• Published 1st Feb 2018
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Equestria Girls: Transformation - The Bricklayer



A strange encounter in the night for Indigo Zap leads to her whole life being... Transformed.

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Part 20: Rage Against the Machine

Road Rage was mad. No, she was beyond that. She was pissed. And it sure as hell showed in her driving style, physically ramming two Vehicons out of the way not even giving mind to the damage the tactic dealt to her vehicle mode’s bodyframe. Tires squealing as they hit the pavement, horns honking and civilians rushing by, the freeway was the scene of chaos.

Fowler felt himself slammed back into his seat as Road Rage swerved in-between the various cars trying as hard as she could to avoid actually hitting any that weren’t Decepticon in origin.

She heard the distinctive sound of Flamewar’s engine from behind her, and let out a growl. She, she was responsible for this. She was responsible for Hound laying in a CR Chamber close to death being force-fed energon through tubes.

Smashing between the lane dividers making Fowler lurch his head forwards, she pulled up alongside Flamewar and tried to slam her into the side of a stone wall but the superbike only pulled ahead and left Road Rage smashing into the wall instead. The highway, it cut through hills and the valley curving and dipping every so often.

“Focus girl,” Fowler advised as he saw Road Rage’s speedometer go well over 120 miles an hour. “I’m as mad as you are, but the last thing I want is to explain to my superiors why a Corvette caused a massive traffic accident, and why I was behind the wheel of said Corvette!”

“Screw your superiors, and their damn Bureaucracy and any damn traffic laws,” Road Rage growled out in her anger as she resumed the chase. “That bitch needs to pay!”

“Look, that cure’s going to be no good to you or Prowl if you smash it up by slamming into everything and everyone,” Fowler advised, barely holding back the hamburger he’d had for lunch that day. “So keep your focus, and calm down. You’ve got two ‘Cons coming up from the rear, and coming fast.”

Road Rage, living well up to her codename checked her rearview, and confirmed Fowler was right. Two Vehicons, disguised as Cadillac Ciens were indeed coming up from behind and trying to box her in.

Road Rage, if she could have in her current mode would have smirked and let her foot off the gas so the two Vehicons could smash right into each other instead.

Another tried to ram her from the side but was smashed into a wall, and flipped upside down by the collision ending up in a huge fireball via Knock Out.

“Thought you cared so much about your finish?” Road Rage remarked.

“And see my handler get slagged? Nuh-uh, I think I can make an exception in this case,” the Aston Martin alt-moded Decepticon remarked in a slightly joking but mostly serious tone. A far cry from his usual self indeed. “I’ve got the cure, we just need to get out of range of these bozos and get a Groundbridge out of here,” he stated before going for comms. “Prowl, what’s your status?”

“I’m up ahead, getting in contact with local police forces and asking them to clear the freeway as much as they can. I don’t want any more lives lost today. Especially any human ones. Not a single one.” the Autobot stated.

“Much as I hate to break it to you,” Knock Out replied. “But that’s not going to be easy. Piss off or even endanger Flamewar, and you’re in a whole heaping of trouble. Congrats, you’ve done both. My guess is, Onslaught’s going to be sending either the rest of the Combaticons or his personal squad of Eradicons to back her up. Neither option is preferable. In either case, you’d best be ready for the fight of your lives.” he warned.

“No, they’d best be ready…” Road Rage growled. “If Hound’s dying today, I’m going to make sure it’s not in vain, and a few Decepticons join the Allspark along with him!”

Knock Out hmmed, before lowering his passenger side window and had his holodriver toss the cure to Road Rage, or more accurately Fowler. He trusted him more than her to keep it intact.

“No leaks, not one single dollop,” he stated seriously before the sound of Groundbridges opening reached his audio receptors. “Scrap, here they come…” the former Stunticon muttered.

Sure enough, Vehicons in the form of Local Motors Rally Fighters were appearing in their rearview.

“...Well, that’s a new one.” Road Rage muttered.

“By Abraham Lincoln’s Star Spangled britches…” Fowler murmured to himself. “...I really should have taken that job at the Pentagon like my boss General Bryce advised me to. Nice cushy desk job, and no risk of me being killed by Mad Max wannabes from space!”

“You think he’s talking about us or them?” Road Rage asked, as small miniguns popped up from the Eradicons’ hoods.

“Does it matter?” Knock Out asked as the sounds of click, click, brrrrrrrrt! started up as the guns began to fire. Fowler ducked his head to keep his brain from being splattered all over Road Rage’s now shattered windscreen.

Swerving left and right to avoid the shots, tires squealing out in protest the two Cybertronians continued playing their dangerous game of cat and mouse up and down the freeway.

From a nearby on-ramp, more Cien Vehicons as Fowler would decide to call them entered the battlefield.

