Chapter Text
The alarms should have registered when the rear wall began to superheat. Claxons should have sounded when the thick barriers of Fortress Maximus melted. Red warning lights should have filled the hallways as molten slag flowed down them.
None of that happened.
As a result, Flame Convoy was inside the hidden Autobot city before any of its occupants could react.
Downshift, suddenly face-to-face with the nightmarish fallen god of Animatros, had little to say. His processor reeled, unglued by the impossibility of what he’d witnessed. Somehow, the ferocious three-headed dragon – the inspiration for the zealots of the True Path – had made it not only past their outer defences, but into their chronally-displaced refuge from the world… without tripping a single sensor relay. Then he had melted his way through the Gigalonian-constructed walls, right in front of the engineer’s disbelieving optics.
“You can’t,” he muttered, looking into the blazing eyes of the dragon. “You just can’t… I mean… impossible, not improbable, but totally impossible… I…”
He yelped as he was pulled to one side; a hail of icy daggers perforated the floor upon which he had been standing. Downshift did not have time to regain his balance before he was unceremoniously dragged again, this time from out the range of a hellish fireball.
“Wake up, you dumb frack,” Armourhide barked into his face plate. “We gotta move!”
The commando transformed into a blue-and-white mini-truck and tore off down the hallway. Downshift, still numb, folded up into an emerald-and-black muscle car and followed, easily catching his friend thanks to his superior speed. It scarcely mattered – Flame Convoy gave chase, his four clawed feat drumming a death march.
“Dis is da part,” Armourhide yelled, “where you activate all of dem counter-measures you’ve spent vorns building inta dis place, and save our skid plates!”
“There are none,” Downshift muttered self-consciously.
“What did you say?”
“There are no counter-measures,” Downshift bellowed, his volume fuelled by panic. “I didn’t install any! What would be the point? The fortress was impregnable!”
“Yeah, it looks really slagging impregnable to me right now,” Armourhide sneered. “You tellin’ me you got more locks on yer lab door than Checkpoint has in his entire stinking prison, but you neglected to fill da walls with acid bats, electrified tentacles or even a single blast door?”
“The locks are to protect mechs from my lab,” Downshift sighed miserably. “Not to protect my lab from mechs.”
“Terrific,” Armourhide moaned. “We’re all gonna die.”
The commando fired a salvo from his rear-facing laser rifle, but the crimson bolts ricocheted harmlessly off Flame Convoy’s super-charged chassis. Orange, serpentine heads on either side of his thick neck writhed and snapped, as if desperate to chow down on the fleeing Autobots. The former deity’s central face was a portrait of stony concentration; the barest of rumblings issued from his conflagrating throat.
Watching, horrified, through his rear scanners, Downshift saw that spiny head rear back. A geyser of sulphur and ash billowed out, rocketing down the corridor like a plume of death incarnate. The engineer braced himself for the pain but could not swallow his cry of agony when the eldritch fire made contact. He could almost feel the paint stripping from his reinforced frame – had he been any less armoured, he’d have been slagged.
Armourhide, he could see, was similarly tarnished but uninjured – armoured by both name and nature. Still, he looked rattled. Both of them knew, only too well, what Flame Convoy had done to an entire section of the nearby human city. Worse, they knew he’d managed to kill Ultra Magnus… if not for some unexpected help, their commander would be one with the Matrix now. If that mighty a ‘bot could fall before Flame Convoy’s talons, what chance did they have? Especially in close quarters?
“Undastood,” Armourhide was saying – Downshift didn’t know why. “Lissen up, greenie, you gotta make a hard left turn at the next big intersection. You got dat?”
Downshift stammered an affirmative. The next intersection was a four-way crossing, linking the central corridor with both the medical and barracks wings. Turning would take him toward the medbay… but why?
Behind them, Flame Convoy roared with all three of his synthesisers. Downshift’s back window shattered; Armourhide skidded off course and had to right himself.
“In three,” Armourhide ordered. “Two… one… turn, for da love of Primus!”
