The Energon Pub

Since finding out about the reset, I've wanted to do write a story to wrap up the fate of my original team and give them a dramatic send-off. It's not finished yet, but figured I'd post what I have, since the length got away from me a little (and kaijubot's neat ongoing fic was a prod to get mine out the door as well); should be wrapped up over the next few days.

Hope some of you enjoy and comments/criticisms welcome:

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Prelude

Unicron came to Cybertron.

That he did would be no surprise to those few beings who could observe more than one pattern in the multiverse. Unicron making his way to Cybertron was inevitable, an unbreakable rule akin to the speed of light. But one thing differed in this timeline: This Unicron left Cybertron until the very last. Rather than rushing to the latent form of Primus and devouring it immediately, this Unicron took his time and consumed the remainder of the universe instead, eating the planets and stars on the edges of creation and working his way inward, nibbling at the fabric of reality itself. He did not leave Cybertron entirely unattended; occasionally, he would send an agent or two to create unrest or drop some trinket for the local population to fight over. Not that the inhabitants of this Cybertron needed much motivation for war. Even factions that espoused similar principles fought with each other over procedural minutia or racial pride. So focused were the inhabitants of this Cybertron on their war that few turned their eyes spaceward. They did not travel far beyond their own star system, and the war made other races give the planet a wide berth, so they did not hear the stories of the survivors, recounting Unicron’s insatiable gnawing at the universe. They did not build the measurement devices that would have allowed them to discover the universe growing smaller and smaller with every stellar cycle. The smoke and debris of war blocked out the sky, preventing most of the population from noticing that the stars were slowly, steadily blinking out of existence; the final transmission of light, from suns long ago consumed by Unicron, reaching Cybertron and fading into the void beyond the shrinking universe. Even those Cybertronians who could travel short distances in space did not notice until Unicron had moved closer and the stars began to vanish more rapidly…and they were too preoccupied with the war to give it much thought or were dismissed as combat fatigued. By the time enough voices were raised that they could not be ignored, it was already too late. Most of the universe was gone, most of Cybertron’s galaxy chewed away; all other life-supporting planets swallowed up in the darkness of Unicron’s maw. The tattered remains of the universe were too little to sustain continued growth and reality itself was beginning to collapse. Even without continued feeding, the time left for this universe was short. There was no salvation for Cybertron, no hope of escape or assistance. Whether through the Chaos Bringer or natural entropy, this universe would die. Unicron was pleased. All of his effort had borne fruit and it was now time to savor his victory; time to loose his hordes upon the unfortunate Cybertron and reveal the face of entropy, his face, to these children of Primus at last.

Death was inevitable, but not all would face it the same.

Part I - Chillout and Heatstroke, Persuasion and Faultline

Centigrade was, by far, one of Styx’s most successful experiments. Relying on the close connection between related sparks, the near-perfect bond between a Nebulon and their Cybertronian partner and “love” between organic beings, Styx had managed to engineer Chillout, Heatstroke and their partners with the option of combining to form a nearly flawless gestalt. Centigrade combined Chillout’s knowledge of tactics and hand-to-hand combat, Heatstroke’s flair for improvisation, Persuasion’s cunning and Faultline’s weaponry skill into a warrior that could easily turn the course of a battle. Twice as tall as the average Transformer, armed with Chillout’s thermal extractor rifle, Heatstroke’s plasma accelerator and an experimental thermal manipulation engine, Centigrade could easily send most opponents fleeing from a battle.

The Unicronians were not most opponents. No matter how many Sweeps Centigrade froze solid with his heat draining abilities, or how many Cyclone jets he vaporized by firing off the absorbed thermal energy as searing high-temperature blasts, the swarm simply closed in around him. Forced to focus his ranged attacks on the aerial assault, Centigrade could do little more than kick away the Cheetor drones nipping at the armor plating on his legs. The kicks sent the creatures flying but did little more than stun them for a few seconds before they crept back, jaws dripping with Angolmois, and Energon stained claws leaving prints on the twisted surface of Cybertron. Finally, with the sustained assault from air and ground wearing him down, Centigrade’s power cells began to fail, the circuitry and software holding the gestalt together breaking down to protect the minds and bodies of the individual components. Collapsing to his knees, Centigrade’s last thought was to open the main reactor on his thermal manipulation engine, releasing a vortex of shifting temperatures from absolute zero to nuclear heat. The resulting explosion swept over several miles of Cybertron, tearing Unicronian drones and fellow Cybertronians to pieces.

