Two of the snipers (there’s two on each platform) on the left-side platform are forced out of cover as their perch becomes soaked in Dark Energon’s draining energies. The Ground Troopers in the center of the formation take aim and fire upon Zepar and our heroes’ allies.
SideStep ducked, the swing clipping the top of his head. He replied with a swing of his axe towards the Berserker’s extended arm.
Zepar brings out his shield to try and block the shots, “We need a path!” He calls to Bombshell and his hive.
“If you get injured, seek out a medic from Salvation!” He adds.
SideStep lops off the Berserker’s arm at the elbow, and the New Decepticon recoils. He shouts, but it seems to be more from anger than from pain as Dark Energon spurts from the torn pumps within the exposed inner mechanisms.
Zepar’s shield blocks the hard light bolts flying for him and his allies, and at his word Bombshock transforms and flies toward the New Decepticon Guards with a host of insecticons on his back.
“Holy scrap!” one of the Ground Troopers yells. “I thought those things were on our side!”
One of the Heavy Troopers raises his minigun, which spits out a torrent of bullets into the approaching swarm. The Ground Troopers step back, following suit with their photon rifles.
Epsilon fires on the New Decepticons as they are distracted by the hive.
Zepar growls as he sees the Dark Energon and opens fire on the Berserker, trying to not hit SideStep in the process.
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“Ew.” SideStep stepped away, avoiding the dark energon. He gestures at the wound. “You’ve, uh… you’ve got some issues.”
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Starchaser shifted into her dragon mode. Her serpentine body dashing and dancing through the air. Making for a very hard target to hit. She rushed right at the sniper and attempted to bite down on their shoulder, so that she may carry him off.
Pipebomb meanwhile decided to fall back on one of his go-to strategies. Throw a bomb at the other guy and hope for the best.
“I’ll take that as a no then.”
Broadwing replied.
"No matter. It took me ages before I learned to speak. Regardless, I’m glad we could get through to you. In a way, I appreciate having others like me, like us, to share time with.
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Two of the Ground Troopers are cut down by Epsilon’s weapons. The other two, and the Heavy Trooper pair, are distracted by Bombshock and hive. Bombshock transforms into his robot mode and literally tears into one of the heavies, ripping the cannon out of his back and cutting into his chest and abdomen with the scythe-like ends of his secondary arms.
The Berserker lunges at SideStep, but a blast from Zepar’s cannon stops him in his tracks. He staggers backward, shaking off the pain from the blow quickly. He glares rabidly at SideStep and Zepar.
Starchaser manages to fly up to one of the snipers and carry her into the air by her shoulder. The New Decepticon draws her pistol and starts to empty its magazine into the underside of Starchaser’s dragon form.
Meanwhile, the other sniper on the right-side platform runs from the bomb before it explodes, managing to narrowly escape its blast radius. The explosion does little to damage the Siege Mech on the platform, whose attention was trained on our heroes’ allies as they ran across the bridge.
Forcep transforms to his robot mode. He looks up at the two Predacons towering beside Broadwing.
“So these are the patients I was brought in to fix,” he observes. “I must confess that I don’t get much practice on Predacons,” he quips, “but I will do what I can.”
Garand moves to start attacking the Berserker as Zepar reanimated two of the fallen and sics them on the Siege Walker.
SideStep jumped forwards with another swing of his axe, aiming at the Berserker’s head.
The Berserker is caught off-guard by Garand’s entrance into the fray, and SideStep is able to take advantage of the distraction to decapitate his foe. Fortunately, it seemed that the Berserker was more inclined to stay dead than the usual terrorcon, as his headless body doesn’t seem to move after falling onto the deck.
The two terrorcons start to climb up the mech, making their way toward the cockpit. The pilot transforms his machine into its robot mode and tries to pry the terrorcons off with its free hand.
Zepar blasts at the free hand of the mech while Garand and Epsilon work with the others to break the defensive line.
SideStep kicked at the body just to make sure.
Starchaser cried in pain through her closed jaws. She quickly spun and released the sniper, throwing her clear off the tower.
Pipebomb transformed into his vehicle mode and drove after the sniper. Aiming to ram him hard enough it’d send him off the tower.
Broadwing nodded.
“That would be greatly appreciated.”
The mech is able to throw one of the terrorcons off before Zepar blows its hand apart. The other terrorcon starts to smash through the glass around the cockpit.
The Berserker’s body remains motionless. He probably was truly dead.