Downshift locked his steering wheel and pulled up his handbrake. His tyres squealed in protest but he made it around the sharp corner… all too well. The engineer kept spinning and ended up pointing back the way he’d come. He watched, frozen with terror, as Flame Convoy halted, in the middle of the central corridor, and turned to look at him.
For a moment, their optics locked. Flame Convoy snorted.
Then, an enormous blue-and-white juggernaut slammed into the unsuspecting dragon at unimaginable speed, pushing it down the central hallway in a shower of sparks and a clamour of bending steel and tearing flesh.
“Whoa!” Armourhide whooped from the other passage. “Big Bot is on da scene!”
-----
It had arrived – the confrontation Ultra Magnus had longed to avoid, all the while knowing it was inevitable. From the very moment Flame Convoy had slunk away, submerging his ruined frame in the waters at the edge of the city, a second and final battle between them was on foot. The days between had not been peace, had not been a cease-fire… they’d been nothing but a delay.
The dragon bellowed, having recognised its most hated foe. Magnus had no clue how Flame Convoy had found them, and even less idea how he’d managed to counteract the temporal distortions that hid the base from the rest of the world. Nor, at this very moment, did he care. Questions – about both the situation and his personal readiness to face it – could wait.
With a feral snarl, Flame Convoy transformed. His forelimbs became arms that gripped and gouged the sides of Magnus’ cab section; his bird-like rear legs skidded across the steel floor before finding purchase on his front bumper and grille. Unlike the last time they’d fought, Magnus did not struggle. He made no move to juke or try to shake his devilish foe off. The dragon of nightmares was right where he was supposed to be.
As Magnus expected, Flame Convoy began to climb, seeking refuge on the Autobot’s broad, flat car-carrying trailer section. But he had reckoned without two barriers in his way: an unforgiving weapons system known as Blue Bolts, and Scattorshot – the mech manning its turret controls.
“Hiya,” the blue half-tank drawled. “Buh-bye now.”
Scattorshot touched the controls and “Blue Bolts” roared to life, pummelling Flame Convoy with its full compliment of ammunition at closer than point-blank range. The dragon howled, spitting fire and fury, as his three heads were nearly taken off by electrical discharge, Teflon-coated machine gun bullets and rocket-propelled warheads. Magnus’ 2IC fired with greater accuracy than he himself could have managed, while in vehicle mode… precisely his aim upon realising the stronghold had been breached.
“Bail out,” Magnus yelled.
Scattorshot, who had been lying along the top of Magnus’ trailer, didn’t argue. He released the weapon’s hand grips and rolled to the right, tumbling off his commander and bouncing into the wall and floor. Unburdened, Magnus accelerated to his top speed and drove both himself and Flame Convoy into the rear wall, just metres from the spot at which the dragon had entered.
The staggering impact tore Flame Convoy loose; Magnus reversed and slammed into his nemesis again, burying him in the tortured, twisted steel. He reversed again, using his momentum and transformation to get a little breathing distance, then dropped to one knee and swung his rifle up into position. Scattorshot was almost instantly by his side; together, the duo activated their Force Chips.
Blue light flashed down the steely corridor as the near-mythical devices materialised and slotted into place. Magnus’ rifle split and swung into its deadliest configuration, Powerlinking with his shoulders for added potency and strength. The missile racks on Scattorshot’s back lifted and locked into place on either side of his head; a second battery of smaller but no less deadly munitions flipped out and took aim.
Without a word, the self-dubbed “rolling arsenals” loosed their most devastating attacks at their pinned opponent. Flame Convoy had but a moment to scream in indignation before the wave of munitions washed over him. Organic components exploded messily; iron and steel bodywork ruptured and fragmented. Taken well beyond the limits of its endurance, the already-weakened wall collapsed, pitching the agonised dragon out of Fortress Maximus and into the cool night-time air outside.
Magnus deactivated his weapon, willed away his Force Chip and nodded quickly to Scattorshot. Less than a second passed before Downshift and Armourhide pulled up alongside them and transformed.
“We’ve got maybe 10 seconds,” Magnus growled.
