Here Come the Peanut Gallery

There’s nothing worse than having 3000 tons of rubble on top of you, pinning your limbs to the ground, severing your hands and feet and stifling your air.

Having 3000 tons of rubble pinning your arms and legs, severing your hands and feet AND having an itch on your left nostril.

Here he was in total darkness, pinned under stacks of rubble from about three buildings, half transformed from Beast mode to robot mode with his beast nose still fastened to his face and his lungs half tucked away inside his partially robot form. He was crushed, never mind uncomfortable in the position he was in. And it was all because of that stupid malfunctioning watch of his. He had honestly thought he had another hour before the city blew up, so he told Megatron to pull over and let him out so he could pop into the bar and steal some booze. Megatron had argued ferociously

saying that Blight’s watch was wrong and that he was an idiot. And Megatron was right about one thing, though Blight disagreed with the latter. Sadly, Megatron did give in and left him on the side of the road, and Blight was halfway in the bar when the whole building collapsed onto him.

But that was not the real sadness of it all. It was that he, Blight, was stuck under a mass of rubble with an itch on his nose.

But as most people with any intellect know saying things can’t get any worse is indirectly asking Worse to have another go.

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He didn’t leave Nystrin thinking he was leaving it forever. For all he was doing was going back home to check up on a few things at the airbase and alert Snow Crystal about the danger. He’d be back within a day or two.

Or so he thought. Now there was nothing to go back to. Nystrin had crumbled under Predacon attacks. There was nothing left and the area was guarded heavily to prevent Maximals from better off cities to search for survivors. So, naturally, he feared the worst for his friends. But in truth, at least for now, there was little he could do without some form of armoured transport and weapons. So, he continued his journey to the airbase, filled with sickening worry that it too had been destroyed and that Snowy, dear, sweet Snowy had been hurt or worse…

Optimus sped furiously along the last bit of his journey. He had tried contacting them, but as expected, there was no answer. He thought that maybe the base’s electricity was offline, but the likelihood of that being so was quickly diminished when he saw the first signs of the airbase.

His cyber car was travelling at maximum speed, so it wasn’t long before he was up close and personal with the wreckage he used to work at. There was nothing but badly scorched buildings with their roofs blown off and holes the size of cars in them. The planes and space ships were piles of smouldering ash, and the ones that weren’t scrap didn’t look much better. He stepped outside and held his head, staring wide-eyed at the destruction ahead of him. The silence was so unnatural, so lifeless that it made he feel as if he was the only one left in the universe. He walked over, with unsteady steps, towards the gate, which was hanging wearily on its hinges at an angle, allowing him to get through easily. He registered numbly that he didn’t have to use the gate. There were enough holes. He entered the rubble filled airfield and turned around, over and over, trying to get to grips with it all. Eventually, he found his voice and began to yell.

His voice echoed and rang through the lifeless silence. His question was never answered.

The gate collapsed behind him, giving him a fright that brought him to his knees.

He held his chest, trying to keep back the frightful sobs. Trying to be strong, like he always had been. Survivor of three wars. But he really couldn’t endure another.

He rose up shakily to his feet and his eyes scanned the wreckage, looking to where the main base was. It was ruined.

He started to run towards the base and transformed into flight mode. He soared through the cold wind and transformed back when he reached the old base. He knelt and started to dig furiously, tossing pieces of metal and glass over his shoulder in an adrenaline filled, angry kind of devastation. He dug until his hands were shredded in the hope that fate had smiled on him and his loved one, and that she might still be alive.

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“Yes sir. Twenty major Maximal cities destroyed or badly damaged sir. Those totally demolished were Raltraxon, Galphrates, Nystrin, Hendier, Palustike, Daxlider’s Shadow, Unlightrest, Maxidonaz, COMA (The City of the Maximal Amalgamation), Surnbalade, Hystrider, Olphantex, Yantree, Salient Halls, and Limestorm. The other five that sustained substantial damage were Relentrax, Hashlyn, Borstoling, Powerdox and Vixadonia. 92% of the Predacons were, before hand, evacuated from the attacked cities and an estimate of 90 million Maximal deaths occurred. Julantres, Jalen, Kiulist, and Hilanes are under Maximal extermination programmes as these cities consist of too high a Predacon population to be destroyed. Fifty major maximal politicians had been killed including Hazhire. Maximal military and air force bases have been destroyed however there is a strong defence held at Aswade, the most important military base and airbase in the whole of Cybertron. Somehow they got an early warning and ejected all Predacons workers at the base. All bombs being set were stopped and high defence was activated. Predacon planes still haven’t been able to break the lines. Deaths total 1 million Predacons trying, without success, to break through the defence. Reports have come in that the Human leaders wish to negotiate with you in order to bring peace. However they have warned that should a peace agreement not be reached they will without hesitation send in the strongest of their military force to aid the Maximals against us.”

Pernicious was silent in the dark room and Danzhire couldn’t hear even the slightest noise coming from the great leader. Only one, dim light shone in the room, highlighting his clearly inferior form to that of the heavily armoured General. There was a long pause as his great leader pondered (he suspected) over what to do. Eventually, Pernicious turned with a face as stiff as ice, and just as cold.

“Well, you can tell the human leaders that they can go screw themselves. Tell them that the Predacons do not fear them in the slightest and that if they want to join this war, they are not doing themselves any favours.”

Danzhire’s eyebrows shot up and he looked a bit taken aback, but he didn’t hesitate to respond.

A slow grin spread across the lieutenant’s face and he nodded and turned away to his duty, on which the whole future of Cybertron turned.

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She trudged sadly through the rubble, ten to twenty metres deep and some of it still smouldering after the countless fires that had followed the explosions which had brought the city to its current state. Her home, Nystrin, was totally demolished.

