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Steve Perriam
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Sparks flew out from various sockets on the machine, each one helping to slightly
illuminate the chamber filled in darkness. The machine hummed violently as the
transformer trapped inside struggled in an impossible attempt to free himself
from it.
A safe distance away infront of the machine stood another transformer, one who
was at the controls of the machine. He quickly reached forward and pushed a
combination of buttons on the console, without having to think twice about doing
so. The dark green transformer at the controls watched on joyfully as the other
transformer trapped inside the chamber of the machine was jolted numerous times
by powerful blasts of energy from the machine. Moments later a warning indicator
on the control console flashed to life, signalling that a surge so strong that
it was off the scale was imminent.
The dark green transformer glanced down at it, not caring what it was warning
of. He knew that his enemy inside the chamber would either be his to command,
or be destoyed.
The transformer trapped inside the machine felt each blast of energy stab into
him, each stab paralysing him. Suddenly it stopped, although only for a moment.
Seconds later the surge came. As that pierced into him it emitted a bright blinding
light, making himself and the dark green transformer unable to see what was
happening. Meanwhile as the surge pierced him he could feel it interacting with
the alien technology he held within himself. He dropped to the ground as he
felt his structure starting to energize itself and begin to feel as if it was
tearing itself away. As this was happening he could also feel the pain being
done to his spark. He felt both a feeling of disintegration and a feeling of
it also tearing itself away.
Then as suddenly as it had occourred, it stopped. The blinding light ended and
he then felt the majority of his energy leave his body and flow into another,
standing next to him. He turned his head to face the new transformer and caught
a glimpse of a black leg with flame markings before falling into stasis lock.
***
Diablo quickly brought himself back online and looked around in a panic as
he arose from his recharge cycle.
"Not again. Why wont it end?" He said to himself tiredly as he got up. "Just
won't let me forget that you're inside me and a part of me, will you?"
Diablo walked over to the door outside, looked around again then left his quarters
and made his way down the corridor to the nearest lift.
This has been happening more and more often since I merged his spark with
mine, but why? Is it trying to tell me something? Warn me of something that
could happen?
The purple transformer walked into the already waiting lift and once inside
pushed the button for deck 3. Once the door shut he waited what seemed to take
forever, even though he was only going up one deck. As soon as the door slid
open he stepped out and made his way forwards towards the Fore Observation Lounge.
Moments later he was there. To his surprise it was empty, even with the recent
influx of members which had joined. After he looked around to see if anyone
else was present he walked up to the large window and stared out into space
for a short while before accessing his subspace pocket. From it he drew what
had once been Hellfire's weapon of choice, his Axe. Upon drawing the Axe he
felt a memory of Hellfire's flash forwards.
***
Hellfire glanced around to make sure that there was no one else left alive
before he took what the civilian researchers had come across. While looking
down at the case holding what he wanted, he could barely make out two objects
slowly getting larger and larger on its reflective metal surface. Without much
thought he picked up his axe from the bench infront of himself and quickly turned
around, throwing it at one of the robots happening to have the insignia of the
Decepticons clearly on their chests. The axe hit it's target easily, getting
itself stuck in the Decepticon's chest.
"Seems you Decepticons have a few lessons to learn." Hellfire then watched as
the blade of his axe burst into flames, setting the Decepticon alight. Hellfire
laughed hauntedly then looked at the other Decepticon.
"Why are you here?"
The Decepticon looked at the form of his fallen comrade then at Hellfire then
back again before slowly moving backwards.
"Answer me, fool." Hellfire demanded, stepping towards his new target. "Answer
me or I'll have to extract everything from your central processor."
Now the Decepticon turned and ran in the hope that he would be able to get away.
Hellfire responded by transforming into his heavily altered but still recognisable
Lamborghini form, chasing after the Decepticon easily. It was only a short moment
before the Decepticon felt the blades at the front of Hellfire's vehicle form
slice into his legs. He felt himself falling towards the ground but when he
should have hit the ground he felt two sharp stabbing pains in his back as he
was impaled on the large spikes protruding from the roof of the Lamborghini.
"I really do hope you have some secrets you don't want others to know. It could
be quite advantageous for me if there are." Hellfire taunted to his victim.
***
Diablo stood uneasily as the memory faded. It had been one which what remained
of Hellfire made a habit of surfacing often.
"Why do you keep showing me that memory? It had nothing to do with me." Diablo
snarled softly to himself.
"I'm sure you remember one of the battles between LONAC and Spectral Death
on a particular station. As the LONAC forces retreated back into the Freedom
I fired a blast straight at you and it hit perfectly. It was meant to draw you
away so you would come after me, although you didn't. You retreated just like
the rest of the LONAC forces. You could have stopped those civilians from dieing
had you of come after me." Hellfire's voice teased inside Diablo's head.
