"Recovery Equipment" 3/10 (Primeval/Transformers)
==I Obey. All Hail Megatron== the helicopter replied. //Blackout Fell In Battle. I Will Not Fall//
Tbc
Episode 3.04 takes place here.
Scenes: Ravage
Insecticons
Rumble, Ravage, Razorbeak, Frenzy
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Location: Construction Yard, England, that night:
Rumble knew his history. Knew that the Autobots and Decepticons had been at war for over a million years. Knew that they were the pinnacle of mechanical evolution. Knew that Megatron, leader of the Decepticons, had been slain in battle by the human pet of Optimus Prime, leader of the Autobots.
Rumble knew that, just as he had not existed at the start of the war, that it was entirely likely that he would not exist by the time the war was brought to an end.
Feeling the distinctive heavy tread of tires rolling onto the property, Rumble transformed. His body uncoiled from around the arm which had the concrete-breaking pick in disguise mode, his other arm dividing at the end for fingers. He left the pick unaltered for maximum effect.
Fleet had arrived exactly when she had said she would, punctual as always. “You wished to see me, Rumble?” she asked without leaving car form. No indication given that she noticed or bothered about his pick.
“That’s right,” Rumble said. “It’s about Blitzwing.”
“Blitzwing knew what he was doing when I gave him that order. Are you implying otherwise?”
“No. What I’m saying is that you lost us a Decepticon without there even being a battle to fight.”
Fleet transformed into a robot. The first such transformation from a newly-adopted form was always the longest transformation. She towered over Rumble. “You do not have Laserbeak and the others to defend you, Rumble. I can divide myself and still destroy you.”
And Rumble knew just how dangerous Fleet was when she was divided; the Insecticons had made doubly sure of how lethal she was in that mode. “You’re not in charge because you’re the strongest,” Rumble said. “You’re in charge because you promised us victory.” //And Here We All Are, Hiding From Autobots//
“I am fighting to regain Megatron,” Fleet stated. “Best you not forget that.”
“And what about the Autobots?” he wanted to know.
“They will topple.”
“When?”
“When we engage them in battle.”
“When’ll that be?”
“When our forces are ready.” //Megatron was focused on the AllSpark, that cube whose energy gives life to inanimate forms. I have greater plans for we Decepticons than a now-fruitless quest// Fruitless because Prime’s pet had used the AllSpark to destroy Megatron and the AllSpark.
“We’re ready now!”
“I will decide that,” Fleet said.
“We can knock the Autobots out -”
“Which we will. Soon. Not now.”
“What are you, a Decepticon or a louse?”
Fleet surged forward, one hand gripping around Rumble’s body and pinning his arms to his sides. Holding him high enough to be at eye level with the headlights she used to see with, Fleet told him, “I can transform into a louse. When I do, know that you will be the first that I suck the energy out of. Know that I will drop your lifeless shell among human garbage.” And she took that moment to release Rumble to the ground. “Until you desire that end for yourself, Rumble,” Fleet said, “do not challenge me again,” and she transformed into Connor’s car and began to drive off.
Rumble watched her leave, growling to himself. //Just You Wait//
But Fleet’s departure was interrupted by the arrival of Hound, an Army jeep-form Autobot equipped with rocket launchers in the back. “Got you now, Decepticons!” Hound announced as he pulled up into the only drivable route into or out of the construction site.
“Finally, a fight,” Rumble said, pleased.
Fleet transformed into a standing robot once more. “Rumble, retreat. This one is mine.”
“I ain’t leaving a perfectly good rumble,” Rumble said, converting his other hand into a ground-thumper, and was about to use it.
“Negative! You have orders to carry out and complete. Those are more vital than a scuffle with a lone Autobot stray.”
“Why I ought to -”
“Obey. Or I will destroy you for the Autobot, then destroy the Autobot.”
“You wouldn’t - You would,” Rumble said, pounder re-converting into a hand as he ran away.
“A pity, my good woman,” Hound said. “Now it’s just you and me.”
“Incorrect,” Fleet replied to him. What she said next, she said aloud, and to herself: “Fleet, disengage and attack.”