As the mist settled from the explosion, Chillout picked himself up slowly. Bits of frozen metal, the ground liquidified by the intense heat and then flash-frozen, crumbled away from his armor and clinked delicately on the planet’s surface. Diagnostics showed less than 26% power remaining, severe damage to his auditory sensors and a multitude of stress fractures and wiring glitches in his endoskeletal systems. He stumbled several steps and almost tripped, misjudging the position of the ground. Another quick diagnostic revealed that his exoskeletal sensory grid was completely offline, leaving him incapable of feeling any sensation on his metallic skin. The pain of his battered servos was present, though, and he used it to judge when he had completed a movement, as he reached down and picked up his gun. He stumbled through the remaining fog, soundless and without feeling. Persuasion’s voice echoed in his mind as she yelled, trying to encourage him to keep on moving, to not give up. But he felt her panic too, worrying about whether her husband was still alive, about when the Unicronians would continue their assault. Chillout shouted for Heatstroke and Faultline, before realizing dimly that he would not hear their replies, and the words came out as a garbled squawk. Finally, he saw a shape in the mist and raised his gun slowly, his hand trembling and jerking uncontrollably. Liquid helium dripped slowly out of the weapon’s built-in cooling unit, spilling across Chillout’s cracked armor and into his internal systems, shorting out more wires and sending pain through his hand.

Heatstroke emerged from the fog, his armor cracked and several large pieces broken off of his chest and right leg. His right arm was melted into a formless stump and light shone through a large crack in his abdomen; his spark casing exposed. Faultline stood on Heatstroke’s shoulder. The Nebulon’s left leg was missing from the knee down and he leaned heavily on his partner’s head, using the cracks as hand-holds. Faultine’s Targetmaster armor was severely damaged and a few thin lines of blood dripped out of the cracks. When they saw Chillout, both Faultline and Heatstroke smiled weakly and stumbled closer. Chillout grinned as best he was able and lowered his weapon. Seeing his brother, and sharing Persuasion’s elation at seeing her husband, boosted Chillout’s spirits and he moved quicker towards them. He did not notice that both had frozen in place and were shouting desperately at him.

The long, thin bolt from Dirgegun’s needle launcher ripped through the back of Chillout’s head, exploding his right eye upon exit. The wound was thin and the hole smaller than several others in Chillout’s mangled body. Such a wound, in an average Cybertronian, would have been little more than a painful nuisance, with the bolt having missed the typical location of standard Cybertronian neural circuitry. For a Headmaster, the shot was lethal. Pain flooded Chillout’s mind and body as the bolt tore through Persuasion’s fragile organic body; his spark seized with agony as her heart was pulverized and his body went numb as hers. Heatstroke and Faultline gaped in horror as Chillout stumbled weakly towards them, sparks snapping wildly from his neural circuitry as it overloaded, Persuasion’s blood pouring from his eyes and mouth as he screamed a series of random beeps and squawks. Lacking any concept of death, understandable in a species that could easily be rebuilt, Chillout’s mind was unable to withstand Persuasion’s pain, terror of her own death and loss at being taken from her husband. His spark falling apart as her body died, Chillout finally collapsed.

