11.Nov.06

Moments In Time

Chapter one

By: Omicron the IceQueen

“Raw Energon, right through your twisted spark!”

It had snarled back at him at that. So he pushed just that much harder against it, bringing the improvised blade just that much closer to its exposed spark.

“Take it!” he yelled pushing even more with each word. “TAKE IT! Right through you TWISTED spark, you sickening, PIECE OF SLAG!”

Finally.

It was finally time.

After all this time…

After all the pain that was caused…

After all the suffering he had gone through…

Revenge and justice was finally here. The retribution of all those lives lost couldn’t be taken away now. That monster had to face his true punishment now in the depths of the pits.

Now at the end of it all…he could die.

It looked up at him in the optics, realizing what the fallen guardian already knew. It was the end. He had won, and it knew.

The game was now over, and it had lost.

It had been a good game, no denying it. Oh, how so sweet it had been. The fear. The anger. The bittersweet pain and so many other delicious emotions it had rung from him… It would gladly have done it again, for never had it had such a ‘playmate.’

And who knew? Maybe it would get that chance again?

Rampage tilted his head back and started laughing. Yes, he would do it again, but this game must first end.

The Predacon let go of the Energon shard and Depth charge narrowed his optics for a brief moment. Then the blade was plunged down…and the world exploded.

…………………………………………………………………………………………

He was alive.

Oh sweet Primus no…No, let me die. Please just let me die.

His systems where coming back online. One by one then more, eight, thirteen, twenty three, till everything was fully operational again. He could smell the familiar sent of the critical repair chamber, the hint of sulphur that got into almost everything thanks to living inside a semi active volcano. He could feel the ever-present heat in the air, the rock below and in his own large frame.

Depth Charge refused to come fully online. He didn’t want too, simple as that. The Maximal’s ruby optics stayed dim and his body was limp in the repair chamber’s grasp. He didn’t even twitch when he heard the chamber’s door hiss, releasing the little bit of built up air pressure before opening and lifting up.

There was a voice, but the mech couldn’t, or wouldn’t, focus on it.

It was just a voice. No words. No vocabulary. No recognizable language… Just different tones and sounds in the eternal darkness.

It was just a simple voice in the shadows of his mind.

Was it even real?

He was sure he hadn’t heard it before. Or had he? So long ago in a past that was both lovely and painful.

No.

Don’t think about that. Don’t think about anything…

That voice again, it was back and he was…moving? Being dragged? Hah, the great, fallen guardian of Omicron being dragged along like a sack of rusted old parts. That didn’t sound too off-bat, really.

The voice was growling at him now, most likely cursing him for not waking even though he was repaired.

Well tough luck to that voice and its owner because he wasn’t going to wake up any time soon if he could help it.

Something sharp, several sharp things bit into the side of his face and head, forcing him to come up partly into the land of the living.

“I’m not going to spend the next who-knows-how-many-millions of years here by myself and a body that isn’t dead!” Words now accompanied the voice, “WAKE UP YOU OVER SIZED FISH-STICK!!”

The sharp things bit into the side of his face again a split second before he was soundly slapped.

Ruby red optics flared to life.

Depth Charge saw a blurry image of a blue and green figure standing (kneeling?) above him. Oddly, the bright, blood red optics of this other bot was the only thing that came properly into forces. They were full of a fiery life that he once had and now didn’t want for himself anymore.

“That’s it! Up!” the figure moved.

The ray grunted as a weight settled heavily on to his chest.

“Up!”

Grunt.

“Don’t you grunt at me mister. Not after all that slag I went though to save your sorry tail.”

The Maximal still wasn’t letting himself think too much, but those optics… They were annoyed, most likely at him and had an almost wild tinge to them. Where had he seen that before?

“Come on, up!” He felt two hands rest on his upper chest and the bot leaned forward so they were optic to red optic.

It’s alive... the ray thought almost dully, I was alive like that once so long ago. He was still neither moving nor speaking. He wasn’t ready to come out of it yet, he wanted to just go back into recharge or stasis and—

“Oh no you don’t!”

Slap!

His optics flared again as metal connected with Transmetal.

Slap!

“Stay wake!” The bot said, “Or I’ll…I’ll… ahh….I’ll…eat your tail!”

What the slag?

Finally, Depth Charge moved, his brows lowered in a puzzled frown. Eat his…tail? This bars repeating: what the slag?

“Oh, you don’t think I will huh? Well…” The blue and green bot sat back, those red optics of its now full of a kind of mischief.

The weight moved off of him as the bot left his line of sight and the ray slowly took in a deep breath, cycling air into his systems to cool them.

Shink!

Wha…?

CHOMP!

“GRAAH!” Depth Charge jerked upright and lashed his tail behind him as something clamped down on it. Hard. There was a crash somewhere the left and behind him but the manta was more interested in the now painful spade shape tail tip.

The imprints, or puncture marks of four killing fangs were imbedded into it as well as smaller marks around the main four.

“BWAHAHA-HAH! I told you I would!” The gleeful cackle belonged to that set of optics and voice of the other bot.

Depth Charge turned, letting his tail go as he faced this new mech.

A blue and green fem-bot smiled at him from where she had been tossed thanks to his tail. She was on her side, still shaking with near silent laugher at the ray’s expense. She looked like she had a ‘dragon’ beast mode, the only reason Depth Charge could tell was because Megatron had had one last he saw, but this fem-bot was different. The beast mode head was covering and protecting her chest and, the fore-paws were her feet, dew claws and all. The hind paws were on her shoulders, a long tail with a claw at the end was lazily draped over her legs and two large wings were folded onto her back.

