“Well, here we are, the thirty-ninth level below the surface,” Ramulus stated, looking around as they all jumped down to land on the old, warped metal that served as the floor. The ramp descending from the thirty-eighth level above had broken off about halfway down, presumably ages ago.

     “Ugh,” Sigma Prime grunted as he landed on the floor on all four feet. “That put more stress on my knee servos than I thought it would…”

     “Well, it WAS about a fifty-foot jump…” Skydive said as she flapped her wings and landed beside Ramulus and Sigma Prime. Mirage teleported down to where they all were a split second later. “You probably should’ve just flown down.”

     “Probably,” Sigma Prime said, stretching his legs. “Now, since we’re at the first level of Cybertron that hasn’t been mapped since ancient times… where to from here?”

     “I have no idea,” Skydive sighed, shrugging. “This ‘claw of evil’ mentioned in the Covenant of Primus is all I have to go by. It could be anywhere on this floor or any floor below it, all the way down to the core of the planet.”

     “How far down to the core are we, exactly?” Ramulus asked.

     “We are 90.6 miles from the core,” Mirage droned.

     “What? How do you know that?” Ramulus questioned, an eyeridge raised.

     “I have been observing the height of each level as we descended, and subtracting that from the known diameter of the planet. We are 90.6 miles from the core.”

     “Yeah, you already said that,” Ramulus said, rolling his optics. “So… what, that leaves us with… well, a slaggin’ ton of levels to search through then, doesn’t it?”

     “Well, I can’t imagine it being VERY close to the core,” Skydive said. “This ‘claw of evil’ had to have been built after the planet had been around for a few thousand years, after all, otherwise it would have been included in the Covenant of Primus as a reference point to the Well of Allsparks. So we can probably eliminate at least the 20 miles’ worth of levels nearest to the core.”

     “Why does that not make me feel any better?” Ramulus sighed.

     “Well, we may not have that great of a shot of finding it before the war above has ended,” Sigma Prime admitted, “But we’ve got to try. Ramulus, Mirage, you both go in different directions and cover as much territory as you can, and make sure to report back at least every twenty cycles. I’ll go with Skydive down another level and start searching there, and we’ll just keep combing the levels as thoroughly as we can. Understood?”

     “All I can say is, you’re lucky I have a hoverboard,” Ramulus stated, transforming into robot mode and hopping on his aforementioned horn-hoverboard. “All this torn-up metal flooring down here, this would’ve been something else to traverse if I had to walk across it…”

     The Vexoran troops scattered as a huge drill-arm tore through the metal flooring, followed by the rest of Menasor’s enormous body.

     “A’right ‘bots, I’m through!” Menasor yelled through the hole he had just created. “Let’s get this place torn apart, eh?”

     The Vexoran troops yelled something in their own language and fired their weapons at Menasor, who merely shrugged off the minor damage and slammed his claw-arm into the ground, sending the troops flying. None of the troops were killed by the strike, however—most just splattered on the walls and reformed, while the one caught in Menasor’s strike merely oozed out from under his arm and took his normal form, only now with his arms formed into sharp, black blades.

     “Aye, so y’folks’re being stubborn, are ye?” Menasor laughed as Constructicon Maximus, Dreadwing, and Magnaboss entered the large corridor through the hole drilled in the side of the mothership. “Well, so are we!”

     Aiming his two chest lasers at the Vexorans scattered before him, Menasor let fly a few blasts, annhiliating a Vexoran who wasn’t quite fast enough.

     “Spread out, ‘bots!” Menasor told his three teammates who had just entered into the mothership, as well as the other ‘bots that were piling in. “Let’s not keep ourselves confined to one wee place ‘n the ship!”

     “Confirmed,” an Omega Sentinel replied, right before flying up to the ceiling and punching a huge hole through it, right into the next floor of the mothership. Most of the other ‘bots followed him with various war cries.

     Dreadwing, however, continued to stare in the direction of the center of the mothership, his eyes focused on the ceiling so intently that a ‘bot who didn’t know any better would’ve sworn Dreadwing had x-ray vision.