“Going to be really hard to keep your guys under wraps after this…” Fowler muttered to himself. “Maybe I should say nerve gas from a terrorist attack causing mass delusions and hysteria, or someone’s filming a movie…”

Road Rage’s engine roared once more as she rammed a Vehicon head-on causing it to flip end over end several times before it landed on one of the Rally Fighters Eradicons behind Road Rage with the two Decepticons exploding in one huge fireball.

“Yep, movie. Michael Bay movie probably, this is sorta his thing really…” Fowler muttered to himself. “Big explosions, and inane stunts like this? Yep, out of one of his films.”

“Who’s Michael Bay?” Knock Out asked.

“Beats me, don’t care really,” Road Rage remarked in reply. “Prowl, best advice?”

“Get off the freeway at the nearest possible chance, take this cross country as the humans like to call it. Only ones that’ll be in danger then will be us, not the humans!” he ordered, and Road Rage took a sharp swerve to the left as she smashed through a guardrail with Knock Out following after her into the nearby fields with the Eradicons and Vehicons swift to follow.

“Fowler, any chance of a military assist?” Knock Out asked. “Like a bombing run or something?”

“Sure, let me just call them up on speedial!” he snapped. “Let’s get real, even if I had my phone on me and I didn’t leave it back at base, I’d have a Hell of a lot of explaining to do on why I just asked for some Skystrikers to bomb farm fields and blow up what looks to be civilian drivers!”

“...Good point.” Knock Out acknowledged. “Don’t have to like it, but good point.”

He saw Prowl finally join them, smashing through a wooden line of fencing, sirens at full blast and light bar flashing.

“Alright then, now that we’re out of the civilians way, we can really do some damage,” he remarked, as panels on his body opened up, and two small cannons emerged, both firing balls of electricity. Both hit Vehicons, shorting out systems, all of their wheels locking and seizing up and stopping them dead in their tracks. One hit a huge boulder, and went up in a massive fireball with parts flying everywhere.

“Yeah, now that’s more like it!” Road Rage shouted as she pulled a full 180-degree turn and two cannons popped out of her chassis, both firing plasma shots at the Vehicon/Eradicon death squad. Few shots hit and lit up the countryside for the most part, even as she drove backwards with Fowler’s eyes nearly bulging out of their skull at this madwoman’s driving skills. But eventually, Road Rage got her eye in and managed to eliminate most if not all of the remaining pursuers with Prowl’s help.

“...Yeah, definitely a Michael Bay movie.” He muttered to himself.

Knock Out then shouted “Look out, mad biker incoming!” as Flamewar leaped off a hillside and in mid-air transformed into bot mode and pulled out her bow. Road Rage pulled another 180 and slammed hard on the brakes, with Fowler lurching forwards once more.

“This is where you get out,” she said, with Fowler only too happy to oblige that order and finally tossing his cookies. As soon as that was over, he grabbed the cure and ran for cover behind some pine trees as the three Cybertronians transformed with the remaining Vehicons and Eradicons following.

“You know, after a long drive,” Knock Out said as he switched out both of his hands for buzzsaws. “It feels good to get out of the car, and kick some tailpipe!” he smirked.

“Gentlemen, would you be so kind as to stop their engines?” Flamewar asked mock sweetly as the Vehicons and Eradicons went for their weapons. “So, Road Rage is it? See you’ve got a little case of rage against the machine. So nice to see my virus works wonders!”

“You’re going to pay for that, and everything else you’ve done including killing Hound!” she snarled.

“Oh, was that his name?” Flamewar asked still in that mock sweet tone of hers. “Silly me. I’ve forgotten the names of how many I’ve killed.”

Road Rage let out another growl, bordering on a snarl of absolute fury.

“Easy Road Rage, don’t let her get to you,” Prowl advised, reaching for his pistol in hopes of firing off one single quick shot through Flamewar’s head. Sadly, it was not to be, as an arrow from her blasted it out of his hands.

“Oh, you’re such a bad boy…” she remarked. Fancy yourself a gunslinger eh?” Flamewar asked. “Well, my boys here would be happy to take you up on the challenge. Sadly, I cannot. As much as I’d love to stay and chat, I’ve got other things to do. And as much as I’d wish them to, none of them involve you at this current point in time. Ta-ta!” she said, before opening a Groundbridge and vanishing through it but not before leaving the order of: “Clean up the mess.” with narrowed eyebrows.

As soon as she’d left, the firing began. Road Rage pulled out a rifle, and weaved between trees avoiding the shots as they came and happily returning fire. They couldn’t risk a groundbridge of their own, not now with Fowler in danger and Decepticons all too happy to learn the location of their base.

