“You mean it ate my chamber?! My greatest scientific accomplishment consumed and made part of the ship! Of course!”
He ranted furiously.
Brieg transformed into beast mode and quickly ran off back to the tram station.
Shockwave lets him leave, and presents his own belongings to the scanner. The Cortical Patches are consumed, along with the datastick he’d removed from his tablet. These, too, are consumed, and a new Coritcal Psychic Patch rises from an inert console in Shockwave’s lab.
When the tram arrived Brieg quickly boarded and waited as it moved back towards the sciencing wing. He changed back to robot mode and tapped his foot impatiently as he waited.
The moment it came to a stop he ran out ran into the science wing.
“Stand back! And step away from the tanks!”
He said as soon as he came through the door.
Sprocket and Grommet, who had been examining the recent additions to their workspace, turn around. They look at each other and exchange raised eyebrows.
“Those cloning chambers are a direct result of my work. The Conflux consumed my model and used it to make these. Therefore I believe they should be under my jurisdiction.”
Brieg explained.
The brothers approached the pod. “How’s it going?” Lightshift asked Topside and Shatterpoint.
SIdeStep chuckled. “I can’t wait to see the look on his face when they smash him into the ground a second time.”
Sprocket looks to the cloning tanks, and then back to Breig.
“Sure thing, man,” he says with a shrug.
“I wouldn’t know what to do with them,” says Grommet.
Shatterpoint gestures to the pod.
“See for yourself,” he says.
Topside nods his head. Since the beginning of this voyage, he’d dreaded every encounter with the New Decepticons and their fanatical leader. Each battle brought only more casualties, more dead bots who’d never see the Allspark revitalized and a Cybertron healed- that was assuming Bludgeon didn’t get the Omega Lock first and use to make his own nightmare world atop the ashes of the old. But in watching his crew achieve victory after victory against the enemy, depriving them of valuable assets like Shockwave and Death’s Head, and coming one step closer to their ultimate goal in the last battle on OL-2, hope burned within his spark.
Maybe we can pull this off after all, he thinks, a smile pulling at the corners of his mouth.
Planet OL-2006-2-C, present-time…
After Salvation had made her escape yet again, Bludgeon raged. This wasn’t just another battle lost, but a humiliating defeat for his fledgling empire. The primary bridge of his command ship was destroyed, with no means by which to repair it or the controls to the Armageddon’s superlaser. And Lockdown only further disappointed him by allowing a trio of miscreant combiners to wreck his ship, while Thunderblast’s underhanded schemes had cost him the predacon gestalt he’d had Shockwave labor arduously to create.
And above all, his enemies were now one step closer to Omega Lock than he was.
One step closer to dirtying that holy vessel with their oily claws! he seethes. Only the worthy should have it. Only I should have it!
There was solace to be found, however, in the knowledge he’d gained on the glowing planet, from the ruins there left behind by Ancients: that what Salvation’s crew had found here was but one small piece of the divine machine; others still awaited reclamation among the stars.
And I will have them, even if I must pry them from the charred hulk of the heretics’ ship!
In vehicle mode, the warlord plowed through the dirt and grass of this planet’s equator, marked by the deep chasms carved into the land ages ago by Knights of Cybertron. In the night sky, the moon still smoldered from their arrival days ago, outlining the silhouette of the Armageddon as it hung above a shipwreck half-buried in rock and earth. Strika and Obsidian waited for him before the hulk, as crews of mercenaries and loyal New Decepticon troopers made their way into the hull.
“What is it?” Bludgeon demands, transforming to robot mode. “What do you hope to find in this derelict that might absolve you from your failures in the last battle?”
Obsidian winces, stung by the remark, as well he should be. Bludgeon’s wrath burned almost as hot as the blade of his great sword.
“What we have found, is that this ship’s data center is mostly intact,” Strika speaks up, nudging Obsidian to the side. “We’ve managed to restore power to it, and have gleaned intelligence that will be of great value to our cause.”
“The crew of this ship were studying the Omega Lock, my liege,” Obsidian cuts in. “The energies it produced, to be exact. They were researching various methods by which they could apply it-”
“I know how I intend to apply the Omega Lock’s power, general,” Bludgeon growls. “I have no interest in what a crew of long-dead defilers wanted from it.”
“Perhaps,” Obsidian says, taking care not to further offend the warlord, “but still I urge you to come inside, and have a look for yourself.”
Obsidian turns and sweeps an arm toward the shipwreck.
“These ‘defilers’ had a great understanding of the cybermatter that fuels the Omega Lock, and their hypotheses for applications for it are quite ingenious…”
“To be fair I’m not sure. I was kinda just here. Didn’t really do much.”