With a grimace, she placed her hand over the laser wound in her left shoulder. When the explosions had gone off, she had hidden in an underground shelter. It had taken her hours to dig and wriggle her way through the rubble to get to the surface, only to be confronted by a few Predacon patrollers, seeking and destroying any Maximal survivors. They had seen her, badly scratched and weary from all her digging. But they were pitiless. They fired on her, but there was plenty of rubble to hide under, and all they achieved was a nasty wound to her shoulder, before they gave up on trying to find her. Now, ages later, after having a much-needed rest, she trudged through the ruins, not having anywhere to go or knowing what to do. Her head was bowed and she walked despondently, deeply depressed. She had lost her family, no doubt. They were on the other side of Nystrin, the side that was blown up first. She didn’t have time to warn them.

But her melancholic mood was temporarily interrupted when she heard a muffled groan beneath her. She stepped back with a gasp and stared at the ground. Someone was down there, and alive. It took her a while before she overcame the shock, and a few moments later, she was on her knees, pulling away debris and sheets of metal.

She wasn’t sure how long she had been digging for, the weak sunlight glistening dangerously on her back, making her a target in this barren land of destruction.

But she didn’t care. If she could save a life, then she would risk everything to do so. For really, what had she to lose?

Eventually, she heard another groan and a few scraps of metal later she could see a grazed metal arm with hints of what used to be gold left on it.

It sent a new surge of energy through her and with renewed determination, she grabbed hold of the lone piece of metal covering the bot, and with all the energy she could muster, heaved it a few inches up. But that was it. She collapsed in exhaustion and held her sparking shoulder. This metal lifting wasn’t doing wonders for her limbs. She paused to regain some energy.

“I’m coming.” She whispered aloud and tried again, this time holding it up for longer. She started trembling from the strain but continued to lift it, turning it on its right. Then, with a final jerk, she pulled it to the right and it fell and rolled down the slope of rubble, and the bot below it was revealed.

Cheetor numbly was aware of that awful pressure over his gut being lifted, but he still felt squashed. He had been confused and disorientated for hours, hallucinating often and hearing strange, blurry voices coming into his mind. Now he felt something soft tickle him and the blackness he had previously seen became a dark red. Was that light seeping into his optics? He heard the blurred voice coming in and he struggled to make it out into words.

His stomach lurched and he could hear himself moaning distantly. He was alive, he’d been aware of that. But even in this far-gone state, he was aware of another presence. Then, like a seraph from the matrix, he could see a white light streaming in and a silhouette standing over him. The shadow bent down and touched his cheek, speaking in a whir of soft whispers. Was this what death was like, was this angel here to guide him to the Matrix? Or was this what a second chance at life felt like? Was this bot here to help save him as he sunk deeper and deeper into the depths of nothingness? Suddenly, his vision seemed to come back properly for a moment, and he could make out features on a face, a female face. Her face was one of concern and he could see a weak smile spread across her face as he responded to life’s call. It was with the comfort of knowing he was not alone that he drifted back into unconsciousness, and whether he lived or died suddenly didn’t seem to matter.

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A huge fireball lifted into the night sky and the land for miles around it lit up in orange-red light. The molten lava like light shone through ripples of smoke that billowed up into the sky as the mushroom cloud rose. It’s grey fist punching upwards through the air in a fit of explosive anger.

The rumble was not unlike thunder, but far, far louder. The ground around it ruptured and ash spat like rain down onto the radioactive floor. The plume of smoke continued to rise, puffing out in smoggy layers rolling over each other.

Ulextra watched in horror as he television displayed images of the destruction Surnbalade. It was taken last night and she couldn’t get over the fact that she had left Nystrin a day before it’s demise and was on her way to Surnbalade when she saw the images on her car TV. It was then she had turned and raced towards the nearest resort, which was beside the highway in the middle of nowhere. Now, she sat in her hotel room, the morning light seeping in through the blinds. She watched with a lump in her throat as her family and friends went up in smoke. Her daughter, two sons and her husband. The whole city, her home city, her private life exploded and sputtered down again in tears of ash.

She was still in shock so she hadn’t yet wept. Sure, she was sad and grief stricken, but she just couldn’t seem to move or speak. It all seemed unreal. At the bottom of the screen in white writing were the words: Predacons rebel and destroy and damage 20 Maximal cities.

Predacons had done this. Predacons had killed her parents 30 stellar cycles ago.

They had killed her family, they had killed her friends, but they had not killed her. And she decided then and there that it was time to avenge their deaths.

She turned to her suitcase and punched in the code into her code lock. The lid opened, revealing a few papers, a plastic bag, and a gun. A six-inch laser pistol.

She picked it up slowly and eyed over its shiny silver sides. Her reflection sending down shivers through her spark.

But then again, she thought, if she pulled that trigger, would that not make her a killer too? She shook her head slowly.

The four, yellow walls of her room let out a sense of tranquility. Her last haven before she started her prologue to hell.

She put it safely in her sub space pocket, shut the lid of her suitcase and left the room. She was leaving this hotel, driving to the city Aswade, and joining the Maximal army.

There was no way she was going to lose this fight.

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Rattrap opened his eyes and immediately closed them. He turned his head away from the beam of light that shone directly in his eyes. He opened them again and looked up. He was under a pile of metal and cement and about six feet above him there was a small crack, letting in the sunlight. He groaned and tried to put his hand over a burning pain on his chest. No use. He looked down to see his arms pinned under sheets of metal and his right leg was squashed. His left leg however had nothing on it and he moved it slightly. He was alive, although he wasn’t sure why. The last thing he remembered was crouching under the table calling Tourmaline when there was this huge noise and his world became darkness. Judging by all the rubble around him, it was another explosion.

“Oh…man!” he muttered as suddenly his body began to register pain again. A damage report scrolled across his optics and his internal computer read out the grim news. His right leg was smashed, his arms were badly damaged, he’d sustained head injury and underneath him a splinter of metal was jabbing into his back only inches away from his spark cage. Not very motivating conditions to survive in, he had to admit. He started to pull his right arm from under the heavy sheet of metal. He succeeded eventually after a long and slow process of much swearing and groaning. He held up his arm weakly and realised all the silver was scrapped off leaving his arm a raw, dark grey with deep cuts leaking mech fluid everywhere. He put his hand over his chest and panted. This wasn’t a very enjoyable experience. After what felt like hours, he sat up, pulling away from the splinter in his back and knocking his head on a dangerously loose piece of cement above his head.