-----
“Flame Convoy,” he roared, transforming to beast mode and pouncing with all the strength in his hind legs. Huntnomore is upon you, and it shall come at the tips of my claws!”
He slammed into his former leader with concussive force, causing them both to roll and tumble away from the edge of Fortress Maximus. Their path cut a fiery swathe through the foliage, lighting the night with eerie ambiance. For a moment, Snarl felt like he was back on Animatros; both his hackles and his blood lust rose feverishly at the thought.
Summoning his green Force Chip, the wolf bared ever-extending golden fangs. Once, he would have foolishly paused to savour the moment; made some kind of final, scathing quip or proud announcement of his kill. Time had smoothed his rough edges, honed his abilities as both hunter and killer. Never mind his vow to safeguard the freedom of others, at this moment – he was about to emancipate himself once and for all!
“Ah,” Flame Convoy said, looking up at Snarl. “There you are.”
Snarl gagged as a powerful hand snatched him around the neck and wrenched his head back, further and further, toward his spine. The dragon’s grip was inexorable – worse, his damaged sections of muscle and armour were healing before the wolf’s very eyes. As his lupine throat was fully bared, so too was Flame Convoy fully healed.
“Your fatal mistakes,” the dragon said, clearly relishing each word, “was allowing me to catch your scent, back in the place of small dwellings, and not following me into the waters of this world. Ample flesh there was, beneath the waves, to replenish myself – and ample time did you fools give me to eat my fill.”
Snarl noticed pieces of Flame Convoy’s armour bore the faded insignias of this planet’s various governments – the erstwhile god had consumed not only fish and sea life, but submarines and the humans within them.
“Whole once more, but still hungry, I followed your pungent aroma from the sea bed until I was certain of your location. I walked through mountains to find you, Fang Wolf – passed like a ghost through the unsuspecting natives of this feeble world, all to avenge an age-old wrong. A slight perpetrated by you.”
The pressure against his neck increased exponentially; his back was about to break. Snarl, however, pushed past the pain and, as he’d learned to do on this world, improvised. He transformed, the twisted neck becoming no more vital than a forearm, and took up his tail sword. The blade slashed vengefully into Flame Convoy’s exposed face and the giant, surprised by the attack, relinquished his vice-like hold.
“Fire in the hole,” called a familiar voice.
The wolf returned to beast mode and darted out of the way – two sets of missiles streaked in behind him and thundered against Flame Convoy’s resilient form. Jazz and Smokescreen, the accidental twins, followed their munitions at high speed. They changed from vehicle to robot mode in the blink of an eye, leading with their shield-bearing left arms. A moment before collision, they increased the radius of their force fields, trapping Flame Convoy behind a pulsing wall of green energy. The barrier pushed the dragon back to the edge of the clearing where he slammed noisily into the base of a mountain. Such was the force of his landing that a snow drift came loose and blanketed him.
Snarl moved to renew his assault; Jazz grabbed him by the arm. “Calm down, hot dog,” he ordered. “It ain’t gonna play out that way, this time. Magnus wants eve’body inside, like yesterday, and we gonna do this as a team. You dig?”
Growling his disapproval, Snarl nevertheless nodded. “Being that he is the only one among you I would not consider a fool,” he said dangerously, “I will pay heed to his words.” He shook Jazz’s hand free. “Be not overly familiar with me, Autobot.”
Jazz’s grin was feral. “One day, you an’ me gonna have some free time, an’ we’ll see who’s the real bad ass,” he sneered. “Now get yo’ furry skid plate inside, dawg!”
Smokescreen stepped in front of them and blanketed the area with the thick, oily smog for which he’d been named. A grey wall rose between the combatants; its scent was exceedingly unpleasant to Snarl. Eager to be away from the airborne muck, he led the way back into the antiseptic interior of the Autobot base.
-----
“Hit and run only works for so long,” Magnus said darkly. “Snarl knows that as well as I do. Twice, I’ve pummelled Flame Convoy with every onboard weapon I have and he’s stood back up, begging for more. Our last fight didn’t have an ending… more like a time-out between rounds.” He sighed. “I don’t know how to stop him.”
