Megatron leaned back in his chair, dispassionately eyeing the cluttered desk in front of him. His underlings had wisely left to do his bidding, leaving him by himself.. Well, aside from the secretary drone who was frantically working on cleaning up and organizing after the master's meeting. Not that Megatron minded the solitude, oh nooo, he thrived in it in fact. It gave him a chance to gather his thoughts and work on his plans. And despite some interruptions from those pesky Maximals, most of his hard work was starting to pay off. Nemesis had located another potential ally in the form of another Decepticon, Deathroll was proving quite useful in creating a distraction for the Maximals by putting up those jamming towers, and Umbra and that troublesome she-cat had just brought Tarantulas back to the Darksyde and were now investigating his secret lair.
Indeed. If it wasn't for the situation with the Vok signal alerting the aliens of the Cybertronian's continued existence, the tyrant would have allowed himself some personal time in the tub with his favorite rubber ducky. Alas that would have to wait.
A signal from a couple of the jamming towers alerted him that the Maximals were succeeding in their attempt to sabotage him, a fact that extracted a frown from the Predacon lord and ultimate commander. Where were his troops?! The initial rage over the slackers at his command being too slow with getting there quickly gave way to a genuine curiosity when the Maximals suddenly departed the area, leaving the remaining jamming towers intact. But why did they leave?
He got his answer moments later when the computer gave the notification that a stasis pod had activated in neutral territory between the two bases.
"Predacons, halt whatever you are doing and retrieve the pod and its content from coordinates 7-5-6!," the tyrant demanded of his troops. This protoform would not fall into Maximal hands, nooo!
"That can be arranged. ...After he talks to Optimus,"
Aurora smiled at Rhinox' response but perhaps more so at the grimace their captive sent them after hearing their ongoing joke. Personally the fuzor wasn't entirely sure why Optimus was so keen on talking to this guy again after everything he had done, specifically targeting the Maximal leader and all. The smaller of the females was more inclined to just lock him up and throw away the key, but she did realize that was sadly not an option. It wasn't how Maximals operated, no matter how much their foes might deserve it.
"Maybe we should let Optimus know we're here," the fuzor mused since they were now well out of the jamming tower's range. It was only fair to give their leader a chance to prepare himself, provided Sentinel hadn't already let them all know they were inbound.
"First of all, it's not us who want to talk to you, just Optimus. Secondly, it's one thing to converse in peace, it's entirely another to make threatening gestures,"
Zodiac put on a face of perfect innocence.
"Even if I did such a thing, they would only have been simple gestures. I'm hardly in a position to make genuine threats." He raised his hands up a bit defensively in front of himself as he spoke before settling into a submissive pose.
"Not at all. Not anymore. It merely confirms my growing suspicions,"
"Suspicions regarding the Maximal Elders?," Aurora chipped in, having missed some of the conversation between Zodiac and Rhinox moments before. She really didn't know what to think of this Maximal High Council. Who were they anyway? How had they come into power? And if Zodiac and Rhinox were right about them, or at least from what she could decipher from their conversation, the Council's corruption spread further than any of them could have imagined.
Zodiac shook his head, not feeling like clarifying something that should be so blatantly obvious.
Aurora glanced over at Whitegrazer again, taking in that bewildering smile the white mare often had on her face. If anything, Aurora was even more confused of what fueled that endless optimism and caring personality now that she knew Whitegrazer originated within the Vok collective. Or at the very least had lived among them for some of her life. How she had become Cybertronian in nature was still a mystery but her very nature was so different from the otherwise coldhearted and vindictive alien encounters the fuzor had experienced so far. She just couldn't wrap her mind around how Whitegrazer could be one of them..
"Yes, and it would be difficult for all parties involved, but not impossible. It would just take time, if we work at it."
Zodiac responded with a shrug of the shoulders, ignoring the dull ache radiating from the shoulder that had been damaged during the battle two weeks prior. The pain wasn't nearly as bad as it had been when the wound was still fresh, but it certainly was noticeable still.
"Despite how our connection came into fruition, the connection did help us in understanding each other." She saw Rhinox's disapproval of such a thing. But like last time, she would create a barrier between her connection toward Zodiac and Optimus, so they wouldn't interact. "But if you don't wish it, then I will honor your decision."
He finally met her gaze when she spoke those words. Truth be told he understood her even less now than before that connection had formed and he briefly wondered why Optimus seemed to relish from remaining permanently linked to the female when he had hated it so. Well, at least it was in the past now.
"I would appreciate that," he told her, placing the emphasis on the word showing the emotional impact such a gesture would have on him. He didn't sound grateful, humble or any of the sort. Aurora wasn't sure the renegade was capable of that.
The sudden overwhelming headache quickly brought him to his knees and for a moment he wondered if it was somehow her doing. It seemed familiar, though, and for a moment he thought he heard whispers in a strange language.. A unique, foreign, yet strangely familiar language. He recognized it from an era long gone, a time he spent in the service of someone he had dreaded ever since.