“Whoa boy!” He exclaimed and ducked under it. He began to pull the sheet of metal off his left arm, but it was no use. He tried his right leg and after much pain staking digging he managed to free it. A few loose rocks tumbled down and knocked him on the head. They were small, but a grim reminder that this place could give in at any moment. He tried to move, then realised again that his left arm was pinned.

“Slag.” He muttered. He stared at the squished limb long and hard. He looked around him. A puddle of mech fluid had formed like a moat around him.

Rattrap, even as pessimistic as he was, had pretty strong survival instincts and he refused to give up when he was this close. He felt under him and found what he was seeking. He pulled from under him his tail spear. It was a useful weapon, but a useless lever. It would easily snap under the wait of the object on his arm. So he was going to use it in another way. He held the blade over his elbow; his arm was pinned from there down. He stared for a long moment at his arm, trying to think of alternate ways of freeing it than this. But he found none. He positioned the blade carefully and closed his eyes.

……………………………………………………………………………………….

He gasped and writhed in agony, squirming on the floor with his eyes tightly shut. The pain was tremendous.

There was no arm to hold. It was still under the rock. He had succeeded in chopping it off.

What was left of his arm that was still attached to him was sparking and mech fluid was pouring out of a few little pipes. Robots luckily were connected by circuits so chopping off an arm wasn’t such an ordeal compared to humans. If a human chopped off his arm, he would bleed to death. No doubt about it.

But that didn’t mean it wasn’t painful and disturbing to amputate your own limb!

He never was good at robot biology, but he did have a vague idea where the pain connection to his processor was. He pointed it over a small little area just under his shoulder and pierced the ‘skin’. He moved his fingers through the circuits till he found the orange and green wire. And he split it.

“Oh. Make my day, I split da wrong wire!” he cried and grimaced as his shoulder began to burn. He knew it was some orangey colour. He fiddled around, blue waves of energy rippling through him occasionally.

After a while, he found another orange wire. Almost immediately he yanked it in two and suddenly the pain stopped. Just in his arm. But it was an incredible relief nevertheless. He sighed and slumped back, allowing himself to breath quietly. Another few rocks tumbled on his head. He looked up at the small hole and a few moments later, got up and stood as much as his legs would allow. It hurt like hell to do so. He stuck his hand through the hole and moved it around. He could feel the soft warmth of the sunlight on his hand and he desperately waved it around, widening the hole. Suddenly, the place collapsed and he transformed into vehicle mode so as to wrap himself in himself, like a shell. He felt a few sheets hit him and slide off and the ground tremble below him. But that was it. He opened one eye meekly and realised he was bathed in light. He looked up and saw that the hole was no bigger than him. He was free.

“Tourmaline,” he said aloud, remembering she was somewhere near. He turned to see that the hole had spread and the light hit and sparkled on a different coloured piece of metal.

He started scraping away the metal, tossing pieces over his shoulder and digging furiously.

“Tourmaline! Hold on baby, I’m comin’ for ya!” he cried with renewed energy. He pulled away a block of cement and slipped his one and only hand under the sheet of metal and pulled it off her.

There she lay, scratched and burned with her right hand dangling by a thread and her legs almost severed. But she was alive.

He nodded nonchalantly and scrambled up slowly through the rubble and pulled himself over the rim of the hole with one arm. And it wasn’t easy. After a bit of a struggle he pulled himself over the top and lay in the sunshine on his back, panting. He wiped the dirt from his shattered optics and sat up. And swore.

Tourmaline heard him utter something up there and she felt a tingle of curiosity run through her.

Rattrap scanned the flattened field of wreckage and crumbled buildings. There was nothing left standing.

“They didn’t just blow up my apartment this time, they blew up the WHOLE CITY!”

His scream echoed through the barren landscape and a few small debris rolled down the slopes of rubble.

He hit the floor of the rubble and winced. His legs gave way and he fell to his knees by her side.

“Looks like your old enemy Megatron gave us more of a blow than we bargained for,” she said.

The wind above them howled through the barren sea of wreckage and a gust entered the little cave they lay in and whirled around them.

“And we better treasure that. Because it might be all we have left.”

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Megatron almost shot Power Surge with his laser arm, but managed to suppress the act of rage. He was sitting on a cement block, trying to pull out a shard of metal that had become imbedded in his foot.

“Oh go away!” he cried and flicked the annoying robot away. The lot of them were trudging through the glass and metal filled streets of Hashlyn. The Maximals here had been sought out and destroyed, making the city a Predacon city. It was here that evacuated Predacons from other cities would be dropped off, and here was where he could form a new base. He was given a whole city of buildings to choose from before the ship loads of Predacons were dropped off. But the city itself was damaged in many areas and the streets had yet to be cleaned up of bodies and glass and other debris. He yanked out the piece of metal and put his hand over the under part of his foot. He winced then finally stood. His jets had been damaged last night when he was caught in the crossfire when some of the Maximal slaves got hold of weapons and started firing on the standing Generals. The Maximals were killed within seconds, but a few of the unexpected blasts had fouled his jets considerably. Stupid Maximals, what did they think they were going to achieve?

He sighed and carried on trudging through the metal. But he hadn’t walked so much as five steps when another annoying piece of glass got stuck in the same foot.

He looked up and spotted his group of four main soldiers (now serving him as body guards more than anything) wandering around, picking up all sorts of rubbish and chucking it at each other. Minus Blight, who was under a heap of cement somewhere in Nystrin, stupid android.

Megatron hated being spoken to like that. He was promoted to a major in this war, and you don’t speak to majors like that. But trying to discipline rebels was too much of an effort right now.

Kyroid sighed and let Megatron climb on. He took off with a bit of difficulty. Carrying a metal tyrannosaurus wasn’t easy.

