The Energon Pub

Australia- Uluru


Option 1, fight and get smashed like Sixshot. Option 2, get the frag out of here and hope I don't get executed for cowardice. Shredded or sizzled... what a choice.

Misfire was weighing his options as he finally recovered from his mid-air collision with that Seeker... the same one he'd accidentally offended while he was in a restoration module. It had been a very weird day.

Misfire glanced over at the oncoming Autobots and Decepticons, variously getting struck down by the Fallen or his cronies. The air formation had scattered and regrouped, with a team of Autobot fliers and the Seeker Thundercracker still up and about... but he wasn't sure where to move to. He transformed and took to the air, glancing back at the Fallen's position behind him.

He could regroup with the fliers, but hadn't been given a specific order. So he figured he'd rejoin the soldiers on the ground, pretend to charge, and then discretely march in the opposite direction when no one was looking.

Misfire fired off a few shots at one of the Fallen's 'heralds' (missing by around forty meters and adding more holes to the rock they were fighting on) and moved towards the rear of the united Autobot/Decepticon line.

Australia - Uluru

This was it, time to make him pay. Chromedome's needle-drawn hand began its decent for Hex's optical sensor outlets but was stopped mid-swipe when something had grabbed hold of his wrist.

"CHROMEDOME! Stop!" Axle tugged again on his arm.

It was Axle, who's timing was nearly impeccable, at least for Hex's fate that is.

“Chromedome listen to me. I think I can save Rewind, but I need your help! Please!" Axle gestured toward the body and cranium of the little archivist. “Help me help him!"

And just like that the mnemosurgeon had snapped out of his rage, at least long enough to gaze upon Rewind's lifeless chassis. In the few seconds of realization Axle had brought upon him, Chromedome looked up at the hand that was being restrained, his amber-visor staring at the needles he was ready to inject upon Hex.

The mnemosurgeon gasped in shock as he rolled off of Hex's sedated body and pulled his arm away from Axle's hold. He gripped his wrist like Axle had been doing but drew hand closer to his chest, almost as if he was ashamed to have them even drawn out before them all.

"Oh no... What have I done?? This is all my fault!" Chromedome muttered to himself as he struggled back up to his feet. "Rewind... I'm so sorry... If only there was something I could do!"

Axle's words replayed in the back of Chromedome's processor as he walked -practically limping with guilt and new-found sorrow- to Rewind's side as he knelt beside the archivist's body and tried to hold the body close to him with arms trembling.

"Help me help him!... Help me help him!..."

"Axle... Can we...We can br-bring him back right??" Chromedome asked the medical officer as he chocked back the pain, "Wh-what do you need me to do?..."



As the sandstorm rolled in, Silverbolt shifted back into his robot mode and activated the flight gear his robot mode was equipped with to allow him to maintain flight when not in his jet mode.

"Gah!" The Aerialbot commander scoffed as he shielded his optics with his forearms from the flying sand, "Can't see a damn thing! Least now I shouldn't be able to run into anything while I'm...up this high..."

Just don't look down... Just DON'T look down...

>>Silverbolt, we will meet you there as soon as we drop off a wannabe pilot of Slingshot. Nova Strike decided he wanted to ride Slingshot as his own personal craft and then jump off to be almost suicidal with a lone shot. I and Fireflight had to save his chassis from becoming a stain on this planet.<<

If the anxiety from his phobia of heights wasn't enough to deal with right now, now Silverbolt had two members of his team escorting that foolishly brave Nova Strike back to the ground where he and the other ground pounders would operate more effectively.

"Just my luck..." Silverbolt muttered to himself as he brought his forearms back up closer to his faceplate to shield himself from another gust of airborne sand. "If it's not -pfft- one thing, -bleck- it's -pfft- another..."

>>"Skydive, you can continue to -plfft- find Nova a new locale to set him down at, but Fireflight can still regroup up on me."<<



"Oh that's too precious," Blitzwing mused as he banked around Ayer's Rock after -yet again- another unsuccessful bombing run, "I come swooping into the Aerialbot formation and they all split off away from me. Heh, priceless."

The purple and tan triplechanger unknowingly shifted to his robot mode like Silverbolt had done just moments ago as the sandstorm began to fill the airspace with a thick cloud of sand and dust.

>>"Hey Astro', can't see a lick of scrap with this sandstorm fronting in. What'd'ya say we go all land-mode on this clown and smash him the ol' fashion- WAHHHHHH!!!"<< Blitzwing communicated before being forcefully cut off after being stricken in the back by an unknown explosion. Caught off guard, the Commando began to free fall as his internal systems tried to diagnosed the damage of what had just happened to him. In moment of quick thinking, Blitzwing shifted to his jet mode to propel himself safely to the surface before changing to his M1 Abrams mode to absorb the crash better than his jet mode would, all the while being pelted and blinded by the intense sandy vortex.

Upon landing harshly in the Australian desert, Blitzwing rolled out of his tank mode and drew both his weapons.

"ALRIGHT, WHO DID THAT!?!"



Getaway held up his left arm to shield the light and sand coming from both the fire vortexs and the incoming sandstorm that was blowing in.

"That's rather annoying..." The escapist commented on the sight as Skids managed to find him in the storm. "Skids! Wonderful timing!" He exclaimed as he stepped beside the theoretician and gently placed a fist across the side of his faceplate.

-"Bomp!"-

Shortly after his usual reaction to the blue and red Autobot, Skids had fired off a volley of rockets up towards the Fallen's location, or at least that's where both mechs were hoping they were fired off towards. It was hard to tell with tow different kinds of elemental storms obstructing their vision.

"Hey Skids, you're a theoretician," Getaway said stating the obvious, "Theoretically, shouldn't those fire vortex's be creating a giant storm of glass shards from the sandstorm?"



"Blaaades..." Tailgate whimpered out as he watched the Protectobot begin to carry off Bluestreak from where he was laying. "Someone... Anyone... Help..."

The blue and white scout began to drag himself through the sand, clawing his way back towards the shuttles where hopefully someone was there to either repair his old legs or give him new ones. He looked over his shoulder plating and saw his old pair lying underneath the corpse of the vehicon he had tried to defend from Bluestreak.

Well that settles that, new legs it is.

"This cannot... get... any worse..." Tailgate whined as he dug his left hand out in front of him to pull himself closer to the shuttles. After a poorly timed statement, the sandstorm rolled in over him, obscuring his visual outlook on the back end of the battlefield.

In a moment of defeat, Tailgate's processor dropped into the sand beneath him.

Australia - South of Ayers Rock

Bluestreak had off lined his optics and entered rest mode while Blades flew him back towards wherever the medics that could repair him were located. In all actuality, the gunner’s wounds were not quite as severe as what some of the others on the battlefield had sustained. However, the impact that the flying vehicon had made was devastating enough to crush the entire front of his chestplate inwards, shattering his vehicle mode’s headlights in the process. Outwardly, ‘Streak had what amounted to serious cosmetic damage. Inwardly, however, the chatterbot had more critical injuries that needed to be attended to. They weren’t immediately life-threatening but they were bad enough to require treatment from a seasoned physician like Ratchet or First Aid. Blue’s internal repair systems were sustaining him for the time being, but that wouldn’t last forever.

It was the aerial Protectobot’s question that woke Bluestreak from his slumber, on-lining his optics once more. The gunner looked around and noticed that he was now on the ground. “Oh, we’ve landed. How about that. I didn’t even notice while I was resting. heh.” The chatterbot looked up at the copter-former and gave him a reassuring nod. “I’m doing okay, Blades. Thanks for all the help. I really appreciate it. I’ve felt better, of course, but I’ll live. The damage on my exterior may look minor but inside my HUD’s telling me that I’ve got more injuries internally. They need to be looked at, but I’m not gonna die any time soon so don’t worry. And like you said, I’m sure First Aid or Ratchet will be able to fix me up in no time.”

Bluestreak then noticed the massive sandstorm that had erupted around Ayers Rock, which combined with the fire tornadoes made the situation all the more dangerous for his Autobot comrades. “Dear Primus, a sand storm? The Fallen is seemingly invincible, isn’t....” The gunner’s question was cut short as the Protectobot flier picked him up and slung his damaged body over the copter-former’s shoulder plates. Pain radiated throughout Blue’s frame, but it was nothing he couldn’t handle. “Whoa, a little warning next time, buddy. heh. And, yeah, I look forward to getting repaired so I can get back out there and help the others fight the Fallen. I just hope we can find a way to defeat him. Like I was just saying, he appears to be invincible,” Bluestreak rambled on as Blades began walking towards his destination. The trip was a bit bouncy, but the black and silver mech managed just fine even if his pain receptors felt as though they were on fire.
_________

Blast-Off had crashed somewhere south of Ayers Rock. The Fallen’s strike on him had been immensely powerful, not to mention extremely painful, filling his body with enough electrical charge to short out Omega Supreme. The space warrior hit the ground hard, blacking out at least twice before briefly awakening once again. His various limbs would not respond and his vision was all but gone. Blast-Off’s audios still functioned to an extent. Although, all he could hear was the muffled sounds of screams and laser blasts coming from somewhere nearby, but he couldn’t tell exactly. If only he could call for help, but his internal comm line was useless, as well.

With nothing more that he could do, Blast-Off ceased fighting the inevitable. His injuries were too severe. He needed medical attention if he was going to get back into this fight. Of course, the likelihood that the space warrior would be battle ready again before the end of this encounter was slim to none. The only medics available out here were Autobot ones and Blast-Off didn’t trust any of them as far as he could throw Trypticon. They would probably keep him out of commission or do their best to delay his repairs. No, this was it for the aerial Combaticon, at least for this battle anyway.

