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Mysterious Research Bunker

Hun-Grrr enjoyed the passing moment of shock in the faces of his fellow Decepticons followed by his revelation of the long dead Omega's remains. They all had seen Omegas before but one had to respect the power that could bring one down. The initial shock did not last for long though. In the ranks of the Decepticons there was one common trait most of them shared - they all had been conditioned to fear their own leaders more than the enemy. The sight of a dead Omega would not stop even the likes of Cipher from seeking the answers demanded by the High Commander. Here, despite the danger - even the weak had a chance to make it through. The alternative offered no chances, only suffering. Hun-Grrr himself had carved himself a pretty comfortable niche in the ranks of the Decepticons. He had only a handful of superiors, mostly because the others dreaded to even share a same ship with him and his group. But those whom he listened to, had all earned his respect. And the respect of the Terrorcon of Yetron was not easily earned.

"Grrr... No wonderrr you neverrr returned. You sprang a trap and sealed yourrrself out." Hun-Grrr's dragonic heads smirked in unison as Wheelie lead the group to a door that had been hidden by the nature for eons. Still Hun-Grrr could only wonder why Wheelie had selected this particular direction. The ones that had assaulted this bunker tens of thousands of vorns ago had forced their way into the heart of the facility. Could it be that they had collapsed the route they had used after they had left with their price? Or had they been able to get their hands on access codes that would have made their charge through the facility child's play?

No matter. There was a door standing on his way and he was determined to reach an energy source that had been able to keep this facility alive for longer than humankind had existed. The sonic stun rifle was not an option with it violent vibrations it caused. There was no telling how fragile the bunker's structures had become during such a long time. A weapon such as it would be a sure way to bury them all alive there. The door however, was clearly designed to resist the advances of even powerful Cybertronians. Then again, how well it could stand sustained heat?

Determined to solve that riddle, Hun-Grrr set his flamethrowers to work. Slowly but surely the door began to glow from the heat. Turning from red to bright orange, from solid matter to molten metal. With the whole door on the verge of melting, Hun-Grrr saw his opening and transformed into robot form and summoned his shield. Taking few steps back, Hun-Grrr brought the shield between him and the glowing door and rushed forwards. The force of the impact from the massive Terrorcon hitting the door caused the now very malleable door to give in, losing its original form and finally falling to the floor from its hinges.

"After you runt."

Mysterious Research Bunker

Cipher’s optics swept the entire expanse of the space and stopped when he spotted the location Wheelie fired his weapon at. The small burning projectile effectively burned away the overgrowth of vegetation and seemed to connect with some kind of panel. The result was the appearance of a circular door. A hesitant smile slowly grew but was quickly replaced by a deep frown.

“I knew there had to be another way. However there’s one probl…”

He hadn’t even finished his observation when he suddenly heard the tell-tale sound of a flamethrower igniting. The scribe took a few steps back and away from the sealed backdoor so as not to become a singed wreck. Astroseconds later Hun-Grrr let loose a torrent of searing fire.

The door was significantly weakened by his barrage making him cease his fiery advance and transformed back into his Root mode. While Cipher waited patiently Hun-Grrr drew his shield and rushed the door taking the obstruction down with but one heavy hit. Cipher’s face welcomed that almost forgotten grin he sported earlier as the Terrorcon Commander ordered Wheelie to precede before the remainder of the small group.

From the imposing from of Hun-Grrr, Cipher looked to the now exposed passageway that would lead them to their quarry in the levels below. The scientist took a few tentative steps but halted his advance quickly. The dark space beyond the mangled door was not the cause. Instead it was the sound…or sounds that he could make out.

Cipher cocked his head to one side as he took in everything he could make out. The sounds made little sense but from what he heard he could tell they were indeed voices. Some screams others spewing what sounded like orders.

The slim lithe scribe’s optics widened and brightened in concern at what he could not only hear but now see. Cipher back stepped while shaking his head his mouth ajar and his focus on the location of the entrance.

