The Quintesson Wars: the Iacon Blitz, Part III
The quintessons swept through Iacon as if they had done it a thousand times before- and they had. They knew the evacuation protocols that Prima’s knights would follow to shepherd the civilians into bunkers beneath the city’s energon lake. They swarmed the anti-air defense cannons at the same time as detachments of knights raced to turn them on their solitary scout ship. And the five-faced soldiers were familiar with the tactics the Primes had taught their soldiers; for every quintesson a knight cut down, another would flank him in the meantime and tear him apart with its talons.
The pacification of the cybertronian capitol city was proceeding exactly according to protocol. Before the sun rose over Iacon again, its defenses would be broken, the heart of the Primes’ fellowship would be dead, and the civilization they had built would fall in on itself with its head removed. Then the Appointer would be free to do its work, and Judgement would proceed.
…
Prima stood between what must have been half a hundred quintessons and the entrance to a bunker beneath the Tower of Pion, a gold and bronze megastructure that climbed high into the dusky sky, just a few miles from the center of Iacon. He dared to look over his shoulder to see the last of the latest crowd of civilians being ushered through the yawning blast doors by Knights of Cybertron. He would allow himself to take pride in his acolytes’ swift response to the sudden invasion later, when there wasn’t a small army bearing down upon him.
Turning back to the approaching quintessons, Prima brandished the Star Saber and charged at the invaders. As he met them head-on, he swung his sword in a graceful arc that cut one of the quintessons in half along its middle. The blade of the Star Saber flashed blue, and a wave of its energy shot out through the felled alien and reduced eight more behind it to smoldering chunks of meat and metal. Prima spun like a dancer as more quintessons tried to surround him, and his sword sang as it threw out more bands of light to cut them down. Too late, he realized that these opponents were a distraction: the threw themselves against his blade to allow four more of their number to slither past him, toward the bunker.
No!
Prima whipped the Star Saber above his head, then slammed the edge of the blade into the metal road beneath his feet. The grey tile cracked and shattered as the sword’s energies surged outward in a shockwave that pushed back the belligerent quintessons. Prima turned, dragging his sword along the road to see the knights at the bunker’s entrance trading bursts of plasma with the quintessons who had passed him. One of the guards staggered into the wall behind him as a shot struck his shoulder, and Prima wound back his sword to intervene-
-But before he could, a blur of red and blue slid into the quintesson on his right, lobbing its head off with an axe. Without a pause, Optimus Prime barreled for the other quintesson, who hissed at the sight of its decapitated comrade. It lashed out with its tendrils; sparks flew as its claws scraped against Optimus’s armor, and the he reeled back. The quintesson lunged forward, thrusting out its talons, and Optimus had just enough time to shove the helve of his energon axe in their path. He allowed the quintesson to pull the weapon from his grasp, and ducked beneath its tentacles to deliver an uppercut to the hood over its face. In one fluid motion, Optimus spun around, snatched his axe from the quintesson’s outstretched arm, and turned back to bury its burning blade in its chest.
Prima ran over to his friend as Optimus kicked away the body of his fallen foe, and looked back to the knights guarding the bunker to see the wounded guard being lifted up by the other. Satisfied that they would both be fine, the two Primes turned their attention to each other. Prima started to speak- to thank Optimus for his timely intervention whilst reminding him that other parts of the city could use his help- but Optimus sprinted past him with little more than a nod of his head. Prima looked after him as he ran, bewildered. Where was he going?
…
Nexus Prime was spread thin, in quite a literal sense of the phrase: the combiner’s five components scrambled across Iacon’s central parkway to provide cover for the crowd of frightened civilians in his care. He could be everywhere at once, and yet it still wasn’t enough: the quintessons were beginning to slip past his components and drag bots off into the darkened buildings around the park. The spire of their ship lorded above them.
“Everyone stay close!”
From five throats, Nexus shouted to what remained of his dependents, gathering them in a huddle. Around them, another wave of quintessons gathered to snatch more transformers away for their unknown purposes.
Not one more, Nexus promised himself. You’re not getting through me this time, freaks.
A flash of orange exploded in the quintessons’ midst, and out from the techno-organic brushed jumped Optimus Prime with his axe drawn, with smoldering chunks of armor and flesh falling behind him. Always one to accept a helping hand, Nexus cheered and gathered his components together. Standing back-to-back with Optimus, he rebuilt himself into his towering, digitigrade combined form.
“To what do I owe the pleasure?” he asked Optimus in his basey voice.
“That remains to be seen,” Optimus replied. staring down the snarling quintessons. He realized that their attention was no longer upon Nexus or the civilians in his care: their beady eyes were all trained on him.
" 'Nother one of your ‘feelings’, eh, pal?" Nexus guessed. Optimus felt the sinking weight in his chest: the same sensation he felt whenever the Matrix of Leadership guided his thoughts. It was directing him even now, toward the bottom of the ship hovering above Iacon. Though why, he couldn’t yet guess.
“Fight beside me once again, Nexus, and we may find out together.”
Nexus smirked. “Good enough for me!”
The two Primes laid into the horde, Nexus drawing a massive sword with a bifurcated blade: the Cyber Calibur. As his weapon touched his foes, their bodies exploded into strings of muscle and detached machinery: Nexus applied the sword’s power to mend or dismantle anything it touched to frightening effect. Optimus’s weapon had no such abilities: he relied on its sizzling blades and his own skill, honed by centuries of battle against Unicron’s minions, to cut the quintessons down. The quintessons did not back down, did not retreat even as more of their number fell: they were relentless, and seemed to lack any sense of self-preservation. One swiped at Optimus’s leg and brought him to one knee, but Nexus swung around and reduced the quintesson to spare parts. As the melee continued to unfold, the civilians cheered their leaders on- some of them deployed weapons of their own from their arms and took opportunistic shots at some of the quintessons.
…
Optimus Prime located. Commencing termination as per protocol 19.8.4 (revised)
…
The weight in Optimus’s chest sunk deeper into his spark, like a black hole drawing light itself into its maw. Above him, a low roar assaulted his audio receptors as the sky turned red. He looked up, and saw the tip of the quintesson ship’s spire spit apart to reveal a weapon: a cannon of some kind that glowed with the same sinister amethyst light as the eyes all over its body. A quintesson took advantage of the distraction to tackle him to the ground, and three more jumped on Nexus’s back before he could run over.
Optimus wrestled with the quintesson as the cannon overhead glowed brighter, and its barrel crackled with bolts of crimson energy. The quintesson wrapped its tentacles around his legs, his torso, and his left arm, but a punch square in the face disoriented it long enough for Optimus to wrench his right arm free. The cannon roared like a dragon as its image began to disappear within the storm of blood-red light massing around it.
Optimus felt his hand reach into his chest, outside of his control. A familiar presence gently eased his mind’s hold over his body, as it had done during his last battle with unicron centuries ago. He didn’t fight it; he allowed whatever spirit dwelled within the Matrix to wrap his fingers around the panels beneath his neck, and pull them apart to grab at the sparkling gold shell inside. He felt his hand take hold of the Matrix, felt its surface rippling like water as his vision faded to white, and the roar of the quintesson ship’s cannon suddenly vanished…
As always, comments and constructive criticism are appreciated and requested! I’ve spent the last couple months going through a move and getting started with a new job, so that hasn’t left me much time to write. But I’m starting to fall into a routine now, and hopefully I can start cutting out some time each day to put pen to paper (figuratively, anyway).