Then, as quickly as he had been knocked out of the sky by the Fallen, Blast-Off’s systems completely shut down and he finally entered stasis lock.
_________

Drag Strip stumbled along towards Ayers Rock as the sedative Smokescreen had managed to inject into his audio receptor finally worked its way deep into the herald’s internal systems. Had the syringe been administered directly into Drag’s main energon line in his neck joint, the former Stunticon would’ve gone done much sooner. As it were, the yellow mech managed to do enough damage to his attackers before escaping and radioing the Fallen for help. However, his master had not responded to his call. Drag Strip did not take it personally, of course. The demigod of legend had an entire legion of Cybertronians to destroy and would not simply stop his fun for the sake of a single herald. Hopefully, however, Drag’s warning regarding the sedatives had been received and would be relayed to the others if it wasn’t too late, that is.

Peering ahead towards the mountain, Drag Strip could see that the Fallen had conjured up an immense sand storm that was quickly engulfing everything and every mech in its path. As the countless sand particles came into contact with the still burning fire tornadoes, they were quickly melted and transformed into thousands of glass shards that immediately began flying in all directions. Some of those shards began striking the yellow herald’s body, becoming embedded within the surface of his metal skin.

Drag Strip felt no pain from the glass projectiles. What he did feel was a sense of numbness as the sedative fully consumed him from within. His optics flickered erratically as he finally fell down to his knees and let a slight smile appear across his visage. The sight of the glass shards raining down upon the Cybertronians like a million tiny knives of death was something Drag wanted to hold on to for a few more astroseconds. Then, giving in to the drug that now permeated through his entire circulatory system, Drag Strip completely collapsed faceplate first into the sand, his body shutting down and entering stasis.

((OOC: Glass shards created with Ember’s permission. Razorclaw post coming next.))

Australia - Top of Ayers Rock

Razorclaw listened as Flamewar explained her plan of attack to him. Her arrow was covered with Cosmic Rust, and she hoped to infect the body that the Fallen had possessed. “Impressive, Flamewar. That just might work if you’re able to get the arrow past his shielding. However, let’s first see if Sixshot can....” The lion former’s words were cut short at the sight of the phase sixer hurling by them overhead before crashing into the crowd of Cybertronians down below. Razorclaw was left in utter disbelief. Sixshot had been knocked clear off of the mountain by a single punch from the Fallen. This demigod had once again proven that he was indeed a powerful foe to be reckoned with.

Then, as if on cue, walls of blowing sand rose up all around Ayers Rock, leaving the mountain in the eye of a supernatural storm. Razorclaw had to admit that he was in sheer awe of the Fallen’s abilities even though said power was directed at the Cybertronian armies below. First the fire tornadoes and now a massive sand storm unlike anything the lion-former had ever seen before. What would come next? The Predacon Commander shuddered to think of the endless, horrific possibilities.

Shortly after the sand storm had been conjured up, Razorclaw received a new communique from Motormaster, requesting telemetry data on everyone’s positions on the rock so that he and the others on the ground would not be firing blindly at the mountain top. In addition, it seemed that both Starscream and Shockwave had finally arrived on the surface. At virtually the same time, the Predacon lord received an status update from the Constructicons on board the Thanatos. The news from them was exactly what he had hoped to hear. Razorclaw opened his comm line first to the Stunticon Commander:

>>”Motormaster, I read you. I’m sending you the requested telemetry data now. The Fallen’s position, as well as my Predacons, Flamewar, Wipe-out and myself, are contained therein. Fire on the Fallen at will. As for Starscream and Shockwave, their presence is duly noted.”<<

Razorclaw then switched to the Constructicons’ frequency:

>>”Good work, Scrapper. Get down here ASAP. Be warned, however. The Fallen has conjured up a series of fire tornadoes and a massive sand storm around Ayers Rock. Use extreme caution.”<<

Cutting his comm line, the lion-former returned his attention to Flamewar, who had already lined up her shot on the Fallen and quickly unleashed the Cosmic Rust covered arrow. With any luck, it would hit home, but Razorclaw couldn’t afford to wait to find out what damage, if any, a mere arrow would do even if it was laced with a deadly agent. Headstrong’s comments over the Predacons’ frequency helped to spur the Decepticon leader into initiating his own course of action sooner rather than waiting any longer.

>>”As a matter of fact, I do have a plan, Headstrong.”<<

Razorclaw quipped back at his subordinate before the mechanical lion rose up over the edge of the trench he had been hiding in. Bringing his gas launcher to bare, the Predacon lord fired numerous capsules of explosive gas directly at the Fallen’s position. With any luck, the gas would not only do some damage but also surround the fiery demigod in a blinding cloud that would obstruct his vision, even if only for a short time.

>>”Predacons, hear me! Use the gas cloud to your advantage. Stay low and surround the Fallen! Once you are in position, open fire on the slagger with extreme prejudice! We must use brute, concentrated force to break through his personal shielding!”<<

With his orders given, Razorclaw crawled back down into the trench next to Flamewar where he transformed into robot mode. He knew the plan would likely result in failure once again. Everything else they had tried had already met with the same dire outcome. The Fallen was too strong mentally, physically and spiritually. Whatever darkness resided within him gave the fiery demigod untold power that seemed limitless. Therefore, greater action would need to be taken and if the Autobots weren’t willing to commence with whatever final solution they had been planning then perhaps it was about time for the Decepticons to step up and do what needed to be done to save them all.

Therefore, in order to prepare for an eventuality that seemed unavoidable, Razorclaw activated a control panel embedded in his forearm and entered a series of command codes that quickly established a secured uplink to the primary computer network on the bridge of the Thanatos. With the navigational system at his immediate disposal, the Predacon lord typed in a new set of coordinates. In approximately two cycles, give or take, the Decepticon warship would move into the proper position in orbit directly overhead. Then, if all else had continued to fail on the ground, the lion-former would order his troops to fallback before initiating a remote orbital strike that would hopefully be powerful enough to destroy the Fallen once and for all.

Sky Above Uluru

Inside the Rustbucket, it was probably the best name Bonecrusher could come up with on the spur of the moment. One of the safety rails for the old cargo hauler had rusted completely through and snapped off in his hand only moments after the prow of the garbage scow hit the atmosphere. The intense vibration caused every bulkhead to rattle and shake, threatening to give way to the incredible pressures and heat of reentry.

Bonecrusher crushed the railing in his hand and threw the fragments back over his shoulder towards Mixmaster and Scavenger. He pushed himself forward towards the cockpit. Without preamble the Bonecrusher the Destructor, Scourge of Boldelvia... pushed himself through the tight door space and loomed over Scrapper and Hook as they tried to keep the scow steady from the helm and navigation stations respectively.

"You two rust cells better keep this boat steady, it ain't going to last much longer." He looked over to his right and scowled behind his face plate. "We just lost that witless scrapheap's sonic identifier module. Probably wielded on by some Autobot Shipwright."

Bonecrusher looked back over the two leaders of the construction crew. "Are we there yet? My trigger finger is itchy and I gotta scratch it soon... s'or I start early in here."

Ulruu Skies

>>Okay Firelfight, we need to drop off our unwanted passenger quickly and get back to Silverbolt. He is right about the strategy idea. It doesn't seem like anything is working.<<

>>At least carrying this extra load is giving me a chance to get a good up close look at this area. If it was more grayish, I would say it would remind me of some of the wild areas of Cybertron. Some parts of the Tagan Heights you didn't want to be out alone in walking, driving, or flying due to the creatures out there. If this area is an example of what this planet has to offer, I would expect similar areas of concern for the local inhabitants.<<

Fireflight went as close as he felt comfortable to the ground and then tilted upwards.

>>Nova Strike, it is time for you to get off. We are needed by Silverbolt. You'll have to fend for yourself now. Maybe next time remember to pack a jet pack or somehow acquire wings of your own.<<

After Nova Strike got off of Fireflight, he and Skydive went to meet up with Silverbolt.

>>Silverbolt, Fireflight and myself reporting as ordered. I do agree we need to think of a new strategy since it seems we aren't putting a dent into the Fallen. At this rate, there won't be anything left of the rock he is on. This may be a Grimlock strategy but I wish we could drop a mountain on his head.


____________________________________

Location Rescue

Hot Spot slowly makes it to the location he had chosen for his Protectobots to meet up with the exception of First Aid. The traveling didn't go well with his damaged wheels from the Vehicon assault and now the sand and glass attack. The sand he was sort of used to thanks for the short time in Egypt but the glass proved to be more painful and annoying. He soon saw Groove drive up as well as Streetwise. He waited for Blades to show up.

"All right, it seems we are on permanent search and rescue. Ratchet wants us to become another temporary repair station but we only get the minor wounds. We have to leave the rest to Ratchet and First Aid. There is one major problem and we don't have any spare energon. I could have parked closer to the shuttles but figured a more centralized location be best. By the looks of the general area, we might be able to use some scrapped Vehicons for parts if we have to. There might also be some fuel cells but don't count on too many of those. As of now, I want Streetwise to get to the far side of the rock where the hammer portion should be. I highly doubt there would be too many injuries over there but they probably dealing with the fire tornadoes and sand storm glass mixture. Groove, continue your scouting on this side of the rock. Blades, you have the skies as usual and let us know what you see. We also don't know where his heralds are at so be on a lookout for any of the suppose distraction teams. If the injuries are too severe to operate on your own, bring them back to me and I'll radio in First Aid and Ratchet. While all of you are gone, I'm going to make a make shift barrier of Vehicons to protect myself and whatever patients we have as well as to have any supplies close by."