The flashes, broken pieces of the bigger picture, laid out the foundation of what had occurred all those millions of years ago. That immense hand, large enough to crush even the most heavily armored Cybertronian…bodies rotting, decaying until they are no more. Unimaginable fear on the faces that bore witness to what had happened. And the light…the light just ceasing as if consumed by some unseen force.

And then the sounds drift away. The screams, the orders, the decay the faces…everything gone. The room is still empty only the team he had accompanied remained. Cipher let out a heavy sigh and allowed his tense shoulders drop. He raised a hand and placed it shakily over his optics hoping what he witnessd was finally over for the remainder of the trek.
The scientist stayed his position for a moment before he finally lowered his hand and looked to the others in the room an uneasy expression on his face.

“Someone let loose a living hell. And this…this place was ground zero.”

Research Bunker

"Follow me and you will see!" the Cybertronian proto had said, with no uncertain degree of enthusiasm in his voice. Mindwipe was only too eager to do just that when it seemed as if his youthful gumption had thrown another obstacle in their path. Alas, there was no obstacle so big that the Terrorcons could not force their way through it, as they had shown yet again.

Mindwipe, for his part, still occasionally let his drift focus from the way forward to the way they had come. The way that had been littered with the now dysfunctional remains of resources that he could only barely comprehend as once being functional in the first place.

Picking up his pace alongside Cipher once again, Mindwipe nodded agreeably at the scientist's most recent words.

"So many paths. So many clues etched out in the open, lighting the way. We..."

When Cipher stopped, Mindwipe stopped almost immediately afterwards, one hand reaching for the wall before they had even begun to truly descend the stairwell leading down in to the true bowels of this facility. There was so much energy here. So much connection to what lay beyond this world. He wondered if its original owner was even remotely aware, or if their efforts were focused on the here and now. The tangible.

Mindwipe could hear the screams. The crying out for help that never came. Or...came too late, it seemed. There was sadness here, but also anger. Wrath.

So delicious.

"Come. Our answers lie ahead. And below," Mindwipe said, stepping forward and beginning to descend the massive spiral stairwell that looked as if it might drill in to the very core of the planet.

OoC: I mae this post while listening to the Reorchestrated Lavender Town. Seems to fit the mood.

Abandoned Bunker

Wheelie stared at the sudden flames that aroused from the mouths of those in his company directed towards the door. Then, once weakened, the door was promptly knocked until it gave in.

Wheelie gave a smiling nod to Hun-Grr, still lying without words, walked into the room next to Cipher, who was speaking about how this room was ground zero for something.

He did not care.

Wheelie followed Mindwipe, who was now walking down a flight of spiral stairs downward.

He didn't want to walk all that way down! Ugh, he had walked a long way already just to find the Decepticons. Thankfully, there was a pole going down the middle of the stairs -- Standard for Spiral Staircases -- and Wheelie knew what to do.

He jogged over to the Staircase and leaped at the pole, then hugged it. He began to slide down the pole at a much faster pace than Mindwipe, then suddenly, he saw a red light below. His stop was coming up soon.

Whipping out his Tripple-Bladed Knife, Wheelie stabbed the pole and slowed his decent to a literally screeching halt. He looked back up to Mindwipe and leaped off the pole into the Main Breaker Room.

"While you're making you're way down the tower, I'll turn on the power!" Wheelie called back up to his fellows.

He walked to a large metal box connected to the wall, then opened it. There was a large black pump and two buttons inside the box. One button was red, and the other green. Remembering his past venture down into the bunker, Wheelie pressed the red button. The red emergency lights grew dim, then winked out. Wheelie grabbed the pump then pushed up with all of his strength. The Pump was obviously for someone of a greater size. Wheelie repeated this process four more times until he pushed it back down. Then, he pressed the green button and several other white buttons lit up on the left side of the box. Wheelie pressed them all, lights and power springing throughout the bunker.

