...I'm....I'm submitting TWO CHAPTERS TONIGHT! AHHHHH.
Granted they're short ones, but I'm getting too impatient to get to my huuuge plotline revelation! I've only got one paragraph to come up with in chapter 13, and even 14 is nearly done! Or is it already done? I have no idea
I'm just so excited! I don't care if no one reads them, I'm just so thrilled to have it all down at last! Do you ever get that tingling fuzzy feeling when you write a fic? I get t look back at all the chapters that exist! WOOAhem. Anyway, here goes: Chapters 11 AND 12!!!!
Beast Wars REBIRTH
VOULUME 1
Chapter 11: The flames ignite
"She's doing this to piss me off!"
"Of course she is, Grey,"
"She's overreacting!"
"Of course she is, Grey,"
Throughout most of the first hour of the next day at Pangaea, Greyback had been walking around in a strop, complaining to anyone he could find that didn't see him coming in time enough to run.
His current victims were Accinon and Optimus. Optimus tried his hardest to say nothing, for he feared it would quickly turn against him, but Accinon was surprisingly reserved, answering the wolf calmly on autopilot.
"I mean, come on, it's not like I did or said anything terrible," the Maximal lieutenant continued, now pacing. Just behind him, Sandskimmer chuckled amusedly at the look on Accinon's face.
"Well, actually…" Optimus began, unable to control himself. But the feline femme nudged him sharply in the calf.
"Can it Ginger, or we'll never get out alive," she whispered urgently.
"Excuse me, I'm talking to you!" Greyback exclaimed, annoyed at the interruption of his museless ranting.
"Very sorry, lieutenant, please continue," Accinon rushed in sweetly. Greyback narrowed his optics slightly and did so. The femme beckoned Optimus' face down to a lower level so she could whisper something to him, "Just slip away quietly when he's not looking. Don't worry, he'll just keep talking…"
She and Optimus stepped aside as casually and conspicuously as they could, and Greyback did indeed carry on with his monologue, unaware that people had long stopped listening to him.
"Kinda sucks though," Accinon mused, fiddling with a beast mode ear on her chestplate, "I mean, she's the one who told us all to stay put, right? So what's she doing going out by herself?"
Optimus nodded. He agreed it was very hypocritical of Jagna to deviate from her own curfew order and abandon the base without a word. He was not the most experienced or the best leader, but there were boundaries as to what a leader could do. Then again, had he and his crew retrieved their fallen stasis pods in the first place, none of this might have happened.
"She must have good reason for it," he replied automatically, ignoring what he was really thinking, "sometimes a leader has to do whatever's necessary to ensure the safety of their crew."
"Yeah, I know she means well, but she can be a real pain in the aft sometimes," Accinon commented cheekily.
"Says She," Optimus replied with a wink. The two smiled, and pushed thoughts of their leader out of their heads for the time being.
"I'm not the one who overreacted, am I?"
They turned their heads to see that Greyback had cornered Sandskimmer now, who gazed imploringly at Accinon, who shook her head with a smirk.
…
……
…
Meanwhile, Level 13 of the Predacon base was buzzing with blue and purple flashes of light. Gammatron was patrolling the corridor, passing the door where the eerie glows were being emitted from every few minutes.
Steelclaw nervously stuck his nose around a corner to see what was happening. The wall he hid behind suddenly got a carbon scorched hole in it.
"YIPE! Heeeey, what's the big idea?!" the coyote snarled at his reptilian assassin.
"This is what happens when abnormally cerebrally-dysfunctional metalhead canines shove their ugly mugs where it is not wanted," the komodo dragon replied calmly.
"Why are you so calm, huh? You know what's going on in there, why are you so calm?!"
"Hush, you imbecile! This operation is a delicate one…"
"No slag…" the canine came from around the corner and tentatively stepped closer to the door, "…how far along are they?"
"Far along enough for you to keep your distance," Gammatron replied, holding his hand out. Steelclaw complied, and halted. He raised a brow suspiciously.
"Why do you let on you know so much? You think it'll protect you?"
Gammatron's face remained still as stone. "You must leave. Now.
"No, he can stay…"
The two turned to see their leader emerge from the room, rubbing his hands with a gleeful grin spread across his face.
"We leave immediately."
…
……
…
In the volcano crevasse in Sector 6, Greyback paced back and forth in his chambers. He had sealed the door shut, and barricaded it with his desk. There were occasional knock, bangs and thuds on the door.
"Greyback!" shouted someone who sounded like Nomad.
"Not now!" the wolf barked back.
"You must come out now!" Nomad persisted, "Besides, you can't stay in there forever!"
