"OC Episode #5"

[Wintersong]

"Unfortunately it seems they might Airazor and if they are part of this planet they are certainly the most hostile." Wintersong said as she looked at them though heard Optimus over the com-link. "Yet duty calls." She sighed and followed her fellow white tiger back to the other maximals. Though she recalled the events in the tunnel, her ears going back as she thought they were quite lucky to make it out alive, that's if Glowstick would survive the damage he sustained in the battle earlier and being impaled."Think it's a story best waited for at base Tigatron, it's somewhat of a long one." She replied though paused as she sniffed the air. She could of sworn there was a faint Predacon scent but she shook it off and kept following.

Coming tot he clearing Wintersong looked at where her comrades were surrounding a very stubborn Manterror, the bug was still there? Growling softly she failed to understand why some Predacons didn't know when to take a hint and leave instead if acting stupid enough to take on nearly the entire maximal group. Coming from the bushes the tigeress took another quick glance but still saw no signs of the orca and was a bit concerned, plus if he did still have company they seemed to be taking longer then expected.

[Alak]

Orcariner heard Steelclaw's voice down the hallway. Initially, the giant remained motionless. He simply did not feel like moving around because everything in his body was in pain. The call of duty eventually won over and the Maximal slowly rose to his feet and walked down the hallway. He found a hole in the wall that he broke through earlier, and stepped through to save himself the effort of traveling all the way around.

No energon radiation. Steelclaw must have disabled the pillars.

Orcariner took a step further and suddenly felt a shock run through his body. He instinctively jumped back to his original position.

Nevermind.

[Blazemane]

((OOC: Sorry for any ambiguous writing in my post. Steelclaw did convince the alien to turn the field off, but once he attacked the alien, it turned the field back on- which is why Steelclaw's circuits were burning so much.))

[Alak]

((OOC: No worries it was my fault. I read the post earlier and then only now did I decide to write a response without checking back at what you wrote. It's fixed now.))

[WorpeX]

"Surrender or retreat, Manterror. This is your last chance,"

Manterror let out an audible "Eeep!" before transforming into beast mode and scurrying off into the woods. He had no desire to be around the entire maximal army, and it didn't exactly sound like Optimus was in a good mood. If only the rest of the predicons hadn't given up so easily and ran away like cowards! Fools! Yet, neither faction was going anywhere. He would get another chance to extract his vengeance from Optimus Primal. Oh yes. Yes he will.

---

"What happened in the tunnels that has damaged you?"

"Nothing, thankfully. Most of my damage is from Terrorsaur." She answered calmly. While she had received a few scratches and scuffs from falling down into caverns, nothing else had harmed her while underground. The alien had focused his energy on Orcariner and she had gotten lucky not to have fallen into any of the traps. Most of the others had also escaped without much damage too.

"Perhaps there are things on this world that we do not understand. It is possible that we have accidentally jeopardized a delicate balance with their planet and the aliens see no hope to restoring it. For all we know, this is their world, and our welcome has been long overstayed. Whatever the case, it is unfortunate that we still do not have any means of escaping such a tragedy should they have the power to exterminate all of us and the beauty of this planet."

"Let us regroup with Optimus. Tell me what happened in the tunnels on the way,"

Airazor listened intently to Tigatron's speech. He was correct of course. Perhaps they were the ones invading this planet. Yet, it still didn't give the aliens the right to destroy everything, even if they had the power to do it. There are still innocent lives here, lives that didn't have any involvement in their war. It seemed the Maximal's job of protecting the planet from the predicons just got even harder. Now they had to protect the wildlife here from the aliens who likely created it all.

"Think it's a story best waited for at base Tigatron, it's somewhat of a long one."

Nodding to Wintersong, she agreed and started to talk towards Optimus' location, although she felt slightly awkward being the only one in robot mode. "Beast Mode." She spoke, and transformed back into a falcon. With a slight flap of her wings, she took to the air, but stayed low to the ground. She flew slow so to keep up with the two tigers below her.

[Night-Hunter]

Shortly after Manterror left the creature slowly started to shrink, it's body became less bulky and muscular. Large canines started to grow out of its mouth, every thing that was the creature began to vanish and within moments an unconscious Saber-Fang lay before them. The only sign that the creature had ever been was the enormous claw marks on the trunk of the tree that the beast had used to get to the crazy Mantis, the only Indication that the former General was still alive was the steady rise and fall of her chest as she breathed.

