CHAPTER TEN
It had been many years since Counterpunch was last among his own kind.
It was surreal seeing so many familiar face, bringing back memories that he had suppressed for so long. More than a few had served alongside him during such battles as Sectus Four, Gravett Tau…
Athenia.
Counterpunch shook his head, pushing back the unwanted memories. He needed to focus on the here and now, rather than dwell on the past.
He continued to push his way through the Decepticon camp of Verenya, though at this point it might as well have earned the name “Decepticon City.” The immobile alternate mode of Trypticon dominated the once-human inhabited city, with Decepticons freely moving from one building to another. It was as if they had been living here for all their lives. Of course, that might have been the point; if Megatron was recommitted to being an evil tyrant as he appeared to be, then it was likely in his endgame to make Earth another colony for the Decepticon Empire.
After walking past a pair of Seekers, who both gave him a second glance which made him feel uneasy, Counterpunch glanced at the Autobot “prisoner” he was escorting. While Sandstorm had since regained consciousness, he was still out of it for the most part and was walking in some sort of daze, requiring Counterpunch to guide him for reasons other than to keep up the charade they were pulling. He could only hope that no one would try to stop and question them before they got to where they needed to be.
As they neared their destination — the central purple tower of Trypticon’s city form — Counterpunch spotted an entourage of heavily armed guards standing near the entrance. After taking a moment to steel himself, he proceeded to make his approach until he was brought to a halt by the lead guard.
“Stop right there,” growled the bulky blue and maroon Decepticon. Counterpunch believed his name was Quake. “What is your purpose here?”
“I caught this Autobot sneaking out on the outer perimeter,” Counterpunch replied. “He took quite the beating, but I managed to subdue him.”
Quake narrowed his optics, a scowl crossing his gold face. “What’s your ID number?”
“D-111.” At this point, he already knew it was over. “I believe we’ve met before. Weren’t you at the Battle of Dormanus Five?”
“Yeah. I remember you,” Quake grunted. “What was your name again? Puntercounch or something?”
“Counterpunch. Glad to see you’re still in the land of moving parts. Can I go in now?”
“I don’t think so.” Quake tilted his head slightly as a large cannon lowered from his back onto his shoulder. At the same time, the rest of his guards raised their own weapons. “You see, we Decepticons don’t take too kindly to being played at our own game. And when you Autobots try to pull the same trick again, after having already been caught the first time… it’s a bit insulting, to say the least.”
Counterpunch shrugged. “Fair enough. To be perfectly honest, this wasn’t so much a deception….”
In the distance, an explosion went off. It was quickly followed by angry screams and the sound of blaster fire being exchanged.
“…so much as a distraction.”
* * *
“I must admit,” Megatron said as he stared down at the massive Decepticon warrior kneeling before him. “I would not have expected this from someone like you, Sixshot.”
“My loyalty to you is unquestionable, Lord Megatron,” Sixshot replied, his head bowed. “Besides, I know better than to even think of turning against you, given the failsafes you have installed in soldiers like myself.”
Megatron allowed himself a smirk. “Indeed. Even so, I’m surprised Scorponok did not take that into consideration when he sent you to assassinate me.”
“In the brief interaction I had with him after he awakened me, I was given the impression that Scorponok has gotten desperate in his schemes. I’m not entirely sure what he has gotten up to in the past hundred years after he put me in stasis, but I would wager a guess that he has been largely unsuccessful in his endeavors.”
Megatron chuckled. “I agree with your assessment. To be honest, Scorponok’s machinations have been rather entertaining to a point. However, I believe he has long since outlived his usefulness to me in any capacity. Perhaps it is time to—”
The Decepticon leader was cut off by an alarm going off. As he rose from his throne, a nearby viewscreen lit up to display Soundwave’s face.
“Lord Megatron, we appear to be under attack.”
“Is it the Autobots?” Megatron asked.
“Affirmative. There appears to be seven of them. Visuals indicate that they are members of the Wreckers.”