Depth Charge looked this new development over and settled on staring at her face, there was something familiar about it but he couldn’t place it. Was it the way that it was framed by both two head-horns and a wild blueish beast mode mane?

“Take a holo-vid.” She said, “It’ll last longer.”

The Maximal’s optics flashed and dimmed in a blink.

For several minute the two just stared at each other, judging power levels and comparing possible skills. Or at least Depth Charge was, a part of is more ‘normal’ self kicking in and making him do so. There couldn’t be much size difference between them. Well, in height that is. She was maybe two heads shorter? The ray knew that he out-weighed her. Easily.

On the other hand, the fem-bot seemed to be doing nothing more than checking him out as she propped herself up on a spiked elbow. She gave him a half smile, a glint of a fang showing.

“Well aren’t we the pair of the stellar-cycle? One fallen Maximal Guardian and one exiled Predacon space pirate on a more or less empty world.” She sighed and looked up at the cavern roof so far above them, “Of course that’s just my luck, getting stuck with a Guardian of all bots.”

Depth Charge inhaled sharply as memory reinserted its self.

He was standing in the main Guardian office talking to friend and partner as he looked over the hard copies of the latest warnings from Cybertron.

WANTED!

Active or Deactivated

Predacon space pirate: Ice Queen.

Last seen in Cybertron’s outer colonized spaces,

She is under the charges of grand theft, murder and other illegal activities.

If seen contact local authorities or nearest Maximal Guardian base.

Reward offered!

“What do you think the chances are of a bot reporting her in?” Greave Stone had asked after glancing at the print out.

Depth Charge had given a chuckle and shook his head, “If someone did then they wouldn’t have lived out here on the outskirts of the colonies.”

“HAH! That’s all too right my friend. Come to think about it I remember some bots saying that she,” the tanker had waved at the print out, “Picked a fight with some other pirates that moved in where they shouldn’t have. Help one of those older colonies doing so I think.”

“Help them?” The aquatic jet snorted, “I doubt it. ‘Was most likely keeping territory as those kind of bots do.”

“There more to ‘those kind of bots’ than you know, my friend.”

Depth had hadn’t believed the older mech back then. He did now, especially now that he had gone over that all but none existing line between a ‘normal’ bots and the ‘out laws’ in his hunt for X. There was more to them, well, most of them. They had their own set of rules, ethics and ranking systems. Sometimes it varied but only because one Caption and crew was different from another Caption and crew.

He had been surprised at how many good mechs had lived outside the law, as well as how horrific others could be, like X.

That was why Depth Charge didn’t react much to the fact that he was sitting near a space pirate that had killed and stolen. Primus he had liked too, and not just as a Guardian protecting the peace. There had been mechs that had gotten in the way of his hunt, somewhere just plain stupid but most deserved it.

“What the slag,” The large Maximal said as he stood, his voice somewhat rougher than it ordinarily was from lack of use and recent repairs, “Are you doing here Ice Queen, and why am I still alive?”

“Oh, he knows my name. Where was the wanted poster?” The Predacon smiled.

“Omicron.”

“Oh.” She looked away, humor dieing as she remembered seeing the massacred colony. Her ship had been one of the first to respond, after all she had refuelled there a few times and no one there had been rude enough to point out that she was a pirate. It had seemed fair at the time to go when she and her crew had picked up the week distress signal.

“Any one else alive?” The Ray asked looking back over at the Predacon.

“Not that I’ve found.” Ice Queen sat up, “I got out of my pod, wandered around till I found this place,” She paused to wave a wing at what was left of the Maximal ship and the great golden hulk that was the Autobot space craft The Ark. “Did some poking around and came across some old logs and decided to play tourist and see my ancestor’s ship the Nemesis, and maybe a way off this rock. I found you half scrapped instead.”

Depth Charge looked down at his repaired form, putting two and two together, “You sure no one else is alive?”

“Are you talking about all those its-and-bits of pieces of bot that where scattered around you when I found your sorry tail?”

“Yes.”

“Pretty sure that guy is dead.” The dragon said a bit sarcastically.

“Are you sure?” The large Maximal said walking over to the other.

Ice Queen reached into subspace and tossed something brown colored at the manta bot, he caught it with one hand.

It was a chunk of Rampage’s armor.

“Looks like he wasn’t immortal after all, Guardian.”

“Depth Charge.” The ray said after a minute. He sub-paced the chunk and looked down at the blue and green femmie. “I’m not a Guardian… not anymore.”

“Hmm.” Ice Queen tilted her head then reached up and took the Maximal’s offered hand, letting herself be pulled up. She quirked an optic ridge up, “So what do we do now?”

“…I don’t know.”

“Hmm…weeeeeelllll… we could-”

“Keep it ‘PG’ female.”

“Aww, you’re taking al the fun out of it.”

Depth Charge grunted, “I don’t do that kind of things with Predacons.”

“…ouch.” Ice Queen said as the ray turned his back to her and walked off. She shrugged, “Oh well, can’t blame me for trying. Blah, who’d want to be with a stiff necked Maxie anyways?”

“I heard that!” 
 
“Good!” The dragon gave a fanged grin as she made use of a handy human gesture she’d picked up some time ago with her middle finger when the large Maximal turned to glare.

---

Queen’s note: ....I have been bitten by a manta-infected plot bunny. Sweet primus save me @.@ I have no clue where this is going so…yeah. (spazzes) I CAN WRITE DEPTH CHARGE AGAIN! (gives hugs and cookies to every one that reads this)

Oh, and I don’t own Beast Wars. But I claim DC’s tail! n.n