Dirgegun had scarcely a moment to laugh before Heatstroke attacked, grabbing the Unicronian general and battering it with his melted arm. Each frenzied blow knocked small pieces away from Dirgegun’s body and dented his exostructure, cracking glass and exposing wires. Kicking the Unicronian to the ground, Heatstroke smashed his foot into Dirgegun’s face and, using the leverage, grabbed his opponent’s right wing and tore it free from his body. Heatstroke spun the wing around in his hand to wield the jagged edge like a sword and alternated blows, slicing at Dirgegun with the wing and pounding with his wounded arm. Faultline hung on tightly to Heatstroke’s helmet and yelled words of encouragement through tears; Heatstroke attacked more ferociously with each shout. After several minutes, Heatstroke took a step back from Dirgegun’s mangled body. As he watched, the Unicronian slowly began to twitch and, to Heatstroke’s horror, to regenerate. Dirgegun laughed as cracks sealed, dents popped themselves back into place and his wing began to regrow. Through a massive hole in the creature’s chest, its spark was visible. Faultline pushed off of Heatstroke’s shoulder and dove towards that gap. Though his Targetmaster armor was damaged, most of his power cells were intact and Faultline turned them all up to maximum, deactivating the emergency venting mechanisms. As he passed through into Dirgegun’s chest, the energy of the Unicronian’s spark tore the flesh away from Faultline’s body but did not stop his overloaded power cells from detonating. As the blast launched a shocked Heatstroke into the air, he heard Dirgegun shriek and the creature’s spark was ripped to pieces.

Heatstroke lay on the ground and gazed up at the red sky, crackling with a strange energy that arced from one small, rippling, iridescent hole to another. He could see Unicron’s left foot on the surface of the planet, the leg extending up into space, passing through the flaming clouds. It looked like it had always been there, like it belonged there, a golden and silver tower from Cybertron’s greatest age. His systems were all trying to force him into stasis lock to preserve the integrity of his spark, but Heatstroke resisted; realizing it was pointless, he chose to face the end with his eyes open. Most of his body was already gone. His legs, left arm and most of his exoskeletal armor torn from his torso endoskeleton by the blast, the servos in his right shoulder crushed to pieces. For all the explosions and laser fire in the distance, it was remarkably quiet to him. Despite a life spent savoring the sound and fury of battle, Heatstroke found himself rather taken with the silence. Everything felt slow and comfortable and his mind drifted between thoughts as a quartet of Terrorsaur drones circled lazily overhead. Slowly, they tightened their circles and glided gracefully towards the planet’s surface and Heatstroke. They saw no need to rush; their meal wasn’t going anywhere.

Part II - Disrepair

Inputting the last weapons activation sequence code, Disrepair pushed her seat back from the command terminal. She sat for a moment, gazing at the scene outside in the viewing monitors. Greenish flame rolled across Cybertron’s surface and lasers fell from the sky in a glowing rain. She sighed and stood, picking up her double-barreled pistol and walking slowly towards the elevator. She fiddled with the controls on her weapon, shifting the outputs back and forth before deciding on a wide-beam, high-power electromagnetic burst strong enough to virtually liquefy most Cybertronian circuitry. Holstering the weapon, she leaned back against the elevator and sighed again.

“Headin’ out, Dizree?” The booming bass of Jumbotron’s voice echoed and vibrated the walls, as the massive citybot broadcast his speech over the intercom, throughout the complex that composed his base mode.

“Yeah,” she sighed.

“Sure you don’t want to stay here and help me put a few holes through that slaggin’ planet thing? I could use someone to run the forward laser turrets.”

“I’ve uploaded the code that’s needed, you can handle it without me,” Disrepair slumped down and sat on the floor of the elevator car. “Probably handle it better without me.”

Jumbotron paused for a moment, then laughed. “I guess it’s better you aren’t in here. After I put a massive blastin’ on ol’ Unicron, he’s gonna be pretty mad…and I bet he’ll be usin’ whatever’s left of his body to put some serious hurtin’ on me.”

“You’ll die,” Disrepair replied flatly.

“Meh, it happens. But he’ll be thinkin’ of me every time the huge crater in his torso starts achin’.”

“We’re not going to win this.”

“Probably not, but there’s always a chance. I like what you always say, about how death may be inevitable, but we kick slag in its face every time that we fight and do something to cheat destruction…even if it’s only for a few clicks.”

Disrepair remained silent.

“Bet that’s why you’re headin’ out there, right Dizree? Gonna kick a little slag in Unicron’s face?”

