Split looked up at the spectacle.
“N…no no no” he said, splitting into his counterparts, who transformed into jet mode and flew up towards Salvation.
Inside Salvation, Spectrum looked around, unsure of what to do.
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Zepar was clearly beyond enraged. It was as clear as daylight: he was going to extinguish Bludgeon’s Spark.
In that anger, Zepar kept running to try and get to the Red Key.
If he wants this, he will have to pry it off of my sparkless husk! he thought.
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SideStep faltered, staring at Salvation, before noticing that Zepar had continued running.
“Wh- hey!” He ran after the Angelicon. “What in Primus’ name is Bludgeon thinking? Is he trying to destroy the keys?!”
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Zepar didn’t answer, he just kept running, the anger and hate he had been keeping at bay were on full display as it became focused into one thought: Bludgeon will die.
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SideStep rolled his eyes and continued following Zepar.
“We gotta get that key.”
From orbit, the bronze tower starts to ascend: it rises from the ground, propelled by antigravity generators deep inside its frame that hummed deeply as the structure rose heavenward. Through the clouds, Lemuria’s space station lowers itself from orbit as if to meet it. The giant crucifix’s central rings uncoiled themselves from around each other, and like curled fingers the reached for the tower as it climbed higher and higher.
The Splitter brothers could hardly see Salvation through the fire and smoke that engulfed her- just patches of charred-black metal, and wide hull breaches through which debris and crewmembers fell. An out-of-control train car shoots through a hole in Salvation’s side and plummets down toward the valley.
The window in the medical bay shatters, and a second later the entire wall around it blows open and sprays flaming shrapnel across the room.
“Evacuate the patients!” Forcep shouts to his staff. “Get them to the stasis hold! Now!”
The doctor picks himself up from an overturned bed, a piece of jagged metal lodged in his shoulder. He ignores his own pain to drag another bot out from beneath a mound of wreckage.
…
“Alert: hull breaches reported on all main decks! Uncontrolled fires in all areas! Communications with Engineering are down!”
Motherboard’s voicebox couldn’t keep up with the damage reports spilling across her visor, her words starting to run over each other as the bridge crew frantically tried to give Salvation a fighting chance at surviving the bombardment.
“Come on, come on!” Flyby screamed at the controls for the warp cannon, which glitched and hovered unresponsively below his fingers. Beside him, Brakeswitch tried to plot an escape flight, but with the Fleetcarrier’s engines in chaos and her transwarp drive not responding, she was going nowhere.
“All hands! Calamity protocol!” Broadband calls over the ships’ comm network. Gone was her characteristic cheer and wit, replaced with stark terror. “Evacuate! All hands evacuate!”
“Calamity protocols in effect,” Motherboard echoes. “The CFC Salvation is lost. All hands, proceed to-”
“Oh slag- INCOMING!” Brakeswitch suddenly screams. A massive lance of red-hot plasma strikes the port side of the bridge. The wall simply disappears in the resulting explosion, killing several deckhands and throwing Motherboard off her feet and into a wall with a sickening crunch and the shattering of her visor.
…
In Engineering, Greasemonkey struggled to free himself from a ring fallen off of the transwarp drive, but to no avail. The once dimly-lit cavern was now bright with roaring fires and blood-red emergency lights. Water, Energon, and coolant spilled from busted pipelines, and shrill alarms howled across the bay. Through the chaos, the old cyborg could see the lanky forms of Lurch and Spook running for an emergency exit.
Very well, if I can’t save my ship, I’ll at least take her killers to the grave with her, he thinks. Pulling his cane toward him, he mounts it on a collapsed beam and transforms it into its rifle configuration. Squinting through the sights, he peers through the hellish inferno raging between him and his targets, and shoots a slug through the back of Spook’s head. She falls, and Lurch doesn’t even stop to check her condition.
The yellow-painted tin can…
Greasemonkey starts to line up a shot on him, but his gaze is drawn to a squealing sound coming from the transwarp drive above him as its supports give out. The engineer sighs, and closes his left eye while taking his hand of the gun.
Do forgive me, old girl…
As Zepar and SideStep run across the bridge, the rest of the knight statues rise and salute them. They were in a massive chamber, its walls decorating with sweeping spiral patters and ornate star charts. Ancient cyberglyphs punctuated it all, coalescing in a spot on the ceiling directly above the end of the bridge: a raised platform with some kind of dais rising from its center.
Zepar tries to find any sign of where the Key could be.
Spectrum squawks in alarm, rushing over to Forcep to help.
