Oh, hey, Bumblebee's a part of this now. And a vengeful little sucker to boot.

And Lockdown certainly has his priorities straight.

 

Optimus’ hands were raised above his head. Though he knew it would have been useless in such a scenario, Optimus knew he'd have felt more confident if he still had his axe with him. Though it was most probably still sitting somewhere in a ditch back on Via-Finis, with little hope of ever being found again.

The aggressors holding them at gunpoint were large. Larger than Ironhide, and possibly even Starscream. One was a faceless, dark red beast of a robot with broad shoulders and several angled panels across his frame. He held a pair of blasters to the back of both Prime and Blackarachnia’s heads. The other of the two was shorter and somewhat pudgier, blue wings sprouting from her back. Regardless, she was at least a head taller than Optimus was. She was looking to the other for directions.

The larger of the two pressed the barrel of his gun roughly into the back of Blackarachnia’s head.

She snapped, ‘Hey! Enough of that!' and turned to Optimus. ‘Permission to stab?’

Optimus stared at Blackarachnia, then to the much larger robot standing behind her. His blue visor reflecting Prime’s own undignified position. The giant proceeded to pistol-whip Blackarachnia’s head, causing cracks to run through her helm.

Optimus strained his voice. ‘We surrender! We are in your custody. There is no need for violence.’

The blue one shuddered. ‘Uh, good. Right.’ She looked up to her larger co-hort for orders. ‘That’s what we should be doing with them, right? Taking them into… custody?’

The red one was silent.

The blue one stared through the atrium, watching Lockdown and Swindle finalize their arrangements below. ‘So... are we going to finish the mission first, or should we be taking these guys back to the others? Or... what? Because right now I feel like all of...' she gestured to the three captives, 'this, is gonna be nothing but a waste.’

The red one shrugged.

‘No really, I know you’re supposed to be the strong-silent type, but I'm kind of begging for answers here. They put you in charge. Not me.’

The red one lowered his rifle slightly and shrugged. Optimus was exchanging looks with Blackarachnia and Jazz.

The blue one sighed and began massaging the bridge of her nose. ‘You want me to plan for you. Okay. Sure. I can do that. Well, shooting them would be a bad idea since we’re all standing on plexi-glass and could fall in if it breaks. But we still need a diversion, and these guys don’t seem like that much of an issue when they're—.’

Jazz interrupted her. ‘Now hold the phone for a nano-klik. Call me crazy, but am I right in thinking that you fellas are not jamming with Swindle’s company?’

They exchanged looks. The blue one spoke. ‘No. We’re not any—‘

‘We’re not.’ The red one said. ‘We’re just not. Ever, or will be.’

The blue one turned from her partner to Jazz. ‘We’re here because Swindle took something that belongs to us. Something… important.’

‘Then we’re on the same side,’ Optimus said. ‘Lower your guns and we can talk this through. We’re good people. Arguably.’ Optimus thought for a moment. A week ago he caused the deaths of dozens of Decepticons. A couple of months ago Blackarachnia murdered hundreds of Autobots across the galaxy. And who knows how long ago, Jazz was committed to killing who knows how many Cybertronians for Sentinel and Prowl. ‘Okay, so maybe we’re not good people. I’ll accept that. But we're still willing to negotiate. Just—.’

‘What a coincidence!’ The red one shouted suddenly. The blue one of the two looked up at him in confusion as he spoke. ‘We’re not good people either!’ With that, the red robot fired a blast into the glass below them, causing it to shatter. In seconds, Prime, Blackarachnia and Jazz were sent plummeting into the atrium below. The red robot reached out his large servo only for it to be grabbed by the blue one. The blue one had transformed into an aerial configuration and began to hover in the air high above the glass dome.

‘Why did you do that?’ Blue shouted as she carried red away.

But he would only shrug.

‘Oh, forget it. I don’t care how much you hate to speak. You’re going to be the one explaining this to the others when we get back!’

As Optimus fell, he could see something akin to the flapping of wings, but soon ignored it as he hit the ground. The three Autobots were left crouching between the dumbfounded forms of Lockdown, Swindle, and their personal bodyguards.

There was silence for a moment.

Swindle was the first to shout. ‘What in the name of the pink prometheans of rigus nine?!’

Lockdown swept his hand forward, and his arm morphed into a bright silver hook. ‘They’re spies! Don’t let any of them escape!’

Swindle ducked beneath his desk as Dirge and Thrust charged forward, firing their missiles. From the left came Lockdown’s men, the five-eyed monster Lugnut charged, brandishing his missile-pod-formed fists and the second, a triple changer—one with a clearly winged robot-mode, changing into a tank configuration.

Cannons and missiles fired from both sides as Blackarachnia pulled Jazz ad Optimus close to her. The missiles made contact, cloaking the three in dark clouds of ash. As the smoke cleared, Blackarachnia’s beast mode stood. It’s massive figure shielding Optimus and Jazz.

Lockdown, Swindle and the rest watched in awe as Blackarachnia unfurled her large leg-stalks. ‘Oh man,’ she said. ‘You guys are so screwed.’

Blackarachnia charged Lockdown first, leaping at him and pinning him to the ground with her stalks. Jazz and Optimus took cover behind the cage – behind Lockdown’s bounty.

A low growling came from within the cage as Jazz chuckled nervously. ‘I can't tell if I should feel safe behind this thing or...’

‘Terrified?’

‘No, not terrified. Just...’ He paused. ‘Wait, is that what you are right now? Terrified?’

'Preposterous!' Optimus snapped, gazing over the cage. ‘Just ignore it, Jazz. Think about the Decepticons instead.’

‘Oh I’ve got no problem doing that. I’m already doing plenty of that. It’s just that—considering the fact that none of us are packing any heat-- I think we could stand to use a little more firepower.’

In seconds, the glass from the other end of the atrium shattered as Ironhide crashed through in vehicle mode. Firing wildly from the cannon on his roof and sending chunks of wall and ceiling crumbling around him. 'COME AND GET SOME, DECEPTICHOPS!' Ironhide howled.

Optimus grinned. ‘That enough firepower for you?’

Blackarachnia struggled to keep the bounty hunter still. He wriggled in place before grinning. In seconds, the bounty hunter’s head split apart, and a massive cannon extended from where his face would be. A blast of bright energy shot into Blackarachnia. The giant metallic spider stumbled back, giving Lockdown just enough time to roll back onto his feet. Several identical blasters sprouted from his chest and shoulders. From his arms came dozens of small sharp knives and blades, covering his limbs like a pair of large metallic pinecones. ‘So get this, I'm something of a collector.’

Blackarachnia drove a stalk at the bounty-hunter, only for it to be parried by one of Lockdown’s many blades. ‘Buddy, I’ll collect your spark into my energy processor if you’ll just give me a minute. It just requires you standing still and, well, dying.’

‘I’ve collected all kinds of weapons from all across the universe.’ Lockdown swung his blades, clashing with Blackarachnia’s multiple times while simultaneously shooting blasts of electrical light from his head and chest. ‘If you have the properties, I have the repellent.’ Lockdown thrusted his bladed arm forward, the metal beginning to shift. It formed a large purple stinger of sorts, which proceeded to blast a thin ray of electricity into Blackarachnia. The blast caused the beast-former to transform. Her body morphed slightly, electricity surging from within her as a result of her size-changing discharge.

‘NO!’ She snapped back into place. In her massive spider form intact once more. ‘It’s going to take more than your stupid upgrades to end me, bounty hunter! I was at the top of my production line. I was deemed a weapon of mass destruction by the Decepticon Conclave.’

Lockdown laughed as he charged her once again. ‘Then perhaps I should add some of your own repellents to my... collection.’

Ironhide drove a full circle around the tank-triple changer, drawing his fire before transforming and leaping into the air. He tackled Lockdown to the ground. Stomaching the bounty-hunter’s blades as they shredded across his chest. He barked at Blackarachnia: ‘Dammit, kid. I warned you this would happen! You can’t just rely on your ability to transform every fight!’

Blackarachnia let out a screech from her bestial maw. ‘And you can’t not be a total cog-head all the time. I don’t see you attempting to change!'

Lockdown shoved Ironhide aside before rolling back onto his feet. ‘Well, as much as I like a fair fight—.’ Ironhide punched the bounty-hunter across the face, knocking him back a few feet before grabbing his jaw and fixing it back into place. Anger seemed to enter his voice. ‘You know, those are some mighty fine cannons you got there.’

Said cannons began to glow as Ironhide cocked them. ‘Yup.’ Beams of light fired from their barrels and grazed Lockdown as he dodged. Blackarachnia attempted to tackle the bounty-hunter from the side, but was parried away. The two Autobots took turns striking the bounty-hunter only for their attacks to be reflected at full force.

Swindle batted his hand to the others. ‘You idiots! Don’t shoot with the cage still in the way! Those are valued goods!’

Wary of Swindle’s ground rules, the cone-heads broke off and held their fire. Lugnut, however, was keen on firing his entire payload. ‘OPTIMUS!’ The giant roared as missiles flared from his body. ‘I’ll rip you from the face of the galaxy—nay, the universe—NAY, the multi-verse for claiming the moniker of Megatron's end! Megatron has no end!’

The missiles landed upon the cage, sending it toppling onto its side and Jazz and Optimus scurrying to get back behind it. The material the cage was made from was powerful, but the bars melted in seconds. The growling from within had gone silent. All movement inside had come to a complete stop.

Swindle brought his hands to his head and screamed. ‘NO! Do you have any idea how much I was going get for that thing! That was a prized specimen!’

Ignoring the former Combaticon, Lugnut darted towards the cage, missile-cannisters refilling. ‘You cannot hide from Megatron's wraith, Prime! You tarnish his name and belittle his ability as he lays low! He has made no attempt to punish you for your lies! But you are not worthy of mercy! He has left it to me to end you for your crimes against us!’ Lugnut reached over the massive cage. ‘And nothing is going to stop me. By the pit, I dare you to offer anything that will stop me from killing you, right here and right now!’

A massive fist burst from the darkness of the cage and grabbed Lugnut by the wrist.

‘Me.’

The cage burst apart and a monstrous Cybertronian rose to Lugnut’s height. It's bright red visor burned with crimson light. In a swift movement, the Cybertronian ripped Lugnut’s massive claws from his body and roared.

‘GRIMLOCK!’

The giant punched Lugnut across the side of the face, knocking three of his five optics from his head before swinging another fist and grabbing the Decepticon by his jaw. In another swift movement Grimlock ripped Lugnut’s massive lantern-like chin from his head before repeatedly beating him across the skull with it.

Optimus and Jazz peered over the cage, their eyes wide. Optimus turned to Jazz and raised a shivering hand to his head. ‘It’s him. Oh my God, it’s him.’

Jazz placed a hand on his shoulder. ‘Relax, we don’t have to—,’

‘It’s him, Jazz, it’s Grimlock! If we don’t get out of here right the hell now, we’re all going to get killed by that lunatic.’

Lugnut fell to his knees, lifting his head weakly. ‘I’m sorr—,’

Grimlock proceeded to smash his fist against the Decepticon’s chest, sending him crumbling to his knees and then onto his back. The triple-changer drove towards Grimlock, firing a blast of flames from his tank-cannon. Grimlock guarded himself with his arm before falling to his knees. In seconds, Grimlock began to transform into an even larger form. He was a Dinobot. A Cybertronian subspecies born with a secondary form reminiscent of a metal-feathered lizard of varying appearances. Grimlock was of the "Thunderlizard" variety.

The triple changer changed back into their robot-mode and sighed. ‘It appears I have overestimated my opponent. Perhaps I should--' he blinked, and his face morphed momentarily. '—oh man up, Blitzwing, you can kick this guy’s a—!’

Grimlock whipped his tail, sending Blitzwing crashing into the nearest wall. Sniffing the air, the Dinobot turned his head to the Atrium’s exit and charged forward. Crashing through the glass dome and leaping off into the night.

Swindle sighed as he watched his prize escape. ‘Okay, that’s it.’ He stood onto his desk and shouted. ‘Everyone hold your fire! That means you too, Lockdown. Cut it out or I’ll cut your payment in half!'

Lockdown rolled onto his feet, all of his weaponry retreating back into his body. He raised his hands above his head. ‘Alright, funs over. You heard the mech. I have no intention of losing any more creds than I already have on full-stasis.'

Optimus shouted over the tossed cage. ‘Do as he says!’

Ironhide frowned over to him. ‘But Optimus—,’

‘That is an order!’

Ironhide lowered his guns and Blackarachnia quickly reverted into her robot-form, panting violently.

Swindle hopped over his desk, examining the damage. ‘Aw no, that dry-wall is going to cost—oh, and the chandelier…!’ he shook his head. ‘This is going to be a glitch to fix.’ He approached Optimus, who stood with his fists raised. Swindle merely offered his hand. Grinning wickedly. ‘Swindle, of Swindle enterprises. You’re Optimus Prime, I presume?’

Optimus merely flinched, and took his hand. ‘Er… yes, that would be correct.’

‘Word on the street says you're dead. No matter, I've seen people bounce back from gruesome-er deaths than decapitation. I apologize for the mess. We’ve had some… Dinobot trouble as of late. My business partner over there assumed you to be one of... how shall we say, their kind. Now, obviously, you're not, and we did technically shoot first… but I’d say not-fining you for the damages would be a suitable enough apology. Doesn’t explain why you were trespassing on my property, but hey, who would I be if I wasn't forgiving?’

‘Yeah…’ Optimus looked around at the surrounding battle-damage, then remembered what he was looking for and released Swindle’s hand. ‘Wait… you’re trafficking sparklings!’

Swindle raised his hands, a sour look spreading across his face. ‘No… No! Trafficking is a very… harmful word where I come from. Very, very ugly. What we do here is nothing of the sort.’

‘I saw younglings working a mine down there!’

‘Exercise! It’s all a part of our program! We raise sparklings, educate them, train them to excel in their inherent abilities, and then, when they’re ready, send them to new homes for them to fulfill their civic duty!’ He paused. ‘For a price.’

Ironhide advanced on the Combaticon only to be blocked by Thrust and Dirge. ‘You’re training weapons! You’re treating live Cybertronians as weapons to sell to—.’

‘To anyone buying. Yes, alright, you figured it out. It’s a modest business. One I… don’t exactly see a problem with. Our “weapons” as you call them are treated quite well. Some of our buyers might even say too well. Everyone gets a room to themselves. Everyone is given a sufficient amount of Energon. Everyone is given exercise. Everyone is happy. And for the love of Primus we don’t hurt them! In fact, we barely touch them. We’re not monsters here. I mean, sure we might be a little harsh in order to put some metal on them, but we don’t actively try to make them miserable! We ensure they grow up to be as fit and as healthy as possible. No one would buy them otherwise.’

‘And who, would you say, is "buying" them, exactly?’ Jazz asked, grimly.

‘Organics, mostly. Aliens who are sick of the Autobot-Decepticon war tearing apart the galaxy and need something to protect themselves with. Even just one body sold is enough to open races up to Cybertronian biology. To reverse-engineering. See, I like to think myself as a philanthropist—giving a little back to the galaxy your war has wronged.’

Optimus lowered his head, shaking it slowly. ‘This is illegal.’

Swindle grinned. ‘Well actually, it's not. The Galactic Council has agreed to my terms. They agreed that non-Cybertronian races should be armed. That they should be given the right to defend themselves against the Cybertronian menace.’

Jazz began to slouch. ‘You've gotta be kidding me.’

‘And because the Galactic Council agrees, so has the Vestial Imperium. This is a legal business, Optimus. And you are trespassing. Technically I could call the Imperium right now and have you all arrested. But like I said, I’m a charitable guy. And you never know when opportunity might strike. But now to the pressing question at hand’ His grin expanded. ‘You wanna deal?’

 

Well fuck.....this just got insane  

Grimlock is loose and that's a one mech army.....I wonder if he's smart or just stupid in this universe?

 

In Bumblebee’s opinion, recess was overrated. For at least one hour of every day, Swindle allowed the products to step outside and interact with one another in wide, stadium-sized compounds. Employees were required breaks every nine to ten hours, as decreed by the Vestial Imperium, and as such the same applied to the products themselves. Social skills were also a desired trait for some investors, and recess was a good opportunity for the products to interact. As Bumblebee didn’t care to interact with any of the others – save for his neighbor, Airazor – he took little pleasure in stepping outside. If anything it felt like his keepers were dangling freedom at the end of a stick and waving it mockingly in front of his face. Even with Airazor’s flight in mind, however, there was no escape. The compound was surrounded by a tall, indestructible gate and several auto-turrets swiveling slowly around its perimeter. The pair had once attempted to use the recess to escape, only to learn the hard way that getting shot by a fully-loaded turret really wasn’t worth the risk.

Bee sulked in a dark corner of the compound. It was kind of his thing. He was one of the cool ones. He shot an icy look through his face-mask to those passing by. They frowned at the smaller bot before continuing on their way.

Airazor transformed and landed next to him with a crash. Dust spraying in all directions from the pressure of her dying thrusters. Bumblebee recoiled; yelping in shock and surprise.

‘Airazor—! What did I tell you about falling out of the sky like that! My spark’s strong, but not that strong! Geez!’

She shrugged an apology and sat next to the much smaller robot. Silence. Airazor began to stare at him.

‘Stop it.’

‘Stop what?’

‘Stop looking at me with those sharp, judgmental eyes of yours. It feels all... icky. If you’re going to be passive aggressive with me then you can at least do it well! I’m not going to be friends with slackers, you know.’

Airazor squinted down at him, then stared forward.

Bumblebee suddenly threw his hands into the air. ‘OKAY! I get it! I messed up! I’m sorry! If it wasn’t for me and my glaring flaws, we would have escaped our awful, slavish, dystopian life-style! My bad, okay?! There, I said it!’ He sighed, dropping his hands into his lap. He went quiet. Muttering quietly to himself. ‘I really am sorry, though.’

‘I know.’

After a moment of silence, Airazor smacked Bumblebee across the head.

Bumblebee snarled, massaging the back of his head aggressively. ‘Oh come on! I said I was sorry! Now you’re just being abusive!’

Airazor shrugged. ‘It was just a love-tap…’ She went quiet. ‘…and the culmination of some pent-up frustration over being trapped here. It’s not like you felt anything with your mask on.’

‘I mean, you’re right, but still. Hitting people is rude.’

She stared at him. ‘Why do you still have your mask on, anyway?’

Bee expunged some steam. ‘Because I feel like it, maybe. Every consider that? Yeah, didn’t think so.’

She reached over and slowly began to force his mask off.

‘Hey—quit it!’

‘There.’

His mask shifted from his face to his helm, revealing the small bot’s younger, chubbier face beneath. He looked bashfully to the side, turning his head away from the tall flier. ‘I hate my face. It’s too... cute.’

‘Your personality makes up for it,’ Airazor assured.

‘Yeah, well… I wish that was some consolation.’

They sat in silence once more, wasting away the time until the recess was over.

‘Hey you!’, shouted a large dark robot, bounding over to the two. ‘You’re those jerks who keep screwing over the rest of us with your escape attempts!’

Bee raised his palms to the sky and shrugged. ‘Yeah, that’s pretty much us. Want an autograph?’