Knock Out sliced and diced his way through the remaining squad members. Pinning one Vehicon to the ground, he smirked in an almost devilish manner. “Don’t worry, I’m a fully licensed surgeon. This won’t hurt a bit,” he said calmly, before decapitating the Vehicon in one quick movement, energon flying everywhere. This was about par for the course for the rest of the battle really, the rest of the Vehicons quickly falling to the Autobot weaponry.

Not even the Eradicons were safe, as Prowl had pulled out his Decepticon Hunter, changed it to a bo staff and was spinning it wildly deflecting shots in some cases sending them right back at the shooters themselves. Knock Out had gotten a similar idea, and had pulled out his electro staff and was spinning it wildly in a glow of blue light shoving it through Vehicon and Eradicon chests alike.

“Old shock and drop. Never fails,” he smirked.

“You know, keep that up and I may just begin to like it.” Road Rage sniped, as she sniped a Vehicon trying to come up at Knock Out from behind.

“What about me?”

“No, I still hate you,” she remarked.

“Au contraire, you’ll come around eventually… Everyone does.” Knock Out said with a wink and a smirk. Road Rage rolled her optics. Eventually, it was finally over and everyone Decepticon-aligned was in a smoking heap.

Of course, this battle had occupied so much of the foursome’s attention just trying to outmaneuver the Eradicons and stay alive they hadn’t noticed they’d had an observer. An old Toyota Hilux to be exact, parked atop a hillside.

The Hilux seemed to observe this mad dash across the fields and what resulted, almost if it were eyeing every player critically. It then pulled away, and drove off into the timberlands.

“So there are other Cybertronians on Earth… I knew it, I wasn’t seeing things!” the little Mini-Bot thought to herself as she thought back. She’d been in Japan, and had seen Hound, Prowl and even her old friend Swerve opening up a Groundbridge along with this human girl she hadn’t caught the name of, but she figured perhaps she’d been on Earth too long without contact from Cybertron and had just started imagining things. But now? Well, Smallfoot was only too happy to know she and the rest of the Van De Graaff’s crew weren’t alone on this planet after all.


The Autobase

Road Rage let out a small groan of pain as she felt the syringe needle pierce her plating but sighed in relief soon afterwards. She didn’t feel this terrible urge, this burning hatred to destroy everything in her path anymore like she had for the last few cycles, her T-Cog didn’t ache anymore every time she transformed. For the first time in a very long while, she felt… free.

Her face turned solemn as she turned to look towards Hound, all plugged up to all manners of machinery with tubes feeding vital energon from nearby containers. One massive tube, slowly rising and falling as it pumped energon was hooked up right to the hole in his chest, where Flamewar had shot him.

“Now, if only I could say the same for you old friend…” She sighed to herself as the Elite Guardswoman walked up to one of her oldest comrades in arms and stroked his faceplates tenderly before sitting down and fighting back a sob. “By Solus Prime, what are we supposed to tell Hot Rod, he’s going to want some answers!”

“I… I don’t know, honestly,” Perceptor muttered, shaking his head as he patted Road Rage on the shoulder sympathetically.

“The truth,” Prowl stated and everyone looked directly at him optics widened. “I don’t like it as much as you do, but he has the right to know. What are we supposed to do, hide it from him and say that his sparkmate’s alive and well, when it’s perfectly obvious he isn’t? Besides, Hot Rod, he’s already going to have felt it through his bond, that his Conjunx Endura’s lights are going out.”

“You… You have a point…” Perceptor muttered, even if he didn’t have to like said point. Breaking this sort of news was never easy for a medical bot. “I’ll… I’ll arrange a communique to Velocitron.”

Road Rage let out a snarl as she punched a cavern wall, cracking the stone beneath her fist. “And what, we’re supposed to just give up?” she barked. “Look, we may not have the best medical equipment but here we are, just telling ourselves to just pull Hound’s plug when we can save him if we just try a little fucking harder!”

Prowl sighed to himself, he always hated these sort of situations. What he had to say next would sound incredibly cold, sparkless even but looking at things logically there was only one possible course of action. “Look Road Rage, we have to face facts. Even if we didn’t pull the plug as you put it, Hound at best would be faced with a complete reformatting. If we did that, as soon as he emerged he wouldn’t be the same bot. He’d have a new frame, a new set of internal workings and most likely a completely new personality!”

“But he’d be alive, wouldn’t he?” Road Rage argued.

“There’s no way of getting around it, the old Hound would be gone forever no matter what we do. I… I think it’s best we let him die a peaceful death, instead of turning him inside out and changing his base workings completely. Look, I know it’s hard. By Primus, I know it is. I’ve seen far too many comrades lost to battle more times than I can count, but-”

“But nothing!” Road Rage barked. “I don’t want to just sit here and let one of my oldest friends die, and say I stood by and did nothing in my power to save him!”