((OOC: Saber is gonna have one heck of a hang over when she wakes up. lol.))

[Blazemane]

Steelclaw was relieved to see Orcariner. He kept limping slowly forward to him.

"You look trashed," he said, well aware of his own wounds. "My target just brought itself back online. It might not come after us, but if we want to get back in the room, we're gonna need a plan b."

[Alak]

"You look trashed,"

"To say the least," Orcariner replied.

"My target just brought itself back online. It might not come after us, but if we want to get back in the room, we're gonna need a plan b."

"Looks like those skulls either return to an online state or they self-destruct."

Except mine didn't...

The Maximal recalled that he essentially disemboweled the Vok that he had fought earlier. Perhaps the detonation wire was removed, deactivating the bomb that was still laying inside of the skull. Orcariner kept that knowledge in mind.

"We need a way to destroy those pillars so that the alien can't simply reactivate them with the consoles. We could destroy the computer, but there's so many in there that we can't risk the fact that there might be a back-up module."

Orcariner thought about how to go about complete this task. He was essentially useless in his animal form. Steelclaw was too short to touch the energon generators held within each pillar. He internally debated over whether or not he wanted to tell the Predacon about the high-powered bomb that was sitting in the heap that used to be a Vok skull. It was a highly lethal explosive that could be used against him in the end, should they have no need to use it against the aliens. Logic led to doubt, but something inside Orcariner told him that he could trust his new companion. Steelclaw stayed with him this far with no signs of misgiving. Orcariner decided he should trust him.

"I have a plan," he said, "Back where I came from is the corpse that belongs to the alien I killed. Lucky for me, it didn't blow up. This means we can retrieve the bomb that's hidden inside of its shell... assuming I didn't rip it out of him already. You go ahead and take it. I'm bigger so I should be able to rumble around with the other one until you get back. While I keep him distracted, shut down the console so that I can transform and even the fight a little bit. We'll work together on destroying the pillars and that look-a-like machine they're building."

Orcariner fell forward, transforming as his body toppled. Apparently, the damage to his systems had slowed his computers' processing power. The killer whale hit the floor, and only a few seconds later did his gravity lifts come to life. He blinked several times as his body levitated back up. This was going to be an interesting fight.

[Optimal Optimus Primal]

Listen Bug, we don't randomly attack wild life. That was a maximal that attacked you, unfortunately.. she's got a sickness at the moment. As for you.. you have your own problems to deal with. Consider those rubberbands.. Now run off to your Pred buddies, before I do something you'll regret.

"I think you should take up the offer." "At least, you will be intact."

"Eeep!"

Primal glared at Manterror until he finally made the right decision and took off. Retracting his cannons and lowering his arm, Optimus gave a nod to Icebreaker, acknowledging his quick thinking on the situation with using his weapon on Manterror; avoiding harm to the lonely Predacon but also showing that they were capable of incapacitating him. The penguin's effort proved to be successful. "Beast mode," Primal ordered his internal computer before enough energon build up could start scrambling his systems again. In a quick leap, his body reverted back to its gorilla form and he stood there for a moment looking at the ground, dealing with his damage and disregarding his processor's warnings. Lifting his head with a deep breath, he looked over his Maximals, proud of them and trusting them. Before addressing them, he noticed Tigatron, Airazor and Wintersong making their way over to join them.

When Manterror left, Rattrap finally decided to come out and trasformed to his beast mode, waddling over to everyone ((with or without Frilla)).

I think the tranquilizer worked. Not sure how long it'll last though..

Optimus looked at Rhinox and then to Saber-Fang, frowning and studying her as she laid dorment for a little while. He wished she would just tell him what exactly was going on. She can't keep going on like this. The gorilla may be able to help her but he knew Whitegrazer would be better with her techniques. "Whitegrazer, stay with Saber-Fang," he asked of the mare, watching the former general return to her normal size and color. "When she wakes up, she should be herself again. Keep her calm. Talk to her."

"Rhinox, can you get that disk out of Saber's shoulder and patch her up?" Optimus asked, glancing at the large green Maximal.

"Unfortunately it seems they might Airazor and if they are part of this planet they are certainly the most hostile." "Yet duty calls." "Think it's a story best waited for at base Tigatron, it's somewhat of a long one."