The small dark bot raised his fists and began balancing on his toes. ‘You’re in my spot!’

Bee squinted at him, ‘Seriously?’

‘You don’t believe me, do you?’ The dark bot puffed out his chest in declaration. ‘I was born in that spot! Formed my first layers of sento-metallico in that spot! Ate my first Energon cluster in that spot! That spot is my own! It’s the only place around here that grants me comfort!’

Bee folded his arms over his chest. ‘Yeah, well, is your name on it?’

The bot crinkled his nose. ‘No. Of course it isn’t. And neither is yours! You can’t just pull that kind of—,’

‘Wrong!’ Bee stood up, revealing his name scratched messily into the panel he had been sitting on.

The bot gaped in disbelief. ‘You—what?!’

Bumblebee placed his hands on his hips, smiling smugly at the dark robot. ‘That’s right. I sign my name wherever I sit. Therefore, it defaults to becoming MY spot! And that way jerks like you don’t get to have any say as to where I sit!’

The bot clenched his fists, his lip was quivering under clenched denta. ‘That… was my spot!’

Bee smirked, ‘Not anymore, glitch! This is officially a Bumblebee-friendly zone, so if you want to lay some kind of claim, then you better be ready to feel the st—,’

The bot let out a roar and charged Bumblebee, fists thrashing.

Before he could land a hit, Airazor’s thrusters rotated forward and sent a burst of energy into the bot’s chassis, sending them flying a few yards back and into the floor where they laid trembling in shock and confusion.

Quivering and cowering behind the larger flier, Bee quickly cleared his throat before adopting a more dignified stance. ‘I could’ve taken him.’

‘He was three times your size.’

‘I could’ve taken him.’

‘His fists were bigger than your head.’

‘I said I could’ve taken him!’

‘Okay.’

Airazor’s attention was soon drawn to the compound’s doors sliding open. Thrust soon made his presence known to the products with the clearing of his throat.

The cone-head shot Airazor a glance before making his announcement. ‘Everyone back to your quarters. We have a very special guest looking to buy one of you.’

Airazor grabbed her head, optics squeezing shut from a sudden rush of pain in her cerebral cortex.

Bee looked up at her worryingly. ‘Those headaches again?’

She nodded quickly. They occurred whenever her internal-radio was on the fritz.

-----

Thundercracker stood on the Nemesis’ podium. He was supposed to “address the troops,”; something he was never good at. It was almost shocking to him how bad he was at this. He was the right hand of Starscream for hundreds of years. He was a head lieutenant of the Aerospace Legion, and yet he had no leadership potential whatsoever. Like always, Thundercracker desperately wanted to be better than he was. What’s worse, Thundercracker’s chief advisors included Skywarp and Slipstream. He had very little help in excelling at his position of Aerospace Commander.

‘Alright everyone, listen up, because this is what’s going to happen.’ Thundercracker began, speaking into the mic. ‘We are about to approach our first planetoid. Organic, of course. It doesn’t seem to be under the protection of the Imperium, so we should be safe to do as we please. Now they have a Westphalian-ish system going on so they may or may not have single governing body. We’re going talk to them— see if they can help us in getting our guy. If not, we take matters into our own servos. Basically what we’re going to do is make planet-fall and lock down the planet’s emigration services. Then, we interrogate any officials dealing with extraterrestrial visitors about green, legless helicopters. Obviously we are going to find some resistance, so gear up, and prepare for the worst.’

Just as the legion of seekers prepared to leave, a voice called on from the crowd. ‘Hold on now, Thundercracker.’

It was Acid Storm. Thundercracker had dreaded the Rainmaker’s induction into the crew. He was too vocal, and as much as he hated his own lack of leadership, he also hated the way others criticized him about it as well.

Without permission, the rainmaker crawled onto the podium, halting the rest of the seekers in their tracks with a wave of his hand. ‘Now Thundercracker,’ he began ‘here I believed you to be the non-combative type.’

Thundercracker paused. ‘I suppose I’ve been accused of such long enough.’

‘I think we can all agree that we don’t want to make a… mess of things. Rather than go to war with the planet below, why do we not attempt peaceful negotiations?’

Thundercracker paused again. ‘Uh, actually that’s kind of what I was—,’

‘Of course what we really need to consider, is if they indeed choose to rebel, it is up to us to defend ourselves, much to our chagrin. But I digress, it is indeed the Decepticon way. If you would, Thundercracker, I would like to propose a plan of my own.’

It seemed harmless enough. ‘Alright, shoot.’

As he listened to Acid Storm’s plan, Thundercracker frowned. If he didn’t know better, Thundercracker would say Acid Storm’s plan sounded almost exactly like his own, if not with a few more complex synonyms, some flowery diction, and the momentary dramatic pause between praise for the Decepticon Empire. The others appeared to have been lapping it up.

‘Well?’ Acid Storm said, turning to the crowd. ‘Would that be suitable for the rest of you?’

The legions of seekers, perhaps only half listening, nodded in vague agreement.

Acid Storm smiled. ‘Excellent,’ he patted Thundercracker on the back before continuing onto the bridge’s control booth. He muttered to the Aerospace Commander, ‘Don’t be afraid to ask for help, Thundercracker. There’s no shame in what you are.’

But this only left Thundercracker feeling useless and upset. He was the one in charge here. He was the one above them all. And he was especially above a generic rainmaker like Acid Storm.

‘How’s it feel to get owned by a guy whose entire shtick is that he leaks slime?’

‘Shut up, Slipstream.’

She shrugged. ‘Like, okay, but I’m just saying—you’re really good at making yourself look inferior to the things around you.’ She began extending a digit towards random people and objects, counting them off. ‘That guy with only one wing—better than you. That data console—better than you. Even that lamp over there is probably more useful than you are.’

Thundercracker raised a palm to his forehead. ‘Then maybe that has to change…’

‘What. You mean you’re going to break the lamp?’ She shook her head. ‘Not cool, man. That lamp did nothing to you. It’s just trying to live it’s lamp-life.’

‘No! I—,’ he stormed off to the bridge’s exit. ‘I don’t know why I still bother talking to you.’

She blinked at the Aerospace commander and shrugged. ‘It’s obviously because you have mega-repressed feelings for me—despite me not being entirely there all the time.’ She stopped and blinked once more, realizing Thundercracker had already left the bridge. ‘Who am I talking to again?’

-----

Thrust gestured to the rows of glass rooms as he and Dirge led Optimus, Ironhide, Blackarachnia, and Jazz down the hall. Optimus had decided that if he could accomplish anything here, he could at least find the one calling for help. If he could save at least one person, it would be worth it. Each room looked even more like a cell than the last. There was a recharge slab and some electronics (which Thrust called “learning modules”). Though Optimus was forced to admit there was a suitable amount of space for the alt-modes, very few of them seemed unhappy. Not to say they were happy either. They simply… were. Most stood at attention. Others flexed their bodies and showed off their built-in weaponry with pride. There were a great many that reveled in being weapons to be sold for war. It made Optimus sick to his fuel-pump.

‘Holy slag, Optimus,’ Blackarachnia observed, ‘these cells are nicer than my bedroom.’

‘Your room is a cell,’ Ironhide reminded her. ‘There’s not a lot to compare.’

‘Um, these aren’t cells, period,’ Thrust gruffed. ‘Our products are raised with all the required necessities.’

Jazz raised a digit to the cone-head. ‘You do hear yourself, right? Calling 'em products... You can’t tell me you don’t get how messed up that sounds.’

‘What else should I call it? That’s what they are, aren’t they? Products. Right Dirge?’

The quieter of the two nodded slowly. ‘Right.’

‘Right.’

Ironhide clenched a fist. ‘I know what I’d call it…’

Jazz placed a hand on Ironhide’s shoulder. ‘Don’t, Ironhide.’

‘I ought to blow this whole place to cinders, Jazz. Spare everyone the indignity.’

‘I know. You’re right to be angry. I’m angry too. But we both know that aint gonna solve a thing. Just keep it on the down low for now until we figure something out.’

Ironhide let out a compliant grunt.

‘Why are they all locked in?’ Optimus asked, massaging his head wearily.

Thrust grimaced. ‘Well, we didn’t always lock them in. Not until one of our more… unruly products tried to escape.’

‘They were just misguided,’ Dirge muttered. ‘They don’t realize death is something to be feared, not challenged.’

‘Sounds like they don’t want to be here,’ Blackarachnia muttered as she observed the cells’ occupants.

‘Did you ever want to be in school?’ Thrust asked. ‘No? Exactly. Same difference. Speaking of, we should be approaching the cell of those same misbehaved students now.’

Suddenly, Optimus fell to his knees. Pain searing through his skull. Ironhide grabbed him by the shoulders and hoisted him up.

‘Again?’

Optimus nodded. ‘It’s fine, it’s just…’

A light yelp came from a nearby room, and Thrust raced over to see what was the matter. ‘Oh, B-34. Another head-spasm, eh? I thought we cured that.’

‘B-thirty—,’ Optimus walked slowly towards the room. His head pounding as he got closer. ‘You’re the one…’

He placed his hands on the glass separating himself from the purple and red flier kneeling in the room. ‘You’re the one calling for help…’

Blackarachnia raised a claw to the flier. ‘Oh, so she’s…?’

Optimus nodded slowly.

Airazor watched Optimus carefully.

‘Hands off the glass, freak!’ Bumblebee called from a neighboring cell. ‘You couldn’t afford her.’

Optimus turned to Thrust. ‘How much does she cost?’

‘About a star-system’s worth,’ the cone-head said bluntly.

‘What did you say?!’ Ironhide gasped. ‘We don’t have those kinds of credits! Nobody does! Just what the hell do you think you are trying to pull—?!’

Thrust shrugged. ‘Well, no. No individual can. You see, not just anyone can come in here and make a purchase on their own. We have world government’s signing up to get in on this action. And ol’ B-34 here happens to be one of our most popular bids.’ He smirked. ‘Do you really think a couple of supposed-to-be-dead Autobots can compete with galactic conquistadors and sentient space-giants?’ He clicked his tongue. ‘Yeah, didn’t think so.’

Prime’s hand slipped from the glass. He bowed his head.

‘Orders, chief?’ Jazz asked, quietly.

He inhaled deeply. ‘We head back to the Ark.’ As he locked eyes with Airazor, he squinted. ‘Can she hear me?’

‘Yeah,’ Thrust said. ‘Why?’

Optimus rested a hand on the glass. ‘Quit calling for help. You don’t need to do that anymore, it---,’ pain surged through his helm once again. ‘It’s pointless to do so now. Just… turn off your radio. Never turn it on again. Stop calling for help. Just… stop.’

With that, the pain began to fade, and Optimus gestured to the others to leave.

‘Thanks for the hospitality, fellas. And the tour,’ Jazz said as he passed by Thrust and Dirge.

‘Don’t be nice to them, smiles!’ Blackarachnia snapped. 'What is wrong with you?'

Jazz raised his palms, ‘Sorry. 'Was just being polite. No need to blow a gasket, BA.’

As they left, and the cone-heads returned to their regular scheduled duties, Bumblebee spoke.

‘Is everything alright?’

Airazor shook her head.

‘What? Was it something that big red guy said? Forget about him.’

‘No it’s—I mean, yes. It is. I just…’ she shook her head once more. ‘I never knew this is what being told it was hopeless would feel like.’

 

....gotta love Optimus

Wait....what happened to Grimlock?!

 

Thundercracker frowned over Roadgrabber’s reports. The Aerospace Commander’s office was cramped. Barely any larger than that of his previous offices in his previous lines of work. He was still trying to figure out how Starscream hadn’t complained to him about it. The reports were the same. He respected the organics of Vegallion III. But Thundercracker knew they had nothing on the Decepticons. They were, when you came down to it, militarily superior in every sense. It should only have been a matter of hours before they had what they wanted. Acid Storm’s speeches of diplomacy had taken hold of the rest of the Seekers. He wanted to solve the situation through words alone, and had still been attempting to negotiate with the planet’s inhabitants.

That wasn’t how the Decepticons typically worked. Thundercracker hated using force to solve his problems. Truly he did. But this was not going to solve a thing. They needed to take action. The organics were beneath them. A simple showing of their firepower would be enough to convince them of that. He didn’t mean to kill anyone, of course. He didn’t intend to kill anyone ever again. But he needed to find Obsidian. They had, after all, unfinished business.

He closed his data-pad and stared at his empty desk. He wasn’t in a good mood. That was normal, but lately he had been in a worse mood than ever before. He had a comfortable position as Aerospace Commander. He had a legion of troops to command. He even had Skywarp back. But it was nothing he had actually wanted. Not truly.

He rose to his feet. Normally when he was feeling down he would turn to Skywarp for comfort. He was his friend of decades. He was the one who could help. He was always there for him.

Wasn’t he?

Thundercracker made his way to the main bridge. He looked around. The bridge was populated with several faceless Seekers. None of them meant a thing to Thundercracker. There was only a few—maybe only one, that really mattered anymore.

‘You,’ he snapped to the nearest seeker.

They flinched, turned around and rose to their feet. They saluted obediently. ‘Nacelle reporting, Aerospace Commander Thundercracker.’

He was never going to get used to that. ‘Where is Slipstream?’

He blinked. ‘Er… excellent question, sir. I think I last saw her talking to Skywarp on the bridge. He should know where she is.’

Thundercracker nodded. ‘Thank you, Nacelle. Now back to work.’

He proceeded out of the bridge and into the main corridor. Skywarp’s room was only a door away from his own. He remembered when they used to share hab-suites, but considering their new-found promotions, that was no longer necessary. He wasn’t sure he missed it. As he approached the room, he heard the sound of metal clanging against metal. He recognized it well.

Thundercracker burst into a sprint, slamming open the door with his shoulder and skidding to a halt into the room.

Skywarp drop-kicked Slipstream’s head, sending sparks and saliva streaming through the air as she fell back. Her face a cold mask.

The purple seeker ripped her off the ground and delivered an uppercut to her chin, sending a few teeth dashing from her skull. She fell onto her back, arms and legs splayed out as if about to form some kind of demented snow-angel.

Skywarp wiped some liquid from his knuckles and turned to Thundercracker, beaming. ‘Sup TC. The runt thought she could act tough. Hah! Called me names and everything.’ He kicked the prone seeker in the gut before sniggering again. ‘What she didn’t know is that nobody messes with Thundercracker and Skywarp, am I right, or am I right?’

Thundercracker approached the seeker, teeth clenched.

‘Hey man, what’s with the loo—‘

Thundercracker cracked his fist across Skywarp’s face, sending the seeker barreling backwards and stumbling over his own legs. He grabbed the wall for support and maintained his balance before he could fall. He blinked in Thundercracker’s direction, then squinted.

‘Are you… are you really Thundercracker?’

‘YES!’ he shouted. ‘YES! I am Aerospace Commander Thundercracker! And I order you to tell me what the HELL you were thinking!’

Skywarp shrugged. ‘I was just having some fun. Remember fun? We used to do this sort of slag to the cone-heads all the time. I mean, you always stood there and watched, but you never, you know, complained about it.’ He frowned. ‘You’ve changed, Thundercracker.’

‘You’re right,’ he clenched his fists as he approached the seeker. ‘For the better.’

Skywarp puffed his chest, air venting from his nasal cavity. ‘So this is it, eh? This is where it finally happens?’

‘How what happens?’

‘To be honest, Thunders, I’ve been hoping I’d someday get to wreck that spotless steel face of yours.’ He shoved Thundercracker by the shoulders. ‘Come on then. Hit me again. Hit me again, and see what happens.’ He shoved him again.

But Thundercracker only stared at the purple seeker. ‘I’m not going to fight you.’

Skywarp scoffed. ‘Right. Because of the whole pacifism thing. You know, Thundercracker? It gets old. All of it.’ He shook his head at the thought. ‘Acting you’re above everyone else? Pretending like you’re some kind of special snowflake just because you detest killing? Pretending to be “conflicted” and “morally complicated”—we’ve all seen it done before. It’s doesn’t make you any more interesting or any more special than the rest of us.’ He lost his grin. ‘None of us were born sadists, Thundercracker. We just learned to do our jobs without complaint. Sometimes having fun with it makes it easier. Sometimes losing the emotional attachment to the problem makes things better for everyone. But because you never learned to let go you think you’ve somehow excelled beyond the rest of us.’ He pressed the tip of his index finger hard into Thundercracker’s chest.’ The real pile of slag around here isn’t me, or Acid Storm, or even Starscream. It’s you, Thunders. It’s always been you!’

Thundercracker just stared. ‘For the record, Skywarp. I’m not going to fight you—not because I’m a pacifist—but because the next time someone caves your skull in…’ he took a step forward until his nose was inches from Skywarp’s, ‘nobody is going to be there to bring you back.’

The two stared at each other for what felt like minutes. Until—

VOMP.

Skywarp was gone in a flash of purple energy.

Thundercracker moved over to Slipstream. Staring down at her as she grinned back up at him.

‘Heyhey! Check out the white-knight! Saving the day for the attractive young beauty.’

‘Slipstream, half of your face is missing, and you haven’t bathed since we met. You are quite possibly the ugliest thing on this ship.’

She pouted. ‘I like to think inner beauty is what really matters.’

Thundercracker thought about this for a moment. ‘I think you would find better luck advertising your looks, in that case.’

‘Wow. Wow. Wow. You insulting me this time? You know I can dish it out, but can never take the heat.’ Thundercracker offered his hand, and Slipstream pulled herself up with it. She sighed. ‘If I was allowed guns you’d have been shot by now.’

‘There is a reason you aren’t allowed guns,’ Thundercracker reminded her. ‘You almost killed me that one time when Obsidian and I—,’ he paused.

Slipstream stared down at their hands. ‘You’re still holding my hand.’ She quickly released his grip. ‘Aww, man. This is super awkward, but I totally don’t reciprocate your feelings. Sorry bud. Feelings or no, I can’t go out with someone who sucks eggs. It just wouldn’t work out.’

Thundercracker waved an angry servo. ‘No. Idiot. I just remembered something important. Something stupid.’ He turned to the door and began to make his way back into the hallway. ‘Remember when Obsidian was trying to kill me and then you showed up with a gun, and the two of us kind of just forgot about it because you were probably going to hurt somebody if we didn’t do something about it?’

‘Dude, I don’t even remember my own name half the time.’

‘Oh forget it. Just follow me.’

-----

Optimus, Ironhide, Blackarachnia, and Jazz drove down the thin steel road leading to Lockdown’s ship. There was silence. For a time.

‘Okay, look.’ Blackarachnia leaned over Ironhide’s vehicle mode to Optimus. ‘I know what you’re thinking. If you’re not thinking it, good. Great, even. But I know you, Optimus. And I know you’re going to want to save those kids back there.’

‘We have to, Blackarachnia.’

‘Actually, no. We don’t.’ She sighed as she leaned back against Ironhide’s cannon. ‘Look, the last time we were in a mess as big as this we had no means of escape. Right now—this moment we have right here—we actually can escape. We fixed your head problem—now we only need to hop back on the Ark and ship Flipsides back to Chromia. Boom, happy endings for everyone.’