“But what can you do to save him?” Prowl asked. “You’re not a medic, you’re not a Priest of Primus, you’re just a simple soldier like I am. If I could, Primus damn if I could, I would help Hound in any way I could! Slag, I’d throw him into a pool of Rarified Energon or Forestonite and watch it do its work! But we don’t have that luxury! We barely have enough medical materials around here to patch up minor wounds, much less save a dying Autobot!” Prowl yelled, one of the few times his carefully crafted mask of being this emotionless logical by the book cop dropping completely before he muttered: “Damn you Hound, just damn you. Why’d you have to be so reckless…?”

“No,” Road Rage snarled venomously, and for a moment Prowl backed away carefully as it looked as if Road Rage was about to punch him before she seemingly thought the better of it. “Damn you Prowl. Damn you to the Pit,” she muttered to herself, before starting to walk off, wanting to be alone with her thoughts.

“Solus Prime, I just got back in fighting condition, but the cost... ?” she thought, taking one last long look at Hound. Then there was a loud crash, and everyone turned and saw Indigo along with the rest of the Shadowbolts holding Lemon, who’d fainted dead away at the sight of Hound.

“H-Hound…?” Indigo whispered tearfully.

“Oh, slag…” Prowl muttered, and mentally prepared himself for the long conversation that was soon to follow. Meanwhile, hundreds of miles away from the Autobase, a very different type of conversation was taking place...


Mexico:

Groaning out in pain, Thunderclash found himself in a deep cavern, undoubtedly somewhere in the miles of tunnels below Templo Mayor and Mexico City itself. At one end of the cavern was the ruins of some old subway tunnel closed off and left to rot. Thunderclash vaguely remembered back in the 1930s or so that the humans living above had tried to create a system before discovering that the deeper they burrowed the more their precious city sunk into the ground and so the project was scrapped. Nobody, except for the occasional maintenance worker ever really came down her anymore, at least this section of the line and so it made a perfect hiding place for him. Humans feared him, and rightly so but that didn’t mean Thunderclash had to like it. Long ago, they worshipped him before fear of what he could do turned them against him, forcing him to flee from the very creatures he was supposed to protect.

He did help from the shadows, such as when humans got trapped by landslides due to flooding or lost in the wilderness he helped them to safe passage but they never remembered him and thought him a hallucination or a UFO. They’d stopped believing in Gods and monsters for the most part, and adapted to a new modern age where creatures like Quetzalcoatl and Kukulkan were merely myths, stories to tell and to entertain.

That still didn’t help explain any what he was doing here, did it?

“Easy, steady yourself,” came Steeljaw’s voice. “Took quite a beating from my ‘leader’. You need to rest. You were leaking energon quite badly. If Flich hadn’t patched you up as well as she did…”

“For that, you have my eternal gratitude, ‘Decepticon’ and fellow Predacon.” Thunderclash said, looking at Filch, who was using a welding kit to close up some of Thunderclash’s remaining wounds.

“Yes, well, anything to help my King,” Filch said briefly looking upwards from her task to face Thunderclash.

“A king it seems,” Thunderclash sighed in disgrace and self-disgust. “Who has been soundly dethroned. I was arrogant, believing I could rule here on Earth over some of the other Predacons in the real Predaking’s absence. In my hubris, I allowed myself to believe nobody could defeat me. And yet, in defending my brother’s remains I allowed myself to be defeated, thus stripping me of my honor.”

“But you were defending your brother’s tomb, keeping it from being defiled,” Filch replied. “Is that not the code of a real Predacon, loyalty to one’s own kin? We’re all clones of the original breed, and in a way, I suspect you wanting to rule over the Predacons was loyalty to your own brothers and sisters and keep them from killing each other. Like it or not, they need a ruler here on Earth. Snaptrap’s conflict with Scylla and Sky-Byte was proof alone of that.”

“So, what will you two do now? I do not think Onslaught takes deserters lightly,” Thunderclash asked.

“Believe me, if it weren’t for fear of that thing he had as a hunter, we would have deserted long ago,” Steeljaw replied.

“What… thing?” Thunderclash asked, raising an inquisitive eyebrow.

“Darksteel, that beast you ever so kindly decapitated in your rage and fury against the defiling of your brother’s tomb,” Steeljaw replied. “I’ve seen Darksteel in action, in the Kaon Gladiatorial Arenas, fighting tooth and nail to prove his worth as a Predacon. Believe me, I still have nightmares to this very day about what I saw in those battles he waged…”

“Ladies and assorted Gentlebots, have we got a treat for you tonight!” Swindle’s distinctive voice shouted over a roaring and cheering crowd from up in his small box. Chained to his little Roman emperor style throne were two small Predacons, one a midnight blue panther and the other a black wolf creature. “Two beastly experiments from the mind of Shockwave himself, going head to head in a battle to the death!”