Sixshot straightened up at this. “I encountered them on the way here. I shot down one of them into the ocean; I had thought that would have dissuaded them from pursuing me.”
“From what I know of them, very little dissuades the Wreckers from doing what they want to do,” Megatron muttered. “Even Prime has difficulty keeping a leash on them.”
“Shall I finish the job then?”
“Yes,” Megatron said without a moment’s hesitation. “Wipe them out. All of them.”
* * *
“Do you know if Punch and Sandstorm made it inside?”
“No idea, Kup,” Springer said as he slashed a Vehicon across the chest with his sword.
“Do you know if they‘re even still alive?”
“Again, no idea.”
Kup glared at him as he pummeled a Seeker in the face. “Then what the hell was the point of this god-forsaken plan?!”
“Sandstorm’s in no condition to fight, so I needed to get him out of harm’s way.” Springer transformed into his helicopter form and began strafing along a row of Decepticons that had just lined up to attack him. “Also Punch, because he’s not built like the rest of us and he probably would have complained about the whole situation.”
“Oh, like I’m doing now?” Kup retorted.
“From you, I’m used to it by this point.”
Kup rolled his eyes but decided to keep his focus on the situation at hand. Whirl had already gone off on a shooting spree while Topspin and Twin Twist were tag-teaming against a bunch of Combaticons. To say that the Wreckers were vastly outnumbers would have been an understatement. In fact, Springer was likely well aware of that fact and knew that the chances of them all getting out of this one alive were astronomically slim. Still, he would have felt better about it if he knew what Springer’s end goal even was.
“Well, look what the garbage-bot dragged in today!”
Kup looked over to see a tan and purple tank rolling across the battlefield. “Blitzwing,” he muttered. “I’ll be honest, I kind of expected better of you. Out of all the ‘Cons, you were one of the very few I respected. I thought for sure you would have stuck with us even after Megatron came back.”
“You don’t know me, old timer,” Blitzwing growled. “My reasons for remaining loyal to my kind are mine alone. Don’t expect me to change just make you happy.”
With that, the tank fired a round from its barrel. Kup dodged before transforming into his truck mode and accelerating towards the Decepticon. Blitzwing continued to fire even as Kup transformed again and grabbed onto the tank’s barrel, spinning himself onto the tank. He then forcibly turned the turret as it fired again, blasting away some of the other Decepticons.
“Still pulling your old tricks, I see,” Blitzwing chuckled. “I guess some things never change.”
“Save it for your memoirs, old friend,” Kup said quietly.
* * *
“Nemesis! We meet again!”
Killmaster regarded the blue helicopter attacking him with a look of utter disinterest. Whirl didn’t care. He wasn’t doing this for the recognition or the glory. He was doing this to tie up loose ends.
Not so long ago, he would have been going about this with a lot more of a dramatic flair, as he usually did whenever he encountered his self-proclaimed “arch-nemesis” on the battlefield. Of course, their rivalry had always been a superficial one at best; as far as he knew, Killmaster had never reciprocated in declaring him to be his arch-nemesis in turn. Indeed, Whirl had simply given him that title because, to be perfectly honest, no one else fit the bill.
During the Wreckers’ campaign against Squadron X, the others had their arch-enemies. Impactor had Macabre, Roadbuster had Earthquake, Twin Twist had Fang… but Whirl never had any personal grudge against any of them. In his eye, they were nothing more than generic mooks that didn’t stand out from any other Decepticon. Thus, when he first encountered Killmaster during the war and lost his single optical sensor to the Warrior Elite, Whirl had latched onto that like a cyber-moth to a light. At last, he had finally found the Megatron to his Optimus Prime.
Then, ten years later, Killmaster vanished during the Battle of Luna 2, depriving Whirl of ever taking his revenge. That was basically the story of his life; any time he wanted something, it was taken away from him just like that.
His home. His business. His face. His hands. He was lucky he even still had his life. And yet, people wondered why he was “messed up in the head.”