"Stay on the transport, Aurora."
The fuzor heard Rhinox' warning but right now the former shapeshifter seemed to be no threat so she allowed her curiosity to get the better of her. And soon came to regret that decision as she found herself laying in a heap on the ground, softly whimpering from the sudden attack. She wasn't seriously injured, thank goodness, but it still hurt quite a lot.
He grabbed his head, clutching it tightly as if he could squeeze their presence out. But it was to no avail. The whispers just kept getting louder, soon making an overwhelming amount of noise in his head. The renegade let out a faint groan, his wings covering him like a protective sheath and sheltering him from the peering optics of the Maximals. Yet he was barely aware of them anymore, the voices in his head starting a process he couldn't resist. He was barely even aware of himself as he stood up and made his initial lunge against the other male, deeming him the most dangerous of the Maximals present and thus the one he'd have to rid himself of the fastest.
His target used his own mass as a weapon as he brought his fists up against the hybrid's stomach. Yet somehow the impact didn't have the same effect it normally would, the renegade apparently oblivious to the pain that was inflicted upon him right now. He stopped his initial attack, instead slamming both hands down against the center of Rhinox' spine to try to knock him off balance.
Rhinox, taken aback by his maneuver failing to slow Zodiac's attack down let alone stop it, released a gasp and twisted his body at the last moment before his opponent's hands could connect with his back. Instead, his arm took the brunt of his blow and he grumbled under his breath as his body was slammed to the ground on his side. How did Zodiac suddenly have so much strength and immunity to pain? The larger Maximal reached for the renegade's ankle to grab it pull it as hard as he could in order to knock Zodiac down.
The renegade was moving back to put a little distance between himself and his target when Rhinox suddenly grabbed for his leg, latching on and nearly knocking him off balance in the process. Zodiac responded by using his free leg to kick his foe as hard as he could, a well placed kick to the face, before the strain on his leg became too much to keep himself balanced. He crashed down on his back with a growl before using his free leg to kick the other male again in an attempt to free up his ankle.
By the time Rhinox saw what was coming, which was the bottom of Zodiac's foot, it was too late. It slammed into his face, snapping his head back and rolling his heavy body on to his back, causing him to release his ankle before the next kick could make contact. It nearly rendered him unconscious. His vision blurry, he desperately tried to correct it while he heard Zodiac fall to the ground, causing a vibration that the engineer could feel under his back. Moving his jaw around, Rhinox sat up and spit out a tooth on to the dirt, ignoring the pain that covered his face. While Zodiac was down, the rhinoceros moved as quickly as he could on his knees to grab for Zodiac's arms, planning to put him in a pin that would render him immobile. He'd sooner use his large gun but he didn't want to draw Zodiac's attention to it again when he could just as easily use it against all of them and shoot them down.
His expression still strangely neutral, the renegade was about to push himself back up when Rhinox' arms came reaching for his own. The Maximal looked a mess already, his face showing for the blunt force trauma he had just experienced. Yet that fact only seemed to encourage the hybrid to continue.
As soon as Rhinox' fingers wrapped around his wrist, the renegade sat up and slammed his head roughly agains the other male's already battered face. Immediately following that, he twisted his body so that his legs wrapped around the Maximal's waistline as he attempted to pull him off center and back down to the ground.
"So much for your cooperation," Rhinox told Zodiac with some disappointment and irritation in his deep voice as he gripped his wrists.
He was about move around to his back side when the black bot slammed his head into Rhinox's, adding even more injuries to his recently wounded face. The engineer almost blacked out again, feeling dizzied and closer to fainting this time. His upper body wobbled and nearly fell over until Zodiac wrapped his legs around him, pulling his large frame down to the ground again. He laid there dazed with his processor struggling to keep him conscious, and his face pounding from the two direct hits. Rhinox slowly reached up toward one of Zodiac's knees as if feeling around for it or something that might be nearby. However, it was his knee he was searching for that was wrapped around his waist, and so he immediately grabbed it tightly with both of his large hands, pinching it and then attempted to twist it so quickly to try and snap it out of place with the intent to inflict pain and some immobility.
Zodiac merely stared back at Rhinox, that same blank look he had been having throughout their entire encounter. It was a vastly different look from the normally much more expressive and far more talkative renegade they had known thus far. His foe's words meant nothing to the hybrid, certainly not in the state of mind he was right now.
Yet as he prepared to inflict even more pain on his opponent, something slowed him down.. distracted him. It was another voice, feminine, soft and tender, yet very much so determined to end what was going on.
Zodiac... You must cease.
He hesitated, not sure where the voice had come from. But something in him felt compelled to stop, even if he couldn't quite gather his thoughts enough to fully comprehend it.
