luck, maybe just one day the Van De Graaff will fly again. I’m done running from the battlefield. Heard Onslaught wanted to start up a war that’s apparently been long over from what Smallfoot told me,” Hoist continued, clenching his fist making it crackle with electricity. “I won’t let any more friends be lost to a war-monger and his madness.”
“Keep up that attitude, and maybe someday you’ll make Prime,” Smallfoot chirped, always the voice of cheerfulness even in the face of tragedy.
“Don’t joke like that,” Hoist commented. “Me? A Prime, now that’s a good laugh!”
“Who said I was joking?” Smallfoot remarked walking off with a small shrug.
“Well, Optimus did come from being an Archivist of all things…” Perceptor mused, adding in his own two cents as the group continued their walk through the ship’s corridors. “Funny how it’s always the most humble of beginnings that make the greatest of leaders.”
“No kidding!” Outback stated, with a dark laugh. “Nominus, a real bastard as much as I hate to speak ill of the dead, he came from nobility. Think he was as arrogant as the Pit even before he made Prime if I remember correctly.”
“Wooooowwww, you guys seem to have really bad luck in leadership,” a familiar voice came from behind everyone, and they all turned to look to see Lemon Zest looking up at them. “Just sayin’.”
“How long has she been there…?” Perceptor wondered aloud and looked at Smallfoot and Outback who could only shrug.
“Er, do humans have the ability to clone themselves?” Smallfoot asked, as she watched the familiar form of Juniper Montage leap down from the ceiling. Sugarcoat, adjusting her glasses stepped out from behind a crate. “...Because last I checked they weren’t with us when we were talking with Fowler.”
“Haven’t you heard? Humans multiply,” Perceptor deadpanned, rubbing his temples. “Really, you had to come along didn’t you?”
“For the record,” Sugarcoat remarked, rubbing her glasses in annoyance. “I just want to say I was dragged into this by these two numbskulls.” she stated, pointing at her friends.
“Hey, an Autobot ship’s an Autobot ship,” Lemon shrugged. “I wanted to meet the new guys, so sue me!”
“...Same, though I wasn’t really expecting…” Juniper continued, trying to search for the right words. “Oh, how do I put this politely? Such a…”
“Mess?” Outback remarked, making Juniper blink in surprise over his bluntness. “Agh, don’t worry squirt. You can say it aloud. We all know the ship’s in quite the sorry state.”
“Wow, you sure like to say things as they are,” Juniper remarked in surprise. “...Sorta like Sugarcoat in a way,” she teased, nudging a very unamused Sugarcoat with her shoulder.
“Eh, I’ve never seen sense in beating around the bush really. There’s a reason I never became a doctor or a field medic. I’d probably tell someone they’re going to die right out, no sense of sugarcoating it at all. I call ‘em like I see them. That’s my motto!”
“...Yep, sounds like Sugarcoat alright,” Juniper remarked. “You sure you aren’t her long-lost Cybertronian brother?”
Sugarcoat only harrumphed and tilted her head skywards while Outback just burst out laughing. “You and I squirt, sounds like we’re going to get along great! What’s your name by the way?”
“Juniper, Juniper Montage,” Juniper replied. “Yours?”
“Outback, pleased to meet ya squirt,” the Nebulan accented minibot stated, kneeling down to Juniper’s level and offering his hand, which Juniper gladly took. “And welcome to our home away from home, the Van De Graaff. Place is a pile of slag and scrap now, but when it was new, one of the shining jewels of the galaxy from what I’ve been told. Pride of its fleet. Tough old bird, I’ll give it that.”
“Well, I'll be reprogrammed with a rivet roller,” Hubcap remarked. “Humans, actual humans! Never thought I’d see the day when one or in this case three stepped aboard our fine ship,” the red Autobot remarked. “Pleasure is all ours. Welcome aboard, miladies!” he said, with a very over the top bow. Hoist just facepalmed.
“Girls, meet Hubcap,” Perceptor remarked. “One of the finest communications specialists this side of the Baldigus Belt.”
“And my makeshift assistant in repairing this old junk heap,” Hoist remarked. “Speaking of which, weren’t you trying to get the auto-cannons back online?” he asked, with a critically raised eyebrow.
“Sorry, so sorry. Just heard the commotion, wanted to see what was what. That’s all,” Hubcap apologized, twirling a wrench in his right hand and holding a welding torch in the other. “I’ll get back to work on getting those ready for battle if the time ever comes.”
He ran off, before a loud crash and a shout of “I’m okay!” came from somewhere nearby. Hoist facepalmed.
Road Rage, who had been staying mostly silent throughout this whole walk then stifled a sob as she stumbled upon the broken body of a mostly orange Autobot.
“Oh Scoop... “ she whispered.
“Was he… I mean, did you know him well?” Juniper asked.
“He… He was a friend,” Road Rage murmured, though her tone indicated something more. “Had this penchant for religion, always incorporated it in his combat style.”
