Titans Return: The Game

[Cyberstrike nTo]

Soundwave had finished his show and quickly left the studio in old Polyhex. As he walked out the doors and saw the once thriving Decepticon city reduced to a little more than a ghost town, it always makes him realize that his Titanmaster partner, Soundblaster was correct about Megatron. He was failure as a leader, and a new leader was needed.

He quickly leaded to the Spacebridge and was sent to a colony world Neo Polyhex, and headed to his private quarters from the Spacebridge. Neo Polyhex was a quickly becoming a major center of power in the Decepticon Empire, and would already be that if the Contructicons had been stuck as Devastator, as he walked by the new studio still under construction that when completed will be his new studio no more traveling to Cybertron.

Damn combiners. he thought as he walked past the building.

Soundwave entered his private quarters and sat down in front of a screens showing the battles raging on Cybertron as well secret messages and images from across the Decepticon Empire. He sat and pulled out his Black File Drive and plugged into his computer network and put in his password. Soundblaster disconnected from his body and Soundwave automatically transformed into an old Earth style boombox.
Soundblaster entered his password and then quickly reconnected with Soundwave back into robot mode. As Soundwave recorded his data.

"Hello Soundwave." a voice said from behind him.

Soundwave spun around in his chair and gasped: "YOU!"

[Crazyjabberwock]

Demolition's back

"Bee behind us! Sari alerted Bumblebee to the assault as he had been too focused on breaching the cannon, Using his reflexes he deftly leapt out of the way of the missiles, letting them impact on the very place he was trying to breach, hoping they might have softened the place for his attempted Sabotage, he momentarily panicked as he was back to facing the barrel of the cannon, he hastily made tracks again for the gun's backside.

"Hey! Mutual enemy means Mutual Screamer!" he chastised the seeker for hasty attempt to break the unspoken truce

*******

Skullcruncher continued prying at a rusted looking section of Demolition's inner Leg, it tasted awful but could contain morsels beneath, Grax for his part was trying to pull off bolts and rip welds, if he could get inside it he could really mess it up.

*******
Megatron's Side

As Nickel continued to try and affect a quicker start up for her leader, she thought maybe she could at least get Doomshot back into action for now, she looked around for any sort of emergency release mechanisms for Megatron's Titan master, Loath as she knew Kaon was to let the upstart go around using Megatron's position to his advantage, it was the most practical option on the table.

[Warcry]

Destroyed Shuttle

Demolition's ion cannon was sensitive equipment -- not sensitive enough that Bumblebee or any other Autobot could destroy it with his bare hands, of course, but tearing into the insulated plating that covered it had certainly disrupted the weapon's function, and so had Starscream's missiles. With the tiny Autobot no longer in his line of fire, the cannon swivelled towards the nearest sizable target (which happened to be Deathsaurus) and opened fire. A bolt of ionic death swelled out at the Decepticon sub-commander, but it was only around half the strength of the beam that had felled Optimus Prime and Megatron. The rest of the energy leaked out of the ion cannon's damaged plating and arced across Demolition's armour and into the ground.

The energy leak hurt the crazed combiner, eliciting another roar from its twisted maw. But Demolition wasn't the only one who would have been hurt. Any Autobots or Decepticons who'd been in contact with him when the shot was fired, or were close enough to be struck by a stray lightning bolt, would have received a very painful shock.

The combiner fell to its knees for a moment, dazed by the shock even though it didn't appear to be critically wounded. As such, Perceptor's light beam landed not in its mouth but on the rightmost of its many eyes, overloading the photoreceptors and blacking out that section of the beast's peripheral vision. The rest of the incoming fire landed, but the monster was too stunned to notice as bits of its armour were blasted (or in Skullcruncher's case, torn) away.
____________________________________________

Furos smiled as he heard Brainstorm's report. "Fantastic news. I'll let you know once it's on its way!"

He pondered for a moment, trying to decide if it was better to spring the trap now or try to do more damage to the beast. He was leaning towards the former, but before he could get a word out Hardhead preempted him.

"Now's our best chance! All Autobots, hit the creature with everything you've got. Keep hitting the torso armour!"

"A bit rash..." Furos commented privately.

"Bah!" Hardhead responded. "They are warriors! They know what they have to do."
____________________________________________

Megatron was probably too badly damaged to be brought back online without a full surgical suite, but as Nickel looked around at the neck mounts she would, indeed, hear the futile clicks as Doomshot tried and failed to disengage the connection himself.

[Crazyjabberwock]

Demolition's back
Bee yelped in pain as he was blown off the combiner from the shock, landing near its feet with an embarrassing thud, he scrambled to recover and take stock of the situation.

********

Grax and Skull were similarly blown backwards into a heap at Demolition's opposite leg, groaning in pain.