     It… no, this isn’t possible… these… Vexorans aren’t Transformers, this can’t be… Master?!

     Ignoring the battles going on around him, Dreadwing built up the purple fiery aura around him and punched through the ceiling at a location further down the hallway than the hole the Omega Sentinel had created, heading directly toward the center of the mothership and annhiliating any Vexoran caught in his path along the way.

     “You puny Vexorans think ye can stop me, eh?” Menasor said, revving up his rill-arm. “Well, permit me to prove you—huh?”

     A loud, blaring alarm suddenly sounded through the ship, and the lights in the hallway started blinking red. Looking around, Menasor caught the culprit—a Vexoran further down the long corridor had managed to activate the mothership’s security alarm.

     “Your security system won’t save ye from us, puny!” Menasor said, firing a barrage of lasers at the Vexoran, who nimbly dodged the first few but was destroyed by the second wave of shots.

     No sooner had the Vexoran trooper slumped to the ground, however, then something in Vexoran blared from speakers—or at least, the Vexoran’s equivalent of speakers—all throughout the hallway, and several guns popped out of their emplacements from the ceiling and walls.

     “Aye, so you think a few wee lasers’ll stop Menasor, eh? You aliens continue to underestimate us!”

     Slamming his claw-arm into a gun and firing his chest-lasers at a few others, Menasor managed to destroy the few nearest to him, but he felt a slight sting as one got a shot off at his drill arm.

     “Oh, wow, I barely felt anythin’! At this rate, you Vexorans’ll never—“ Menasor stopped as he tried to turn his arm around to take out the gun behind him. Try as he might, the servos in that arm were suddenly unable to respond to his internal commands.

     “Oh, for the love of—Shockwave didna say anything about this!” Menasor groaned. Pivoting the other way, Menasor slammed his working arm into the gun while simultaneously kicking away a Vexoran who was starting to sink his arm-blades into the giant Predacon’s foot.

     Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to turn around in time as a gun further down the hall fired at his other arm, freezing it in place as well.

     “Aw, smelt it all!” Menasor cursed as he turned around to see the grinning Vexorans advancing, their arms shaped into various sharp weapons. “You aliens are really gratin’ on me nerves, you know that!?”

     As he felt another slight sting at the back of his right leg, Menasor yelled in frustration and head-butted a Vexoran that had jumped onto his chest, only to have three more start to climb up his now-useless leg.

     “Wait,” Sigma Prime said, holding up one of his front paws to motion Skydive to stop. “Something’s not right here…”

     “What do you mean?” Skydive asked, transforming into robot mode and setting herself down on the rusty ground.

     “I don’t… entirely know…” Sigma Prime said, sniffing around. “It’s almost as if—“

     Suddenly, Sigma Prime stopped, his head suddenly perking up and looking further down the corridor they were heading down.

     “What? What is it!?” Skydive said, unsheathing her claw-blades.

     “We need to go down this corridor, now, and go down two more levels as soon as we are able. Something… something’s drawing me there,” Sigma Prime answered, taking off down the corridor.

     “Wait! What is drawing—“ Skydive stopped talking as Sigma Prime’s form was lost in the darkness ahead.

     “What just happened?” the pterosaur sighed before transforming back into beast mode and taking off after Sigma Prime as fast as she could.

     “Ramulus, Mirage, regroup at coordinates 7, 45, 32. Sigma Prime’s onto… something,” Skydive said into her comlink.

     “Acknowledged.”

     “You’re the Elder.”

     Nighteye grunted as two of the monitors he was looking at suddenly flickered and then went to static.

     “Well, those blasts the motherships have been firing at the planet have now broken our communication lines to the southern hemisphere of Cybertron, including the backup ones. It’ll still be a while before the planet buster takes its proper position and preps itself—a device that massive takes quite a while to power up. Still, once that thing’s fired up in roughly a megacycle—it’s all over.”

     “Well, we’ll just have to hope that not only will our strike team take out the nearest mothership, but they’ll have enough left over to take out the planet buster as well,” Strongarm sighed.