“You mean he was like this… religious extremist?” Juniper asked delicately, not sure if she really wanted to know. Road Rage gave her a hard look.
“Oh, he was hardly a religious extremist, far from it actually! Scoop, he just had this habit of quoting scripture so often you wanted to shove the Covenant up his…” Road Rage trailed off, and choked on her laughter.
“I… I see.” Juniper nodded. “I… I didn’t mean any disrespect, just so you know.”
“Just… Just don’t say anything else, you understand?” Road Rage asked coldly. Juniper got the point, and shut up. After a few moments of silence, Perceptor cleared his throat.
“Okay, so who do we got?” Perceptor asked. “Alive and well, I mean?”
“Well, aside from myself, Hubcap, Smallfoot, and Hoist?” Outback replied. “There’s our Captain of this ship Pyra Magna. Plus, Night Ranger should be coming in from patrol any time soon.”
“...Small list of survivors…” Perceptor murmured to himself quietly. It was a good crew, it must have been said, but Onslaught was relentless and Primus only knew what his endgame to restart the war was. They’d need all the help they could get, and while Perceptor would gladly take this bunch he would love a few more helping hands. He then noticed Outback and Smallfoot suck in a few awkward breaths at Pyra Magna’s name.
“...Something wrong I should know about?” Perceptor asked.
“Oh, how do we put this…?” Hoist murmured. “I know there’s that old saying where there’s life there’s hope, but with Pyra…” he trailed off.
“How bad?” Perceptor asked, getting right to the point.
“Come with me, this is something you have to see for yourself,” Hoist stated, gesturing for Perceptor to follow him to the bridge. When they got there, Perceptor’s crystal blue optics widened in horror and his jaw dropped.
Pyra Magna was once a fine Autobot, and probably still was if Hoist’s information -Which Perceptor was barely paying attention to- was correct. Apparently, while coming to Earth, the Van De Graaff hit an asteroid belt and was knocked around quite a bit. But Pyra, even after the helmsman had been offlined had stayed piloting the ship down to Earth where it had impacted the mountainside it was currently lodged in.
The once majestic Autobot commander was now lying half-offline, a limb hanging loosely at her side. The other had fallen off, and a few energon leaks were present with just a few patch kits here and there barely keeping her alive.
“Did as best as I could, the only right thing to do,” Hoist remarked stiffly. “Weathered us through the storm, had to return the favor in some way I guess.”
“Okay, judging from the damage and I’m only just getting started with the physical aspects as only Primus knows what kind of damage she has to her psyche,” Perceptor mused as he walked over to the much taller Autobot and began scanning her chassis. “I’d say at the very least we’d need an Energon Transfusion, perhaps a total reformatting,” he muttered, already getting nightmarish flashbacks to Hound.
“Yeah, I’d suspected about as much…” Hoist murmured, his voice devoid of its usual jovialness. “I’ll get a stretcher ready.”
Then, they heard a choked back sob, and saw Lemon’s form dashing from the room.
“Lemon!” Smallfoot called after her, before running after the young Wondercolt. Eventually, the Minibot caught up with her somewhere outside the ship, at a cliffside overlooking the small towns and rivers and forests below. The sun was setting, casting a beautiful orange glow over the Colorado countryside.
Lemon was sitting on the edge of the cliff, small tears leaking from her eyes. Smallfoot, not entirely sure what to do, sat down next to Lemon and just let her cry into her shoulder.
“Hey, you going to be alright?” Smallfoot asked, dropping her own mask.
“...I… I don’t know. When all this started up, I was excited to be around giant robots. Wham, bam! Beating the scrap out of each other, but now… I’ve just seen so much death and…” she fought back another sob.
“Yeah, I know what you mean. I’ve lost friends myself, you saw the crew. Who was it for you?”
“H-Hound,” Lemon whispered in reply, wiping away some of her tears. “He… He was a friend, helped me get together with my best bud Indigo. Y-You should meet her sometime, something tells me you two would get along. You?”
“Two friends of mine, Shatter and Dropkick. Old friends back during my academy days. Both got lucky enough to be handed the status of Triple-Changer. Wanted them to come with us, but just as the Van De Graaff was being readied for takeoff, we came under Decepticon attack. Held the line for as long as they could, but…”
Smallfoot shut her eyes in remembrance, seeing her two old friends go up in a fireball of an explosion. She had Brawl and another Decepticon, Lugnut to thank for that.
“Listen Lemon, listen well. Cherish the life you have with your friends while you have it, and keep it in your memories, because one day soon they may be just that… Ashes in the wind.” Smallfoot stated, and Lemon nodded.
“To old friends?” she asked.
“To old friends.”
Far away aboard the Darksyde, Onslaught stood over an operating table with Sinnertwin below him. He pulled out a small blade, flashing with energon. Underneath his battle mask, he smirked.
“Time for my… surgical strike.” he said as he lowered the blade to Sinnertwin's torso.