Transformers: This Is How It All Began: 1.0 Heavy Rain
Author's Note: Yes, well, there are a lot of people to blame for this return to the dread Transformers Fan Fiction. First and foremost, Michael Bay for giving me all the encouragement I needed to try and write a better story than he directed. Less jokingly, dragontail, rokesmith and hive_mind_d86 all take equal blame for encouraging me to get on with this horribly long epic thingy I seem to have created in my spare time, with especial emphasis on DT for the motivation to get back into sharing it with the web and rokesmith for being the brilliant sounding board that he is.
I should probably thank Hasbro for making Transformers, Simon Furman for coming up with most of the good ideas in Transformers and everyone else who's concepts I've mixed up, mangled and extruded to make this happen. Because, you know, there wouldn't be Transformers as we know it without them.
Anyhoo, on with the show.
This Is How It All Began
A Story From Before the Great War
Act 1: Twilight of a Golden Age
0: Heavy Rain
Cybertronian Mining Site Dega-Tryptic
Anska
A very long time ago
“Get down!”
“Incoming!”
“Heavy fire in sector three - arrgh!”
“Fall back! Fall back!”
“DOWN!”
The explosion scattered the squad like a bunch of hex nuts. Bodies tumbled end over end, coming to rest on wheels and tracks and hoverjets as innate protective instincts kicked in. Engines roaring, they churned up mud and gravel in their scramble to escape the impact zone. Another volley of missiles shot overhead, the gunners shifting their aim towards the next line of defence. The shockwaves still sent several of the troops spinning end over axle, forcing them to flip back into bipedal form for a few seconds to right themselves before transforming again and re-joining the retreat.
Finally reaching a relatively intact section of the defensive wall, they regrouped and dug in again. One of them, battered red armour streaked with dirt, heaved a heavy gun into place, sighting it on the advancing enemy. “Still out’a range,” he grunted.
“Wouldn’t do any good anyway,” a bulkier, darker trooper muttered grimly, “Most of the high-impact rounds just went up in smoke.”
“At least it’d be something. Ah don’t wanna just lie down and let ‘em roll over me.”
“We’ll never do that,” a third soldier put in.
He was slimmer than the other two but taller and just as heavily armoured. Red and blue chased each other over his frame, dulled by the same grime that covered them all.
“’Course not, sir,” the dark trooper agreed, adjusting the nozzle that protruded from his left forearm, “’Course if they did, he’s got least to worry about. His thick skin, they’d roll over him and he’d get up again.”
“Slag yah,” his cannon-wielding companion retorted amiably.
“If only the rest of us were so lucky,” their commanding officer said with a shrug.
A long, high whistling sound announced the approach of another missile. On reflex, they hunkered down and braced themselves. The projectile struck somewhere behind them, sending a large chunk of wasteland flying in several directions. The dark soldier flung up his arms, energy thrumming along them. Debris rebounded from a dome of solid light, the shield flickering and dimming with every impact. Several particularly high-speed pebbles punctured the barrier completely, ricocheting off the skin of those huddling within.
“What’s the slagging use of -” the red soldier began but the dark one cut him off.
“I’m running low - this is the best I can do!”
“Here comes another one!” the commander yelled.
“Everybody down!” someone added unnecessarily.
Under the din from the exploding shells and falling rocks, the commander registered the tweet of an internal communications channel. He diverted a sliver of his attention to the airwaves, unlocking the information shimmering through them with a thought. The words were very welcome.
“Attention all ground squads. Stand by to fall back to inner perimeter. Heavy air squadrons inbound.”
“Finally,” the commander murmured to himself, before addressing his squad aloud, “The flyers are coming! Prepare to transform and roll out!”
From high above, growing ever close, came the shriek of jet engines.
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Transformers and all associated characters and ideas belong to Hasbro and are used here purely for entertainment purposes.