Downshift was only half-listening to their blather. He shook his head in frustration. “How did he get in, anyway?” he muttered.
“Would you fuggedabowt that already?” Armourhide snapped. “Talk about yer ancient history, Mr Genius Science Mech! Sheesh! Can you at least try to concentrate on finding ways to keep us all alive?”
The engineer bristled, and reacted again when Magnus pushed past him. The towering commander strode across to an interlink panel, mounted in the corridor. “TAI,” he said, pressing an activation button. “Sit-rep.”
A human female’s ebullient face – Kicker’s idea of a programming joke – filled the screen as the Tactical Artificial Intelligence program activated. “All RID Units, save Unit Three, present on site,” it said, sounding like a teenager and looking like a red-clad crossing guard. “Base compromised; weapons systems operational.”
“Now dere’s a good idea,” Armourhide said. “Nuke the big ugly bastich with some of da crap Fort Max has got built inta his hide!”
“Estimated time to weapon readiness: 15 minutes,” TAI said flatly.
“Crap.”
“External cameras and sensor arrays show no sign of invader’s arrival, nor of his breaching of scanned sectors. Analysis: inconclusive.” It smiled. “Sorry, guys.”
Armourhide shook his head. “Kicker just ain’t funny,” he huffed.
“I still want to know how he got inside the clearing,” Downshift repeated. He would not be swayed from this pursuit – he was certain it held an important clue.
“I may know the answer to that,” Snarl called. The wolf climbed through the gaping hole left by Flame Convoy’s exit. Jazz and Smokescreen followed, through the breach made during the dragon’s entrance.
“He told me he was a vengeful wraith, moving through the humans without notice while he tracked me.” He growled. “It is my distinct displeasure to announce my culpability… I brought this plague upon our den, through my scent.”
Downshift and the others murmured discontent and disquiet – but were silenced by a glare from Magnus. “It doesn’t matter,” he said harshly. “We’ve spent a decade in secret; realistically, we knew it wouldn’t last forever. What’s important is whatever Flame Convoy meant by that.”
Wraiths… unseen… moving through… The words tumbled through Downshift’s processor. He’d felt oddly sluggish, lately, as if he were constantly multi-tasking. Even when he turned his mind to one job, a single problem, it was like other sectors of his brain were madly accessing and downloading data. Perhaps he should have seen someone about it but, as the base medic, to who else could he go?
Inspiration struck. “Displacement,” he cried.
The others turned to look. Outside, wisps of smoke drifted lazily up from the deep pile of snow. Downshift realised he had very little time to explain.
“Flame Convoy came from the future,” he began breathlessly, “through a wormhole. He’s chronally displaced – and so are we. Maybe, unconsciously, he’s synching in with our time stream… using it like a hunter would long grass, in order to avoid detection! He went ‘ghost’ through the humans, then popped back into real time as he neared the clearing. All on instinct! So we didn’t pick him up until he phased back into our frame of reference, melted down the wall and started chasing us everywhere!”
He looked around. Most faces were blank. Armourhide’s optic ridges were cocked oddly. Magnus and Snarl, meanwhile, were nodding.
“It makes sense,” Magnus said.
“Terrifyingly so,” Snarl added. “Already powerful beyond measure, the ‘Great One’ has added the very passage of seconds to factors he can manipulate in his favour.”
“Awright, I get it now,” Armourhide screeched, raising his hands angrily. “An’ I don’t like it one bit! How da heck are we supposed to fight an all-powerful deity, in an enclosed space, while he’s flippin’ in an’ out of da real world whenever he feels like it?”
A geyser of flame roared over their heads.
“Think about it later,” Smokescreen yelled. “Peel out!”
The group transformed; Snarl leaped atop Downshift’s roof and clung tightly to his soft top. Magnus and Jazz led the evacuation while Smokescreen brought up the rear, trailing fog. Armourhide slotted in next to the diversionary tactician, pouring round after round of laser fire into the muck in the vain hope of hitting something vital.