“Something like that,” Disrepair stood as the elevator hit bottom and the door slid open with a faint whoosh. She paused as she stepped out into the access tunnel and leaned her hand against the wall. “Fire off a few rounds for me, big bot,” she said weakly.

“A whole missile battery from you to him.”

She nodded, transformed to all-terrain vehicle mode and rolled slowly along the tunnel. Once Disrepair’s scanners indicated she was out of range of the last security cameras and listening devices, she transformed to robot mode. “Good luck and goodbye, Jumbotron,” she whispered, gazing back down the tunnel wistfully.

Disrepair paused for a moment, listening to the war, audible even through the thick walls of the tunnels. Explosions and other rumblings shook the ground, jets screeched through the air and there was the ever-present undercurrent of screams and the crackle of green flame igniting solid metal. She sighed, unholstered her electromagnetic pistol and activated the power cells. “Delaying termination isn’t the only way to cheat death,” Disrepair said with a sad smile, turning the gun’s muzzle towards her chest and pulling the trigger.

Part III - Flashburn, Timeframe, Sonicatrix and Shatterwing

“Just leave me behind and save yourselves! There’s no time to repair me,” Timeframe shouted, as Flashburn crouched over him. Smoke rose from the twisted remnants of the younger Autobot’s left arm, rolled up Flashburn’s chest plate and continued on towards the ceiling of the devastated Energon refinery. Across from them, the remainder of the upper floors sagged down towards the entryway and a pile of partially melted debris was strewn over the floor.

Sonicatrix clenched her fists and kept her optics focused on the one small opening in the rubble. Occasionally, a tongue of green flame would shoot through the gap, licking ineffectually at the heavily-shielded walls of the refinery but liquefying more of the wreckage on the ground. With her enhanced auditory sensors, Sonicatrix could hear the creatures around the exterior of the ruined building. Cheetor drones scurrying and dodging, clawing at the refinery walls, searching for a way in, hunting them by their energy signatures. Occasionally, the structure would shake as Rhinox drones pounded their rheanimum-treated horns against the building, slowly widening every miniscule crack. Another thud and Sonicatrix noticed a beam of light coming through the wall to her right. She held her ground and made no move to reinforce the hole or attack the drones outside, knowing any such attempt would merely cause the beasts to redouble their efforts in that area. She kept still, carefully eying the cracks in their temporary sanctuary and waiting for Shatterwing. “Stop trying to be noble, Timeframe,” she finally responded. “There’s nowhere else for us to run or hide now. All we can do is stand our ground and hope we can fight these things off long enough for someone to pull a miracle from beneath their skidplate. And if we’re going to fight, we need you on your feet.”

With a quick pulse of positive ions to the right neural cluster, Flashburn popped Timeframe’s chest plate open and went to work with his surgical tools, soldering wires under his patient’s shoulder with one hand and interfacing with Timeframe’s diagnostic hardware with the other hand. “So throw me outside,” Timeframe shouted, jerking up from the refinery floor, only to have Flashburn shove him down again. “I’m missing an arm and I can’t even transform; I’m useless in a battle. But if you toss me out there, maybe I can keep them busy and away from both of you for a few breems.”

“For the last time, no,” Sonicatrix snapped. “We’re not throwing you outside, letting you sacrifice yourself, handing you a pistol and telling you to keep one round for the end, or whatever other idea you’ve got about a heroic death. The rest of the team may be gone, but I’m – “ Sonicatrix was cut off by a loud, prolonged shriek. Her sensors told her it originated from over ten miles in the air, but the noise echoed throughout the refinery, vibrating the metal of the structure as though it came from mere feet away. “Slag! Flashburn, how much time left?”

“Mmm? Not time…place…” Flashburn muttered absently. He had turned his attention away from Timeframe’s shoulder and was now focused intently on the wiring and mechanisms in the center of his patient’s chest. In particular, he busied himself with a small spherical mechanism tucked just below Timeframe’s spark casing. Flashburn had removed the outer layer of the sphere’s armor plating and was rearranging several batches of wires, plugging them into different locations, stripping some and splicing them together, while removing others entirely. At the center of the sphere was a hollow crystal that contained a foggy, red light which pulsed on a regular frequency. Flashburn would pause occasionally to hold his wrist sensor array near the crystal, recording it’s pulsations and then continuing his adjustments to the various wires and diodes.

