The Intergalactic Highway

"So was the golden disk, but that didn't stop us!"

Well, he had a point. But throwing that in Primal's face only made him more frustrated. That stolen gold disk was the whole reason he and his Maximals were in this slagging mess! It also occured to him as to when and where Manterror came to be. When had his pod fallen? Had the Predacons been able to acquire him without the Maximals' knowledge? It must have happened several days ago because he was already accustomed to his beast mode and weapons. Hm. Watching the mantis take the blow and tumble over onto the ground behind the pod, it gave Optimus the opportunity to turn his attention to Nemesis. ...Not exactly the 'Con he wanted to deal with today. He still knew little about her, but he at least had moved on from his anger and surrow due to her involvement in Nightmist's death.

"Frilla, what's the status of the protoform? Is it stable?" Optimus inquired impatiently without looking at her behind him. He didn't mean to put pressure on her, but their time to take advantage of the situation was quickly deteriorating. More Predacons were sure to follow Nemesis.

"Primal," "What a pleasant surprise to find you out here."

She was the second enemy to smile at him today. Despite how much they despised the Maximal leader, they sure did grin a lot when they confronted him. Optimus did not return the same facial expression because he knew they were only smiling in anticipation to slag him and be rid of him for good. It wasn't really a pleasant feeling. Still, he kept himself planted between her and Frilla. He eyed her firearm before glaring at her optics. Primal hoped Wintersong, Dinobot and Tigatron would be there very soon. Or now. When it came to firepower, he was pretty much alone against Nemesis and Manterror. And if he were to sustain injuries, he feared what they might do to Frilla without his protection. And the helpless protoform. "I'd say it was good to see you as well, Nemesis, but my thruth circuits would overload," he commented with a surprisingly calm voice.

"Mine has already arrived! Prepare to be dismembered Maximals!"

Nemesis hadn't attacked yet, but seeing Manterror charge Frilla, Optimus decided to buy her some time. He lifted both of his arms, activated his duel wrists cannons and fired both of them at the same time; one for Manterror and one for Nemesis. With his attention more on Manterror since he was a moving target, he fired once at his large claws, hoping to blindside him and give Frilla enough time to see to the pod and also defend herself from the Pred's next attack. His other shot directed toward Nemesis was done without looking at her, which left him to intentionally target at the ground in front of her feet, making it a diversion so he could quickly find cover. After the shots, Primal immediately ignited his prime jets in an attempt to jump backwards, away from her, and land by the large boulder that was near Frilla and the pod. But Nemesis may have been quicker than he anticipated...

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Cancel that.. looks like the ship just threw someone overboard and retreated..? I guess I'll investigate... How are things on your end Rattrap?

"Uh, not so good, Icy," Rattrap responded while he worked diligently. "Saber's unconscious. Hit 'er head pretty badly when the Nomad hit the water. I don't got time to fix her and get the transport back on-line at the same time. What about you an' Feral? And that ship? What's the sitch?" It did sound rather quiet outside now, aside from the sloshy sounds the waves made on the exterior of the Nomad.

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"Good to see you again Tigatron."

"We have no time to waste on greetings,"

Tigatron nodded with a smile to Wintersong and said, "Likewise," but looked at Dinobot with a faint frown. He was right, though. Agreeing with the raptor, Tigatron picked up his speed, the little he had left in him at this point, and headed quickly to the pod that was hidden in the forest. He was surprised they hadn't heard from Optimus by now, but that might also have meant that he and Frilla were in trouble and didn't have the chance to report as they were occupied defending their lives as well as the protoform's. It wasn't long when his ears picked up gun fire. "I fear they are under attack. We must hurry!"

Wintersong nodded, following the two and keeping up a quick pace, gun fire catching her attention as well. The Predacons then were there already. "Let's crash the party then boys!" She said with an excited growl, surging forward with new energy and silently hoping this battle would turn out different from the last one on the tundra mission. A few moments later she came through tall grass watching Optimus come into sight along with Frilla and the pod. One of them seemed vaguely familiar and the other was rather new. "Back ups here to help Optimus." She said charging from tall grass and towards Nemisis.

Uh.. Exploring medic I guess. I used to be part of a search and rescue group, alot of my teammates quit or.. went offline.. then after some wandering ended up doing the explorer thing to get my mind off some things. That's why we came out here in that homemade transport, we detected your ship on entry crashing into the ocean to make sure you were okay. Hm.. I can think of a faster way to get to shore..

Cerulia optics widened, when she was in Icebreaker's arms. Her rings kept glowing and dimming. So the penguin bot wasn't a cop. She was blushing with embarressment after thinking about attacking him earlier. "Oh...I thought you are one of the baddies who wanted to kill me..Umm...so sorry about it.." she said softly.

Now they have reached the land, it was conversation time.

whats your name?

"My name is Cecaelia." she smiled back.

Frilla quickly tried to dodge around Manterror, hoping the shot from Optimus and distraction of the others arriving would give her a long enough change to check the pod. But as a second measure she kept her sword up and ready, making it to the key-panel on the side of the pod and pressed a few buttons to check for the scanning process. "Optimus the pod already did a scanning for a life form." She reported qucikly and tried to check if it was preparing to activate soon or not.