One light in the room burned out when power was surged to it, but that was normal.

Wheelie walked over to the pole and removed his knife, then gave his comrades a thumbs-up.

Wheelie heard a sound behind him, it was one he couldn't recognize. He turned to see an empty room. Wheelie shrugged and turned back to waiting on his comrades.

Mysterious Research Bunker

Cipher and Mindwipe seemed to be so enthralled over whatever was waiting for them down the spiral staircase that both abandoned caution and rushed past the Terrorcon commander. However, neither made it too far before stopping on their tracks just in front of the entrance Hun-Grrr had forced open. Cipher in particular began to act uneasy, as if he had heard something that the Terrorcon's superior audio receptors hadn't. Even Mindwipe had clearly sensed something as well given how the hypnotist clearly hesitated for a moment before beginning his trek down the stairs.

"Superstitious garbage." Hun-Grrr snarled and attached his somewhat singed but otherwise undamaged shield to his back and stepped on the fallen door as he pushed past Cipher, leaving a foot print into the still hot metal.

"There's nothing here scribe. Get moving." The large Decepticon added with a baleful tone in his voice as he began to follow Mindwipe's descend down the stairs. There was no other way for him anyhow given how he was unable to use Wheelie's shortcut due to his sheer size. And letting Wheelie out of his sensor range was not something he was going to do.

Mysterious Research Bunker

As the spectral images and disembodied voices faded, Cipher managed to press forward toward the stairs. The scribe paused for a moment as he took in what Mindwipe had said. The hypnotist seemed to be able to feel what had been. But he had the misfortune to actually witness pieces of the puzzle.

Cipher shook his head trying to dismiss what he had already seen. The scientist’s attempts at forgetting were suddenly interrupted by the baleful timbre of Hun-Grrr. The Terrorcon commander brushed off Cipher’s unusual behaviors as being nothing more that superstitious behavior. With his mouth ajar Cipher lowered his head and moved forward down the staircase.

The miniscule orange mech had already taken the lead declaring that he would be able to turn on the power from somewhere below. How on Cybertron does he know where the power supply is? I thought he hadn’t gotten that far before blocking himself out.

The scribe’s musings had stopped suddenly, as did his advance. Cipher’s optics brightened as he stared at the empty space ahead of the small group. There ahead of Wheelie was a mech. His coloring was muted, but Cipher noted the sheer terror on his face as he looked back over his shoulder. As with the apparition Cipher too looked back over his shoulder. The sight that greeted him was near impossible to describe. A number of mechs of all shapes and sizes had taken to the stair well in order to get away from something.

Taking a closer look with the magnification of his optics, he could just make out the smooth metallic image of one of the Omegas. The mechs running toward him where heading deeper into the bunker to find some way…anyway to escape.

“They bel…they believed there was a way to get away. The battle up there…they were attempting to flee…to flee not out, but to…”

Cipher strained to see what was so important at the lower levels, but there still no answer. The scribe brought his hand to his head and gave it a rub. There had to have been more. His head lifted quickly as he finally made out a set series of voices.

Cipher pushed forward passed their guide and stepped down the staircase tentatively, but he soon quickened his pace. Experiments. The voices were agitated. They wanted the experiments….or was it the experiment? A lab?

“There’s a laboratory. Some kind of experiment...or experiments!”

As he pushed forward he followed the transparent mechs and realized he was progressing without any kind of hindrance. There were no traps. This was a safe route.

“There were never any traps here. They had to be able to get down to the lowest levels as quickly as possible. Any traps would just slow them down.”

Cipher looked back up to the rest of the group, but swiftly turned his attention back to the visions headed down the stairs.

“They know the way. Come.”

Mysterious Research Bunker

Sinnertwin had descended the stairwell almost as quickly as Wheelie had, eager to press on and discover any and everything that lay within its depths, especially if it were alive. The Terrorcon knew that his olfactory sensors had picked up something but even now he could not identify what it had been.