“Flashburn! Time! Left! Now!” Sonicatrix shouted, as the shriek grew louder and closer, smaller pieces of debris rattling across the floor.

Adjusting a tiny radar dish on his left shoulder, Flashburn locked a small tube of chemicals into a port on the underside of the sphere in Timeframe’s chest and injected the mixture. The surface of the crystal turned blue for a moment and its pulsations changed as it faded back to translucent. Flashburn recorded the pulsations again and nodded. He reached around behind him for a surgical tool he had set aside, but the vibrations had caused it to slide a short distance away. Muttering, he produced another from a containment unit in his leg. “Oh, about a breem, I should wager. Maybe less if the temporal liquid harmonics get in tune…with the…subspace…field…plane…” He trailed off again, continuing his adjustments. Curious, Timeframe tried to peek in at Flashburn’s work, but the angle of his own raised chestplate blocked his view.

The entire refinery had begun to shake, with less secured pieces of debris tumbling from the ceiling and clattering off the floor. “If I can last a breem…” Sonicatrix whispered to herself. The shriek reached a crescendo, passing beyond even the range of Cybertronian hearing. To Flashburn and Timeframe, the building was now deathly quiet, but Sonicatrix’s acute sensors alerted her and she transformed into communications platform mode, broadcasting a powerful counter-frequency that stopped the vibrations. Seconds later, an object smashed through the ceiling several yards in front of her and slammed into the ground with enough force to rattle the entire building. A large section of the unstable roof collapsed over where the object had fallen, revealing the burning red skies and fields of green flame. In the distance were Unicron’s legs, rising up through the smog and clouds, Sweeps and Cyclone jets flitting around them. A massive, dark shape could be seen rising from the surface of Cybertron, coming up to barely the middle of Unicron’s shin, but still taller than any of the ruined buildings that covered the planet’s surface. And the lightning, arcing between random points in space, grew ever more frequent as the iridescent voids grew larger.

Sonicatrix managed to transform to robot mode and pick herself up just in time to see the pile of debris shift where the object had fallen. Drawing her weapon, she positioned herself between Timeframe and Flashburn, who after a slight slip had returned to his work without notice. A hand broke out from the scraps of metal and Shatterwing pulled himself out of the rubble. He was tall, having at least ten feet of extra height on the average Cybertronian, and broad at the shoulders. Jagged spikes grew from the angles on his body; elbows, knees, finger joints and claws. His wings heaved slowly, creating a light breeze which disrupted the dust on the ground. Energy rippled across his body, barely visible like sunlight reflecting off light oil. Small bits of debris fell against this energy and bounced off without Shatterwing paying it any heed. A different energy dripped and sparked from his every joint, from the minute cracks in his armor, from the jagged scar on the right side of his face, from his eyes and mouth: Angolmois. Their infected teammate cocked his head to the left and looked at them quizzically, scratching his head with one long talon, as though trying to remember a fond memory long since disappeared.

When they had discovered The Fallen’s force field generator, all of Cybertron had battled for a chance to possess and use the device. Ultimately, with the help of the Secret Society, Shatterwing had won the right to test the unstoppable power of the armor. It had worked well initially, but quickly burned out and none could determine a way to recharge the artifact. Laser Scalpel had removed the device from Shatterwing’s systems, but the undetectable taint of Angolmois had already crept into his body. At the moment Unicron arrived, Shatterwing became a slave; his form remade, the force field generator regrown and once again shielding him from virtually all attacks. A surge of Angolmois flashed in Shatterwing’s eyes and he gave up searching for his memories. He dropped to all fours, snarled and gnashed his teeth, the twisted green energy dripping from his jaws. He let out a shriek that tore through the building and began to shake the structure once again.