Maybe if the universe didn’t constantly treat me like crap, I wouldn’t have turned out this way.
But now that Killmaster had somehow returned from wherever the hell he had been for the past five hundred years, Whirl could finally check off the last thing on his personal “bucket list;” something that would give him even the slightest semblance of happiness. Ever since Cyclonus had died, a void had been left in his life. This would finally give him a chance to fill that void, if only for a moment.
Whirl rammed himself into Killmaster, thought the massive Decepticon was barely pushed back an inch. He then transformed to his robot mode and performed a back flip, landing a mere few feet from the purple and gold giant as he deployed his guns.
“I hope you enjoyed your five-century-long nap, ‘cos after I’m done with you, you’ll be taking a permanent slumber!” Whirl said. “Any last words before I put you down for good?”
Killmaster stared down at him, the expression on his monstrous face unreadable. Whirl was about to interject with another quip when his nemesis finally spoke, his rough voice reverberating loudly.
“How’s your eye?”
Whirl froze up, forgetting all sense of grandeur. “Wh-what?”
“I admit, more time has passed for you than it has for me,” Killmaster went on. “Still, it’s hard to forget the way you reacted when I tore out your optical sensor. Should have known that’d be a touch subject for you.”
“You… you remember…?”
“Like I said, it’s been five hundred years for you but only ten for me. I don’t blame you if—”
“You remembered,” Whirl said quietly. “After all this time… you remembered.”
As difficult as it was to distinguish a particular emotion from Killmaster’s face, the look in his eyes was definitely one of bemusement. “Are you… surprised?”
“Dude, you’ve just made me the happiest I’ve been in my two thousand years of being online. Thank you.”
“Er… your welcome, I guess.” Killmaster raised his wand, which started to spark with energy. “I’m still going to kill you, you know.”
“Yeah. I know.” Whirl then raised his guns and opened fire.
* * *
“Wreckers. Why did it have to be Wreckers?”
Viral and Fearstorm watched from afar as their fellow Decepticons continued to defend their city against their Autobot attackers with varying results. Despite being vastly outnumbered, the Wreckers were making a pretty decent stand against their foes; Viral was almost surprised that they had even lasted this long. He knew they wouldn’t last forever, though.
“What are we waiting for?” Fearstorm asked, already drawing his gun. “Shouldn’t we join in?”
Viral raised a hand to stall his companion but said nothing. Mere moments later, a massive green and purple tank emerged from the central tower of the city, rolling quickly onto the battlefield.
“Is that… Sixshot?” Fearstorm exclaimed.
“Seems like everyone’s been returning from the dead lately,” Viral wryly remarked.
The pair watched as Sixshot approached the Wreckers, firing his guns. The two Jumpstarters were instantly blasted away while Springer managed to avoid the tank’s rounds. The leader of the Wreckers then advanced towards Sixshot in his helicopter form, firing away, just as the Six Changer converted into his mechanical beast form. The robotic wolf proceeded to leap at Springer, colliding with the helicopter and sending them both crashing back down to the ground.
“They’re dead,” Fearstorm murmured. “They are so dead. Sixshot is going to slaughter them.”
Viral glanced at him. “You sound scared.”
“Of course not!” Fearstorm snapped. “I’m simply… mesmerized. You’ve heard the stories, haven’t you? The Wreckers have been a thorn in our side for millennia, since the First War! And now… now they’re going to finally meet their end.”
Viral found it difficult to argue with that. Already Sixshot was pummeling Springer into the ground, giving the green-and-yellow Autobot hardly any opportunity to fight back. The two Jumpstarters were still down for the count, with the Combaticons Brawl and Vortex standing over them. Kup had just been knocked off of Blitzwing by a teleporting Skywarp and was now surrounded by a variety of Seekers. The one known as Whirl was currently in a struggle with Killmaster, one which he was likely to desperately fail in if Killmaster was as invincible as his reputation suggested he was. There was no sign of the last two Autobots that were reported to be among the seven Wreckers, but Viral doubted they were faring any better than the other five.