The Splitter brothers rocketed towards the ships assaulting Salvation, hoping to take out as many weapons as they could.
SideStep stared up at the platform. “I think we’re supposed to get up there.”
He starts approaching the dais.
“Spectrum get out of here!” Forcep hollers back. “I can handle this; you get to an escape shuttle!”
The New Decepticon fleet doesn’t even bother to retaliate against the Splitter brothers, so focused were they on throwing everything they had at Salvation. She screamed and wailed as sections of her hull fell away in burning chunks.
A plinth rises out of the dais: a silver drum-shaped silo, with gold filigree and red, green, blue, and purple lights coursing between the curling patterns. Like petals on a flower, the Atlantean, Hyperborean, and Dark Omega Keys blossom at the top of the cylinder, along with a fourth key that bore crimson conduits on its face and sleek, angled patters running across its form. Around the dais, cyberglyphs etched themselves into the metal, spelling out a familiar mantra:
The light of the Allspark shall illuminate even the darkest hours, and thwart the forces of chaos and evil, until comes the day when its children return to its embrace, and all are one.
Zepar looks for something out of place; it’s never as simple as this.
“B-but h-help!” Spectrum said. “y-you h-hurt!”
The Splitter brothers desperately fired at the cannons, trying to lessen the barrage any way they could.
“We ain’t got the time for that. Let’s go!” Sidestep rushed forwards, looking for a way up to the dais.
A flight of stairs extended from the bridge, leading up to the Omega Keys. Once more the tower shook, and the shouts of our heroes’ companions echoed from the entrance, along with the awful, unrelenting thunder of the New Decepticon guns.
“I’ve had worse!” Forcep grunts. “I’ll be fine- go!”
The Splitters’ weapons are able to destroy many of the smaller gun emplacements, but the larger guns are unaffected.
Zepar goes to claim the Keys.
OOC: wait…did we just make a colony ship?
SideStep glanced at Zepar, before making his way up the stairs.
Spectrum hesitates, but turns and runs out of the medbay to the nearest escape pod.
“We need to take out the bridges.” Thrust grumbled.
The three turned towards the nearest ship’s bridge.
Many other crewmembers were doing the same, running, driving, flying, or crawling to the closest hangar to evacuate. The odds were low that the New Decepticons would take prisoners, but they were better than staying aboard the dying Salvation.
Through the bridge’s viewport, the captain of the ship does a noticeable doube-take. He launches out of his chair and starts barking inaudibly to his weapon crews.
When Zepar touches the console, there is a sound like the toll of a great bell, followed by that of a ghostly choir singing a single, high note. A profound silence befalls the tower, the station, and the valley as a flash of white engulfs the ships, warring cybertronians, and the tall mountains around them…
Zepar tries to figure out if that was some sort of alarm or just a sound for the sake of it, “We don’t have time for this, people are dying and Primus is running on fumes!” He yells, “If we cannot get home in time, the Allspark will die and with it all hope for us as a species!”
“If whatever entities that guard the Keys still wish to test us, let it be done now or even help us restore the Allspark to its full health by giving the gift of life offered by the Omega Lock freely and with no strings attached!” He roars.
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Spectrum, nearly getting trampled by the horde of crewmembers, made her way to the nearest hangar.
The brothers form into Split, who fired his shotgun at the viewport as he tries to land on the ship’s hull.
SideStep blinked, taken aback by Zepar’s yelling.
“Yeah, what he said.” He added.
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The light recedes, and silence falls upon the valley. At the sudden flash, the New Decepticon crews had ceased their bombardment, and now looked up in wonder with the crew of Salvation as a bubble of shimmering energy surrounded the battered Fleetcarrier, projected by the space station, which had reformed its central cavity to attach the bronze tower to its structure.
The arms of the cross come to life with a rainbow of light running across their conduits, as guns flip out from panels all over the station to fire upon the enemy vessels.
The viewport cracks, but doesn’t shatter. The captain of the warship shouts to his crew to get Split the hell off the window, but none of the vessel’s guns could target him now.
Spectrum arrives just in time to see the tables turning on the New Decepticons in such a spectacular fashion. A storm of laser beams and antimatter blasts rain down upon Bludgeon’s fleet, while Salvation was protected within the ancient station’s energy shield.
SideStep pumped his fist and cheered. “That’s it!”
Spectrum skidded to a halt as she entered the hangar, before turning and running back towards Forcep. “S-safe! C-can help!” She muttered to herself, dodging the legs and feet of the other crewmembers.
Split gritted his teeth and thrust a leg at the viewport, putting as much weight into it as he could.