********

Megatron's Side

Nickle reconnected with Kaon, knowing that everyone was too focused on the failed super weapon to bother with matters of true importance, they got ready to carry their leader to the nearest semi-viable medical facility.

[Blackjack]

Destroyed Shuttle

Sixshot pulled up, narrowly avoiding a lightning blast from Demolition's ion cannon. The bolt did come close enough to him to send the six-changer's targeting systems into fritz, though, and Convex's yelling is not helping matters.

How do you bring down something so large, so powerful?

Even if he knows not of honour, it is a challenge nonetheless.

Sixshot shot into the air, before swooping back down. "Fall!" The sixchanger yelled as he flew in a path that led to Demolition's face, before transforming quickly into his cannon mode and launching blasts of sonic and ballistic projectiles. Convex yelled something about being ground up into dust, but Sixshot cared not for his partner at the moment. All that cared was proving that he is the strongest warrior.
_____________________________________________________

"You have missed, sir." Convex told Perceptor.

"I can see that, Convex. I am the one with the telescopic light array attached to me." Perceptor replied curtly as the giant cannon swiveled to track Demolition's vortex grinder again.

"Would it not be prudent to eliminate the ion-based lightning mortar cannons first with your light-spectrum microtelescopic cannon?" Convex asked. "Our ground-bound infantry forces are being systematically slaughtered down there."

"They can defend themselves. We go for the kill." Perceptor warmed up another shot, and launched another blast from his light cannon onto Devastator's mouth, again aiming to destroy the beast's vortex grinder.

[Heinrad]

Battlefield:


Hot Rod hovered on his boot jets, above and behind Demolition. A visor slid down over his optics, and he scowled slightly.

"We're not having much effect."

"Oh, darn. Does this mean we can do something less dangerous now, like being shot with Megajerk's fusion cannon?"

"No. But we can try to do something more effective."

Hot Rod aimed both sets of his arm mounted laser cannons at the damaged part of Demolition's ion cannon and opened fire.

[Warcry]

Destroyed Shuttle

Demolition groggily looked up as Sixshot blasted it in the face. The combiner didn't move for a moment, its remaining eyes glassy even as a few more of them were shattered by the incoming fire. Then something seemed to switch back on on the creature's head. The eyes narrowed and started to glow red, moments before a set of optic beams blasted out at the sixchanging Decepticon.

His mouth was closed, so Perceptor's shot punched into his jawline but didn't penetrate into the sensitive circuitry of the vortex grinder.

As Hot Rod started to pour fire into the damaged cannon, more armour fell away and short arcs of lightning leaped out towards the ground and several nearby, unlucky Transformers.

Then Demolition roared again, and started to climb to its feet.
____________________________________________

Now that the creature had been hobbled, Mindwipe fluttered towards Hot Rod and said, "Allow us to assist, blah."

The Decepticon bat shot several laser blasts from its tail cannon, chipping away slowly at the cannon armour that Bumblebee, Starscream and finally Hot Rod had opened up.
____________________________________________

Hardhead swerved, narrowly avoiding a wayward electric blast that still carried enough charge, even as a near miss, to force the Autobot tank's targeting systems to reboot.

Furos, for his part, scowled as he saw the beast start to rise.

"Sentinel Prime," he hailed the former leader, "are you ready to lead this thing into our trap?"

[tahukanuva]

Battlefield

Deathsaurus fired their booster jets as Demolition aimed its cannon at them. They avoided a direct hit, but the ground exploding just beneath them sent them rolling across the ground. They shakily righted themselves just as Scourge's reply came through.

"Excellent work, Scourge and Kaon. Stay in cover for now and we'll radio you when we know where you should take them."

Since they were now separated by a fair amount of distance, and the battlefield had become quite cacophonous, Deathsaurus hailed Furos on the comms.

"Hardhead, this is Deathsaurus. My troops have retrieved Optimus and Megatron and need to know where we're taking the wounded."


--------------------------------------------


Shuttle Wreckage


Sentinel shifted his stance so that he was ready to kick off as soon as he had the signal.

"I'm ready and waiting, Hardhead. Just give the order."

He looked over at Chromedome and nodded. "Be ready to help me out of here. If I crash getting out, I won't be able to lure that monster very far."

[Heinrad]

Dig Site Tunnel Entrance:


Ginrai rolled to a stop, air brakes hissing as the trailer ramp dropped open. "All right, everybody out."

Nightbeat, still ensconced in his virtual reality control sphere, brought up an image of the battle station mode. "Do we really have to do this?"

"You heard Furos. We're the last line of defense here. If they can't stop that thing, we'll have to."

"Stuck as a base?"

"My ion cannons are pretty powerful, as are my laser cannons-"

"One of which is off line."

