The Intergalactic Highway

((OOC: Thanks Alak and Una, I'm still unfamiliar with alot of the OC characters & am currently rewatching season 1's final episodes so I can relearn what Tarantulas did leading up to season 2, TOTALLY forgot about how he stole the Transwarp cell and all that jazz, lol. For the role of Tarantulas I shall learn all there is to know so I can get him right and elaborate on his character as you other canon character players have been doing. I'm having a great time basically ))

You can't shoot. We have a truce, remember?"

"The truce applies to all Maximals and Predacons in this planet, but I, I am-"

"Megatron's not killing me because of you,"

Starshadow did not see that coming at all. The red pterodactyl tackled both of them like a rugby player, "You fool! You've just ruined the opportunity to destroy him!" she let out a cat hiss and struggled to try to pull herself out of Terrorsaur's body, "Get off!!"

Wintersong turned her attention away from the others, looking towards the monitor once more with a soft sigh. She could only hope things would pass soon and nothing would become worse, but in speaking of getting worse the white tigress looked towards the time since it had been a while and by now the sun was nearly down and the night beginning to start, yet there had really been nothing heard from Optimus or Aurora since they left. It was a little concerning and Wintersong was hoping nothing had suddenly gone awry, if it did then there would surely be a search part if neither returned close to morning.

Shaking her head from thinking anything bad could happen the white and black femme tried to think of something else, and began to think of when she could have the chance to run around the wilderness again, especially at sunset and at night to be able to see the sky bathed in orange, red, and the clouds colored in violet colors. And at night to see the stars covering the sky like twinkling light. It was a somewhat comforting thought and Wintersong would have gladly gotten lost in the feeling if not for also focusing on her task for the moment.

Well this was certainly new, Megatron had seen Optimus angry before but nothing like this nor anything of being this dark. Perhaps Glowstick's decision to make the assault himself hadn't been a complete waste at all, hardly anything got under Primal's armor and whatever it was now certainly was doing the trick, yesss. "Understood Primal, and we'll be expecting such an attack." Megatron said in a calm but threatening tone of his own. With a final glare to him and the ermine fuzor the t-rex merely turned his back to them, having nothing more to say, and took off back towards the Darksyde since there were other matters to attend to besides the Maximals being a little peaceful. Whether or not there was more behind this meeting then Primal was letting it be known Megatron didn't know but he was satisfied things would go as planned.

At least he was hoping it would for his plans to go perfectly, especially with what was to come soon enough. For now he pushed the meeting to the back of his mind, becoming more focused on what was to come and what he needed to be ready for. If anything he had discovered the aliens were to be returning, though this time something else was happening that was much bigger, much more powerful then any of their last attempts to rid of the cybertronians and he planned to discover what it was or at least other meanings behind the golden disc in which Inferno had brought to him.

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With the two Maximals finally leaving Onyx turned off the cameras and returned the monitor to it's previous screen of the Predacon symbol showing on it, spinning slowly while awaiting to be used once more. "Hopefully that's the last for any attempts on sneaking in, but seems a little unusual for there to be two Maximals instead of more." He said glancing at Cecaelia as he shrugged slightly, feeling there was more to this then simply two of them trying to get in the base. It also seemed a little too easy for Rattrap to have been found unless it was just mere coincidence that there was a camera there and he happen to come across one that showed the rat maximal and perhaps Megatron was more prepared then they had expected. Though Onyx thought back to his first real day at the Predacons and decided it was more then that.

Megatron was just a suspicious and paranoid leader when the black stallion thought about it more, especially if he was placing cameras in each of his soldiers' rooms just to keep an optic on them. The thought was a little disturbing considering no one would like to have their private lives peeked into or finding they were being watched. Some of the Predacons seemed to be smart enough to check their rooms every time while others were obviously not as smart and Onyx made a mental note to always check his room just in case.

Ironclaw fell down next to The fembot Predacon who he now saw to be Starshadow. He was surprised it was her considering she was the sentient being he had made contact with on this planet. Terrorsaur's intervention was just in time. However Ironclaw was larger than both of them. Firstly he turned to Starshadow, having much larger hands than her he pulled her weapon out of her hand. Ironclaw then used both of his legs. He got to his feet and realised he wasn't going anywhere fast in robot mode. He holstered Starshadow's weapon without thInking about it and went into beast mode. He made his way to the whole in the wall and started to run.

