Hello everybody. While at work one day, I came up with a great idea/concept for an exciting Transformers chapter that I just HAD to put in online. The only problem was deciding which story to attach it to. My first TF story, (Camille Meets the Transformers) is kind of a personal fave, so I worked it into that one. My palley at work, (who is now a TF fanfic 'fan' so to speak, thanks to me) absolutely loved the idea when I pitched it to her, and asked if she could possibly be written in the story. I was skeptical at first, but then I thought, 'why the hell not?' So here is what I hope will be...a suspense thriller! Enjoy the Arena.
The Arena
Starscream sat upon his makeshift throne, which resided in what remained of their Decepticon vessel, the Nemesis. The Nemesis' permanent residence, which happened to be one of the moons of Saturn, seemed very 'out of the way' from the other planets, especially Earth.
But he didn't mind.
With Megatron's rebuilding efforts on the back burner, he had all the time in the world to be the leader he always wanted to be. As a thought wracked through his mind, one of his minions couldn't help but notice his frustration. The drone wondered what could be causing has master's processor so much turmoil.
"Lorrrd Starscream…" its glitched vocal processor spoke.
Starscream was jarred out of his thought out of embarrassment. He quickly composed himself to his former 'powerful and fearless' state and looked down at his lowly follower.
"What do you want?" He spat.
"What ails you my masterrr? Glitches? Pre-mature offlining? A battle lossst?"
The drone's last guess was the hammer hitting the nail on the head. He didn't see anyone else around and decided to converse with the useless piece of slag, maybe he could be of some use to him.
"For your information, it is a combatant I have yet to terminate," he confessed.
"And you know the current whereabouts of this combatant?" the drone asked.
"Yes."
"Then if you are aware, why not entrap them in an arena, and then engage them in combat to the death?"
The idea was brilliant! Starscream wondered why he had never thought of this in the first place. Of course, he wasn't going to let the drone know of this. He dismissed him and began to formulate his plan, his plan to finally offline that wretched little human female who'd made him look the fool on one too many occasions.
Camille awoke with a start. The face of a certain Decepticon disappeared from her vision the moment her eyelids flipped open. She shook her head, got up and prepared for her day. She was planning on meeting up with a friend of hers later that day, and was psyched because that friend had yet to be introduced to her particular lifestyle that included the company of heroic sentient robotic beings from the planet Cybertron.
She walked out the front door and stood on her porch. Reaching for the clouds, she stretched as far as she could, and bathed herself in the summer sun. A rustle in the bushes caught her attention and broke her free from her relaxing position. She looked where the leaves of the bush were still moving and walked over to it.
She noticed a rectangular shaped object with a homing beacon light upon it and picked it up. She was sure it was Cybertronian by its symbols, but how did it get there? She looked around, and heard only birds chirping. She shrugged and walked back in the house with it.
Once inside, she walked into her room and examined the device a little closer. There were two buttons on its back, a red one and a green one. Knowing that green meant 'yes' and red meant 'no', she blatantly pushed the green button.
Shortly following the push, she felt a jarring motion and a pull as she was whisked out of her room via teleportation. The beacon remote fell from her hand to the floor of her now empty room, with its light still flashing.
When the pulling and swirling stopped, she opened her eyes and found herself standing in a place she had never seen before.
There was a black barrier wall built around her that was twice her height, and about 200 meters from one end to the other in all directions. It was topped with a glass dome, much like a snow globe. It was littered with remains of what looked like ship hull debris and skeletal remains of deceased Cybertronians. The terra firma was nothing she'd ever felt before, it felt like maybe…the surface of another planet? She eyed through the glass dome and noticed the stars outside…then she gazed farther and realized it wasn't night time; she actually was on another planet! And by the size of the gigantic neighboring planet that took up half the sky and the huge rings surrounding it, she figured she must have been on one of the moons of Saturn.
"Welcome to my arena, fleshling," a familiar voice spoke from an intercom system.
Her gut filled with fear when she recognized the voice.
"I see you were able to locate the teleporter I had Laserbeak drop off for you. I guess it's true what you humans say: "Curiosity does kill the cat."
"Well obviously not in this case!" She snapped. "I'm still alive aren't I?"