Tigatron supposed Wintersong was right. He was very curious, though.

"Nothing, thankfully. Most of my damage is from Terrorsaur." "Beast Mode."

The white tiger watched Airazor transform and take to the air, but she didn't go high or too far, she stayed right with the two big cats. He was glad to have both of their company with him as he limped over to Optimus's group.

Taking a quick mental count on his Maximals, one was still missing ((besides Valkyrie)). "Where is Orcariner?" There was some concern in Primal's voice when he asked no one in particular around him. He expected to be told where the orca was, what he was doing, and if he was with anyone.

Then, turning his attention to Dinobot, the commander inquired, "What happened to the alien clone?"

[New Moon]

Frilla followed Rattrap from the bushes and could only look around as everyone seemed to be there save for Orcanier, though she guessed he was still in the tunnels investigating the transwarp signature. Transfomring to beast mode the frilled lizard remained quiet and wondered what their next action would be.

Feralnight reverted to beast mode and looked towards the ones joining them, yet it was becoming worrying to not see the orca and come to think of it Steelclaw hadn't been around for some time either. "Optimus if you want I can go see if I can sniff out Orcanier's location, come to think of it Steelclaw has been missing for some time. Both of them could be anywhere if there is a network of tunnels beneath us, might give us some clue to where they are." She offered though didn't know what to expect in the tunnels like the others. She had realized there were traps to watch for but the two had been gone longer then it seemed.

[una]

Whitegrazer was relieved to see that Manterror left and looked at Icebreaker with gratitude.

The gorilla may be able to help her but he knew Whitegrazer would be better with her techniques. "Whitegrazer, stay with Saber-Fang," he asked of the mare, watching the former general return to her normal size and color. "When she wakes up, she should be herself again. Keep her calm. Talk to her."

She didn't have to be told twice, nodding at Optimus. She walked over towards Saber and had her hand placed on the unconscious cat's body, feeling the rise and fall as she was breathing.

"You're safe now, Saber."

She kept an eye on the former general, watching over her until she woke up.

_________________________________________________________________________

The snarling increased as blue eyes let the dark corners. Blackarachnia let out a shriek as she realized how she was surrounded by them. Stepping outside of the darkness, cybernetic creatures looking like the undead with streams of energon visble against their bodies, glowing as they all walked towards her. Blackarachnia kicked a few that ran towards her, knocking them down. The ones behind her attempted the same stragety but their heads clashed together when she flipped backwards with her hands on each of their skulls. They all got up and suddenly an energon surges burst out of their bodies, causing her entire systems to surge as well.

"Warning energon at dangerous levels. Revert to beast mode or stasis lock is immediate."

Wonderful.

Going into beast mode, she jumped on the ceiling to keep away from this monsters...husks...whatever they were. They were following her as she crawled so she shot out a web to temporary stall them.

I'm no Tarantulas but I wonder if these could be expertiments...failed expertiments.

Maybe she should capture one, if it was possible anyway.

Moving forward quickly, she turned the corner to see room up ahead. That better be the transwarp device. She jumped inside the room and stepped up the stairs towards something that looked like an altar. It was crude and shining skulls lined behind it.

Creepy.

Inside a bowl was some black fluid of sorts. I'm not going to touch that but maybe a sample. Might be nothing but there was no harm in studying it. She transformed. Taking out a vital in her compartment, she carefully--without touching the stuff--got a decent sample before capping it in triumph.

Then there was an roar that starting trembling the entire room. It was like a roar of angry God. The wall in front of her started to crack with more snarls behind her. Transforming back to beast mode, she jumped to the side and crawled into a hole but the hole was starting to crumple.

She kept going on until some force pushed her away, sending her flying.

[Blazemane]

Steelclaw nodded and limped down the tunnel. Something inside of his right leg was severely damaged, and it made a mechanical whine every time he moved it.

As quickly as he could, he reached the gaping hole in the wall and found that it was completely dark inside.

"Steelclaw, terrorize."

Once his weight was put on his back legs, he stumbled and had to catch himself against one side of the hole.

A warning was flashing in his HUD. He had 17% of his power reserves left.

"Yeah, just give me a click," he muttered while reaching for his gauss rifle and turning its light on. After propping the weapon up on one of the edges of the hole in the wall so that its light would illuminate the entire space in front of him, he immediately saw the skull lying on the ground with a great deal of its own circuitry surrounding it.