(ooc: Sorry for not posting lately. Been having a severe writers block, as well as hubby finally having a few days vacation so been spending time with family.. and bought a new car and such. Didn't realize how many days had passed.

Nice take-over of Tarantulas btw!)

Aurora had attempted to remain as neutral as possible during their encounter with the Predacon commander, especially since Optimus appeared to be struggling a bit with maintaining his composure. This was perfectly understandable, given the losses he had suffered recently. The ermine fuzor, as well, had suffered a huge blow, but unlike Optimus she did not blame herself for those losses. Or at least certainly not to the same extent as Primal did. Such was the burden of leadership, it seemed, or at least for the only leader figure she had encountered during her short time of life.

During most of the encounter she switched between watching the two leaders, comparing their vastly different styles of leadership and personas. Whereas one truly cared for his troops and showed compassion even to his enemies, the other seemed to disregard any value his troops might have. Although vague, the dinosaur appeared to have killed off one of his soldiers to enforce loyalty from the rest. Or at least that's how he seemed to portray the story.

The encounter was briefer than anticipated, ending with Megatron merely walking away after making some sort of threatening comment to them about expecting a visit from the Maximals. This comment made Aurora a bit concerned, given the Maximals currently on a mission to the Predacon base. Hopefully they were all getting out of there without any problems. Still.. she had a strange, lingering feeling they had not seen the end of all the misery.

Once the Predacon was far enough away, she turned to Optimus with a sigh. It almost seemed as if the Maximal's stern comments had gone unnoticed by the Predacon. Not that she had expected Megatron to offer any genuine apologies for what had happened, but he hadn't exactly struck her as being one to condemn the actions of his underlings either. Despite his supposed strict punishment to the individual responsible, Aurora found no comfort in believing the Predacon attacker had suffered the same fate he ultimately gave IceBreaker by leading the attack. It all just felt so empty, so senseless..

As she turned her gaze up on the taller Maximal, the concern was quite apparent on her face. Her eyes looked shiny, as if she was fighting to hold back a few tears.

"Will this nightmare ever be over?," she asked solemnly.

She finished putting on her locator when she heard a knock at her door, once it was on she opened the door and found Dinobot standing in the door way much to her surprise.

"Is there some thing I can help you with, Dinobot?" She asked politely, although she wondered what the raptor was doing... at her door.

This should prove interesting. She thought.

(( OOC: Slag. I was hoping Megs would slip up and mention something about the Maximals losing another one of their own even though he couldn't have known that except through Feralnight.

Well done, DarkSpark! A smooth transition into the game indeed! ))

"Understood Primal, and we'll be expecting such an attack."

Returning Megatron's glare as the t-rex turned away, Optimus only let out a deep exhale after he had taken several giant steps away from him and Aurora back toward the direction of the Darksyde. He certainly hoped Megatron wasn't underestimating him. He might be surprised, after all.

"Will this nightmare ever be over?,"

Lowering his shoulders to a more relaxed state, Primal also bowed his head and closed his eyes for a moment, taking in the younger Maximal's question. "Yes," he answered her softly, opening his brown eyes and turning to look at the white ermine Fuzor, focusing on the concern and sorrow that was filling her eyes. "But only for one 'side' or the other, I'm afraid." It was clear to him that Megatron wanted as much as power as he could possibly obtain in order to get rid of the Maximals who stood in his way and conquer Cybertron if not the entire universe. This truce was only temporary; a means to buy Megatron some time. Once it would be over, things might be even worse between the two factions than they were before the cease-fire. Worse? How could things possibly get worse? ...How can Optimus get his Maximals home? How can he protect them from Megatron's hands? ...How was this all going to end? As these questions ran through his mind in a second, he seemed to stare off at the moon-lit ground and unconsciously reached up with his scarred left hand to gently scratch an itch by the scar on his upper right chest. Perhaps it was a slight case of stress that made the Maximal leader a little uneasy at this point in the war on this planet with these Predacons. "Thank you for co-operating here, Aurora," the gorilla finally said, looking back into her eyes. Even though Megatron hadn't quite reacted the way he had hoped, at least nothing got out of hand. He had no idea what she might have been thinking about all of it, but he looked forward to discussing it and answering any questions her young and curious mind might wonder during their flight back. "We had better head back to Base. I expect Rattrap and Airazor will be reporting in very soon, and they might need back-up to cover Ironclaw's retreat."