‘Except for the hundred or so sparklings we’re abandoning to their fates.’

Blackarachnia shrugged. ‘What does any of it mean to us? It’s not our business, is it?’

‘If we don’t do something, no one will.’ Ironhide grunted. ‘We’re going to save them all. It’s the Autobot way.’

Blackarachnia frowned. ‘Right. Because we’re Autobots… every last one of us.’

Optimus sighed. ‘Blackarachnia, listen—,’

‘No, you listen!’ she jabbed her claw at the truck. ‘Do you know how close we were to losing you last time? You almost died—you did die! And before that we were lucky to get out of the Crystal City at all! You’ve seen Lockdown. You know we can’t counter that.’ She flung her claws into the air. ‘For once we don’t have a massive bounty on our heads. For once we don’t have to fear death every second of the day. We do this we could have the entire Imperium after us. I’m not ready to seek out death just yet, Optimus. I don’t know about you, but I’m not ready for the Spacefarers to lose another member so soon.’

Optimus was quiet. ‘You know I’d only put my life on the line if it was for something great, Blackarachnia.’ He paused again. ‘There are hundreds of lives at stake here. I think if any life is worth living, spending it protecting that many people would be pretty alright by me.’

Blackarachnia sighed. ‘You say that without considering how the rest of us might feel.’

The Ark was now visible in the distance. Tucked away discreetly beneath Lockdown’s ship.

She peered down at the black and red heavy-rig. 'I know you understand, Ironhide. You're all about protecting the boss-bot.'

‘We’ve risked our lives before,’ Ironhide told her. ‘We’ll do it again. Optimus knows what he's doing. I have no objections in doing the right thing, and neither should you.’

‘I appreciate your concern, Blackarachnia,’ Optimus said. ‘But this is more important than any of us. Tell her, Jazz.’

‘Actually…’ Jazz stopped and transformed. ‘I think you guys should hear her out.’

Optimus and Ironhide transformed and stared back at the Lieutenant. ‘What?’

‘I think she’s right. I aint any happier about what’s going on ‘round here than the two of you, but we really shouldn’t be sticking our noses where they don't belong.’

Blackarachnia splayed a claw to the lieutenant. ‘Exactly! Thank you! See? Even Smiles gets it!’

Ironhide approached the spec-ops agent, steam exerting from his maw. ‘You would leave these young-bots to die?’ He spat at the ground by Jazz’s feet. ‘And you call yourself an Autobot.’

Jazz’s visor flared. He pressed a finger against Ironhide’s chest. ‘You know that I’ve done more for the Autobot cause than anything you or Prime have ever accomplished in your—,’ his arm dropped to his side, ‘oh forget it!’ He massaged his forehead. ‘Look. This aint our business no more, it’s the Imperium’s business. If we destroy one of their institutions—if a Prime is responsible for the destruction of one of their institutions—then they are gonna turn to Autobot High Command for answers.’

Blackarachnia folded her arms. ‘Oh, so this isn’t about our safety. This is about the sanctity of your precious higher ups.’

Jazz turned to her. ‘Actually, BA, it is. The Imperium could see this as an act of war. If they set out against the Hub, then that’s it. The Autobots are done. We can’t handle having two armies against us, Chief. And as much as we like to jive outside of Magnus’s jurisdiction, we aren’t exactly on good terms with anybody else. Doing this could actually cause the Autobots to lose the war. That’s all I’m going to say.’

Optimus stared at him. ‘You know I appreciate your input, Jazz.’

‘I’m your chief advisor, Chief. You know I would only suggest—,’

‘But we’re saving the orphans.’ Prime brought a hand to his helm. ‘I’m sorry, but that’s what we’re doing. If you don’t want to help us save the orphans from being turned into weapons of war, then you and Blackarachnia can stay on the ship.’ He looked over and stared at the Ark in question.

Jazz sighed. ‘When you word it like that, chief? You know I’m going to have to give you a hand with this.’

Blackarachnia nodded. ‘Yeah. Alright. Same. It’s not like we really have a choice, but still. If we’re doing this, we--.’

Prime raised a hand. ‘Shh.’

Blackarachnia jerked back. ‘Wow, rude. Even after I agreed to—,’

‘No. Just—wait. Blackarachnia, did you leave the Ark’s ramp open?’

‘What? No. Probably. Wait, why are you asking me?’ She gazed at the Ark to find its main ramp wide open, exposing its inner workings. Blackarachnia groaned. ‘Is it because I forgot to turn off the lights that one time? Because I thought we were over that.’

Optimus merely sighed and transformed back into his vehicle mode. ‘Come on, quickly. Something might have… happened.’

Jazz and Ironhide followed suite. The former asked, ‘Something? Something like what?’

As they entered the ramp, it soon became evident that they were not the only ones aboard the Ark. Claw marks patterned the walls. Every door they passed had been ripped open if not completely detached from the walls. Grime coated the flooring panels and splashed onto Prime’s wheels as he crossed over it. ‘Whoever did this to my ship is going to pay,’ Optimus muttered.

‘Keep cool, Chief,’ Jazz whispered as they approached the bridge. ‘Whoever’s responsible for this could be nearby.’

As they entered the bridge, Prime’s fears had become a reality.

About a dozen of large Cybertronians of varying shaped stood around the bridge’s perimeter. The red and blue robots that had held them at gun-point earlier were among them.

Sitting in the captain’s chair was the largest of the group. The chair rotated, revealing the robot in question.

‘Grimlock…’ Optimus muttered.

‘That’s my name.’ The ghost of a smile seemed to part on the goliath’s faceplate as he rose to his feet. After a moment of silence, Grimlock spread his arms wide. His voice was low, gravelly, and peppered with snorts and growls. ‘Welcome to my new base of operations, Optimus.’

 

Oh there he is....shit is about to go down  

 

Optimus, while greatly upset by the conquering of his ship, was pleasantly surprised to find he had not been decapitated, bisected, or even torn limb from limb upon attempting to negotiate with the Dinobot commander. It was soon clear there was no room to negotiate. The Ark was the Dinobots’ now. He only had to deal with it. For however long that took. He sat alone in his quarters now, while Jazz took over negotiations. He needed to be alone. Even if that wasn’t necessarily the case.

Megatron laughed, ‘So this is how the great Optimus Prime copes with defeat? He gets shown up by one Dinobot and his primary course of action is to sulk in his quarters alone?’ He splayed his arms wide. ‘Man up, Prime! You killed me—you could probably do the same to Grimlock. Primus knows he deserves it. Primus knows he’s killed nearly as many as I have.’

‘No. No. Shut up.’ Prime waved a hand through the hallucination. ‘Killing you was a mistake. I’m not doing it again. I promised myself that.’

Megatron’s grin quickly vanished. He raised his upper lip in what seemed to be disgust. ‘Spoilsport.’ He paced left and right in front of the Prime as he sat up from his berth. ‘You should still probably do something about it. I mean look at him… he’s made a complete fool out of you. Optimus Prime? More like Optimus Grime. Because that’s what he’s made you. Grime.’

‘You know; I would think that one of my own hallucinations would be better at insulting me. Considering the whole self-loathing thing I’ve got going on and all.’

‘That would imply I hate you.’

‘Don’t you?’

‘Well, yes. With a passion. But that still doesn’t mean I can’t steer you in the right direction. You and I are permanently connected, remember?’

‘Yeah, yeah… balancing point. Whatever.’ He stood up. ‘Then what would you suggest I do—Lord Megatron?’

Megatron smirked. ‘You are the Lord of the Decepticons now, remember? But either way, if killing is out of the question then I can’t say I have much left to offer.’

‘Come on.’

Megatron batted his palms. ‘Okay, okay. Patience. How about this. You go see what the Dinobots want, and I will try to think of a solution that doesn’t involve violence, or negotiation. But, spoiler alert, it doesn’t exist.’

Optimus sighed and turned to the door to his quarters. Megatron had disappeared. Which should have been a good thing, but in truth it only made Optimus feel more alone.

-----

‘Okay,’ Jazz said, standing at the foot of the war-table with Grimlock and the other head-Dinobots. The spec-ops agent was the shortest of the bunch. Jazz recognized the two positioned next to him as Swoop and Sludge. ‘So the prison ward is yours to keep. That’s fair. I can dig it. It just means Blackarachnia will have to bunk with one of us. So what about our hab-suites? Can we at least still keep those, or--?’

‘Nnnnope,’ said Swoop. ‘I’m afraid we’re going to need those as well. Sorry pal. That’s just how it’s gonna be.’

Jazz winced. ‘Aw what? Who’s gonna need those?’

‘Me,’ said the Dinobot Leader. ‘Grimlock.’

‘Oookay. But then who’s using the spare rooms that are leftover?’

‘Me,’ said Grimlock. ‘Grimlock.’

‘Ah.’ Jazz nodded, then leaned over to the tallest of the Dinobots: Sludge and whispered. ‘He’s really got a thing for saying his own name, doesn’t he?’

The Dinobot only shrugged.

-----

Ironhide stood leaning against the door to the war room with his arms folded. He snorted as a group of mechanical raptors sprinted by. ‘Back in my day, the Dinobots were only five guys. No more. No less.’

Strafe, Blackarachnia, and Scorn stood with him. Watching the raptors as they disappeared around a corner. Strafe bounced on her heels. She was the same blue Dinobot that had held them at gunpoint earlier in the day, just as Scorn was the red one. ‘Yeah, the Dinobots have kind of… broadened their horizons since the Surge.’ She scratched the back of her head in thought. ‘I mean, I’m pretty new, so I don’t know all the details, but Grimlock’s kind of trying to rebuild the Dinobot empire since it went virtually extinct all those decades ago. Believe it or not we Dinobots have kind of been treated poorly, and—,’

‘Strafe!’ Scorn boomed.

She blinked at him. ‘What? Oh. Right. I forgot we weren’t supposed to mention the boss’s plans.’ She turned back to Ironhide and Blackarachnia. ‘So yeah, whoops. Grimlock wants to rebuild Dinobot society and maybe take over the galaxy with it. That’s us. That’s what we’re doing.’

Blackarachnia shrugged. ‘I really couldn’t care less. Seriously, at this point all I really care about is whether I’m losing my home or not.’

Strafe shrugged back. ‘Yeah, again, I’m kind of new so I don’t really know how these guys operate.’

Ironhide grunted. ‘Which brings me to question: I understand that with the absence of Slug and Snarl, Grimlock needed to rebuild his numbers somehow—but your tribe faced near-extinction during the Dinobot Holocaust back on Cybertron. Grimlock is one of the few of his kind still alive—in fact, it was thought that the original five members were all that was left. So how is it that he was able to uncover so many of you?’

Strafe shrugged once more. ‘He just… found us. We’ve been around. Believe it or not. Grimlock’s good at attaining followers. There’s a reason we call him King Grimlock, after all.’

As if on cue, the doors to the war room parted, and Grimlock, followed by Swoop, Sludge and Jazz, stepped out.

Jazz waved at the others, massaging his arm in defeat. ‘So basically we’re allowed to stay, but—,’

‘But you guys are gonna have to help us with what we’ve got planned,’ Swoop finished, then turned to Strafe, grinned, and noogied her on the head. ‘Heya sport, keeping the Autobots busy are ya?’

Strafe chuckled as she shrugged off Swoop’s noogy. ‘Yeah, yeah.’

Ironhide and Blackarachnia looked up at Grimlock. The giant stood there, silently. Then, slowly, he turned his head to them. A sudden flash in his visor, and Grimlock quickly thrust his arm at Ironhide.

And grabbed him by the shoulder.

‘Ironhide!’ Grimlock exclaimed. ‘It’s good to see you again!’

Ironhide merely blinked in shock.

‘It’s been too long since we last kicked ass together. Remember Diatrine? I remember Diatrine. Hell, I still remember when you blew apart that Decepticon war-turret with a single shot! There’s still shrapnel lodged in my tail from the impact!’ He let out a bellowing laugh as he patted the weapons-specialist on the back. ‘We should catch up. I always did think you had more Dinobot blood in you than Autobot. In fact, I can introduce you to this process that—’ he cut himself short as he peered over Ironhide’s shoulder. ‘Who’s this?’

Ironhide turned from Blackarachnia to Grimlock. ‘Oh, this is… Blackarachnia. She’s kind of our prisoner?’

‘Prisoner?’

‘Well, not really. Not anymore. She’s an ex-Decepticon that kind of ended up working for us.’

‘Ex-Decepticon?’

‘Er… yeah.’

‘Is that so…?’ Grimlock’s visor appeared to narrow as he approached her.

Ironhide quickly stuck a hand in Grimlock’s direction. ‘Grimlock—listen to me. I know how this might look, but Blackarachnia’s one of us. She is as much a member of our team as Jazz or I-- or even Optimus. She’s not a threat. She’s good… she’s good.’

Grimlock shoved Ironhide out of the way and grabbed Blackarachnia by the shoulders.

Blackarachnia braced for whatever was about to happen.

‘Ex-Decepticon?!’ Suddenly, he laughed. ‘Then that makes two of us!’

Blackarachnia’s four optics blinked in unison. ‘You? You used to be a Decepticon?’

‘Back when I was weak, stupid, and greatly misinformed about the world, yes. Welcome to the winning team! It’s good to meet someone else who has seen the light! Just try to keep up with the rest of us, yeah?’

Blackarachnia blinked once more. ‘Uh… cool.’

Grimlock turned to the others. ‘This is good. This is really good. I love it when old friends come to visit. Swindle really doesn't know what's coming for him now.’

Blackarachnia leaned over to Ironhide and whispered. ‘Okay, so is it just me, or is Grimlock actually really cool?’

‘Yeah… he’s not usually this chipper. I reckon he must be confident in what he’s got planned.’

Jazz raised his hand. ‘Yeahhh, so would it be cool if I asked a question? Yeah? Yes? Cool. So what’s the scoop on this whole “plan” you guys’ve been cooking up? What are you actually planning to do?’

‘We’re gonna steal Swindle’s riches,’ Swoop said, proudly. ‘See, normally we don’t negotiate with Decepticons…’

‘We don’t,’ Grimlock growled. ‘We should never have spoken to him in the first place.’

Swoop nodded at his leader. ‘Exactly. But we did, and we got ripped off. So, we demanded a refund, as one does, only he decided he felt “threatened”, and hired a bounty hunter to take us in and dismantle our ship.’

Strafe stepped forward. ‘He was planning on selling Grimlock to the highest bidder. Apparently he couldn’t just kill us. He needed to humiliate us, too. Starting with Grimlock. Well, starting with our ship in order to strand us here, but then starting with Grimlock.’

The Dinobot in question clenched his fist and growled. ‘That bounty hunter got lucky. Next time will be different. Next time there will be nothing left of him.’

Their gazes turned collectively to the opposite end of the corridor as Optimus advanced towards them. Before anyone could greet him, Grimlock did it for them. He crossed his arms as Optimus drew near. ‘Optimus Prime…’ he muttered. ‘Done hiding? Done fearing from the reality of the situation?’

Optimus stared up at the giant. ‘I’m not afraid of you.’

‘Funny. It seemed like it.’ Grimlock looked to the side. ‘I was just explaining to my new soldiers what we are planning on doing here. We’re going to destroy Swindle’s security measures and steal whatever we can from under his nose. You will be helping us, of course.’ He dipped his head closer to the Prime. ‘Unless you have anything to say about it.’

Prime’s eyes narrowed. ‘No. I don’t.’

Grimlock reared his head back and snorted. ‘Really? That’s it? Just like that you’re surrendering to me? You’re weak.’ He shook his head. ‘I expected something else from you, Optimus. You killing Megatron the way you did… I didn’t think you had it in you.’ He turned back to him. ‘Let’s see if you can keep up that sort of mentality when the action starts.’ He proceeded to turn his back to Optimus and make his way down to the opposite end of the corridor. ‘Oh, and one last thing,’ he said, briefly looking back. ‘You are afraid of me. At least you should be. And if you’re not, then you’re the dumbest idiot out of anyone here. And, laughably, Dinobots aren’t typically known for their intellect.’ In seconds, Grimlock made his way down the passage and around a corner; out of sight.

Optimus, in turn, went the opposite direction, disappearing into the distance.

Blackarachnia turned to the others. ‘So, uh, what’s the history between those two?’

‘They were gladiators,’ Jazz said. ‘Both of them. Before Optimus was stationed on Earth, he participated in gladiatorial sport with a bunch’ve other sympathizers of the Decepticon cause. He and Grimlock had some… conflicting ideas as to whether death should have been considered a suitable punishment towards the losers or not.’

‘I can… kind of see how that worked itself out.’

‘So to settle it, they entered the ring themselves.’

‘And Optimus got his arse kicked?’ Blackarachnia asked.

‘On the contrary,’ Jazz said. ‘surprisingly, the chief won. He humiliated Grimlock in front of everyone. He managed to beat him at his own game, and ol’ Grim never lived it down.’

-----

‘Aw dude, don’t take me to your creepy, weird spark-bonding dungeon. Nobody wants to see that.’

‘Shut up. I told you that’s not where we’re going. Literally how haven’t you realized where we’re headed by now?’

Thundercracker and Slipstream rounded a corner and headed towards a small room which, by all appearances, did not seem at all unique to the thousands of other rooms the Nemesis had to offer.

‘Here it is,’ Thundercracker said, ‘back when you nearly shot me, Obsidian was actually trying to, um, shoot me.’ The doors automatically parted as he entered the room and felt the wall for a light. ‘Which in hindsight means you technically saved my life, but let’s not get into that right now. Right now we need to search the area for clues as to where Obsidian might be headed.’ The room was illuminated by an overhead lamp. The room was actually fairly standard, with a desk, a chair, and a recharge slab. On the desk appeared to be some kind of equipment. Thundercracker continued, ‘I walked in on Obsidian contacting somebody—probably Charger—about something. Probably their plans to make Optimus Decepticon Leader.’

Slipstream paused. ‘Wait, what?’

Thundercracker had begun examining the equipment as he craned his head back to her. ‘Oh right, I forgot I never told you about that. I actually haven’t told anyone for that matter.’ He looked back at the equipment. ‘Obsidian’s plan was to make Optimus leader of the Decepticons. It’s apparently his right, or something. I don’t think that makes it okay, but…’ he thought for a moment. ‘I don’t know. I don’t know why I didn’t tell Starscream about it. I guess it’s because I knew it would mean killing Obsidian, and as much as I hate the guy, he’s still… I don’t know.’ He almost smirked. He was really close to saying family. ‘Part of me feels like he doesn’t deserve it. He wasn’t really nefarious. Not really. He just wanted the best for the Decepticons. As backward as his logic may have seemed at the time.’ He looked away from the equipment once more. ‘It’s all defunct comms equipment here. What are you looking at?’

Slipstream had her head buried in a storage container—built into the side of the wall like a walk-in closet. She was mumbling something as Thundercracker spoke to her. ‘I dunno. What’s a suicide note look like?’

Thundercracker paused. ‘Usually a slab of metal with some letters carved into it, I would think.’

‘Oh,’ Slipstream tugged at something inside the storage unit and pulled out what at first glance appeared to be a slab of oddly-shaped scrap. ‘Then this is definitely a bisected corpse.’

