Never Did Run Smooth, Ch. 19
Behold, I bring you a river as a plot device. The writers of the show itself could not be more shameless. Also, this chapter contains monkeys!
- - - - -
The mist at the base of the waterfall was too thick for optic sensors to penetrate. Optimus pulled up and hovered, waiting for the current to bring the pod out into sight again. Seizing the opportunity, Terrorsaur transformed and fired a missile at him.
Primal barely swerved in time, feeling hot air graze his shoulder, and spun around to deploy his own launchers. The Predacons scattered in opposite directions, leaving him to decide which to aim for. He chose Terrorsaur. The missile skipped along the pteranodon's back without exploding, almost knocking him out of the sky. Primal had a brief moment of satisfaction before a retaliatory shot burst against his back, causing his shields to flicker. Waspinator was surprisingly quick on the uptake today.
While all of this was going on, the pod resurfaced and meandered downstream, swiftly gathering momentum. Terrorsaur spotted it while righting himself and abandoned the fight, taking off after the prize. Waspinator broke off to follow him, and Primal pursued.
The chase took them several miles from the main battle, following the course of the river. Strong currents had pulled the pod into the center of the flow and it was moving along quite rapidly, taking the curves as smoothly as if someone was steering it. Startled birds burst from the foliage of the riverside as the three robots shot past. Optimus and the Predacons wove intercepting patterns, playing midair chicken while each tried to draw closer to the pod than the others, swooping low above the water.
Suddenly Terrorsaur climbed, rising above Optimus and Waspinator as they skimmed along just over the current. He flipped out his shoulder-mounted missiles once more and took aim at the Maximal. This time his shot was perfect. Optimus barely had time to hear the attack streaking towards him before it hit, slamming him facefirst into the water. The air warrior whooped in victory.
Unfortunately the surprise attack also startled Waspinator, who pulled up sharply. Terrorsaur, whose mind was more on gloating than on flying, failed to notice. The wasp smacked into him, sending him pinwheeling into the riverside foliage with a shrill and indignant squawk!
By the time the pteranodon disentangled himself from the thick growth and Waspinator managed to get his head together, they'd lost sight of the pod. Terrorsaur called his partner ten kinds of idiot, but wasted no time in transforming to beastmode and taking up the chase again.
Can't be too hard, he reasoned. We'll just follow the river until it turns up again.
Less than a mile ahead, the river branched in two. Terrorsaur pulled up and swore as soon as he saw it. "Is nothing ever easy?"
Hovering beside him, Waspinator shook his head mournfully. "What now?"
Terrorsaur looked cautiously around. There was no sign of Optimus Prime since they'd dunked him. That was at least one piece of news in their favor. "We'll have to split up," he said. "You go left, I'll go right, got it?"
"Why Wazzpinator have to go left? Izz zomething bad on the left?"
It took considerable restraint on his partner's part not to shoot a missile at him. "Fine, take the right one. I don't care. We'd better find the slagging thing, and fast!"
Seeming to accept this arrangement, Waspinator nodded and sped off. Terrorsaur watched him for just a moment to make sure he stayed focused, then banked and followed the swifter-flowing current running downhill to the left.
- - - - -
At the bottom of the slope, the river leveled out onto a wet plain, flanked by thick groves of trees. Here the current slackened, in several places forming shallow pools where the water lay almost still. Along the muddy fringes of these pools grew thick reeds, while branches and other detritus accumulated from upstream -- the final resting place for much of what flowed along the river.
A troop of vervet monkeys was foraging peacefully in the grass a few yards from shore when the strange object drifted into the shallows and grounded in the mud. A sentinel spotted it, stood up on his hind legs and grunted to get the others' attention.
Most animals on prehistoric Earth would have ignored such an artificial object as long as it posed no threat. The monkeys -- intelligent, opportunistic, and ever-alert to their environment -- approached it cautiously, the mothers with young infants hanging back, adult males and juveniles up front. One spotted his own reflection in the alloy and jumped, making a surprised face. Others stretched out an arm to paw at the shiny surface or sniffed it, even licking at the strange metal. The alienness of the structure, the lights blinking along its sides and the faint hum from machinery within made the pod much more interesting and attractive than most inanimate objects they encountered daily. One brave juvenile even leaped on top of it and started hopping up and down on all fours.
Then the scanner activated.