“Rather contradictory orders, one would think,” Hound said, and backed up in horror as he saw what was happening…just before Hound was attacked by Fleet’s forces.
~~
10,000 Years Ago:
Transforming from a giant grasshopper, the Insecticon named Kickback looked across the icefield here where Megatron had crashed and now rested. “The Autobots will follow his trail. They will find this world.” Find Earth.
“Impermissible!” shouted Shrapnel, his fellow Insecticon. “This world is ours!” waving his long beetle pincers.
“Fight we fight we fight we fight,” Scorponok said - of all the Scorponoks in the universe, this one was the most vocal. Like all Insecticons, Scorponok could duplicate himself when the need arose.
“We are small,” voiced the fourth Insecticon, weevil-form, designation Bombshell, “weaker than many.” It was why they had offered their services as scouts rather than as soldiers in the Decepticon armada, scouts sent out ahead to search for the AllSpark. Scouts who Megatron had followed, and crashed here himself. And it was as scouts that their ship had crashed on the Earth…crashed in an epoch where there were no mechanical devices of any type…
So their Identocomputers compensated, scanning the things which were closest in space and in function - giving them insect forms.
“Then we must make one who is not weak,” Kickback said.
“Build!”
“Build!”
“Build!”
*
“The AllSpark is still missing,” Kickback said once considerable advances had been made in building the metal creatures. “Our search efforts have never located it.”
“It is on this planet,” Shrapnel said. But then, they all knew that, all four of them.
“We can power them,” Bombshell said. “A fragment from each of us. In the made thing, it will grow.”
“Feedback,” Kickback said, liking the idea.
“Good,” Shrapnel said. “And each new part will be energized by the body before it can live separately.”
“Potentially limitless growth!” Bombshell said.
*
Two mechanical animals strained at the limits of their restraints as the Insectacons discussed. Unlike their creators, these creatures were designed after the likenesses of backboned animals, after opportunistic predators.
“They cannot build new armor or parts out of raw materials,” Bombshell said.
“Like us, they can feed on both matter and on energy,” Kickback said. That trait was only found in Transformers which were able to take the physical forms of organic creatures.
“Only in their disassembled state,” Shrapnel said.
It had grown tiring dealing with the constant interruptions presented by the humans, so the Insectacons had relocated their operations to the landmass which would in time become known as Madagascar.
“The metals must be processed before they can be integrated,” Shrapnel said.
“An allowable deficiency,” Kickback said. “There is time.”
“Time to allow for this feature,” Shrapnel agreed.
“Now…to engage the mind of our creation. Bring the parts together.”
The creatures were struggling in the arms of the Insectacons, but they could not escape their creators. “Now!” Bombshell said. “Release!” and the Insectacons let go.
The robotic animals hovered in mid-air for precious seconds before being pulled towards each other by a strong attractive force, meeting in the middle ground. Monitor lizard legs clamped firmly onto condor as the condor’s wings interlocked with the monitor lizard.
The portions arced electricity and energy as the advanced metals slid and locked and unlocked, testing every permutation of transformation until a bipedal robot lay on the ground.
The Insectacons approached cautiously but without fear. “What are you?” Kickback asked the newly-assembled robot.
It answered: “I…I…”
“What is your function?” Bombshell asked it.
“I am the fleet,” she replied.
“Correct,” Shrapnel said. “You are a weapon.”
“I am a weapon,” she repeated. “I am the fleet in battle against our enemy.”
“Build,” Shrapnel instructed.
“Grow,” Bombshell instructed.
“Fight,” Scorponok instructed.
“Continue,” Kickback instructed.
“Achieve victory,” Fleet said.
~~
Present Day:
Hound tore out the belly of the mechanical sabertoothed tiger that the main body of Fleet had transformed into, and tossed the belly-less machine aside as he held the belly up for the robo-birds (also from Fleet’s parts) watched morbidly. “Never mess with Autobots,” Hound told them.
But while that should have been the end of the matter, a solution to the problem, the belly-part began to transform while still in Hound’s hand. “What the - ?” Hound asked as the jagged chunk became rounded and serpentine with hints of segmentation in the body.