"Optimus Primal, maximize," he ordered his internal programming and his entire body shifted. His lower torso rotated as his beast mode head flipped down into his chest, revealing his robot mode head that resembled Optimus Prime's to an extent, and his shoulders raised.

"Maximal Base, this is Optimus," the Commander called through his communication link to the Axalon. "Aurora and I will be returning shortly. Any word from Airazor and Rattrap?" Without waiting for confirmation from Wintersong, he motioned the ermine/butterfly to climb back up onto his back as he prepared to blast off.

-----

Rattrap gave a slight shudder when Airazor picked him up in her talons, but he quickly got over it, wondering how far Ironclaw had gotten and hoping that he was all right. He knew how dangerous the Predacon's ship was, and its crew. Ironclaw was still kind of new to the Beast Wars, and it was a big mission the boss monkey had entrusted him with.

Once Airazor had carried him far enough away from the Darksyde's scanners, Rattrap looked up at the falcon and said, "Okay, Airazor, we can settle down there an' watch fer Ironclaw's signal," pointing at a slight incline on the ground that should be a good vantage point just over the horizon for the flare.

"Rattrap ta Maximal Base," he contacted via his comm. link. "Phase one is done. Waitin' on phase two," he informed whoever would be listening.

-----

"Go ahead," "Just approach him gracefully. Don't give him an excuse to become volatile." "He's three corridors down from the south bridge exit that he left from. Ship's not picking up any movement from him." "Remember, approach with grace."

Tigatron nodded to Rhinox and immediately turned away, heading down the corridor. The white tiger certainly had grace but this was a very sensitive occurance, especially for Orcariner, who may have collapsed or fainted since the ship wasn't detecting his movement.

Making haste through the corridors, he slowed down a little when he spotted the large Maximal slumped against a wall. Frowning, Tigatron came a quiet stop and watched the orca in silence for a moment, giving him plenty of space. "Orcariner?" he finally asked softly to get his attention. He waited for a response before approaching him.

((Not much for me to do at the moment, so this is a short one.))

Airazor nodded towards Rattrap and dropped him off at the location he specified. Slowly, she lowered him to the ground and released him before she took her place next to him. Time to begin the waiting game. Hopefully Ironclaw would get away safely and all would go as planned.

---

Manterror roamed the halls, thinking about how amazing he was and how much he loved having giant razor blades for hands. His thoughts were only interrupted when he heard the screams of other predicons, likely play fighting with each other. How cute. A shame they weren't doing anything important like killing maximals or scheming up treacherous plots.

((I promise I'm not dead! As usual it's busy here at my house so have come in a few times to read up though not much for me to do so this will be a short post.))

Frilla had heard the others before leaving but she merely patiently waited for Cheetor or Dinobot to come along, though in the mean time she continued to work on two auto-guns just in a short length of each other which doing a few at a time might make the job a little faster. If anything the repairs and the virus she would work on later would definitely keep her busy, especially with trying to take her mind off the events. But the attack wasn't exactly what was having her on edge, but the truce that was suppose to be in place just didn't seem to feel right.

Peaceful terms my skid plate, that good for nothing slag pile is up to something but what is it?,She thought as she worked on reconnecting one of the auto-guns to the body where it would come up to shoot and making sure it would stay in place. Something just didn't seem right about all this.

Blackarachnia shrugged in response to Arachnitron's comment about leaving Starshadow behind, but she didn't need to say anything. It was clear they were both in agreement about shoving off without the kitten. Cats never knew what they wanted...in fact, she probably already found herself a new toy to play with.

It was silent for a moment as the three arachnids assessed the damaged ship in front of them. Arachnitron held her tongue for the time being. She didn't want to say anything that would influence them one way or the other, but any fool could see it was scrapped beyond repair. At least, it was scrapped beyond repair if they used the small collection of things they brought with them. They would have to try though...it was the only solution they had at this point. But they probably wouldn't get it functional with the few spare parts they had managed to collect.

una wrote: "We will have to see how the pod reacts to the modifications our friend will have to put on them. Let's hope it doesn't blow up on our faces."

"He better not blow up my ship!" Arachnitron threatened menacingly more to herself than either of the other spiders in front of her, letting her usual aggressive persona slip through. "If he does, I'll tear that miserable gargoyle apart....one skinny leg at a time."

"Aww, do we have to take the muzzle off? He looks adorable with it on, don't you think?"