The doors on both side of the arena raised up, and the two titanic machines trudged into it, gathering roars and cheers from the crowd. One of which was much larger than the other bot, and made the match feel more like David and Goliath rather than a simple fight to the death.

“To my left, we have the titan of the pits of Chaar, the crusher of chassis, the mountain of metal himself, Infernocus!” He swung his arm to him, and he let out a deafening battle cry, garnering another wave of applause, the skull-like face on the Predacon grinning devilishly. Inwardly, Swindle hoped this match would go better than that last one, the one with the Cybercat Shockwave nicknamed Primal against that dragonbot Hun-Gurr. “And the bot either brave or foolish enough to face him, the one and only, the cybernetic shadow, the ghost that can only be described as Darksteel!” He swung the other arm out towards him, the dark blue and orange Predacon pulling out a double bladed axe with Infernocus drawing a huge metallic sword soaked in energon fluid.

“Trust me, little birdy, you’re WAY out of your league here.” Infernocus slid his hand over the blade, as if to clean the blood of his victims off of it. “Why don’t you just forfeit right now and save me the trouble?”

In the crowd, a teal blue bot watched the proceedings nervously, and hoped that little private transmission to Autobot high command got through. Brutes and clones they may have been, but this wasn’t entertainment or sport, this was just senseless violence on Swindle and Shockwave’s part. Evil without purpose or reason. For now, Steeljaw reasoned, he would have to sit back, watch, and hope.

Darksteel’s only answer was to let out a small growl and bare his fangs. “You’ve had too many victims fall to your blade, and I’m going to enjoy knocking that arrogance right out of you. Hopefully by returning the favor of so many of your decapitated victims. Blot, Sinnertwin, Budora,” he replied, gesturing to the headless bodies lying around the energon soaked arena. “This isn’t sport, this is bad comedy,” he stated before clenching his fist making it crackle with electricity and pointing the heads of his axe at Infernocus.

“Maybe bad comedy for you, but this is hilarious for me,” Infernocus leaned over the bot, his optics glowing a red-hot orange. “Look at how small you are. You’re no bigger than a Turbofox to me. I could flatten you with my foot alone and you’d still be a tiny, crumpled up speck on the arena floor.”

“Oh, that's intense. You know to be honest, seeing you do that would be quite the spectacle. But it looks like I'll have to choose Option B, knock that horned tiara of yours off your head, and then slice that head clean off and then what’s next? Oh, that’s where I bust out of this arena and go gallivanting off into the sunset.” Darksteel remarked with this smug, cocky little smirk on his faceplates.

“You cannot stop your destruction, or change my mind with simple boasting,” Infernocus remarked. “So, why fight it?”

“A, because you’re an asshole, and B, you’re an asshole. Reason enough.”

“Then you’ve made a grave mistake Darksteel, and I do mean grave in every sense of the word…” Infernocus smiled all the more devilishly, and Darksteel simply shrugged.

“Oh, Predacons make grave mistakes all the time. Mine just seem to actually end up working out,” he replied dismissively, still with that cocky smirk on his face before that smirk transformed into an expression of rage remembering why he was here, and what he was here to do. “But enough of this banter, are we going to fight like men… or like beasts?”

“Very well, then. But I promise you, you are NOT going to like this, little one.” Infernocus drew his blade and pointed the tip at Darksteel.

“Looks like our combatants are about to rip each other to shreds, so I’d better not keep them waiting!” Swindle swung one arm down in a knife-hand fashion. “Fight!”

Infernocus and Darksteel charged at each other, weapons out and ready to cut deep into one another. As they got closer to each other, they saw just how big and small their foes really were, as Darksteel soon found Infernocus blotting out the very sun above his head. Which, of course, made his sword look even more menacing as it swung up, and then down towards him.

With a shifting and whirring of parts, Darksteel transformed into his beast mode, a massive hippogriff covered in Cyberglyphics and opened up his beak. Throat glowing orange, he unleashed a stream of searing hot plasma right into Infernocus’ torso plating making him stagger back.

“Gah! Looks like you’ve got some tricks up your sleeve. But not enough to save you, I’m afraid.” He slammed the sword into the ground, causing it to crack beneath Darksteel’s very claws. Channeling energon through it, the cracks became electrified, creating miniature walls of lightning around him.

Darksteel picked up his axe, which had dropped during his transformation and swung it at one of Infernocus’ legs hoping to lop it off and topple the giant. Sadly, he only earned a kick to the stomach for his troubles; one that sent him straight into the arena walls as the crowd roared in approval. Steeljaw meanwhile just winced, he hoped the Autobots got here soon.

