A/N: From this chapter on, I stop using the word 're-energize' for bots' equivalent of eating, and replace it with 'refuel'. I might go back to change it in previous chapters - as soon as I find a beta-reader who doesn't run away from me screaming.
'Sleeping' is still 'recharging', btw.
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part eleven
Missing, presumed dead.
A few days in life of our favorite bots,
in which serious matters intertwine with matters not so serious,
and sometimes downright silly.
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Imagine a range of mountains. They're high enough to have all the life zones a model mountain should have - from the warm, sunny jungle at the base, to the jagged, snow-covered peaks, with a wide strip of spruce forest in the middle.
Look at that forest. There are thickets and clearings in there.
And on one particular clearing, there is a snowdrift. It was probably blown in over roots of a windfallen tree or something, because there are some darker smudges breaking its whiteness. And when the gust of wind blows over it, it waves lightly in a way snow shouldn't. And if you'd tilt your head and squint, you'd realize it's not a snowdrift at all, but a pair of sleeping tigers, huddled together.
You'd be wrong.
They weren't sleeping.
Tigatron was reading, and his tiger friend was resting, enjoying the warmth and company he provided. At some point Tigatron had been wondering at Snowstalker's friendly disposition, since Axalon's database said most cats were loners by nature. But then they met - well, were chased away by, actually - a group of three other tigers. Apparently, snow tigers were pack animals. The she-tiger must have been an outcast for whatever reason when they met.
Sighing softly, Tigatron closed the book-file he'd been skimming through. Reading of his own kind felt like studying an alien life form in its habitat - interesting, but hard to identify with. And that was precisely what he should do, wasn't it. He couldn't deny being a transformer, even if he didn't like it. He couldn't pretend to be a real tiger, even if he'd like to. Lost between what he was, should be and wanted to be, he could only sigh and push it away to deal with later.
At his side, Snowstalker stretched and got to her feet. She smelled of hunger, and when she nibbled his neck, he knew it wan an invitation for a hunt.
"Go ahead, Snowstalker. I can't."
The snow tiger nudged her companion few more times, before giving up and going away on her own. In a vague way, the animal knew that her blood sister was different from the other tigers; she was making strange sounds, had a set of strange smells on her, and rarely hunted. But she also smelled of the tiger's lost pride, and the pride meant bigger territory, more food, and security. So she accepted the creature that carried her own scent as one of her own, even if it was strange.
Tigatron looked after Snowstalker, feeling a pang of guilt, but he'd few times unwillingly helped her in her hunt, and what he felt afterwards was by far worse. He'd only recently worked around this problem, though 'worked around' wasn't exactly a right phrase for it...
A lump of snow landed on Tigatron's head, startling him. He looked around, eyeing the snow-covered spruces below and uphill. Since he was lying in the middle of a clearing, none of the trees was close enough to drop a load of coldness on him, so how...
Flop, flop, two more lumps of snow spattered on his back. Tigatron jumped to his feet with an annoyed growl, shaking it off his fur. A stifled snicker came from among the uphill trees, and Tigatron relaxed, smiling at the kid's antics. "What are you doing out here, Cheetor?" he called, taking few steps in the direction the snow came from. The laugh was loud and clear this time - familiar, but definitely not Cheetor's.
"Do I look yellow to you?" a young voice called back.
Tigatron snarled and maximized immediately, aiming a freeze-gun at the forest. Another snowball landed squarely in his face.
"You can't shoot me, Maximal! That would be using an excessive force!"
Flop, flop. Tigatron dodged the first projectile, the second got him in the shoulder.
"Excessive force?" he said incredulously, sidling to the edge of the forest, his optics searching for the enemy amid the greenish shadows.
"Well, I'm just throwing snow at you. Hardly a harm in that."
Rust threw another snowball, suppressing the laughter at the Maximal's expression. This was fun! He beastmoded and dashed to another position, as Tigatron advanced on him.
The spot where he expected to find the Predacon was empty, save for a patch of trampled snow. Tigatron narrowed his optics, and activated the tracker. Rust's energy signature was weak, but distinguishable, and he followed it, looking around warily for any signs of other Predacons. There didn't seem to be any, but that's the point of a good trap, isn't it.
"What do you want, Rust?" he called out.
A burst of laughter came from among a group of young spruces, along with another snowball. "To be rich ad famous and to live forever," Rust called out merrily. "And you?"
He dashed away when Tigatron zeroed in on his voice, and tried to creep up on the Maximal from the side. It wasn't working as well as he expected. After few failed attempts Rust fall to the ground to think. OK, so wind was to his advantage, and so were his colors, so Tigatron had to have one shock of a good tracker. Rust prided himself for a masterful control over his energy fields, but he couldn't dump them any more. Well, if you can't hide from it, try blinding it. The wolf flared up his fields to the max, making sure they'd leave a strong signature, and dumped them again.
Tigatron sneaked up to a tree, the rarely used stealth mode making him completely inaudible. Rust had stopped few cycles ago, and was lying just around that spruce, waiting for who knows what. With a roar, Tigatron jumped around the tree, aiming at... another patch of trampled snow?
...And with a roar of his own, Rust shot out of the spruce just three meters away, the snow cascading around him. Tigatron jerked back, tripped and landed on his skidplate in the snow.
Snarling, he quickly jumped back to his feet, looking around for his gun, and finding it right away.
The wolf was standing just about ten meters away, laughing at him. He was wagging his tail like crazy, looking about as dangerous as an overgrown puppy. He shook his head, rattling Tigatron's gun in his teeth.
Tigatron growled. "Give that back you...!" He made a move to retrieve his possession, and Rust jumped back. And just stood where he landed, bouncing on his feet, laughing, wagging his tail, and generally making an idiot of himself.
Not just a little confused, Tigatron made another attempt to take back his weapon, and Rust jumped back, dancing just out of his reach, snickering. Then he tossed the gun into the air, caught it again, and bolted. Without a second thought, Tigatron beastmoded and followed.
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Rattrap stomped through Axalon's corridors, optics gleaming with a glom determination. He was hungry. He hadn't refueled since after returning from the mining campaign. Reason? After having a feast of a decent sec-grade, he discovered just how much sick he was of feeders. And he was even sicker of having to sit on his skid-plate in the MedBay under the scrutiny of her shortness every time he got low on energy.
That was it, enough was enough, and he was not going to suffer it any longer. He was armed and dangerous, and he was going to get a feeder of his own, all cats of the Universe be damned.
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The air in the mountains is thin, the snow thick, and running exhausting. So after about half a mega of a wild chase, which took them way above the forest line, both bots decided to take a little break.