"Not for long my arrogant little biological parasite."
She continued to look around, hoping to find his red optics so she could have time to dodge projectiles, if any.
"I've arranged something very special for you. I've assembled a few drones for you to meet in combat."
"COMBAT?" She shouted. "But I don't have any weapons!"
"Precisely," he gloated. "Which eliminates any chance of you winning."
"But that's cheating! How is it fair for me to fight robots with lasers, when I have nothing?"
"My dear, since when has anything been fair when it has to do with Decepticons? I thought you would have known that by now."
She slowly closed her eyes, and really regretted pressing that green button now. And the worst thing was, she didn't have her phone, so there was no way for Tracks or the others to know where she was.
She was definitely in a pickle now.
"I'll start you off with something easy. A basic program battle drone, and see if you survive that."
After his last word, a door opened on the far end of the arena and a robot about her height entered. It felt like death himself was approaching as it eerily walked slowly towards her.
When it began to draw its laser gun, her heart was in her throat. The closest pile of debris that lay next to her was a few armor plates from a very large Transformer. She grabbed one and quickly held it up like a shield only seconds before a laser hit it right in the middle where her chest would have been if she had just stood there. The force of the laser hits were strong, stronger than she had expected. But something interesting caught her attention. The laser shots would ricochet when they contacted the metal, so she tried to deflect his shots back at him. Kind of like a Jedi would with a lightsaber. With a couple of tries, and a little precision, she was able to get him to volley a laser beam right back into his face, blowing it right off his shoulders! Without his processor, the drone's body fell limp to the floor. Camille smiled.
"Lucky shot," Starscream sneered. "Ready for round 2?"
And with those words, another door opened and a tank-looking drone with a long cannon barrel came rolling out on its treads. She knew the firepower of that tank would go right through her shield so she dropped it, and charged the menacing tank. By the humming sound and the barrel lighting up, she could tell it was getting ready to fire. She still needed a weapon and noticed a spear-looking object sticking out of the ground and pulled it out of its resting place as she ran past it. She slid towards the tank just as it fired, narrowly missing her head by about a foot. It shot again and again. Both shots not even a threat to her. Then it realized her tactic. She was standing too close and he was mostly a long-range battle drone. He started to back up to get a better shot but since he had just entered the arena, he only went a few feet before his aft end bumped the wall.
There were literally only moments for Camille to figure out how to offline this metal monster before it realized all it had to do was drive forward and crush her. Her keen eyes were able to detect a faint blue light coming from an old war wound on the battle hardened, armored ruffian's hull. She grabbed her makeshift spear, pierced the tiny crack then penetrated and shoved as hard as she could. A loud, robotic yell erupted from the tank drone and soon it went silent.
"NOOO!" Starscream hollered. "How did you manage to find that drone's spark so easily?
Camille ripped her spear out and smiled. Clearly luck was on her side.
"Fine. Time for round 3. Let's see how you handle THIS!"
Another door opened and a huge crab-like drone with six legs and two huge claws waddled out. It was twice as big as the tank drone. She didn't see any lasers on it, so it must've been created for melee attacks only. She ran towards it spear first, but the crab-bot plucked the spear out of her hands once she got close enough. Now defenseless, the metal crab used its razor sharp legs to try and puncture her. Its stabs were swift, but she safely rolled out of the way 3 times till one of the claw arms came down unexpectedly and snagged the side of her shirt, pinning her to the spot. She struggled but couldn't rip herself free.
The eyestalks of the crab protruded out longer so it could see its prey pinned underneath it. The claw arm brought her to eye level, dangling her by her shirt in front of its face.
Starscream beamed with satisfaction. This was it. Her final moment. He exhaled in relief then gave the drone its final order.
"Rip her in half."
Camille heard those words and eyed the other claw as it opened up and came towards her. She shimmied out of her shirt and fell to the ground below, still wearing a lightweight tank top underneath. The other claw grabbed her shirt and ripped with all its might, rapidly pulling its claws and the shirt in 2 different directions.
She crawled underneath the belly of the beast and noticed an opening in its chassis. It looked big enough to fit in so she jumped up and used her arms to pull herself up and crawl inside.