"If we have to, we can transform. But we won't have to."

Once the last of the Titan Masters had disembarked from Ginrai's trailer, he transformed to battle station mode, with Nightbeat suddenly finding himself sittIng on a command throne in front of a large monitor. Roller, meanwhile, found himself locked into place as an auxiliary turret mount.

***********
Shuttle Wreckage:


Chromedome nodded to Sentinel. "Yes, sir." He brought up one of his carbines and started blasting away at the wreckage to make Sentinel's exit path easier.

[Selkadoom]

Sonic Canyons

At this point Brainstorm had hopped up and taken a seat a distance away down the canyons and was taking his time to effect some minor repairs and tinker a bit with some unfinished Prototypes he had.

Shouldn't you be... Preparing for the arrival of the combiner?" his partner asked a bit perturbed by his nonchalant attitude over the situation.

"Why? Traps ready, and I have at least a few cycles to work before they funnel it here. Might as well be productive."

"You are something else Teslor remarked slightly exasperated.

____________________________________________

Dig Site

Scourge, having gotten Optimus's unconscious form onto his alt mode, was speeding away from the conflict with the combiner so as to keep their truce with the autobots alive while they needed it.

[Warcry]

Destroyed Shuttle

Demolition had climbed to its feet, letting out another roar as rose to its full height, towering over the puny combatants who were daring to fight it.

This time, however, its roar was echoed by others in the distance that had been attracted by the sounds of the battle.
____________________________________________

"Good work," Furos told Deathsaurus. "The safest place for them right now is probably the dig site tunnels. I'll have Ginrai send you a marker."

Looping the other Autobot in, he said, "Ginrai and Nightbeat, send me your location so Optimus and Megatron can be brought there."

Switching channels, he said to Sentinel Prime, "If you're ready, then by all means, sir, go!"

After hearing the answering roars, Hardhead checked his long-range sensors and winced. "Deathsaurus, we have more combiners en route. They're about twenty miles out, but they move fast. Once we take this one down -- ", if we can take it down, " -- we'll need to get under cover before they arrive."

He fired a few more shells at the beast's midline as he spoke.

[Crazyjabberwock]

Demolition's Legs
Grax and Skullcruncher managed to pry open a tiny tiny hole, just bit enough for Grax to work his way in and clime about the inner leg servos of the beast, he looked around for something delicate and important enough, a motivator, a Connector anchor, the leg unit's spark chamber?

********

Bumblebee decided to take a simpler method to his own sabotage, grabbing a clump of metal scraps that had come loose from all the superficial damage and trying to use them to simply plug up the cannons manually.

[Heinrad]

Dig Site:


Nightbeat nodded, looking at the control panels before him. "No problem, Furos, just let me-"

Lights began to blink in earnest on one panel. He reached out and hit a switch on the panel, then noted that the holodisplay before him was indicating that a locator beacon was being transmitted.

"- and there you go."


********
Hovering behind Demolition:


Hot Rod hovered in the air briefly, balanced on his jets. "All right, Mindwipe, let's try this. If you can hypnotize him, or at the least daze him, I can try to land on his back and see if I can get that cannon to feedback into his systems."

[Blackjack]

Destroyed Shuttle

Perceptor growled as his light cannon finished its recharge sequence, and fired yet another blast down at Demolition's head.
________________________________

Sixshot transformed into his tank mode, landing on an elevated chunk of broken architecture some distance away from where Demolition was rampaging. His tank treads hummed before locking themselves onto the ground, ensuring that Sixshot doesn't knock himself off his perch with the force of his blasts.

"Sixshot-sama, there are more approaching. Our sensors-"

"I see that. Which is why we need to take this beast down now. Bombardment commencing." Sixshot knew that Deathsaurus and the Autobot scum were setting up a trap. He heard the radio chatter. But if that trap fails, superior firepower and battle skills are still what's going to win the day. Sixshot's tank-mode cannons and hypersonic concussion cannons charged, and he launched a barrage of artillery mortar shells, laser blasts and hypersonic energy waves, focusing at one of Demolition's leg, aiming for the one where Bumblebee and the other saboteurs were not at.

They were enemies, but a truce is a truce, and Sixshot had honour.
________________________________

Inside Scourge

Optimus Prime still lay prone, unmoving, within the Decepticon that 'rescued' him. Neither Optimus nor Diac was conscious, such was the effect of the ion blast that impacted him.

[tahukanuva]

Shuttle Wreckage

Sentinel Prime steeled himself, trying to suppress the panic and distress that Infinitus was still shouting into their shared mind, and shifted into shuttle mode. His thrusters flared to life as his multitude of cannons blasted the debris. He shot past Chromedome, and through the remaining wreckage in his path. He shot out into the sky and pulled a wide banking loop to ensure that Demolition spotted him, before flying towards where Brainstorm had laid his trap.

