Indeed, Razor’s scanner shows that the interior of this device is now filled with rapidly-necrotizing brain tissue, the strands of grey and white matter stretching between tiny mechanisms inside the casing, linking these components together.
“What happened?” Salvage asks, having only come into the cargo hold after Kitai had activated the skull. “Did we just butt-dial the quintessons?”
Leslie switches off her camera and removes her glasses, briskly striding over to a tank of energon and leaning against it. Her face is pale, and she takes in a deep breath to steady herself. “Yeah. Yeah, it looks like it,” she replies to the Junkion, “and our man Gabriel picked up the phone. What does that mean?”
“It could mean several things, I reckon,” says Beta Maxx grimly. “No possibility bodes very well for us.”
The Pack Mule rumbles as its engines come to life. Outside, its moorings automatically disengage and pull away from the ship. As our heroes finish boarding the hauler, its gangplanks retract and its airlocks close.
“It means he knows our intentions. And who is involved. I doubt that he is human, for no human would ever be in one piece with the quintessions. Nay, it is likely he is their creation, and perhaps their harbringer. They intend to find what we are searching for..”
“And they were all in one accord,” Defender quoted. “Let Gabriel try what he might. We must beat him to his object, or die trying.”
Razor sends the skull into subspace, though she leaves the other objects on the ground.
“I’ll see if I can get any of these other parts to work,” she says. “They may work, even if that crazy thing doesn’t.”
Oreo sits back on a crate, and depowers his gun.
“I guess I’ll just wait until I’m needed,” he says.
He leans back, causing the crate to creak alarmingly under the weight of a full SUV. He then proceeds to play some music on his speakers, a mixture of pop, rock, and electronic songs.
“And yet, if one alone will fail, will not an attempt by many save some? Even if at great cost, we have fought the Quintessons, and defeated them before now. ‘Til all are one, we must fight against their evil, even if it it means that we must go down in the wreckage.”
Defender clanged his fist against his breastplate, the ancient symbols on it suddenly glowing a pale orange.
“If this is to be my last fight, then I will serve as I served Magnus and the Autobots, standing against evil to the bitter end.”
“So this is the sick freak that’s behind all this. He doesn’t exactly leave the best first impressions, I’ll say that much.”
Nova commented. Having seen such a nightmarish display, she was beginning to have second thoughts about what she was getting into. Though she chose not to voice her concerns. It would be easier for everyone if she just waited till they were off planet, take the time to think everything over. And if she was still feeling uneasy about the whole thing, just slip out while no one’s looking.
“Thank you Downburst. Your assistance is more than appreciated. Now if there’s nothing else to be done here, I’ll be on my way.”
Axis made her way to where she kept her personal craft, the Prime Flyer. It was faster than flying in beast mode, and could potentially prove useful in the mission ahead of them.
She took off and made her way to the space port, the flyer’s flame trail streaking across Iacon’s sky.
@BlackBeltGamer98
Axis attempted to reach Seraphicon over her intercom.
“Seraphicon, can you hear me? I’m on my way to the space port, as well as the Excalibur II. I want you to inform everyone else and have them sit tight. I’m sorry for taking as long as I have, but I should be with you all soon.”
“Sounds good! Thank you both for the ride.”
Maximus replied.
“Thank you! I hope you both have a good day.”
Honeycomb said cheerfully.
The two bots step out of the ship, and Maximus takes a moment to take in the sights and sounds around him. The rushing water, the fresh air. Finally, he was home again.
“So, have you ever been to the Below before?”
Honeycomb asked.
“I’ve been once or twice, but I’m not super familiar with the place.”
Maximus replied as he looked down into the gaping chasm before him.
“Alright then, no problem. There’re two places my friends usually like to hag out. The closer of the two is Lunawing’s den, so that’s where we should look first.”
“Sounds good to me. Lets get going!”
“Awesome! Just follow me.”
Without a moment’s hesitation, Honeycomb took a running leap off the Maw’s edge, diving down and using her wings to course correct on her way down.
Maximus couldn’t help but smile. He walked up to the edge of the maw and turned around. He spread his arms out wide and let himself fall backwards. Feeling the wind rush past him was exhilarating!
“WOOOOOOOO YEEAAAAAHH!”
He cheered as he fell. He transformed into his beast mode and drifted towards Honeycomb.
“Onyx’s ghost, I missed this!”
Honeycomb too changed into her beast form, and the two transitioned from thrilling freefall to more controlled flight as they moved deeper into the cavernous home of the insecticons.
“Have you seen them?” Kitai asked, before going silent for a moment.
“There would be no need. They have no need for such a thing as impressions. If you lock a door and hide the key with you, they’ll tear you out the window, grip the key from your dying corpse, and then burn the whole house down. To them, we are insects, they are a foot.”
“Alright, hold on a minute. I keep hearing this word get thrown around, quintessons. Not to be the ignorant human in the room, but could someone explain to me what exactly they are? I’d like to have a better idea of what we’re going up against here.”
Nova replied.
“A few times, many millennia ago,” Defender says, his expression becoming thoughtful. “At the time, Prima was the leader of the Knights of Cybertron, and he led us into battle against them, eventually defeating them in one our greatest battles in history. The Quintessons are dangerous, cunning beings, masters of technology. Some say that they know the workings of Unicron himself, though that may be a myth. They have forged many machines and technologies over time, many taken from the civilizations and worlds they conquered. They are unstoppable if once they uncover any weaknesses within your technology. They obey a rigid hierarchy, from what is saw, so they can be disrupted by breaks in the chain of command. This, though, is hard to do, as they know this weakness and will undoubtedly guard against it.”
Defender paused, his optics flickering for a second.