Sonicatrix instantly broadcast a dampening frequency through her arm-mounted speakers and brought her weapon to bear. She opened fire, but the harmonic energy blasts broke against Shatterwing’s force field and splashed away. Roaring, he threw himself at her and she responded with a devastating Metallikato kick to the face. Though the blow snapped Shatterwing’s head around, no damage was done and Sonicatrix ended up falling from the backlash of the impact. Quickly regaining her feet, she attacked with a flurry of punches and kicks, doing little damage, but keeping Shatterwing off balance. As she swung, Sonicatrix planted tiny explosive devices on her opponent, sticking them directly to the force field. Finally, she pushed herself out of the way and detonated the minibombs, the force of the explosions launching Shatterwing back to the other end of the refinery. A flock of Airazor drones circled in the open sky above the damaged building, but pulled back as Shatterwing rose from the rubble.

“There!” Flashburn exclaimed, snapping Timeframe’s chest plating shut, standing and dusting his hands off. “You’re all ready to go.”

Sonicatrix skidded to a halt beside them. “He set?” She asked, looking at Flashburn, but nodding in Timeframe’s direction.

“Oh, certainly, yes. Up you go,” Flashburn helped the younger Autobot to his feet.

Timeframe’s face lit up and he grabbed Flashburn’s shoulder with his good hand. “So you patched up my shoulder? I’m ready to fight?”

Flashburn shot Timeframe a confused look. “Shoulder? What are you…” Flashburn glanced off in the distance. “Pardon me,” he nonchalantly drew his rocket launcher and fired a round of four missiles, all of which slammed into Shatterwing’s chest and sent the Unicronian convert bouncing back to the other end of the building again. Flashburn cocked his weapon, loaded four more rockets and handed the gun to Sonicatrix. “All I did to your shoulder was patch a minor fuel leak. I’ve been working on adjusting your chronal manipulation engine. Confirmed my suspicions that, with a little tinkering, it can serve as a fine makeshift dimensional transporter.”

“Dimensional…so that’s why you needed me around still! We’re all going to escape by jumping to another dimension. Nice work, Flashburn,” Timeframe exclaimed, clapping the older Cybertronian on the shoulder.

“What? Oh no, we aren’t going anywhere; the engine is keyed only to your spark signature. You’re going.”

“So…what are you two going to do?” Timeframe asked, glancing at Sonicatrix with a concerned expression.

Flashburn followed his gaze. Shatterwing was using his talons to keep himself secured to the floor and the rockets were merely exploding against his force shield without driving him back. Sonicatrix swore loudly and increased the volume on her speakers, adding a sonic attack to the rockets and her own harmonic energy blaster. “Well,” Flashburn rubbed his chin, “I suppose we’ll cover your escape and then, in all probability, die.”

Timeframe gaped. “I won’t let you! I’ll…I’ll just stay here and…and fight! Or…or…or I’ll take Shatterwing with me, suck him into some kind of dimensional…rift…thingy and kill him.”

“That’s a nice thought, Timeframe, but it wouldn’t really matter. This reality is falling apart,” Flashburn gestured at the sky. “Even if Unicron or his beasts don’t consume us, this universe will implode and do the job for him. And besides, this decision is out of your hands.” Flipping open a panel on his right arm, Flashburn tapped in a quick sequence of keys and a short, thin tube of swirling grey chemicals rose from his forearm. With a flick of his finger, he snapped the tube in half and a quick beep emanated from his circuits.