"On it boss and I'll try to stay out of the mess the Fallen is tossing at us. The sandstorm is going to be hard to drive around to get to the south side."

"I fully understand, Streetwise. All I expect is your best given the circumstances."

"This wind is making it extremely hard to travel in motorcycle mode. Do you care if I go in robot mode?"

"That is fine, Groove. I also had issues with being blown around some. Our aerial friends are probably having the most issues. All we can hope for is all of this is draining the Fallen's reserves drastically. If he is really as powerful as legend has him, he may be using his reserves but he also has by far more then any single one of us and probably more then several of us combined."

Australia--Uluru

As Shockwave progressed slowly but steadily forward, he fully expected transmissions to begin being directed at him once there was visual confirmation of his presence. Whatever his role was to be in the aftermath of the battle aboard the Thanatos, he had not lost his acumen as a strategist.

>>Commander Shockwave, can you find it in your grand strategy to allow me to join the fight? Onslaught believes I would better serve the Decepticons back here as an emergency fueling depot but no one has bothered to come up to me begging for energon. I want in on the fight. I will warn you, Darkride is one of the heralds and he along with Skywarp were around the Autobot shuttles until Warpy teleported them somewhere.<<

>>"Declarative: my strategy is not currently in effect, Octane. We are executing our Supreme Commander's strategic initiative; with allowances for certain variances."<<

For the briefest of instances, Shockwave calculated the rest of what Octane had reported and weighed it against the current evidence he was taking in from the battleground.

>>"Onslaught's strategem would have had merit, prior to the dispersement of ultra energon; I calculate a 73.45023% probability that refueling will be an unnecessary factor in this specific engagement. Win or lose, our current energon reserves will sustain the majority of our forces. Imperative: proceed."<<
___

Well, that had been one of the more ungraceful landings that Astrotrain had undertaken in his Decepticon career. But considering that he was currently in the midst of a battle versus one of the fraggin' Thirteen, he figured he was actually doing pretty good. You know, considering.

>>"Hey Astro', can't see a lick of scrap with this sandstorm fronting in. What'd'ya say we go all land-mode on this clown and smash him the ol' fashion- WAHHHHHH!!!"<<

>>"Yeah. Yeah...land mode. Guh,"<< Astrotrain grunted as the gears and servos of his shuttle mode ground together a lot more harshly than they usually ever did thanks to the infernal sandstorm, but after a few extra astroseconds, Astrotrain was in his locomotive alt mode, using an extra blast of thruster power to force himself out of the small trench his crash landing had dug and started chugging off to rendezvous with Blitzwing.
___

Skies above Uluru

From out of nowhere, Mixmaster felt a few scraps of crushed metal pepper against his frame. He looked up to see who the culprit was and quickly figured it had to have been Bonecrusher.

"Hey, you-"

But he quickly stopped himself. This was Bonecrusher after all. No need to go making him any more surly than he already was.

The Constructicon Chemical Engineer got up from his seated position to try and get a better view through the cockpit and out into whatever battlefield they were heading into.

"Anybody see see see the Fallen yet, huh? I wanna see him in battle. That'd be somethin' eh?"

Australia--Top of Ayers Rock

Tantrum's climb had been just as fraught with frustration as Headstrong's had, but the two bruisers had finally made it. The Fallen? Finally. Tantrum wanted his crack. He just needed to-

>>"Tantrum! I invoke the challenge of Aria-Bellum! Only one of us will have the honor of taking this fallen Prime's head!"<<

The fraggin' slag?

Tantrum's anger level immediately went up a notch. He didn't know who this was or what the blast-slaggin' Pitstain some Aria-Bellum was but...

...wait.

Tantrum suddenly recognized the identification code. This was the little slagger he had trashed back on the Thanatos. Wanted another piece did he? Tantrum would give him another trashing just for wasting his commtime. He wanted to break away from the fight and take care of the little greasepatch, but...

>>"Predacons, hear me! Use the gas cloud to your advantage. Stay low and surround the Fallen! Once you are in position, open fire on the slagger with extreme prejudice! We must use brute, concentrated force to break through his personal shielding!"<<

GrrrrrrrrrRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR....

>>"Wait yer turn runt. Yer next,"<< Tantrum commed back.

His optics blazing, Tantrum charged forward, staying as low as he cared to give a slag right now and working to find his ideal position. And that position was, hell with it, it was right here.

Tantrum opened fire with all barrels.
___

Rampage stalked the top of the mountain, keeping a watchful set of optics on everything that was going on. Knowing that Divebomb had kept a watchful optic on the Predacon traitor would have to suffice for now. They had to survive this, then...then, oh yes, revenge would be had.

Stalking out well away from the other Predacons, Rampage found his own ideal angle and started unleashing his own volley of firepower at the Fallen.

Australia- Top of Ayers Rock



>>"Wait yer turn runt. Yer next."<<

Nightweaver wasn't sure how to feel. He was certainly pleased that Tantrum was forced to delay answering the personal challenge -and thus showed weakness in front of his comrades- but at the same time wondered if he was so happy because he got to look tough without actually having to be tough.

Nightweaver was trounced pretty soundly by Tantrum in their last battle. Practically speaking, why did he expect things to go differently this time? It was far, far more important to Nightweaver that his comrades see his willingness to fight against a powerful warrior than it was for him to actually fight that battle. He needed the other Decepticons, the ones stronger than he was, to see his bravery. Even if they thought he was reckless, they'd respect the strength of his grudge.

The timing was inconvenient to boot... not only was Nightweaver making a scene and showing infighting in front of the Autobots, but Razorclaw was in command of their entire war machine, and Nightweaver was very publicly demonstrating his discontent with one of Razorclaw's closest and most trusted subordinates. Nightweaver didn't want to get bogged down in the politics; save he wanted whoever led the Decepticons to respect him for his bravery, but really, that applied to everyone.

He turned his attention back to the Fallen. After the disastrous first strike, the united aerial team had broken off, left scattered and disorganized. Nightweaver was one of the only fliers left in the area, after that interceptor Misfire had broken off and the Autobot fliers ran like the cowards they were.

Nightweaver looked down at his battle blade, catching his muddled reflection in the shimmering steel. He was still fresh from the CR chamber, not carrying the scars of battle, just some of this miserable dustball planet's dirt. Again he turned his attention to the fallen Prime.

There was one other way to demonstrate his bravery.

Nightweaver began to slowly walk towards the Fallen, keeping his burst rifle holstered. He knew he was walking towards something that had already broken several powerful warriors, many of whom were stronger and more intelligent than he.

But not anyone braver.

-

Base of Ayers Rock


Bitstream rose to prominence and was press-ganged into the Seeker ranks because he was able to break Autobot encryption codes. It was a simple task to encrypt his own communications and limit the range of his comm signal, and the size of the plateau his comrades fought upon allowed him to make several short range bursts... only those smarter than himself or more skilled at studying communications might detect his bursts. Soundwave would be listening and able to hear... but Soundwave was always listening. Shockwave would be smart enough to decrypt his signal and Starscream would be able to exploit one of those smart enough to find Bitstream, but both of them were still aboard the Thanatos, saving their own afts.

And Sixshot was somewhere down on the desert's ground level, away from Ayers Rock. Bitstream would make sure the Phase Sixer alone heard him.

"You were bested because Starscream infected you," Bitstream spoke, hopefully to Sixshot alone. "You are not operating at full capacity."

"We need you to be at your best; you are our ultimate weapon," Bitstream continued. "And we need to demonstrate to this Fallen and the Autobots the power of a warrior elite."

Bitstream wasn't sure how effective his pitch was; he wasn't very charismatic. But hopefully the offer was tempting. Freedom always appealed to someone under another's thumb. Bitstream could sympathize with that.

"I know you might not trust me to really help you," Bitstream added. "I'm not here to put you under my control. I don't want to reprogram you..."

The moment of truth:

"I want to free you."

Uluru: Southern Base of the Rock

Sand pelted Magnus's armored plates as he stepped over the threshold of the trench into the line of the maelstrom that whipped around the ancient sand stone formation. He drove the hilt end of his massive double sided hammer into the packed earth and raised his hand to protect his optics from the constant frenzy of grit. He did not flinch as larger pebbles, dislodged by the furious storm, dinged against his exposed arm.

Thunderous claps of sonic booms and crackles of super charged ozone drew his attention up towards the summit above the swirl of orange and black. The Aerialbots flew in tight formation, easily maneuvering through the floating obstacles of dead or fragmented vehicon viscera. His optics caught the glimpse of a blue speck riding atop the point fighter. Immediately his targeting computer zoomed in to make out the distinct figure of the blue ranger as he held tight to the canopy of Slingshot.

A moment later the trio of fighters disappeared over the bank of expanding super-heated gasses. Seconds ticked down in his internal chronometer before Slingshot and the others emerged from an exit vector, minus their would be passenger. Ultra Magnus reached up and pressed his right index finger to his communications link to patch into the point flier in the formation. His systems barely cycled to the appropriate frequency when the winds of the torrent began to whip up into an even grander frenzy.

The summit of the pyre storm began to bulge and buckle at its seems. Bright scarlet flashes licked at the gaps between the waves of oranges and blacks. Another expansion of the bulge came in quick succession, followed by a third. Each time the flames buckled and spread apart more and more. The intensity of the fire within the storm increased with each calculable expansion of the gases and firestorm. Ultra Magnus was forced to turn his head ever so briefly as a scarlet flare washed over the battlefield before being replaced with what appeared to be a shimmer of translucent silver. Through the gaps in flame, Magnus's optics were able to focus on the small figure at the center of the expansion of the storm's ceiling.