“As long as we stay together, I endanger you all,” he heard Snarl yell over the noise of multiple engines. “I should break away, lead Flame Convoy from your scents.”
“Dat’s uncharacteristically noble of ya,” Armourhide cat-called. “Whassup, you turn around and grow a conscience while I wasn’t lookin’ or something?”
“Indeed I did, vermin – it is large, ungainly and uncommonly itchy. Come closer, so I can scratch it with your spinal strut!”
“Knock it off,” Magnus boomed, “and split up. Make for different areas of the base. I’ve told TAI to fire up the exterior canons – we need to keep Flame Convoy off our tails, and each one of us alive – for 13 more minutes.”
Ice knives crashed into them from behind. Armourhide wailed; Smokescreen slowed momentarily but increased his pace when a fireball clipped his rear axle. The heat washed over Downshift; he sped up in response.
“Teams of two, Snarl with me,” Magnus ordered. The wolf bounded across the Autobots’ bonnets until he reached the car carrier. “Downshift, you’re on your own,” the commander continued. “Make for the lab, cook something up. Move!”
Cook something up? he wailed silently. Sweet Primus!
They reached the four-way intersection once more and separated, quickly zooming down side corridors and access hatchways to further disguise their paths. Downshift raced to a manhole – linking this level with the two below it – and transformed, ducking under its protective cover. The last thing he heard, as it closed, was a roar of lethal rage.
-----
He’d tried… he’d really, really tried. It was a big thing, knowing you’d one day have to shoulder the burden of leadership for the entire Autobot army. Rodimus felt he had a good handle on being the chosen one: plenty of lead time, good advice from Optimus, Magnus and others, even a few ideas of his own.
It was when enacting those ideas he occasionally fell. Rodimus had wanted to reach Predacon, make him see that peace was a much better option than continued conflict. Sure, it’s not the sort of thing Optimus would ever have done – but Optimus had Megatron to contend with. Megs was the last mech on Cybertron to agree to even a temporary alliance, and the first to sacrifice his men for the sake of his goals.
Predacon was just the opposite. Charismatic and charming, but also highly concerned about the welfare of his “congregation”. His research had taught him that – one master plan scrubbed to save Cruel Lock, large expenditure to an unknown black-market dealer to secure not only weaponry but supplies, leisure items and comfortable furnishings. The Transmetal zealot was like no Decepticon leader before him.
Rodimus had been convinced he could reach Predacon through reason, talking, accord. No such luck. Whatever redeeming qualities he had were blanketed by his smothering devotion to a belief system based in the torturing and suffering of others. Not just blanketed… cancelled out.
The warning he’d issued, about Flame Convoy, had been a last-ditch attempt to break through. It was a very un-Autobot thing to do; if Grimlock found out about it he’d be court-martialled – destiny be damned. Such a big risk, a breach of military protocol and the way he’d always lived his life, for naught. Predacon hadn’t taken it as a symbol of the need to unite… he’s just turned very, very pale and stood, rock-solid still, for quite a long time. He’d shuffled away slowly, without another word, tail drooping.
None of which made much sense to Rodimus. The cavalier knew Flame Convoy was bad news; he’d played a role in Ultra Magnus’ resurrection, after all. Still, the dragon of Animatros was just one mech – how much of a bogeyman could he be? Magnus had been nearly killed in single combat, and Predacon had an entire army surrounding him in a hidden base. There was no reason for the zealot to be so… well, terrified.
A dark shape flashed across his forward scanners. Rodimus braked, but was too late. He cried out in pain as his front end collapsed, crushed by a massive weight from above. It was a huge orange hammer; the business end of an impossibly long flail. The weapon’s ebony handle was gripped in fiery, taloned hands belonging to a Transformer every bit as tall and broad as Magnus, and a thousand times more ferocious than any mech Rodimus had seen in his young life. Unicron included.
He was pinned under the flail. He was too badly damaged to Transform. His weapons were useless in vehicle mode. And Flame Convoy was leering.
“You’ll be the first,” he rumbled.