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Metatisic: Part Six
By Shinju-chan., original draft 1985-1987., revised 5/8/03., 2004-2009
CHAPTER 4: A wrinkle in time?
SOME WORDS TO KNOW..
Dourjer --(Doe-ger) The title of a Decepticon monarch/king
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The mosaic passed –slowly– but it did subside. It had exchanged with the pink, before it fanned with a new incredible and prolonged black.. At long last the drifting, that might very well have been in his head, had stopped, but a queer filter of light that hovered off to the left for the last 18-19 minutes, always seemed too long a ways off. A faint scent of smoke hung on motionless air, although no smoke was visible.
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Sprawled face down, Cyclonus did not move when he regained consciousness; he waited in the hope that his confusion would dissipate. The far-flung complex web grew glistening and bright as it’s core appeared to explode and all went dim again. Black, blacker, blackest. A cold beyond frozen. For a prolonged moment it’s numb coursed through his mainframe and thought, “Ah, so, now I am dying. I’m surprised at just how content I am with it’s dark offering.”
But Cyclonus winked, trying to focus. The blackness had been nothing but veils within his own oculars, a product of his back up modems that, at last, had engaged. Now he was exploding through the surface of the dark. Life thrust painfully back into his steel frame rather than gently.
Shadows loomed like a convocation of robed figures crowding around him. Gradually his vision cleared, but in his weakened spell, little was revealed other than the clear understanding he was now on dry land -not floating- sucking it’s surface when he inhaled, but too feeble yet to muster the strength needed to turn over. Still weaker yet to begin guessing where they had landed.
... “they” ...Yes.. Scourge. He had watched the spinning monster swallow him whole before he, too, became it’s unwitting prey. Little Rumble... he fought so hard to hold on. Where were they now? Nearby? Perhaps the nova had jettisoned them elsewhere, or not vomited them free at all?
Behind the lids of Cyclonus’ eyes, he saw the bright disturbing hallucination again of the great web with so many twinkles and pulsing lights caught within them. The filter of light was there. It must have been there all along.
Breeze patted his face when he summoned the energy to turn his head. His optics open with a new crimson glow flooding across the spheres, but still his vision was still drenched in the white. From somewhere else came a “Fum-fum-fum-fummm” sound. A large crop of rock six or nine feet from him, was so vague that for a moment it seemed ineffably strange. Cyclonus stared at it for a while before he realized what it was and focused on a stroke of violet painted amongst its jags. It appeared so out of place upon the honey-colored stones.
“Unn...” Cyclonus sipped, “Unnerrooo... Ra — rrRumble?” A arm was sliding beneath his, gripping tight and controlling him to his feet. “Cyclonus? Can you stand?”
No. He couldn’t. Not even for just a moment. His legs knocked out from beneath him, Cyclonus sagged in the arms of his helper. Scourge!! So the pink entity had spit them all out here in the same place after all. Slipping from the sweep to his knees, he fought hard not to keel completely over again and stood on all fours.
“Cyclonus?”
Scourge. How could he be so full of vigor yet? He thought to question him, but couldn’t –not yet. Stupefied by the predicament, his logistics had yet to process what exactly was real, and what might be malfunction.
Fumm-fumm-fummm...
The noise was real enough though. It came from his intercom that was still open to the patch Razorclaw had established from inside the cargo unit. The connection was long lost. Now radio fuzz and atmospherics waved in and out seeking for the original bandwave, but not finding it.
The violet blotch mixed upon the neighboring rise turned out to Rumble. Scourge was towing his small purple body to level ground when he coughed suddenly, “Uh ... I feel worse than a tossed molecular salad.” Rumble rolled over, “Where are we?”
Left to right, Cyclonus searched for an object or an aspect of the scenery that he might recognize, anything for a anchor. When the scope offered nothing to reassure him, he turned his quest inward, seeking something familiar in himself, but his own data was even darker than the sprawl surrounding them.
“You, eh.. offer an interesting question.” Cyclonus turned to look behind him. Fum-fum-fum-fum... Cyclonus snapped the intercom off as he finally lifted to his feet. The flash of pain when he flexed his right leg was gone so immediately that he might have imagined it. “I’m not entirely sure.” He traced his gaze back to the cassette’s face.
Scourge circled the landscape and drew a blank shaking his head, “I don’t know. The storm completely fused my tracking units to the Kcerio district.”
Cyclonus hissed at his leg again. He was damaged after all. Fuel was leaking from a crack in the armor just below the knee rivering an oily pathway to the crannies of his foot. Around the gouge, a halo of sparks danced briefly.
“There’s no telling where the flux has decided to release us.” Ignoring the wound, Cyclonus offered a quick pick of options, “We could be light years away from Charr, an adjacent galaxy, or a different universe altogether.” He paused, “If I had to guess at our situation, I believe it is safe to assume that the solar fraction acted on the same operable merits as a black hole.”
“So you think we’re in a different galaxy?”
“Could be.”