Tigatron eyed Rust warily. The wolf was sprawled in the snow a stone's throw away, and was apparently admiring the view without a care in the world. The freeze-gun, by now sporting few dents and lots of scratches, lay by his side. Deciding that demanding to have it back would be rather pointless, the tiger laid down to rest as well.
His sides only just stopped heaving, when he noticed that Rust was staring intently somewhere above. He quickly scanned the steep white slope, to no effect. But Rust apparently saw something in the landscape, for a devilish grin wormed its way onto his snout. Tigatron didn't like that grin at all.
The wolf looked at him, his eyes glinting, and send over an open frequency: "Hey, tiger, ever raced an avalanche?"
The Maximal had enough time to realize what he meant, and even yell at the Predacon not to, before Rust drew a breath and whistled.
The piercing sound left tiger's ears ringing, so he didn't hear the deep rumble the mountain uttered in protest against breaking its peaceful slumber. He did hear the sharp crackles, though, and looked up in wonder.
Deceptively slowly, the mass of whiteness moved, detaching form the rocks, first in large, smooth slices, then braking into a whirl of solid dust.
The tiger instinctively crouched into himself, his ears dropping, as he watched the snow crawling toward him. He felt the cold wind blowing in his face, and then the earth started shaking under his paws.
"RUN!" Rust yelled at the top of his lungs, passing by him in a gray blur, his voice barely audible in the overwhelming rumble. And run Tigatron did, escaping a roaring furiously white monster on his heels. He ran, he jumped, he slid, and for the breathtaking forty nanos he even rolled in his personal cloud of white dust.
And all the while the predacon wolf ran, jumped and slid alongside him, whooping and hooting in joy. Apparently, he was having a good time.
They were nearing the line of forest, when the avalanche caught up to them. Tigatron more felt it than saw it, and he desperately jumped as high as he could, trying to avoid the frozen waves. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Rust jumping as well. But the Predacon transformed in mid-jump, and spread out his hands, letting the white wall hit him in the back and drag him under.
Some bots just don't have the sense of self-preservation.
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The duel had reached the no-turning-back point. The tension almost crackled in the air. The audience gathered in front of the screen held their breath.
"He is a dead mech," Cheetor whispered, unable to tear his optics away from the scene. Dinobot gave the image a casual glance, and made a small sound of agreement. Rhinox shook his head.
"What's going on?" Optimus walked in, and immediately noticed that whether they showed it or not, everyone's attention was on one of Sentinel's vid-screen. He came closer to take a look.
"Oh for the love of Primus," he said in resigned tones. "What is it about this time?"
Cheetor shook his head. "Donno, BigBot, but they hadn't twitched for a quarter now."
Optimus rolled his optics, joining them in watching the show.
&&&&
Rattrap narrowed his optics, trying to ignore the fact that his raised hand was starting to feel faint. He'd been lucky to find the MedBay empty. It allowed him to snatch the feeder and made it as far as to the door when Kittar appeared. She saw the piece of equipment in his hand right away. She demanded it back, he bluntly refused, the cat bristled, and he jerked a certain item out of sub-pocket and raised it threateningly.
Which brought them to the current situation, dozen or so cycles later.
All was still and quiet, only their gazes clashed with a force of optic lasers. And then, just when Rattrap started to think they would stay like this forever, Kittar licked her nose.
After a moment she did that again, she let her gaze wander to the side, and then she turned and walked away, smoothing her fur as she went.
For a nano Rattrap just looked after her, not really comprehending what happened, and then he punched the air triumphantly. The better one had won!
Grinning like a madbot, he set off in opposite direction, cheerfully tossing a victorious water-balloon up and down.
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"I'm getting rather good at this," Rust informed the world, crawling out of the tight tunnel to the surface.
"You!"
The surface, where Tigatron was already waiting for him. The white fist crashed right in the middle of Predacon's grin, sending him tumbling head over heels.
"Look around! Look at all the damage you caused!"
All around them pieces of broken and crushed trees where stuck in the snow at odd angles. Rust, who had come into a very close contact with few of them along the ride, didn't feel too sympathetic.
"All that snow had to go down sooner or later, you know," he said, rubbing his jaw. It felt like one of the hinges was dislocated. "At least it was fun this way."
"You have no right to destroy for your own amusement!" With as much dismay as anger, Tigatron took another swing at him.
Nano-kliks later, Rust had his knee in Maximal's back, pushing him into the snow, simultaneously keeping his arm wrenched to the point of near dislocating. Ten stellars of daily wrestling with hyperactive peers can teach you tricks like that.
"And the moral is," he said, tugging at the arm lightly to get attention, "when you see a Predacon, shoot him on sight." He released Tigatron's wrist, and patted him friendly on the shoulder. "See ya."
By the time Tigatron jerked himself up and removed the snow from his optics, Rust was just a set of wolf's tracks, disappearing in the distance.
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It wasn't easy to find a place on the Predacon's ship where one could do something illegal without getting caught. Working in your quarters would be asking for trouble from the neighbors, and making frequent trips to unmonitored parts of the ship would be easily spotted. Blackarachnia had walked around the problem by spending most of her off time crawling through the ventilation shafts. It had taken her almost a week, but she finally found and furnished a miniature lab. It was in not only unmonitored, but completely cut off corridor on the lowest level. There was only one entrance - a hole in the shaft, just ten cycles of crawling away from the ventilation grate in her room. A little piece of Universe of her own.
Blackarachnia smiled nastily at the set of vials in front of her. There were samples of her own cyber-venom, as well as some of Tarantulas's, plus few samples she obtained from an interesting amphibians, plus the set of snakes' venom she'd won off Tarantulas some time ago. She was not a chemist, perhaps, but she but she knew what she had, and what she wanted to make out of it. A failure was not an option.
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Rust whistled happily, packing the refiner back on the sledge. It's been a busy week. He'd scaled three unfriendly precipices, as well as two frozen waterfalls. He'd fallen off the cliff once, and discovered the perils of glacier-walking. He'd hunted few hares and squirrels, and antagonized one maxi tiger.
Oh, and he filled the cave with condensed energon cubes. That was kinda important too.
He made a last round, checking the readings on the environmental-control-thingies Scorponok had provided. They were plugged to the very energon cubes they were set to keep safe, but with the already stable cave's environment, the drain was going to be minimal.
Rust nodded to himself happily, whistled one last crystal tune for goodbye, and left, burying the entrance with a small snow slide.
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It's been two solars since the victory-by-water-balloon-threat, and nothing happened. Absolutely nothing. No cats sleeping in places he was likely to trip over them, no dead rodents under his door, no sudden meetings with the floor, no unexpected summons for a medical, no nothing.
It was getting unnerving.