The sniper yells as she is tossed off the tower, but she transforms into her VTOL form before she falls too far down. But, seeing the chaos befalling her teammates, for which she felt little in the way of loyalty or camaraderie, she retreats for the hangar of an overhead warship.
Pipebomb knocks his quarry off of the tower. Like the other sniper, he transforms and flies away in retreat.
Forceps arranges for Lazerback and Ripclaw to be taken to one of the larger medical facilities aboard Salvation, before leading the two Predacons through the ground bridge behind him.
Aboard Salvation, security officers scattered throughout the prison levels to prevent any of the New Decepticon captives from attempting a breakout amid the heat of battle. They were on especially high alert, for one of Lurch’s informants had yet to be caught: a stealth operative named Spook.
A pair of guards stood outside Lurch’s cell, their backs to the traitor as the deck shook from plasma impacting Salvation’s shields, the shock bleeding through the barrier’s generators to harmlessly rattle the hull.
“I must say, these new shields of ours are quite handy indeed,” Lurch remarks. The two guards weren’t feeling kind enough to humor him with so much as look over their shoulders.
“I do have to wonder, however,” Lurch continues, “How much longer can they hold out, do you think?”
The two guards remain silent and motionless. This doesn’t deter Lurch from pressing further.
"The Salvation’s not all the propaganda’s propped it up to be, is it? Back when it was a Decepticon ship, it was a proper menace; but the Autobots were so insistent on taking away much of its arsenal during the retrofit. They didn’t want to make a dreadnaught as much as they wanted a glorified cargo hauler to tout their flimsy ‘peace’.
“Lucky for us, isn’t it? Us New Decepticons, I mean. With all the close calls you’ve had, I reckon you’d be scrap metal if it weren’t for all the fancy tricks those Omega Keys have added on.”
One of the guards starts to crack. “I thought you were annoying back when you were just some bitter old loon quoting Peace and Tyranny, but d*mn,” he sighs. “You love hearing yourself talk, don’t you?”
Lurch smirks. “I might as well,” he says. “Before this day is out, this ship and everyone on it will be little more than smoldering wreckage. May as we say all you have to say before that happens.”
“You know what your problem is, Lurch?” the other guard chimes in now. “You and the rest of you lunatics, I guess. You’re overconfident. You keep underestimating us even after we’ve swiped three Omega Keys out from under your noses, scrapped your clone army, took Shockwave form you guys, and given your ships the slip at every turn.”
As the guard recalls our heroes’ many victories, Lurch notices a glowing blue-green anomaly creeping along the left wall, unnoticed by the guards. His amused smirk spreads into a malicious green as he realizes what’s coming.
“There’s an old saying,” he says to his captors. "Dates back to the Golden Age, I believe. It’s something of an inspiration for us true believers who wish to see our species achieve its full potential.
“The universe favors those who persist.”
A black-armored cybertronian woman appears from the wall, passing through it in a flash of green light. The two guards start and raise their weapons, and one fires a shot at the intruder, but the bullet phases through her torso.
Spook deactivates her phase shifter and raises a pistol at the security camera behind her, shooting it out before lunging for the guards. She shifts her hands into blades and drives them into one’s chest, and spins him around to use as a shield against the pellets fired from the other’s shotgun. Tossing the dead guard aside, she reforms a hand and dispatches the other with a shot to the chest.
Lurch stands up as Spook shuts off the containment field around his cell, walking out as the red barrier sunk into the emitters in the floor.
“Took you long enough,” he grumbles. Spook glares at Lurch, unamused, with a pair of sharp purple optics above an angled mouthplate. She doesn’t speak, but it was clear she wouldn’t have Lurch criticising her rescue. Knowing this wasn’t a battle he could win, Lurch sighs.
“Don’t think this makes us even after Ky Alexia,” he says. “Come on; can your phase shifter get us to Engineering?”
SideStep nodded in satisfaction, before scanning for another enemy.
Zepar’s Terrorcon keeps trying to break into the cockpit as Zepar reanimated the Berserker to attack the Walker as well, causing the previous Terrorcon to return to being a lifeless corpse.
Garand and Epsilon keep trying to break the defensive line.
Zepar’s terrorcons are able to break into the cockpit of one of the Siege Walkers. Fortunately for the pilot, his death is swift. The rest of the New Decepticon defenders had either fled or been killed, and Bombshock’s insecticons were swarming the one remaining Siege Walker.
The Terrorcons aid in attacking the second Walker.
“Let’s get inside before reinforcements show up.” Garand calls to the group.
SideStep nods at Garand, walking back to regroup with the others.