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Feralnight landed near Cecelia's ship, unable to help admiring the design of it. Predacon or not it was quite impressive, it almost seemed to be a ship built for fighting or war. "Not bad." She muttered, "Maximize." Transforming Feralnight stepped closer to the craft to get a closer look, trying to examine as much as possible before the Predacons would arrive. She stepped around the ship, coming towards the back though keeping a slight distance as to try and not activate some defense systems.

Thinking a more aerial view might help the fuzor took to the skies and came to hover just above the middle of the ship. At least if they lost the ship they'd have some memory record of it and Feralnight would be glad to show it to her fellow Maximals later on if needed.

NaitoKage wrote: We're going as fast as we can Cheetor, tell me. Can you remember what the pod said specifically?

Orcariner overheard the radio conversation but remained silent, not wanting to disrupt any valuable information being passed along. The sounds of heavy footsteps and hover devices were loud enough to make conversation difficult. It would be unwise for him to try and add more to the noise. Unfortunately, Orcariner had little knowledge about stasis pods other than the fact that they were able to preserve protoforms and save dying or injured Maximals. He wanted this to be a learning experience for him, but with the little time that they had left, Rhinox may have to work quickly in silence instead.

Icebreaker listened to Rattrap on the radio, then looked towards Cecaelia. That's a nice name. It appears one of my friends suffered a head injury and the controls on the transport are still offline..So..hang on a second.

Icebreaker then activated his radio This is Icebreaker to Rattrap, it appears the situation was a misunderstanding,Cecaelia here seemed to think we were some sort of group out to get her. The Nomad isn't in any immediate danger other then drifting away, so I'd recommend performing a manual reboot of the system, it's the big red button that says do not touch, then while the computer reloads inspect Saber's head injury. If it exceeds what internal repairs can cover or the computer doesn't load, I'll be over as soon as possible.

Icebreaker then stepped off his shield and picked it up as it transformed to it's normal mode attaching it to his shoulder again Alright,So these baddies, who or what are they? What reason would they have to be after you? he then asked, he wasn't entirely sure but had a strange feeling Cecaelia might be an on the run criminal or prisoner, as he'd never really met anyone that so forwardly would ask if he was a cop other then some awkward experiences from leaving a bar which probably only Rattrap would relate to. But maybe he was wrong and she was just a abnormal predacon, it wasn't really a first.

Currently, Cerulia now named Cecaelia had a hard time making up a story to cover her background.

"Well umm..I was running away from an alien ship that kept shooting at me for no reason. Then, I saw a predacon mothership fighting the cops. Then, I uh..my ship got shot by one of the predacon's minion ship and here I am..stinkin baddies..my ship blew a hole in my wallet." she explained, lying to be exact.

"So I thought a cop or anyone would be here, stuck in this planet if his ship is as good as junk."

The smile on Nemesis' face quickly faded as Optimus fired upon her and Manterror, only to reappear when she noticed the shot hit the ground a short distance in front of her.

So this was the game Primal wanted to play, was it? Very well then..

As the next barrage of fire came flying in her general direction, without specifically targeting her, the Decepticon-turned-Predacon easily jumped to the side, making a series of backflips and rolls to dodge the incoming shots. Yet few of the shots came even close to hitting her, as the Maximal commander appeared to have set his focus on the mantis and Primal's little ally rather than on Nemesis.

The black and red Predacon made sure to increase her distance from the mantis, making it more difficult for Primal to target both of them simultaneously, yet at the same time she was strategically positioning herself so that she had a clear shot at Frilla. It was clear to the avian female that Primal valued the lives of his crew more than his own safety, which in turn meant that he was more likely to drop his guard while attempting to protect this smaller female.

Ducking behind a tree for a split second, Nemesis cocked her rifle and aimed it at Frilla as she stepped out from behind her cover. She then fired her weapon twice, before turning her attention back to Primal.

Icebreaker nodded I see, that's.. unfortunate. Well, I don't think those baddies are on this planet, though.. I wouldn't be surprised if they showed up.. it can be a weird place. he scratched his cheek as he thought to himself Wow.. I might not be the sharpest scalpel but that is the worse story I have ever heard. I guess I should play along for now..

"I guess I should uh...head back to my ship. Toodles!" Cecaelia then ran into the forest, heading to the direction where the ship was. It wasn't far from where she was.

"I hope Nightwhisper-sama won't kill me for-" the octopus femme spotted a fuzor flying above her ship.

"HEY DOGGIE! NO TOUCHIE! I MEAN IT! NOOOOO TOUCHIE, AND LOOKIE! SHOO SHOOOO! FLY SOMEWHERE! THERE'S NOTHING INTERSTING HERE! SHOOOO OR I'LL SHOOT!!" she climbed on top of her ship waving her tentacles with her rings glowing brightly.

Rhinox wrote:We're going as fast as we can Cheetor, tell me. Can you remember what the pod said specifically?

Cheetor tried to remember what he had heard. A few seconds later, Whitegrazer showed up.