“Looks like Darksteel’s taking a beating out there. But that’s what you get when you fight the champ, ladies and gentlemen!” Swindle announced as Infernocus closed in for the kill. “It looks like another easy win for Infernocus!”

“By my fallen brothers…” Darksteel snarled out, each and every one of the glyphs etched on his body a tribute to fallen comrades. “I will make sure nobody else dies in this arena! Not now, not ever!” he stated, before letting out a loud ear-splitting screech and charging towards Infernocus, extending his wings and dodging a swing from the Predacon’s massive sword as he flew over it. He then grabbed onto Infernocus’s right arm with his claws, and then lunged forwards and bit down on it.

The metal around Infernocus’s arm was pierced, and another bite would have severed his servos. The crowd watched with interest as Darksteel continued to thrash and drive his fangs in again for a crippling hit, while Infernocus tried to swipe him away with the back of his free hand. Eventually, he did succeed and flung Darksteel into the stands as the crowd scattered.

“Yeah, not so fun anymore is it?” Steeljaw laughed as the Decepticons fled in terror. Darksteel meanwhile, just opened up his beak once more and fired another plasma blast at Infernocus. This time directly at his face.

“For those of you in the audience who had to run, there’s absolutely no refunds or compensation for what you just went through,” said Swindle. “For everyone else, WOW! Looks like Darksteel’s getting desperate, going for the servos of the champ!”

Infernocus continued to stagger backwards as Darksteel finally gained the upper hand, with the massive titan feeling his faceplates beginning to melt.

“Oh, oh! Could this be it?” Swindle shouted in shock. “Could this be the end of an era, could this be the fall of a titan and the rise of a new champ?”

It certainly was, in some ways as Infernocus now with head comprised only of molten slag fell to the ground with a mighty thud. Swindle growled to himself, he couldn’t let this stand! His prize money maker, defeated!

“Chainclaw, Cuttthroat, get him! I will not take me losing my bets lying down! Bring me that Predacon’s head!” Swindle shouted.

The gates opened up once more, and a massive bird in tan and purple colors along with a tiger-like bot in yellow paint wearing a silver battle mask charged out, Vehicons urging them out with electroshock staffs. Darksteel readied himself for battle. But he needn’t have worried, as laser fire completely blanketed the arena as a massive orange shuttle flew in, before parts shifted as Prowl and another Autobot -Trailbreaker- leaped down into the arena with the shuttle itself turning into a truly massive Autobot bearing the sigil of the Elite Guard, with two massive cannons on his winged back, and a red battle mask covering most of his faceplates. Swindle swallowed while Steeljaw smirked. Sentinel Prime, the Autobot Supreme Commander.

“Decepticons! You are under arrest for fraud and illegal Transformer sport ringleading. Surrender peacefully, or we will have to shut you down with force.” He boomed, pointing one of his two guns at Swindle and his Vehicon soldiers, with Prowl and Trailbreaker aiming theirs as well.

“Autobot scum. You always hate money. No wonder you’re such poor, pathetic, and weak excuses for machines!” Swindle scoffed back and clicked his fingers. “Decepticons! Bring these bots down!” And without another word, all of the Cons let loose a barrage of laser fire at the intruding Autobot team who returned in kind. Sentinel shifted forms one more, becoming a massive battle train that aimed all of his cannons at the box and pummeled it with artillery shells. The two Predacons Swindle had chained up, they’d broken free just in time and had run for it as the box came down and buried both Chainclaw and Cuttthroat underneath its rubble.

Swindle swallowed, knowing perfectly well when it was time to cut his losses and run before he teleported out in a flash of blue light.

“And to think he used to be one of us…” Prowl sighed sadly, shaking his head at days long by, when Swindle and the rest of the Combaticon brigade were members of the Elite Guard as well.

“ Where is he going?” Sentinel barked through a wrist-communicator as he transformed back into Robot mode. “I want his head!”

“Probably long gone from here, sadly,” Trailbreaker sighed as he cuffed the Vehicons. The ones still living anyways. He cast a suspicious look at Sentinel. He seemed… unusually violent for the Autobot’s current Prime. Then again, war had a way of changing a ‘Bot.

“Grr… Filthy bloodsports. I hate them. I hate them so much…” Prowl growled and punched a wall vigorously. “Especially when Autobots are roped into them.”

“Calm yourself Prowl,” Sentinel advised placing a hand on his shoulders, casting a thankful look towards Steeljaw who could only nod. “No need to get yourself worked up over all of this. What’s done is done, Swindle won’t dare set up shop here again, and he’ll probably go into hiding. He owes far too many debts now. People will be after him, we’ll probably see his carcass turn up very shortly. For now…” he trailed off, gesturing to Darksteel. “We have to help this one, along with any others of his kind left alive.”