"You wanna bet?"
"But sir…" the camel continued more imploringly, "…we have a large number of units approaching our exact position."
The door flew open, making Nomad take a step backward.
"What!?! Why didn’t you say so?!"
"I did persist, Greyback, but you insisted on locking yourself in your room."
Greyback was about to snarl in response to the tone the dromedary was emitting, but he held back suddenly. His ears twitched.
"How come the alarm hasn't gone off yet?"
"I only just detected them."
"And you didn't raise the alarm yourself WHY?"
"I thought you should know first, lieutenant."
Greyback huffed exhaustibly and pushed past Nomad and began to run flat out to the control centre. Nomad transformed into beast mode and followed him with ease, his long legs carrying him a mile a step.
"You're a real pain in the aft sometimes, you know that, Nomad?"
"I'm so happy you can open up to me, too, Grey…" the camel joked.
"How many are there?" the wolf mech asked. The camel remained silent. Under his long eyelashes Greyback could see his eyes darting uncomfortably between their flight path and his hump. "How many?" he asked again.
"…All of them…"
"Well slag…"
…
……
…
This would be the first large-scale face-off the Maximals had ever undergone together.
Greyback stood in front of his battalion of Maximals, waiting for the Predacons to arrive. Every available unit had been called to aid them, but some could not arrive either because it was too far or too dangerous.
He felt an immense pressure on his shoulders, weighed down by the expectations of his crew to lead them to victory…he was glad to have Optimus' help at that moment, though he refused to admit it. Now that she wasn't there, he had never appreciated Jagna more.
"They're headed right for the entrance, they know where it is…" Skylark informed everybody in a panicked voice as she consulted her wrist console.
"Don't presume anything, Sky. It could be a bluff," Greyback suggested, trying to contain his own panic.
"Pretty good bluff…" Spanner gulped as Sky Scraper came flying over the hill. He flapped his wings twice, swooped and flapped again.
"They're within range. Weapons out everyone! But remember, we do not fire unless fired upon, are we clear?!" Greyback bellowed to his troops.
Optimus bent down to whisper to his temporary new commander. "Better tell them to fire anyway, Tarantulas won't hold back," he told him warningly.
"We're still Maximals," Grey replied, not look at him, "I didn't think I'd have to remind you about that."
Barely a moment later, two figures emerged from the horizon of the hilltop. The sun was behind them, but the silhouettes of Serpentia and Obertron were obvious. What the nervous Maximals couldn't tell was that Serpentia was scowling.
"Thissss isssss unaccccceptable…" she whispered to her fuzor counterpart. His expression remained neutral.
"True. But it is necessary…"
He pressed a button on the side of his neck that amplified his voice tenfold, and it swept over the Maximals at the bottom of the hill in an obnoxiously loud echo.
"Have we missed something? Are you hosting a party, Greyback?"
"Where's your leader, Predacon?!" Greyback shouted up at them. He did not need an amplifier: his rage was booster enough for tem to hear him.
"Where's yours?" the fuzor replied nastily. Greyback choked, but recovered quickly with an ever fiercer glare than before.
"I wouldn't suggest an attack at this point, Oby. You're outnumbered on unfamiliar territory." They wolf projected with great confidence now. Which he was entitled to; it was true, the Predacons did not know where their strategic stronghold were in the area.
"Ah yes, about that…" Obertron continued, "…we have a surprise for you…"
Greyback's optics flickered with brief curiosity and worry. All the Maximals looked at each other, muttering and whispering and jittering worriedly.
"Say hello, Maximals…" Obertron called in his obnoxiously loud drole, "…to our new lieutenant…"
A silhouetted figure strode out from behind the bat/ape fuzor and stood between him and Serpentia at the very top of the hill. The Maximals squinted at the brightness of the setting sun behind it. There was a bright flare of sunlight as the last crescent of the solar sphere descended under the hill, their optics adjusted, and they all gasped.
"No…" Greyback exclaimed. Optimus' optics widened.
It was Jagna. But there was something different about her. Her beast mode no longer had a gingery brown coat speckled with a leopard's spots: it was jet black with piercing green eyes. Everything about her had changed. Even her purple 'skin' and gold plating seemed duller. Her optics were no longer a soft blue, but a deep, glowing red.
A malicious smile crept its way onto her face. Her former Maximals watched helplessly as she raised her hand dramatically to her new army of beasts behind that suddenly appeared behind her.
"Predacons, TERRORISE!"
DUNDUNDUNDUNDUDNUDNUDNUDNUDUDUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUNNNNNN!!