     “The planet buster’s defenses make the mothership’s look puny in comparison,” Magna Stampede pointed out. “The likelihood of that happening is… infinitesimal, to say the least.”

     “Well, we’ve pulled off miracles before…” Strongarm said.

     “Not of this magnitude,” Shockwave said, the heavy doors to the main chamber of the Citadel closing behind him as he entered. “The pods from the alien ships have landed on Cybertron, and the ground invasion is quickly overwhelming our forces. I have summoned our troops, as well as Metroplex, to the Citadel in preparation for the Vexoran assault here, but I estimate a 0.0004% probability of us defeating them holed up in here. Unfortunately, I see no other option available to us at the moment.”

     “Aw, for Primus’ sake…” Magna Stampede muttered. “Even when slaggin’ UNICRON attacked the planet, at least we only had one target to worry about…”

     “Well… guess we’re just gonna have to hope that Sigma Prime and them find whatever they’re looking for, before it’s too late,” Nighteye said. “Though at present, that seems even less likely than us winning by conventional means…”

     “What? What’s so important that you had to drag us all this way? Sigma finally find something?” Ramulus said as he and Mirage flew and drove up to where Skydive was standing.

     “He said he was going on ahead… he insisted that something, he didn’t know what, was drawing him here,” Skydive explained. “He shouldn’t be too far from here, he left just a few clicks ago.”

     “Well, let’s go follow him them!” Ramulus said impatiently.

     Skydive nodded and they all went in the direction Sigma Prime had gone.

     It wasn’t very far of a trip, though—within a minute, Sigma Prime had come within view of their infrared vision.

     “What’s he standing there f—BY PRIMUS!” Skydive exclaimed, landing on the ground and transforming back into her robot mode. Ramulus and Mirage stopped next to her, gaping at the huge white digit that was plunged through the corridor ahead. It was so massive, Skydive at first thought it had been a white wall until she noticed a joint in the “wall” about halfway between the ceiling and the floor, as well as the fact that the “wall” narrowed a bit towards the floor it punctured through and that there was a couple inches of the tunnel on one side that hadn’t been punctured through by the “wall”.

     “It’s one of the fingers of Unicron,” Sigma Prime, now in robot mode, said, turning around to face his teammates.

     “It must have shot into the planet after Unicron went kablooey and punctured it so deep that the finger stuck way down in here and the levels above collapsed on top of it,” Ramulus observed.

     “I think this qualifies as the ‘claw of evil’,” Sigma Prime said, smirking as best he could with a faceplate for a mouth.

     “Well, then the Well of Allsparks can’t be too far from here,” Skydive said, her optics refusing to leave the massive digit punched through the corridor in front of her. “We’d better spread out again and start searching.”

     “Oh joy…” Ramulus muttered.

     “Don’t bother,” Sigma Prime said, his eyes glowing brightly. “Unicron’s finger isn’t what I’m being drawn to. And since whatever’s calling me is in the near vicinity, from what I can tell, that likely means it’s the Well of Allsparks.”

     “But… why would it be drawing you here if you’ve never even seen the Well of Allsparks before anyways?” Ramulus asked.

     “I haven’t the faintest idea,” Sigma Prime said, sighing. “Still, that doesn’t matter right now. The Well of Allsparks isn’t far at all from the other side of this finger… unfortunately, that means we’re going to have to make our own way through this thing.”

     “Analyzing probability of ceiling collapse based upon possible pathways through digit,” Mirage said, his optics focused on the humongous finger in front of him. “Waiting…. Analyzing complete. Best possible pathway—right side of the corridor, two meters from the wall—only 9.57% chance of a collapse if caution is taken.”

     “Well, you heard the Walking Calculator,” Ramulus said, charging up his gun. “Let’s get to blasting!”

     “CONSTRUCTICON MAXIMUS’ ENERGY SIGNATURE HAS JUST DISAPPEARED FROM MY SCANNERS,” Magnaboss thundered before firing his missiles at a wall and the couple of hapless Vexorans caught in between the gestalt and his target.