Prowl noticed the disgusted way Sentinel spat out ‘his kind’, like Predacons were an inferior species. Sentinel, he’d have to keep an eye on that one.

“Not that Prowl really needed to worry, as Sentinel was killed in battle defending the Stellar Galleries a week later by Deathsaurus of the DJD himself,” Steeljaw commented, now back in the present day and in the sewers under Mexico City with Flich and Thunderclash. “Good riddance to bad rubbish I say. He may have been a Prime, but he was a terrible excuse for one. Bigoted right down to his very spark, far too war-like to actually do anything about the Hell Cybertron had become. It says a lot about Sentinel, when one of his most famous quotes was: ‘In my day, the good knew their responsibility... and the weak knew their place.’ Thank the Allspark for the coming of Optimus Prime, eh?” Steeljaw laughed weakly.

“There’s something curious about you, Steeljaw. Something that’s been nagging me ever since I first met you,” Thunderclash remarked. “You’ve got beastial instincts all about you, even your name screams Predacon, and yet you have a vehicular alt-mode. It’s odd that a pure-blooded Cybertronian would find themselves spending time with a Predacon like Filch. No offense intended of course.”

Steeljaw laughed again at this. “Who said anything about pure-blooded? No, Flich and I are hardly pure-blooded in any senses of the word. Now this, this is a tale in itself. You’re probably wondering what I was doing in the stands of a gladiatorial arena, taking down Swindle and his matches.”

“Altruism?” Thunderclash guessed with a small shrug of his shoulders and Steeljaw laughed again.

“Hardly,” he said as his wolfish eyes narrowed and his little tail flicking back and forth anxiously. “No, let me tell you a tale…”

There was nothing but darkness. And the occasional flicker of sparks from machines. Jagged, razor-sharp, and menacing spikes and tools could be seen in the brief instances of light. Sitting in a single chair, bound and gagged by tight locks, sat a singular Predacon, thrashing and flailing wildly in the hopeless void. Not a single creature replied to her muffled cries for help. None, except one.

“I know that this might come as a shock to you, but don’t dwell on this thought. Rather, think about the future, and how this will benefit us both once the process is complete,” A voice echoed through the darkness. “After all, I went through this myself, and now, I feel much better off for it.”

Filch’s eyes widened in terror, she knew that voice. Every Transformer on Cybertron did. Shockwave, quite possibly one of the most feared Decepticons ever to come online. A tall purple transformer, bearing one cycloptic eye stepped out of the shadows, and Filch’s optics widened in terror. She wanted to transform into her bird mode, but the restraints would not let her.

“You know, you fascinate me,” Shockwave stepped out into the light. “For being a machine, I would have expected a more vehicle-like transformation out of you. But instead, you take the form of a winged creation; but not a sleek and rocket-fueled one like Starscream or Thundercracker; and instead a more beastial form. It amazes me, a Predacon still surviving to this very day.”

Filch just continued to thrash and fight against her restraints, in the hope that they would come loose and give her a chance to escape.

“And yet, still, you disappoint me. You could be something more. Something with potential; a beast with an ambition, a goal, a purpose, even.” Shockwave pushed his hands together. “But, luckily, that’s something we Decepticons can remedy with ease. This technique was invented, tested, and approved by Lord Megatron himself, so I have high hopes that it will turn you into an unstoppable force, just as it did for those Dynobots. Hopefully, more obedient now that I’ve refined the CNA in this little mixture.” Shockwave chuckled lowly.

“Go slag yourself.” Filch whispered, praying to Onyx Prime -the first Predacon- someone would help her.

“What was that?” He leaned in closer to Filch’s ear. “I didn’t quite catch that. Was that a sense of resistance, even when your mind is about to be subdued?”

He turned on the lights and revealed two tanks, where two Autobots rested in some sort of green fluid. One, blue and gold and bearing spikes all over his torso and the other a teal-blue with razor-sharp claws, a wolfish face and a tail hanging limp. “I’ve done this before, only in reverse. See these two? Injected with Predacon CNA. Now I’m going to see what happens when a Predacon is injected with Cybertronian CNA,” Shockwave mused, and if he had a mouth Flich imagined he’d be smiling. Regardless, he took up a syringe filled with said CNA and pointed the tip at Filch. “Just sit back, relax, and let all the bad feelings fade away. Trust me. I’m a scientist.”

Flich whimpered out in fear as the syringe injected the pure Cybernucleic Acid into her systems, and she felt new programming trying to take control. Her whimpers slowly turned into a loud scream as parts shifted and reconfigured the more beastial aspects of her chassis vanishing. Feathered wings sharpened and became more jet-like before fans revealed themselves with her body becoming less angular and streamlined, less like a regular Corvicon and more like a jet’s.