Thundercracker’s optics widened as he jogged over to the seeker. ‘What?!’ It was indeed the remains of a body. Whoever they were, they had been bisected horizontally, not vertically, as only the legs and crotch of the body were present. ‘What did—who did—did Obsidian do this?!’

Slipstream shrugged. ‘I ‘unno.’

Thundercracker gazed into the storage unit. It was modeled with a number of shelves, each weighing medals, trophies, and other awards attributed to Obsidian. On one shelf was a picture, framed with a number of Decepticons Thundercracker vaguely recognized. Obsidian was not present in the frame, which brought Thundercracker to question why he was in possession of such an object in the first place. The storage unit did not appear to have the remaining half of the corpse either, which made him frown. ‘It makes you wonder…’ he looked down at the pair of legs, his frown deepening. ‘Where the rest of this guy is now…’

Slipstream shrugged again. ‘I dunno. I guess Obsidian had a use for him or something. Probably for dirty-stuff. Yeah, that sounds like him.’

That just made Thundercracker’s fuel-tank gurgle. ‘That’s it. I take it back. I take back everything good I ever said about him. Harboring corpses is inexcusable.’ He brought a hand in his chin, barely containing his rage. ‘But what does this tell us? What can we infer from this about Obsidian’s location?’

‘Nothing, I think.’ Slipstream said.

‘I… hate that you’re right. If anything this just makes him even less predictable.’ He turned to exit the room. ‘Come on, there’s a few things I need to take care of at the command-deck. I’ll get someone to retrieve and examine the body while we’re there. See who it might be—,’

‘I don’t think it’s worth hating him.’

Thundercracker raised a brow as they exited into the corridor. ‘What?’

‘Things were better with him around. Strika too. Everyone around here is just so… boring.’

Thundercracker stared at her for a moment, then looked forward. ‘You mean you miss them.’

‘Yeah, but my aims getting better.’

‘Funny. I miss them too, though. It was better when it was the five of us.’ He paused. ‘It was better without Skywarp, too.’

‘Things were always better at some point in the past. New friends will always be a blessing, but old friends bring you back to a time. And you cannot contest that, especially when you were happier in the time before than in the present time.' She tilted her head slightly. 'But sometimes you cannot return to such things, and though it may make them even more desirable, you need to learn to let go of that. To experience new things, while remembering the old. To face the unknown with the knowledge you have gained from your past mistakes and failings. Because without those mistakes, you can’t learn from them and improve yourself as a person.’

Thundercracker stopped walking. ‘Slipstream.’

She stopped moving as well. ‘Yo.’

Neither looked at each other. They stood side-by-side, staring into the distance.

‘That was really sane of you.’

She smirked, ‘Yeah, well, that’s just how good I am. I’m the smartest person here, y’know. Being around you blokes just hurts my brain’s ability to—,’

‘No, I mean that was really sane of you. Smart even. Really smart.’ He looked at her and gawked. ‘Slipstream, are you sane again? Are you healed?’

She stared, blinking every few seconds. ‘Hey… don’t tell me to heel. I aint no dog. Why don’t you go fetch! Fetch yourself some common sense and… and self-respect!’

Thundercracker narrowed his eyes at her and continued walking. ‘Maybe not yet. But you are getting better.’ He considered this as Slipstream hobbled alongside him. ‘Slowly.’

-----

Airazor was silent in the claustrophobia inducing tightness of her cell. It was worse for her than the others since she could actually fly. Regardless she never complained about it. She was, for the most part, silent. Bee was used to it, really. Airazor only ever spoke to him, and when she did speak to him it was always short and to the point. She always appeared impersonal to the untrained eye, but Bee could always tell the difference between when she was really being impersonal, and when she was just being herself.

‘You ever going to speak to me again? Or is this you adding a whole ‘nother layer of the silent treatment to our friendship. Because honestly, I didn’t expect you to get much quieter than you already were.’

Airazor didn’t answer.

‘You shouldn’t listen to that guy, you know. There’s always hope. Hope exists.’

She remained silent.

Bumblebee sighed as he scratched the back of his head. ‘Ah geez, I don’t know how to get through to you. You’re the only one I ever talk to and I still don’t know how to make you happy. That’s a little pathetic on my part, isn’t it?’

She didn’t answer.

‘Yeah, I know you’d disagree, but I’m going to take that silence as an agreement on my ineptitude anyway. See, you’re making me depressed. Me, cheerful, funny, awesome, Bumblebee: now has depression. I hope you’re happy about that, because I’m just over the moon about it, I’ll tell you what.’

She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it.

‘Darn, so close.’ Bumblebee smirked, and leaned back against the wall of his cell. ‘I do want you to speak to me, though. I do enough speaking. It almost gets boring listening to myself all the time. It’s great and all but I could use some kind variety, y’know?’

‘Prove it.’

‘Eh?’

Airazor turned to face Bee’s cell. ‘Prove hope still exists for us.’

‘I don’t need to. It just does.’

‘How?’

‘It just exists.’

‘How does it “just exist?” What fundamentals—?’

‘It just does.’

‘Why do you think that?’

‘Because I have to. Because it has to. Because you have to.’

She was quiet for a moment. ‘Why?’

‘You just have to.’

‘But—,’

‘You have to, Airazor. If I do, so do you.’

She opened her mouth to retort, but then silenced herself. In another moment, she spoke.

‘Okay.’

 

......I'm loving and hating Grimlock

 

Optimus sat at the head of the war table. If only because Grimlock wasn’t already there to take the position. He sat, fingers drumming away on the edge of the circular desk that took up 75% of the room. From his left sat Jazz, Ironhide, and Blackarachnia, and from his right Swoop, Strafe, and Scorn. Swoop had been lecturing Strafe on some type of complicated flying maneuver while Jazz, Blackarachnia and Ironhide murmured about the status of their ship once all had been sorted and dealt with. Optimus was only frustrated. He could feel Megatron laughing in the back of his head. Finally, Optimus leapt to his feet.

‘Okay, what the hell. He chastises me for hiding or cowering or whatever. And yet he’s the one we are all forced to wait for. He’s the one who set up this military conference, and yet he’s the only one not to show up.’

Swoop looked over his shoulder briefly to reply, ‘He’s busy, Optimus. He’s got some stuff he’s gotta take care of. Boxes to tick, systems to inspect, morale to uphold— you know how it is. Leader-y junk.’

Optimus massaged his optical lids with his forefinger and thumb. ‘I can appreciate that, Swoop. But I can’t be the only one who sees the hypocrisy in this. To make such a big deal—,’

‘Sludge isn’t here either,’ said Strafe, trying to sound helpful.

‘—out of my lack of presence only to provide the exact same lack of punctuality! It’s infuriating that someone can be that ignorant to what goes around him!’

Jazz grabbed him by the arm. ‘Come on, chief. Try to tone it down a notch. You’re letting him get to you—you’re letting him get to you and you know that’s exactly what he wants. Just take a deep breath and try to forget about it, yeah?’

Optimus grabbed Jazz’s wrist, but he didn’t pull away. ‘Yeah… you’re right. I just—yeah…’

Blackarachnia perked her head. ‘Say, does anyone else hear that? It sounds kind of like—‘

The war-room’s doors flung open, as Grimlock and Sludge stormed in. ‘It sounds like me!’

‘Grimlock.’ The rest of the group muttered.

The Dinobot leader pressed his hands against the foot of the table and frowned at Optimus. ‘What are you doing in my chair?’

‘Where the hell have you been?’ Optimus asked. Hands steepled beneath his chin as he leaned back in his seat. He held back presuming aloud that Grimlock had been cowering away somewhere.

‘Again, what are you doing in my chair?’

Optimus paused. ‘Sitting in it, obviously.’

Grimlock stared for a moment, then sat at the opposite end of the table. Sludge sat next to him. ‘Alright then.’ Though it was clear the Dinobot Commander was uncomfortable in his position. ‘Sludge and I took a shuttle to our backup ship a few planetoids away from here. Just some double-checking in case somebody had the ball-bearings to steal it. We’re all fine, obviously. There just doesn’t seem to be anybody nearby with the balls.’ He paused, and exchanged an awkward glance with Strafe. ‘Bearings. I mean. Ball-bearings.’

Optimus leaned forward. ‘Anyway, you said you had a plan to… what. Raid Swindle’s keep? Break his safe?’

‘Oh we’ll be doing more than raiding his keep,’ Swoop exclaimed.

Grimlock raised a hand to the aerial Dinobot. ‘Yeah, Swoop, I was just about to tell them that.’ He raised his hands to accentuate his points. ‘I heard from Scorn that you wanted to rescue all the sparklings Swindle’s got working for him. Act like a bunch of big damn heroes and everything. Whatever. Your motives are your own. I’ll be willing to let you do that. Me and my Dinobots will strike Swindle’s main generator which will—nope.’

Optimus raised a brow. ‘What?’

‘Nope,’ Grimlock leaped to his feet. ‘I can’t—I just—,’ The Dinobot stormed around the table to where Optimus was sitting, and wrenched him up by the shoulders. ‘YOU’RE IN MY CHAIR!’

‘Wh—?!’

Grimlock proceeded to lift Optimus high above his head before vaulting him across the room and into the wall closest to where Grimlock had been previously sitting. Optimus bounced off the wall and hit the floor with a clang, groaning in pain. Casually, Grimlock sat in “his” seat, lifting up his legs and resting them on the edge of the table, one draped over the other. Ironhide rushed over to the fallen Prime.

‘Optimus!’

The Prime massaged the back of his head as he sat up. ‘I admit, I kind of already saw that coming.’

Ironhide whispered. ‘Want me to kill him? I could. It might be messy and turn the rest of these guys against us, but if you really want me to—.’

‘No… NO! Ironhide, that’s…’ He looked up to see Grimlock rest his hands behind his head. He let out a yawn. ‘…ask me later.’

Blackarachnia rose from her chair, gaping at Grimlock. ‘Hey! You can’t do that!’

‘I just did,’ Grimlock replied with a drawl. ‘I’m Grimlock.’

‘I mean, yeah. Sure buddy. Whatever works for you, but man…’ Blackarachnia dropped back into her seat, claws rested beneath her chin. ‘It’s just not as funny as when I’m the one stirring the scrap.’

As Optimus had lifted himself onto his feet, the Dinobot Leader spoke. ‘As I was saying. Me and my Dinobots will stage an assault on Swindle’s main generator. We’ll shut off all power, including the security feeds and security systems. From there we’ll proceed to wreck everything until we find his armoury/credit depository. Meanwhile you and your team will provide a distraction.’

‘Well, getting other people’s attention is one of our strong-suits.’ Jazz said, grinning.

Optimus nodded slowly. ‘What do you have in mind?’

‘A full-scale prison-break,’ Grimlock said. ‘Break out as many as you can. Just to get Lockdown and the others off my tail. You can probably accomplish that much, can’t you?’

‘Hell to the yeah,’ Blackarachnia exclaimed. ‘When it comes to sowing chaos, we’re practically professionals. If chaos was a kitchen, we’d be the head chef. If chaos was an instrument we would play the heck out of—,’

‘We’ll do it,’ Optimus quickly interrupted. ‘It’ll solve both of our problems for sure.’

Jazz quickly raised his palms. ‘Uhh, slow down a klik. There’s still a problem here we’re kind of not addressing.’

‘Which is?’ Grimlock asked. ‘Spit it out.’

Jazz raised a finger to Grimlock. ‘Swindle’s got immunity by the Vestial Imperium. We attack this installation and we’ll be kinda, er, screwed.’

‘By the Imperium?’

‘By the Imperium,’ he tilted his head to the others. ‘We’re gonna need a way to convince the Vesties of what’s really going on here. We’re gonna need to prove to them that what’s jiving here is wrong.’

‘And how can we do that?’ Optimus asked.

Jazz motioned to Grimlock. ‘If Grim here can not only disable, but also retrieve Swindle’s security footage, then we’ll have some form of evidence we can use against Swindle, should the Imperium come lookin’ to us for an explanation. We explain that Swindle’s business was impugning on the rights of Autobot citizens, and we’ll have ourselves a case. Wha-bang.’

Optimus squinted at him. ‘You don’t sound entirely sure of yourself.’

‘Because, technically, I’m not. When it came to the Vesties, Autobot intelligence wasn’t exactly playing the greatest game of catch-up. At least while I was still working for them. Their original goals were galactic co-operation through peaceful means, but as much as I hate to say it, I don’t got a clue as to how they operate currently. They might not have a problem with—hell they might even support what Swindle is doing here. And if that’s the case then we really will be in a jam.’

‘It’s a risk you’re going to have to take.’ Grimlock snorted. ‘We’ll get that footage while the rest of you create the distraction. Because really, none of you have a choice in this matter. You’re helping us. Done deal.’

‘There’s just one more thing,’ Jazz said.

Grimlock loomed over the former spec-ops agent. Optics blazing red. ‘What?!’

Jazz raised his palms in defense. ‘No need to shout. Nothing to lose your cool over. It’s just that… because the Imperium will probably run an investigation on the place after our, er… spree. In order to avoid future arrest, it would maybe be best to lay off the, y’know. Killing.’

Blackarachnia cupped her claws around her mouth and shouted over the table. ‘Weeeeaaaaak!’

‘Quiet, you.’ Ironhide snapped.

Grimlock only growled. ‘Fine.’ He rose from the table, gazing all around. ‘We all good on the plan?’

Everyone nodded, save for Optimus.

‘Are we?’ Grimlock asked, eyes fixated on the Prime.

‘Yeah,’ Optimus said, rising to his feet. ‘We are.’

-----

Thundercracker arrived to the bridge, prompting the salutes of the majority of the crew. Slipstream typically tottered from behind him. Acid-Storm stood watching the visuals of the planet they were to interrogate below. The Rainmaker turned to face the blue Seeker and smiled. ‘Ah, Thundercracker.’ He spread his arms wide. ‘It’s good to see you back. Genuinely. We’re making progress negotiating with the progress and…’ he paused to think. ‘And that’s it, actually.’ He turned his gaze back to the overhead visuals. ‘It’s nice working with you, you know. You’re nothing like the previous leaders of the Nemesis. Starscream… Slipstream – no offense.’

‘All the offense!’ Slipstream gasped.

‘Sunstorm… But you. You’re not some… some blathering maniac or egotistical sadist. You’re not in it for the thrill of the fight, but that's what seperates you from the rest. You’re in it to get the job done, without all the needless bloodshed and violence. I can—that’s something I can actually respect.’ He hummed. ‘Before I came here, nobody used to listen to me. I always kind of… blended in with the background. Now that these fine gentlemechs would rather listen to me than you—.’ He shut his mouth quickly, and turned to Thundercracker, bug-eyed. ‘I... didn’t mean it like that. You know I didn’t mean it like that.’

Thundercracker took his side in front of the visual. ‘Acid Storm.’

‘Thundercracker?’

‘I just sent Roadgrabber to interrogate the planet’s populace. They have received a message detailing what we will do to them should they not provide as much information on the Decepticon Obsidian as possible.’

Acid Storm looked like he was about to collapse. ‘You what?!’

‘We won’t go through with our threats if they refuse. At least I don't think we'll have to. We’ll just drop a small nuke a few hundred kilometers away from their farthest shores. Just to show we have the capabilities to hurt them and aren’t bluffing.’

Acid Storm breathed heavily. ‘Thundercracker, this is—this isn’t like you at all!’

Thundercracker gazed at him carelessly. ‘You don’t know me, Acid Storm. Don’t presume you do. We need to work fast. Instead of spending weeks negotiating a transfer of information, we could simply threaten it out of them before moving on to our next destination.’

‘But that’s—that’s tyrannical! That’s diabolical! That’s—It’s a Starscream plan! A Sunstorm plan!’

‘It’s a realistic plan, Acid-Storm.’

Gritting his teeth, Acid Storm turned to the others. ‘Does everyone see this? Am I the only one seeing this?!’

Really, the legions of seekers couldn’t care less about the green or blue guys bossing them around. Most of them were wondering what they were going to drink once they returned to Kaon.

Acid Storm scoffed. ‘I thought you knew better, Thundercracker. Clearly I was mistaken. Clearly you think your own path is superior to my own. Hell, you were the one who let Megatron die without so much as intervening—,’

That was the last straw. Leaping forward, Thundercracker’s grip met Acid Storm’s throat, and the Rainmaker was dragged to the floor. Suddenly the watching seekers had become somewhat more interested in what was going on between “green guy” and “blue guy.” Slipstream was clapping her hands, laughing wickedly at the display.

‘You see!’ Acid Storm coughed. ‘You’ve been around Starscream for far too long!’

‘How dare you talk down to me!’ Thundercracker snarled. ‘I was one of the Seekers Elite for centuries! I was the right hand of Starscream since the very beginning! I was the one to kill Optimus Prime—to kill the Autobot who killed Megatron! I repaid my debts! I avenged our leader! You, Acid Storm, have done nothing of even remote influence!’

His grip tightened as Acid Storm began to choke. ‘Please… Thundercracker… you’re hurting me!’

‘I AM AEROSPACE COMMANDER THUNDERCRACKER! LEADER OF THE SEEKERS! RIGHT HAND TO LORD STARSCREAM! AND I—!’ Suddenly, Thundercracker dropped Acid Storm and lurched back, staring at his hands. ‘Wow.’ He paused. ‘Maybe I… wow. Maybe I have been around Starscream for too long.’

He felt a tinge of disgust from this, but before Acid Storm could comment on it, the overhead visual changed. Roadgrabber’s face replaced the planetary diagrams that aligned the window-pane prior.

‘Roadgrabber…’ Thundercracker straightened himself up, forgetting Acid Storm immediately. ‘Report.’

‘We, uh, got everything done here, sir.’

‘What is that supposed to mean.’

‘It means the creatures of this planet handed over the information within fourty-five seconds of threatening them with the bombardment. We know where Obsidian is.’

Thundercracker paused for a moment, then suddenly pumped both of his fists. ‘Ho-yes!’ He turned to Slipstream. ‘I can’t remember the last time something actually went right for a change.’

Slipstream shrugged, ‘Yeah, it only took threatening tiny defenseless organics with fiery death to do it. Who woulda thunk?’

Roadgrabber cleared his throat. ‘So hey, um. Boss. Do you think we can, you know, drop the nukes on them anyway? Please? It will be hilarious.’

‘Uhhh,’ Thundercracker thought about it for what could have been half a second. ‘No. Obviously not.’

Roadgrabber hung his head low. ‘Awww…’ The visual turned off.

Thundercracker turned to the other Seekers, as well as Acid Storm who remained on the floor, petrified with fear.

‘Well, uh… I guess… back to work!’ Thundercracker declared.

-----

Lockdown whipped his hook, across Swindle’s desk, sending data-pads clacking onto the floor along with a mug that read “Galaxy’s #1 Arms Dealer”.

Swindle scrambled to gather them back into a pile. Save for the mug which he admitted to being embarrassed about, as it had been a gift from Dirge, and he rarely accepted gifts if they were handmade. ‘Hey! Watch it! You keep this up and I’ll keep docking your pay!’