One end of the serpent opened, firing three wire-and-cord-spears into Hound. While far more massive than the organic equivalent, there was nothing structurally problematic with Fleet’s leech-form.
//I pull it apart, and it doesn’t die// Hound realized. With any other Decepticon or Autobot, dismemberment caused death. //But not this one. I need to warn - //
The assorted living parts of Fleet brought an end to Hound before he could finish that sentence.
*
Now that Hound was done and gone, Fleet had returned to vehicle form with few exceptions. Those exceptions were mechanical turtles and armadillos using their eye-lasers to carve up what little remained of Hound (scraps of armor and nothing more) when Bumblebee drove past. The scraps were thrown into Fleet’s trunk, and the armadillos and turtles transformed into her wheels, and Fleet drove off the property and into the road right behind Bumblebee, who’d stopped.
“Think we found her?” Mikaela asked Sam.
Bumblebee’s radio gave the sound of an audience clapping. Then he opened his doors. Once Sam and Mikaela were out, he transformed.
Fleet reciprocated, doing the same. As Fleet stood up, her hood slid up and over, coming down to serve as a Xena-style breastplate: armor to shield the chest. Her rear wheels became feet, front wheels becoming hands. “Bumblebee,” Fleet said.
Bumblebee waved.
“Same height, same…” Sam said quietly to himself and Mikaela. “She look like a female Autobot to you?”
“How would I know what one looks like?” Mikaela asked, just as hushed.
Fleet’s eyes narrowed from headlights to little circular beams of light, each one trained on the humans. “Restrain your pets, Bumblebee,” she advised him.
“Hey!” Mikaela shouted at her. “We’re not pets!”
“I am not an Autobot,” Fleet replied in kind.
“Oh crap,” Sam said. Romeo and Juliet with giant robots.
“You wanna talk,” Bumblebee quoted, “so talk.”
“Your pets failed. But that is to our advantage.”
“Ooooh Lucy, you got some ‘xsplaining to do.”
“The AllSpark still exists,” Fleet said. “It is looking for us, as I have been looking for it. I sent you that message so that you may touch the AllSpark.”
“As what, a representative of the Autobots,” Sam asked, “to make sure you don’t wake up all of Earth’s cars?”
“I am not Megatron,” Fleet said to Bumblebee. “My path to victory will not retread his methods and his plans.”
“Good ta know,” Bumblebee quoted.
“Then what is your plan?” Mikaela asked.
“What she said!” from Bumblebee’s radio.
“I will find my creators, and I shall rule with them,” Fleet said, punctuating that final word by transforming back into a car, and driving away.
“Uh, buddy?” Sam asked. “Is she…she’s a Decepticon?”
Bumblebee quoted Spock: “That is an accurate assessment, Captain.”
“And her creators…also Decepticons?”
Using a line from John Wayne, “Yep. Scouts, pilgrim,” and transformed back into a car. Opening his doors, “Coming?”
“Please tell me we’re not gonna follow her.”
“We did come all this way,” Mikaela said.
“Yeah. Well, let’s just hope she’s a lot more rational than all the other Decepticons we’ve met so far.”
“Definitely driven,” Bumblebee said, quoting something Sam didn’t recognize. “Oh hell yeah.”
~~~~~
The Future:
Blitzwing lay splayed-out like a bug being lazily dissected, like a frog who got little jolts of electricity zapped through him every now and again.
He had deactivated the part of his processing units which were responsible for measuring and recording the passage of time - this he did to remain remotely sane. While this did severe damage to memory and recall, Blitzwing did not care: he wanted to be oblivious to this: escape was an impossibility.
His captors had brushed aside the massive predatory dinosaurs with the same ease that Blitzwing could knock a human into the next zip code. And then they proceeded to show even less concern for Blitzwing’s well-being.
They had, in part, taken him apart. Every time he tried to transform, one of them would interfere, watching with what had to be monolithic amusement. Then they forced him to transform, a process which, in his weakened state, was never successful.
Blitzwing shut himself down, and in the process activated a virus that would scour his body, rendering it unusable by any manner of being or intelligence.