But where Flashburn heard one pulse of sound, Timeframe perceived a loud squeal that grew incessantly higher. He snapped his good hand against one audio receptor and turned off the other, but still the noise grew. He winced in pain and shut down his optics. Over the din of the noise, he thought he heard Sonicatrix scream…and then all sound was gone. Timeframe reactivated his optics and saw Sonicatrix stumbling, smoke billowing from the entire left half of her body, that arm and side of her head completely gone. As she fell, he saw Shatterwing, still several yards away, his eyes glowing bright green and then firing out a thin beam of concentrated Angolmois, destroying the harmonic gun in Sonicatrix’s right hand. Flashburn opened fire on Shatterwing with his machine gun and the colour began to slowly drain out of the world for Timeframe. A quick diagnostic revealed nothing wrong with his optics, as reality faded to shades of grey, then to black, with thick white lines surrounding the outlines of every object. Contrast and perspective vanished, and the black-white world appeared two-dimensional to Timeframe as he grew dizzy. The only thing clear, coloured and solid was his own hand, as he put it out to stop his fall. But the ground was gone, the white outlines disappeared and Timeframe fell into subspace. His body became light and numb, then all feeling swept away as the dimensional engine pulled him atom by atom through the multiversal focus.

Flashburn watched Timeframe’s body disperse, diffusing away like a cloud of vapor in a gentle breeze, then turned back to the battle. Shatterwing was snarling and stalking slowly towards Sonicatrix’s fallen body. A pair of Cheetor drones crept over the rubble and moved stealthily across the refinery, matching their steps to Shatterwing’s and keeping to the shadows. Still, the larger predator heard them and turned, snapping at the closest drone. Cowed, the pair slunk back into the shadows and turned their optics towards Flashburn, waiting for the alpha to signal it was their turn to feed. Reaching into another compartment in his leg, Flashburn withdrew a handful of blackout grenades and hurled them at Shatterwing. The mutated Autobot did not bother to move, fully intent on Sonicatrix, and the grenades exploded against his face, releasing a cloud of dark energy that clung to Shatterwing’s eyes. The creature shrieked in anger and clawed at the black energy obscuring its vision. No sooner had Flashburn activated his scanning array to analyze Shatterwing’s force field, then one of the Cheetor drones seized the opportunity and leapt at him. The beast smashed into Flashburn’s chest, knocked him to the ground and bit down on his shoulder. Agony flashed through his circuits as serrated jaws tore through wire and armor plating, Angolmois energy burning circuitry and melting servos with every twist of the drone’s head. Flashburn activated the surgical suite in his free arm and began to bore a hole in its chest when the second Cheetor pounced, crushing his forearm in its jaws. Though he tried to shut down his pain sensors, the sting of the Angolmois broke through his anesthetic programs as it ate away at his endoskeleton. The second drone pulled his lower arm free and Flashburn watched with fascination as the metal touched by the Angolmois corroded and liquefied, the reinforced armor plating on his hand dripping away in the creature’s jaws.

And then, they were gone. In a blast of sound so intense that it instantly destroyed Flashburn’s auditory sensors, the Cheetor drones exploded into a shower of metal fragments. Flashburn gazed towards the source of the attack, expecting to see Shatterwing growling in his direction. Instead, Sonicatrix rose unsteadily to her knees, her remaining hand outstretched towards him. Thin whisps of smoke drifted from the speakers on that arm, each destroyed completely by the strength of the low frequency assault. The remnants of Sonicatrix’s head slumped over onto her shoulder, her left optic hanging lose from its socket. The entire left half of her body was gone, from the top of her head to her hip, and charred circuitry snapped with electricity in a complex, yet repeating, pattern. She attempted to mouth something, but this merely caused the intact half of her jaw to tilt down to the side and wobble ineffectively. Flashburn tried to move to her, but found himself helpless, both arms destroyed and the Angolmois having eaten away most of his central motor circuitry. He could feel it seeping into his spark containment unit, intense cold stabbing into the core of his mind and body. Finally, he set his head back against the floor of the refinery and mouthed to Sonicatrix: “I look forward to investigating what lies beyond this world. Do what you must. Goodbye, my friend.”