‘This is ridiculous!’ Lockdown spat. ‘I already fulfilled the bounty! I delivered Grimlock to your doorstep—I received your creds! Now you’re just going to take it all away—pretend it never happened? Because you let him escape.’

‘Well yes!’ Swindle piled the data-pads back on his desk and sat in his chair. ‘Minus the latter portion of that assertion, yes! I order a package, you deliver the package, I pay you. It’s what some people might describe as a transaction. You failed to fulfill your side of the transaction.And as a result, I fail to uphold mine. ’

Lockdown growled, and brought a hand to his head, massaging the bridge of his nose. ‘Alright. Fine. You want Grimlock? I’ll find you Grimlock. Again. It will be only a matter of time before he tries something… stupid. He’ll be back in your hands in only a matter of time.’

Swindle shot him a pair of thumbs up as the bounty-hunter turned to leave. ‘I knew you’d see it my way eventually. Take care now. Happy hunting. Ta-ta.’ As soon as Lockdown was out of the room, however, Swindle’s servos morphed into a pair of middle digits sticking upward. Deciding it had been a long night, Swindle retired to his recharge slab in his personal quarters.

There, he laid down, turning off all the blinking lights and flickering computer systems.

He fell into stasis.

----

Long ago

‘Move, Combaticons!’ Onslaught shouted over the sound of the storm. ‘We take this hill; we gain access to the launch pad. We gain access to the launch pad, we can join the battle on Hell’s Point!’

The five Combaticons trenched through the muck of Triton’s wilderness. The launch pad had been kept secret for years in case the need for a backup escape-route was needed. Today, the Combaticons were going to need it to reach the mobile Decepticon air base of Hell’s Point. Of course, there was also half an army of Decepticons chasing them down, but that was beside the point. They were to join the Autobot forces stationed there. After all, the Combaticons were the Autobots’ greatest commando unit the Elite Guard had to offer.

Swindle hated it. He hated the muck. He hated the march. He didn’t even particularly like this sorry group of soldiers he found himself partnered with. And hell, who thought calling an Autobot sub-group “Combaticons” was a good idea anyway? So what if it meant “Combat the Decepticons”, it still sounded like they were a Decepticon subgroup. He just—

‘Onslaught, you will not believe this.’ Blast Off reported, ‘but I just received a transmission over the frequency. Apparently we’re too late. Or, well, not too late, but— we won! Hell’s Point has fallen!’

Onslaught turned to frown at him briefly before marching on. The Decepticons were behind them. ‘No matter. I mean, yes, excellent.’ He continued on. ‘But regardless, we must reach the launch-pad, otherwise we—.’

As if jinxing it, the top of the hill appeared to have exploded into a wall of flames. A mortar had struck the launch-pad. They knew what they were planning.

There was silence among the group, finally, Vortex spoke up. ‘Onslaught, what do we do?’

‘We can fight ‘em,’ suggested Brawl.

‘We can’t fight them,’ said Blast Off. ‘There’s at least fifty of them. Even for us, that’s…’

Vortex grabbed Onslaught by the wrist. ‘Onslaught… what do we do?’

‘They’ll send back up,’ Onslaught said, after a moment’s pause. ‘The Autobots will send back up. They’ll have to.’

-----

‘You were abandoned. Betrayed. Left for the keeper of the Pit to drag you across the river spawn. The condition of which you five were left in may very well have been considered an execution on your master’s part.’ Megatron raised his blade. The five Combaticons stood barely held together. Vortex had a large hole just above his spark-chamber, Blast-Off had been missing his wings, Brawl was dented all over, with what seemed to be teeth sticking out of his fists, Swindle luckily appeared to have avoided the most damage, but was still rather scathed, all things considered. Onslaught had taken the worst of it. His legs whittled down to mere stumps. In spite of this, he barely seemed fazed.

Slowly, Megatron lowered the sword to Onslaught’s shoulder. ‘I thus christen thee Decepticons. Warriors tasked with the destruction of the elite, and the rise of the oppressed. Will you accept your new title?’

‘Yes,’ Onslaught replied. Soon, each of the Combaticons agreed. Even Swindle. He never liked the Autobots anyway. Too restrictive.

-----

‘Brawl! On your left!’ Onslaught shouted, firing missiles from his shoulders into an Autobot berserker.

Brawl in turn spun himself around, delivering a hefty punch into an Autobot soldier, sending them several yards into the blackened dirt.

Swindle activated all his internal weaponry, they were surrounded, as always. It was all Onslaught’s fault for misjudging Sentinel’s apathy towards his own troops. He should have known Sentinel’s strategy would involve wearing them down with waves of troops the Prime deemed expendable.

‘We need to retreat!’ Vortex called from above.

‘No!’ Onslaught boomed. ‘I refuse! I refuse to let this plan fail! It’s perfect. It was perfect. I just—,’

‘Onslaught, please,’ Vortex continued over their comms. ‘I know you want to pretend we don’t make mistakes, but, well, we need to face facts. Things aren’t about to get much—,’

A missile struck Vortex, sending the Cybertronian helicopter spinning through the air in a wreath of flames.

-----

The Combaticons stormed the Elite Guard’s Cantonment. Bullet-fire defiling the walls, and ripping apart several data-screens and plexiglass cabinets housing meaningless awards and honours belonging to the Guard.

Autobots bolted around corners only to be quickly dotted with wide, obsidian holes.

‘Excellent work on these Scatter Blasters, Swindle,’ Onslaught commended, reloading a clip.

Swindle smirked. ‘What can I say? Faster cooldown rate, and a heftier punch than its older brother Path Blasters. No need to thank me. Just taking one for the team.’ Quietly, he murmured. ‘And one out of my wallet…’

‘What did you just say?’

‘Noth—what? I didn’t say—I didn’t say anything! That’s crazy. You’re crazy!’

‘It's just up ahead, Onslaught!’ Blast Off reported. ‘Vortex is being held in the room just ahead of us!’

‘Understood. Combaticons—full speed ahead!’ A pair of thrusters emerged from Onslaught’s shoulders, propelling him forward. Before any more Autobots could appear, the four Combaticons burst into the interrogation room where Vortex was held.

Inside, Vortex was strapped onto a metallic chair in the center of the room. His arms were missing, as were his legs. He was a torched, blackened torso with a shattered visor and several loose cords spilling from his neck.

Onslaught nearly collapsed when he saw him. ‘Vortex…’

‘Readings say he’s alive.’ Blast Off said, shaking his head. ‘But not for long. The monsters must have squeezed whatever they could out of him, and more.’

Onslaught clenched a fist as Brawl lifted Vortex out of the chair. ‘Then we get out of here. We won’t be fulfilling the rest of the plan. Our main priority is getting Vortex to safety.’ He turned around, gesturing for the others to follow. ‘Now let’s go. The faster we move the faster we—‘

The Combaticon Leader’s upper torso exploded into a ball of flames. Black viscera splattered on the walls as the rest of his body collapsed into a crumpled heap on the floor. Blast Off screamed as Brawl tore a hole in the nearest wall to make their escape.

Swindle stood there dumbfounded. Watching as an entire squadron of Autobots began to flood into the room. Sentinel Prime stood at their rear. His raised Ion Blaster smoking.

‘Swindle! Grab Onslaught! We need to move!’ Brawl roared.

‘Swindle!’

-----

‘Swindle!’

The arms dealer’s head was spinning. Events began to meld into one another until It all became a mess of sound and colours unfamiliar to Swindle.

‘We can save him, but we need someone to donate—,’

‘You can’t do this! In your state—,’

‘After all your sacrifices to the cause I hereby select you three to act as my personal council—

‘We’re all dead! The Combaticons died as a collective ever since Sentinel pulled the—,’

-----

‘Swindle!’

The arms dealer woke with a start. Oversized optics practically fizzing from the information overload. This happened every night. This time was worse than others, however. He wasn’t sure what could have been causing these flashbacks. Out of all the Combaticons, he was by far the most apathetic. He couldn’t care less what had happened to them. So why now? What could have brought him to start caring now all of a sudden?

He heard his name, and raised his head. ‘Come in.’

After a moment of silence, Dirge entered the room. ‘I—sorry, were you sleeping?’

Swindle sighed. ‘Yes, but so be it. Money never sleeps, you know.’ He paused, realizing how stupid that saying was. ‘What do you want?’

‘Message from Lockdown. Apparently his mechs have found an intruder skulking around the premises. I thought you should know.’

Swindle sighed again, and rolled over on his berth. ‘Thank you for notifying me, Dirge. I'm sure you'll let me know how it all… works out, tomorrow morning.’

‘Sure,’ Dirge said before preparing to leave. ‘Do you want me to turn the lights off on my way out?’

‘Yes, Dirge.’

-----

‘He went this way—I saw him!’

Blitzwing sighed as he followed the hulking mass that was his partner. ‘Lugnut, please. There’s nothing there. You’ve put everyone on edge just because you thought you saw something out of the corner of your eye. Eyes. One of your five eyes, I mean.’

Lugnut growled as he rounded a corner. The factory complex was lined with dank alleyways and catwalks from between the dozens of crates and buildings that surrounded them. Blitzwing darted after the giant as he fumed. ‘I know what I saw. There is an intruder among us. And if we do not heed caution now....’

‘Look, we both know you’re only doing this because you lost to Grimlock in a fight and feel the need to prove yourself.’ This time, when Lugnut rounded a corner, Blitzwing did not immediately pursue him. ‘Way to go, you did it. You’ve proven yourself. Now can we please go back to bed? I could really go for some—.’

‘Found you!’

The sounds of gunshots and explosions echoed from the other side of the corner as bright flashes of light reflected against the nearest crate in Blitzwing’s field of vision. Suddenly, silence.

‘Lugnut?’

That wasn’t a good sign. Especially when Lugnut was concerned. Realizing this, Blitzwing darted around the corner to find Lugnut lying in a pool of his own Energon. The cords on his neck snapped, and his optics dimmed. He appeared to have been alive, but in stasis. Next to him was a crouched figure. It was leaking just the same, though unlike Lugnut, it actually appeared to have been conscious. It didn’t look Cybertronian to Blitzwing. It looked like some kind of humanoid snake, or a scorpion.

‘What are you?’ Blitzwing asked, approaching the creature.

Really?’ It spoke. ‘You really have no sense or inclination as to who I might be?’

‘Never seen anything like you,’ Blitzwing replied, raising his blaster. ‘Whatever you are, you’re intruding on our employer’s turf. Which means that you best surrender ‘less you want to be scrap.’

The creature chuckled weakly. ‘You really don’t know who I am?’

‘Nope. On the count of three—,’

The creature burst forward, grabbing Blitzwing by his wrists before tackling him to the ground. ‘There’s an entire Decepticon squadron after me and you can’t even begin to guess my name? Tell me you’re joking. Tell me you at least vaguely recognize me!’

Blitzwing only gritted his teeth as the thing dug its tendril-like servos into his throat.

Ripping the wires out of his neck, the creature shouted. ‘You idiot! I!’

He smashed his fist into Blitzwing’s face, causing his visor to flicker on and off. ‘Am!’

His tail coiled downward, piercing through the triple-changer’s mid-section. ‘OBSIDIAN!’

After a few seconds without the necessary connective wiring needed to connect the brain to the spark, Blitzwing fell into stasis.

Obsidian rolled off of him. Leaking dark pink Energon from his chest and shoulders. He was gasping for air, mandibles shivering. Wiping his brow, the strategist hovered once more. Skulking away into the shadows. His neck cracked painfully as he jerked his head roughly to the side, wincing briefly before letting out a sigh. He was losing Energon fast. He wasn’t going to survive at this rate. ‘Well then!’ He announced suddenly. ‘Back to business.’

The strategist’s optics narrowed as he observed the night sky above. He wished Strika was here.

 

HE'S BACK!!!

FINALLY BACK!!!

Also wow....Swindle has been through some shit

 

Thus began the mission. Grimlock and his Dinobots had taken it upon themselves to skulk around the first lines of security while Optimus, Ironhide, Blackarachnia and Jazz did their part. What Prime couldn’t help but find surprising was the fact that they had been completely unimpeded in their travel from the Ark to the reception. Even as they entered the main lobby—or at least, the place where one was supposed to go in order to enter Swindle’s estate, but simply hadn’t until now because of either a lack of physical clients or a bizarre need for his visitors to break into his property—they were surprised to find no one waiting to greet them. Optimus strolled up to the main desk. It clearly hadn’t been dusted in a long time, causing the Prime to wrinkle his brow in mild annoyance. There was a potted plant sitting on the edge of the table next to a small silver bell. Quickly, Optimus tapped the bell, let it ring, and waited with his arms folded over the desk.

Blackarachnia and Jazz observed the antique paintings aligning the walls of the lobby while Ironhide stood behind Optimus on the alert. His head perked and optics darting from one side to the other in anticipation of any sudden threats.

Blackarachnia raised the side of her mouth in disinterest as her four optics turned to Prime. ‘So… wait, what now? Are we actually waiting for someone to show up so they can let us in?’

‘Basically,’ Optimus said without looking back.

‘Grimlock did say it’d take a couple dozen astro-seconds for Swoop to bypass Swindle’s auto-gun security,’ Jazz said absentmindedly. He had been observing a painting of Leo Prime. The white and gold warrior was posed before a flaming background. He was depicted facing off against the detestable Destron Commander Dreadlock. His dark body blanketing half of the painting like a swarm of angry black insects. ‘We’ve got plenty of time to kill ‘til then.’

Blackarachnia scratched the back of her helm. ‘I guess? But man, we’re here to pull a distraction, aren’t we? I don’t see why we don’t just get started immediately and barge right in. Being civil is kind of the opposite of what we should be doing.’

‘She has a point, Prime,’ Ironhide mumbled. ‘I wouldn’t be averse to charging in guns blazing either.’

Optimus tapped the side of his faceplate with his index finger. ‘We could. We definitely could. But I am of the opinion that we can afford to play along with what Swindle’s henchman expect of us before the opportunity is ripe.’

Blackarachnia raised a brow at him. ‘Until the opportunity is… wait, what?’

Optimus turned himself over to face Blackarachnia. ‘You know, until we can start springing all the captives. Someone leads us to where the prisoners are, we bop them on the head, we set the prisoner’s free. Simple. Otherwise they’ll probably have some kind of fail-safe should they know we’re coming.’

Blackarachnia shrugged. ‘I guess.’

Ironhide nodded slowly.

Optimus squinted at them. ‘What?’

‘Nothing,’ Blackarachnia replied with a wave of her claw. ‘You are absolutely right. It is definitely worth taking this kind of precaution in the face of danger. All hail the Prime and his endless knowledge. Yadda, yadda.’

‘But?’

‘But knowing us, we can probably handle it.’ Jazz said, turning away from the painting. ‘I mean; we do have Ironhide here, and I’m specialized in close combat. Hell, we’re all pretty dang privy as to what BA can do. Take the issue of the Imperium out of this, and we kind of have this in the bag.’

‘But?’ Optimus repeated.

Blackarachnia raised her claws. ‘Optimus, they have, like, two guys. Five if you count Lockdown’s little group, but it’s not like we’re going to be fighting all of them at once—as much as I totally could. We’re a distraction. All we have to do is not die in their presence and we’re golden! I’ll probably be tossing younglings in the way of their blasts any-who, so I know I’ll at least survive.’

Ironhide grunted. ‘And my trigger-finger’s getting itchy. Just sayin’.’

Optimus raised his palms. ‘Okay. I hear you. I understand your plights. I just think it’s best either way that we take pre-caution—,’

Suddenly, a door opened from behind the reception desk, and a haggard Thrust bolted in, panting with his hands on his knees as he made his way behind the desk. He draped one arm over the counter and grinned weakly up at Optimus. ‘Hey there, sport.’ He coughed. ‘God… I’ve just been… I’ve just been all over. Like… frag. I have no idea what Swindle would do without me. I seriously don’t know what Swindle would do without me. Did you know we’re only two guys running this place?’

Optimus felt three sets of optics gazing upon him and sighed.

‘Seriously. It’s just me and Dirge here. Lockdown had a couple of guys, but they got assaulted in some alleyway or something…’

‘Wow, that sucks, man,’ Jazz said, trying to sound empathetic.

‘Yeah— they’ll get better. But then again, they probably deserved it. It does make things a little complicated though since we thought you guys were the ones behind it, but since you’re here… yeah, that’s going to be a whole other thing. Did I mention I had to do recess duties all to myself as well? Not to mention rocked at it?’ He whipped his head backwards, as if to sweep some imaginary hair out of his eyes. ‘Yeah, whaddup.’

Optimus slowly clasped his hands over the counter and cleared his throat. ‘Yes, well, we’ve been giving it some thought, and we think we want to have another look around. See what might interest us.’

Thrust grinned. ‘Well that’s good news. Already I’m attracting customers. Alrighty, chaps, follow me!’

After a while, Optimus once again found himself following Thrust through the halls of the holding areas. Where the “products” resided. Jazz and the others followed him closely behind, wary of the Decepticon.

‘Just shout if something catches your eye. Anyway, since Dirge has been moved onto surveillance after Lugnut’s little accident, I’ve been tasked with doing all this other scrud myself. Not that it’s anything I can’t handle. In fact, I took care of an escape attempt all by myself this morning. Two bots tried escaping again and I just, heh, walloped them. They tried fighting me, but then I just gave them the old Thrust-thrust. It was pretty sick if I do say so my—’

‘Waaaait,’ Jazz said with a groan. ‘Thrust-thrust?’

‘Yeah, that’s what I’ve been naming my punches. It’s a thing, now. I’ve been making it a thing for the past three months.’

‘I think three months is long enough for any “thing” to exist.’ Jazz said with a faux smile.

‘Hah, that doesn’t make sense, but whatever. Point is I handled it all by myself. Which means I ought to get a promotion by now. I don’t know what is above “body-guard” but I want to be it.’

Optimus turned around to see Jazz, Ironhide, and Blackarachnia walking with their heads low and their weapons drawn, unbeknownst to Thrust.

‘Not yet!’ Optimus whispered to them.

Jazz shrugged. ‘I know I don’t say this very often: but I kind of want to hurt this guy, chief.’

Blackarachnia nodded. ‘Yeah man, he’s bragging about hurting children.’

‘Weren’t you just saying how you were going to throw children into the line of fire—,’

‘That was taken out of context.’ Blackarachnia said quickly.

‘Just say the word, Prime.’ Ironhide said, cannons blazing. ‘And Thrust will have thrusted his last… thrust.’ He stared at his feet for a moment, cannons still raised. ‘Yeah, that’s right.’

Optimus tilted his head and sighed.

Thrust continued rambling, completely oblivious of the conversation occurring behind him. ‘And man, would Swindle be happy if—,’

‘Sorry.’ Optimus clasped his hands into a ball and slammed it against the back of Thrust’s head, knocking him to the floor.

Optimus turned to the others. ‘There happy n—?’

‘OW!’

Optimus turned around to see Thrust rolling onto his side, massaging his head carefully. ‘Did you just—? Were you trying to knock me out?’

Optimus panicked. ‘Crap, he’s still awake! Ironhide, do something!’

Ironhide rushed forward and smashed his fist into Thrust’s helm, knocking him out indefinitely.

