TALES OF THE DISAPPEARED:
TARNISHED, PART IV
K’th Kinsere, Cycle 8828
According to legend, the Vaulted Heights of K’th Kinsere had been among some of the first buildings erected by the Knights of Cybertron early on in Cybertronian history. Indeed, they had been around since at least before the age of Nova Prime and had been overseen by the self-proclaimed High Priests of K’th Kinsere in all that time. Even after the High Priests vanished some time around the Ark’s departure, the Vaulted Heights had been held in high regard by all Cybertronians; even Trannis’ Decepticons had left them untouched during the First Great War, respecting the historic and spiritual value they held for many Cybertronians.
Megatron’s Decepticons, on the other hand, held no such respect. That much could be gathered from the fires which blazed from and around the Vaulted Heights.
Damus had to admit that he had been surprised by the orders when they had been given to him. While he was far from one to question his superiors, his curiosity had gotten the best of him and he was unable to stop himself from asking the question that burned in his mind.
“Why do you want us to attack K’th Kinsere?”
Megatron had looked at him, his expression stoic but for a questioning gleam in his optics. “Do you require a reason to carry out my wishes?”
“Of course not, my liege,” Damus had hastily replied. “But given that the Vaulted Heights hold no strategic value to us, especially given our shift to off-world campaigns, I cannot help but question the need to capture such a historical site.”
At this, Megatron had allowed himself a smirk. “Oh, you will not be capturing K’th Kinsere. You will be burning it to the ground.”
Having been used to lacking a proper face for so long, Damus had not caught himself in time from displaying his surprise on his new visage. “You… you want us to destroy K’th Kinsere?”
“I want to send a message to Optimus Prime and his Autobots,” Megatron growled. “I want to show him that his naivety will do him no favors in this war. I want him to know — without a shadow of a doubt — that his brother is dead.”
As if he had needed one, that had been a good enough reason as any for Damus to carry out his orders. Having just been promoted to the rank of commander and given his own personal force to command, he was eager to prove himself to not just Megatron but the other members of High Command who had not been afraid to display their lack of confidence in him.
Perhaps by depriving the Autobots of their faith, Damus would be able to spark faith in those who currently lacked it.
As a trio of Decepticon jets streaked overhead, heading for the chaotic scene unfolding around the Vaulted Heights, a fourth jet flew down and converted to robot mode, landing in front of Damus’ mobile command station.
“Sir, we have broken through their front lines,” said the turquoise Decepticon flier (Damus believed his name was Slugslinger). “We are ready to make the final push. What are your orders?”
“Proceed with the next stage of the assault,” Damus replied. “I shall have the Heavy Brigade commence their run. I will be joining you and the others on the front lines shortly.”
“Yes, sir!” Slugslinger snapped off a sharp salute before transforming back to his jet mode and taking off. Stepping down from his command station, Damus allowed himself a small smile before converting to his own alternate mode — a heavy tank armed with dual fusion cannons. It was a far cry from the small courier vehicle he had had for an alternate mode until just a little over a decade ago.
He wouldn’t have had it any other way.
* * *
“Told you it was stupid plan,” growled Grimlock, leader of the Lightning Strike Coalition.
“Maybe if you hadn’t gotten in the way, it wouldn’t have turned out that way,” retorted Impactor, leader of the Wreckers.
The two commanders had been bickering more or less since the battle had begun. Due to the historic and spiritual value the Vaulted Heights of K’th Kinsere had to so many, Optimus Prime had called in the heaviest units in the Autobot military to defend the site from the Decepticons. Unfortunately, both leaders of said units were equally stubborn and hot-headed, making for a disastrous battle that, as of this moment, was not going in their favor.
The enemy had broken through the front lines and the bulk of both teams were trapped in a trench that separated them and the approaching Decepticon forces. Even now, Seekers and Heavy Brigade units were flying overhead and dropping their payload on the Vaulted Heights. If the battle wasn’t already a lost cause, it soon would be.
Of course, Dominus Ambus was the only one who wasn’t too stubborn to realize that or to admit it. He had always felt like the odd one out ever since he was assigned to the Lightning Strike Coalition after the rest of his unit had been killed during the Assault on Theta Palos. Between Grimlock’s hot-headed and narrow-minded Dynobots and reckless fighters like Smokescreen, Dominus honestly sure why he hadn’t left or asked to be reassigned in the three years he had spent with the L.S.C. Perhaps he felt obligated to offer an even mind such as his own to a team that otherwise lacked one.
Not that it had done any good in the past three years.
“Decepticons inbound,” reported Smokescreen, peering over the edge of the trench with a pair of macro-binoculars. “I’m not sure how much longer we’ll be able to hold out against them.”
“Bah! Let me at them!” said the Dynobot Slag. “I’ll melt them all down to their base components in no time!”
“If it was that easy, then why haven’t you done it sooner?” retorted the Wrecker Roadbuster. “Maybe then we wouldn’t be in this situation!”
Slag sneered at him. “Don’t pin the blame on us, Wrecker. There’s plenty of things you guys could have done that would have let us avoid all this!”
“Oh, yeah? Enlighten us, you big dumb lug,” snapped Whirl. “If you’re such an excellent strategist, why don’t you give us a few tips on how to get out of this mess?”
As the Wreckers and Dynobots continued to bicker, Dominus rubbed the side of his helmet, grateful that his visor and faceplate masked his exasperated expression. The primary purpose for the large suit of armor he had taken to wearing since becoming an active fighter in the war had been to disguise his distinctive appearance as a member of House Ambus; most of his teammates knew him as “Dominator” rather than as Dominus Ambus. It had also helped him mask his annoyance of his teammates’ habitual arguments and reckless behavior, which had been very useful in the three years he had spent with them.
