CHAPTER EIGHT
--The Exodus--
"Dion? This is Ariel. Do you copy?"
The comm was dead silent; not even static was being picked up. Ariel frowned as she looked out towards Earth, knowing that the giant Decepticon Trypticon was somewhere down there, spreading destruction everywhere he stepped.
Nearby, the Exodus' crew were in the process of transferring Pox from the Axiom to their systems. Even the autopilot was preoccupied, concerned for its brother unit. This would likely be her only chance to do what she was about to do.
Eight years ago (or eight hundred depending on how you looked at it), she probably would not have been able to muster the courage to do anything like this... but she was a different person then. Ever since she lost Rampage, she had pushed herself to be stronger, braver... something that would have made him or Skids proud.
Once the coordinates had been set, she began to make her way to the transmat pad. As she did, she overheard one of the crewmembers speak to the autopilot.
"Something's interfering with the transfer."
"Is the signal too weak?" asked the autopilot.
"It's not that. It's more like... like it's not registering the Axiom's existence."
Ariel did not stay around to hear more, reaching the transmat pad before anyone could notice her. Using a remote linked to the Exodus' computer, she activated the teleporter and was soon on her way to Earth.
--Trypticon--
"Hang on a second." Krok stared at the monitors situated throughout the room, staring at the structure that Trypticon was slowly approaching. "That's Metroplex, isn't it?"
The captain shrugged, not really paying attention. "Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. It won't matter in the end."
"What are we going to do?" Nickel whispered to Krok. "Are we just going to let this guy do whatever it is he's trying to do? What about Fulcrum and the others?"
"We don't exactly have many options," Spacewarp muttered. "We're practically locked in with this guy."
"And that's another thing," Nickel said. "Who is 'this guy?' Does anyone know who he is?"
"We could just ask him...."
Krok looked over to the purple bot, who wasn't paying them much heed. Carefully, he approached the captain before clearing his vocal processor. "Excuse me...."
"Full-Tilt," the bot spoke, startling Krok. "My name is Full-Tilt."
"Ah." Krok took a step back. "Well, uh, Full-Tilt... mind telling us how you ended up here?"
Full-Tilt sighed, still not meeting the Scavenger's eye. "I was a fool," he said quietly. "I was new to the Decepticon army, having ate up the rhetoric like a gullible protoform. One day, Shockwave approached me and told me I could be a vital part in bringing one of Megatron's plans to fruition. He wasn't wrong, of course... but I hadn't realized what cost it would come to."
He patted his chestplate, beneath which his spark chamber rested. "For nearly a thousand years, I carried his spark with me. The dethroned one. The ousted tyrant. Through me, he was able to power Trypticon... and ultimately control him."
"Wait a nanoklik," Spacewarp murmured. "You mean to tell us you had Trannis inside you?"
"I did," Full-Tilt said. "I don't know if he's still in there. When he destroyed those... zombie things, it used up all his spark energy. However...." He tapped the side of his helmet. "I can still hear him. As well as the other voice, which I'd never heard until now."
"Sounds like the Titan Master thing we just dealt with," Nickel said to Krok. "Maybe we can help him."
Before Krok could reply, he heard a tiny voice utter: "Ee-vah."
Looking down, he saw that the three Earth robots -- WALL-E, EVE, and Violet -- had suddenly become intangible, gradually fading away. As he struggled to comprehend what was happening, Krok saw on the monitors that Trypticon had made it to Metroplex... and was tearing a hole through the other Titan's armor....
--Earth--
Ariel rematerialized within Metroplex just as a giant purple claw tore through the ceiling. Through the rain of debris, she was able to spot an orange and blue bot laying in front of a glowing cube.
Dion. Avoiding falling chunks of metal, she made her way over to her fellow Autobot just as the claw seized the cube. Turning Dion onto his back, she saw that his optics were empty and that his armor plating was already beginning to fade to gray.
"No...." She cradled her friend's body, not even noticing as Trypticon tore the Underbase free. "Not you, too."
Shuttering her optics, she rested her head against Dion's. Outside, Trypticon pulled the Underbase out of Metroplex before activating his back thrusters. Ariel paid no heed to the shaking ground as the Decepticon Titan took for the sky; she continued to hold her departed friend even as everything around her began to fade away.
--Trypticon--
"No." Full-Tilt gripped the arms of his seat. "No no no. Trypticon! What are you doing?"
"Breaking the cycle," the Titan's voice reverberated.
"No! Diac's orders were to unite it with the other half! If you take it back to the present--"
"Then it will erase those two from existence," Trypticon growled, as WALL-E and EVE continued to dissipate. "And thus, by extension, Megatron."
Krok had no idea what Megatron had to do with anything. All he knew was that something had to be done. To Full-Tilt, he said, "Is there any way you can override his systems?"
Full-Tilt shook his head. "If there was, I would have found out about it long ago. Not much else for me to do here anyway."
"Maybe we can blow up his processor," Spacewarp said. "That should disable him--"
"You realize I can hear you, yes?" Trypticon rumbled. "There is nothing any of you can do."
One by one, the monitors changed... and Krok could feel his spark sink. On one, Spinister laid on the floor, limbs torn from his body. On another, several Centurion droids surrounded Crankcase and Misfire and fired upon their helpless selves. Lastly, on a third screen, Fulcrum was ensnared in cables, screaming as they electrocuted him.
"Your friends are dead, or soon will be," Trypticon snarled. "What hope could you possibly have of stopping me?"
Krok knew he had no answer. Helplessness gripped him as his knees gave out and he fell to the deck. Neither Spacewarp or Nickel came to his side, not that he expected them to; he knew they were just as helpless as he was.
"Now then," Trypticon said, "it is time to reclaim my empire."
* * *
Through the haze of his pain, Fulcrum came to an epiphany.
Decepticons like him -- K-Class Decepticons -- were never expected to survive. It would defeat their entire purpose. It was only thanks to sheer dumb luck that he was still functioning today, though he knew that wouldn't last for much longer.
Despite this, however, he knew Megatron and his inner circle were never one to take chances; failsafes were like their bread and butter. The Scavengers had disarmed his bomb when they had found him, but who was to say he didn't have another wired somewhere within him; a backup just waiting to be triggered?
He did not know for a fact... but it was enough to put him at ease in his final moments.
As his last vital circuits began to fry, Fulcrum looked back to all of the moments he had had with his fellow Scavengers. Some of them were good, plenty of them bad... but he wouldn't have traded any of them for the world. They reminded him that he was alive, which was more than he could say for his fellow K-Cons.
With a sad smile, Fulcrum greeted Death with open arms.
* * *
The unexpected explosion rocked Trypticon just as he exited Earth's atmosphere, causing him to lose his grip on the Underbase. The Titan roared in rage as the cube fell back to the planet and he kicked on his back thrusters once more to take pursuit.
Focused as he was on his objective, Trypticon did not notice as a third party accessed his weapons systems until it was too late. As he opened his mouth, a pair of rockets fired from his maw and struck the Underbase dead on. Trypticon's roar was drowned out by the resulting explosion, its force pushing back out into deep space...
Deep within the Titan, Misfire stepped away from the damaged weapons console and collapsed onto the floor, having lost a majority of his armor plating to the explosion Fulcrum had caused.
"Direct hit," his voicebox croaked. "Eat that, Crankcase."
The Triggercon said nothing, his body crushed under the weight of the dead Centurion droid that had fallen atop of him.
Misfire smiled proudly to himself as he looked up at the ceiling and shut off his optics.
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