Optimus took a deep breath and exhaled. ‘Well, that’s accomplished.’ He looked around. The younglings present in the cells aligning the hallway stared at him in bug-eyed silence. Optimus narrowed his optics. ‘It just hit me, there’s probably a ton of surveillance cameras here.’

‘Yep,’ Jazz said as he began working on disabling the nearest cell.

‘Which means trying not to be seen while breaking out the captives was kind of pointless.’

Ironhide, Blackarachnia, and Jazz groaned collectively.

After a moment’s notice, Jazz stood from the bars and clasped his hands together. ‘Alright, guys, you want the good news? Or the bad news?’

‘Bad news.’ Ironhide rumbled.

‘I don’t know how to power off all these cells at once.’

‘And the good news is?’ Optimus asked.

‘One of these cells is connected to the main conductor. Meaning if Ironhide starts blowing apart these walls with those fancy cannons of his…’ Jazz smiled at him, intending for the weapons specialist to finish his train of thought.

Ironhide stared at him and blinked.

‘He’ll…’

The weapons specialist tilted his head to the side.

‘Well, first he’ll finish my sentence, and then he’ll...?’

‘Oh,’ Ironhide raised his cannons to the nearest cell. ‘Sooner or later I’ll hit the one connected to the main conductor. Of course.’

Blackarachnia slapped her face with one of her claws and shook her head.

Ironhide opened fire on the nearest cell, creating a massive hole next to the laser-grid sealing the robot inside. An alarm began to wail overhead, which was promptly blown apart once more by Ironhide’s cannons. More sirens could be heard in the distance. In seconds, the grid dissipated, and a dazed robot stumbled out from the cell.

‘Well, that’s one down.’ Optimus said, approaching the young-bot. ‘What’s your name, son.’

‘People here call me Overshoot,’ The bot replied. ‘And please don’t call me son. It’s weird.’

Optimus gave him a thumbs up and turned to the others. ‘Alright, let’s keep things moving and get this riot underway.’

‘Did somebody say “riot?”’

A Decepticon approached the team from the shadows. He was tall, and dark. His voice was low and gravelly. He was Dirge.

‘Oh, you’re that quiet guy that’s always hanging around with Thrust,’ Jazz said nodding to him. ‘You’re in charge of surveillance around here I reckon?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you came to deal with us on your own?’

‘Not quite,’ Dirge replied. ‘I have dispatched a patrol of automated drones to hone in on your position and tranquilize you.’

‘So where are they?’ Optimus asked, scanning the area for a sign of threat.

Dirge lowered his head. ‘Unfortunately, they are… slow.’

‘Slow?’

‘Very slow. But they are on their way from their release platform, and will be here eventually, I assure you.’

Optimus folded his arms. ‘Until then, I suppose we’ll just have to deal with… I’m sorry, who are you again?’

‘That’s Dirge,’ Blackarachnia said, quietly. ‘I know him. Sort of.’

Ironhide, Optimus and Jazz turned to her in surprise.

‘Wait, do you just know him? Or do you know him know him.’ Jazz asked. ‘Because either way, that makes this hella awkward.’

Blackarachnia raised her claws. ‘Nah, Smiles, it’s not like that. Most Decepticons know him. Well, any Decepticon who’s lost somebody, at least. He’s the official Decepticon crypt-keeper. Or at least he was. I’m assuming that since instead of skulking around here, as crypt-keeper he’d be busy keeping in his… um, crypt.’

Dirge nodded sagely. ‘That is correct. I was relieved of my services after the hall of the dead was destroyed by Ignition Prime’s squadron. A horrid disgrace to the names of the fallen.’

‘Well, Dirge, it’s nice meeting you,’ Optimus said, gesturing to his crew. ‘But there’s four of us… wait, adding Overshoot here there’s five of us, and only one of you.’

Dirge almost seemed to grin underneath his seemingly permanent gloom. ‘That simply may be enough.’

‘Careful, Boss-bot,’ Blackarachnia said, inching back. ‘There’s something you should know about this guy. They say he’s cursed. You know, from being around the dead for so long. They say it’s… affected him. They say that one touch from his armour will kill you.’

‘Perhaps that is true.’ Dirge said, approaching them. His thrusters were blazing behind him, as his optics seared red and gold. ‘Dare to find out?’

The Autobots began to slowly back away as the cone-head glided towards them, arms spread wide, as if intending to collect them all in his cold embrace.

Without a moment of hesitation, Ironhide snorted, walked up to his foe, and lightly poinked Dirge on the nose. He waited momentarily for something to happen, and when nothing did, the weapons specialist looked around at the stunned faces, and snorted again. ‘S’alright.’ Ironhide said, looking around once more. ‘S’alright.’

Dirge looked at Ironhide for a moment, stared forward, and began to turn himself around. ‘Yeah, okay. I’m just going to leave, then. Good luck with your riot.’

Before he could turn his back on them completely, a bolt of electricity struck Dirge in the chest, electrifying him and sending him crumbling to the ground in stasis lock. A small yellow Autobot crawled over the Decepticon’s body, shouting back at another figure behind him.

‘Oh man, Airazor. Did you see that?! He didn’t even see me coming! Like, literally, he didn’t even know I was there! Because I was behind him! I just—PZOW! BANG! Shocked him, and he just—,’ Suddenly, the yellow Autobot seemed horrified. ‘Oh darn. I forgot the thing.’

He turned around as a tall, purple and red robot emerged from the shadows.

‘Airazor, the thing! Quick! Get back, I need to do the thing again! I forgot to do the thing!’

She only nodded and backed into the darkness. The yellow robot zapped Dirge once more, barely inflicting any damage before clearing his throat and announcing: ‘Well, I guess you could say Dirge was in for a… shock.’

Suddenly, Bumblebee barreled over laughing. Holding his gut as he crumpled to the floor.

Jazz shot the others a look that read: “So this day is all kinds of crazy, innit?”

‘Oh man, heh, that is so good. I think I’m actually the first person to make that joke! Airazor, as soon as we’re out of here we’re going to take the galaxy by storm. Tell me that’s not the funniest thing you’ve ever heard!’

The jet nodded, ‘Hah. Hah. Hah.’

‘Dang, I cannot tell you how sad it is that that mysterious system-malfunction you suffer from has rendered you completely unable to laugh at any of my jokes.’

‘Yes,’ she spoke quietly before stepping back into the light. ‘That is completely true and also the case.’

Quickly, Bumblebee bolted to his feet. ‘I got it, we gotta spread this now. Quick, Airazor! Scratch what I just said into the nearest wall! We need everybody to—.’

As Airazor had already moved on to imprint Bumblebee’s quote into the side of a cell, Bumblebee observed Optimus and his team. ‘Oh hey,’ the small bot said. ‘You’re those jerks that tried to buy Airazor!’

‘Yeah, that was us,’ Blackarachnia said. ‘We were mainly just buying her to help nurse the boss-bot’s headaches.’

Optimus raised his palm to the spider. ‘Hey, don’t say it like that. You make me sound like a creep.’

‘You are a creep, dude.’ Overshoot, who had been standing around wondering what the hell was going on, said.

‘But those kind of disappeared as soon as she stopped sending calls for help,’ Blackarachnia finished.

Airazor ceased her carving to stare at the group.

Blackarachnia waved a claw. ‘Also hi. We’re Team Prime—or the Spacefarers. Whichever works. And we’re here to cause a prison break and generally sow chaos. We’re also murderers.’

‘Y’didn’t have to add that part.’ Ironhide grumbled.

‘It’s kinda true, though,’ Jazz shrugged as he turned to the weapons specialist. ‘Not that it’s a label I dig, but it doesn’t hurt to get it out of the way first.’

Bumblebee stared at them for a minute. ‘Huh. I mean, we were kind of handling it ourselves, since that’s kind of our thing. But yeah, I guess you guys can do your thing, too. I’m Bee. Spelt with 3s instead of Es. The tall one is Airazor.’

Airazor approached Blackarachnia slowly. ‘You’re here to save us?’

Blackarachnia grinned, and gestured to Prime. ‘Well, it wasn’t my idea exactly. I was kind of hoping to leave you guys to your hilarious fates and run away—not my fault, I was raised a Decepticon—Optimus over there is the big hero behind all this.’

Optimus brought a hand to the back of his head sheepishly. ‘It’s the right thing to do.’

Airazor appeared to smile beneath her faceplate before turning to Bumblebee. ‘We have a chance now.’

Bee frowned. ‘What, with these guys?’ He looked them up and down. ‘I dunno. Could be a trick. Could be Swindle wearing one of his fancy suits in order to disguise himself as would-be rescuers.’

‘If Swindle was one of us, then who would the rest of us be?’ Jazz asked.

‘Also Swindle. It could be a pretty elaborate suit.’

‘Hey man,’ Overshoot said, gesturing to the others. ‘If what Dirge said was true—,’

‘Hi Overshoot.’

‘Hey Bee—then we should probably, like, free the rest of these guys before those security droids get here. Strength in numbers and all.’

Optimus stared at Overshoot and nodded. ‘Right, we can save introductions for later. Autobots!’ He pointed down the hall. ‘…break things.’

At once, the seven robots began, shooting, smashing, and cutting the captives free, raising their numbers by the minute.

‘This is our worst adventure yet…’ Ironhide mumbled under his breath.

‘Didn’t Prime die in our last adventure?’ Jazz asked.

Ironhide paused. ‘Right, thanks for reminding me. I’ll have to judge between the two to see which is worse.’

Optimus stared at him incredulously. ‘I died, there shouldn’t be anything to judge!’

-----

Lockdown raised his upper lip as he observed the riot taking place from the surveillance room. Dirge didn’t fare nearly as well as he seemed to believe he would. But as far as Lockdown was concerned, that was just fine by him. As long as that brooding cone-head was out of his way, so the better. Screens surrounded the bounty-hunter, illuminating his silver face with a bluish tinge. The bounty-hunter watched as waves of products were released from their cells and joined the group Optimus was amassing. He had his suspicions regarding the whole event. He suspected Prime’s return. Prime was one of those heroic types, of course. But Prime was of no interest of him. It was the Dinobots that concerned Lockdown. Well, maybe concern wasn’t the word Lockdown was looking for. But the Dinobots were what Lockdown was after, certainly. The question was, could the Dinobots have been conspiring with these Autobots after all?

Swindle’s voice echoed over the comms: ‘Lockdown! Come on, pal, what are you doing?! If you don’t stop this madness, I will!’

And if they were, then where were the Dinobots during this whole mess?

Suddenly, the surveillance room doors slammed open.

‘We’re here to teach Swindle a lesson.’

Lockdown turned around. He had found his answer.

Grimlock, Sludge, Swoop, Strafe, Scorn, and several small raptorcons stood before the Bounty Hunter, weapons at the ready. Grimlock’s head was tilted to the side. ‘But I’m not against getting back at you for that little embarrassment either. Lucky we ran into you while searching the area for the surveillance room. Now, before we destroy everything in sight, shut down the main system’s battery, and take everything Swindle holds near and dear.’ Grimlock began to change shape, transforming into a giant thunder lizard. He let out a roar, flames spewing from his mouth. ‘GIVE US THOSE TAPES!’

 

I'd like to thank you for reminding me of why I love Dirge as a character. All gloom and doom with very little to back it up.

Another very entertaining chapter, Coffee.

 

I want those tapes now....whats on those tapes?

 

‘You didn’t tell me they had auto-turrets built on the INSIDE the building!’ Grimlock snapped, hunched against the wall outside the surveillance room in beast mode. Lockdown had activated the system’s internal defenses, and in seconds, multiple sets of Gatling-guns sprouted from the walls surrounding the main surveillance computer. A storm of bullets hailed across the entrance to the room, preventing any of the Dinobots from entering without being torn apart. A small raptoricon charged in as it appeared the bullets had stopped, only to be ripped to shreds by another wave of fire.

Swoop massaged the back of his head, ‘I did check the outside perimeter. I definitely picked up on all the security on the outside. That you can’t fault me for. I just didn’t think Swindle would have indoor security so… advanced. I mean, Gatling guns? Those things are like the Trannis Inquisition. Nobody expects them. Some pea-shooters maybe. Some slow-ass drones, perhaps. But Gatling guns? Hell, we should have stuff like this in our base.’ He stopped to consider what he was saying. ‘I feel like I’m setting myself up for some kind of advertisement here. Like Swindle’s going to bust through a wall and give me a discount on Gatling Turrets. You ever get weird expectations like that? Because sometimes I—.’

‘SWOOP!’ Grimlock roared, flames spewing from his maw. ‘Shut your stupid. Beaked. Face! I’m trying to think!’

The other Dinobots blades and cannons around the edges of the door and fired aimlessly into the room.

‘STOP!’ Grimlock snapped, swatting at Sludge’s wrist with his tail. ‘We need those surveillance tapes!’

‘Then come and get them, Dinobot,’ Lockdown taunted. He had been standing, confidently in the center of a battalion of turrets, his own blaster raised and charged. ‘I was surprised to find you here of all places. In fact, I didn’t think I’d ever understand why you brainless reptiles would attack the surveillance room of all places first. But now that I’ve taken the time to consider it, I’d say I’m even more shocked by the fact that you’d go through all this trouble just to expose this place with some security footage. The Prime I’d understand, but you, Grimlock? Does the Black Knight of Cybertron really give a slag about what happens here?’

Grimlock growled. ‘You don’t know me.’

Lockdown grinned. ‘Or could it be something else entirely? Perhaps it wouldn’t matter if these tapes were destroyed? But then that would just bring me to presume there is something on these tapes that you wouldn’t want seen.’

Swiftly, Grimlock transformed back into his robot-mode, and lunged for the nearest body, which, in this case, happened to be Scorn.

The stoic Dinobot made no clear sound, but was clearly shocked by the Dinobot leader’s grip around his right shoulder. Grimlock proceeded to place Scorn in front of him as he leaped into the line of fire. Plasma-bullets rippled across the red Dinobot’s frame, shredding scales and armour from his body as Grimlock pushed forward. The other Dinobots remained behind, watching speechlessly as their comrade took the brunt of the enemy’s fire.

Having used his living shield to its fullest potential, Grimlock tossed Scorn to the other side of the room as he rushed Lockdown, transforming once more and forming his monstrous lizard form. A pulse of flames emerged from Grimlock’s maw, destroying the nearest turret and causing it to explode on impact. Lockdown leaped from the explosion and rolled. Landing in a crouch, the bounty-hunter activated his internal weaponry- sprouting blasters and missile launchers across his frame. ‘Sacrificing your own just to get a shot at the enemy. Now that’s the Grimlock I know.’

Strafe raised a worried hand past the entrance to where Scorn was laying prone. But the continuous assault from the remaining turrets forced her to retract her limb.

-----

‘To the helipad! Onward!’ Optimus shouted, brandishing his index finger forward.

‘Awww, that’s not going to be a thing, is it?’ Blackarachnia moaned. ‘I don’t want “onward” to be our new battle-cry. People are going to laugh at us. People I might know.’

‘I can dig it,’ Jazz said, grinning. ‘It makes it sound like we’re a—you know—like a proper battalion. Like we’re more than just four guys tryin’ to avoid dying.’

‘But that’s just it, Smiles—we are just four guys trying to avoid dying,’ Blackarachnia said. ‘We don’t need to make ourselves sound like anything else.’

Ironhide appeared between them, grabbing them by their backs and pushing them forward as they ran. ‘What the two of you need is to pick up the damn pace! Now quit your prattling and follow Optimus!’

Optimus led the charge. They had freed at least twenty captives, and had been on their way to the helipad on top of the factory complex. From there the Ark would be able to beam up what captives they had already released, before turning back to release another wave for collection.

It was obvious from the Prime’s expression that he was displeased with what he could accomplish, or rather, fail to accomplish, in rescuing the younglings. A couple of such younglings were less than willing to follow him to freedom. Not because they were scared, or feared what Swindle would do to them, but simply because they felt to do so would be to abandon their home. To abandon their purpose. They truly believed what Swindle was doing for them was in their best interests, and for the briefest of moments, Optimus questioned whether what Swindle was doing was right after all. He quickly perished the thought, and moved on to those he could still save. With a small army of younglings following him, Optimus sprinted to the next staircase.

‘Trouble up ahead, Chief’ Jazz muttered.

A column of box-shaped robots on treads rolled around the upcoming corner and into view. They were armed with large Gatling cannons on either side of their bodies, though it was clear from their speeds that they had been the drones Dirge had warned them about.

Optimus shouted as the turrets began to spin. ‘Everyone hit the deck! NOW!’

The group scattered as the cannons rippled with stun-bullets. As Optimus had suspected, the drones could not aim down. A youngling or two were hit by stray bullets, forcing them into stasis-lock.

‘Nobody get hit!’ Optimus shouted.

Blackarachnia began to add, ‘And nobody state the obvious eith—ohhhh, too late.’

Ironhide grunted as he fired a pulse from his cannons, which successfully destroyed one drone in a ball of flames, but left just enough space for another to take its place. ‘Focus! We need to disable those drones before they trample us!’

‘Wait a klik…’ Bumblebee stood up, realizing the bullet-fire sailed passed his head even at standing height. He was merely too short for the drones to hit him. He stared at the drones gloomily as the others watched on.

‘Um… Excellent, Bee!’ Optimus exclaimed, ‘Due to your… unique size, you can get close and disable the drones before… er.’

‘Shut the frick up!’ Bumblebee yelled, activating his stingers. ‘Do you know how embarrassing this is for me?!’ He stormed over to the drones as he continued his grumbling. ‘First I’m not tall enough to play Cyber-Ball with the others, then I’m not tall enough to be allowed to wield a pick-axe, and now – low and behold – I’m apparently not even tall enough to die?!’ He fired a beam of electricity at the nearest drone, causing it to short circuit and rotate on a swivel. The drone proceeded to open fire on its comrades, causing it's comrades to lock up in place. ‘That’s just not fair! It’s like the whole universe is out to get me!’

Jazz scratched the side of his head as he slowly rose to his feet. ‘I uh, don’t think I’d consider that a flaw, kiddo, but if dying’s really your thing then hey, who am I to judge.’

‘Trust me on this one, Jazz,’ Optimus said, checking over the other younglings. ‘Dying’s nobody’s thing. Now let’s move. The helipad is just up this staircase.’

As they ascended the spiraling stairs, Optimus began to feel unease creeping through him. The others were right. This was easy. Everything went exactly as planned and to little resistance. Aside from Lockdown and his mechs (who had no real quarrel with him in the first place), Swindle had few bodies capable of contesting Team Prime. He shouldn’t have had any real worries to begin with, and yet…

They reached the helipad one by one, first Prime, then his team, then Bumblebee and Airazor, and then the rest. The helipad was a wide open circular space, with a few large docking crates forming a semi-circle around the pad. One of Grimlock’s Raptoricons was to fly the ship over to pick them up, but they had yet to receive the order to do so. Before Optimus could send the message, Ironhide spoke up.

‘Prime, twelve o’clock!’