But Rattrap would never admit it, and kept going around putting up a facade of a triumphant conqueror. But in his pride he went to far, and made a mistake.
He started to gloat that he had brilliantly and ultimately won this private little war - and he chose to do that in front of Dinobot.
The raptor, with a long-suffering look, informed him that he shouldn't be so pathetically overconfident, and that cats were patient creatures.
And when Rattrap left, all triumph and self-importance, the corners of raptors mouth ventured slightly northwards, creating a little smirk. Someone needed to be taken down a notch...
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The base was still standing. It was occurrence usual enough that Rust had to comment.
"Wow, that's the first time I come back after a long absence and the base ain't all blown up. Good work, Wasp!"
Waspinator's wings fluttered briefly at the voice behind him, and he spun around. "Rust back!" Then his wings dropped a notch. "Rust had troubles?"
Rust gave him his best 'who, me?' look, then looked down at his dented, colorless self. "Oh, just been fighting elements. Nothing CR can't fix," he said, waving the issue aside. "Is his purpleness home?"
Waspinator giggled, and pointed toward the command center.
"Right. Dumb question." Everyone knew that Megatron was only leaving the base when he wanted to bash some Maximals.
"Be a good roomy and drag the Pod to Sarge, will you? the upper left side jet is coughing."
Leaving his vehicle for Waspinator to worry about, Rust went to report the successful mission.
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Megatron raised optic ridges at the numbers on a datapad Rust handed him. "Your first report of the location said of far smaller resources in the area," he said, looking at the young bot with just a hint of distrust.
Rust nodded carelessly. "I know, sir, but halfway through the deposit the crystals got higher-powered, and when I dug it clean it turned out there was another vein underneath."
Megatron gave him a look. "How deep was it placed?"
Rust tilted his head, remembering the size of the tunnel he created and measuring it hastily. "About 80 feet at the deepest spot, I guess. Why?"
Megatron kept staring. "Did you employ any safety measures?"
"...Safety measures?" Rust said in tones that implied the unspoken 'what language is that?'
Megatron let it go. The youngster had fulfilled his task, so why should he care if he put himself in a risk of being blown up or buried alive?
"Never mind that. Did you encounter any disturbances while on your task?" he asked, eyeing Rust's battered frame.
"Not really, sir. Well, I bumped into Tigatron in the mountains, but he couldn't know why I was there."
Megatron narrowed his optics. "I do hope you got rid of the Maximal, yess."
Rust looked embarrassed. "No, sir. I went into chase, but then there was this avalanche, and the last time I saw him, he was on the other side of it. And it was about time to check on the refiner, so I went back to the cave. But I made sure to cover the tracks, so he wouldn't be able to find the storage."
Rust very rarely bothered to lie. Saying nothing but the truth was so much more challenging, after all.
Megatron stroked his dino-hand thoughtfully. He'd prefer to have the Maximal dealt with already, but with the information of his whereabouts, he could easily fix that little oversight. Overall, Rust had done a good job, and deserved a reward.
"Very well, Mr. Rust. I shall inform Scorponok to change your duty roster back to the standard working hours. However," and here he leaned forward menacingly, "You are to spend you free time either in your quarters, or outside the base. Is that clear?"
"Perfectly clear, sir," Rust confirmed with a salute, beaming. Crystal clear and perfectly fine with him. Why would he want to sit on his skid-plate in the boring shipwreck, when he had a whole world to explore?
Megatron nodded and waved him away. "Dismissed."
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A mass of leaves rustled, as someone made their way through the treetops. Judging by the muttered curses, describing in detail rather improbable lineages of certain group of bots, that someone was in a bad mood.
Blackarachnia had had a very tiresome few days. Not only the venoms she worked on proved to be more difficult than she expected, no. She also was stuck in a base full of infuriating males and their comments.
You're smiling. What are you up to?
You have the lines to kill for. /drool/
You smell funny. Been messing around the lab again?
Why spider-botte looking at us that way?
You are required on patrol, I believe.
Check the Q-gamma sector. Maximals started showing up there.
Q-gamma sector! Nothing but a wet, hot jungle thick like a thorn-brush! The scrapped stupid Maximals and the fragged, dumb, vengeful scorpion!
Seething, the femme terrorized and sat astride a branch. She was going to show them all it didn't pay off to tick the widow! She unsubspaced a dart and looked at it against the light.
If she killed Megatron, the Predacons would fall apart, and she could easily maneuver herself to the position of power. Or, shock, just to a position where she wouldn't have to endure their idiocy.
But she would only get one chance, she knew. Her standard cyber-venom wouldn't do. Oh, it was lethal eventually, but its effects were evident from the start - plenty of time for the tyrant to be dragged to the CR by his oh-so-loyal lackeys.
She needed the poison to be inconspicuous, giving the victim no warning until their all systems suddenly shut down. Hopefully, she was holding such thing in her hands. All she needed now was a test subject. Maybe she could try with a large mammal? The poison was designed to work mostly on the beast mode, after all.
Lost in thoughts, Blackarachnia never noticed a pair of bots strolling below. When one of them spoke up suddenly, Blackarachnia yelped and jumped in surprise, loosing her balance completely.
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With her field dumpers set on max, Airazor walked through the jungle in robot mode, beside beast-mode Rhinox. Technically, they were on patrol. Practically, they strayed from the usual rout so that she could show Rhinox something that was most probably a carnivorous plant. She was fascinated with the delicate structure of the trap-pots, and wanted to share it with someone who would appreciate it. She stopped under a tree she'd left a marker on, and started to say something on the lines 'it's very close now,'. She never finished the sentence, though, because a sudden, startled yelp sounded up above them.
It was swiftly followed by /thump, thump, thump/ of someone encountering a number of branches on their way down, accompanied by a frightened screech. Then there was a crack of a breaking branch, and lo: out of the blue sky, Blackarachnia fell on top of Rhinox. She slid off him immediately, landing on her behind in a pile of rotten leaves. She looked up, showing them a shocked and frightened face, angrily punched the nearest part of Rhinox, which happened to be his belly, and scrammed.
All of this took about three nano-kliks to happen. The pair of Maximals was left blinking at the bushes Blackarachnia disappeared in.
After a short, shock induced silence, Airazor laughed. "Looks like we've interrupted someone's beauty nap."
Amused, Rhinox agreed with her. The Predacon was so startled, that it was obvious this encounter was a weird coincident.
They went on, soon forgetting about the event.
Which, to be honest, wasn't very smart of them. If they were paying attention, they might notice a small alien object attached to rhino's belly.
Because, when you are quick witted, an accident can serve your purposes better than best of plans. Hidden in a dark hollow, Blackarachnia laughed quietly.
