Another Rampage-based story
( This is halfway a story and halfway an idea....)
((Wow...I completely forgot about this thingy. I haven't read it in forever, but
enjoy anyway!))
Rampage’s feet sank deeply into the soft white beach sand with every
lumbering step. His haunting emerald optics gazed straight ahead at the ‘bot
he was following, the hot setting sunlight catching them just right, just enough
to make them gleam with evil intention. Depth Charge hadn’t a clue the
Predacon was back there, not two-hundred yards away. He was defeated in his last
battle with Rampage, and while the hunter was lost in the thick haze of stasis
lock, Rampage had taken it upon himself to scramble Depth Charge’s tracking
systems. The killer crab had done a hell of a job; it would take months for the
Maximal manta to straighten them out again. But it seemed that Rampage’s
pursuer hadn’t yet discovered the malfunction.
All
the better,
the transmetal crustacean cackled to himself. More
time to play.
Depth Charge continued to trudge ahead of him, confident of his
malfunctioning equipment -which told him Rampage was a mile ahead of him- and so
remained unaware of his prey’s true topographical position. But Rampage
wasn’t planning on attacking, not yet. He would wait until the sun set
completely and the beach biome settled in for the night. Then the real fun would
begin. Ahead of him, Depth Charge stopped abruptly. Rampage’s position,
according to his systems, had shifted, and the difference was staggering.
Instead of being one mile to the south, the murderer was now two hundred miles
west of his position. What the slag is
going on?
The transmetal elasmobranch asked his tracking equipment to locate any
and all Maximals around his position. A screeching mechanical wail was the only
response. Rampage laughed inwardly at his friend’s confusion, and remained
standing in the warm sunlight, in plain view. He watched the manta’s wings
twitch irritably when he realized that his comms were fouled up as well. The
killer crab knew that the Maximal relied on his personal tracking systems and
his comm-link to pretty much stay alive. Now, with those essential systems
scrapped, Depth Charge had no way to tell where anyone was. Most
importantly...he can’t call for help.
The sky burned purple with the setting sun, and with it came the stars,
sparkling in their splendor. To the east, the moon was rising, full and bright,
from behind the wind-swept palm trees. Silently, Rampage crept forward as the
sun disappeared beneath the horizon. His Maximal friend was on the move again,
but with the night he knew the manta would lag, as Depth Charge’s eyesight was
surprisingly poor in the dark.
The crab stalked the fish as he walked and the darkness fell, blanketing
the sandy landscape. The sea breeze blew warmly against Rampage’s metal hide,
shaking the palm tree leaves and making the sea oats sway in the melody that was
the beach. The waves crashed and broke against the shore in steady rhythm, and
the occasional squawking shriek of the seagulls accented the aria. As expected,
with the dark the hunter’s pace slowed, and the gap between he and his prey
began to close.
Rampage made not a sound. Two hundred yards became one hundred, one
hundred became fifty, and fifty yards became a mere thirty feet. Clouds shrouded
the moon from sight. The murderer was on Depth Charge’s heels, and the hunter
barely twitched.
Depth Charge’s instincts suddenly went on alarm, screaming in his mind
the word danger! over and over. The
fish whirled about, crimson optics glaring in the dark. The moonlight shone
through a gap in the clouds long enough for him to see what his animal senses
had been alerting him to.
Rampage wasted not a second in attacking his foe, slamming the heel of
his hand into Depth Charge’s face hard enough to send the latter toppling
backwards. The sound of shattering glass stung the air for a split second as the
hunter’s right optic lens burst, white hot sparks shooting into the air. On
the ground, the manta scrambled to his knees, just in time to see his prey’s
spiked patella smash into his faceplate. Dazed and near unconsciousness, Depth
Charge was barely aware of the mech-fluid seeping from the puncture wound in his
left cheek flowing down the side of his head and dripping onto the sand.
Something crashed into the side of his head, once, twice, three times. He dimly
realized that the object assaulting his head was a fist, as the clenched hand
whacked him under the chin. Total consciousness slipped farther and farther away
from him with each blow dealt, until finally, the mind-splitting pain was
mercifully numbed with a final, savage strike to his metal skull that
immediately rendered him in stasis.
***
The twisted Predacon sat in the dark, staring at his friend, his
captive, his victim. Depth Charge’s limbs were bound at the wrists and ankles
with heavy energon restraints, fettered to the cave wall, standing under a hole
in the roof. The moon made his cerulean and silver armor scintillate sharply in
the light. A simple chain shackled the hunter’s broad abdomen to the rock, but
Rampage didn’t count on such a weak restraint to hold in the unlikely event of
an escape. To a transformer, a steel chain could be snapped as easily as a twig.