"That is one daring Autobot." Magnus looked over to his left to catch the outline of Scoop as the infantryman worked to combine his two weapons into one massive source of firepower. "Not the strangest thing he's done."

"No, and probably not the most reckless either. Still..." Magnus did not finish his sentence as the forth blast erupted, this time visibly, from the barrel of Nova Strike's shoulder mounted cannon. Both Autobots watched as the scarlet bolt of lethal energies lanced from the large gun and impacted with the powerful shield beneath the swirl.

A powerful pulse of energies and radiation coursed down the sides of the rock, kicking up even more dust and rocks. Magnus was able to draw his hammer and swing it forward in time to pulverize a large multiple ton boulder of sand stone. He took notice in passing that Scoop had already activated his own personal shield in the form of his shovel and used it to fend off the debris send down from the assault.

To his credit the construction bot managed to withstand the onslaught with a smile. "I would like to submit for the record, Primus does work in mysterious ways."

Magnus did not reply, there was nothing he could truly add as commentary. All he could do was pull himself up and draw his hammer back into both hands. He allowed his vision to gaze up towards the intact shield and firestorm, which began to swiftly fill the void left by the powerful bursts from the Autobot's guns. "He put too much into those shots." He stated as matter of fact. It was then that from the corner of his field of vision Skydive and Fireflight broke off from formation to retrieve the wayward ranger.

The attack proved two things for Magnus's tactical computers. Rushing the mountain itself would be suicide at best because of the heat and flames of the maelstrom, and two Wheeljack's communique was affirmed. The radiation itself made signal locks almost impossible at their present range. The Supreme Commander opened a channel back to the 22. His responses were brief and succinct to both Wheeljack and to Red Alert, who had finally emerged from the depths of an investigation. Once he was done with his response he returned to the battle at hand.

The Protectobots had pulled themselves from battle and were now treating the ever growing numbers of wounded, as Magnus would have anticipated and retroactively agreed to. They weren't fighters, at least outside of their commander, they were probably the best chance many of the Cybertronians had to leaving this field alive. "Jazz, Scoop... we need to pull back 130 meters behind the trench for secure transport coordinates to be established..." He opened a link to Springer and ordered him and his team to fall back to designated coordinates. He also amended the distance by three meters in order to afford them all a running start.

Once satisfied the orders were received and understood, Magnus raised his hand and gave the order to his team to make their move. This battle was about to get close and personal, and Magnus intended to be the one to prevent the corrupted one from succeeding in his mad schemes.

Magnus fell back to the designated coordinates with Scoop at his side and Jazz close behind. "Jazz, as soon as we materialize within the appropriate range... I want you to hit the Fallen with your most powerful sonic assault. Use Earth Heavy Metal if you must to throw the Fallen off balance."

Scoop looked up in surprise at the commanding officer then back to the superior ranked Jazz. "Please try to use Primus approved music. This is an ancient evil after all. If you play music designated by these humans for darkness... it may have the opposite effect than what we are looking for." Scoop entered into a sprinter's stance, he had abandoned his attempts to combine his weapons. "Oh and don't forget the light show."

With that Magnus and he entered into a tight run towards the true bounce coordinates...

Uluru – Top of Ayer's Rock

Divebomb really could not believe what he had just seen. Sixshot getting punched and sent flying off of the rock and into the desert below. What in slag were they supposed to do against someone who could send Sixshot flying?! Divebomb supposed Headstrong and Tantrum would be the first to figure that out. Both were extremely bull-headed. He would have to figure that out for himself very soon as well.

Of course, if navigating these giant fire vortexes of doom wasn't enough, a sandstorm had to pop out of nowehere. What in Pit's name. He fought the furious winds of the terran storm with several strained wing-beats as he crawled his way to the eye of the storm directly above the top of the rock. Unfortunately, that left him little more than a sitting duck. Great.

>>"Predacons, hear me! Use the gas cloud to your advantage. Stay low and surround the Fallen! Once you are in position, open fire on the slagger with extreme prejudice! We must use brute, concentrated force to break through his personal shielding!"<<

Oh thank Primus.

Divebomb followed the attack order with glee, raining down missiles and lasers as he dove at the Fallen.

“SKRAAAAA!”


Uluru – South of Ayer's Rock

Ignored he had been. Utterly. Ignored he and his old comrade were. No more. Weirdwolf lowered the EMP weapon that he had snagged from the armory, tossing it onto the sand beside Skullcruncher's feet. His long-time friend would probably make better use of it than he could. Transforming into his lupine alternate mode, Weirdwolf growled irately at the sandstorm that had erupted from nothingness. He cast Skullcruncher a parting look.

“Go I into the heart of the storm. Luck be wished for you,” Weirdwolf growled as he darted into the raging sandstorm, swallowed up by it within seconds. The tracker did not rely solely on sight to navigate his way through the storm, but all of his senses, including the sixth. His claws dug deep into the sand for purchase as he raced toward the waiting rock. Wait. Something! Weirdwolf darted to the side as something brittle shattered into the sand where he had once been. He glanced at it curiously. Glass. It posed no real threat.

Weirdwolf pressed on. He ignored his sixth sense for the most part as shards of glass flew at him and shattered against his metal plating. It became increasingly harder to ignore as he continued, every circuit screaming at him to move away, dodge, something. He flinched as his actual sensors picked up something. Heat. A fire vortex was to his left. Weirdwolf immediately diverted course. From there, it was only a leap and a bound onto the side of the rock.

If he had wished, Weirdwolf could have leaped to the top of the rock in one bound without even trying, but stealth was the order of the day. Plus, the winds would likely throw him off course. So instead, Weirdwolf leaped onto the rock, clinging on with his razor sharp claws, scaling it in quick, short leaps. It was a short matter before Weirdwolf had reached the top. Slowly, stealthily, Weirdwolf pulled himself onto the top of the rock, staying low in the trenches.

”There my prey lies...” Weirdwolf said quietly to himself as he peeked out from his trench, carefully observing. ”Stalk shall I. Learn. An opening find...” Weirdwolf settled in to his trench and watched as the Predacons made their attack. ”Die you now? Far too easy would be it. Die you once my fangs I get into you...”

Australia – South of Ayers Rock

“Forgive the bumpy ride, Blue,” Blades said as he walked across the battlefield. “I know it isn't first class, but it could be worse. I could be carrying you in multiple pieces, eh?”

Not even a grin escorting his light tone could save that awful joke. Awful though it was, Blades's intention remained as it was: he wanted to provide Bluestreak with a diversion from the pain he was enduring. Neither of the two shuttles were close enough for Blades's liking just yet.

Bluestreak would live—he said as much himself—but he wasn't jumping back into the fray any time soon. As a Protectobot, it fell to Blades to extend aid to the weak, innocent and the injured, regardless of circumstances and degree of damage. So he tried to lure more chatter from the gunner as he carried him, hopefully transferring his thoughts to other matters aside from his pain.

Blades laughed when Bluestreak made the comment on the Fallen being invincible. The demi-god might as well have been. “Sure, why not? Fiery tornadoes, a giant and unnatural sandstorm that came out of nowhere, Sixshot learning to fly in a brand-new way but failing, it's definitely pointing to that.”

He bore witness to that magnificent sight. As he crouched behind the broken remains of a vehicon and contemplated his method of travel concerning Bluestreak, he saw the Fallen literally slug Sixshot off the peak of Ayers Rock. Send him tumbling through the air. Where he landed a great distance away with a mighty crash.

Sixshot. A Phase Sixer. Yikes.

Still king of the mountain, the Fallen was.

“Whatever the spawn of a glitch is, we'll beat him. Got to anyway, right? Otherwise we're all dead.”

Awful joke, meet terrible joke. But at least he was maintaining that diversion. In theory.

Blades presumed the medics were located on either of the shuttles, in spite of owning no proof. He hadn't asked for their coordinates, the simple yet vital question slipping his mind. This demi-god business had affected his performance to serve his fellow Autobots in an efficient manner. A rookie mistake.

“Dumbaft,” he said, scowling.

He would rectify that error by inquiring about Ratchet's location. Over the comm-link, they'd spoken earlier, Ratchet telling Blades to bring him only the severely wounded, the victims whose conditions compelled the skill of a medic.

Activating his comm-link, Blades was half an astrosecond away from contacting Ratchet when he spied a white vehicle, approximately thirty metres from his position, speeding along a human-made trail, clouds of dust chasing it in its wake.

“Is that...” He scrutinised the vehicle, crunching shrubs and cracked vehicon parts under his rhythmic steps as he walked, heedful of his passenger.

As luck would have it, the Autobot was the one Blades was after. He acted without delay, opening a channel to the medic.

>>“Ratchet! Blades here. I have another patient for you—Bluestreak. Banged up pretty good, too. Where are you heading? I'll see you there.”<<

Blades knew he wasn't cruising around for the fun of it. Chances were, additional patients were expecting him, but the Protectobot couldn't stop him; the mechs Ratchet would be visiting might be gravely injured. Not that Bluestreak wasn't, but priorities suggested Ratchet would tend to the worst before the rest.

Blades smiled. “Hold on, buddy. We're almost there.”

Uluru – South of Ayer's Rock

“I wish you would stop doing that...” Skids mumbled as he rubbed his chin after its latest 'bomp'ing.

"Hey Skids, you're a theoretician," Getaway said stating the obvious, "Theoretically, shouldn't those fire vortex's be creating a giant storm of glass shards from the sandstorm?"