Looking around the trench, Dominus saw very little that gave him hope in getting out of this situation the two teams had found themselves in. Across from him sat the Wrecker Blocker, cradling the body of their deceased friend in forlorn silence. Next to them sat the Autobot Inferno, his face partially burned due to an encounter with a flamethrower-wielding Decepticon. Next to him was a practically newborn Autobot named Ammo. A Made-To-Order soldier produced for this very mission, the young blue and yellow Autobot had just been rescued from the Decepticons after having his gun alternate mode be forcibly used against his comrades. Even with his face hidden by a visor and faceplate similar to Dominus’ own, it was clear that the incident had shaken him to the very core.
This, Dominus knew, was not the way. The Autobots were not going to win the battle in this condition, let alone the war. They needed a boost in morale, even more so with the inevitable loss of K’th Kinsere. They needed a way to show to the world that they were better than the Decepticons in terms of both tactics and morality. The Wreckers and Dynobots were, unfortunately, not the poster bots for such a movement. They needed a group that was a better representation of the ideals that the Autobots stood for, that Optimus Prime pushed them to follow. They needed—
“Grimlock? What are you doing?”
Dominus looked over to see the Dynobot leader pulling himself out of the trench, drawing his energo-sword. Impactor was looking up at him with an incredulous expression; even the other Dynobots had stopped their bickering to gawk at their leader, looking as clueless as their Wrecker counterparts.
“Taking matters into my own hands,” Grimlock growled before charging headfirst towards the approaching Decepticon army.
“Grimlock, no!” Impactor shouted. “Get back here!”
But it was too late. Grimlock was already lost in his rampage and Dominus could do little more than to watch it all unfold before his optics.
* * *
“What the hell is that idiot doing?”
Damus watched in incredulity as the Dynobot leader Grimlock cut his way through the Decepticon forces. Ground and aerial units alike opened fire on him from all directions but they did very little to deter the raging Dynobot. He grabbed one Decepticon by the head and hurled them into a Seeker, sending them both crashing into the ground.
“Somebody stop him!” Damus barked, firing the dual fusion cannons mounted on his arm. “Don’t let him—”
Before he could finish, he suddenly found himself laying on the ground, pinned down by a large gold and gray shape. That same “gold and gray shape” stared down at him, a fiery orange visor glowing from behind a black faceplate.
“Give me your face,” Grimlock growled.
“What?” Damus started to say, only to let out a scream just as the Dynobot dug his servos into the upper left corner of his face and tear out the metal surrounding his left optic.
The scream was one not just of physical pain, but of a pain that no one but him could understand.
Thirteen years ago
“What do you think?” Lobe asked as Damus rose from the operating table, presenting the newly rebuilt Decepticon with a mirror.
Damus did not recognize the face he saw in the mirror before him. That was good. He did not want to recognize it. If he had, then all of his efforts to start his life anew would have been for naught.
Damus touched the upper-left corner of his new face as he grinned for the first time in his life. “It’s perfect.”
Now
Damus was vaguely aware of Grimlock being pulled off of him, though the intense pain the Dynobot had caused him still persisted. Indeed, the next several minutes seem to pass by in a blur as several Decepticons ganged up on Grimlock, piling onto him, while a medic came to his side. The doctor’s voice could barely be heard over the sound of roars and clanging metal, though Damus could gather that they were telling him that none of his vital systems were in critical damage and that the damage done to his face was easily repairable.
There was no way they could have understood, though. No way they could have understood what something as simple as a standard faceplate meant to him. He had lived so much of his life as someone who stood out, whether due to his appearance or due to his nature. The Decepticons had given him a new identity; a new opportunity to make something of himself rather than just be “Damus the Glitch.”
And now, Grimlock had taken that all away just by tarnishing his face. Tarnishing his identity.
And he only had himself to blame.
By the time Damus had finally stopped screaming, the doctor beside him had been crushed to death. It took him a moment to realize that it was his own fist that had caved their cranium in, but he quickly disregarded that fact. Up ahead, the first spire of the Vaulted Heights came down. Victory was close at hand.
However, he felt anything but triumphant.
* * *
It had taken a good half-hour to recall Grimlock from his rampage. It took even less for the first of the Vaulted Heights’ spires to fall, nearly crushing the Autobots holed up in the trench below. That had been enough for Impactor to deliver the order to retreat. As Grimlock was in no condition to agree with or argue against the order (most of what he said came out as garbled enraged nonsense), the L.S.C. had little choice but to comply with the command and join the Wreckers in clearing out from the trench and fleeing to their respective ships.
The flight from K’th Kinsere back to Iacon was a quiet one. No one said a word as Wheeljack patched up everyone’s wounds. Neither Kup nor Ironhide attempted to lighten the mood by regaling them with old war stories. Even the Dynobots had remained silent, not trying to argue or pin the blame on any of the other crew members.
As much as Dominus welcomed the silence given all of the noise he had endured from the L.S.C., he wished that the circumstances had been different. The loss of K’th Kinsere was sure to deliver a major blow to the Autobots’ morale, something which they did not need at this point in the war. Optimus Prime had only been commander of the Autobots for four years and those who already criticized him were sure to weaponize this disaster to use as a point against him, perhaps even rallying others to their point of view. The last thing they needed was a crisis of faith in leadership and for Optimus to be removed from command and replaced with another Zeta Prime. Even the divide between Grimlock and Impactor during the battle had demonstrated how fragile the Autobots’ unity and fellowship was.
If the Autobots couldn’t stand together, what hope did they have standing against the Decepticons? It was only a matter of time before Megatron realized the weakness in their unity and exploited it any way he could.
Something had to be done. If actions alone would not inspire his fellow Autobots to work together, then perhaps words would do the job.
And if there was anything Dominus was proficient in using, it was words.
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