“This is weird.” Rumble had been standing on a mound just across from them. With a whirr, the plate that had been open on his left arm slide with a click back into place, “I could be damaged, but I ran my diagnostics already and the reports came back negative, but my tract data is telling me that were on the planet Cybertron.”
“What?!” Scourge grabbed his wrist to see pulling the smaller Decepticon off the ground in the process. “There’s no way we could be on Cybertron!!” He protested, “Cybertronian air defenses would have detected us by now!!
“----and we also would have been surrounded by Autobots faster than we could re-program a wristwatch! Don’t you think I know that?!” Rumble wiggled, “That’s why I ran my diagnostics in the first place! I thought the analyses was invalid!”
Swinging his eyes left, Rumble frowned. Around them, patches of stone joined with fields of metallic plates did, but did not resemble the rudimentary surface of his ancestral home. It was clean of scars and much too void of the cracks and black aging derelict charred strokes of a world that had been subjected to a ego’s worth of civil war. The familiar collective steeples of steel megaliths ...where were they? Maybe he was wrong and finally decided that he was sure of it.
“Eeh!” He spat at the idea and now tried to laugh it off, “Tracking units must be malfunctioning.”
“What do you think, Cyclonus?” Scourge stepped towards him. Cyclonus was gazing out across the hills and rise as puzzled astonishment eclipsed his lenses. His brows slanted. “This planet’s composition is indeed similar to that of Cybertron.” He was saying.
“You know where we are?” Scourge asked.
Cyclonus shrugged, “My processors faired no better than both of yours so I have no exact readings”
“So what do you suggest we do?”
“With all of our navigation tracks down in one form or another, we cannot activate an emergency patch to contact Decepticon Headquarters. We need re-fuel. Find some inhabitants. It’s a planet after all so I’m sure there are some to be discovered.”
“There is a considerable land mass just 18 or so kilometers to the north of us.” Scourge pointed.
“Fine. We head there.”
“I don’t care what direction we take. I just hope the natives are friendly.” Rumble joked, “Not that we ar---!!!”
It was barely out of his mouth when a explosion rocked just feet behind him knocking him flat. It powdered the stone crop where he had been just moments before.
“What the?!!” Rumble skidded to his knees, “Huh? ooOAHHHH!!!” He rolled quickly just as a spray of phaser fire potted the ground around him. Another breezed his left shoulder. “WE’RE UNDER ATTACK!!!”
“I guess that answers your question, Rumble.” Scourge flattened himself immediately to the ground, “We found the welcoming committee.”
“I believe you mean that they have found us, Scourge. “ Cyclonus pressed his back against a neighboring jag of metal beside them. One hard blast landed a story above him as more round sprayed about his feet, but he still couldn’t see their attackers until a voice commanded, “Halt!!”
From a mound before them, a figure was blooming. A red mantle swirling around his silver-toned battlements fluttered like a flag. Just as Cyclonus was turning his head to focus upon the visitor, a choir of metallic clangs and tinny jingles circled them with weapons drawn.
“Drop your weapons and surrender!” The anatomy from the mound pointed his laser rifle and delivered the menacing order. “By order of the empire of Ta’nak!!” A battalion of 9 more soldiers grew by his side.
The Empire of Ta’nak ---The declaration ripped Cyclonus’ eyes clean open just as Scourge leaned towards him, “Cyclonus.” He whispered, “My data indicates that they’re weaponry is obsolete in it’s firepower. We can take them easily.”
“Silence!!” The stranger clanged towards them and stuffed his blunt of his pistol in Scourge’s throat hard. He spied Cyclonus.
Two sets of strong arms now yanked Cyclonus up to his feet. The one called Sarterius, his weapon still shoved under Scourge’s chin, came level with his eyes, although the helmet he wore temporarily made him taller. The stance, though, was one that Cyclonus recognized immediately —Power and potency. It was his own; the fashion of a military leader. Issuing his commands to his men in a admix dialect, he made no request; it was an order that was meant to be obeyed without delay. One was jerking Scourge to rise just as Cyclonus spied the familiar lavender crest of allegiance glaring from Sarterius’ breastplate.
“This one is, too.” Sarterius steadied himself jogging a quick scan across the symbol upon Cyclonus’ chest. Finally he pulled his rifle away from Scourge, “And just what are you three doing here?” He asked, “You Decepticons are in direct violation of royal orders that no soldiers nor civilians are permitted outside the borders of Ta’nak until proper delegations have been established with the new robot race!!”
A new robot race? A new mystery to add to the steady flood of others. “Like Rougeons for instance.” Cyclonus thought to himself. The Transformer, Sarterius and his patrol originally thought that he, Scourge, and Rumble were some of –of–well whatever they were, and Cyclonus briefly entertained the option of asking the commander about it until logic reasoned that perhaps, as a Decepticon himself, he ought to know what Rougeons were already. To ask might make all three of them look even more suspicious than they already were and he hoped both Rumble and Scourge reasoned the same.