"I couldn't do that. Your blast had damaged me too much. Besides, You most likely
would have killed them anyway regardless of whether I was there or not."
"You know, I believe you're right there." Hellfire laughed sadisticly.
"I doubt the damage would have made a difference, your alien programming
was still in force then. You could have just ignored it, let the alien influence
take control."
"But I didn't. Besides, why were those Decepticons there also?"
"As I recall, they were busy in researching something which would have been
of great interest to you."
"And what would that have been?"
"The very same alien coding which was inside you. You aren't the only one
who had been altered by an alien probe. There are others out there too, possibly
in the ranks of the Decepticons, but you know my memory, conveniently forgetting
things that don't seem to be of much importance. What a shame." Hellfire
spoke, obviously not wanting to say if there were similar cases among the Decepticons
or not. "I had to go there, I had to take what they had. I needed to sever
the link between you and I which was created when I was. I needed to be able
to destroy you without destroying myself in the process."
"And you wanted me there to test what you would find on me first, incase there
were any harmful effects."
"Instead I had to settle on testing what I found on myself. It didn't go
as it should have, but my, I didn't mind the effects of it at all."
"It altered your spark...That is what kept you from dying when you should have
after self destructing in space after that battle of ours on this ship."
"Correct. It also let me survive without having a body to support me. After
the Freedom left I lay there in space, floating. That is until I made my way
onto a passing ship and had a new body constructed for myself after I convinced
them to do so."
"And just who are they?"
"Oh, that's right. You haven't met them before, although our good friend
Novaburst had the pleasure of meeting their leader before I slew him."
"For which you payed greatly for."
Hellfire's laughter filled Diablo's mind as other memories rushed forwards.
***
The bodyless spark sped down the corridor at an insanely high speed. The spark was the usual blue colour, but also contained patches of red which blended in and moved amongst the regular blue colour. A short moment past and the spark was at the end of the corridor, moving straight through the door infront of it and entering the room at the other side. The dimly lit room contained the large computer core of the ship, lights flickering all about. Knowing exactly what it was doing, the spark moved forwards and entered the core without hesitation.
Spectre sat motionless and silently at his station on the bridge of the Ravager,
monitering his console closely. Across from him at another station on the bridge
sat Ashbane, who happened to be more lively than Spectre.
"I really can't see the reason why you decided to take this route, Anarchy.
It'll only take us longer to get to where we have to be."
Anarchy looked towards the femme with a slight look of frustration. "Possibly,
but we can't risk not to come this way. If the rumor is correct then that ruby
will be mine."
"And if that rumor isn't correct we will have only succeeded in wasting more
time."
"Perhaps, although it seems to me as if there could be some truth to that rumor."
An unfamiliar voice interupted.
Anarchy quickly rose from his seat, not too pleased about the interuption.
"Don't bother trying to find me because you wont." The voice started. "Now,
I have an offer for you."
Anarchy thought over different courses of action for a second before replying.
"Alright then. Tell us what you have in mind." This sudden unpredicted visitor
had made Anarchy curious.
"It is quite simple really. You construct for me a new body, meeting the specifications
that I have placed and In return I will lead you to the location of where this
ruby you seek so much, could be."
Anarchy took several moments before he replied. It was a tempting deal. He realised
however that this all could be one big scam. For all he knew the visitor might
not know a thing at all about the rubies and may have just caught the end of
the argument he was having with Ashbane. He decided that this was most likely
correct and didnt waste anytime figuring out how he could turn this to his advantage.
If this is all a lie we won't be caught. We could easily slip some programming
into the body to make him fall to our control. Or we could just do that anyway.
Anarchy knew this could work.
"I think we have ourselves a deal here."
"Excellent." A nanosecond later all the consoles on the bridge flashed momentarily
before revealing the plans for the body which was to be constructed. "Well,
you had better get started shouldn't you. I'm sure you aren't wanting these...
Monstrosities loose, are you?" Hellfire spoke while concentrating on a heavily
secured area at the back of the ship.