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A pair of flyers left the Predacon's base, and almost immediately started arguing who was going to be in charge. That is to say, Terrorsaur said Waspinator was to listen to him, and the wasp whined that he wasn't going to.
Megatron growled his annoyance, and cut the audio feedback off.
The orders he gave them were as simple as possible. Fly to these coordinates, search the area in this radius, find this Maximal, and kill him.
And don't get yourself scrapped AGAIN, for crying out loud. The last part, of course, hadn't been spoken out loud, but heavily implied.
He could only hope the pair of morons would pull it off.
There were two reasons why he wanted Tigatron out of the picture. One, he happened to be wandering in the vicinity of their first energon storage, and Megatron wouldn't risk Maximals discovering it.
Two, the tiger was a one more unpredictable factor to worry about while devising any plan of attack. He spent most of the time away from the rest of bots, but had an irritating habit of popping up when Megatron least expected him. Removing him would make Megatron's life a little bit easier.
IF the flyers could pull it off.
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It was almost a mega-cycle after their brush with Blackarachnia, when Rhinox realized something was wrong. It crept up on him slowly and quietly like an assassin. One cycle he was patrolling like any other day, the next he realized he was shaking with exhaustion, and when he tried running self diagnostics, all his internal systems went out on him.
This was not good. Choosing his words carefully, he managed to inform Airazor of his state without scaring her too much. After a brief discussion the femme flew to the Axalon to fetch Kittar. Rhinox watched her go, leaning against a three. He lied down and tried to engage the recharge mode. It was always the best thing to do when you had to wait for a medic to take care of you.
After few cycles he gave up. He usually didn't have problems with off-lining, but today something was nagging at his processor, making him nervous with no apparent reason...
The rhino tensed suddenly. There was a quiet rustle somewhere to the side. He jerked his head, trying to pinpoint the direction of the disturbance, and with a sinking feeling he realized there was more than one.
He heaved himself to his feet, looking around frantically, and shuddered as he realized that the whole area grew darker. The shadows were deeper, hiding something from his searching eyes. The very trees seemed to be crowding around him. The rustling in rotten leaves sounded again, much clearer this time, coming from all around him. Rhinox turned this way and that, feeling his spark pulsing madly within his chest.
There was something, something in the jungle...
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If you'd tell any Predacon, at any given moment, that Rust was lazing about, they'd probably call you as crazy as he was.
But at this given moment, lazing about was precisely what Rust was doing. He was lying on his back, admiring the blue sky, smelling the wind and basking in the sun. His limbs hang limply, and he dimmed his optics dreamily, enjoying the slight rocking motion.
People could argue about it all they wanted, but Rust wouldn't care. A thin tree branch two hundred feet above the ground was a perfect place to take a nap.
His 'bed' rocked harder, and Rust smiled to himself. He'd been delighted to find out that his new schedule still included ODWOP time.
Either Sarge liked him (ha, ha, ha), or he'd figured out that a wolf set loose was trice as likely to cause the Maximals trouble as a wolf on a leash.
Either way, Rust had plenty of time of his very own. He liked that. He liked that very much.
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With a swish of wings Airazor decreased her speed to almost null in less than three nanos. An irritated puff below told her that her passenger didn't appreciate the sudden braking.
"It's here," the hawk explained. "Don't move now, landing with you in this thicket will be tricky."
As if in spite her, the cat wriggled. "Drop me," she ordered. Airazor hesitated for a nano, but then decided that Kittar probably knew what she was doing.
And indeed she did. She landed on a thick branch gracefully, and in three descending jumps she was on the ground. Airazor maximized and followed. "This way," she said, heading toward remembered coordinates. "Just over he--" her voice caught as she pushed pass some bushes onto a miniature clearing. It looked just the way she left it, with only one significant difference.
Rhinox was gone.
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A radio message from Optimus caught Rattrap in the middle of a heated insult exchange.
"..,ya Decepticon wannabe. Whatcha want, pop Op?"
Ignoring the first sentence, which he knew wasn't directed at him anyway, Optimus quickly informed the duo about their newest problem.
"... I've ordered Airazor to inform you directly of any fresh news, and Cheetor's searching the Electra sector. You two head for the jungle and try to track him."
:: Will do, Fearless Leader. We'll find him. An any Pred out dere should better keep away. ::
There was steel in the small bot's voice, and Optimus truly pitied anyone that would get in his way right now. One thing was sure - Rhinox would be found.
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Airazor circled around the familiar patch of jungle.
"Rhinox! Where are you?" she called out pleadingly. "I don't understand, we've agreed that he'd wait right here!"
"But he's not here." Kittar finished turning around and lowered the LSD. "Not within three miles radius."
Airazor landed maximizing, and looked at the smaller femme with worried optics. "He said he was feeling exhausted, he knew we'd be looking for him here, why would he go away?"
Kittar rubbed her face with the back of her hand, looked around, and beastmoded.
Airazor watched in surprise as Kittar the cat started walking in an outward spiral, sniffing at anything that could be sniffed at, including the air.
"Will you stop playing around? He might be in trouble!"
The cat just hissed at her and went on with her activities. Airazor had to repress the urge to strangle the unsocial teammate. She was almost ready to take off and search for Rhinox on her own, when Kittar walked up to her.
The air was thick with humidity, and she could easily tell from the lingering smells that Rhinox had been here, and that he was tired. On a three he must have been resting against resided a faint, sour odor that spelled poison in letters a mile high. And at some point he got scared, enough to take off running. But she checked the immediate area, and there was nothing to be scared of. She drew the obvious conclusions and generously shared them with her companion.
"He'd been poisoned and is probably delusional. He went that way. Let's go."
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The irrational fear left Rhinox soon after he left the jungle, as if it had been taken away by the warm wind, or burnt out by the sun.
Hallucinogens, he thought tiredly. I can't believe I fell for that.
But the delusions weren't the only problem, he knew. Whatever had messed with his CPU, was also wrecking havoc in his whole frame. He needed to get as close to the base - and as far from the Predacons' ground - as he could.
He turned toward the noon sun, and put one leg in front of the other, again, and again, and again. Concentrating on the steps, the rhino pressed on, trying to ignore the fact that his whole body started to twinge with a dull pain, which seemed to increase with every passing cycle.
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This was just one of these days. The ones when the whole Universe seems to be out to get you.
Blackarachnia had run out of fresh curses and started the litany all over again - that bad it was. She didn't have memories of Cybertron on any other civilized places, but she was sure to the core that there was something wrong with a planet where even a freaking ground was trying to eat you. Not to mention mad rhinos stampeding over you when by all rights they should be lying in a helpless, dying heap.
On the bright side, Rhinox didn't look lucid when he trampled her, and left behind an easily navigated trail of broken bushes.