His delay gave Rhinox the time he needed to grab his knee and twist it. So hard in fact that the joint dislodged, immediately causing the renegade to release his grip and grab for where the intense pain suddenly radiated from. He groaned and slammed back to the ground, his leg now twisted and rotated at an angle that rendered it effectively useless.
The female's voice returned, a bit louder this time, demanding to know why he had attacked them. Whether it was that or the fierce pain from his dislocated joint, he couldn't tell, but at that time he suddenly felt all the pain he had blocked out earlier. It hit him like a brick wall, causing him to scream out.
"What the Pit!," he hollered, having regained his own thoughts.. his own mind.. but with no idea what had just transpired.
Rhinox almost loosened his grip on his opponent's knee as he took notice of that same neutral expression on his face. It puzzled the rhinoceros. Why was he acting like this? What was with that stony face? Something was definitely off about Zodiac but until he calmed down, Rhinox wasn't going to let up on him in their scuffle for fear of him hurting Aurora or Whitegrazer next. After all, Zodiac was tall and fast, quite the opposite of Rhinox's physique. If he couldn't stop him, he wasn't sure that Whitegrazer could. Then again, she seemed to be full of surprises and secrets.
Fortunately, his attack on Zodiac's knee made a difference, although he wasn't so sure it was him alone that made the renegade snap out of his "stupor". Zodiac's entire personality and more normal mannerisms returned all at once, as well as the pain he had endured through all of his injuries thus far. The sudden change made Rhinox blink and let go of his knee while Zodiac pulled away from him and laid on his back, crying out like Rhinox had never heard him do before, coping with the barrage of agony. The Maximal had sat up slowly to avoid being disorientated from the rough blows to his head and moved backwards away from Zodiac, putting himself out of his reach.
Zodiac used his elbows to try to move himself backwards a bit as well although he quickly stopped when the pain in his knee joint only intensified from every little movement. What had just happened?? It honestly felt like a fog had cleared from his mind and he was able to think straight again rather than merely acting on instincts alone, but unfortunately waking up from this dream.. or whatever it was.. did not yield any results he wanted.
His hands clutched his wounded knee, feeling a bit numb as they did, and he lay there for a short while before finally turning his attention to Rhinox. From the looks of the other male, he'd been the one he had been brawling with. Zodiac stared at him for a few nanoclicks, almost saying something a few times but the words got stuck in his throat each time. Finally he got them out.
"What.. did I do?," he asked.
Rhinox glanced up at Whitegrazer before looking back to Zodiac and temporarily placing his right hand over his throbbing forehead.
"You don't remember?" he asked suspiciously. He studied him for a moment, waiting for him to come forward about him pretending to be so "forgetful" and "innocent", but his demeanor didn't waver. So the engineer continued with his answer.
"You pushed Aurora right off of her feet into me and then you attacked me."
Rhinox kept a glare on him until he carefully got to his feet and walked over to pick up his weapon. He held it at his side for now as a precaution instead of immediately putting it away.
"How do you not recall?" he demanded from him more calmly.
The renegade lowered his gaze as Rhinox proceeded to explain what had just occurred and that resulted in his now dislocated knee. As the Maximal finished, Zodiac still didn't quite know what had caused his sudden change in behavior.
"I.. don't know.. what came over me," he said as earnestly as he could. It was mostly true. Mostly. Although the sensation had been somewhat familiar. Still, his past experiences had not come quite as out of nowhere as it did this time.
"I don't know," he repeated.
Meanwhile Aurora had managed to get back on her feet, her hand now covering her mouth as she stared at the two males in shock. She didn't say anything, but Rhinox' injuries made her cringe.
"Well, that explains everything, doesn't it?" Rhinox asked both rhetorically and sarcastically, looking down at Zodiac on the ground. He then put his heavy gun away and stared at the hybrid for a moment, the rhino's robot mode face full of dents and scratches, with a tiny stream of fluid bleeding from his nose down to his mouth which was now missing a tooth and a cut over the left side of his gold brow.
"Now we're going to have to carry you back to the Axalon...," he said, a little annoyed since just walking back would have been more ideal, but at least they had the transport to help.
"If this was some kind of pathetic attempt to escape the inevitable, then you failed, and you will face Optimus."
"Do you know?" he inquired Whitegrazer, who seemed to have an idea about what had just transpired judging by her expression.
Zodiac sighed when hearing Rhinox' words, but he didn't protest other than making a pained grimace when they picked him up and moved him back to the transport. He could still hear the white mare's thoughts in his mind, although oddly enough he didn't mind it as much right now. Part of him had almost expected her to reopen the link so it seemed almost inevitable.
For the duration of their short trip back to the Axalon he remained almost uncharacteristically quiet.
(ooc: Part of this is a joint post between OOP and myself.)
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Thought some of you might get a kick out of that.))
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