***
As quickly as that memory had appeared, it disappeared and was replaced by darkness. For the first few moments Diablo wondered what was going on, but then knew exactly when he could see a blurred mass of images in his mind. He saw the attack on Novaburst through Hellfire's optics, giving the illusion that it was himself attacking Novaburst. As Hellfire moved he could see Slipstream and some of the others, aswell as Hellfire's new friend taking part too with his large sword. He watched as Hellfire fired several blasts at the others before turning his attention back over to Novaburst. Diablo had a fair idea of what would come next and wished that it would stop, not wanting to see what was going to happen. Hellfire had looked downwards and took hold of his axe as it appeared out of its subspace pocket, taking hold tightly as he looked back up then charged towards Novaburst with his axe ready to strike then ran straight into him, much to fast for Novaburst to evade. Novaburst's plasmasabre fell from his hands and dropped to the ground and away from him. He fired several shots from his laserfist in defence, although that didn't change things at all. Hellfire swung his axe powerfully into Novaburst's chest, slicing deeply and critically wounding him.
***
"Novaburst, No."
"Diab, it's too late. He's gone now. There was nothing we could do." Starstorm
said softly. "We all have to move on, remember what he did for us during the
time we knew him."
"Huh, Star? When did you come in here?" Diablo asked, seeing Starstorm standing
next to him.
"Not too long ago. Took a seat over there since you looked as if you didn't
want to be disturbed, especially since you've got that axe." Starstorm replied
while looking at it. "On that note, how about you put it away?"
"Probably a good idea." Diablo said as he returned it to his subspace pocket.
"So what brings you here? Can't say I've seen you up here all the other times
I've come here."
"It never hurts to just sit back and look out through these windows to see whats
out there and take in the view."
"Guess you're right there." Diablo spoke as he turned his head and looked out
momentarily.
"Now it's my turn to ask you what you're doing here, and with that axe of Hellfire's."
"Just remembering. Remembering some of the things the alien tech caused." Diablo
paused for a moment before speaking up again. "It's sort of amazing that none
of you ended up dying from some of the stuff that happened.. Yourself being
hurt the first time the alien tech took control in battle.. The brief time Cham
was infected by it, among other situations."
"Hey, it couldn't have been too bad. We all managed to survive it didn't we."
"Yeah. All of us except for Nova. I should have been there, not him. He didn't
need to die."
"Stop thinking that, you weren't there. Neither were Cham, Ghost, Firey or myself."
"How can I, Star? It was me that Hellfire was after. Not any of you."
"That may be so, but you have to let it go sometime, Diab. What's done is done.
Nothing can change that fact."
"You're right again I guess. As you always are with things like this."
"Hey, we've all been through this before. All of us have seen friends get killed
before, just this time it's more close to home than the others."
"Not wrong there. Not wrong at all."Diablo replied while moving over to a couch
and taking a seat.
For a moment Starstorm looked out of the large windows and took in the view
of space before walking over to where Diablo was seated and taking a seat next
to him.
"You ok? You got pretty beat up in that big fight with the 'cons." Diablo spoke
up.
"Me? Yeah, I'm fine. Mind my asking why?"
"Just checking, that's all. Don't want to loose you or any of the others."
"You won't be. Not for quite some time." Starstorm said reassuringly.
"I hope that's true, I really do."
"Are you sure that you're ok after your fight with Hellfire?"
"Yes... and no."
"What happened then anyway? You havent told anyone about any of it, have you?"
"Nope, haven't really told anyone at all. I guess that you'll be the first if
you really want to hear about it."
"If you want to talk about it, then sure. I'll listen."
Diablo looked around slowly before turning back to his light grey and blue friend.
"I caught up to Hellfire. Caught up to him and just let the alien influence
in the old body take full control. He didn't expect it at all." Diablo then
looked straight into Starstorm's optics. "Not even his new body could fully
survive what I did to him. After the alien influence subsided I dragged what
remained of him into a shuttle then we returned to Dominion's old base inside
of an asteriod, where he began."
Starstorm looked away momentarily, wondering if she wanted to hear the rest
of what her friend had to say. She ended up looking back at him and he continued.
"Dominion's twisted machine was still there. Slightly damaged, although still
operational. I dumped Hellfire's body inside it then went to the controls, altering
the program then setting it to start once i was inside aswell. Once I was inside
and it had started, I plunged my fist into what was left of his chest and grabbed
his spark. I tore it from its housing and brought it infront of mine. Then I
could tell that a surge was about to come from the machine, not at all different
from the first time I was inside it. Our sparks recombined and I then fell to
the ground in stasis lock. Sometime later I left stasis lock and trashed the
place good. If I didn't, I risked the chance that someday someone could stumble
across it and suffer. Then I went back to the shuttle and made my way back."Diablo
finished, looking over at the large windows and out into space. "Not too pleasant
at all really, was it."
"No, not really. I'm glad you didn't get fully into details about your fight
with him." Starstorm replied. "At least you won't have to go through all of
that again."
"I sure hope I don't, Star. I really do."
"Trust me, we'll all make sure that you don't" The femme answered as she patted
her friend on the shoulder and looked out the large window also.