Part of Imago, part 2

[Taratron]

A snip for those who care. ^_^


Thetan
Part Two: Exodus



Scorponok was aware of several small, rather non vital things at once; he dimly realized that this must be what was referred to as “life flashing before one’s optics,” though he had always (or once) been of the mindset that that flash before you died was called life. But with Megatron’s blaster aimed at him, he was aware, insanely, not of his life about to end, not even of Imago’s surprised hiss behind him, but of the heat from the lava, the roar of its bubbling blasts under his feet, far too noisy to be real, outside his panicked mind, and of the sure whispers and laughs from the widow and wasp behind him.

Then his optics focused on that brilliant red point, that laser point to nowhere, to death, to oblivion, and he knew running, or even ducking, was pointless. Better to die on his feet than scrambling on the hoverboard, better to die at least looking brave, even if he was trembling. Better to die than continue life as a mind-mangled and damaged bot, truly.

Better to have died, really, fighting the Maximals from the pod than bringing this joke back to base. Better-

The whine from the blaster (something he knew he was imagining, for no cannon made a noise like Waspinator when irritated) seemed to take over the rest of his world, and it was broken not by the release and fire of the shot, but Megatron’s voice, raised in fury and surprise, and then the whine was gone entirely, the room filling with sounds of the blaster firing, startled cries from the assembled Predacons, and Scorponok realized that he was not dead. There was something pressed hard against his lower leg, but he was alive. Alive and on the base of the hoverboard, and he rolled to his side in shock, a yellow splash against the darkness of the Darkside’s collapsing ceiling, brilliant, diving, flying. Imago, minus one of his weak flails, doing a rather decent job of darting and dodging Megatron’s shots, and somehow riding the weak winds from the lava. He couldn’t last long, of course, but he had a flight system outside his weak wings. Still, Megatron need only be lucky with one shot.


Bam. Another blast from Megatron shot out a small section of the overhanging ceiling, letting a rare bolt of light strike the inside of the ship (Scorponok was incredulous to find himself thinking, Damn, something else for me to fix, as if he had a future at all, aside from these few seconds), and with a flip, a dash, some form of insane organic motion that likely served a similar purpose for this insect, Imago beastmoded, flying his narrow form up and out the open slit, and he was gone.

“Blast!” Megatron fired twice more, missing the ceiling slit once, and successfully widening it another foot with the second. The other Predacons, largely used to such outbursts as well as firings, were not so used to the other actions of the day, and the faction seemed trapped between watching Scorponok stammer for his life, and seeking out the fragile Maximal who had just fled their base.

“Terrorsaur, go after him, now,” glowered the tyrant, and then his crimson optics were on his fallen second-in-command, his full attention on the still mostly stunned Scorponok, who rolled to his aft, claws closing over the small flail spear, and easily pulling it from his lower leg; his armor had barely been pierced, but apparently the butterfly had been able to knock him over regardless. He was stronger than he looked, perhaps.

“Scorponok,” growled his commander and leader, and the scorpion knew it was too late to beg, too late to plea; not that it would do him good either way. He was powerless to stop the startled beginnings of a stammer, but he imagined it did little good now to concentrate on not stammering.

“Scorponok!” bellowed Megatron…and then dropped his blaster beastmode head to the armrest of his throne, shattering part of the weakened metal, bending the rest from the force of the blow. “You are an idiot!” Ignoring the somewhat muted and choked back laughter and agreements behind his second-in-command, the despot narrowed his optics. “It is only because of your loyalty that your life is spared this time, Scorponok. Do not disappoint me again. Now get out of my sight….and fix that blasted hole before our shielding system fails. Now.”

Scorponok weakly rose to his feet, the flail held fast in one cumbersome claw still, and, instinct making a swift notion, dropped it off the hoverboard, with a slight glance down as the weapon hissed, melting quickly in the lava below.

The other Predacons did not look at him as the hoverboard retreated, dropping him back on safe ground, and as he fled the room, numbly aware that Megatron had, for once, shown him mercy (or, a darker part of his mind, so stupid it was now, hissed, that Megatron had not shown mercy but needed another body on the front lines, another booby for the next Maximal booby-trap, that if he kept the spiders around despite their treachery, to be rid of Scorponok for his stupidity was…well…stupid.), that the butterfly Maximal had pulled his first (and hopefully last, with Terrorsaur on his heels now) prank and cruelty over him, he risked a partial glance back at Megatron.

His leader did not look at his retreat; instead he was studying his usual radar screen with a dark look on his face. Perhaps Imago had escaped the more experienced flyer, but how he would Scorponok had no clue.
He beastmoded in the hallway, claws clattering with unspent fear, and began the trek back to his weak and worthless lab to begin repairs. Damn that Maximal. Damn him! If he survives and gets to the Maximals, the first thing he’ll tell them is how he tricked me into letting him into Darkside. And none of them will be surprised. Even that rat tricked Terrorsaur, but this…this is somehow worse.

I hope Terrorsaur shreds you to pieces, you damn bug, he wished darkly, knowing that hope had, so far, been as much as a part of his post-crash life as luck.

*

For Imago, the first blast of sunlight and fresh air, after the darkness and odor of a fresh smelting pool from Darkside, was nearly as alien as his first glance from the pod, and with the bellow of the tyrant inside passing music to his retreat, he bolted up and into the brilliance of mid-day, his beastmode wings, flitters and now decorating his arms as ridiculous gauntlets, waving slightly from the thermal updrafts of the lava below. There was rising smoke from one hissing area of the lava pool, but hardly enough to hide in.