The monkeys scattered as the antenna unfolded, leaping back up the bank with wild barks and yelps of alarm. At a safe distance they stopped and turned to look back, crouching low to the grass, mothers clutching their infants close. The scanning beams appeared and swept in a slow semicircle, passing over the group. A few of the monkeys twitched at the faint tingling sensation. Then it was gone.
Blinking, the small primates started to gather their wits back together. Then the lid of the pod cracked open with a hiss of pressurized air, and they fled again, this time disappearing into the trees.
Terrorsaur arrived on the scene about two minutes later, alerted by the noise. He'd never heard monkeys making such a racket before. Once he spotted the pod, he had a good idea why. He circled once, just to make sure no Maximal ambushes were waiting for him, then transformed and dropped into the clearing.
As soon as his shadow passed over them, the damn hairballs started up again. With loud rrraup! sounds, they retreated into the thick brush where the giant scary "bird" couldn't get to them. Terrorsaur fired a couple of shots in their general direction to shut them up, before stooping over the pod.
It opened easily. Much too easily.
Terrorsaur took one look inside and started swearing.
A missile slammed into his shoulder, throwing him away from the pod. He looked up from the grass to see Primal materializing out of the river like a vengeful spirit, dripping muddy water and trailing weeds, his optics blazing. "You... will not harm... the protoform!"
Give me a break. "Scrap the dramatics, you moron. We're both too late!"
Optimus paused, reluctant to turn away from the Predacon. "If this is a trick, Terrorsaur--"
"See for yourself, the slagging thing is empty!"
Primal looked, startled. Terrorsaur took the opportunity to throw himself in the air. He only had a split second before Optimus reacted, raising his pistol. The Predacon was just marginally faster. Primal's first shot missed, and he didn't get the chance for a second as the weapon was blasted out of his hand.
For a second they stared each other down. Primal's jetpack had been disabled when he was shot down, so he couldn't very well pursue the flier into the air. They were both out of missiles. Terrorsaur considered flying away; the chance to come back from a mission almost unscathed for once was a very appealing one. On the other hand, Optimus made a very tempting target. And Megatron was going to be pissed about the protoform escaping, but he would possibly be less so if Terrorsaur managed to deal considerable damage to the enemy leader--
Unfortunately for him, before this train of thought could go any further, Terrorsaur was shot again.
He crashed to the ground near Optimus's feet, thoroughly confused. Where in the PIT did that come from?
A piercing falcon screech answered the question. "Optimus! Looks like I got here just in time."
Terrorsaur hated that damn bird.
Airazor landed next to him, weapon trained on his head. "I really think you want to be somewhere else," she said. "We've got bigger things to worry about than scavengers."
He tried to sneer at her, but faltered in the face of a burning desire not to get shot again. Terrorsaur had always believed in discretion as the better part of valor. Cautiously he stood, the barrel of the pistol almost poking him between the optics, and backed away. To save a little face he tossed out, "Not that it matters anyway. You just wasted your time on a wild pod chase, and Megatron's probably destroyed your tower already. Better go check to make sure he hasn't singed your pretty kitty cat while he was at it, Primal--"
He leaped into the air with a squawk as Optimus lunged at him. Airazor caught her commander's shoulder. "Let him go," she said. "We really do have problems."
"How bad?" Primal asked, watching Terrorsaur transform and flap unsteadily away. Damn. I was hoping he'd have to walk home too.
"Cheetor called me. He lost communication with the others. He said he was going to check it out, but whatever he finds, I doubt it'll be good news."
The familiar sinking feeling wove its way through Primal's circuits. "I have to get back there," he said. "Stay here and search for the protoform. Get Tigatron's help if you can reach him. If we manage to salvage even one crew member, this won't have been for nothing."
- - - - -
The battlefield was a site of disaster. Primal could see the smoke long before anything else. His beastmode wasn't made for running, but he forced it over the rough terrain at the best speed he could manage. A real gorilla would be dead from exhaustion by now. As it was, he was out of breath and the sun beating down on his black fur made his circuits feel like they were boiling. Dread of what he might find when he reached the tower drove him on.
The first person he saw was Rhinox, standing dejectedly in beastmode, staring at the remains of what they had worked so hard to build. It obviously hadn't exploded as spectacularly as the Predacon transmission tower had, but it was certainly damaged enough. They'd never be able to salvage the vital components for another attempt, though Primal knew that Rhinox would try. He always tried.
The engineer's ears were drooping. One twitched as he heard his commander approach, but he didn't turn. "We failed," he said simply.
Optimus stood up beside him, chest heaving, and looked over the wreckage. "How… how did they do this? What happened after I left?"