Prime followed Ironhide’s line of sight to find Swindle, flying a beige sky-sled over towards them from the other side of the heli-pad. The sled came to a halt before descending at the other end of the helipad. The former Combaticon stepped off, and clapped his hands together once, before raising them still clasped, to his mouth. ‘Alright, let me get this straight. Knowing that the Vestial Imperium supports me—knowing you will be tried, and possibly executed for interfering with Imperium affairs—you attempted to raid, assault, and steal from my business?’

‘The Imperium will know what you’re doing here, Swindle!’ Optimus declared. ‘Grimlock is retrieving your surveillance tapes as we speak. Once we provide the evidence to the Imperium, you will be shut down. Permanently.’

‘Do you really expect—,’

‘I know the Imperium, Swindle. They may not be Autobot or Decepticon, but they do care about the rights of Cybertronians. When they learn what you are doing—what you are really doing—to these protoforms, then there will be nowhere for you to run.’

Swindle lost his sarcastic grin. ‘Alright. I get it. That’s fair. Pick a number.’

Ironhide frowned at the suggestion. ‘What?!’

Swindle stared at the group, massive eye-lids blinking over his oversized optical lenses. ‘Pick a number.’

Blackarachnia scowled. ‘I don’t think it’s worth answering him Prime. I’ve done this kind of mind-game before—Swindle’s definitely up to something fraggy.’

Optimus glared at the former Combaticon, and answered. ‘Seven.’

Swindle shrugged. ‘Alright then, lemme just…’ he began tapping in a set of commands into his wrist. ‘Annnnd ENTER.’

In seconds, seven of the younglings began shrieking in pain, clutching their heads and falling to their knees. Their bodies convulsed outwardly, as if to forcefully eject something from their systems.

Bumblebee rushed to the nearest of the seven and began shaking them by the shoulders. ‘Overshoot! What is it, buddy? Actually, buddy might be stretching it but— still, tell me what’s wrong so I can help!’

Optimus whipped his head from the younglings to Swindle. ‘What the hell are you doing to them?!’

Swindle merely raised his hands defensively. ‘Hey, hey. You’re the one who forced my hand here. You could say I let a virus get into my system—that virus being you, of course—so to inoculate that, I am operating a, er, soft reboot.’

All at once, Overshoot and the others stopped moving altogether. Overshoot raised his head slowly.

Bumblebee smiled at that. ‘Hey… you’re okay now. Geez, guy, you had me worried for a minute there. I don’t like to come off as a guy who worries about people, so you kind of just caused the most embarrassing moment of my life—.’

‘This unit requires self-designation.’ Overshoot stated.

Bumblebee reared his head back in shock. ‘What the—?!’

Ironhide snarled, taking a large step towards the Combaticon as Jazz and Blackarachnia held him back. ‘What have you done you Decepticon punk!?’

Swindle shrugged. ‘Like I said, a soft reboot. Each one of my products is equipped with a state-of-the-art Cerebros Circuit. Protoforms acting out of line? Wish to revert to your original specs? Say no more! With this handy implant you can reset a Cybertronian’s processor to the day they were forged! Now I do sell these for a high price, and I haven’t been able to outfit some of our newer models because of a shortage of stock, but by all means I highly advocate—,’

‘C’mon, man!’ Blackarachnia shouted, still struggling to restrain Ironhide. ‘We get it, you’re an ignorant jerk. You don’t have to rub it in our faces.’

‘Alright! Point is, try anything against my business again, and I will reduce each and every one of these bots into balls of lifeless obedience. I’m not too thrilled with the concept myself, but as a professional I do plan to take whatever measures necessary to ensure that everything is running smoothly.’ He grinned at Optimus. ‘Now, if you’d please…’

Heat sizzled from Prime’s optics as he glared at the former Combaticon. He brought an index finger to the side of his head. ‘Grimlock. The mission’s a bust. Retreat.’

‘What?!’ Came Grimlock’s reply. ‘You have got to be joking! I have Lockdown on the defensive. Everything is going… smoothly. Aside from the fact that Scorn is dead, things are going smoothly!’

‘No, they’re not.’ Optimus said. He began to explain the situation to Grimlock, making clear the losses that were made as a result of their own mistakes.

Grimlock would only growl.

‘Look,’ Optimus said. ‘If you don’t retreat to the Ark immediately, we will take it back from you, and we will leave you here to rot.’

After a moments silence, Grimlock responded. ‘Fine.’ The connection was severed as Optimus raised his head to the grinning salesman.

Bumblebee clenched his fist. ‘I’m gonna kill you. I’m gonna shove my stingers so far up your aft that you’ll… you’ll—,’

Airazor squeezed Bee on the shoulder, silencing him momentarily, before advancing away from the yellow youngling and towards Swindle.

‘Airazor!’ Optimus croaked. ‘Don’t do anything to threaten him! It’s not worth it!’

Swindle’s grin broadened. ‘You know, the two of you, the “bird and the bee” as you call yourselves, have been a real splotch of rust on my tailpipe as of late. Every time I reset “Bumblebee” over there he just develops into the same old crankshaft. But I never felt the need to reboot you, “Airazor”.’

Bumblebee’s optics widened. ‘No.’

‘I think that might actually be the solution to my problem! Maybe taking you out of the picture will finally convince “Bee” over there to quit while he’s ahead. Only one way to find out.’ Swindle began tapping in a set of commands into the device on his wrist.

‘Swindle please, do whatever you want to me, just leave Airazor out of this. I swear I will do whatever you say! I'll stop trying to escape. Just please, leave her alone!’

‘And… ENTER.’

But nothing happened. Airazor did not shriek, nor did she hold her head in suffering. She stood, somewhat hunched over, as she was, and stared into Swindle’s deep violet optics.

Swindle frowned, clicked the same button once more, looked up for a reaction, and frowned once again. ‘Were you not outfitted with a chip? You are one of the older models, aren’t you?’

Airazor merely stared into the former Combaticon’s optics, and muttered. ‘You will fall.’ With that, she turned around to join the others, who had, if not already, begun to return to their rooms.

‘Well, whatever. Now, in return for the damages,’ Swindle said to Optimus, dusting off his hands. ‘I would appreciate it if you returned each product you “liberated” to their rooms. And if you are to refuse…’ he motioned to his wrist. ‘You know what happens.’

------

Thundercracker sat in the Nemesis’ command chair. It felt too big for him, for whatever reason, but he couldn’t say he was completely uncomfortable sitting in it. The Seeker Elite stood at attention across the bridge’s perimeter. Skywarp, Slipstream, Roadgrabber, as well as Acid Storm, and his lieutenants. ‘Activate galactic holo-visual.’

‘Yes, Commander,’ the Seeker known as Nacelle responded from his post.

A bright, pixelated map of the milky-way materialized upon the bridge’s main display.

Slowly, Roadgrabber began to step forward and gestured to the visual. In seconds, the swirling mass of stars began to expand, and the image zoomed into a more specified sector of space.

‘Thanks to our sources, we’ve – well, Hotlink and the other techies, at least—have traced Obsidian’s signal to the Nodian sector.’

‘Excellent,’ Thundercracker said indifferently. ‘Then we’ll disperse and scour the sector for his whereabouts from there.’

‘We may not have to,’ Hotlink replied. The purple seeker had been standing next to the brooding Acid-Storm in one corner of the bridge. The green seeker had yet to get over his brief humiliation on Thundercracker’s part.

‘Explain.’

Hotlink seemed almost giddy. ‘Well, Thundercracker. I was doing some research on the sector in question, and as it turns out, an intergalactic arms dealer by the name of Swindle is currently keeping shop there.’

Thundercracker frowned. Swindle. He had heard stories of the infamous arms dealer. That he was once a member of the just as notorious Combaticons before taking to his solo-business.

That’s when it hit him. The Combaticons. Obsidian had claimed to have been a member of such a group, back when he had attempted to recruit Optimus to his side. He was placed in charge of the second wave of Combaticons after the deactivation of some of its original members. Could Obsidian have maintained any ties to Swindle? They wouldn’t have had very long to know each other. Given how soon Swindle left the Combaticons following the emergence of the second wave. Even still, it was a place to start.

‘Excellent work,’ Thundercracker said. ‘Nacelle, set coursed for Swindle’s location. Knowing him we may be able to negotiate an exchange of person.’

Skywarp scoffed. He was leaning on the wall opposite to Acid Storm. ‘I reckon we’re going to let him know we’re coming then, eh? We tell him we want to talk, he’ll welcome us into his home with open arms, exchange pleasantries and all the oil we can drink—oh we’re just going to get along as well as a litter of turbo-foxes, we are.’

‘Don’t be stupid,’ Thundercracker replied without sparing a glance to the purple and black seeker. ‘We’ll still use the element of surprise. If he refuses to negotiate, well, that’s what the Nemesis is for.’ He felt momentarily hesitant about the prospect of using such destructive power, but quickly quashed the thought. It was just Swindle. He could annihilate the entire planet, if it came down to it, and nobody of great import, in the end, would get hurt.

-----

Optimus, Ironhide, Blackarachnia, and Jazz made their way to the Ark in silence, defeated.

Suddenly, Blackarachnia clapped her claws together. ‘Welp, we tried. Losing sucks, but we put in an honest effort, and that’s what counts.’ She scratched the back of her helm in thought. ‘Say, maybe if we get back to the Ark before Grimlock does, we can leave before he tries making us do something pointless for him again.’

‘Blackarachnia…’ Optimus said in frustration. Before he could finish his aggression, the Prime stopped, stared forward, and kept walking. ‘I want to save them.’

‘We know you do, boss-bot.’ Jazz said, walking beside him. ‘We’ll figure… something out. But if worse comes to worst…’

‘Perhaps it would be best if we chose not to consider that now,’ Ironhide finished.

‘Er… right,’ Jazz looked up at his commander once more and frowned. ‘It’s your call, chief. Whichever way you wanna jive, we’ll be cool with it.’ He turned to the others, glaring at them through his visor, as if to threaten agreement out of them.

Blackarachnia and Ironhide shrugged in unison.

‘Yeah, why not.’

‘Of course.’

Optimus nodded slowly, ‘I left a communicube with Bumblebee and Airazor. So maybe we—,’

A bullet whizzed past Prime’s faceplate, barely skimming the tip of his nose. The four bots slowly turned to the source of the bullet to find Lockdown walking towards them. The tall robot’s head morphed from a large cannon into a featureless visor of a face.

‘You again?’ Ironhide gruffed, charging his cannons. ‘Please tell me you’re back for more.’

The others readied their weapons, but with a wave of his hand, Prime had them at ease. ‘Lockdown, we have no quarrel with you and you know it, what is the meaning of this?’

Lockdown’s grin could be felt from behind his circular visor. ‘You’re right about that, to an extent. I could have killed you and claimed your bounty any time I pleased. If Decepticon Leadership were something I was interested in, I might have bothered taking your head. But it isn’t, and I didn’t. Right now, all I’m looking for is Grimlock. He and I were in the middle of a very fascinating discussion, but he seems to have run off.’ His grin parted. ‘And I reckon you know where he’s run off to.’

‘We’ll never tell you!’ Blackarachnia exclaimed before turning to Optimus. ‘On second thought, why don’t we tell him? It would kind of solve our Dinobot problem.’

Optimus went quiet. For a moment, he considered doing just that, but his better judgement took hold. ‘No. No, Lockdown, I’m sorry, but I still need him.’

Lockdown shrugged. ‘Well, I think I’m done questioning things for today, so for now I think I’ll just,’ suddenly, Lockdown’s head morphed into a lengthy rifle and fired a blast into Ironhide’s chest, sending the burly Autobot hurdling back. ‘Use force.’

Blackarachnia snarled as she unfurled her stalks. ‘Now you’ve done it.’ She leaped at the bounty hunter, only for Lockdown to swing his hook, latch onto her mid-air and sending her swinging back into Jazz. The agent tried to dodge, but was quickly pulled to the ground under Blackarachnia’s weight. Despite having no weapons, Optimus flung himself at Lockdown, though it was only with a few quick swings and spins from his hook, that Optimus found himself flung around with his back turned to the bounty-hunter. Optimus watched as Jazz, Ironhide and Blackarachnia ceased what they were doing and watched. Before Optimus could turn around, he felt the barrel of a blaster press against the side of his head. Lockdown’s hook had been raised to his throat to hold him in place.

‘Now then,’ Lockdown said, grinning. ‘Perhaps we can re-negotiate. Tell me where Grimlock is, and nobody dies. You can trust me on that. I’m a mech of my word.’

It was then, Lockdown noticed something peculiar about the others. The Autobots seemed distracted. As if their attention were focused on something other than—

Clik-clik.

Lockdown had experienced the sensation enough times to immediately recognize the position he was in. Someone had, in turn, pressed the barrel of a blaster to the back of Lockdown’s head.

‘Alright,’ Lockdown said to the stranger. ‘You got me, just tell me what you want from me, and I’ll give it to you. Unless it's any of that weird stuff, I'm still not willing to give up my dignity.’

‘I am about to count down from ten,’ said the stranger. ‘If you do not release Optimus before I reach zero, then I am afraid I will have no choice but to shoot you. Which would be messy, make no mistake. Now then: Ten—,’

Before he could reach nine, Lockdown released Optimus and raised his hands above his head. Optimus was quick to scramble away from the bounty hunter, who merely scowled in turn. ‘Alright, alright, I’ve done what you asked. Now what?’

‘Now?’ replied the stranger. ‘Now I will pay whatever Swindle owes you for Grimlock, you leave the Prime be, and hopefully we never see each other again.’

Lockdown scoffed. ‘That’s real cute coming from someone I haven’t even seen yet. And besides, I highly doubt anyone can match the payment Swindle’s givin’ m—.’

‘Three million credits?’

Lockdown’s optics widened. ‘Well, show me the cash, and maybe we can talk a little more extensively on the subject.’ The stranger forwarded the credits into Lockdown’s subspace mainframe, and a grin spread across the bounty hunter’s faceplate.

‘You may hunt Grimlock at your leisure… as soon as Optimus has used him to his fullest potential.’

‘Perfect,’ Lockdown lowered his hands and turned around to take a look at the stranger. ‘I look forward to working with you… again. Now that is disgusting.’

The stranger, now in full view to Lockdown, was in no good shape. His armour was torn, exposing inner circuitry to the planet’s cold air. There was a light blue leakage seeping the stranger’s chest, a leakage of what Lockdown recognized as a sign of spark failure. In fact, the stranger seemed like they were going to collapse at any second. The bounty-hunter winced, and transformed into his Cybertronian muscle-car mode. ‘And here I thought you would be a little more threatening. I’d get yourself checked out if I were you. Don’t want to get infected.’

As Lockdown sped away from the Autobots, the stranger hovered closer towards them.

‘Optimus…’ Obsidian muttered, liquid dribbling from his maw. ‘I have been looking for you… I… I am here to…’

Optimus took a wide step backwards from the hovering Decepticon, and as he did so, the strategist’s rotors ceased. The Prime felt bad for not-catching Obsidian as he fell, but knelt down beside him all the same. He was in stasis-lock. That was a bad sign. It meant his systems were so low on Energon that they couldn’t afford to process movement, let alone thought. In time they wouldn’t be able to afford keeping him alive.

Ironhide and the others crowded around the body, staring at him in confusion.

Jazz scratched the top of his head. ‘Obsidian? What’s he doing all the way out here? I mean aside from leaking all over the place.’

‘Nothing good, I expect.’ Ironhide growled. He pressed a fist into the palm of his hand. ‘This might be a trap to lure us somewhere. I say we let him bleed out where he lays and pretend we didn’t see anything.’

‘Yeah, I’m not sure about that,’ Blackarachnia loomed over the strategist, examining his dimmed optics and statuesque-face. ‘Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for lynching one of our arch-enemies. I’m behind murdering someone who’s been partially responsible for the scrap we’ve been through one-hundred-percent. But this guy is a living legend. Wouldn’t it be kind of – I don’t know – bad to just let him die like this?’

Ironhide thought about this for a moment. ‘Nope. He’s a Decepticon, and we’re not. Him dying is of no consequence to us. If anything, it will make our lives easier.’

Optimus rose to his feet. ‘Jazz, Blackarachnia, carry him inside.’

Ironhide’s optics widened in shock. ‘What?’

‘Be gentle with him, he won’t last long without medical attention.’

The others stared at him with similar airs of bemusement, but went to work regardless. ‘On it, Chief. You get his arms, BA, I’ll get his legs—’ Jazz thought about what he was about to say for a moment before continuing. ‘I’ll get this end.’

‘I don’t think it’s a trap.’ Optimus said, ‘But that aside, I seriously have no idea how we are going to rescue these sparklings.’

‘We’re still on that?’ Blackarachnia asked, lifting Obsidian’s head as Jazz grabbed his tail. ‘I could have sworn we had already given up about three minutes ago.’

Optimus ignored her. ‘Thing is, I cannot for the hope of me think of an effective strategy to save Airazor and the others from Swindle’s program,’ that’s when he turned to Obsidian. The strategist was lying prone, liquid dripping onto the hard ground below. ‘But he can.’

 

‘Where did you stash those two, anyway?’

‘Just in here, boss. Literally the best place we could find.’

Thrust led Swindle into one of the complex’s many empty crawl-spaces. Areas originally belonging to storage of weapons or valuables, now emptied since the rise of the ex-Combaticon’s new business measures.

Swindle’s bright purple optics glowed in the pitch-black darkness of the passage. ‘Couldn’t you have kept them someplace—anyplace—brighter? There is bound to be bacteria manifesting in this kind of darkness.’ The thought of a health inspector examining the place made Swindle’s optics flicker.

‘I am afraid we could not,’ Dirge replied.

Swindle recoiled. ‘Vector Sigma! Who the hell— Dirge! Is that you back there? Why didn’t you say anything? And why were you standing alone in the dark?’

Dirge flipped a switch, and the lights came on. Next to Dirge was Airazor and Bumblebee, strung up in a pair of chains, and hanging from the ceiling above. Their mouths were bolted shut, though it was clear the smaller of the two was eager to say something nasty to his holders.

‘I was simply reflecting in the darkness on the futility of our constant struggle to—.’

‘Wow, never mind,’ Swindle replied, raising his large palms. ‘I just realized I don’t care! Now Thrust, tell me what exactly you have… planned for these two?’

Thrust turned to the younglings, then back to Swindle. ‘Torture. Mainly. I thought that was pretty obvious, given how they’re strung up the way they are and everything.’

‘Well, obviously, I know you’re going to torture them,’ Swindle stressed. ‘What I want to know is how you’re going to torture them. You can’t damage them too badly, after all. They’re still in mint condition. They’re still buy-worthy. All I need you to do is scare them into behaving until their bids come to a head. I know you can do that much.’

Thrust smirked. ‘Well of course! I’m the expert here. Who else could you possibly rely on, Dirge?’

Swindle stared at him for a moment. ‘Yeah, whatever. Just do your thing so I can get back to business. This whole ordeal has set my schedule back by like a week.’

Thrust nodded, and pulled a thin rod from his cockpit. With a flick of his wrist, the rod extended into a silver, spear-like blade. Electricity crackled from the tip. ‘Watch and learn, gentlemen,’ Thrust dipped forward and struck the spear into Airazor’s abdomen. The younglings back arched with pain before writhing and twitching from the shock. Bumblebee’s own body shook with silent rage and horror.