Megatron scanned the damaged buildings and shuddered. Hashlyn was a dirty town, home to all the Maximal tough guys, or, at least it had been. Which was why it was the hardest town to rid of Maximals, they were all street fighters. He searched the buildings until he came to a small one squashed in between two monstrosities. It was the entrance to the railway station below. Perfect. A base underground was good to be in as they were undoubtedly going to be bombed by human warships from time to time. He pulled a feather out of Kyroid.

Megatron hopped off and brushed himself off. A thick layer of dust still clung to the air around the city.

Megatron turned and eyed the dark entrance. The city had been thoroughly cleansed of Maximals, but those toughies knew the town better than anyone…so, it was possible there could be a few more, hiding…

Megatron charged up his laser and started walking into the darkened building very slowly. As he stepped inside he heard a rustle and his eyes focussed on the area the noise had come from. He saw a few pieces of glass slide down from a pile of rubble, explaining the noise. He narrowed his optics and continued inside with a slight limp. Maybe they could find a CR chamber somewhere in this city. Though it was going to be difficult. He walked a little further and came up to what was once the ticket desk.

The glass shield around the desk was smashed and he could see silvery mech fluid drying in puddles on the top of it. He took another step to see a dead Maximal behind the desk, two tickets still in hand. He shook his head slightly and walked away. He sometimes surprised himself with his lack of emotions.

He turned to his left to see a rest room. Things designed for the few humans that did inhabit this planet. Humans. They were an issue that needed to be dealt with. Right now the human leaders were announcing to their various countries that they were going to war against Cybertron, well, the Predacons on it. People were being rounded up to fight in the army, getting quick lessons about the Cybertronians before they left.

It wouldn’t help. Their technology, although very much updated, was still so inferior.

To his right he spotted the steps leading down to the station. With a low growl he advanced towards the steps, damage reports of the area scrolling across his optics. He read a few of them and realised that they had a lot of cleaning up to do.

He continued down into the subway and once there switched on his infrared. It was incredibly dark. He looked over the area and could see the eerie outline of trains frozen in time. Bodies were scattered along the pavement, lying motionless. A gust of wind swept a few papers along the life-deserted sidewalk and a few brushed hauntingly over his feet. Although he would never admit it out loud, this place did give him the creeps.

Megatron gasped and swivelled round, expecting to see a Hashlyn survivor with a gun aimed at his head.

“Your face! Hah hah! You almost wet yourself, and luckily you didn’t otherwise the place would have been flooded!”

“I make a pretty good Hashlyn accent. Had you fooled didn’t I? You know there is a human cartoon dinosaur called Barney who looks just like-”

A burst of purple light streaked between them and a moment later Kyroid was flying backwards. He slammed against the steps and slid down.

Megatron sniggered and looked up. Asphyxiate and Power Surge, both in robot mode, came and appeared at the top of the steps and looked down at Kyroid. Asphyxiate shook his head.

“Sir, we found a strange bot walking through the streets making this weird noise. We captured him but it appears, sir, that this bot is Predacon.” Asphyxiate told him. The python bot summoned with his hands and Vindictive appeared beside him, holding a much smaller bot in his arm. The bot was wriggling and…buzzing?

He pulled his head back and his eyes widened in recognition at the squirming bot.

Vindictive let go obediently and Waspinator brushed himself off, shooting a bug eyed glare in the direction of the black and silver wolf bot.

“Wazzzpinator wazz taken to Predacon conzzil to be judged after Beazzzt Warzzzz. Predacon counzzil did not favour Wazzzpinator and zzent to Hazzlyn Prizzzon.

But yezzzterday while Wazzzpinator wazz cleaning hizz mandiblez, whole prizzzon fall down around Wazzzpinator. Wazzzpinator free but there were no botzz to greet Wazzzpinator. So Wazzzpinator wonder through streetz looking for them, 'til hairy bot find Wazzzpinator and bring here.”

Megatron found it difficult to understand the incessant buzzing, but he managed to grip most of it and realised that Blight’s absence was made up.

Megatron turned his shoulder so that the wasp could see the glinting badge symbolising that he was a Major.

“The reason why there were no bots was because the Predacon rebellion reformed whilst you were in prison. After my escape, I joined up with them and yesterday we attacked, destroyed and damaged 20 major Maximal cities as well as exterminated Maximals from a few Predacon towns. It was unexpected, so little resistance was present. We are planning to take over Cybertron and I am here to set up a base, in this railway station. So you see, you are now part of this war. And involuntarily part of my troops, again.”

Waspinator took a while to process all the information, but it eventually sank in.

There was a collective moan that rose up from them all and Waspinator pulled a face as he picked up a plastic bag.

“This iz Wazzzpinator’s first job. Huuuuh. Wazzzpinator can see where thizzz izz going…”

Megatron shook his head slightly as he watched his group of maniacs get to work.

He wondered, for a moment, just how clearly he could see where everything was going. For in truth, no one was really that sure…

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He held her closely, not wanting to let go. Too terrified that he might lose her.

Around him was total darkness and he could hear the distant sound of rapid gunfire followed by screams of terror. Loud booms sounded off as the city he once called home erupted around him. He closed his eyes and cuddled his daughter, who whimpered quietly in fear. He hoped they were safe here; that the Predacon army would not find them. When the first attacks sounded off, they raced to the house and hid in an old bomb shelter beneath the house. He’d never wanted to move here, but his wife had fallen in love with the old building, and they did anyway. He never thought the shelter would come in use. And he never wanted it to.

But now it was perhaps their only chance. He did not know where Syoldina, his wife, was now. Whether she was dead or alive. But what he did know was that he had a job to do, and that was to protect his only child from being destroyed by these merciless killers.

Another bomb sounded off and he winced and dulled his hearing sensors for a moment. He had to keep them on, to listen out for incoming enemies.

More screams, but they were getting fewer now as the army slowly wiped the city clean of Maximals.

And to think he was half Predacon himself. But they wouldn’t see that. They would just see him as half Maximal.

His daughter pulled away enough for him to see her face and she looked up at him with her lime green optics, full of terror and confusion.