“Well, yes. Technically, they shou-” Skids cut off abruptly as a rather large shard of glass impacted his faceplate. He looked over at Getaway with irritation etched in his expression. “You had to say something, didn't you, Getaway?” The shards of glass that followed the initial one were infrequent but rather large. Skids considered it thoughtfully. “It seems like the farther away one is from the fire vortexes, the glass shards will be larger but more infrequent...And if one gets closer...the glass shards will become plentiful and small. Just a guess, but still,” Skids said with a shrug, “Might help us navigate around the fire vortexes if its true. I'll tell Prowl.” Skids was about to do just that when he heard...someone.

”ALRIGHT, WHO DID THAT?!”

“Uhh...” Skids muttered as he glanced over to Getaway uncertainly. “What was that? Did you hear that? Please tell me you didn't hear that.” Skids definitely dearly hoped that Getaway had not heard the sound, that he was hallucinating thanks to some new Fallen power, and that no pissed off someone was going to suddenly appear out of the haze of the sandstorm. However, the fact that his audios were not on the fritz an astrosecond ago meant that he had indeed heard that. He had hit someone. Someone flying. An angry someone. Probably a Decepticon given the ratio of flying Autobots to flying Decepticons. In which case...

“Please be no one important...” Skids mumbled as he glanced over to Getaway, holding up his rocket launcher uncertainly.


Blaster transformed into his robot mode with a sigh of relief. He rotated his shoulders and tilted his head from side to side. Mass displacement was about one of the most uncomfortable things ever, but Blaster suddenly sympathized with Silverbolt's fear of heights. That ride had been less than entirely pleasant. It did feel good to be the proper size again. All the kinks in his gears worked out, the red communications officer glanced down at Eject with a confident smile.

“Ready to get rockin' and rollin', Eject? Can't let words like defeat or hopelessness staart working their way into the Autobot lexicon on my watch!”

Blaster looked at Ayer's rock and the fire vortexes surrounding it. Hmm...Despite being full of confidence that they'd get the job done somehow – they always had before – Blaster didn't like their chances. Without Optimus...Or, well, Pit, even someone like Megatron, chances were slim. And- Oh. Was that Sixshot? Yes. Yes, it was. Slag, not good. Well, it was hysterical to witness but what it meant for them was terrible. Uncertainty snaked its way into Blaster's thoughts, undermining his confidence.

To make matters worse, a giant sandstorm decided to spring up out of nowhere. The Fallen's doing no doubt. But...slag. He could control the elements? What were they supposed to do against that? Blaster frowned. Visibility was slagged no matter what sort of optical technology they had at their disposal. Probably wouldn't be a good idea to just go in guns blazing. Could hit someone.

“Let's see if we can find the ole prickbot, eh Eject? I'm sure he's got some ideas,” Blaster said with a grin down at his blue subordinate, showing none of the doubt that he actually felt. No. The Voice of the Autobots had to stay strong. Morale could win or lose a battle. He only hoped that applied to his one as well. “Just stay close, alright? Don't want to get separated in that.”

With that, Blaster walked forward into the waiting maw of the sandstorm, opening up a comm link to Prowl, noting the flash of a bounce behind him. Was that...Starscream and Shockwave. Hm. Blaster continued into the storm as he turned his attention to the open comm link. >>”Hey Prowl! Eject and I are earthbound and making our way through the storm. Wanna make that easier by sending us some coordinates? Also, looks like Starscream and Shockwave just arrived. You might wanna coordinate something with them.”<<

“Hey, Eject,” Blaster said to his little companion, “Think the Bots could -pfft- use one of my patented Blaster pep -pfff- talks?”


Uluru – Skies Above

Scavenger flinched as Bonecrusher threw bits of railing back at him and Mixmaster. “Hey...!” The excavator muttered unhappily. He was already feeling queasy thanks to the rough shuttle ride...He didn't want to have things thrown at him too! But, because Scavenger was afraid of gaining the disapproval of any one of his teammates, including Bonecrusher, he said no more, but pouted sadly and folded his arms over his chest.

The excavator perked up, however, as Mixmaster stood up and walked over to one of the windows in the cargo hold. The puppycon immediately hopped to his feet and followed Mixmaster curiously, peering over his comrade's shoulder out of the window.

"Anybody see see see the Fallen yet, huh? I wanna see him in battle. That'd be somethin' eh?"

“Where?! Where?!” Scavenger bopped behind Mixmaster, trying to get a better look without bumping his friend. Disappointment settled in when he spotted nothing. “I can't see 'im...Whoa! Slag, where did all that come from?!” Scavenger exclaimed as a sandstorm sprang up from the sides of the rock and moved outward. “What is that?! I can't see anythin' past it...Aww...no way we're gonna see th' Falln' in this mess...”

Australia--Uluru

Wind and sand and grit were whipping violently every which way. Sandstorm couldn't really see for slag and most of his secondary sensors were acting a little glitchy to boot. It seemed like the closer they got to the Fallen, the harder it was to get anywhere to do some kind of damage.

"I think....Broady....got lost!" Sandstorm called out, enjoying the humor in the fact that he had absolutely no idea which way he was going now or even what direction to shoot.

Then he thought he heard something come through on his comm system. The voice had been garbled, but it sounded familiar. Fragging high impact dirt had probably collided somehow with every non-vital system in his body.

"Was that Magnus?!" Sandstorm called out through the...sandstorm. "What's he want us to do?"

Australia - Uluru

Air Raid spent most of his time needlessly shooting his Torque Rifle at the Fallen, though, with no avail. Hearing that Silverbolt has called the Aerialbots to regroup and discuss strategy, Air Raid shifted his alt. mod westward, and sprinted towards his commander. Air Raid, a bit of a show-off, preformed a few spins and rolls in his way to Silverbolt, but transformed back into his flight-capable robot mode when he reached his destination.

Air Raid floated in the air next to Silverbolt, he noticed something strange about him. He looked like he was having some sort of anxiety, but it soon faded. "So, Fearless Leader, what's the plan? I did some shots from the Torque, but they don't seem to do much...though, if I could try it out again, but with a bigger volume, more pressure..." Air Raid thought aloud. "You know, scratch that, no pressure from my Torque can hurt them, we need ideas. Ideas I don't have"

Australia - South of Ayers Rock

The EMP grenades chugged at the Fallen and his cohorts by Skullcruncher had had abysmally little effect on their target. By either the use of a forcefield or some kind of gravity manipulation, the Fallen had brushed the grenades away to be detonated by their own internal timers, harmlessly away from the ancient Prime. Useless. Skullcruncher hated the feeling. Hated it so much that he had ended up crushing the the grenade launcher he was holding simply by increasing the pressure his hands were inflicting upon the weapon. Trash. Useless piece of equipment.

The Fallen was still doing pretty much whatever he pleased. Flailing that staff of his around and making Vehicons fly across the battlefield on a whim. And so the Skullcruncher ended up in observing.

The small mech with forcefields had left the Fallen's side. To his shock, Sixshot was brushed aside like he was nothing more than a featherweight contender in heavyweight match. And then a dust storm. That was like... magic, some primordial power he could not understand. And yet, one by one, all show cases of unexplained forces within Cybertron's history were being eventually solved by science. This would too. He had that much faith in those with higher brain functions than his.

He had to do something else. And Weirdwolf, always the faster one to react had decided so as well.

“Go I into the heart of the storm. Luck be wished for you."

"You need no luck. Tear him apart." Skullcruncher growled in response and jumped out of the trench himself.

The dust storm's interaction with the pillars of fire had began to turn sand into to glass shards. Glass shards that shattered harmlessly against the surface of his thick armor plating. It was a mere nuisance. A side effect he doubted the Fallen had counted to do any damage to living beings made of far stronger stuff than glass. It did though, along with the dust storm, make the idea of transforming quite unappealing.

Skullcruncher pushed on against the winds that were practically sand blasting paintwork off his armor. Slag no he was going to stand there and wait. This anvil and hammer nonsense was doing nothing for them. Not if they didn't push at least. They had to get press further or they could as well give up now. And he was willing to show example if others weren't. Too bad it would take time to get there with his lack of speed and practically going there blind.

Something about that staff the Fallen was wielding kept bothering him in the back of his mind though. Skullcruncher was certainly mentally plodding but he was far from stupid. The staff couldn't be just an ornament. Either it was a device responsible for some of the Fallen's power or an amplifier that made whatever force the ancient Cybertronian was manipulating more potent. It was worth of a shot to mention that to Weirdwolf who probably had already reached the top of the red rock.

>>"Weirdwolf! Focus on the staff! Get it off his hands, it must be part of his power!"<<

Australia - South of Ayers Rock

Sixshot lay motionless in his star fighter alternate mode on the desert floor. He was not gravely injured, not by a long shot. The phase sixer was simply in a state of shock by what had just happened to him and perhaps even a little embarrassed. Although, he cared little for what others thought of him, the sixchanger still had a reputation to uphold and that reputation had just been severely tarnished by the Fallen not once but twice. At the very least, the STAG could argue that it was an ancient demigod with supernatural powers that brought him down two times within a single breem and not some run of the mill Cybertronian. It was as good a excuse as any.

Licking his scarred ego, Sixshot finally transformed back into his robot mode, his back to the sandy ground beneath him. Starring up into the sandstorm that raged all around him, the phase sixer quickly caught sight of a small probe hovering above him. It appeared to be a scientific instrument of some sort, posing no real threat to him. The device was clearly scanning his body, a wide beam of light emanating from a central eye. Reaching up with a swiftness akin to very few, the sixchanger grabbed a hold of the probe before sitting up to study it further.