"We were holding them off pretty well, at first. It was just Inferno and Tarantulas, and I managed to take Inferno down myself. I took a couple of hits, but they weren't enough to worry about." He sighed heavily. "I don't know where Blackarachnia came from. By the time Rattrap yelled a warning, it was too late -- she had me pumped full of cyber-venom. After that, I was just a spectator.
"I didn't see everything, but I heard Rattrap scream. It sounded like they were smelting him alive. I couldn't do anything -- I couldn't even move." He lowered his head. "Then I saw Megatron."
Optimus jerked. "Megatron? He was still standing?" That means Dinobot lost.
"Yeah, he looked pretty slagged up, but he was still armed. All it took was one missile. He knew exactly where to hit it."
Primal rested a hand on the engineer's armored shoulder. "What about Rattrap?"
"He'd be deactivated if it weren't for Cheetor. The kid got here just in time -- nobody else would've been fast enough. He grabbed Rattrap and jumped clear of the tower just before it collapsed. Then he transformed, started firing at the Predacons. I don't think he hit any of them, but they didn't stick around to give him the chance."
The commander was momentarily stunned. "Cheetor did all that?"
Rhinox turned now, fixing him with one beady eye. "Yeah. We both owe him our lives. Megatron might've just decided to finish me off while he was at it, too. But most of his mechs were down, and he didn't seem to have much fight left in him. Besides… he'd done what he was here to do."
The mention of Megatron brought one concern to the front of Primal's processor. "And Dinobot? What happened to him?"
Rhinox hesitated, and that cold dread wound itself once more around Primal's Spark. "We didn't have much time to worry about him at first. Once the venom wore off enough that I could move, we retreated to the Axalon. We put Rattrap in CR, and I probably should've gone in myself, but Cheetor said he was going to look for Dinobot, so I stayed up to wait. He found him almost right away, and it's a good thing he did. Megatron left him alive, but…" He shook his head.
"How bad?" Optimus knew he wasn't going to like the answer.
"He was pinned to the ground. With his own sword. Megatron must have wanted us to find him like that -- I can't think of any other reason he didn't just kill him."
Leathery hands clenched into fists so tightly that they creaked. It was a moment before Primal could speak. "Is… he going to be alright?"
"I think so. We got him into CR just in time. He lost a lot of mech fluid, took some heavy energon damage and was in a serious state of shock, not to mention the mechanical parts that had to be repaired. But we both know he's been through worse. A few days should see him back on his feet." There was a moment's pause. "I really wish he'd been unconscious when we found him, though. Primus only knows what'll be going through his mind when he wakes up."
Optimus closed his eyes.
"What about the pod?" Rhinox asked him quietly. "Did any good come of this at all?"
"I found the pod, but I was too late. Terrorsaur reached it first. He said it was empty when he found it, though. I hope that's true, and we might still be able to recover the Maximal protoform if it hasn't been reprogrammed. I've got Airazor searching the area now."
"Maybe we'll be lucky."
"Maybe. Did any other pods fall?"
Rhinox just shook his head.
They both stood for a while in silence, taking in the smell of defeat, marginally comforted by each other's presence and by the knowledge that at least they were all still alive. This is depressingly predictable, isn't it? Optimus found himself thinking. We hit them, they hit back, we hit them back. Neither side ever seems to gain advantage, and the small victories are almost never worth the cost. Is war always this futile, or are we doing something wrong? Have we been thrown together on this planet by forces beyond our control just so we can entertain them with our struggles?
"Was Rattrap badly hurt, by the way?" He almost didn't hear himself ask the question.
"Huh-- No. Actually, he should be fine in a couple of hours. Tarantulas hit him with a neurological compound. I found the dart, definitely his work. It's designed to burn out sensory systems -- causes excruciating pain, at least until the mech loses consciousness, but it doesn't do any real damage. He might feel like slag for a few days, though."
Optimus nodded. "I'll take him off the duty roster for a while then, if we're not too busy. I'm sure he'd appreciate the break." Something nagged at his processor. "Seems like a strange weapon to use in a battle, doesn't it?"
"It is. I've seen this technology before, but not in this setting. I'm not sure why Tarantulas was carrying it around, though I guess nothing about him should really surprise me anymore. What really puzzles me is that he'd use that on him instead of just shooting him. They didn't try to kill him, but they didn't try to take him alive either. It's like they just wanted to make him scream." Rhinox snorted in anger and frustration. "What was the point in that?"