A loud whistling noise cut through the air outside and was followed by an explosion.

Oh Primus, now they’ve given up on driving them out, they’re simply bombing the whole place by air!

The shelter shuddered and dust and small loose rocks crumbled down on top of them. She cuddled up closer and cried softly.

There was another loud explosion and suddenly the rood above was ripped open. Smoke poured in. He heard voices, but not kind, friendly voices, close and harsh voices.

He could now see dark grey forms appearing with flashlights in the smoke and he edged away from them to the corner of the small room, fear grasping his throat.

He put a hand over her mouth to stop the noise escaping her lips, but it was no use. Suddenly a beam of light fell directly upon them and she let out a scream.

“There! There’re two of them!” the grey form shouted and moments later gun fire ripped across the room. She screamed and he stood in front of her so as to shield her. He felt the first stings of pain as laser beams pounded into him. He turned to see a small opening to his right, an escape route that the Predacons had not yet picked up.

His spark fluctuated in shock and desperation and he pulled her up. The grey forms advanced and he fell to his knees as his shredded legs could no longer take the fire that was pummelling into them.

“RUN!!” he screamed and she turned and fled. He watched her disappear into the thick smoke, her form becoming a darker grey image and he saw her nearing the exit as if in slow motion. He fell to the ground and his upper body gave way and as he hit the floor and crawled towards the exit too, trying to survive, trying to save her.

But as he crawled he fell into a deep crevice in the side and he felt his body become trapped in a hole in the floor. The gunfire that had been ripping into him ceased as the enemy lost sight of him.

“No!” he yelped. He wanted them to shoot him; he wanted to drag their attention away from her to him. He wanted to save her.

Again, in slow motion, he watched as they turned their fire on his fleeing child and moments later he saw her fall, crumble to the ground as laser fire lit up the smoke and pummelled into her back. She crashed to the floor with a final yelp.

He tried to scream, to divert their attention, but his voice box had been severed and he was too weak to move, or cry. All his energy was used in watching his daughter fall as he was frozen in that dreadful moment in time. She hit the floor and they continued firing, mercilessly, callously.

“No,” he whimpered and his vision blurred and doubled. He watched as the destroyed her, killed her. An innocent child with no means of defense, already fallen and still they fired, laughing as they did so.

And then his world darkened and he slid into the depths of unconsciousness, his stomach twisted in grief and then there was silence.

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______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Cheetor blinked as the flood of darkness left his optics. He opened his eyes weakly to see a face, a female face that was familiar. She was staring down at him, bright sunlight behind her almost white. Radiant, silhouetting her like an angel. Her face was very young and very innocent. Her youthful eyes were stained with grief and filled with concern. Her red cheeks losing colour seemingly by the second.

She turned away and a few moments later came back with a cloth and started wiping his forehead. He was dimly aware as she pulled it away that it was gleaming with silver fluid…

Suddenly damage reports burst across his optics. Although the reports were nothing to celebrate, it was a good sign that his system could process a command to do that. It meant he was still reasonably functional. A throbbing pain began in his left leg and his head began to sting. Pain, another sign that he was up another rung of the ladder back to life.

The female propped him up against something and for a moment he struggled to stay up until his systems switched on fully and he was completely out of stasis lock. He felt feeling coming back to his arms and legs and his sight gradually became better.

She stood there, dented and scraped with a wound to her shoulder. She was a slim, young bot with her entire body shaded in a range of pinks. She watched over him, cloth still in hand and stood a cautious way away. Not wouldn’t hurt her, not that he really could in his condition.

The sadness tucked away in the depths of her optics returned and she looked down despondently.

A sickly feeling of horror griped his stomach and he felt cold prickles of fear spread down his spine. Bombed. By Predacons. It was like a chapter in a story he had known about, read in advance. And now it had come. And he knew it would all along, but still he acted as if he didn’t, as if he were oblivious.

He strained to answer. Everything was happening so fast, he was still trying to come to grips with the last sentence…

He brushed some rubble off his hands and looked around. A wind whipped across the desolate field of rubble. Dust clung to the air in a deathly mist over the fallen city and he couldn’t help a shiver spread through him. He looked up again.

“Well, this will certainly start a war, if it hasn’t already. So, I’m just notifying you of what I can do in this war. If it still applies.”

He looked around again. Crushed, the whole city…it was a miracle he was alive. But that was it. A miracle. And miracles are extremely rare. So, the chance of their being more survivors…well…

“Oh, no…you aren’t. As I’m not really a sergeant. For how can I be a sergeant if there is no army?”

“Relax. I’m a cat hanging by a thread onto his ninth life with shattered bones and broken claws and dust mites. I’ve got about as much authority as a dying cat with shattered bones and broken claws suffering from dust mites.”

His lungs almost gave in at saying that. This was not a good time to get chatty.

“No. Don’t die. You can’t, you won’t. I’ve fixed some of your shattered bones, picked up your broken claws and I’m sure once we are found and rescued we can do something about those dust mites,” she said, very seriously.

“Rescued? Out here, while we are fighting a war? Who’ll rescue us?” he asked, his voice almost dead with loss of hope.

She was silent for a long time and the air whispered around them. She continued to stare, frightened, into his eyes. Slowly, she raised her right hand and pointed to a symbol on the left hand side of her upper torso. It was some sort of flag. Red and white striped with blue and green stars and a cross behind the stripes and stars. And in the center was a blue and green planet, a planet he knew all to well. She looked at him with grave eyes and tapped at it.

“I work in the secretary office of the CECC, Cybertron – Earth Communication Centre, and I know that the humans will come for us. They will help us, whether it be rescuing survivors or waging a full-scale war against the enemy. They will come.”

Cheetor didn’t know what made her incredibly sure that the humans would step into a vicious fight, but the way she said it, with those serious eyes, he was almost convinced.

He sighed and eyed over his torn form. Dust and small pieces of debris swept over his legs. He looked up again.

………………………………………………………………………………………….

The morning light beamed in and a dusty shaft of light fell upon his eyes. He woke up, feeling hot and dizzy with a kind of nausea he could only put down to a hangover.