He knew that he would surely be followed now; whatever was happening, whatever that idiot Predacon had been after, there would be at least one bot coming after him; if the looks on the Predacons at the monitor stations had been any indication, one bot alone. That was certainly fine with Imago; they thought him weak and barely worth the fight, but he knew enough that he was at a severe disadvantage. These Predacons (and they were all Predacons, he noted oddly. Great, another Separatist movement then?) had laughed and chortled and he had not missed the choked back giggles and comments.

But they did have the upper hand; if they were Separatists, then he was as good as dead when they found him. If they found him. Of course, if they were Separatists and the despot purple reptile had spoken the truth, there were other Maximals around, which meant a possibility of shelter.
Provided he survived the lava pitfall first…it would be interesting, to say the least. He had no direct arms, save for one flail, hardly worthy to use in any form of a fight, the blade on its side far from lethal, and he had little reason to think the other faction, Separatists they might well be, were less armed. His optics dropped to the hissing lava below, the thermal updrafts lifting him with a new strength of force. He did have location, at least…and beastmoded quickly.

A screech seized his attention from the softer bubbles and burbles of the lava not that far below, and flapping his wings, he swung to his side to see one of the openly laughing Predacons, a red flyer, darting up from the crack on the ship’s armored ceiling. A decent sized bot, and Imago knew in direct hand-to-hand combat, if this Predacon believed in such a thing, he himself would be slag in minutes. The cannons on the red flyer, which rose from his shoulders, only confirmed that dull realization.

“Can’t get too far, can you?” laughed the Predacon. “The pod did a nice work over on you, didn’t it? A nice flower sniffer bug….if Tarantulas is really nice to me, maybe I’ll let him stake you as a specimen…or I could just shoot you where you stand. Of course, if you beg…”

The butterfly regarded him quietly, the insanely foolishly bright wings flapping, his small form rising slightly with each wave of heat beneath the flyers.

“Not a fun Maximal, are you?” leered the Predacon with a laugh, watching the insect rise a little more with the next hot breeze, dropping down again, his wings flapping harder to keep higher. “I could give you a head start, but you’d need an hour to even get out of my range.”

“And you have less than five seconds, Predacon.”

The Predacon screeched laughter briefly. “Oh, really?” The glow of his charging shoulder cannons paled in comparison to the lava below, but the tones of reds were similar, as was likely Imago’s fate.

The butterfly could not smile, but he did manage a very soft chuckle at the look on the Predacon’s face as the next heavy breeze, more of hot wind, whipped them both; the Predacon spun suddenly with a startled scream as the butterfly rose harmlessly several feet in the air, his wings barely flapping. The red flyer spun back around, furious, but Imago had risen a further distance, flittering on the heavier breezes.

“That’s not going to stop me, Maximal!” The Predacon shook off his disorientation, rising quickly, the updrafts not affecting his flight systems, and his optic sites settled on the butterfly, who transformed suddenly, holding one of his flails, some form of small spear, the Predacon decided, hardly a real weapon.

“I don’t need it to stop you,” said the butterfly softly. “I merely need it to attract your attention for one, two….more seconds.”

The Predacon released both shots moments after the next heavy updraft drove the butterfly farther up and out of range, the bottoms of his feet barely scorched, and now, adding insult to the final injury, the butterfly laughed, riding another updraft at the next shot, and the next, dancing always a few inches aside or above, the Predacon screaming in fury as the Maximal rode the updrafts as easily as if they were part of his flight systems.

“You could always shoot me,” called the Maximal. “I suppose if I remained in one place, it would be easier….so while you fail to realize how thermal dynamics work, can I ask why you Separatists are here?”

His response was another shot, this time from the Predacon’s blaster, and Imago dodged, barely, in time. The game was over then. “It has been an education, Predacon. Goodbye.”

The next blast caught his flail full on, and he knew for certainty’s sake that the Predacon was through taunting him. Typical Predacon behavior for a Separatist, though. You do not disappoint me. Thank you for this small chance to know precisely what kind of troops this ship holds.

He rose suddenly, using his flight systems actively for once, with the thermal updraft lifting him up and into a growing column of gray smoke, the Predacon screaming behind him, firing several cannon and blaster shots into the gray silence.

“This ends now, Maximal!” The flyer fired several more times into the cloud, and perhaps, Imago reasoned, he might have darted right into the smoke to find the insane Maximal who had not fought, and slaughter him there. Or perhaps he would have fired until his weapons needed recharging. The Predacon did not have a chance to show him; the flyer was concentrating on the smoke, firing again, when Imago dropped down slightly from above him, and dropped his flail, the blade along the spear-like weapon’s edge striking the flyer directly on the top of his head, the force driving the blade in by several inches. The Predacon had time for one half-screech, and as Imago watched passively, the flyer dropped like so much slag, landing heavily below on part of the ship, his blaster falling free from his loosened fingers, and Imago carefully took hold of the gun, subspacing it, before turning his attention to the horizon.

There is a Maximal ship somewhere. And it should provide adequate shelter for now. I do hope my reputation has not preceeded me.

Odd, though. I had not signed onto a war ship…

Not that that mattered now. He beastmoded as a light surge raced over his body, the power imbalance ending as he did, and flapping his wings harder, rose with the vents and updrafts, up and above the ship Darkside, beyond the reach of the mounted security guns below, and set his Comlink’s radar to pick up Maximal signal. He was not surprised to find a lack of their signal so close to the Predacon ship, and after a moment, began the long flight westward; his pod had crashed there, and he was certain that the pod would have landed closer to its parent ship than a pirate one.

Now to hope for decent flying conditions and a lack of further Predacons. I may yet see through this planet alive.