Optimus watched the smoke curl from the wreckage, uneasy at the number of things that didn't make sense. "What, indeed…"
- - - - -
The mist at the base of the waterfall was too thick for optic sensors to penetrate. Optimus pulled up and hovered, waiting for the current to bring the pod out into sight again. Seizing the opportunity, Terrorsaur transformed and fired a missile at him.
Primal barely swerved in time, feeling hot air graze his shoulder, and spun around to deploy his own launchers. The Predacons scattered in opposite directions, leaving him to decide which to aim for. He chose Terrorsaur. The missile skipped along the pteranodon's back without exploding, almost knocking him out of the sky. Primal had a brief moment of satisfaction before a retaliatory shot burst against his back, causing his shields to flicker. Waspinator was surprisingly quick on the uptake today.
While all of this was going on, the pod resurfaced and meandered downstream, swiftly gathering momentum. Terrorsaur spotted it while righting himself and abandoned the fight, taking off after the prize. Waspinator broke off to follow him, and Primal pursued.
The chase took them several miles from the main battle, following the course of the river. Strong currents had pulled the pod into the center of the flow and it was moving along quite rapidly, taking the curves as smoothly as if someone was steering it. Startled birds burst from the foliage of the riverside as the three robots shot past. Optimus and the Predacons wove intercepting patterns, playing midair chicken while each tried to draw closer to the pod than the others, swooping low above the water.
Suddenly Terrorsaur climbed, rising above Optimus and Waspinator as they skimmed along just over the current. He flipped out his shoulder-mounted missiles once more and took aim at the Maximal. This time his shot was perfect. Optimus barely had time to hear the attack streaking towards him before it hit, slamming him facefirst into the water. The air warrior whooped in victory.
Unfortunately the surprise attack also startled Waspinator, who pulled up sharply. Terrorsaur, whose mind was more on gloating than on flying, failed to notice. The wasp smacked into him, sending him pinwheeling into the riverside foliage with a shrill and indignant squawk!
By the time the pteranodon disentangled himself from the thick growth and Waspinator managed to get his head together, they'd lost sight of the pod. Terrorsaur called his partner ten kinds of idiot, but wasted no time in transforming to beastmode and taking up the chase again.
Can't be too hard, he reasoned. We'll just follow the river until it turns up again.
Less than a mile ahead, the river branched in two. Terrorsaur pulled up and swore as soon as he saw it. "Is nothing ever easy?"
Hovering beside him, Waspinator shook his head mournfully. "What now?"
Terrorsaur looked cautiously around. There was no sign of Optimus Prime since they'd dunked him. That was at least one piece of news in their favor. "We'll have to split up," he said. "You go left, I'll go right, got it?"
"Why Wazzpinator have to go left? Izz zomething bad on the left?"
It took considerable restraint on his partner's part not to shoot a missile at him. "Fine, take the right one. I don't care. We'd better find the slagging thing, and fast!"
Seeming to accept this arrangement, Waspinator nodded and sped off. Terrorsaur watched him for just a moment to make sure he stayed focused, then banked and followed the swifter-flowing current running downhill to the left.
- - - - -
At the bottom of the slope, the river leveled out onto a wet plain, flanked by thick groves of trees. Here the current slackened, in several places forming shallow pools where the water lay almost still. Along the muddy fringes of these pools grew thick reeds, while branches and other detritus accumulated from upstream -- the final resting place for much of what flowed along the river.
A troop of vervet monkeys was foraging peacefully in the grass a few yards from shore when the strange object drifted into the shallows and grounded in the mud. A sentinel spotted it, stood up on his hind legs and grunted to get the others' attention.
Most animals on prehistoric Earth would have ignored such an artificial object as long as it posed no threat. The monkeys -- intelligent, opportunistic, and ever-alert to their environment -- approached it cautiously, the mothers with young infants hanging back, adult males and juveniles up front. One spotted his own reflection in the alloy and jumped, making a surprised face. Others stretched out an arm to paw at the shiny surface or sniffed it, even licking at the strange metal. The alienness of the structure, the lights blinking along its sides and the faint hum from machinery within made the pod much more interesting and attractive than most inanimate objects they encountered daily. One brave juvenile even leaped on top of it and started hopping up and down on all fours.
Then the scanner activated.
The monkeys scattered as the antenna unfolded, leaping back up the bank with wild barks and yelps of alarm. At a safe distance they stopped and turned to look back, crouching low to the grass, mothers clutching their infants close. The scanning beams appeared and swept in a slow semicircle, passing over the group. A few of the monkeys twitched at the faint tingling sensation. Then it was gone.