On the dark side, that trail ended at the edge of the jungle. And since it was zigzagging among the trees, it was a fair bet it wouldn't suddenly turn straight just to make her life easier.
Blackarachnia angrily kicked the last lump of sticky clay off her feet, beastmoded, and went out in the plains, guided by nothing more but a vague hunch.
Well, sometimes it does work.
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He should have gone with the first course of action, and simply wait for assistance, Rhinox admitted to himself, collapsing heavily on his side.
At least he'd have some energy left to deal with any surprises that might pop up.
As it was, he was reduced to waiting, knowing that he probably wouldn't be able to stand up under his own power.
Giving up, Rhinox let out a long sigh. He had a lot of practice in lying around, wondering who would find him first. Neither overexerting himself nor fretting would help. He closed his eyes and waited.
Sun.
Distant cawing of some birds.
Pain dulling all his senses.
Rustling of dry grass.
Footsteps.
Rhino's ears pricked, and he rolled his head, trying to see who--
"Did you know that whenever something is dying out on the plains, these bald birds start circling above it?"
Rhinox head slumped to the earlier position. Slag.
"Why would I want to know?" he asked, just for something to say.
"Well, you're an explorer, and this is an interesting and useful piece of information."
"...useful...?"
"That's how I've found you, so pretty useful, yea." The footstep neared. Their creator would have been in Rhinox's line of vision now, if Rhinox felt inclined to open his eyes. He wasn't. There was something wrong with this planet. Barely nine months, and this was, what, the third time he was helpless and at a Predacon's nonexistent mercy? Three times a charm, as they say...
"You look like scrap," Rust observed. "What happened, Axalon fell on you?"
"Just do what you must, Predacon," Rhinox growled, anger giving him the strength to raise his head and glare at the blue bot. Why did they always have to talk so much?
"Pft! I'm off duty. I don't have to do anything." Rust tilted his head, looking Rhinox up and down thoughtfully. Then he stepped closer, producing a knife out of sub-pocket, and Rhinox jerked at the sudden, sharp pain in his belly.
"Well," Rust commented, taking few steps back and putting the knife away. "That's new." He inspected a barbed dart in his hand, sniffed at it, then flicked it to the ground. He resumed the wolf form, all the better to sniff at the dart with.
"Definitely something new," he said after a moment. "That widow is unbearable. I think I'll have to kill her one of these days." With that, he transformed again, and tapped a comlink button.
"Rust to Blackarachnia. ... Yo, Black! ... Answer me, widow!" After a moment's silence, Rust scowled, and started pushing the button over and over. "Hey, Black, black, blackblackblackblack!"
Rhinox felt almost sorry for Blackarachnia. If her comlink was working, this must have been extremely annoying.
:: STOP THAT!:: the femme's screech filled the air. Yep, it was annoying all right. :: What do you want?::
"Black, my dear, correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Megatron forbid you to mess with any new poisons? Because, you know, I've just found Rhinox's trail on the plains, and one of your darts in the middle of it, and, funny that, it doesn't smell anything like your standard cyber-venom."
Blackarachnia's voice immediately went all sweet and friendly, as she uttered a string of excuses. Rust let his head drop backwards, and he watched the vultures while he listened to her tirade, his face showing clearly that he didn't believe a single word of it.
Rhinox observed him from under half closed lids. As Megatron once said, sometimes, Predacons gloat too much. They also tend to get overconfident when having an upper hand. Rust was a perfect example. He acted as if he had all the time in the world to do away with him, and that was his chance. Let the Predacons bicker with one another - in the meantime, the help might arrive.
"Yeah, yeah, drop the act, widow," Rust said eventually, obviously bored. "You have till tomorrow to think how to convince me not to report this. Now I want to know, what is this stuff, and how does it work."
:: That's what I wanted to find out!:: There was an evident frustration in Blackarachnia's voice. :: Is Rhinox somewhere near there? Can you see him?::
Rust was still contemplating the vultures, so it was a perfect truth, when he said, "Naaah, can't say I can."
Blackarachnia said something un-lady-like. :: He couldn't have gone far! I need that rhino!::
Rust burst out laughing. "Sheesh, Black, had I know you were so desperate, I wouldn't have refuse you!"
Rhinox sighed his annoyance at the tasteless joke, while a string of profanities poured out of Rust's comlink. Still snickering, the Predacon shut the connection, cutting it off. "Widows," he said, grinning.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A huge black widow spider, better known as Blackarachnia, finished the last complicated curse, terrorized, and kicked an innocent rock for good measure. Her next test subject would be canine if she had anything to say about it.
But first she needed to at least try to find Rhinox, and check how exactly her concoction worked on him. Rust said he'd found the Maximal's trail on the plains, so it must have been crossing his patrol route. Blackarachnia took some pains to figure out where the wolf would most probably be at this point of time, and set off in that direction.
To give her credit, she calculated everything just fine - she simply didn't know about wolf's extra off hours, therefore she aimed a bit too far north, putting herself almost directly on path of a certain unhappy couple.
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Rust shut down his comlink, shutting the femme's voice off.
"Widows," he said, grinning. And then in a flash he sat in front of Rhinox, staring at his face intently. "You're bonded, aren't you?"
The question was so unexpected, that for a moment Rhinox could just gape at the eager, silver-blue face. Rust felt obliged to explain. "Only bonders scowl like that when someone mentions free merging. I bet you're bonded."
I know you are.
Rhinox just glared at the insolent whelp. It was not a question he would answer. But Rust wouldn't leave him alone.
"So where's your mate?" he asked, laying down, with his chin propped up on his fists.
Rhinox just closed his eyes.
"You know, I'm not going to disappear when you do that, OR quit, so you may as well just answer the question, it's not even a hard question to answer and I really--"
"He's dead," Rhinox growled, just to shut him up. It was an opening for a variation of 'so you're going to see him again pretty soon', and Rhinox thought dimly that maybe he'd get mad enough to get up and trample the bot if he said so. But he was surprised again.
"Can you still feel him?"
"What?" Rhinox opened his eyes, and jerked his head back, because Rust was right in his face, blue optics shining like fog lights.
"Bonders are linked, right? They feel each other, thoughts, emotions... correct?"
Rhinox blinked, and apparently the Predacon took it as yes.
"So now that he's dead - can you still feel him?"
He could. Of course he could. In every waking cycle he felt his presence, the gentlest touch on his consciousness. Through the good and bad times, it was always there, whispering warmly that they were going to pull through it just fine. There were few times in his past when that ghost presence was all that kept him going.
And sure as the Pit he was not going to share this with that brat of a bot.
"Leave me alone, Predacon."