This was truly it. This was the last stand of the Wreckers.
And he couldn’t stand to watch it.
Without a second thought, without even a single word of farewell to Fearstorm, Viral activated his transwarp drive and teleported away. The sight of what was about to become the Wreckers’ inevitable demise vanished from view and was instantly replaced by the dark interior of Megatron’s throne room. After adjusting his optical sensors to the lack of lighting, Viral turned around to see the only other functioning Cybertronian in the room with him.
“You,” said the disembodied head of Shockwave.
“Where is Lord Megatron?” Viral asked.
“Observing the battle outside,” Shockwave replied. “Why are you here? To mock my current physical state, perhaps?”
“Under vastly different circumstances, perhaps I would,” Viral said. “As it stands however, I am here only to settle things between us once and for all.”
“You’re here to kill me, then?”
“No. I’m here for answers.”
Shockwave’s single optic stared up at him, unblinking. “Of course you are. That is all anyone seeks from me these days.”
“Perhaps if you did not act the way you do, you would not leave behind such burgeoning questions in your wake,” Viral dryly remarked. “In any case, my question is a simple one.”
“Out with it, then. Megatron may return at any moment.”
“You’ve told the Autobots about the Regenesis ores,” Viral began. “Are there any more secrets that you’ve been keeping from everyone, or has everything been aired out?”
“If I answer no,” Shockwave said, “and you do not believe me, how will you go about getting the truth from me? There is nothing of value that you could possibly offer me in exchange for any secrets I may be keeping.”
“Not even restoring you to your body?” Viral asked.
This got a reaction from the bodiless Decepticon as Shockwave’s single optic flashed briefly. “You would not do that. Given your grudge towards me, it would be illogical for you to do anything that would benefit me.”
“Not your Decepticon body,” Viral said. “Your old body. When you were a member of the High Council. Before Megatron put your spark in Shockblast’s body.”
Again, Shockwave went quiet at that. “You are… aware of that?”
“My brief stint as ‘the Necrobot’ gave me some insight into people’s backstories, including yours. In fact, I still have the transwarp drive I used to rescue some others on the original Necrobot’s list of the Disappeared. I could rewind the clock and set things back to how they used to be.”
“Impossible,” Shockwave said firmly. “You cannot change the past. That is what I learned from the Sigma Project and all other experiments with time travel. The most you can do is to simply ensure events that have already happened happen, but you cannot prevent them from happening.”
“What about the future then? I would imagine I could have some effect on the future, or else you never would have sent me and Windtrail on our mission.”
“Perhaps,” Shockwave admitted. “I imagine you could influence events enough to make a particular future inevitable. But the point is moot. I have since come to the conclusion that the invention of transwarp technology, and by extension its use to travel through time, was a mistake. The fabric of time and space is not something to be played with.”
“You speak as if from experience,” Viral said. “Have you yourself done something with transwarp technology that has brought you to this conclusion?”
“Irrelevant. What is done is done. If you value stability for the universe, I suggest you rid yourself of your transwarp drive for good.”
Viral laughed. “As if you’re in any position to stop me anymore. Besides, if you cared for the stability of the universe, you wouldn’t be keeping the secrets that you carry.”
“Believe what you will,” Shockwave said. “It means nothing to me.”
“That’s it, then? No vague allusions? No cryptic warnings? No parting words of wisdom from my old teacher?”
“I have nothing left to impart onto you.”
“Then I suppose this is goodbye.” Viral raised his arm, straightening and flattening it to form a blade-like appendage. “Thank you, Shockwave, in spite of everything. I will remember you as you were.”
He then brought the blade down and Shockwave departed from the material world without a single word. After he had pulled his blade out of his former mentor’s disembodied cranium and wiped it clean of energon, Viral turned away from the gruesome results and activated his transwarp drive once more, vanishing out of the room as quickly as he had arrived.
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