Sonicatrix had a chance to nod weakly once, before Shatterwing finally pounced, driving her into the ground. The beast drove its jaws into her chest, tearing at the remaining vital circuitry and exposing her spark. As it was distracted with feeding, Sonicatrix brought her hand up to Shatterwing’s torso and placed her palm again his force field, trembling at the effort through her wounded servos and focusing even as the corrupted Autobot bit at her circuitry. The force field shimmered around her hand as Sonicatrix activated her phasing power, sliding her fingers into Shatterwing’s armor. Shatterwing shifted position, causing her entire lower arm to plunge into his circuits. The creature suddenly jerked as Sonicatrix began to resolidify her arm, meshing her atomic structure in with his circuitry. Shatterwing brought his claws up and tried to tear her arm out, but his own force field sealed the wound. He stood up, with Sonicatrix hanging from him, her arm elbow-deep in his chest, and tried to pull her arm free from her body. But it was already too late: A single iron atom in Sonicatrix’s right hand emerged from phase shift and attempted to occupy precisely the same space as a copper atom in Shatterwing’s wiring.

Flashburn managed to smile in the last microsecond, before the fusion reaction vaporized the refinery and much of the surrounding area.

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Author's Notes:
- Not sure I really wrote it down anywhere clearly in their bios, but Timeframe's built-in device, that Flashburn reprograms here, gave him the ability to adjust the flow of time in his frame of reference; mostly useful for duplicating super-speed (ie - like the current Professor Zoom in the Flash comics). Sonicatrix had an ability to phase through objects she was touching, based roughly on a manipulation of mass-shifting.
- Shatterwing's force field is a reference to the "Heralds of the World Eater" tournament awhile back, where he was the individual winner and got access to The Fallen's force field armor for awhile.

Part IV - Laser Scalpel

Laser Scalpel thought he had been falling, but was no longer entirely certain. In pitch blackness with no frame of reference, no resistance from an atmosphere pushing up against him, it was impossible to judge whether he was still plunging deeper and deeper into Unicron’s internal systems, or whether he had landed already and was simply lying on his back, staring up into the darkness. Or perhaps he had landed on his front and was staring down at the floor. The pressure sensors on his exoskeletal structure had been heavily damaged and were feeding him nothing but garbled data anyways, so he had shut them down. His pain sensors were not proving so easy to disable and he suspected some damage to his neural circuitry. Such damage would certainly explain his inability to remember how long he had been falling. Or not falling, if that were it.

He could remember being on the surface of Cybertron, separated from his team and triaging injured patients in a heavily fortified hospital. He had been soldering a Decepticon’s arm…or leg, perhaps…when suddenly, the entire building had caved in on them. He had felt his left arm and leg crushed, one of the building’s support beams puncturing his chest and then something smashing against the back of his head. He managed to regain his orientation long enough to find himself pinned in place, trapped in the tightly compacted remnants of the building. Laser Scalpel had been close enough to a view port to be able to look out and see down the length of Unicron’s arm, to realize dimly that the massive being had torn the hospital free from Cybertron’s surface and was raising it into space. He watched helplessly as Unicron raised the bolus to his eyes, examined it for a moment and then opened his massive jaws. Laser Scalpel remembered hearing screams, but couldn’t quite decide if any of them had been his own.

And now he was falling…or not…with the pain his only reference point. The debris all seemed to have fallen away from his damaged body, although that had merely had the effect of tearing off his left arm and leaving a massive hole in his chest. Diagnostic circuits switched off and on randomly, feeding him information that provided some minor explanation for the agony throughout his body. Stripped gears, shattered endoskeletal supports, reinforced armor plating flaking away like rust. He wondered if it actually was dark, or if his optics had merely been destroyed. Laser Scalpel tried to call out to someone, anyone, but couldn’t hear anything, uncertain whether his auditory sensors or his vocal processor had been mangled. He tried to move his arms and reach out, but the only result was another shock of agony through his systems. In desperation, he tried to activate his emergency stasis lock protocols, but found the appropriate relays had been severed by the piece of debris that impaled his chest. His self-destruct sequence turned out to be equally useless.

Suddenly, a bolt of pain tore through his body as he landed on his right side. He tried to scream, but was again unable to produce a sound. Then, slowly, he began to feel soothing warmth creeping into his extremities, calming his injured systems and spreading relief through his body. His panic began to dissipate, his worries disappearing and his agony finally fading.

Melting away.

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Coming soon: The final fates of Brutallica, Scantron, Jumbotron, Styx...and Timeframe?

It's good work so far.