Arachnitron lightened her mood as the other widow teased Tarantulas. She grinned in response. "Oh I agree. He doesn't really need to speak to do his job. she pointed out. "Maybe we could just leave it on." She cackled evilly.

But, Blackarachnia tore the webbed muzzle off anyway. At least that meant maybe Tarantulas would do more begging to improve his situation. She so loved to see a male bot beg!

But she too aimed to watch Tarantulas. She was curious to see what he was up to and why he wanted to get off this planet so desperately. What was in store for them? With 16 eyes watching him closely, one of them was sure to catch him doing something sneaky.

Perking up as she heard the coms Wintersong couldn't help but smile at the thought of how good timing either group having, kind of funny the would com the base at the same time. "Got it Rattrap, telling Optimus now."The tigress responded to the rat before switching to Optimus' channel,"They just got finished with phase one Optimus, which Rattrap just commed base at the same time so phase two is ready." She answered, wondering what Primal had planned for phase two before looking at the others still seeing some of them remaining but it was becoming a little worrying that Feralnight was gone so long, or it could be considered suspicious with the way she had been acting lately. In fact the wolf/raven fuzor hadn't seemed herself at all lately which being distracted never seemed something for Feralnight to be.

"Hey Rhinox,"Wintersong said turning in her chair to look at the older Maximal,"Did you or Orcarnier by any chance see Feralnight? She was sent out to meet Saber-Fang and never came back. It's been quite a while so I was just wondering." She said looking a little concerned since this was really the longest since Onyx's appearance earlier that day that she had disappeared. Now it was just becoming a little strange.

Terrorsaur silently cursed this whole situation. He pushed his wings off the ground, balancing himself back upon his own two webbed feet. The flyer was about to chew Starshadow out for her apparent beach of the truce until he noticed that the Maximal was gone. Terrorsaur's eyes darted about trying to find him, but Ironclaw was already out of sight. The Predacon swiftly transformed and darted to the alarm. Smashing the button, he yelled into the intercom.

"We have a Maximal on base! Small! Furry! He's a spy! After him!"

The feeling of panic was beginning to overwhelm him, but Terrorsaur suddenly noticed a gaping hole in the wall. It dawned to him that it was the same hole that allowed the spy to make such a quick exit. He turned to face Starshadow.

"If you want to redeem yourself for your insolence, I suggest you help us capture- not kill- but capture the Maximal scum!" he seethed with anger. "Otherwise, I'll make sure Megatron reshapes your head just as he did with Glowstick's!"

Diving out the hole, Terrorsaur transformed back into his pterodactyl form. Ironclaw was surprisingly quick on his feet back at the base, but in the open world, Terrorsaur owned the skies. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed that the hanger bay of the ship was opening. Scorponok was joining the chase.


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Orcariner was still trapped in his thoughts when a familiar voice pulled him out of the past. He found himself unable to turn his head to greet the one who called his name. Instead, he tried to identify the voice with a profile in his internal database. The orca finally resorted to a brief, generic response.

"Huh."

"If you want to redeem yourself for your insolence, I suggest you help us capture- not kill- but capture the Maximal scum!" he seethed with anger. "Otherwise, I'll make sure Megatron reshapes your head just as he did with Glowstick's!"

Watching Terrorsaur leave, Starshadow just narrowed her optics, "He can try...at least it gives me a reason to leave the predacons and the bane of my existence. Afterall, the truce did not apply to any pure halflings.."

It was Terrorsaur's fault. If he didn't collided onto Ironclaw and her, she would have captured him all by herself. Besides, she had no intention of killing him but only injuring him if he dared to escape. But what's with the pointless chase? If Ironclaw did stole information from them, his efforts would be a waste since Dinobot knew everything about the predacons unless a certain data was important to the Maximals, but what could that be? Shaking her head, she followed the chase.

"Playing hard-to-get Ironclaw? You know you can't run from us!" she yelled as she drew her hand blades and her claws.

Ironclaw had made some distance now from the Predacon base. That's when he heard his pursuers, strangely it was still just Terrorsaur and Starshadow. He thought that there would be more Predacons in the base waiting for him, he didn't complain. They were gaining on him, not only was one of them flying but Ironclaw wasn't a sprinter. He went to roll forwards and transformed mid-roll. His metallic body bumped and bounced on the ground. He managed to continue running in robot mode and pulled the flare gun out of the storage compartment in his back. He ponied it up towards the sky and thought 'I hope someone sees this' he fired the signal into the sky.