Pausing for a moment to look back at those behind him, he could see that the un-Terrorcons seemed to be enraptured by something. He looked around and then forward. The optic sensors one of his heads thought they might have seen a shadow move that hadn't been there before, but he couldn't be sure. There was no corresponding olfactory signature to go along with it. The deeper they went, the more intriguing and frustrating this bunker was becoming for Sinnertwin.

The fires churning fresh within his belly, the Terrorcon let out a low snarl before charging off in the direction that the scribe had indicated, paying no attention to the accompanying story. Like Hungrr had said--superstitious nonsense. Sinnertwin wanted to find the real meat of why they had come here. And tear in to it.

Mysterious Bunker

Wheelie trotted forward to reach the Terrorcons who were just now reaching the bottom of the stairwell. He assumed that everyone was down to the bottom, unknowingly to receive Wheelie's bad news that he hadn't explored further.

They were, instead, following a shadow. If it were any other protoform, they would have been frightened. Wheelie, however, was not and was rather grimly noting the apparition of the "Ghost". He had heard of the "Ghosts" of other Transformers from his datapackets he had recovered and read hundreds of times over. Unfortunately they were corrupted and very few words could be made out.

He made a mental note to refresh his data stockpile and see if there was anything else to be retrieved.

He looked back to Terrorcons who had began to follow the shadow.

"I couldn't get behind that door, but there is something behind it for sure!" Wheelie said.

"Even though I haven't gone deeper," Wheelie said grimly, but quickly added, "I hope I am still a keeper!"

Wheelie did not want to be left behind.

He followed closely behind Mindwipe, as he was the only one who Wheelie felt didn't want the protoform to rot in a ditch.

Research Bunker

Mindwipe had followed along with the others. Lower and deeper they went. Cipher had seen something. Mindwipe thought he had seen it...seen them...too. More likely, he felt them. The strange, parapsychological energy that Mindwipe had only a faint inkling of before was more potent now. Not overwhelmingly so, but definitely recognizable. The ghosts, the energy, the history of this place, whatever it was--it seemed to be guiding them forward, and Mindwipe was only too keen to follow.

Cipher's description of what had happened here, what the apparitions were willing to tell of their history, sent a shiver of both fear and excitement coursing through the hypnotist's systems.

Approaching what surely must have been the laboratory that Cipher had referred to, Mindwipe reached out to open the door, but the structure did so itself as he came close. Whether it was by design, or through the influences of something else, Mindwipe had no clue, but he was satisfied just the same.

Mindwipe looked back momentarily at Wheelie as he made his comment, smirking, before continuing forward in to the lab itself. It seemed the young mech was already beginning to have a healthy appreciation for the concept of fear. If he was to last long within the Decepticon ranks, he would certainly need to continue developing it.

The laboratory, in its rawest conceptual sense, was unlike anything that Mindwipe had ever seen. Guilded walls long since tarnished, high arches and massive columns, similar glyphs to what they had seen throughout the bunker. Once one dug deep enough, this "bunker" was practically a subterranean palace. But it was also very evident that its glory days had long, long since passed.

"Amazing...," Mindwipe whispered, looking around, parts of the laboratory now humming with life, now that some measure of power had been restored to it.

Mindwipe made a beeline for one of the large access terminals. Though ancient, Mindwipe's systems could still accommodate a direct patch-in. Cipher's description of the history and what these apparitions had experienced had triggered a flood of thoughts in the Decepticon hypnotist's mind. He had ideas of what to search for, but something had led them this far. He would be a fool to suddenly ignore it now.

Guide my hand, Mindwipe thought as his actuators began to dance across the controls. Hopefully something was listening.