“Now then.” Shockwave took the needle out once it had done its’ job and set it down on the table. “Let’s give you a chance to break in this new directive, shall we?”

Of course, there was a small problem with that. Take an already defiant Cybertronian, and screw around with her systems and you just made her more pissed off than normal. Breaking free of her restraints, parts shifted as she transformed into a jet, and fired two missiles at Shockwave, blasting him backwards into the walls of his lab. Hovering in place, she admitted -if only to herself- Shockwave’s new ‘upgrades’ did have their uses, she fired two more missiles and blasted a hole in the roof before transforming back to bot mode. Going over to a computer console, her fingers lit up the keyboard and freed Shockwave’s two captives. She noted their names. Steeljaw, and Gekisoumaru. Transforming again and smiling as she realized she still possessed her old alt-mode in some form she took to the night skies. Meanwhile, Shockwave staved off slipping into unconsciousness long enough to see his other two captives break open a door and run for it.

“Well then. This should be interesting…” He said to himself as he fell into the world of dreams.

“Of course, that’s not the end of the tale as you might expect,” Steeljaw continued. “No, not at all…”

It was late one rainy night when Steeljaw found her, in some long forgotten alleyway in one of Cybertron’s under cities quivering and shaking to herself. His optics widened, he recognized her from Shockwave’s laboratory. He nor his brother ever got the chance to thank her.

“You alright?” Steeljaw asked, kneeling down and reaching out a paw only for it to get swatted away.

“G-Go away…” Filch whispered. “You’re just like all the rest!”

“And all the rest would comprise…?” Steeljaw trailed off in confusion.

“That scientist. He…” Filch couldn’t even say a word as she felt the new CNA flow through her body. “I’m a freak. A Trans-Mutate, they call me.”

“Trust me, in that area at least, you’re not alone,” Steeljaw remarked, sitting down next to her. “You think I was born with these claws, or this tail? No, you saw me in that lab. Sho-” Steeljaw noted the flinch at even naming the madman and quickly corrected himself. “That scientist, he pulled me and my brother apart, ripped us open all in the name of science he said. Injected us with pure Predacon CNA, just to create the perfect soldiers for his Lord Megatron.”

“He works for Megatron. That robot.” Filch flopped her wings to the ground. “He’s evil, right? Both him and the scientist?”

“Honestly, it’s hard to tell sometimes. The scientist, yes. Evil without purpose or reason, but Megatron? I don’t know, I’ve heard tales he wanted to overthrow the corruption plaguing Cybertron and the High Council. You know the stories right, about how Nominus and Sentinel Prime were loyal to the High Council’s ideals of whatever alt-mode you got, dictated your place in life? Megatron, rose up from being a simple miner in Kaon’s pits to a politician, and when those plans fell through and his ideas were shot down he turned to war in hopes or making the people listen. Somewhere along the way, I think those ideals of his were lost. You’ve heard the news right, about that newcomer Orion Pax, I think his name is? It’s said he and Megatron were friends, both vying for the same changes.”

“Am I… evil?” Filch asked, looking at where the syringe had injected her.

“Only if you allow yourself to be. Me and my brother, we get… urges from time to time. To rip and tear, to kill. But we learned to curb them, with the Zen teachings of an Autobot and former Decepticon named Drift. You don’t have to be a monster. No, you can be something else. What that something is, that’s up to you.” Steeljaw smiled.

If Filch could cry, she would have. Instead, she just reached over and pulled Steeljaw into a hug. “Thank you. Friend. I think… I think I’d like to become a medic. Help those who can’t help themselves, a personal screw you to Shockwave. But I’ve heard rumors of Predacon clones, my sisters and brothers fighting to the death in Kaon’s arena.”

“So have I,” Steeljaw smiled. “Believe me, I have a plan to do something about it.”

“And so, there we are, I suppose. That’s what happened, how me and Flich met,” Steeljaw said. “We’ve never left each other’s sides since, even when Onslaught drafted us onto his crew.”

“Sparkmates then?” Thunderclash asked, and Steeljaw and Flich looked away from each other and Thunderclash laughed. So that’s how it was. Head over heelstrut for each other, but they couldn’t admit it. “So, what do we do now?”

“For now,” Flich stated. “You rest and heal. Then we figure out our next move…”

Author's Note:

Okay, worked late into the night to bring you this, but here you go. Give a huge thanks to Shadowmane for being my co-writer for the second half of the chapter eh, and to the Stratovarian for helping me write a good car chase scene.

As ever, comments, thoughts, and critique are welcomed.