"Don't go all racist on me, it's just a simple question!"
Rhinox just closed his eyes in answer. It would be really good moment for Optimus to swoop down and blast Rust away. Or for Rattrap to shoot his head off. Or for all the poison to evaporate from his body, so he could personally beat some sense into that thick helmet. And if anything else failed, even Dinobot would be welcomed to make a Pred shish kebab.
Rust sat up on his heels, glaring at the stubborn old fossil. Why the frag wouldn't he just tell him?
"Hey, you," he said, unsubspacing a dark, field syringe. "See this? It's an antidote."
He, Megatron and Scorponok were carrying these around ever since Scorponok's unfortunate 'accident'. Rust waved the thing invitingly in front of Maximal's nose. "It was made for her standard venom, so I'm not sure it will work for you," he admitted, "but it's better than nothing." He put the syringe few inches from Rhinox's head. "I'll give it to you if you answer my question."
Rhinox pinned him with a glare.
"Go. To. The Pit."
"FINE!" Kicking at the dirt angrily, Rust plopped down on his back and stared at the sky.
After a few cycles passed with no interruption, Rhinox opened an eye again. "What are you doing?"
"Bird spotting."
It was the sulkiest growl Rhinox ever had a chance to hear. Then Rust turned his head slightly, giving the dying Maximal a dark look. "There are nineteen of them now. A flock this size can clean a dead buffalo to the bones in few megacycles. And they rarely wait for the prey to actually die."
How comforting. Rhinox decided to ignore the Predacon and concentrate on the aches in his circuits instead.
Few more cycles passed. The silence was suddenly broken by few 'bzzzt' sounds, followed by an outraged squawking and flopping of big wings. Rhinox opened his eyes just in time to see a vulture retreating back to the skies, feathers cascading from its scorched tail.
Rust was lying with his hands under his helmet and dimmed optics, pretending he didn't have anything to do with that. Rhinox was about to ask him what exactly was he playing at, when the Predacon suddenly sat up, twisting to stare somewhere in the distance. Then with an unflattering comment to someone's lineage, he beastmoded and sprinted toward whatever had alerted him.
Rhinox moved his ear, trying to tune to the distant sounds. It could have been his imagination, but it sounded like gunfire. The thought that perhaps he'd been used as a bait to lead others into a trap almost helped him to get back on his feet. His front feet, at least. He struggled to get his heavy bulk all the way up, when something caught his eye. A dark syringe Rust had shown him earlier lay forgotten on the ground.
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The situation was bad and getting worse fast. Blackarachnia shrieked in pain, clutching at her upper arm. In just one shot, Dinobot had taken care of half of her spider legs, effectively erasing any chances of her escaping in beast mode. And since one of Rattrap's first shots had clipped her ankle, she was stuck. She couldn't run - just crawl, or limp at best. And the moment she left the questionable safety of her current position, she'd be a dead Pred.
She cursed herself three times over already for not paying attention. She didn't expect the other Maximals to be so near, their patrol routs didn't normally overlap...
Something gleamed in the sun. Dark optics widening in horror, Blackarachnia watched a small box searing through the air, and landing few feet from her.
She jumped to her feet, felt the joints in her left leg giving in, and was halfway back to the ground, when Rattrap's explosive went off.
She must have blacked-out for a nano, for she didn't remember landing, or seeing Dinobot approach her. But she could see, and very clearly at that, the absolutely still sword tip above her, and the blurred blade behind it. Somewhere in the background was an ugly scowl on the navy blue face, implying that Dinobot didn't think her worth dirtying his weapon for.
Blackarachnia mentally promised the oversized oaf a long and painful death, and then the air shook in another explosion.
&
There were no sounds, and the vision was swimming at the edges. Blackarachnia raised her head weakly, searching for the Maximals, but most of her field of vision was obscured by something big. Big and metallic. A bot crouched down with his back to her, with one leg stretched out to the side, blaster and knife ready in his hands. She could say he was saying something, for the visible part of his jaw was moving.
Blackarachnia moved her head slightly, and got a glimpse of Dinobot. His lips moved, so, presumably, he snarled something in response. Something disturbed him, and he looked to the side with distaste. Then he pointed at the bot in front of Blackarachnia in a universal 'it isn't finished yet' gesture, and backed away.
Only after a moment femme's battered processor registered that the ex-Predacon's front was badly scorched. Another moment, and she realized that the maniac in blue and gray, now looking down at her, must have detonated a grenade almost on top of her.
Her hit-list was getting longer and longer by nano-kliks.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The syringe lay on the ground, waiting patiently.
There was a high possibility that even if it was an antidote, it wouldn't work on the new poison variant, or that it wouldn't work fast enough. But at the current situation, Rhinox decided it was worth a shot. Now, if only he could gather enough energy to maximize and use it...
There was a sound of flapping wings and a small thud behind him. Vultures must have gotten bolder. Rhinox ignored it. He didn't have time to be eaten right now.
"Down," sounded a command, and with a huge sigh of surprised relief, Rhinox obeyed. As of yet, none of them had managed to disobey Kittar in full medic mode.
Airazor watched anxiously as Kittar pressed an outstretched hand to Rhinox neck, simultaneously moving a scanner mounted on her other arm over him.
"Is he alright?" she asked.
Kittar didn't spare her a glance. "No, he's poisoned."
She smeared a drop of Rhinox's blood between her fingers, then put it on a small pad on her monitor, and frowned. The formula was a nightmare, but she could figure that it was mostly affecting thee beast mode, causing all nanites in Rhinox's body to rush to the organic parts, in attempt to save them. Since the repairs on a beast mode weren't monitored by the internal computers, neither was the energy drain they caused.
That energy loss was the biggest threat at the moment - and easy to remedy.
Airazor felt a little faint at the sight of the instruments the tiny femme unsubspaced. She could have sworn the needles were a mile long! She turned her head while Kittar attached three emergency feeders to the rhino's side.
Rhinox flicked his ear.
"Don't move," Kittar huffed at him. "You're low on energy as it is."
Rhinox's ear stilled, but he apparently decided that repressing the smile would be more tiresome than letting it appear.
Kittar eyed the expression unkindly, but didn't comment. She picked a field syringe instead, sniffed at it, and squeezed out a drop of its contents to analyze it.
By the looks of it, it was an antidote for the cyber-venom the poison in Rhinox's body was based on. Kittar calculated its effects, run few quick simulations, and injected Rhinox with the stuff. It wouldn't do any harm, and might help to stabilize the energy dispersion.
Airazor picked that moment to look back, and averted her gaze again in a hurry, promising to herself to never, ever get herself damaged. She was more than grateful when a sound of running feet distracted her.