Whitegrazer wrote:Good workout.

"Yeah..." Cheetor replied absentmindedly.

Whitegrazer wrote:Is the pod okay?

"I don't know," he said. "Looks like it had a bad landing, and it said some kinda' warning a cycle ago. I'm trying to remember what it said."

Airazor's pod wrote:Repair required before protoform ceases to exist in 9.2 cycles.

"The pod's saying something about getting fixed before the protoform... 'ceases to exist'," Cheetor said on his com-link as soon as he heard. How did that work? Wouldn't the protoform always be around? It wouldn't... go away somewhere would it?

* * *

Dinobot was impressed by how quickly Wintersong applied herself to the battle. A little ways longer, and he'd be there with her and Optimus.

"Dinobot, Maximize!" he shouted, arming himself with his sword and shield. He saw Nemesis take shots at Frilla, so he fired his optic lasers at the Predacon to draw her attention, and, hopefully, to inflict damage.

Icebreaker blinked, following Cecaelia into the woods. He then sighed watching the sight of Cecaelia, he raised his hand activating his comlink Um.. Fall back Feralnight. I don't think we should provoke her. I'm heading back towards the Nomad..

He then turned around and walked off into the woods, his mask and visor sliding over his face as he activated his radio to Rattrap Okay.. so Feralnight is being shooed away from the ship, Cecaelia is some sort of.. escaped prisoner or runaway criminal who mistaked us for the police.. I'm returning to the ship to repair things.

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Rhinox frowned as he heard Cheetor That means the spark is going to go offline! he then started to move faster.

Feralnight looked down at Cecaelia as she waved her arms and tried shooing her away which made her raise an optic ridge. Did she really look like some organic wolf right now? "Got it Icebreaker, was just checking the ship out, and I have to say it's impressive for a Predacon ship." She said and turned heading back to the Nomad, reverting to beast mode for now and flew to where she last saw the ship and flew down to the side door, transforming again and landing inside to come in.

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Frilla had been more focused again on the pod she hadn't expected the shots from Nemisis. A hiss escaped the frilled lizard as one shot caught her in the back of the side and another to the shoulder making her wince but only move more in front of the pod to keep it safe.

Blazemane wrote:
"I don't know," he said. "Looks like it had a bad landing, and it said some kinda' warning a cycle ago. I'm trying to remember what it said."

Airazor's pod wrote:Repair required before protoform ceases to exist in 9.2 cycles.

"The pod's saying something about getting fixed before the protoform... 'ceases to exist'," Cheetor said on his com-link as soon as he heard. How did that work? Wouldn't the protoform always be around? It wouldn't... go away somewhere would it?

When Cheetor said "cease to exist" Whitegrazer immediatley grew grave, "Oh no. "

She looked at Cheetor, seeing his young eyes not really comprehending what was going on with the pod. It showed his youthfulness, innocence, and inexperience.

It's been so long ago when I used to act like that. Whitegrazer said to herself. She used to lament about it but now she just accepted it as a piece that was stripped away from her the moment she came online to the world. Her life already chosen before she had a say, her innocence robbed from the first kill, the first sight of the battlefield. It was sad but like she had told herself, she had to accept it and move on. And that was what she did.

"Let's just hope Rhinox gets here in time before any Predacons do."

It was very, very quiet and she didn't like it at all. She kept her eyes peeled around the two, making sure no Preds came around and also hoping to see the brown Rhino come to them.

((OOC: Is Megatron going to show up anytime soon? Nemesis and Manterror can't win this fight without the rest of the predicons, its sort of 2v5 at the moment. Now, if there was a maximal inside the pod, I wouldn't mind, but its Inferno.))



The shot from Optimus Primal had been easy for Manterror to evade. He had been tricked once, but this time, he was ready for an attack like that. With a little bit of fancy footwork, he dodged away from the shot. While he avoided it with no problems, the shot had successfully distracted him from Frilla for a time. Looking around the battlefield, the Mantis quickly took a mental note of new changes to be aware of. One of his greatest strengths - and something he was quite proud of - was that he was quite adept at strategy. While he was only a pawn in the greater picture, he could figure out ways to position himself for a checkmate on almost anyone if the circumstances were right - even the maximal's king.

Noticing the arrival of a few more Maximals, it seemed the two Predicons had no hope of winning the battle at this rate. They were not out of options however. The Maximal leader had been focused on Nemesis, who successfully landed a few shots on Frilla - making her even weaker then before. The new arrivals were busy attempting to figure out what was going on, which gave Manterror a small window to grab a hostage.

Moving quickly, he ran up behind Frilla and put one of his razor sharp claws around her neck and another at her waist. While he was close enough to do serious damage and almost completely rip her open, he did not. Instead, he put his mouth to her sound port and spoke quietly. "Reprogram the protoform to be a predicon and I will let you live. If you refuse, well, lets just say you will be missing a few limbs when we meet again." He spoke, threatening the lizard. With his close proximity to her and the stasis pod, it was unlikely the rest of the maximal's would attempt anything too risky. If they did, Manterror wouldn't mind slicing the other cybertronian apart. It was his favorite past time, afterall.