…and hoped that this was sufficient.
~~~~~~tbc
Tbc
Episode 3.04 takes place here.
Scenes: Ravage
Insecticons
Rumble, Ravage, Razorbeak, Frenzy
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Location: Construction Yard, England, that night:
Rumble knew his history. Knew that the Autobots and Decepticons had been at war for over a million years. Knew that they were the pinnacle of mechanical evolution. Knew that Megatron, leader of the Decepticons, had been slain in battle by the human pet of Optimus Prime, leader of the Autobots.
Rumble knew that, just as he had not existed at the start of the war, that it was entirely likely that he would not exist by the time the war was brought to an end.
Feeling the distinctive heavy tread of tires rolling onto the property, Rumble transformed. His body uncoiled from around the arm which had the concrete-breaking pick in disguise mode, his other arm dividing at the end for fingers. He left the pick unaltered for maximum effect.
Fleet had arrived exactly when she had said she would, punctual as always. “You wished to see me, Rumble?” she asked without leaving car form. No indication given that she noticed or bothered about his pick.
“That’s right,” Rumble said. “It’s about Blitzwing.”
“Blitzwing knew what he was doing when I gave him that order. Are you implying otherwise?”
“No. What I’m saying is that you lost us a Decepticon without there even being a battle to fight.”
Fleet transformed into a robot. The first such transformation from a newly-adopted form was always the longest transformation. She towered over Rumble. “You do not have Laserbeak and the others to defend you, Rumble. I can divide myself and still destroy you.”
And Rumble knew just how dangerous Fleet was when she was divided; the Insecticons had made doubly sure of how lethal she was in that mode. “You’re not in charge because you’re the strongest,” Rumble said. “You’re in charge because you promised us victory.” //And Here We All Are, Hiding From Autobots//
“I am fighting to regain Megatron,” Fleet stated. “Best you not forget that.”
“And what about the Autobots?” he wanted to know.
“They will topple.”
“When?”
“When we engage them in battle.”
“When’ll that be?”
“When our forces are ready.” //Megatron was focused on the AllSpark, that cube whose energy gives life to inanimate forms. I have greater plans for we Decepticons than a now-fruitless quest// Fruitless because Prime’s pet had used the AllSpark to destroy Megatron and the AllSpark.
“We’re ready now!”
“I will decide that,” Fleet said.
“We can knock the Autobots out -”
“Which we will. Soon. Not now.”
“What are you, a Decepticon or a louse?”
Fleet surged forward, one hand gripping around Rumble’s body and pinning his arms to his sides. Holding him high enough to be at eye level with the headlights she used to see with, Fleet told him, “I can transform into a louse. When I do, know that you will be the first that I suck the energy out of. Know that I will drop your lifeless shell among human garbage.” And she took that moment to release Rumble to the ground. “Until you desire that end for yourself, Rumble,” Fleet said, “do not challenge me again,” and she transformed into Connor’s car and began to drive off.
Rumble watched her leave, growling to himself. //Just You Wait//
But Fleet’s departure was interrupted by the arrival of Hound, an Army jeep-form Autobot equipped with rocket launchers in the back. “Got you now, Decepticons!” Hound announced as he pulled up into the only drivable route into or out of the construction site.
“Finally, a fight,” Rumble said, pleased.
Fleet transformed into a standing robot once more. “Rumble, retreat. This one is mine.”
“I ain’t leaving a perfectly good rumble,” Rumble said, converting his other hand into a ground-thumper, and was about to use it.
“Negative! You have orders to carry out and complete. Those are more vital than a scuffle with a lone Autobot stray.”
“Why I ought to -”
“Obey. Or I will destroy you for the Autobot, then destroy the Autobot.”
“You wouldn’t - You would,” Rumble said, pounder re-converting into a hand as he ran away.
“A pity, my good woman,” Hound said. “Now it’s just you and me.”
“Incorrect,” Fleet replied to him. What she said next, she said aloud, and to herself: “Fleet, disengage and attack.”
“Rather contradictory orders, one would think,” Hound said, and backed up in horror as he saw what was happening…just before Hound was attacked by Fleet’s forces.