Steelclaw took the sight in stride, but it made him realize in a very unmistakeably way just how dangerous his current partner could be if pushed.

He walked inside, but that in itself was painful. Without his internal repairs working, the puncture wound in his chest and the fried circuitry everywhere else seemed to hurt that much more. Staying to the side of the alien so that his shadow wasn't cast over what he was looking at, he tried to find the bomb in the midst of the circuitry. After a few moments, he found it- a fact he was glad for, as the idea of trying to scour the inside of the skull seemed time and resource consuming.

He pulled the bomb- which fit between his two hands- carefully out of the mess of wires, finding that its connections had already been severed by one of Orcariner's swords. Then he walked over to his weapon and put the device on the ground next to it. He turned its light off and then stowed it on his back before transforming to beast mode.

Hoping silently that nothing would cause the bomb to detonate prematurely, he lifted it off the ground with his teeth and then placed it between his shoulders. Then he got away from the battle site and began walking back down the tunnel.

* * *

What happened to the alien clone?

Dinobot couldn't predict what his leader's response was going to be, but he would give him the truth, and if need be, defend it.

"He has been destroyed," Dinobot replied. "Perhaps you already remember this much, but after he terminated the link between the two of you, he immediately resumed his assault upon our group, wounding you and Tigatron. Saber Fang retaliated by knocking him to the ground, and Whitegrazer joined in the effort to keep him down. I believe they wished to keep him alive, and perhaps that is more to your liking, but I was through with his destructive efforts. So I finished him.

"His body can not be retrieved. It appears he was wired to explode were he ever to be put offline."

Dinobot took a moment to glance at the small crater where the clone's body had been. For a moment, he thought he saw Megatron's form retreating into the woods. And perhaps he had. But if Megatron was truly leaving, Dinobot decided there was nothing to be done about it, except keep himself on the alert.

((OOC: Assuming Megatron wants to leave, that is...

And are Scorponok and Terrorsaur doing anything more? Because both they and Cheetor should probably leave the cavern soon and join their respective groups.))

[Alak]

Hovering back towards the room, Orcariner could now see that the Vok skull was back online. It did not seem to pay any heed to its injuries, but rather continued working diligently on the clone. The sounds of the energon generators deafened hi gravity lifts, allowing Orcariner to creep into the brightly lit room. He noticed that the abhorrent creation was nearly complete, but there were still flaws in the design. The joints were still unprotected as well as some areas in the back, although it was difficult to tell at the angle he was looking at. The orca also noticed that the Vok had been constructing the clone precisely the same way Orcariner's current body was designed. The killer whale knew his own weaknesses, and he could already see them present as the alien was duplicating his body. The problem, however, was that Orcariner alone could not exploit these weakness should he be forced to fight his doppelganger. If a sword fight were to break out, the Maximal would surely lose even to the incomplete form of his robot. Orcariner himself had sustained too much damage to endure a full fight against someone as strong as himself. The fact that he was about to start another one lowered his chance of success.

Here goes nothing.

Surging forward, Orcariner leaned his head down and bashed the Vok from behind. The alien, using all of its arms to make up for the lack of building partners, was completely caught off guard from the assault. Unfortunately for the Maximal, however, the gravity lifts were not meant for high speed accelerations. The skull was merely pushed aside as it turned to meet its attacker.

Well that didn't go as well as I had hoped.

Metal snakes flew around the whale, dragging him closer to the alien. The gravity lifts whined as they attempted to resist, but the Vok was stronger. Orcariner decided to change courses, and instead of pushing away from the skull he fired his lifts so that he would go towards his foe. The added momentum from the arms' pull granted the killer whale enough power to shove the Vok into the wall. Quickly backing away, Orcariner found his way towards one of the energon generator pillars. He had a plan to use the alien's strength against it, but it relied on speed. Speed was something he did not excel at. The Vok was in an irritable mood as it set itself back upright and lunged its arms at Orcariner once more. The Maximal used his tail to push off of the column and floated away from his original position. An explosion behind him told the orca that his plan was successful. The first pillar had been destroyed, taking several tentacles with it.

"Gotcha!" he cheered.