“You are all fortunate that your cogs remain intact!” A crude smile sliced across Sarterius’ face just then. He butted his weapon against Scourge’s abdomen making himself clear on how easily they could have be deactivated moments before. “But your identity as fellow men does NOT alleviate the truth of your being here in Cybertron!! Disobedience of royal orders of the Dourjer is equally acquainted with treason!!” He brushed the barrel of his gun down Cyclonus’ right cheek, “And that, O’ friend, is also equally acquainted with death.”
“Pardon any rudeness, comrade.” Cyclonus drummed up his first response with hopeful perfection. “But I was unaware of such an order, M’lord.”
Politeness did little to dull Sarterius’s tight expressionless glare. His weapon may have sagged somewhat, but the shade underneath the helmet slide. “Do you take me for a fool?!! The command was given over a year ago! Yet here the three of you are in territories well known to be occupied by Rougeon rebels!”
Okay... So Rougeons are rebels. One mystery down and a billion more to go..
Sarterius was smiling again, “Yesss ...perhaps that is the truth, Decepticon! Collaborating with the rebel scum you might be?”
“N –no, M’Lord!”
“No?!!”
“We were on a personal scout mission, M’Lord. .. i-in Cybertron” Cyclonus lied instantly, “We were just returning with our findings when we were stopped by your patrols.”
“Hmph!” The general’s chuckle sounded hardly amused. Interrogation infected his swine smile. “Is that a fact?” The luster behind twin rouge panes skirted the three of them, “Then you may report your adventures to the Dourjer.” Stepping backwards, Sarterius signaled at his soldiers, “Seize these men! All! All of these men!!”
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1
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A cell –-A prison cell on wheels. The electro-cuffs that Sarterius had ordered to bind the three Decepticons’ wrist was apparently not enough. To dull any further ideas of escape, the general herded them aboard the goliath hulk of a contraption full of dirty gears hissing steam and whining ligaments. As it’s mammoth roller track ground across meadows of admix bedrock, steel and silver fields jerking it’s robot cargo, black exhaust puffed in between the bars with the overpowering stench of tar and burnt oil.
Rumble coughed. “Rather primitive.” He gagged. Bound at the wrist, he could barely manage to stand as the cell jimmied the uneven landscape.
“Primitive, but effective.” Scourge panned the bars across from him. Another tremor made them pop just then. “The bars are electrified.” He looked over at his commander, “Cyclonus, how come we just didn’t attack? The caliber of their arms was weak enough that---”
“Their weaponry might have been obsolete by our standards, Scourge, but there was far more of them than us.” Rumble injected immediately. "They would have annihilated us.”
“I wasn’t asking you, Rumble!!”
“No, Scourge! Rumble is correct. My weapon was neutralized by the solar flux.” Cyclonus studied the cuffs tightened around his wrist before his optics flicked left to the Sweep leader. “Besides,” He added quickly, “Attacking them would have been admission to the guilt that they have already charged us with.”
Rumble huffed sagging to a seat upon the cell floor and peered out through the neon sparking grids to the line of soldiers marching in union beside the rolling cage. “Did you see the symbols upon their battlements?” He quizzed.
“Yes,” Scourge nodded, “Somehow they are Decepticon like us.” His vision crossed the infantry and fell upon the exhausted frames of five other prisoners. Frail to the brink of deactivation, every few moments one of the soldiers would strike the rear one commanding him to: “Get back in line!!”
“Those robots aren’t.” Scourge tried to point.
“Not Autobots either.” Rumble squinted at the weakest; the third from the middle. His armor zig-zagged with cracks and popped seams, coolant rivered down his forehead puddling into his optics. His mouth hinged open. At least 8 times he had fallen already, and every time one of the foot soldiers would beat him mercilessly with the butt of his laser rifle. The ninth time, however, the transformer collapsed and assault from the beating offered little response, but a twist in the prisoner’s lips and now the rolling cell jerked to a halt.
“What is it?”
“This prisoner is not responding to orders, sir.”
Leaning, Sarterius palmed the captive’s shoulder and smacked his cheek once. Nothing, nothing but a parched heave. The general said spoke nothing at all except a quick signal in sign language his platoon understood. Through the electro-bars of their prison cell, the three Decepticons watched the display as five sets of arms yanked the crippled robot to his feet. He tensed in his shackles only once unable to scream before his exostructure was pumped full of phaser rounds.
“MOVE OUT!!”
“Move out!” The dictation repeated from soldier to soldier as the cell jutted forward again. Ordering the 4 remaining prisoners to continue marching as they were, the wreckage of the robot dragged the ground several feet before the body was chopped free from the string. Rumble gulped as it flopped down the nearby embankment.
“I hope that’s not our future, Cyclonus.” Scourge’s lenses broadened on the second-in-command.
 
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“Lord Sarterius!” One of the warriors that had suddenly snatched Rumble from the ground unwittingly gave identity to their captor, “He’s not a Rougeon, sir. This one is a Decepticon!”