~~
10,000 Years Ago:
Transforming from a giant grasshopper, the Insecticon named Kickback looked across the icefield here where Megatron had crashed and now rested. “The Autobots will follow his trail. They will find this world.” Find Earth.
“Impermissible!” shouted Shrapnel, his fellow Insecticon. “This world is ours!” waving his long beetle pincers.
“Fight we fight we fight we fight,” Scorponok said - of all the Scorponoks in the universe, this one was the most vocal. Like all Insecticons, Scorponok could duplicate himself when the need arose.
“We are small,” voiced the fourth Insecticon, weevil-form, designation Bombshell, “weaker than many.” It was why they had offered their services as scouts rather than as soldiers in the Decepticon armada, scouts sent out ahead to search for the AllSpark. Scouts who Megatron had followed, and crashed here himself. And it was as scouts that their ship had crashed on the Earth…crashed in an epoch where there were no mechanical devices of any type…
So their Identocomputers compensated, scanning the things which were closest in space and in function - giving them insect forms.
“Then we must make one who is not weak,” Kickback said.
“Build!”
“Build!”
“Build!”
*
“The AllSpark is still missing,” Kickback said once considerable advances had been made in building the metal creatures. “Our search efforts have never located it.”
“It is on this planet,” Shrapnel said. But then, they all knew that, all four of them.
“We can power them,” Bombshell said. “A fragment from each of us. In the made thing, it will grow.”
“Feedback,” Kickback said, liking the idea.
“Good,” Shrapnel said. “And each new part will be energized by the body before it can live separately.”
“Potentially limitless growth!” Bombshell said.
*
Two mechanical animals strained at the limits of their restraints as the Insectacons discussed. Unlike their creators, these creatures were designed after the likenesses of backboned animals, after opportunistic predators.
“They cannot build new armor or parts out of raw materials,” Bombshell said.
“Like us, they can feed on both matter and on energy,” Kickback said. That trait was only found in Transformers which were able to take the physical forms of organic creatures.
“Only in their disassembled state,” Shrapnel said.
It had grown tiring dealing with the constant interruptions presented by the humans, so the Insectacons had relocated their operations to the landmass which would in time become known as Madagascar.
“The metals must be processed before they can be integrated,” Shrapnel said.
“An allowable deficiency,” Kickback said. “There is time.”
“Time to allow for this feature,” Shrapnel agreed.
“Now…to engage the mind of our creation. Bring the parts together.”
The creatures were struggling in the arms of the Insectacons, but they could not escape their creators. “Now!” Bombshell said. “Release!” and the Insectacons let go.
The robotic animals hovered in mid-air for precious seconds before being pulled towards each other by a strong attractive force, meeting in the middle ground. Monitor lizard legs clamped firmly onto condor as the condor’s wings interlocked with the monitor lizard.
The portions arced electricity and energy as the advanced metals slid and locked and unlocked, testing every permutation of transformation until a bipedal robot lay on the ground.
The Insectacons approached cautiously but without fear. “What are you?” Kickback asked the newly-assembled robot.
It answered: “I…I…”
“What is your function?” Bombshell asked it.
“I am the fleet,” she replied.
“Correct,” Shrapnel said. “You are a weapon.”
“I am a weapon,” she repeated. “I am the fleet in battle against our enemy.”
“Build,” Shrapnel instructed.
“Grow,” Bombshell instructed.
“Fight,” Scorponok instructed.
“Continue,” Kickback instructed.
“Achieve victory,” Fleet said.
~~
Present Day:
Hound tore out the belly of the mechanical sabertoothed tiger that the main body of Fleet had transformed into, and tossed the belly-less machine aside as he held the belly up for the robo-birds (also from Fleet’s parts) watched morbidly. “Never mess with Autobots,” Hound told them.
But while that should have been the end of the matter, a solution to the problem, the belly-part began to transform while still in Hound’s hand. “What the - ?” Hound asked as the jagged chunk became rounded and serpentine with hints of segmentation in the body.