     “Great, now we’ve got him, Tidal Wave, Menasor, and all but one of my Sentinels joined together in the Great Scrapheap,” Omega Supreme grunted, right before his head split off from his body and took out the automated defense guns that were immobilizing the rest of his chassis. As soon as his Headmaster had completed the task, it immediately rejoined with the larger body. “How slagging big is this mothership, anyway? It seems like we’ve been fighting all stellar cycle.”

     “WHO CARES!?” Bruticus Maximus roared before smashing one of his fists into another automated gun. “ALL IT MEANS IS THERE MORE FOR BRUTICUS MAXIMUS TO DESTROY!”

     “I care, for one,” Storm Jet answered as he swooped around in jet mode, quickly firing at Vexorans and gun emplacements and then turning away before they could get in a clean shot. “A force this massive is whittling even us down, slowly but surely. Terradive has already bought it, and if another of my teammates goes down, our combined form will be all but useless if we need to link together again. I think it was a mistake to let Constructicon Maximus and the other Sentinels go off as another group, it’s just allowing them to whittle us down faster.”

     “I don’t want to confine us all to the same area of the ship,” Omega Supreme insisted before following Magnaboss through the blown-open ceiling and up into the mothership’s next floor, where a fresh batch of enemies and defenses awaited them. “It would be too easy for the Vexorans to either take us out with a massive show of force or blow up that part of the ship if we did go that route. Better to take our chances this way.”

     “Well, our chances aren’t looking so good,” Storm Jet said right as a stray blast clipped his left wing. “Urrgh, I can’t fly like this! Transform!”

     Transforming into his robot mode, Storm Jet landed on the ground. Taking out his pulse rifle, the Aerialbot started to blast away at incoming Vexorans, but they were advancing faster then he and the other Autobots could fend them off.

     “Our chances REALLY aren’t looking so good…” Treadshot noted.

     “THE LAST OMEGA SENTINEL’S ENERGY SIGNATURE HAS VANISHED FROM MY SCANNERS,” Magnaboss boomed solemnly.

     “Well, then it appears that we’re the last team still active, ‘bots,” Omega Supreme noted. “Let’s give ‘em the Pit, then, and full speed towards the main reactor!”

     “THAT’S UNNECESSARY,” Magnaboss stated, his attention diverted to his internal readings. “ALTHOUGH HIS ENERGY SIGNATURE HAD DISAPPEARED FROM MY SCANNERS SOON AFTER HE ENTERED THE MOTHERSHIP WITH US, DREADWING’S SIGNATURE HAS RE-APPEARED. HE HAS JUST ENTERED THE REACTOR ROOM.”

     “What!? That’s impossible!” Storm Jet exclaimed, pausing to take out a gun emplacement that had nearly shot off one of his legs. “How could he get there so quickly, especially since he just took off by himself, despite being ordered by Omega Supreme not to?”

     “I AM UNCERTAIN.”

     “Well, you’ll learn soon enough!” Barricade cackled as the Bruticus Maximus gestalt split apart into its five components. “Combaticons, disengage!”

     “What the slag—“ Treadshot started to curse, just as Barricade and his four subordinates pressed a small device on their wrists. A split second later, the five remaining Decepticons had disappeared from view, teleported away.

     “Dreadwing’s powers are greater than Shockwave told us,” Omega Supreme grunted as an energy blast immobilized his left arm. “I think, perhaps, that Shockwave had ordered Dreadwing to do something the slaggin’ cyclops had kept secret from the Elders… Everyone, back the way we came, and hurry!”

     Dreadwing burst into the mothership’s reactor chamber, a purple, indestructible aura surrounding him as he surveyed the room, optics blazing. With his aura surrounding him, he had made a beeline towards the reactor room, blowing through any weapons, Vexorans, and walls in his way as if they were little more than pieces of tissue paper.

     The formidable defenses and Vexoran personnel stationed in the reactor room immediately opened fire on the Unicron-spawn-turned-Decepticon, but Dreadwing merely shrugged off the barrage and fired off huge blasts of purple energy all around, eliminating the defenses in a matter of seconds.