"What did we miss?" Rattrap panted, sliding to a stop beside her. "How's the Big R? He all right?"
"He will be," Kittar said before Airazor had a chance to open her mouth. Rattrap looked at the medic, and then suddenly flattened his ears and became very interested in the landscape.
"A needle?" Airazor guessed.
"A big one," he confirmed, studying the horizon. "Oh, look, Chopperface's gaining on us. What took you so long?" The last part was directed at the raptor, who send him a less than pleased look.
He didn't feel so good after receiving a facefull of a grenade blast, but he'd rather rust in a gutter than admit it. "There obviously wasn't an emergency anymore," he snarled haughtily. "Therefore I failed to see a reason for haste." There was a faintest strain in his voice, and Kittar's head snapped toward him.
"Sit down right now. What did you do? I've got enough work with Rhinox!"
"Charming as usual," Rattrap murmured, not even picking at the fact that Dinobot flopped to the ground as ordered. He'd been in similar situation after all. He made sure there were no needles in sight, and sidled close to Rhinox.
"Dontcha worry, ol' buddy, I'll keep ya safe from 'er."
A short chuckle rumbled deep in the rhino's chest, and Kittar hissed at both of them. "Dontcha make 'im waste energy!"
Airazor snorted and quickly covered her mouth. "I'll radio Optimus, shall I?" She offered, resetting her voice box. "Tell him we'll need transportation?"
Kittar, Rattrap and Dinobot nodded in unison.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
With the way this day had been going, Blackarachnia wasn't at all surprised to wake up in the CR-tank. And when the first thing her activated optics registered was a pair of blue lights above, she felt she actually should have expected it.
"What do you want?" she growled.
"That is no way to greet your knight in shiny armor. But whatever. Just wanted to make sure you remember you owe me a big time."
The femme sat up, splashing the CR fluid around. "Owe you?!"
"Oh, yes. For saving your sorry hide, and for not reporting this." He showed her a barbed dart. "There's still some of your new poison inside. I show this to Megs, and you're a dead femme."
She grabbed at the dart, but, predictably, he kept it out of her reach. Blackarachnia scowled. "He'll scrap you too, for not reporting this right away," she spat before she thought.
Rust smirked. "I'll tell him I've only just found it."
"I'll tell him you lie!"
He snorted. "And here's your problem right there, widow." He leaned closer. "You are a useless little glitch, who'd already poisoned one of her own, while I'm a statue of blind obedience. Whom do you think he'll believe?"
They stared at each other, her hatred drowning in his mockery.
"What do you want?" she hissed at last.
Rust straightened up. "I'll think of something. Don't get in trouble in the meantime."
As he strode out of the room, a fleeting though made Blackarachnia calmer and madder at the same time. The thought was: It could have been worse. He could have been Terrorsaur.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Hic. Hic! Hic, hic, HIC!"
"Someone thinking bad things about dactyl-bot," Waspinator buzzed, not for the first time glad to have helmet that hid his mocking grin from the world. Terrorsaur jerking helplessly in the air was a spark-warming sight.
"Hic!" Terrorsaur didn't bother to answer. Stupid superstition. He himself blamed the unruly turmoil in his tanks on the cold energon he'd drank earlier. The sooner they leave that Primus forsaken, frozen place, the better. True, as a flyer he was used to low temperatures - but someone should write a special proclamation - Flyers' Right To Get Warm After Landing.
"Hic!"
And No Stupid Giggling Under Their Breath Teammates.
"Waspinator think Rust was here," the stupid teammate ventured.
"Yeah? Why?" Terrorsaur looked down, at a few miles long trail of destruction. He snorted. The stupid bug was clearly overestimating the wolf's capabilities. "It was a snow slide, not Rust," he said importantly. "Better watch out for the Maxis."
Waspinator scowled, but did start watching out for Maximals. What he spotted few mega-cycles later was not a Maximal, but something almost as good.
"A signal tower!" Terrorsaur screeched gleefully. "He's got to come here sooner or later!"
Now all they had to do was wait.
As it turned out, not for very long.
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Few megas in a CR-chamber can do wonders on a downed bot. Rhinox emerged from one fresh like a three ton daisy. He was greeted by a Rattrap's cheerful face.
"Guess what, Big Green, we're all under a house arrest!" The delighted voice didn't match the serious words at all.
"Meaning...?" Rhinox asked, making his way out of the MedBay. Trailing by his side and mimicking Optimus as best as he could, Rattrap explained.
"No-one, and I mean not ONE bot, is to set a foot outside this ship today, or touch any machine without a reason, or wander in the unused corridors, or do anything dat might annoy me, and be warned: I'm easily upset today."
Rattrap gave the green bot a faked sad look. "I asked him if breathin' was OK, and he said - if ya really have to. Den he said it's one of dese days. Whatever dat means."
"Ah," Rhinox commented, and looked at the figure walking toward them. "One of these days?" he asked.
Optimus nodded solemnly. "You've got yourself poisoned, Dinobot blown up, the hover shorted a mile from the base, Airazor flew right into Sentinel's shield because Sentinel had a glitch and reacted with a two-nano delay, and then Cheetor came back with one paw all but torn out. Kittar looked ready to kill," he added after a short pause.
"One of these days," Rhinox nodded his head seriously.
"Yeah, well, whatever." Rattrap waved his hands helplessly at the code-talk. "I'm gonna enjoy my extra free time." He stopped in front of his quarters and punched in a code. "Just gonna grab few things, and--"
Optimus had walked up to them by then, so saw the whole thing happening.
Rattrap opened his door, and suddenly froze with one foot in the air.
"Oh, please," he said distastefully. "How dumb does she think I am?" He carefully stepped over a trip-wire, and looked up, at the bucked connected to it.
"Dat's da lamest trap I saw in my life."
He carefully detached the wire and reached for the bucket - and the moment he removed it from its place, a small click sounded, and a fire hose hid behind the bucked sprayed him head to foot with a liquid a bit to thick to be just water.
"Fraggit!" Rattrap took a step back and grabbed a cleaning cloth from the nearest rubbish heap. The rapid movement sent into the air a could of fine dust, and since Rattrap inhaled in surprise, he was soon in a coughing fit. Whatever the dust was, it didn't agree with the bot's ventilation systems.
"Dat's still pretty lame," he said sternly after a while, using the cloth to wipe away some of the liquid of his frame.
But, as it turned out later that afternoon, he didn't know the whole of it.
The Maximals were gathered in the control room - not for any particular reason, they just kind of drifted toward it - when all of a sudden the power went down for few cycles.
The only source of light was six pair of optics... and one bot with artistic splashes of fluorescent paint, smeared all over his frame.