Swindle himself couldn’t help but be taken aback by this. Something instinctual and repressed pulsated in the back of his skull. Something that told him to make the pain stop, not for his sake, but for his products sake. Which was a ridiculous observation, he knew. But even still, something about the torture had generated a harrowing coldness in his spark.

Thrust withdrew the spear from Airazor and plunged it into Bumblebee’s chest. Just as well, the small robot’s back arched from the pain and his head fell back. Airazor’s optics had in turn blazed a bright yellow.

‘It’s kind of funny how predictable these guys can be.’ Thrust mused, carelessly twisting the spear. ‘They try to act defiant when it’s the other’s turn, but as soon as they get the spear it’s back to squirming and crying like the worms they are.’

As he turned to plunge the blade into Airazor once more, Swindle found himself opening his mouth to speak, to make him stop this. But no words came out. He didn’t think it was something he was programmed to say. He didn’t say anything when he saw Vortex, and he wouldn’t say anything now.

‘Enough of this.’

Thrust turned and scowled at Dirge. ‘What did you just say?’

The blue seeker reached over and un-did the chains; slowly lowering the pair to the floor where they panted and twitched in unison.

‘What are you doing?!’ Thrust spat. ‘What’s is your damage, Dirge?’

Dirge simply shook his head and turned to Swindle. ‘I’m sorry. This isn’t right. I won’t be a part of it.’

Swindle stared at him for a moment, and then to Thrust.

‘Aren’t you going to yell at him?!’ Thrust demanded. ‘He’s being a—he’s stopping us from—he’s—!’

Swindle waved a hand passively and turned to leave. ‘Dirge, I’ll talk to you about this later. Thrust, return them to their cells. I’d rather do something more productive with my time. And as we both know, Thrust, time is money.’

The former Combaticon proceeded out of the passage and back into the main complex, secretly relieved by his subordinate’s indiscretions. While Thrust fumed, Swindle knew the seeker would see the logic in his words, and would thus fail to misjudge Swindle as someone softer than he really was. That said, Swindle was no longer sure whether he needed to make any more money at this point. From what he could see from the bids, he wouldn’t need to pay for anything ever again. He had finally reached the point. Swindle had too much money. Honestly, Swindle couldn’t help but ask where the fun was in all this.

-----

‘Let’s kill ‘em.’

The four Autobots stood crowded around Obsidian’s stasis-locked shell. Optics rising from him to Ironhide.

The weapons specialist folded his arms. ‘Why am I getting those looks? Why am I suddenly crazy just because I’m the only genre savvy one of the lot of us?’

Blackarachnia brought a claw to her helm, ‘Huh, I dunno. Suggesting to kill an unarmed combatant out of the blue doesn’t seem problematic in the least.’

Ironhide scowled at her sarcasm and pointed at the prone figure on the medical berth. ‘That’s Obsidian! He’s the mind that’s been behind all the trouble we’ve faced until now! Do you think Starscream managed to accomplish all he had on his own? Do you think he came up with half the strategies he practiced? If we let Obsidian live to see another day, we’ll be making the biggest mistake of our lives. That’s experience talking, not bias.’

Blackarachnia stretched her arms to the side. ‘Could’ve confused me. I thought letting me live to see another day was the biggest mistake of our lives. And if it isn’t obvious enough for your pea-brain to understand, if he wanted us dead, he would have let Lockdown do it for him.’

Ironhide squinted down at her. ‘He’s smarter than you think.’

‘He’s comatose.’

‘Guys!’ Jazz blurted, grabbing them both by the shoulders. ‘Cool down for a second. BA is right.’

Ironhide reared his head back. ‘What?’

‘Mostly. We still ought to keep ‘em under lock and key until we can figure out what to do with him. But there’s no sense in outright killing him. Especially when there is a decent chance he’s here to help. As crazy as that sounds.’

Ironhide grunted, then turned to Optimus. ‘I know you’re going to spare him. I’m always the odd one out in these kinds of discussions. What’s the final word, Prime?’

Optimus waved a hand to them. ‘Leave us.’

Jazz tilted his head to the side. ‘What?’

‘Leave me with him. I’m going to talk to him. Please.’

The three exchanged glances, then, one by one, exited the room. Jazz stood just outside the med-bay’s doors. ‘You’re sure about this, chief?’

‘Close the door.’

Without another word, Jazz closed the doors behind him.

With a few swift movements, Optimus rebooted Obsidian’s main functions, and in seconds, a pair of light green optics stared up at him.

After a moment to acclimate himself, Obsidian spoke. ‘I have something for you.’

‘Do you now?’

Obsidian slowly reached into his chest compartment, and pulled out a small rod, which in turn extended and flipped out into a familiar shape.

‘My axe!’ Optimus exclaimed, taking the weapon from Obsidian and cradling it carefully in his hands.

‘I had kept it with me ever since you— how shall I put it— dropped it, back on Via Finis. I thought it best to return it to you, my lord.’

Optimus reared backwards, ‘Don’t call me that.’

‘Ah, forgive me. As you command, Optimus.’

‘It’s not even that. In fact, you’re still doing it. I can’t…’ Optimus shook his head. ‘I can’t become the leader you desire. I just can’t risk it.’

Obsidian’s optics narrowed. ‘That’s not what you said before.’

‘I know what I said before. I was… I don’t know. Some things have happened since then.’

Obsidian’s optics seemed to narrow further. ‘I am aware.’

‘Look, I died. It made me come to appreciate the life I have. More than I did before. Being chased across the galaxy by the Decepticon army was hell, and I didn’t know how to… let’s say, how to cope with it. But now that’s all over, I’m not in any immediate danger anymore, and because of that I can appreciate things I couldn’t before. Like, these guys…’ he gestured to the doors, ‘they’re all I need. They’re jerks, but I still love them like family. And if I have them I don’t really need anything else.’ He turned to Obsidian. ‘Becoming a warlord could endanger that. And I’m not sure I’m ready for that just yet.’

Obsidian paused. ‘Very well.’ He slowly rose from his slab, fingers steepled at his lap. ‘I cannot prevent you from choosing your own path— just as you cannot prevent me from serving you.’ He observed the medibay, ‘I understand you are… working towards something here.’

Optimus nodded slowly. ‘I am.’ The Prime recounted to the Decepticon war-strategist the status of the Ark, the Dinobots, Swindle, and the business he had assembled for himself.

‘I see.’ Obsidian nodded sagely.

‘Then you can help us?’

‘I can. In fact, I already have the wisp of a plan simmering in the back of my head as we speak.’ Obsidian pinched the air between his fore-finger and his thumb. ‘There is just one small niggle of a problem.’

‘What problem?’

‘The problem is that you won’t like it.’

Optimus frowned. ‘Try me. I am more flexible than I look.’

‘You must use your status as Decepticon Leader to accomplish it.’

Prime’s eyes narrowed at this. ‘I see.’

‘It will not require you actively leading, or coming out with the information of your potential status. Swindle’s business thrives under the supervision of the Imperium—but also under the Conclave’s consent. You must simply sign an official order bearing your spark-signature.’

‘Bearing my—what?! Excuse my manners, Obsidian, but frankly that’s stupider than something Starscream would say on a good day. If all we need is a false signature, then you could easily accomplish this without my status.’

‘Unfortunately, such a thing still remains out of my reach. Allow me to explain: as the war spread across the cosmos, Megatron became wary of how often his official orders would carry through in his absence. With so many Generals, and so many advisors beneath him, Megatron feared his orders would be twisted by the likes of Starscream and Soundwave to better serve their own ideals. To ensure that the orders that were being filtered out were his own—and only his own— a system was made. Orders were transmitted in print, and attached with a complex patterned imprint. An imprint that could only be formed when placed in direct contact with the Decepticon leader’s spark.

‘Each spark is unique. It’s how we can track specific spark signatures and identify them. As such, if a General felt they were receiving false orders, they would simply scan the pattern through our data-base and receive confirmation that it was in fact Megatron making the commands and not Starscream trying to lead under the radar.’

‘And I understand that I’m in your data-base?’

‘Finding someone’s spark signature is not difficult. But finding one’s identity from the signature is another story altogether. Yes, Optimus, per Megatron’s request, the Combaticons and I researched the medical records of his killer and updated his official signature with your own. As the Decepticons’ official database is in the Combaticons’ possession, and not his, Soundwave has been unable to update the current leadership signature. But he will notice this discrepancy once Starscream’s signature proves to be inconsistent with the one in the current database, and he will make it known to the rest of the Decepticons what has happened. For now, if we were to deliver an official transcript to Swindle from “High Command” telling him to shut down, Swindle would have no choice but to surrender, free the prisoners—do whatever it is you ask of him. With your spark signature, we could fool Swindle into thinking he is being commanded by the offices of New Kaon. He would be unable to tell otherwise.’

Optimus considered this for a moment. ‘And what if he calls your bluff? What if he suspects the spark signature is mine and checks? Even if he would have no way of knowing it’s my spark he’s looking at, he knows I want his operations shut down. What if he suspects and finds some way to find my spark’

‘If he does, I have a backup for that. I… know Swindle. And if he has the ball-bearings to doubt the will of his leaders, he must face the consequences. I am being followed, Optimus. Thundercracker and his Aerospace Legion have been on my trail for some time now, and it won’t be long before they catch up to me. When they arrive here, Swindle will view it as the Conclave recognizing his failure to shut down as a betrayal, and acting in kind. Realizing his mistake, Swindle will have no choice but to do as we tell him. His only other option is to attempt to fight off the Nemesis and its Legion. And I know Swindle is smart enough to know such an act would be futile.’

Prime massaged his chin in thought. ‘But if that happens, we’ll have the Legion hovering right above our heads. Remember— Starscream knows I’m still alive. Even if Soundwave already has what he wants, Starscream is as much a threat as him. My survival brings his title into question. My survival is a threat to his leadership.’

Obsidian spread his digits, exposing his palms. ‘I understand. If that is to occur, then in the best-case scenario, we hide within your Ark—where they will be unable to detect our signatures—, and wait until it all blows over.’

‘And the worst case scenario?’

‘I… will submit myself to Thundercracker.’

Optimus was silent for a moment. ‘Okay.’

Obsidian paused in turn. Slowly, he examined Prime’s reaction, optics widening slightly in mild surprise. ‘That is all?’

‘I appreciate your help, Obsidian. Genuinely, I do. But knowing you—knowing the thousands of deaths you are responsible for—I can’t feel sorry for you. I’m sorry, Obsidian, but you have what’s coming to you. If I could help keep you on my side, I would.’

Obsidian sighed. ‘A… logical response, Optimus. In fact, I am pleasantly surprised by you. Somehow I expected you to be more…’

‘Emotional? Clingy?’

‘Perhaps.’

‘Terrific.’

Obsidian hovered next to his slab, facing away from Optimus. ‘If we manage to succeed… and the end-result does not involve my capture…’ the strategist paused. Once again scanning Optimus for a reaction. ‘Thundercracker witnessed our conversation… no doubt everyone—Starscream, Soundwave, Strika—know about my betrayal by now. There may be no going back for me. Which is why I would be forever grateful if—.’

‘I’ll consider it.’ Optimus responded. ‘I’ll consider making you a Spacefarer.’

-----

Ironhide paced aggressively before the medi-bay’s doors, brow furrowed. ‘What is taking them so long? What could Prime possibly be saying to him?’

‘Strategy,’ Jazz reminded him. ‘Isn’t that the whole point of this shenanigan? To get old Obsidian to do the chief’s dirty-work for him and figure out a way to solve this whole mess?’

‘Doesn’t stop it from being moronic!’ Ironhide gruffed. ‘To be in there for so long without any protection—,’

Blackarachnia, leaning against the opposite wall waved a lazy claw to the weapons specialist. ‘Relax, “dad”. Prime is a big-kid. He knows how to use protection.’

‘He should still have had one of us in there to—wait, what?’

Jazz stared at the door. ‘What are they doing in there?’

Blackarachnia grinned. ‘Making out, probably. Watch out, Ironhide. Prime’s found a new boyfriend. With more experience, even.’

Ironhide jabbed an index digit at her. ‘YOU…! Want me to kill you, don’t you? You know me well enough by now to realize that I will kill you if pressed hard enough. You aren’t stupid, you’re just suicidal. Now I see.’

Blackarachnia shrugged playfully. ‘Hey, like I said, I’m better at you at everything. Even hating me.’

Jazz sighed, walked forward, and draped his arms around the two. ‘Y’all need to get along, like right now. It’s a wonder we get anything done around here when the two of you are fighting each other more than you’re fighting the bad guys? Now group huddle.’

‘What? Why?’ Blackarachnia said. ‘That sounds really gay.’

Ironhide shook his head in disgust. ‘Using a derogatory term. As ignorant and apathetic as ever…’

Blackarachnia stared at the weapons specialist in bafflement. ‘As ignorant as—? Man, I’m a Decepticon whose eaten people alive, do I look like I give a fu—?!’

‘Group huddle. NOW!’ Jazz snapped.

‘Alright, alright.’ Blackarachnia groaned.

As the three huddled, Ironhide and Blackarachnia stared at Jazz in anticipation of what he was about to say to them.

Instead he just smiled.

‘What is the meaning of this, Smiles?’ Blackarachnia asked.

‘Nothing.’

‘Then why are we doing this?’ Ironhide gruffly demanded.

‘No reason. I was just feeling left out.’

‘You felt left out, so you had us all participate in a group hug?’

Jazz shrugged, his smile widening. ‘Yes. But can any of us really stay mad at each other with our faces so ridiculously close together?’

Ironhide and Blackarachnia exchanged looks, then turned back to Jazz, both smiling slightly.

‘Nahh,’ Blackarachnia admitted.

‘For now, no.’

‘Then the huddle was worth it.’

The three chuckled softly to each other as they maintained the huddle.

‘Jazz?’ Ironhide asked.

‘Yeah ‘Hide?’

‘Are you playing… music?’

Musical sound had been playing from Jazz’s chest radio, of which the former Covert Ops Specialist had been humming along to. He sang softly. ‘Ooh, child. Things are gonna get easier… Ooh child, things’ll get brighter~.’

Blackarachnia immediately broke from the huddle. ‘Okay, that was fun, but I’m done. I draw the line at singing.’

Jazz too, broke off, shrugging. ‘Yeah, fair enough. I knew I was taking a leap of faith towards the end there. I knew when I was flying too close to the sun.’

Before Jazz could explain the Earthen reference, he soon became aware of a large figure over shadowing the three. Jazz turned around, and identified the figure. ‘Grimlock.’

In seconds, Grimlock knocked Blackarachnia and Grimlock aside with his fists, and lunged at Jazz, grabbing the smaller Autobot by the throat and pinning him up against the wall.

‘WHAT IS PRIME THINKING?!’

Jazz struggled to respond. ‘What’re you saying, Grim?’

‘Don’t play dumb! I know Optimus brought a notorious Decepticon on board! Where is he?! What is Prime planning with him?!’

As Blackarachnia and Ironhide rolled onto their feet, weapons at the ready, but with a wave of his hand, Jazz ordered them to stand down. ‘Lemme explain, Grim. Prime’s using Obsidian to help figure out a way to beat Swindle. He’s our prisoner, Grim. He ain’t a threat to nobody.’

As he said this, the doors parted, and Optimus, side-by-side with Obsidian, walked out.

Dropping Jazz, Grimlock craned his head to Prime, practically wheezing with hatred. ‘Why didn’t you consult me about this? Why keep this a secret from me?!’

Before Optimus could answer him, a voice chirped from behind Grimlock.

‘Excuse me!’

Six heads turned to face Strafe, who had been dragging the much larger body of Scorn through the halls. Both were wounded badly, but it was barely apparent if Scorn was alive or not. ‘I need… I need to get into the medibay.’ Strafe swallowed between words. ‘I need someone to fix him!’

‘You are interrupting something,’ Grimlock growled.

‘I don’t care!’ Strafe said icily. ‘He needs help, and you can’t stop me from giving it to him. It’s your fault for dragging him into the line of fire, anyway!’

Grimlock bent over to face the smaller Dinobot, brow furrowing. ‘I did what was necessary to retrieve those tapes. It’s Scorn’s fault for not being able to stomach more. Besides, he’s not a real Dinobot like Slag or Snarl were. And in that case, neither are you.’

‘Did you actually obtain the security tapes?’ Optimus asked, boldly.

This gave Grimlock pause. ‘No. We had to pull out because of you.’

‘Oh go frag yourself your highness,’ Strafe suddenly snapped. ‘I won’t let him die! Now, will anyone else here care to help me get him onto a slab?’

Optimus nodded immediately and set to work. ‘Jazz, Ironhide, stay out here and watch Obsidian…’

‘With pleasure,’ Ironhide replied, slapping a strong hand on Obsidian’s shoulder, causing the strategist to flinch. Jazz merely smiled ominously at him, which only seemed to put Obsidian even more on edge.

‘Blackarachnia, help Strafe lift Scorn onto a recharge slab.’

‘As you command, fearless leader,’ she replied sarcastically before setting to work.

Nodding, the Prime turned to Strafe as she passed him, ‘I’ll do what I can for him.’ He then turned to Grimlock. ‘I’ll explain the plan to you as I repair your comrade.’ He ducked back into the medibay behind Strafe and Blackarachnia. ‘Now, please. Time is of the essence.’

Fuming, Grimlock followed him inside. Restraining himself from transforming into a Jurrassoid and devouring the Prime alive.

As the doors closed behind the Dinobot, the remaining three Cybertronians exchanged glances with one another.

‘So…’ Obsidian began, clasping his hands as Jazz and Ironhide observed him. ‘I don’t suppose you gentleman would be willing to offer me a pint of Energon, would you? I am awfully parched and would be eternally grateful if you could spare some for a former enemy.’

Ironhide and Jazz exchanged glances before turning back to the strategist.

‘I don’t think so,’ Jazz said.

‘Definitely not.’

‘Ah,’ Obsidian turned to Ironhide’s hand, still clasped around his shoulder. ‘At the very least could I politely ask you to remove your hand from my frame? I have something of an… aversion to germs, and other physically transmitted bacteria. Nothing personal, I simply do not like being touched.’

Jazz and Ironhide exchanged glances once more, this time grinning if not a little nefariously. Suddenly, Jazz slapped Obsidian on one shoulder, as Ironhide began patting him repeatedly on the other.

‘Not a problem, Big O.’ Jazz said.

‘With all due courtesies… “former” enemy.’

Obsidian laughed nervously, trying not to think of where their hands had been, he lowered his head. ‘I see… this is how it is.’ He began playing an old earthen tune in his head to cope. Ooh child. Things are gonna get easier….

 

You know, it begs the question of what Grimlock could have been through to make him so utterly detached from those under his command. Given that he saw Scorn as little more than fodder he's really not that much better than Swindle.

Scratch that, even Swindle has his limits, as demonstrated when Thrust was torturing Airazor and Bumblebee. Grimlock is far and away the worse monster.

 

Fuck happen with Grim for him to be a dick? Optimus really needs to accept this leadership. It could really help end the war and honestly....just kill Soundwave. Obisidan is quite the character....I really love what you have planned with him.