Research Bunker

Hun-Grrr had watched in some level of disbelief when Sinnertwin had bolted past him, defying his earlier orders about securing the outer perimeter of the facility. Such open disregarding of their leader's orders from the Terrorcons was rare but not unheard of. Most of time they knew better than to defy Hun-Grrr's will -he had not earned the name that had grown to embody the whole unit for nothing. Were it not for his failings in certain very important characteristics in the eyes of Megatron, Hun-Grrr would have made a perfect addition to the list of phase sixers with some modifications or into the ranks of the infamous Decepticon Justice Division. Of course, the Terrorcons were a unit that would have fallen apart under almost any other mechanoid. Controlling four tremendously powerful psychopathic beasts required one to be the fiercest monster of the pack. That being said, even a monster like Hun-Grrr could not control the savage impulses of his unit if he was not present.

And apparently, Sinnertwin's instincts had once again taken over. The orthrus just was not able to stay still without being watched over by his terrifying leader. However, due to the headstart the Terrorcon sentry had managed to gain while charging down the stairs, his punishment in the hands of Hun-Grrr was to be delayed. But not forgotten - never forgotten.

As Hun-Grrr finally made his way down, he came across yet another dissapointment - the power generator Wheelie had activated. At least for Wheelie's sake, Hun-Grrr seemed to be completely ignoring the small Transformer.

"This is nothing but an emergency power supply powered by energon! Arrrgh! Waste of time!" The large Decepticon roared out his frustration and slammed his fist against the steel wall which buckled under the pressure of his immense strength. There was not even enough energon in there satisfy his hunger, not if they wanted to have facility powered long enough to study the possible archives that still might remain.

Deciding not waste anymore of his time looking at the power generator, Hun-Grrr quenched the impulse to smash the generator and devour what energon was left in there and marched after Mindwipe instead. "There better be something more valuable than this beyond those doors..."

Hun-Grrr's raving was cut off by the sheer sight of the spectacular view that was revealed as the doors automatically opened before Mindwipe. Whoever had lived here had certainly had a lavish taste. Hun-Grrr had not witnessed such an amount of luxury of Cybertronian origin since the early days of the Great War when Decepticons had raided the estates of the senators and other wealthy Cybertronians. Colums, ornaments and statues of extraordinary craftmanship in a large hall that hardly resembles any of the laboratories he had seen during his days as a Decepticon. It was evident there had been even more valuable objects here but whoever had raided the place originally had taken all they could carry. Nevertheless, even Hun-Grrr could make an educated guess of witnessing an art collection worth of hundreds of millions of shanixs.

A deranged look full of greed formed on Hun-Grrr's visage as the Terrorcon leader moved towards the largest statue - and the only one whose model he could recognize - in the hall. It was an enormous platinum statue twice of Hun-Grrr's own height, and the sculpted in the image of no other than the long lost Nova Prime, holding the Matrix high above his head with his both hands. And now all this belonged to Hun-Grrr. Or well, at least he wanted to think that way. Scorponok was likely to disagree and even the Terrorcon had admit the High Commander was an opponent he wouldn't willingly tally with.

The cringe worthy image of Scorponok tearing him in half in his thoughts returned Hun-Grrr back to the reality. There was little they could achieve with a treasure like this during a war. All this, it was simply too valuable to be sold on bargain to buy some scraps from those few species that had anything to offer to the Decepticons. And too valuable to scrapped for materials given how little remained of ancient Cybertron. Or Cybertron altogether for that matter.

Letting out an audible sigh, Hun-Grrr turned his gaze away from the statue of Nova Prime and towards the large access terminals Mindwipe was trying to access. It appeared as if Mindwipe had managed to open somekind of a menu. However it was clear that time had done its damage. Not to the data stored in nearly ageless datacrystals themselves but through the natural evolution of Transformers. The language everything was presented on the screen was completely alien to Hun-Grrr. And Mindwipe seemed to be about as clueless of what it contained as Hun-Grrr was.

"What the slag have you found?" Hun-Grrr growled as he leaned over Mindwipe to look closer at the screen. "Cipher!"