Blinking, the small primates started to gather their wits back together. Then the lid of the pod cracked open with a hiss of pressurized air, and they fled again, this time disappearing into the trees.
Terrorsaur arrived on the scene about two minutes later, alerted by the noise. He'd never heard monkeys making such a racket before. Once he spotted the pod, he had a good idea why. He circled once, just to make sure no Maximal ambushes were waiting for him, then transformed and dropped into the clearing.
As soon as his shadow passed over them, the damn hairballs started up again. With loud rrraup! sounds, they retreated into the thick brush where the giant scary "bird" couldn't get to them. Terrorsaur fired a couple of shots in their general direction to shut them up, before stooping over the pod.
It opened easily. Much too easily.
Terrorsaur took one look inside and started swearing.
A missile slammed into his shoulder, throwing him away from the pod. He looked up from the grass to see Primal materializing out of the river like a vengeful spirit, dripping muddy water and trailing weeds, his optics blazing. "You... will not harm... the protoform!"
Give me a break. "Scrap the dramatics, you moron. We're both too late!"
Optimus paused, reluctant to turn away from the Predacon. "If this is a trick, Terrorsaur--"
"See for yourself, the slagging thing is empty!"
Primal looked, startled. Terrorsaur took the opportunity to throw himself in the air. He only had a split second before Optimus reacted, raising his pistol. The Predacon was just marginally faster. Primal's first shot missed, and he didn't get the chance for a second as the weapon was blasted out of his hand.
For a second they stared each other down. Primal's jetpack had been disabled when he was shot down, so he couldn't very well pursue the flier into the air. They were both out of missiles. Terrorsaur considered flying away; the chance to come back from a mission almost unscathed for once was a very appealing one. On the other hand, Optimus made a very tempting target. And Megatron was going to be pissed about the protoform escaping, but he would possibly be less so if Terrorsaur managed to deal considerable damage to the enemy leader--
Unfortunately for him, before this train of thought could go any further, Terrorsaur was shot again.
He crashed to the ground near Optimus's feet, thoroughly confused. Where in the PIT did that come from?
A piercing falcon screech answered the question. "Optimus! Looks like I got here just in time."
Terrorsaur hated that damn bird.
Airazor landed next to him, weapon trained on his head. "I really think you want to be somewhere else," she said. "We've got bigger things to worry about than scavengers."
He tried to sneer at her, but faltered in the face of a burning desire not to get shot again. Terrorsaur had always believed in discretion as the better part of valor. Cautiously he stood, the barrel of the pistol almost poking him between the optics, and backed away. To save a little face he tossed out, "Not that it matters anyway. You just wasted your time on a wild pod chase, and Megatron's probably destroyed your tower already. Better go check to make sure he hasn't singed your pretty kitty cat while he was at it, Primal--"
He leaped into the air with a squawk as Optimus lunged at him. Airazor caught her commander's shoulder. "Let him go," she said. "We really do have problems."
"How bad?" Primal asked, watching Terrorsaur transform and flap unsteadily away. Damn. I was hoping he'd have to walk home too.
"Cheetor called me. He lost communication with the others. He said he was going to check it out, but whatever he finds, I doubt it'll be good news."
The familiar sinking feeling wove its way through Primal's circuits. "I have to get back there," he said. "Stay here and search for the protoform. Get Tigatron's help if you can reach him. If we manage to salvage even one crew member, this won't have been for nothing."
- - - - -
The battlefield was a site of disaster. Primal could see the smoke long before anything else. His beastmode wasn't made for running, but he forced it over the rough terrain at the best speed he could manage. A real gorilla would be dead from exhaustion by now. As it was, he was out of breath and the sun beating down on his black fur made his circuits feel like they were boiling. Dread of what he might find when he reached the tower drove him on.
The first person he saw was Rhinox, standing dejectedly in beastmode, staring at the remains of what they had worked so hard to build. It obviously hadn't exploded as spectacularly as the Predacon transmission tower had, but it was certainly damaged enough. They'd never be able to salvage the vital components for another attempt, though Primal knew that Rhinox would try. He always tried.
The engineer's ears were drooping. One twitched as he heard his commander approach, but he didn't turn. "We failed," he said simply.
Optimus stood up beside him, chest heaving, and looked over the wreckage. "How… how did they do this? What happened after I left?"
