CHAPTER ONE
It's going to be all right, Tailgate. No one's going to hurt you.
He could still remember the soothing words of his caretaker as if they had been spoken only yesterday. When he had first been forged, he was absolutely terrified of everything around him. Only the calm, sweet voice of his caretaker could quell those fears.
And now, sitting against an underground cave wall, with both of his legs missing, he really wished his guardian was here.
Happy thoughts, Tailgate. Happy thoughts are key. Just like Rungian therapy; find your happy place.
He groaned. Obviously his mind was totally oblivious to what had just happened. How could he have been so dumb? Taking a shortcut across the Mitteous Plateau, the most fragile terrain of all of Cybertron... if he hadn't taken his little detour, he would have reached the Ark by now.
Great, he thought bitterly. Without him, the voyage was doomed.
Moaning in despair, his attention turned to the energon rations he had been transporting. Suddenly, an idea lit in his mind: if he could crawl towards the energon, he could detonate them and blast himself out. Of course, given his condition, it could take anywhere from a minute to a day to reach the energon. But with his chronometer damaged, it hardly made a difference. And if he did miss the Ark's launch, he could at least get word out to the ship to pick him up.
Tailgate chuckled to himself as he began to crawl towards the energon. Maybe he wasn't so dumb after all.
* * *
To say that Chromedome was not happy with this loose alliance between the Autobots and the Decepticons would have been an understatement.
It wasn't just that the 'Cons acted all acted "high-and-mighty" and regarded anyone who wasn't one of their own as inferiors- though that certainly was a factor. But it was also because the one Decepticon he had to be teamed up with was responsible for the deaths of at least twelve people he knew.
And was joking about it.
"I've killed more Autobots than you can count on both hands in less time than this 'pick-up' is taking," muttered the Decepticon known as Shellshock. "That skinny friend of yours sure is taking his sweet little time."
"His name is Rewind," Chromedome said bitterly. "If you're gonna be stuck with us, at least take the time to know our names and remember them."
Shellshock sneered. "You wouldn't want that to happen. If I remember the name of someone, that means they're marked for death, and I'm going to put their name on the same plaque their head's gonna be on. So if you ever hear me utter your name- or your friend's- then you'd better start running. Not that you'd get far."
If Chromedome had a pair of optics rather than a visor, he would have rolled them. He actually would have tolerated this alliance a bit more if these 'Cons weren't so talkative.
Activating the communicator on his right arm, Chromedome said, "Rewind, how are things going in there?"
"Slow, Domey," came the reply. "Whoever last owned Darkmount's archives loved encrypting even last thing... even a recipe of baked energon pie."
Chromedome sighed. Their mission had been to visit the ruins of Darkmount (the old one in Polyhex, not the new one on Lucifer) and download its archives if they were still intact. Neither Chromedome, Rewind or Shellshock were told why they would be downloading the archives.
"Well, try to hurry it up, buddy," Chromedome then said. "This place creeps me out at night and the Fallen could be watching us from who knows where."
"I'll try, Domey. Rewind out."
As he ended the connection, Chromedome heard a snort and he glanced at Shellshock, was was visibly chuckling.
"'Domey,' huh?" the Decepticon said. "Is that a common nickname for you?"
"Call me that and you'll be marked for death."
* * *
Sifting through Darkmount's datalogs, trying to decipher them, Rewind couldn't help but wonder why hand the others had been sent here. The temporarily-united Autobots and Decepticons' goal was to find the being who called himself the Fallen and put a stop to his machinations. And so far none of what he was finding looked useful to that specific situation.
Battle plans for the Fifth Battle of Polyhex, schematics for the Death Dagger, a secret message from Trannis... all of this had been made during the First Great War many millennia ago and was now obsolete.
He was half-considering bringing this seemingly futile endeavor to a stop when he crossed something that piqued his interest: a personal document created by Darkmount's former ruler himself, Straxus. Seeing that it was the most heavily encrypted thing he had come across so far, Rewind decided to download it into his personal memory banks so that more skilled intelligence agents could decipher it.
After another twenty minutes, he found nothing else of use and so decided to stop his work there. At the same time, his communicator beeped and he answered it to hear Chromedome speak.
"You done yet, Rewind?"
"All done, Domey," Rewind said. "Only found one thing of use though."
"That's fine, just as long as we can get it to High Command, and fast."
"Why the rush? Does the Fallen have turbofoxes prowling on us?"
"Not turbofoxes," Chromedome muttered. "More like two unaligned fliers tracking us."
Rewind felt his spark drop. "Oh."
THE DARK AGE
Part 3: The Hidden Enemy
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