The crab drone again used its eyestalks to locate its prey, but when it didn't see her, it started to walk around and search the area. While inside the drone, she noticed there was very little space to crawl around. Again she noticed a faint blue light illuminating near the middle of the chest. She saw the spark and noticed it was in a glass casing. She squeezed the warm glass but it was too thick to break with her hands. So she lay on her back and used her feet to try and break it. The first hits didn't damage it, but the crab drone now knew exactly where she was. The drone began to move around desperately, out of fear of its existence being extinguished. One good kick caused a good size crack to appear in the casing. She continued kicking until it finally busted and the crab moved no more.
She climbed out of the crab and stood on top of it. With her hands on her hips she smiled profoundly.
"GRAAAAHHH! THAT'S IT!" Starscream roared. "Now you will face my best warrior. He's cunning, intelligent, remorseless, tactical, fearless, and ruthless. His speed knows no equal. Only one word can describe him…"
Camille turned around as a door behind her hissed open revealing a black silhouette with deep red eyes. By the shape of his dark shadow, she knew exactly who he was.
"ME."
Starscream walked out onto the arena grounds, his left hand transfiguring into a missile launcher. She frantically jumped off the deceased crab drone and the minute her feet left it, it exploded from Starscream's missile fire. She landed on the moon sand with a thud. She got up and ran for cover behind the hull debris and his laser fire followed closely behind her feet. He hated her so much; it actually occurred to him that it would please him further if she suffered slowly. So he intended to do physical damage to her a little at a time at a slow pace to increase the sick pleasure.
He strode over to her hiding place and she boldly ran out with another spear she found. Starscream was so dense the spear didn't even penetrate his outer armor, and he used the back of his to slap the spear right out of him. The feeling of metal hitting metal as she held the spear when he slapped it violently shook her whole body. The swat was so strong she stutter-stepped back before falling over. He then knelt down and back-handed her the moment she got to her feet, sending her flying a few feet. Her back slammed on some more debris, giving her yet another terrible pain.
She found a chained mace nearby and swung it above her head only twice and threw it at his legs. Though they only wrapped around once, it was still good enough to cause him to falter. He fell face-first into the moon sand, but caught himself with his hands. He turned his head and leered in her direction. She knew she was too close and started to run backwards to make some distance, but Starscream lived up to his flashy introduction and swiftly slashed his claws at her, making contact with her back before she twisted out of the way. With 3 deep claw gashes now in her back, she yelled in pain and fell to her hands and knees. Starscream saw this as his opportunity, and removed the mace chain from his legs and approached her for his final blow.
"It's a shame you humans are so easily broken." He stated, standing like a tower over her. "I am happy to finally be getting rid of you without your annoying Autobot guardians ruining all my fun."
He reached for a spear of his own, spun it skillfully over his head before jabbing it into one of her loose pant legs, pinning her to the ground. She flinched from the pain she felt everywhere and slowly turned her head around until she could see the red eyes of her soon-to-be killer.
"You've put up a good fight by escaping me all those other times, but no longer." He said, with the most serious, sinister voice she'd ever heard from him.
He transfigured his left hand into a sharp, menacing looking dagger, and pulled it back. He took what looked like a deep breath and yelled as his arm came down with the force of a charging train right at her. The moon dust rose from the impact, but when it settled, his optics couldn't believe what he saw.
She had disappeared.
Camille had closed her eyes before her killer was about to enact his final blow on her, only to re-open them in her room, staring at the face of her friend, Nancy, who just happened to be holding the beacon remote, her finger still over the red button.
"Camille? Oh my God, you just like, appeared out of thin air! I know you're one of my weirder friends so I'm sure this whole concept is like, normal to you and all but…are you okay? You're bleeding and your pants are ripped. Where the heck were you and what the heck were you doing?"
Camille finally realized that Nancy had teleported her back and saved her! But another thought instantly came to mind. She quickly grabbed the beacon from her hand, threw it on the ground and smashed it under her foot.
Nancy was confused. "Ooookay, that was weird. Mind telling me what that was all about?"
Camille smiled. "I won't only tell you, I'll show you."
And she walked Nancy out to meet her "Corvette" guardian.