     What really concerned him was the pulsing, yellow energy emanating from the heavily shielded reactor core in the center of the room. It wasn’t mere energy…
     Unicron,  Dreadwing thought, directing his mental utterance at the reactor core. It wasn’t a question, it was a statement.

     Ah, the turncoat, the reactor core energy replied back, Unicron’s thoughts a booming, almost deafening presence inside Dreadwing’s core processor. I thought it would only be a matter of time before you realized whom the True Guiding Force behind the Vexorans was. I made you well.

     Too well, Dreadwing replied, his optics narrowing. You were wrong to give me individual thought, Master. It didn’t take much for me to realize your true plans for the Transformers race, and that you would have no need for me after your goals were completed. Hence my defecting from your ranks all those millennia ago.

     I am not one to ignore my mistakes. You were a mistake. I see that now. Fortunately, you are a mistake that is soon to be rectified.

     You do indeed know your creation well, Dreadwing replied, inwardly smirking. So, before I end our last conversation, I must ask—why?

     You know full well why. I am not one to ignore my mistakes. Attacking Cybertron directly was a mistake-- I underestimated Primus’ children. It was a mistake to try to emulate his creations, thus I decided to create my own race, totally loyal to me. I gave them the power and guided them to discover the technology to manipulate time itself. They came to believe, via my guidance, that it was their destiny to be keepers of the time stream itself. Over time, by keeping the time stream ‘pure and unchanged,’ they were in fact keeping events spiraling, eventually, towards complete entropy. Entropy, of course, being my sustenance. The Transformers’ developing of transwarp technology was a hindrance to my plans—until, of course, my Vexoran race discovered Primus’ children on prehistoric Earth. At long last, I realized, the war between Primus’ and my children was at hand, and despite it taking me countless millennia to develop my Vexoran race, the final battle would occur only a few hundred years after I attacked Cybertron in the first place!

     The time stream in indeed a funny thing, Dreadwing agreed. Especially if you are a god that can create pocket dimensions and time streams to conduct your own experiments in. I must admit, my mind cannot fully comprehend the distortions to the time stream you pulled off to create this outcome.

     And I would not expect a mere mortal such as yourself to, Unicron affirmed. Regardless, you can certainly comprehend the situation now before you. My forces are poised on the brink of finally defeating Primus’ children, their only true competition to control of the universe, and the acceleration to complete entropy. By all means, complete the task that Shockwave assigned you. Your species is mere hours away from extinction, and the eradication of such a tiny fraction of my children will have no effect on the outcome whatsoever. And you know full well that you cannot destroy me. I comprise the very energy, the very lifeforce of the Vexorans. And energy cannot be destroyed, only converted from one form to another.

     Then allow me to be a willing participant in the processes of the universe, Dreadwing thought as he started to overload his systems.

     Sigma Prime painfully lifted his head, looking his enemy square in the eyes, his optics full of hatred.

     They had been so close. They had found the Well of Allsparks—it had only been a few clicks’ travel from Unicron’s claw. A large, blue glowing circle of ancient Cybertronian glyphs sat inscribed in the middle of the underground chamber, with countless other glyphs carved into the walls and on a gigantic, ancient Transformer statue that towered over the Well. Skydive had quickly set to using her knowledge of ancient Cybertronian to translate the glyphs. She had managed to get as far as determining that they were instructions on opening the Well before they had been attacked. Given that their full attention had been on the awe-inspiring room, they had been taken completely by surprise. Skydive and Mirage both lay slumped together, pools of mech fluid scattered around their bodies, which had been cut in two before they could react. Ramulus had managed to get a few shots off before he too was struck, and now he sat slumped nearby, still online but fading fast.

     Scourge returned Sigma Prime’s stare of hatred, pushing one of his arms, which he had morphed into a blade, deeper into Sigma’s chest. “Sorry, Prime, but your journey to save your race ends here. The Well of Allsparks belongs to us now.”

To be concluded…

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