Pipebomb said casually.
“Good.”
Brieg said with a nod.
He then calmly walked over to the cloning tanks, to see just how they came out. How to use them, as well as how they differed from his own creation.
“The assassin has been captured but needs to be taken where they can’t cause trouble until we can use the CPP to extract whatever useful information they have on Bludgeon and his followers.” Zepar growled.
The triplets glanced into the pod.
“He looks like Motherboard.” Thrust replied.
Vigor chuckled. “If only you were female, eh?” He nudged Thrust with his elbow.
Thrust frowned. “Shut up,” He replied, although clearly flustered at the mention of his crush.
SideStep glanced at the pod.
“Looks like the triplets found us. They were the ones who were next.”
Lightshift chuckled.
“So like a stasis pod in a cell sort of thing?” Lightshift replied to Zepar.
“Something that they can’t thaw out in or access the ship’s systems from with in.” He growled, his hand clenches as the violet flames suddenly died out in the hold.
The hyperevolution chambers were based off of Breig’s design, modified with Shockwave’s research notes so that they could actually function. It was likely that they could each produce a healthy clone of a mechanimal, but the key to cloning sapient cybertronian life probably remained out of reach.
Topside holds up a hand and waves at the triplets.
Shockwave contacts Zepar via the commlink.
“Zepar, the Cortical Psychic Patch should now be operational. I have integrated it into the machinery in my lab via the Omega Conflux.”
Bludgeon looked up at the holograms projected above the ancient control panel.
“You were right, general,” he says to Obsidian, who stood behind him. “Though this does not absolve you of your failure, it will yet provide us an advantage in future battles with the Salvation’s crew; and after them, Megatron and the rest of the Autobot heathens.”
Obsidian only nods, in truth caring little for the fanatic’s praise. He had grander ambitions than serving a zealot drunk on pious aspirations, and he knew people who would help him achieve them.
People who would just as soon benefit from this discovery, the same as Primus’s supposed Chosen Savior, he thinks.
“The Lock uses these four ichors- variations of cybermatter, from the looks of things, for power,” Strika reads from the translators hastily rigged to the Golden Age computer. “That’s how it could accomplish its ‘miracles’- if it ever saw use, that is.”
“By the will of Primus, Strika, it soon shall,” Bludgeon vows, marveling at the readouts displayed before him, the awesome convergence of science and magic that the Primes and their acolytes had achieved and so foolishly tossed into the abyss. His eyes linger on a particular section of notes, caught by the image they rotated around, of a warrior wielding the powers of the gods.
“The Primes built this holy engine to transform our people, and I will see their will executed…”
Zepar nods, “Let’s take the prisoner to Shockwave’s lab. It’s time we got some answers.” His eyes glowed violet for a brief moment as he looked at the stasis pod.
Brieg frowned. No good scientist would accept defeat so easily. Using a nearby energon extractor, he withdrew an energon sample from his arm and put it into the machine.
Switchblade was thawing out inside the pod, but the capsule would keep him in stasis for as long as our heroes desired.
The pod hisses as holographic displays come to life in the glass panes.
EXTRACTING CNA SAMPLE...
EXTRACTION COMPLETE. ANALYZING...
A blueprint materializes within the glass, showing all the nitty-gritty details of Breig’s body inside and out. A control panel rises from the base of the pod, which Breig could use to modify the design if he so chose.
Brieg made one simple visual change, so that if this did work, everyone would be able to tell them apart. A mere swap of colors. While he was white with black stripes, the clone would be black with white stripes.
Zepar loads up the pod and transforms into vehicle mode, “I’ll take the prisoner to Shockwave.” He said before he began to drive off.
The machine accepts the minor change, and the tank emits another hissing sound as valves within it open. Silvery streams of sentio metallico are injected into the empty space inside the chamber, hovering in an antigravity field. The machine knew what to do; now it was time to see if it could actually do it.
Sprocket and Grommet watch as the living metal inside the tank coalesces into a shimmering sphere, its surface rippling through different colors and textures.
“I’ve never actually seen this before, you know,” Grommet remarks. “I’ve worked on war beasts for the Empire, but I’ve never been involved in cloning.”
“This voyage is one ‘first’ after another,” Sprocket says, awed by the display.
Shatterpoint transforms to vehicle mode and follows Zepar. His was a sleek, human-made car built for luxurious travel; not something you’d expect a Decepticon commander to have as his alt-mode.
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“Nice alt mode.” Zepar said as they drove.
“It’s terribly inconvenient,” Shatterpoint snorts. “No weapons, wasn’t built to for anything worse than a bump in the road, and this d*mnable finish is a chore to maintain…”