Not surprisingly he found himself clueless as to what had happened the night before and he turned groggily to see if he had any strange, pretty girl(s) lying next to him. Nope, none. He was lucky.

He yawned and checked himself over for any scratches or bruises and found only a graze on his left arm he vaguely remembered making when he shoved his way through the clubhouse door.

He only realised when he tried to feel for a pillow that he was lying on the bathroom floor in a drying puddle of blood. All sticky and dark red, the way it gets when left in the open air.

It took him less than a few seconds to register it and he sat up with a short scream. He held up his hands to find the red fluid under his fingernails.

“Christ, what have I done?” he whispered hoarsely. He turned sharply to his left and hit his head on the bathroom cupboard under the sink. A shot of pain rippled through his forehead and a burning headache followed.

With a frustrated yelp he held his bum and slowly gripped the side of the bath and staggered up. He turned and looked in the mirror only to be met by a hideous, blood stained face. He shrieked and put his hand over his mouth, and the face in the mirror did the same. He squinted, and so did the face. Then he noticed the bottle of face paint sitting innocently by the cold tap. There were splatters of red paint everywhere, on the floor, the mirror, his face…

The cool water was mildly reassuring; a sort of feeling that brought him back to reality. As he washed his face he saw a little fox run past him, chased by what seemed to be a cartoon, purple rhinoceros.

Man, I hope I didn’t slip and get stoned! Now that would be a problem. Drugs, they’re bad buggers.

He sighed and looked in the mirror again, trying to recall where all the paint had come from. After dwelling upon this for a moment with no results, he decided he’d call up Frankie and see if he knew what happened. Frankie spent 90% of his time at the club and knew who left with one foot in trouble, or one foot in the grave.

His palms were sweaty and the headache only seemed to worsen as the rings in his ear from the dialling tone seemed to leap out and bite his eardrum.

“Yo, Frankie. It’s Jo Jo. Hey, my pal, I woke up this morning on the floor covered in red paint with a splittin’ headache and a hangover to die in with foxes and purple rhinos. Was I at the club last night?”

There was the click of a tongue from the other side and he heard him swear slightly under his breath.

“Heeey. You were as drunk as freaking Irishman. We had a red devil theme party and let me tell you something, you were so overdone with the red face paint it wasn’t even funny. You looked like a sunburnt lobster!”

“You were eating the damn stuff like it was ice cream you were so drunk. I swear, I’ve seen you mildly drunk but last night you beat us all you and Louis. Both eating it with a fork!”

“It wasn’t. Hey, Joey, I’m your pal and I’ve known you for like, forever. And I know you don’t let yourself get like that deliberately. What’s wrong? Something drove you to it. Tell me, man.”

He sighed heavily. His eyes were still misty with sleep and his mind had a wet blanket wrapped around it.

“Hey, Frankie, I honestly can’t remember. All I know is that I woke up with red paint and-”

Suddenly, out of the blue, a heavy wave of nausea came over him and in one violent abdominal convulsion the contents of his stomach filled his mouth.

He slammed the phone down and ran hastily to the bathroom and spewed out last night’s mistake.

He threw up about three times and he realised grimly that everything came out in red, liquidised chunks, which made him barf yet again, and this time he didn’t look.

He took short breaths and thought better of it as his breath smelt hideous. He washed his mouth out but the bile taste didn’t want to leave. He spat out the previous gulp and stumbled back and looked in the mirror.

The phone shrieked in the background and he remembered Frank and rushed back to the phone, scrubbing his tongue with a wad of tissue paper.

He paused; trying uselessly to remember what news the guy was referring to. It wasn’t Frankie, it sounded like Jason.

“Neither did I till this morning. I just got a telegram from under the door, if you look under yours, I guarantee you’ll have one too. A big white envelope with a colourful symbol on the left hand corner.”

He glanced to the door and there lay the white envelope, except it was covered with a few splotches of red paint.

“Jo Jo, we’re in deep…heck, that’s an understatement. To put it bluntly, we’re going to war.”

“And how about this? It’s on a different planet."

…………………………………………………………………………………………..

Danzhire watched as his soldiers put on their armour and gathered their weapons. The air was stifling in this underground cabin and the dim lights kept flickering ominously. The last thing they needed was to be in an old mine shaft with humans bombing them with nuclear weapons in pitch dark. “Hurry up men, you dress like women!” cried one of the sergeants.

He turned to look down on the considerably smaller sergeant. He was Sergeant David Arjan, a Predacon, and a human traitor. The human snickered as the troops glared at him. They didn’t like the idea of being bossed around by a midget belonging to the species of the Maximal allies. David grinned as the contemptuous looks declined with a reproving stare from Lieutenant Firestorm nearby.

Danzhire wondered briefly for a moment why the human had joined forces with the Predacons. He was no spy, he was sure of that. The mammal had killed 1000 of his own kind back home in a bomb explosion. He was rescued from certain death by a Predacon friend of his. It was made to look like he was killed in a car accident, but in fact he was here.

David leant back against the wall, his suit and oxygen tanks that were fastened to him made moving an effort. He watched as he tried to wipe drops of moisture from his forehead, but succeeded in clunking the back of his hand against the glass of his helmet.

The human began to couch and splutter and his eyes started watering. He wiped the moisture that was dripping from his eyebrows and quickly put the helmet back on.

Danzhire stared at him curiously. They were indeed very strange creatures. And ugly too.

He opened his mouth to answer when there was a yell followed by a collection of arms slapping against legs. He looked up to see all the soldiers, standing in a neat row, hands by their sides.

There was no need for a long speech telling them about honour and what not. Predacons didn’t care for much of that. They believed in getting to the point and getting the job done. That, for them, was a very good policy.

Suddenly Sgt David erupted in a low, harsh commanding voice. Firestorm glowered at him. It was his job to speak, not the pitiful little ape!