After a nano of surprised silence, the room shook with laughter.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rust peeked into the comm-room. "Are they back yet?" he asked for the forth time this solar, which made it a round dozen since the day the flyers were expected to be back. Which was three solars ago. Tarantulas, being the unfortunate one stuck on the monitor duty, seriously considered adding canine to his menu.
"Are you even trying to contact them?" Rust continued, stalking up to the spider-bot.
"They are out of range," Tarantulas explained for the tenth time. "If you are so unusually concerned, Rust, I suggest you ask Megatron to let you go look for them."
And maybe the tin can would to something sensible for a change, and let him. The base would be so much quieter...
"I will," the kid growled, and went to argue his case with the tyrant.
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Terrorsaur shook slightly, reaching for the comlink and hoping desperately that they were in range already. At his side, Waspinator whimpered, curling around the ugly hole burnt in his torso. The stumps of fried wings quivered pathetically, in synch with quiet sobs. Terrorsaur preferred not to look at the other bot - it was reminding him of similar injuries that rendered himself weak and flightless.
Be there, be there, be there, he thought, trying to contact the base. The uncaring static was only response.
"Nothing," he rasped. "Move it, we've gotta keep going." He forced Waspinator to his feet and dragged him along. He didn't much care for the little wimp, but he didn't cherish the thought of being stuck out here alone. Plus, he had a hunch that if he left Waspinator behind, he might reach the base only to have Rust tear him to pieces. The idiotic henchbot, anyway. Where was he when Terrorsaur would be actually glad to see that stupid racer of his?
:: ...swear to Pri... tear you to piec... ..if you're dead... ...ou dumb flyers, can't eve... ...thout getting lo... ... rorsaur, Was... ...swer me fraggi... ...are you? just wait till I... ::
Terrorsaur stopped dead. This must have been the most beautiful voice he heard in his life.
"0-2-5/9-6-6! Get us out of here!" he screeched.
&&&&
In the Predacon's base comm-room, Rust jumped to his feet.
"Sir, I've found them!"
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It was only thanks to his fast reflexes, that Cheetor hadn't been run over when something going two hundred miles per hour zoomed across his path.
"Skipping surges! What was that?"
He squinted at the diminishing spot, and radioed Optimus.
"Hey, BigBot, I think I've just saw Rust. He was heading northwest in an awful hurry."
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"And here he comes back in an awful hurry," Airazor reported a solar-cycle later. She took off, leaving a branch she'd been perched on for past few megas. "He's got passengers." She circled above the double floater, readjusting zoom for a better look.
"It's Waspinator and Terrorsaur," she exclaimed in surprise. "They look like they've tried to take on a volcano!"
&&&&
Even as he smiled slightly at the description, Optimus felt a touch of anxiety. He couldn't put his finger on it, but something was wrong in the situation.
"Airazor, what is his position and vector?" he asked, not really sure why. After a moment the flyer gave him a string of numbers, and Optimus shut his optics, fitting them in the map of the continent. Then his neck went cold.
He jerked his head to look at Rhinox, who just did the same.
"The mountains," Optimus said.
"Tigatron was supposed to make contact this morning," Rhinox answered.
Optimus gritted his teeth. "Well that's just prime."
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"It couldn't have been Tigatron," Optimus said, for the umpth time watching the short visual Airazor provided. "Not his style, not his fire power."
"They've come vaguely from the direction I saw Rust taking this machinery to. Maybe they were tinkering with it and blew it up?" Airazor offered. "It doesn't have to have anything to do with Tigatron." She only new the bot as a worm voice coming form the radio every week, but she wouldn't like to think he'd been harmed.
Optimus's spark unfroze a little. "That's possible. Any contact yet, Rhinox?"
The technician shook his head, tapping few more keys on the radio. "Not a peep. But I'm getting the test signal, so the tower is still there." Which could mean anything.
The unfreezing process stopped.
"What do you think, Kittar?"
"Hmm?" Kittar was sitting on the edge of the holo-table, with her nose almost in the middle of the image.
"What do you think of these damages?"
Kittar sniffed thoughtfully. "At least five solars old, not tended to, both are grounded, Waspinator will be lucky to make it." She sniffed again. "Are they using CR chambers or tanks?" She asked.
"Tanks," Rattrap answered automatically, before he remembered he wasn't speaking to her. He'd almost fallen in one of the Preds' CRs when a ventilation shaft gave in under his weight during one of his 'visits'.
Rubbing her nose thoughtfully, Kittar watched the visual again. "Then he'll make it, but will be out for a weak."
Optimus sighed. He should have known to formulate the question more precisely. "Yes, but what caused the damages? An explosion?"
A snort. "No. High-energy weapon. Waspinator was hit four times, Terrorsaur five or six."
And here goes the freezing again.
Optimus straightened up. Going through the maybies wouldn't help the situation. What they needed was action. "Airazor, Rattrap - keep a close look on the Predacons' base, I want to know about every single movement. Rhinox, give me that laser-link. I'm going to check on Tigatron."
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The moment Optimus voice filtered through, Rhinox knew the things didn't look good. Optimus never sounded that indifferent unless something really bad happened.
:: I've reached the signal tower. It's unscathed. But few hundred meters from it there's a battlefield. ::
&&&&
Optimus looked at the shining patches where melted snow had re-frozen, and the single set of tracks that spoke volumes of running, dodging and tripping. It ended at the edge of a cliff. That was where he found a small pool of energon and a lump of frozen mech-fluids.
"It doesn't look good," he said, and then added something he very much didn't like saying. "He might have been destroyed."
Then he rubbed his forehead tiredly. "But what about flyers' injuries?" He wondered, half to himself.
:: A third party?:: Rhinox offered quietly. :: You know we're not alone on this planet. ::
"Maybe. But I'm not sure I like that option." Optimus carefully glanced down the cliff. "I'm going down to look for him," he said. "We'll lose connection for a while."
:: Understood. And, Optimus... Good luck. ::
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The luck didn't serve. Optimus came back two solars later, alone.
"Nothing," he said in answer to inquisitive looks. "Not a scrap of armor, not a trace of energy signature. He vanished into the thin air."
The room instantly buzzed with worry, concern and speculations, and Optimus winced. It came as an extreme relief when a pair of amber optics looked him up and down, and a very stern voice commanded him to go recharge right now.
He grabbed at the excuse to leave for his quarters. He wasn't sure he'd be able to sleep, but there was something he needed to do. An every day duty, made hard by the circumstances.
Once in his quarters, Optimus pulled out his personal computer, and opened a specific file.
Captain's log.
He typed in few sentences, summarizing the recent events.
Then he skipped to the crew-status sheet.
Unit: Tigatron.
Status: ...
...
...
Missing.
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End of part eleven