Rampage waited patiently for the metal manta to come back to
consciousness, watching as silver liquid seeped from the broken optic, dripping
down his face. Blood tears. How
appropriately symbolic. The killer’s vertical mouth seemed to smile when he
saw the manta’s head twitch once, then lift slowly. Depth Charge’s remaining
optic, cracked but still functional, activated and he gazed vapidly into the
shadows. His scrambled mind was confused, Rampage knew, waking up in a different
place than before. Bloodred eyes dulled almost to black, and the mass-murderer
imagined the hunter trying to sift through the pain in his damaged mind.
“Welcome back, old friend...it took you long enough.”
The Maximal snapped his head up too fast, regretting it as his
cybernetic brain throbbed and screamed in protest. His remaining optic searched
the darkness for the form he knew was there, that killer, that bastard...the
one robot that haunted his dreams day and night. Rampage saw the vehemence
register on Depth Charge’s face, his optics feverish and angry and crazed. The
hunter pulled against his bonds, and Rampage laughed. “That won’t work,
fins.”
“Shut up!” The hunter’s voice sounded thick and stupid as a result
of the damage done to his head. Rampage smiled in his own twisted way and
stepped forward, into the light. The angry ray-bot threw himself forward,
jerking against the fetters; the chain snapped and fell, dangling on one of
Depth Charge’s cephalic fins attached to his knees. Impressed with his
friend’s fury, Rampage stared into the cracked crimson glass. In one swift
motion, the Predacon’s hand shot upward, burying his thumb into the
super-sensitive circuitry of the Maximal’s shattered optic. The hunter’s
head snapped back with a scream, but the crab’s hand followed, pushing the
back of his captive’s head against the wall. Depth Charge felt Rampage’s
free hand against his forehead, holding him there. He swore Rampage up and down
between gasps of pain, and the crab smiled again, removing his bloodied digit
from the Maximal manta’s destroyed optic, knowing that Depth Charge would
never see out of it again. That is, he wouldn’t see out of it again if he were
to live.
New mech-fluid poured from the wound, trickling down the hunter’s face
like tears. “All right, X, get it over with!” he snarled.
“Over with? You know that’s not my way, old friend. Get comfortable,
we’re going to be here for a long time.”
Rampage’s deranged laugh drifted through the caves and into the night.
***
It wasn’t until six days later that anyone found him. Cheetor, young
but not stupid, knew without checking that Depth Charge was dead. His body,
still fettered to the cave wall, had been absolutely and utterly destroyed in
almost every way except for total disassembilation. Mech-fluid coated the walls
of the cave, and the silver liquid glinted on Depth Charge’s soaked armor. A
sparking hole was all that remained of the manta’s abdominal cavity. The
semi-organic gastrointestinal tract that used to occupy the aforementioned space
lay in a bloody heap at his feet. Half of his face was completely flayed; armor-skin
was gone, exposing the layer of dark red muscle-cords that covered his metal
skull. The rest of him had been lacerated and battered, rendering the once proud
and powerful Maximal to a grisly pulp. The entire scene had made the transmetal
two sick in more ways than one.
Optimus Primal had received the call that Depth Charge had been found.
He flew to the coordinates Cheetor had provided, and it was there, outside the
cave mouth, that the cat told the giant ape that their comrade was not alive.
Rampage must’ve gotten to him.
Badly shaken at the sight of it, Primal had gingerly released Depth
Charge’s body from the bonds and returned the viscera back into their proper
cavity. He hauled the hunter’s mutilated form back to base where he and Rhinox
tried to, at least, halfway make him presentable. It turned out to be a futile
affair. With the destruction of the Axalon,
the Maximals had lost the atomizer they’d used to disintegrate Dinobot’s
body, leaving Primal with a problem. Rhinox, though, came up with a solution.
Why not put him in the ocean? Drop him far out to sea where he’ll never be
disturbed. With a final goodbye from the team, that is what they did.
Depth Charge’s body is still down there, approximately fifty miles out
into the present day Gulf of Mexico, near the western coast of Florida. He lies
where Optimus dropped him, where the sea buried him. Rampage was captured, along
with the rest of the Predacons, and taken back to Cybertron on the Tameran.
Primal personally brought the Predacon killer infront of the High Council,
requesting that Rampage be brought to an end on account of the atrocities
committed on the Colony Omicron, Starbase Rugby, Grana-7, and for the gruesome
murder of Depth Charge himself. Nazarius, head High Councilor, had granted the
motion, and the scientists who had been in charge of the protoform now spent
their time finding a way to destroy him.
Occasionally Primal would think back and wonder if his body had ever
resurfaced, and every time he wondered, he hoped to Primus that no one would
ever see Depth Charge’s face again. Rest
in peace, my friend...Omicron, Rugby.....you...have all been avenged.