One end of the serpent opened, firing three wire-and-cord-spears into Hound. While far more massive than the organic equivalent, there was nothing structurally problematic with Fleet’s leech-form.
//I pull it apart, and it doesn’t die// Hound realized. With any other Decepticon or Autobot, dismemberment caused death. //But not this one. I need to warn - //
The assorted living parts of Fleet brought an end to Hound before he could finish that sentence.
*
Now that Hound was done and gone, Fleet had returned to vehicle form with few exceptions. Those exceptions were mechanical turtles and armadillos using their eye-lasers to carve up what little remained of Hound (scraps of armor and nothing more) when Bumblebee drove past. The scraps were thrown into Fleet’s trunk, and the armadillos and turtles transformed into her wheels, and Fleet drove off the property and into the road right behind Bumblebee, who’d stopped.
“Think we found her?” Mikaela asked Sam.
Bumblebee’s radio gave the sound of an audience clapping. Then he opened his doors. Once Sam and Mikaela were out, he transformed.
Fleet reciprocated, doing the same. As Fleet stood up, her hood slid up and over, coming down to serve as a Xena-style breastplate: armor to shield the chest. Her rear wheels became feet, front wheels becoming hands. “Bumblebee,” Fleet said.
Bumblebee waved.
“Same height, same…” Sam said quietly to himself and Mikaela. “She look like a female Autobot to you?”
“How would I know what one looks like?” Mikaela asked, just as hushed.
Fleet’s eyes narrowed from headlights to little circular beams of light, each one trained on the humans. “Restrain your pets, Bumblebee,” she advised him.
“Hey!” Mikaela shouted at her. “We’re not pets!”
“I am not an Autobot,” Fleet replied in kind.
“Oh crap,” Sam said. Romeo and Juliet with giant robots.
“You wanna talk,” Bumblebee quoted, “so talk.”
“Your pets failed. But that is to our advantage.”
“Ooooh Lucy, you got some ‘xsplaining to do.”
“The AllSpark still exists,” Fleet said. “It is looking for us, as I have been looking for it. I sent you that message so that you may touch the AllSpark.”
“As what, a representative of the Autobots,” Sam asked, “to make sure you don’t wake up all of Earth’s cars?”
“I am not Megatron,” Fleet said to Bumblebee. “My path to victory will not retread his methods and his plans.”
“Good ta know,” Bumblebee quoted.
“Then what is your plan?” Mikaela asked.
“What she said!” from Bumblebee’s radio.
“I will find my creators, and I shall rule with them,” Fleet said, punctuating that final word by transforming back into a car, and driving away.
“Uh, buddy?” Sam asked. “Is she…she’s a Decepticon?”
Bumblebee quoted Spock: “That is an accurate assessment, Captain.”
“And her creators…also Decepticons?”
Using a line from John Wayne, “Yep. Scouts, pilgrim,” and transformed back into a car. Opening his doors, “Coming?”
“Please tell me we’re not gonna follow her.”
“We did come all this way,” Mikaela said.
“Yeah. Well, let’s just hope she’s a lot more rational than all the other Decepticons we’ve met so far.”
“Definitely driven,” Bumblebee said, quoting something Sam didn’t recognize. “Oh hell yeah.”
~~~~~
The Future:
Blitzwing lay splayed-out like a bug being lazily dissected, like a frog who got little jolts of electricity zapped through him every now and again.
He had deactivated the part of his processing units which were responsible for measuring and recording the passage of time - this he did to remain remotely sane. While this did severe damage to memory and recall, Blitzwing did not care: he wanted to be oblivious to this: escape was an impossibility.
His captors had brushed aside the massive predatory dinosaurs with the same ease that Blitzwing could knock a human into the next zip code. And then they proceeded to show even less concern for Blitzwing’s well-being.
They had, in part, taken him apart. Every time he tried to transform, one of them would interfere, watching with what had to be monolithic amusement. Then they forced him to transform, a process which, in his weakened state, was never successful.
Blitzwing shut himself down, and in the process activated a virus that would scour his body, rendering it unusable by any manner of being or intelligence.
…and hoped that this was sufficient.
~~~~~~tbc