“Right men! You all know that once you get into this city you will escort all the Predacon ladies out of the city, guide the children, shove the men out and blow the heads off anyone who wear a deranged fox stencil on their heads. You will check the area fully, set up a defense there and gather all the pretty Maximal femmes and make them sew a giant Predacon flag. After that you will clean up the city, escort the Predacon ladies back in, guide the children and shove the men back in. Understood?”

There was a blanket of shocked and perplexed silence and the blank faces of all the soldiers irritated him.

“What? Don’t you understand English? I think I’ve got my translator on..." He started fidgeting with the mini translator on his helmet to find it was indeed on.

“Sergeant, it’s not that they don’t understand, it’s what you said…it’s just…”

Smiles washed across the sea of faces and they erupted in cheers. Firestorm opened the hatchet and they all marched out with determined grins.

Danzhire shook his head and headed to the control room to monitor the situation in the Maximal/Predacon city Jalen…

…………………………………………………………………………………………..

Rattrap heard a rustle and a moment later he leapt into the air and retreated to the hole in the ground, which now served as a home. He quivered in the shadows for a while, his nose sniffing the air quietly.

He sighed. It had been three days now and the only sign of life they had encountered was a Predacon patroller, going around looking for survivors – and killing them. The patroller hadn’t seen Rattrap, but he was now aware that when he surfaced to search for bits of energon he had to be extra careful. Energon, so far after hours of scouring through rubble, he had only found a few splinters of the vital nutrients and he and Tourmaline were going to need a lot more than that…

He cocked his head to see her, lying asleep, getting weaker by the minute. And he wasn’t much better. He sighed again and scrambled back up again and eyed the barren landscape. Coast looked clear.

He proceeded to scuttle along over the debris, his beast nose twitching here and there in search of food. After travelling for about ten minutes he stopped when a strong smell of mech fluid met his nose. He stopped dead in his tracks and was rather unsure of what to do next. A sickly fear rumbled through his stomach. He’d seen dead bots before. He’d been in enough wars. But he had never quite grown used to it and seeing one was never pleasant. The wind swirled around his feet in a ghostly whisper and he started to back away. Loose rocks rolled under his feet and made his heart jump. A deafening silence settled after the little echoes they made as they fell. A dead bot; and where there is a bot, there is bound to be energon close by.

His heart began to pound and he slowly leant forward, edging himself towards the source of the scent. Slowly…slowly…just a teensy bit further and it’ll all be over.

A loud rumble ripped across the sky and the ground shook. A blanket of darkness settled over him and he screamed in terror.

He turned to flee but tripped up on a metal bar and rolled down a slope of rubble. He landed on his back, staring directly into the sky.

He registered only after a few panic-stricken moments that it was in fact a ship hovering above him. And slag it, it was landing right here, right now!

Energy suddenly returned to his feet and he got up and darted away, out from under the shadow of the looming beast. Once in the open he turned and glanced at the ship.

And saw on the side of it a large sticker. One with red stripes, stars and a blue and green-

“Humans!” he exclaimed. He was silent for a while. Then he began to laugh incredulously.

But he stopped laughing when the ship began to lower and a moment later the black and silver, streamlined space drifter landed and its engines slowly began to die down. Rattrap stared in amazement. He never thought he’d be rescued, but especially not by…ugh…humans!

There was a long pause and Rattrap was just about to get up and knock on the door when a flap in the ship opened and out slid a ramp. And shortly after that a whole bunch of Neil Armstrong look-alikes came waltzing down, rifles half their size in their arms.

After a painful grinding of gears he entered his one armed, squashed leg mode and began jumping up and down frantically, even though he was only 20 metres or so from the ship.

“Yo! Homer Correctus! Over here!” he cried. Then added under his breath: “Wait, I think they’re homo sapiens, heck, I’ll think of some other way to insult them…”

The humans stopped and looked at him and suddenly began to run towards him. Rattrap suddenly felt a little nervous.

The humans (three of them) arrived and pointed a gun at him. One came over and checked him with a weapons scanner and the other noted his signature was Maximal.

“I am Captain Davison from the Earth Army. We are here because we were sent here by the General Howard Nelson to defend your-”

“Cut the crap, Nigel,” cut in a slightly shorter human. Rattrap looked at him with respect.

“We’re rescue workers. You looked pretty hurt, so, if you’d like, you can come in and get cleaned up. We have a CR chamber,” he said hospitably.

He realised that they were speaking through cheap one-way translators in his language. And he didn’t have his own translator. Damn, he was going to have to use and unreliable source of communication. His memory.

“Erm, thank you. My arm…is…well…” Although Rattrap didn’t know it, that made perfectly good sense to the humans. They could see his arm was gone and by trailing of with ‘well’ they in fact saw him expressing slight humour and therefore intelligence. Rattrap had no idea what four words could do.

Man oh man do I hate looking like an idiot. Speaking dis crummy language…

“Dere is one more survivor. My female companion, erm, she’s lying in a hole in da ground across that pile of junk and west of that lump of thingy,” he stuttered.

They all smiled and nodded and one jogged off in that direction. Rattrap followed him to help show him, he was sure that his directions weren’t that helpful, though they seemed to understand well enough.

The other two went to retrieve a stretcher. Well, at least that’s what he thought they said as they left.

He came up beside one of the humans, the one who hadn’t spoken yet. He had brown hair and small little dark eyes, reminded him of sunburnt raisins.

They came up to the hole and Rattrap hopped down. He saw Tourmaline looking at him groggily.

“You’re going to stop telling me I should have dived under the table?” she asked hopefully. He frowned.

“And they’ve come to rescue us! Oh, we’re saved!” She coughed and grabbed Rattrap's other arm and squeezed it.

Two more humans stumbled into the crevice with a stretcher and a couple of seconds later they had lifted her onto the stretcher and pulled her out and away from the crevice. Rattrap pointed to his arm, still lying under the lump of debris. The Raisin sighed and shook his head.

“That’s exactly what happened to my arm during the New War. And like this one, it were irretrievable.”

Rattrap shivered and gave one last, mournful glance at his arm as he left the crevice.