“And who might you belong to, little one?” Sixshot muttered aloud as he pushed himself off the ground with his free hand and got to his feet. Sand and tiny glass shards pelted his armored frame, causing little to no damage. He had a few minor dents and scratches from having crashed twice, not to mention a cracked face shield from the Fallen’s punch, but other than that, the STAG was in excellent condition. “Your owner must be very brave to try and scan the likes of me.” Sixshot continued as his grip on the struggling probe tightened with the intent to crush it. However, the sixchanger reframed from doing so and instead loosened his hold slightly. He did not know who exactly had sent it. Although, he had his suspicions, he wanted confirmation.

Looking around, it was difficult to see anything through the intense sand and glass storm, at least with naked optics. Sixshot’s external sensors helped a little, increasing his range and allowing him to identify certain mechs that were nearby. One such mech was the Autobot’s military strategist, Prowl. “Mmmmm...I wonder,” the sixchanger said, returning his attention to the tiny probe still clutched within his right hand. “Time to return to your master. Go!”

Opening his hand, Sixshot watched as the small device rose up and flew away through the storm right towards Prowl’s position. “Indeed,” the phase sixer thought as he followed the probe towards its destination. As he walked, the STAG received a transmission from an unlikely source, a 'Con that claimed to understand why the sixchanger had been bested by the Fallen and that simply wanted to free him from Starscream’s influence. Sixshot couldn’t help but laugh outwardly as he opened a comm line back to Bitstream:

>>”So, you want to free me, do you? What makes you think you are capable of doing such a thing when you can barely understand the protocol that is embedded within my programming? For the record, I was not infected by Starscream as you so incorrectly put it. The fail safe was installed by none other than the slagmaker, himself, as a way to keep me from turning on him. The cowardly seeker simply knows the code words that can deactivate me. I’ve had this ‘leash’ almost my entire existence and it has never impeded my abilities before. If you understood anything about the Fallen you would know that he is no ordinary adversary. He is a demigod with supernatural powers beyond anyone’s comprehension. Besides, I allowed him the first hit in order to gauge his strength. Thus, I have not been ‘bested’. I will return to the mountain top and destroy him as I will anyone else who gets in my way. Now, unless you have some deep seeded knowledge that will allow you to undo what Megatron has done, I suggest to quit wasting my time. I have bigger mechs to fry right now.”<<

Starting with a certain military strategist, Sixshot concluded to himself and he continued following the probe right back to it’s owner.
_________

Once again Prowl’s insistence that Ultra Magnus initiate his final solution had fallen on deaf audios. It was frustrating as it was becoming increasingly more clear now that the Sector Commander was going to wait until the last possible astrosecond before allowing a chunk of the planet to be warped away into the sun. Still, if they waited too much longer they might not have the opportunity to end the fiery demigod before he finally lays waste to all of them. Better to act sooner rather than later. Unfortunately, it was not the black and white’s call to make. Of course, that never stopped him from doing what needed to be done in the past. There was always a way. He just needed to find it.

With Magnus and his crew moving away from the sandstorm, Prowl returned his attention to the data that was streaming in from the probe scanning Sixshot. The small display on his forearm was lit up with a plethora of information that would hopefully be useful once fully analyzed. Perhaps, one day, the Autobots would even the playing field a bit more with their own phase sixer. It was the strategist’s dream, one that would hopefully come to fruition even if the higher ups were not on board with the idea.

“What the...” Prowl muttered to himself as the data transmission suddenly ceased and was replaced by a bunch of garble and static. “I don’t understand. There must be something wrong. Perhaps it’s this storm interfering with the download.” Moments later, the military strategist’s attention was drawn to a series of loud beeps over the roar of the storm as he looked up to see the small probe land on the edge of the trench that Prowl still resided in. “What are you doing back here?! I didn’t send a return....”

The black and white’s words were cut off sharply as a large foot suddenly slammed down onto the probe, smashing it into junk. Prowl took a step back and glared further up at the imposing form of Sixshot, who appeared none too happy with his little data gathering attempt. “Oh, I’m sorry, did that toy belong to you?” The sixchanger asked as he jumped down into the trench to confront Prowl. “So, you thought you could scan me, did you? Very brave for such a tiny mech or very foolish. I wonder which it is.”

Prowl frantically grabbed his rifle and brought it to bare as Sixshot loomed over him. The phase sixer swiftly knocked the weapon out of his actuators before a shot could be fired and then grabbed the black and white by his neck, lifting him up so that the STAG could look the Autobot directly in the optics. “I should rip you apart right now, Prowl! I should bathe in your fluids while drinking a can of high grade. I’ve done that before, you know, on other worlds with other stupid ‘Bots like yourself. Lucky for you, however, my primary target in all this is the Fallen. Killing you would only draw the wrath of your comrades which would be a real nuisance to me not to mention it would divert everyone’s attention from the real enemy here. It would all devolve into fighting amongst ourselves and the Fallen would enjoy the show as we destroyed ourselves and did his job for him. Therefore, Prowl, you will live, for now anyway.”

Sixshot then leaned in closer to the struggling military strategist, bringing his faceplate within an inch of Prowl’s own frightened visage. “However, if you ever try to scan me again, here or another time, I’ll kill you on the spot without even thinking about it, and I won’t even consider the consequences. I’ll just do it and watch the mayhem erupt all around. Understand, Prowly?” The black and white nodded as much as the choking grip around his neck would allow, bringing a smile underneath Sixshot’s cracked faceplate. “Excellent!” The phase sixer then dropped the military strategist to the ground before taking a step back and delivering a powerful kick that sent Prowl flying out of the trench. “Of course, I said I wouldn’t kill you now. I never said that you’d be undamaged. Heh. Now, back to the task at hand.”

The STAG then reverted to wolf mode and climbed out of the trench, making his way towards Ayers Rock. The mechanical beast kept low and away from the intense heat of the fire tornadoes. He would make the Fallen pay for the embarrassments he had previously endured and this time the sixchanger would not underestimate the fiery demigod’s abilities.

((OOC: More to come.))

Australia - South of Ayers Rock

Prowl landed with a hard thud as the sandstorm swirled all around him. He had been thrown a considerable distance away from the trench he had be holed up in, but that was a testament to the power of a phase sixer’s kick. Not quite as impressive as the Fallen’s punch, but strong nevertheless. Letting out a deep groan, the black and white managed to slowly sit up, rubbing his throat in the process as energon welled up inside his mouth.

“Ow. That hurt,” Prowl muttered after he spat out a thick wad of purple fluid. He was dazed from the kick, the wind having been knocked out of him, but he was still functional. The sixchanger’s foot had connected just under his chest assembly, leaving a sizable dent in his midsection. It became very obvious that Sixshot had not kicked him with all of his strength. If that had been the case then the strategist would be in much worse shape right now or even in complete stasis lock. Thankfully, Prowl had only received a warning from the STAG. Next time he might not be so lucky.

Well, at least it was well worth it, Prowl thought to himself as he looked down and checked the display on his forearm. What data he had collected was all there and ready to be analyzed at a later date. It wasn’t as much as he had initially hoped, but it was better than nothing at all. It was the first small step in his grand plan to develop an Autobot phase sixer. Almost anything was worth the chance at having that.

Closing his forearm display, Prowl received a transmission from Blaster, who was now on the ground with Eject. The communications expert was entering the sandstorm and requesting coordinates to aid in traversing the blinding anomaly.

>>”I read you, Blaster. I’m sending you the coordinates of a trench near the mountain along with the Fallen’s last known position. Use the trench as cover. I will meet you there shortly. The Fallen is still on top of Ayers Rock and is your primary target. Unfortunately, I can’t be more precise under these circumstances. Just do your best and fire at will. Aim for the summit's edge if you can. Try to create a landslide that will drop the rock out from under that blasted demigod! Magnus and a few others are going to attempt to bounce to the mountain top. If they are successful, more of us will likely do the same. Until then, provide whatever cover you can. Also, don’t worry about Starscream and Shockwave. If I see an opportunity to coordinate with them that will be beneficial then I will. Prowl out.”<<

Having regained much of his composure, the military strategist cut his comm line and got back up to his feet. Examining his damaged midsection, Prowl noticed a few cracks in his armor plating that were leaking energon. It was nothing too serious but ultimately it would slow him down some. He was also without his acid pellet rifle, which was probably buried somewhere in the sand by now. Luckily, the military strategist still had his shoulder-mounted rocket launchers, which would provide more of a punch than a mere gun.

Turning his attention back towards Uluru, Prowl saw that he was now further away from the mountain than he had been before. Placing his hand up to shield his optics from the flying sand and glass, the military strategist slowly proceeded forward in the direction of the trench where he hoped to find cover again alongside Blaster and Eject.

Australia – Shuttle Longevity – Combat Casualty Care

“Just tell me what to do."

First Aid kept his focus on his hands as they maneuvered inside of the gaping cavity that was Veneer’s back. His fingers were slick with thickening energon as he painstakingly tried to hold one open line. So when he heard Howlstrike offer his assistance Aid did not hesitate.

“Here….” Aid grabbed a hold of Howlstrike’s wrist and tugged the tracker closer to Veneer’s body. He then drove Howlstrike’s hand toward a severed line. “Hold this…tightly.” First Aid, now with one hand free, grabbed a hold of a tuned over instrument pan. He rooted around for a moment before getting a hold on what he was after.

