CHAPTER SIX
--Verenya--
Well, this is certainly interesting.
Steel Jaw watched from a safe distance as the assorted Autobots and Maximals did battle with the Predacons... as well as one of their own, from the looks of it. He wasn't quite sure what had gotten over the gold Autobot, who was still firing on those who shared his insignia, but it gave Steel Jaw the distraction he needed.
Slinking past the destructive scene, Steel Jaw relied on his acute senses and followed a distinct energy signal that he had picked up upon arrival. If this didn't lead him to the Talisman, then he would have to tear this city apart until he found it. Fortunately, it wasn't long before the trail led him to a small park in the center of the city. The few human visitors fled in terror as the canine Monstercon dug the ground asunder, until a patch of dirt gave way to reveal a secret passageway leading deep underground.
Grinning to himself, Steel Jaw continued to dig as he gradually proceeded deeper and deeper into the earth.
* * *
"Stay behind me, innocent citizens! I shall protect you!"
If the frightened humans had understood the winged Maximal, they did not heed his words as they ran from him and his Predacon opponent. The blue-faced saurian snarled as he clashed blades with Silverbolt, pushing his spinning sword closer to the Fuzor's face.
"You fight valiantly," Dinobot growled. "But you stand for the wrong cause. Your talents are being wasted."
"I stand for peace and justice!" Silverbolt retorted. "Your kind desires anything but!"
Dinobot sneered but was deprived of further argument when a blaster bolt struck him in the back. He spun around to face Rattrap, but that proved to be a mistake as Silverbolt proceeded to deliver a flurry of slashes to the Predacon's back, bringing him down. The Fuzor then firmly planted a foot on the prone Dinobot as he held his twin blades high.
"Another agent of evil has been vanquished! Once again, truth and justice have prevailed!"
"Yeah, yeah." Rattrap rolled his eyes. "There's still a lot more where that came from."
As if on cue, Terrorsaur flew above their heads and unleashed a hail of fire. Silverbolt deflected the attack with his swords before transforming to his beast mode. The winged wolf let out a growl as it shot up towards the pteranodon and tackled it in midair.
Rattrap watched them clash before shifting his attention back to Dinobot. Seeing that the Predacon was beginning to stir, Rattrap trained a gun on his head. "I wouldn't move, Pred," he warned. "Unless you want yer head in a million pieces."
Dinobot glared at him but remained where he lay. "It doesn't matter," he growled. "This is all to keep you preoccupied, while our leader secures our quarry."
"Oh, yeah? And what would that be?"
"He calls it the Talisman. He learned from Cryotek that it was a Eukarian artifact gifted to the first Beast King by Onyx Prime himself. For eons, many believed it to be located somewhere on Eukaris... but Gnashteeth discovered the truth."
"Ya mean that it's here on Earth?"
"Yes," Dinobot hissed. "And once it's in our hands, Cybertron will at last be--"
Without warning, the ground began to shake, bringing the fighting to an abrupt halt. Rattrap looked to see that the others -- even some of the Predacons -- were just as confused as he was. Dinobot, on the other hand, was smirking.
"Well... that didn't take long."
* * *
Steel Jaw let out a yell as the tremor sent him falling into the hole he had been making. He didn't have far to fall, but he landed with a loud crash nonetheless. In fact, he was pretty sure he had landed on something, but in the darkness he could not discern what it was.
A row of dim lights illuminated the underground corridor he had landed in. Hearing the sounds of destruction coming from a particular direction, he transformed and drove towards them. As the sounds grew louder, he was able to make out a large purple bot -- Eukarian, by the looks of him -- thrashing about a large chamber, with humans scurrying and firing at him.
Steel Jaw was about to accelerate when another large bot suddenly obstructed his path. A large, red and blue bot... with a very distinctive faceplate.
"Optimus Prime?" Steel Jaw started to say just as the Prime lookalike grabbed a hold of him and threw him into a wall.
Steel Jaw quickly recovered and transformed, lunging at "Optimus" with his claws bared. The larger bot had a very slow reaction time, allowing the Monstercon to attack him ferociously, scratching his armor and tearing off plates of armor.
What he ended up uncovering by doing this caught him by surprise. Rather than circuitry, he instead saw hundreds of small robots -- human-sized, yet definitely mechanical -- standing atop one another, filling out the Optimus doppelganger's frame. From the looks of it, they were controlling the Autobot from within like a puppet through their interlocked systems.
Lost in mystification, Steel Jaw let down his guard which allowed the Optimus puppet to grab him from behind and hurl him into the nearby chamber. He collided into the purple Predacon and the both of them tumbled to the floor.
"Get... off of me!" Gnashteeth snarled as he kicked Steel Jaw away. "The last thing I need is some upstart getting between me and the Talisman!"
"Funny, I was going to say the same thing," Steel Jaw growled as he crouched into a battle-ready stance. "I suggest you stand aside and let the big bots handle things, pup."
Gnashteeth tapped his chin in mock consideration. "Let me think-- no." Raising his left arm, he fired a beam of energy from his tail weapon, which pushed Steel Jaw back into the path of the Optimus lookalike.
"Oh, not you again." Gnashteeth glowered at the walking corpse as he lined up another shot. "Why won't you just stay dead?"
"Stop! Stop!"
Steel Jaw lifted his head up to see a human in green military garb waving a meachnical hand, standing on a railing situated over the chamber. Gnashteeth shifted his gaze to the fleshling, the raised balcony keeping them at eye level.
"And just who are you to command me?" the Predacon snarled.
"If you continue this nonsense any longer, you'll bring this entire facility down on us!" the human snapped back. "Now state your business!"
"It's simple, really: I want the Talisman." Gnashteeth leaned closer to the human. "It is here, isn't it?"
The human frowned. "Yes, but--"
"Then take me to it before I decide you are not worth my time."
"But it won't work for you." The human's lips curled into a sneer. "I have spent well over thirty years studying the Talisman, figuring out how it works... and I know just how to use it against you and your kind."
"Is that right?" Gnashteeth murmured, unimpressed. "Forgive me if I find that claim just a tad dubious."
At this, the human's face stretched into a wicked grin. "Well, if you would like a visual demonstration, then I'd be more than happy to oblige."
He then raised his mechanical arm and pressed a switch on his wrist. Suddenly, energy began to crackle throughout the chamber, stretching from the floor all the way up to the ceiling. Gnashteeth recoiled, but Steel Jaw did not think the energy was meant to have any effect on him, or anyone else in the chamber for that matter.
The monstrous, agonized screams coming from above further confirmed his suspicions.
"You might want to step outside," the human cackled. "Wouldn't want to miss the show."
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