The energon radiation readings were down by 25% with that one pillar destroyed. Orcariner approached another pillar, but the Vok was too intelligent to be fooled twice. It grabbed the Maximal by the tail and dragged him closer to it while the other tentacles prepared to strike into the whale at full force until it was no longer functional. Fearing his impending doom, Orcariner hoped that Steelclaw would return quickly.

[Optimal Optimus Primal]

"Optimus if you want I can go see if I can sniff out Orcanier's location, come to think of it Steelclaw has been missing for some time. Both of them could be anywhere if there is a network of tunnels beneath us, might give us some clue to where they are."

"All right," Optimus agreed with Feralnight. "Icebreaker and Rattrap, go with her." Rattrap and Feralnight had impressive noses to follow the orca's and bear's scents if they could pick them up, and then hopefully track them down. Icebreaker would have the resources to successfully retrieve the missing Maximal and Predacon. "Periodically try your commnication links to see if you can establish any radio contact."

Sighing, Rattrap transformed to his beast mode and said, "You got it, Fearless Leader. We'll find 'em." Looking at Feral and 'Breaker, he motioned with his front paw to fall out with him and he immediately scurried off toward the hole he had climbed out of and last saw Orcariner and Steelclaw in the tunnel. He made haste because he was worried about Oracariner. The big guy had sacrificed enough that day protecting them against the monsters down there and deserved to be above ground safe and sound and heading back to Base for repairs. "Where should we start lookin'?" the rodent asked his companions, taking in deep breaths to try and capture a wiff of the MIAs' scents. At the moment, he couldn't pick any up. They might have to travel in the tunnels again, or start digging their own holes to search.

"You're safe now, Saber."

Hearing Whitegrazer's soothing voice, Optimus glanced at her and Saber-Fang as a quick check-up before turning to the velociraptor.

"He has been destroyed," "Perhaps you already remember this much, but after he terminated the link between the two of you, he immediately resumed his assault upon our group, wounding you and Tigatron. Saber Fang retaliated by knocking him to the ground, and Whitegrazer joined in the effort to keep him down. I believe they wished to keep him alive, and perhaps that is more to your liking, but I was through with his destructive efforts. So I finished him. "His body can not be retrieved. It appears he was wired to explode were he ever to be put offline."

The last thing Optimus remembered was throwing himself into Cecaelia's or Starshadow's less-than-pleasant blast after the alien had struck him and Tigatron. So, he missed the destruction of his clone. At first, Primal's face grew furious with Dinobot's decision, and just when he was about to open his mouth and lecture him, he stopped himself. Suddenly, his expression was washed away by a light frown while he thought about it. They could've kept the alien clone alive and tried interrogating him for information, but what was the likelihood of succeeding? These aliens did not seem to volunteer any kind of information whatsoever. Optimus could never torture someone either, nor would he ever expect any of his Maximals to do so. So the dilemma would have been keeping him alive and risking him being able to escape and harm more people with the highly probable failure of acquiring absolutely no data and having to lock him up or... disposing him by some other means. Primal wouldn't want anyone else getting killed or injured by his clone, so perhaps it was best that Dinobot did what he did. But none of it really mattered now. What was done was done. Nothing could be changed. Best to just move on from there, regroup, and send the worst injuries back to the Axalon for repairs while they searched for Orcariner and Steelclaw. "It's fine," he finally told Dinobot with a calm tone, beginning to lack the energy or the will to bother dwelling on it through speech. "I believe you made the right deicision."

Glancing at Wintersong's, Airazor's and Tigatron's progress coming toward them, Primal's gaze moved slowly away from them and toward the ground near his side while he gently rolled his severely wounded shoulder. Acquiring an itch on his fur, he scratched the spot where the fluid dripping down from the hole on the side of his chest was the cause of the irritation. It was a warm, slimy feeling between his thumb and fingers, and it was then that for a brief moment, his eyes rolled back and he closed them. Taking a deep breath, clearing his mind, he fought the impending unconsciousness and opened his eyes again. "What are everyone's injuries that have been sustained?" Optimus asked all of those standing around him to get a count for repairs.

[New Moon]

Feralnight followed Rattrap into the tunnels but kept her wings folded close to her back to avoid hitting them on the wall. Though finding them wouldn't be that easy, besides their faint scents there was also the strong smell of dirt."Well following their scent should help and hopefully not running into more of those traps." She replied to the rodent and began to follow the two scents further into the tunnels.