------------------------------------

Battlefield

Deathsaurus frowned in response to Furos's news. Even if they managed to take this one out in time to evacuate, which was hardly a certainty to begin with, who knows who long it would take the new arrivals to leave the area again? He trusted his troops to handle a battlefield ceasefire like this, but spending days or even weeks in cramped tunnels with the Autobots could get.. tense. Of course, there wasn't much point dwelling on hypothetical future problems when the very real present was itself such a very real problem that still needed dealt with.

"All Decepticons, this is Deathsaurus. We need to keep up the attack until the trap is sprung, but we have more Combiners headed this way and fast, so as soon as that thing drops we need to clear the battlefield and get below ground."

"Scourge, Kaon, the Autobots have put out a beacon for the tunnel entrance. Deliver Megatron and Optimus there, and if all goes well the rest of us will join you shortly."

[Crazyjabberwock]

Now On The move to the beacon

Kaon hears this and makes haste to the designated spot with their leader in tow, the more outraged parts of his mind calmed by Nickle's practical elements "We read you Deathsaurus Enroute now!

********

Demolition's Legs

Grax continues "Don't need to tell us twice, Skull can swim on rust and sand nearly as good as the water, we'll be out the moment this thing drops"

[Warcry]

Destroyed Shuttle

Demolition tried to shoot down Sentinel Prime once the Autobot was within view, but the sabotage that Bumblebee had inflicted had rendered his massive ion cannon inoperable. With a wrathful growl, the giant combiner took off after the former Autobot leader, blind to anything he might stomp along the way. It moved with a noticeable hitch in one leg where Grax had climbed inside.
____________________________________________

Mindwipe scoffed. "I vould love to do that, Autobot," he told Hot Rod, "but for my direct orders not to try to hypnotize the monster. I vill assist you othervise, howewer. Assuming Deathsaurus vill permit it."

Vorath scowled. "Oh, stop moping and get over yourself, already." He heard Deathsaurus's orders and added, "More combiners? Grand."

And that point, Demolition had torn off after Sentinel Prime and the Titan Master had to prod his partner, "Well come on, after them!"
____________________________________________

"Thanks, Nightbeat." Furos watched the beacon pop up on Hardhead's holodisplay. "You're about to have a bunch of company."

Hardhead had to swerve wildly to avoid being run over by the combiner. After he did that, he rolled to a stop. The beast was moving away from him faster than his tank mode could follow.

[Heinrad]

Wreckage:


Chromedome transformed and roared out of the wreckage after Sentinel, trying to keep up.

"You should have let me grab onto his wing, Stylor! How are we supposed to keep an eye on him if we're not near him?"

"He's a big bot. He can keep an eye on himself. Besides, given his color scheme, they can spot him, unassisted, from trans-lunar orbit."

************
Destroyed Shuttle Area:


Hot Rod shrugged. "If we can get all the Combiners to converge on where we're trapping this rust bucket, maybe we won't have to deal with more of them." He swooped down, transforming back to vehicle mode and charging after the combiner.

[Warcry]

Destroyed Shuttle

"You vant to fight more combiners?" Mindwipe shook his head at Hot Rod. "You are mad, Autobot."

"Although I have to admit to some curiosity about whether Hot Rod's plan would work," Vorath interjected, "I have to agree. He is mad."

As they flapped behind the Autobot, Mindwipe added, "Right. Ve didn't come here to fight monsters, and I sure they didn't either. Vhat is the point of picking fight vhen it only make mission harder?"
______________________________________

Demolition continued to charge after Sentinel Prime, a chunk of his face armour now hanging by a thread after Sixshot's last blast.
______________________________________

Enroute to the beacon

Doomshot's struggles finally paid fruit, as he managed to transform to robot mode and pull free of Megatron's neck socket. Clinging to the larger body, he shook his head and muttered, "Ouch."

[Clogs]

Archaeological dig

The floor of the artificial cave erupted as a massive hand shot upwards, red fingers outstretched - and Drill rose in a parabola, limbs flailing. His flight was brutally arrested as he was snatched from the air and pulled downwards. The showering debris struck the ceiling before crashing down towards the nearest archaeologists; astroseconds later, the debris round the punched hole began to subside. The noise was incredible.

Glyph staggered, physically shaken by the initial impact, and gave a cry as her colleague disappeared.

Those individuals nearest the event found themselves slipping downwards, carried by the collapsing floor, while simultaneously trying to fend of assorted falling metal. Two failed to scrabble away and slid, inevitably, down.

At the very mouth of the tunnel, the lead dolly hit the crater and it, too, went downwards, finds and Autobot guards falling into and being engulfed by the metallic maelstrom.