As he placed the clamp into position Aid spared a quick glance up at Blindside. “I don’t know how it’s possible, but he’s alive.” A smile pulled at the corner of his mouth beneath his faceplate, but it was replaced by a slight frown. There was still much more to be done before Vee would be back to his old self….if he would make it that far. Aid shook his head slightly. He’ll be fine. I’m going to make sure of that, he told himself.

The sound of a click and the cessation of the flow of energon snapped the doctor back to his work. The bleeding was finally stopped. Gently Aid tapped Howl’s wrist letting the former Predacon know he could release the line. “I was able to close off most of the major lines. The others can wait.” First Aid nodded and shifted over to Veneer’s head. It was turned slightly to the right giving the doctor a decent view of the nurse’s mangled faceplate.

Carefully, slowly and gently Aid placed his hand down on the fallen mech’s temple as he looked into Vee’s darkened eyes. How he was able to hold on after what he’d been through was hard to fathom. “Got something to live for, huh Vee. Something or someone.” He whispered to his friend.

“Howlstrike. Help me move him onto a surgical slab. I’ll need to get to work on his cranium as soon as possible.” First Aid crouched down placing both hands around Vee’s head, stabilizing it so that he can be moved without further damage.

“Wh...What can I do, Aid?"

“Blindside. Stay close. I may need you to get me supplies.” He said to the blind tactician.

Australia – Uluru

"Oh no... What have I done?? This is all my fault!" Chromedome muttered to himself as he struggled back up to his feet. "Rewind... I'm so sorry... If only there was something I could do!"

Axle stared at the mnemosurgeon as he moved to get back to his feet. He was angry, Chromedome, at himself. At Hex. And Axle couldn’t blame him. He too was angry, but at the Fallen for taking advantage of Hex….for taking the others.

"Axle... Can we...We can br-bring him back right??" Chromedome asked the medical officer as he chocked back the pain, "Wh-what do you need me to do?..."

The former doctor slowly stood up and silently made his way to Rewind’s body. He knelt down extended his right arm and began a scan of the little archivist’s body. Axle placed his free hand over the stub on Rewind’s neck. There was no energon which meant that the lines were somehow sealed off. Axle’s full attention moved to that area.

He pulled his arm back and looked at the scanner’s findings. “I…I think I can reattach his head.” Axle looked up at Chromedome and then back at the body. “His T-cog and brain module are still functioning.” He left out the readings on Rewind’s spark. He was hoping the reattachment of Rewind’s head would change the readout of the spark. Which did not look as good as he’d hoped.

Instead of dwelling on it Axle turned back to the little mech’s head.

The medic gently took hold of Rewind’s cranium and placed beside his body. From his wrist joint he produced a small laser scalpel and a light. Before he started he looked to Chromedome unsure if he should ask the mnemosurgeon to do what he needed him to do.

“Chromedome, I want you to do something.” Axle reached out a gripped Domey’s hand. “I want you to keep an eye on Hex. He’s sedated but…The Fallen. There’s always a chance…” Axle didn’t finish. He didn’t have to.

Axle caught Chromedome’s optics. “Can you do that for me Chromedome?”

Uluru – South of Ayer’s Rock

The call he had gotten disturbed Ratchet to say the least. One of those Pit Spawned Heralds had made his way into the Longevity and attacked one of his medical staff. Veneer was a good friend to First Aid. The two got along quite well together. Ratchet was also fond of the mech. He was patient and efficient. Two qualities Ratchet wanted in his staff.

And now to think he might lose him…

Ratchet tucked his thoughts and feelings aside as he quickly approached Blurr and Smokescreen. He could already see that the racer was in serious distress. And from the description he got from Smokescreen the virus he was exposed to was highly contagious.

The CMO cae to a stop a few feet away from Blurr, transformed and quickly took a scan. The readings came in as positive for a seemingly rare form of metal and energon virus. He had seen it on several occasions and he was able to stop the virus from spreading, but he was in a controlled environment.

“Blurr..” he called out to the ailing Autobot. “Listen to me. You have to stay as still as possible. Moving around will only cause more leaks and the loss of more energon.” While he spoke Ratchet walked to stand beside Smokescreen. His attention remained on Blurr but Ratchet was also silently taking scans of the ralleybot as well.

He needed a way to transport Blurr back to the Longevity but without infecting himself or any of the others. And he had an idea of just how to do that.

>>”Trailbreaker! I need you and your force field to get to my location ASAP! Blurr needs to be transported back to the Longevity before he expires!”<<

Ratchet stepped in closer to Blurr. It was a dangerous move but he was not going to leave Blurr to deal with this alone. “I’ve called in someone to help get you back to the ship. Just hold tight.” Another step closer. “Tell me how you feel. Talk to me.”

>>”Smokey how long’s he been exposed to this?”<<

While he awaited a response from Smokescreen Ratchet received an incoming comm. He had hoped it was from Trailbreaker but...

>>"Ratchet! Blades here. I have another patient for you—Bluestreak. Banged up pretty good, too. Where are you heading? I'll see you there."<<

With a sigh the CMO opened a link with Blades.

>>"Blades. You'll need to take him to the Longevity. If his injuries are minor then he can wait. We've got our hands full right now. And I'm down one of my staff."<<

((OOC: The Fallen and Darkride sometime in the future))

Australia- Uluru

Roadblock drove through the battlefield as cooly as if he were taking a relaxing drive on a holiday. The death and destruction around him seemed to have no effect as he drove towards the field and then turned slightly towards the left as he got closer. His sensors told him what was happening at the top. The level of destruction being launched at the target was formidable and yet he still stood. That meant he must have some sort of protection. As formidable a warrior as he was he understood that this battle would not be decided with blind firepower. He drove into the smoke and chaos looking to lose himself in everything that was happening, his top mountain turret constantly aimed towards the Fallen.

He patiently waited for an opening, any opening. If he could get in one good attack with his acid launcher it would not matter if the target brought up his shields again.

Australia - Near Autobot Shuttle Longevity

Oil Slick had been heading for the rear lines, but his alternate mode, while fast, was not particularly designed for travel over this rougher terrain. He had to reduce speed to avoid being thrown when running over obstacles or spinning out trying to avoid them. The chemist was still quickly approaching where he thought Darkride would be, which was confirmed by Skywarp’s signal. He didn’t reply, hoping to make his arrival at least somewhat of a surprise to the possessed Decepticon.

Unfortunately it was he who was surprised when Skywarp abruptly teleported in front of him with Darkride. Oil Slick swerved violently to avoid colliding with the two of them. Unfortunately this sent him into a skid which quickly turned into a roll. The vehicle flipped again and again until the Decepticon transformed, landing on one knee on the ground, hand scraping the ground, bringing him at last to a halt.

The chemist took a few seconds to regain his bearings. A quick check showed that his various chemicals and systems had survived his near crash relatively intact. A closer and more detailed evaluation would have to wait until the battle was over, assuming he survived it intact enough to conduct the evaluation.

The chemist produced the vial given to them by the Autobots. He would have liked to do some thorough tests on it before putting it into actual use, but the situation did seem dire. He was hesitant to test Autobot science, particularly in his area of expertise. Taking a leap of faith was not really a character trait he was known for, but the circumstances called for it.

The Decepticon rose to his feet and ran towards the struggling forms of Skywarp and Darkride. "Hold him!" he yelled as he prepared to inject the chemicals into one of the major lines on Darkride's neck.

*

Australia - Uluru

Soundwave continued his cautious reading of the Fallen's thoughts. Each thought seemed to give off a red hot heat, as if they were engulfed in flames of rage. He had tasted anger before, but nothing like this almost supernatural rage. It was difficult to make out anything specific in his thoughts, just a general sense of rage and revenge.

There was something else though, another set of thoughts buried beneath the anger and rage. They were even harder to read, the patterns being weaker and interference from the rage of the Fallen. Still they were there, he could just barely taste some fear, anxiety and concern for comrades. These were feelings he knew the Fallen was likely incapable of even possessing.

Before Soundwave could sense anymore, he could feel his explorations coming under the focus of the Fallen. The effect was like using a magnifying lens on an ant. Where before he had skirted around the heat of the Fallen's thoughts, they were now focused directly on him. The Decepticon fell to his knees and clutched his head in pain. His optic visor began to glow brighter, turning white. He frantically retreated from the Fallen's thoughts, refocusing his mind away from the monster's.

Finally he could feel the heat receding from his mind, his optic visor returning to its natural red color. He looked around to regain his bearings, now taking in the chaos of the battle. Flaming vortexes were scattered around, along with the wreckage of several Vehicons. A full blown sandstorm whipped around them all.

The communication's expert was able to swiftly contact his cassette companions. Ravage had dug himself a hole not far from the Fallen and was trying to wait out the storm. He was patiently still looking for a moment to strike, but after seeing what the Fallen had already taken was doubtful even a full sneak attack would do anything to him. Rumble and Frenzy had taken shelter behind some rocks and wreckage, hurtling curses at the Fallen. Laserbeak and Buzzsaw had unfortunately born the brunt of the sandstorm and had been sent hurtling from the battlefield and crashing into the ground. They were still active but too damaged to rejoin the fight. Ratbat had, unsurprisingly, retreated the moment the sandstorm had started and would not return until it was clear. Slugfest and Overkill were still plodding towards the battle, although the sandstorm had reduced their already low speed to a near standstill.

With his friends taken care of Soundwave turned his attention back to his current commander. >>"Razorclaw, telepathic abilities used on Fallen. Results: inconclusive. Fallen is consumed by rage, difficult to read thoughts. Telepathically expelled from reading his thoughts by unknown abilities. Advise no further attempts at reading his thoughts. Of interest, a second set of thoughts detected in the Fallen. I suspect the Autobot who's body he inhabits still exists in some capacity. What are your orders?"<<

Australia – South of Ayers Rock

“You might wanna aim it at that big fragger standing on top of the rock, 'Bout. You know, that half god fella that wants to wipe us from existence?”