“Nova, the Quintessons are evil. Not like Unicron, who destroys to survive, consuming whole worlds, but they have an insatiable desire to rule. They would conquer all the universe, even Unicron himself if they could. That is why we stand against them, for they would bind all free beings into mindless slavery for all time, like the dark lord Sauron in an ancient Human text I once listened to. To oppose them is a great duty, as in doing so you fight not only for yourself, but for the freedom the universe.”
“No,” the Firestorms say, “we were outside time and space when they were menacing this universe. Quintus Prime did talk about creating a species like them but, given how history has shown these guys are from other universes, I imagine Quintus completely scrapped his plans after seeing what these Quintessons were like.”
———————————
Seraphicon replies to Axis, “We’re en route to Excalibur II, see you there and then we’ll see if Liege wants to join up?” (@ValkyriePrimal )
“Okay, so they’re bad news. Got it.”
Nova replied.
“But it also sounds like you’ve taken these things on more than once before. So theoretically they shouldn’t be too much of a concern right? Just do the same thing you did the last time they were a problem.”
The Pack Mule, Excalibur II, and the Prime Flyer converge in orbit over Iacon. The sleek navy frigate’s polished black hull reflects the light from the space stations around it and the electromagnetic phenomena dancing in Cybertron’s upper atmosphere as she swings around to match the bulkier freighter’s heading. She is in every way the successor to the prototype vessel that some of our heroes commandeered five thousand years ago to travel between the Prime Colonies: her profile is much the same as the original Excalibur, but now dark-green exterior lights compliment her contours. Her engine blocks extend from her aft sections like the quillons atop a sword’s hilt, and the warp cannon extending from her prow is its blade. She could easily leave the Pack Mule in the ionic trail of her engines, but she remains at the freighter’s starboard side.
On the bridge of the Pack Mule, the commlink chimes. “_Pack Mule, this is Excalibur II,” Captain Gravastar introduces herself. “We’ll be tagging along on this mission for as long as you need us. We’ve been filled in on most of the details; just tell us where we’re going next, and we’ll follow your lead.”
“Whoa, is that the Pack Mule?” another woman’s voice- that of Redshift- can be heard gasping in the background. “I thought she was lost in the Void after that whole thing with the tech-witch. Primus, if those weren’t the weirdest two weeks of my life…”
“May I offer my assistance?” Beta Maxx asks Razor. “I fought in the first two Quintesson Wars; my experience with their technology may be dated, but two heads are better than one, yes?”
“What we did last time won’t work,” Salvage tells Nova. His shoulders are squared, and his voice has a similar anxious tension that the Junkion is working very hard to suppress. "Like Defender said, they incorporate new technology from the species they conquer. They adapt. Every time they’ve come for this universe, they’ve come with new weapons and tactics. The last war with them was eons ago; who knows what they’ve cooked up since then?
“But, since I don’t want to rain on everyone’s parade, what with all these heartwarming speeches about togetherness and all, I’ll stop the doomer talk and get optimistic,” he continues after a pause. “We did beat them four times already, so maybe we can do it again. The Power of Friendship prevails, right?”
The Below’s winding warrens are lit by luminous strands of biotech clinging to the walls, made by the insecticons as they’ve dug out their homes over the eons. The tunnels are all of varying size and shape, built by a multitude of different hives and communities. They coil through the earth in dizzying spirals, connecting vast caverns in which enormous honeycomb structures hang from the walls and ceilings. These subterranean cities are packed with insecticons of ever type: some greatly resemble Earth arthropods, while others are utterly alien in shape.
Though insecticon civilization may look wildly different from that of most other cybertronian cultures, there are still some familiarities to be found. Energon miners carry their hauls up from the depths (though here, they resemble enormous robotic dung beetles, and the energon ore is stored in spherical pods that they roll through the streets). Wells of Sparks still create new cybertronians within their depths (though here they are sequestered in beehive-like structures in which raw energon and cybermatter are also processed for other uses). Citizens make idle talk while they work or go about their errands, and the banner of the New Imperium of Cybertron flies from government buildings.
“The power of friendship always prevails!”
Niko confidently declared.
Oh don’t you start.
Nova grumbled mentally.
“So what you’re telling me is that these Quintesson things are interdimensional world conquers, and we have absolutely no way of forming a game plan to beat them until we’ve already made first contact. Am I getting that right?”
“Excalibur II, this is Axis Prime. The current plan is to travel to Astrum. Further details will be provided from there.”
The Prime communicated over the intercom as she trailed the two ships.
OOC: Would there be enough room in the Packmule to dock the Primeflyer inside?
“Nice place you got here.”
Maximus commented as he looked at the sights around him.
“Nice is one way to put it, but hive-life never really was my style. I’ve always preferred the bright sun and open skies up top. But this place is still home. It feels nice to be back.”
Honeycomb flew up to one of the larger hive structures. She landed on the wall close to one entrance, while Maximus landed close behind her.
“You wait here, I’ll check and see if anyone’s home.”
Said the adorable bee.
Maximus transformed into robot mode and folded his arms.
“Sounds good to me.”
Honeycomb crawled in around the side of the entrance, coming in on the wall rather than the floor.
“Lunawing! Talon! Gyro! Anybody home?”
The insecticon cheerfully called out.
“Of course! I would be glad to work with your knowledge,” Razor replied, gathering up the parts and setting them on a crate. She grabbed the Pack Mule’s toolkit from its holder, and began unpacking various items: a screwdriver, a box of clamps, an extension cord, several electrical cords of various types, and two flashlights. She then asked, “Do Quintessons use any standard power cables?”
“Correct.” Kitai replied. "But i would suggest that the simple power of friendship will not end a war. As much as we would love to believe. There will blood, and tears to be shed. So as much as a positive outlook may be encouraging, it will not work all wonders. "