"We were holding them off pretty well, at first. It was just Inferno and Tarantulas, and I managed to take Inferno down myself. I took a couple of hits, but they weren't enough to worry about." He sighed heavily. "I don't know where Blackarachnia came from. By the time Rattrap yelled a warning, it was too late -- she had me pumped full of cyber-venom. After that, I was just a spectator.
"I didn't see everything, but I heard Rattrap scream. It sounded like they were smelting him alive. I couldn't do anything -- I couldn't even move." He lowered his head. "Then I saw Megatron."
Optimus jerked. "Megatron? He was still standing?" That means Dinobot lost.
"Yeah, he looked pretty slagged up, but he was still armed. All it took was one missile. He knew exactly where to hit it."
Primal rested a hand on the engineer's armored shoulder. "What about Rattrap?"
"He'd be deactivated if it weren't for Cheetor. The kid got here just in time -- nobody else would've been fast enough. He grabbed Rattrap and jumped clear of the tower just before it collapsed. Then he transformed, started firing at the Predacons. I don't think he hit any of them, but they didn't stick around to give him the chance."
The commander was momentarily stunned. "Cheetor did all that?"
Rhinox turned now, fixing him with one beady eye. "Yeah. We both owe him our lives. Megatron might've just decided to finish me off while he was at it, too. But most of his mechs were down, and he didn't seem to have much fight left in him. Besides… he'd done what he was here to do."
The mention of Megatron brought one concern to the front of Primal's processor. "And Dinobot? What happened to him?"
Rhinox hesitated, and that cold dread wound itself once more around Primal's Spark. "We didn't have much time to worry about him at first. Once the venom wore off enough that I could move, we retreated to the Axalon. We put Rattrap in CR, and I probably should've gone in myself, but Cheetor said he was going to look for Dinobot, so I stayed up to wait. He found him almost right away, and it's a good thing he did. Megatron left him alive, but…" He shook his head.
"How bad?" Optimus knew he wasn't going to like the answer.
"He was pinned to the ground. With his own sword. Megatron must have wanted us to find him like that -- I can't think of any other reason he didn't just kill him."
Leathery hands clenched into fists so tightly that they creaked. It was a moment before Primal could speak. "Is… he going to be alright?"
"I think so. We got him into CR just in time. He lost a lot of mech fluid, took some heavy energon damage and was in a serious state of shock, not to mention the mechanical parts that had to be repaired. But we both know he's been through worse. A few days should see him back on his feet." There was a moment's pause. "I really wish he'd been unconscious when we found him, though. Primus only knows what'll be going through his mind when he wakes up."
Optimus closed his eyes.
"What about the pod?" Rhinox asked him quietly. "Did any good come of this at all?"
"I found the pod, but I was too late. Terrorsaur reached it first. He said it was empty when he found it, though. I hope that's true, and we might still be able to recover the Maximal protoform if it hasn't been reprogrammed. I've got Airazor searching the area now."
"Maybe we'll be lucky."
"Maybe. Did any other pods fall?"
Rhinox just shook his head.
They both stood for a while in silence, taking in the smell of defeat, marginally comforted by each other's presence and by the knowledge that at least they were all still alive. This is depressingly predictable, isn't it? Optimus found himself thinking. We hit them, they hit back, we hit them back. Neither side ever seems to gain advantage, and the small victories are almost never worth the cost. Is war always this futile, or are we doing something wrong? Have we been thrown together on this planet by forces beyond our control just so we can entertain them with our struggles?
"Was Rattrap badly hurt, by the way?" He almost didn't hear himself ask the question.
"Huh-- No. Actually, he should be fine in a couple of hours. Tarantulas hit him with a neurological compound. I found the dart, definitely his work. It's designed to burn out sensory systems -- causes excruciating pain, at least until the mech loses consciousness, but it doesn't do any real damage. He might feel like slag for a few days, though."
Optimus nodded. "I'll take him off the duty roster for a while then, if we're not too busy. I'm sure he'd appreciate the break." Something nagged at his processor. "Seems like a strange weapon to use in a battle, doesn't it?"
"It is. I've seen this technology before, but not in this setting. I'm not sure why Tarantulas was carrying it around, though I guess nothing about him should really surprise me anymore. What really puzzles me is that he'd use that on him instead of just shooting him. They didn't try to kill him, but they didn't try to take him alive either. It's like they just wanted to make him scream." Rhinox snorted in anger and frustration. "What was the point in that?"
Optimus watched the smoke curl from the wreckage, uneasy at the number of things that didn't make sense. "What, indeed…"