Runamuck said stupid stuff all the time (like the time when he'd asked a random 'Con how many astroseconds were in a klik because he'd “forgotten”). He even did stupider stuff, too, all the time (the radiation grenade incident where he nearly killed himself on Pantronii II was a fascinating tale), but occasionally Runabout outshone him with his own idiocy. A hardcore cannon brought to battle was usually used to destroy enemies.

Runabout held a hardcore cannon. The Fallen was the enemy. As one plus one equalled two, the weapon was to lend its power wasting the Fallen.

Surprisingly, Motormaster did not smack him for asking such a processor-dead question. Only a threat of physical violence and a verbal bashing to let Runabout know he was dumber than Blot on a bad day greeted him. He'd gotten off lightly, and Runamuck wondered why.

Ah, yeah... That's right. Busy with transmissions, Motormaster focused on them, leaving Runabout be. Great news for him as that didn't happen too often.

Laughing, Runamuck cuffed his brother across the shoulder-plate. “You greasy stain! What'd ya think you were supposed to do?”

Now was an opportunity to utter something witty, to capitalise on Runabout's duh moment, but Runamuck had nothing. Not a freaking thing. Not a single clever remark came to him. How embarrassing.

To fill in the awkward silence before it dawned on Runabout that his brother technically didn't finish what he was going to say, Runamuck said, “This sandstorm sucks. If it keeps up, we won't be seeing much soon.”

As if it heard the insult, the wind suddenly howled, thrashing against Runamuck with rapid strikes, its sand-coated limbs plinking against his armour-plating. The blazing tornadoes circling Uluru glowed eerily through the thickness of the storm, bright but smudged shapes twitching as they spun on their routes around Ayers Rock. Creepy but also cool.

Sandstorms, fiery tornadoes and glass shards—a product of the tornadoes' heat and the swirling granules and fine particles mingling together. They were bothersome, those shards, slicing Runamuck as they either flashed past him still managing to cut him or stabbing straight into his chassis.

Plucking a small shard from his arm and tossing it to the ground, the Battlecharger lifted his friction rifle to point it at the Fallen. Orders were orders, and he wasn't about to disobey them, especially with Motormaster this close by.

Wait, wait, wait. Was he supposed to shoot from here? Or was he supposed to climb the rock and shoot from there? Sand and dust obscured the demi-god's form so maybe—

“Boss,” he said to Motormaster. “Hey, boss. Am I shootin' from here or somewhere else?”

Australia - Uluru

“Hey, Eject," Blaster said to his little companion, “Think the Bots could -pfft- use one of my patented Blaster pep -pfff- talks?"

"You bet coach! Nothing gets the team rowled up during half-time like a good old pep talk!" The blue and white cassettebot joyfully exclaimed as he began pumping one of his arms into the air to simulate his enthusiasm for the idea. "Go ahead and get started on that, I'm gonna try and hop back on that game-plan of isolating a signal from the Fallen!"

A small antenna then erected from behind the smaller Autobot's right shoulder-plating and a small microphone-headset system ejected from the side of his processor.

"It's a little... fuzzy, at the moment... maybe if I try a different broadband..." Eject mumbered to himself as he placed a digit against the comm device. "Wait a minute! I think I got something! Yes! Yes! I've definitely got something!" The cassettebot practically exclaimed as he hopped up and down beside Blaster in the trenches.

"The Bears beat the New York Jets 24-22! I still get signal here!!"

Skies over Uluru

Scrapper reactivated the heat-dampers at the advice of Razorclaw's mentioning of fire tornadoes being swirled up by the Fallen's will. His fingers scuttled over the main controls of Misfire's freighter while his team in the cargo hold seemed to be getting more and more antsy with each passing Earth second.

Scrapper's rather calm mindset and flight into Earth's atmosphere was just abrupted by the sound of Bonecrusher coming in and complaining about the conditions of their transport.

"The ship is fine, Bonecrusher. And you best get over the itchy trigger finger, where we're going that won't be necessary."

Before Scrapper could issue another word to his Demolitions expert, the cabin was beginning to fill with the holler of the onboard siren.

"Oh no I must not have properly calculated the size of the sandstorm Razorclaw warned us about!" The Constructicon leader exclaimed as he tried to control the shaking of the ship, "It's bigger than I had anticipated, we're gonna have to readjust my original landing idea. Hook, you and Bonecrusher get to the back of the cargo hold and get everyone else up and ready, I'm gonna do what I can to land this hunk of junk!"

The tone Scrapper was using was one he rarely issues to his team. It was a harsher and more direct tone, one he often saves for insubordination or when ordering other troops outside his team around, but their current situation was becoming more and more dire and he needed to get done what was needed to be done and in such conditions there was no time to be messing around.

((OOC: More to come))

Austrailia--Uluru--Skies

As Starscream climbed higher and higher in altitude in order to steer clear of the supernatural sandstorm, the fire vortexes and whatever else the Fallen had up his metallic sleeve, he quickly notice that he had been summarily joined in formation by Thundercracker, and shortly thereafter by Dirge and Thrust.

>>"Thought you'd never get here,"<< Thundercracker said, an audible tone of relief in his voice.

>>"I was....somewhat occupied on the Thanatos. That's been taken care of. What matters is I'm here now,"<< Starscream said, banking hard to the right in order to come back around, gearing up his weapons for some kind of strafing run, though he wasn't sure what good that would do at the moment. >>"Question--where's Skywarp and Ramjet?"<<

>>"Skywarp's takin' care of some specific mission objective with one of the heralds. And Ramjet, uh..."<< Thundercracker began.

>>"Ramjet's still on the Ultrax. Plotting to be leader. Heh,"<< Thrust added.

That gutless, delusional sack of slag, Starscream thought.

This was certainly not the entirety of the Seeker ranks at his disposal, but they were the majority of his core strike force and he would make the best of it. Starscream banked right again, softer this time, and the other Seekers followed suit in perfect formation. Starscream opened up a commlink on the allied frequency he had picked up on. Deciding a strafing run would simply not be enough to get the job done, a better alternative presented itself. Particularly if he knew Razorclaw as well as he thought he did and the Predacon had put himself within physical combat range of the legendary demigod.

>>"Aerialbots! Form up on my position. We're going to bomb the Fallen back into Cybertron's archives where he belongs!"<<

In the region of Uluru

Somewhere remote, on the forgotten edge of the battlefield, a transformation occurred, immediately followed by the muffled sound of a confined space being filled by slightly larger robot.


*Klang*

...

*Thunk*

...

"MFFFYYYNNNYYYGGGHHH!!"

Ugh. How in the pit did I get trapped in here this time?!

*thump* ... *thump* ... *CLICK!*

In a small compartment of what appeared to be the severed leg of a warrior-class mech, a hatch was booted open and a small head cautiously peeked out and took in the carnage of the battle unfolding before him.

"Heh. CJ, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore..."

He scanned the surrounding area for intel, technology, someone he recognised... anything that could give him a clue what the dent was going on but the sandstorm was too intrusive and WHERE DID THOSE GIANT PILLARS OF FIRE COME FROM?!?

"Wow... If only Mal was here to see this - it would blow his mind."

The small framed transformer, little bigger than a native human leant on the edge of his 'safety locker' limb (say what you like about Crueljaw, but he did his job 'til the end) and scanned for active frequencies and communication channels.

There were garbled frequencies everywhere. His days as a comms centre were long behind him, but his recorded command directives from whilst he was stasis-locked, and his limited ability to unscramble a few unsecured transmissions was enough to convince him that things had changed drastically since his last foray on Terra. "'guess the 'infiltration protocols' didn't help much then?" he muttered rhetorically. No sign of his former team as yet either, he sent out a pulsewave to Darkfire, Landgrab and Vindicator just in case they could hear him. He looked down at the leg he has been housed in for who-knows how long. Crueljaw clearly wasn't in any state to respond either.

Lets see... Location: Australia. ... Threat: 'The Fallen' ... Wait, he's REAL??! ... Sector Commander: Razorclaw ... eh? No, Prowl. Hang on PROWL? What? As if... He disconnected; there was nothing to be learned from that nonsense, and a background white noise was causing interference, even above the general cacophony of battle. He erroneously attributed it to the Fallen's causing feedback and ignored it. Right, first order of business - where's Shockwave, is he here and why isn't he in charge of all this?

Using what was left of his confinement space as cover he spent a few more seconds surveying the battlefield. Once advantage of Uluru being in the desert is that you can see for miles once the sand settles, and he could make out what could have been be hundreds of familiar and not-so-familiar figures from both sides of the War all concentrating their fire on a silhouette obscured by the blazing columns of flame that licked at the sky. Eventually, he spotted various shuttle-shaped objects off in the distance, and finally his optics found what he was looking for, a familiar outline that could only be one person. Finally, some stability in amongst all this chaos!

<<<...Operative Psychout to Lord Shockwave. Uh, I have just been re-activated after an unknown period of stasis. Attempting to establish sit-rep and battle protocols, and reach my former team, do I have permission to head to your position Commander?>>>

The Deception special ops, psychological warfare specialist and self-titled technical genius cassette, slowly pulled the lid of the severed leg of his former bodyguard closed again over his head. In the darkness he wondered why, of all the times he had been shut down, did he decide to come back online now?

Somewhere, unbidden and previously unnoticed, in no more than a mere whisper something replied...
"because I demand it."