After trudging through a little more rubble he finally boarded the ship. He didn’t have much time to study an earth ship’s interior for he was quickly rushed off to a CR chamber. But the last image he saw as he was pushed into the frame was Tourmaline being rushed to the intensive care unit. And Rattrap noticed grimly that she was out cold and the faces of the medics were far from relaxed.

…………………………………………………………………………………………..

Dinobot snarled viciously as two air fighters came from behind him. He’d managed to leave the city just in time and was trying to get to the nearest refuge. Kiulist. But 90 percent of the airspace at this point in time was shrouded with Predacon flyers trying to stop people from his doing exactly that. And the only reason that the defense would be so high near the vicinity of Kiulist was if the Maxi-Pred city hadn’t yet been destroyed. The Maximals, it seemed, were fighting against the Predacons in the city. And no help for the Maximals was appreciated by the Predacons.

Dinobot narrowed his optics and went at maximum speed. But fighter ships were built to go fast and they caught up with him easily.

He suddenly made his car dive and spin, making Hyra scream and his stomach jump.

He reared up and took a sharp turn to the left, dived again, did a 360, twirled again to his right and sped forward again.

To his dismay, the fighter was right behind him, guns aimed and ready to fire any moment now. Dinobot sighed and turned briefly to see Hyra, who was utterly still with a face that showed pure terror.

Dinobot looked at the screen displayed in his steering wheel and grimly realised that he was done for. These pilots weren't called Predacon Death Flyers for nothing.

The first shot rang out and Dinobot made his cyber car duck. He dodged the blow.

The air screamed past and the engine howled in pain as he continued to go full on.

Hyra was whispering prayers under her breath when she noticed Dinobot’s eyes turning green.

She could see out of the corner of her eye the side of the window, and the beautiful land below. Desolate, with no cities. One of the only deserts on Cybertron. Which was, she thought, a fitting graveyard.

Suddenly Dinobot turned around and faced the back window of the car. A flash of green laser shot out of his optics, smashed through the back window and hit the plane’s windshield spot on. The jet was chasing a civilian; it didn’t expect the blow.

Dinobot rubbed his head, smiled faintly and crawled onto the back seat. The plane was temporarily dazed and he fired again. But the jet was more aware and dodged the blow. It fired and Hyra swerved, missing the blows.

“Good work!” he cried. He watched the jet load more missiles. He powered up his optics and fired again, this time the laser beam missed. His stomach twisted in shock and anger. Desperately he tried to re-power his eyebeams, but they were but a pinprick on this great war ship. He turned and looked around frantically. Nothing, nothing he could use. In desperation he tore one of the seats out and was prepared to throw it out of the window and hopefully it would get caught in the slip stream and hit the jet. But he never got that far. It fired three missiles and Dinobot watched in mute horror as they raced after him.

Down below a Predacon soldier watched the air battle take place. He had never known a simple cyber car to be so quick, and whoever was driving it was very determined not to die. He could swear he even saw laser fire coming from the little speck in the sky. But the fighter pilot was tiring of this game and it fired three deadly missiles.

He watched in awe as the missiles cut through the air and hit the little car. An explosion followed and he could see bits of debris scattering in the air. A shower of metal spread out and a small flame ball was there momentarily before it became a thick, smoking cloud. The cloud moved steadily towards the ground.

The Predacon, alone in the desert thanks to a Hashlyn Hijacker, stood still and watched. He’d never witnessed such displays of courage and ferocity to live in his life. And a sudden spell of sadness fell over him.

He bowed his head briefly in respect before carrying on his trek to Kiulist where the Maximal had undoubtedly been heading.

…………………………………………………………………………………………..

Diamond watched the replays of the detonation of the main bomb at Salient Halls.

Scarlet watched beside her in the little lounge of the hotel room. She was clearly taken aback too. The pretty Predacon femme, it seemed, had know idea what was going on and Diamond felt she could trust her. They both watched in shocked silence as a scrolling marquee at the bottom of the screen displayed the numbers presumed dead, where Predacons had advanced and injuries sustained. Diamond knew that Dinobot had escaped. He had called her moments after Nystrin’s detonation.

Scarlet also had a phone call, but one with news of death. Her friend Mia had been killed at Maxidonaz. After they had both sobbed they had finally calmed down and brought themselves to watching and finding out what was really going on. The duels, of course, had been cancelled. Bomb squads raced in, security was high and a great amount of Predacons left Dudier in fear of their lives. But as yet, not a single Predacon had been killed by Maximals officers. So Scarlet stayed. Though as the town became more and more Maximal, and more and more a target she grew uneasy. Not that staying in a Predacon city was much better. The humans were on their way, some were already here and she feared them deeply.

Diamond nodded desolately, her eyes fastened to the screen. Her face worn with worry. Scarlet talked quietly to herself.

He looked tired and had obviously been trying to cope with five hundred angry, grief stricken Predacon and Maximal duellers alike. He sighed and sipped some hot energon.

They continued to ignore him, well, maybe not ignore. They were just so disturbed…

A waited came in a put two hot drinks on the table for them. They watched the flickering images on the TV in the darkened room, making no sudden move for the refreshment. He sighed and left.

A while later, Diamond broke out her trance and picked up the hot energon. She sipped it dolefully.

“No, I don’t hate you. What your people did was cruel, but I don’t hate you as a person,” she said calmly.

“Thanks, Diamond. I’m just so shocked at the brutality of my own people too…”

Diamond started crying violently, loudly, and her sobs were so filled with grief and emotion that Scarlet herself began to cry gently.

“DADDY! Don’t go daddy! Daddy…” she cried, rocking back and forth, crying and crying.

The manager burst into the room with other unknown bots, waiters and other staff.

Others poured into the room and form a circle around her, all of them watching in confusion and fear and shock. Duellers and staff and other guests. Almost the entire hotel seemed to be in the room.

But other than her now toned down sobs there was silence. And the silence terrifying and all were frightened.

“Daddy…” she trailed off, clutching the area over her spark as if it were hurting. And at that moment, no one would have been surprised if it did.

…………………………………………………………………………………………