Ep1 - 'Shut Up and Drive' - Closed

[Deleted]

<<OOC: For Zoom Zoom! Set at the end of Week 3, before Roulette, Fairwinds and Air Raid are robonapped by MECH>>

Like Soundwave, Megatron did not leave the Nemesis often. Whilst Starscream largely handled the running of the warship, he was often occupied with reports from and order to his generals across the galaxy. The distances involved, in addition to the constraints of combat or espionage, meant that the transmissions were randomly staggered and densely packed.

After issuing orders to Kimia, Megatron had submitted to maintenance from Knock Out to replace his ancillary fusion modulator. Final calibrations for the part required use, as the modulator only functioned when in flight mode. Not one to waste time, the Commander reassigned an Eradicon squadron and taken their patrol route solo.

It was, he reflected privately as he sank below the clouds, a refreshing change of pace. Soundwave continued to send him pertinent updates every twenty minutes, but otherwise the flight across the Nevada desert was a silent one.

Six miles below, there was a scrawling black ribbon of asphalt. Megatron followed it towards Fire Canyon, which attracted enough humans with cameras each day to necessitate strictly aerial night patrols. As inconspicuous as the Vehicons could make themselves in built-up areas, they would attract attention amidst the craggy rocks of the state park.

And with MECH's recent activities, attention was the last thing they wanted.

So the flood of warnings to land lighting up his HUD were met with a snarl of irritation. A cooling error: the part had overheated, and as it controlled the flux of power between his flight systems and his fusion canon, the safety threshold was set cautiously low.

Megatron dove towards a reasonably flat space to land, flipping into transformation sequence at the last moment. The sound of his pedes cracking into the ground echoed between the rock formations.

Prioritising and collapsing the error threads took less than a minute, and though he was not strictly grounded, Megatron elected to explore a little whilst autorepair took care of the rest. He sent a status update to Soundwave, but nothing further. The Decepticon Commander was hardly likely to come under threat, and he would need to finish the calibrations once the cooling issue was resolved anyway.

Casting an optic across the rocks, lined in silver from the heavy moon overhead, Megatron began a slow walk.

[Deleted]

(OOC: This tag was brought to you by the power of Google, Wikipedia and Google Maps because I know jack-all about Nevada. Also, it mutated into something ridiculously long)

It had a taken a lot of begging (read: A LOT) but Zoom-Zoom was finally free. Free from the endless onslaught of chores Red Alert had heaped on him in a bid to keep him occupied and distracted so that he didn't have time to cause any more mischief on base. Or so Red Alert called it, Zoom-Zoom preferred to think of it as creating entertainment for himself. After several Earth hours of hounding the security director and asking -demanding really- for a break off base, Red Alert had eventually relented. He had not been impressed with ensuing car chase that had occurred last time Zoom-Zoom had been allowed off-base, Electrocap in tow but this time, Zoom-Zoom had bothered to read up and familiarize himself with the rules of the local law enforcement. Also, he'd actually bothered to learn how humans drove on the roads and why going at 110 mph was regarded as a bad thing.

Weird little organics. Zoom-Zoom could not comprehend why they'd build vehicles with the capacity to go faster than their reactions could actually handle. Unless it was to hasten their own demise, for which he heartily approved.

This time, when he left the Autobot base, it was not at a screaming 100 mph, it was at a much, much more sedate and perfectly acceptable speed. In truth, Zoom-Zoom did not mind the slow speed, he'd been practicing on base but he still appreciated learning how tires handled differently to mag thrusters. The sooner he was comfortable with them the better.

So it was at a slow (relatively speaking), meandering pace that Zoom-Zoom had set off to explore Nevada. He still had hourly check-ins with Red but he was pretty much free to do what he wanted and for now that meant recon. Sure, Zoom-Zoom had the many files the Autobots had built about Earth, especially of the environment immediately surrounding the base. But there was a difference between second hand accounts and information Zoom-Zoom gathered by himself. Details that he needed to know specifically but would be left out by other mechs. He was pleased that his decision to have Ratchet reprogram his nannite reconfiguration system with a selection of camo schemes in rust brown, olive green and dark slate grey had yielded a good match to the local environment so far. He was currently red, though a much darker and muted shade than the one he'd originally arrived in. His last colour slot was occupied with a plain dark green in case he ever needed to swap colours but still blend into the local traffic. If he was groundbridged to another location on this planet, without making a trip to the medbay first, then he probably wouldn't be as well set but for the moment, he was confident in his ability to blend into the current background on demand.

He didn't have a direction in mind. Zoom-Zoom had puttered about all day all over the countryside, following random vehicles for varying amounts of times before getting distracted by the names of places and veering off to explore them. He'd done a lot of backtracking and doubling up on his path and part of him was amused by the thought that Red Alert must be very confused by all the updates he was receiving due to the lack of a coherent pattern of them. Nevada was dry, mainly desert with low lying vegetation. It was a vast improvement over the moist and humid jungle Zoom-Zoom had crashed landed in.

In fact, as Zoom-Zoom headed East (he'd tried to swing past Las Vegas but holy Primus, human traffic was insane and he was not prepared for that kind of slag) and the terrain gained more red, he was reminded of Centra Vita Eight. Oh, so it lacked the energon mines and the Vehicons and an insane Seeker overlord. But the landscape did remind him of the surface of the dust planet though, the few times he'd been bored (insane) enough to head up to there and there had been a break in the endless scarlet dust storms. Ratchet had not been impressed when he'd cleaned out Zoom-Zoom's filters, the amount of red sand that had come out of there had the minitbot been cleaning up the medbay for several days (yet another punishment by Red Alert).

As the day came to an end, Zoom-Zoom figured that it was probably time to head back. If he kept going, he was going probably going to wind up in Utah and something told him Red Alert would not be impressed that his wandering had taken him so far. The security mech hadn't exactly specified when he expected Zoom-Zoom to return to base, the minibot had annoyed the security director to the point the mech just wanted him to 'go far away.'

So it was getting dark when Zoom-Zoom finally turned back. He wasn't all that far from the Arizona border and whilst he could always just call for a ground bridge back, Zoom-Zoom didn't feel like returning to the base just yet. He did send a ping updating Red on his current plans and then happily chugged along the highway, enjoying the solitude and the peace. He'd never thought that he'd crave solitude after all that time spent alone back in deep space but...this was a different sort of solitude. He knew that it'd only take a comm call to have a (somewhat) friendly audial to talk to and there was something soothing in that it wasn't the audial of a robotic toy but an actual sentient. For once, his processor wasn't constantly preoccupied with figuring out his chances of survival and energon rationing and what repairs he was going to have to forego to make it through the orn. He could just...be. Live a little. Relax.

That was until his sensors picked up the unmistakable emissions of an airborne Cybertronian heading past him, down towards the Valley of Fire State Park. Zoom-Zoom's debriefing files had been sure to include the sort of signals he could expect from Earth made machines and that didn't match a single one of them. The minibot immediately stopped the passive scans he'd been running on the environment, unsure of just where the Cybertronian had had ended up. He'd only picked up the trace elements that came from processing energon wafting down from the air, not the actual mech that had made the emissions. Already, the minibot was calculating a heading based on his scans.

Zoom-Zoom pondered over the situation. It had to be a Decepticon, none of the Autobot patrols took them this way at this time. A lone one at that, probably just a Vehicon. Something noteworthy of investigation had to be a foot. And at that moment, Zoom-Zoom was the Autobot at hand to conduct said investigation.

That didn't mean the minibot had to rush in. He gunned his engine and picked up speed down the highway away from the State Park. When he was certain he was far enough away to safely make a transmission, he commed the Autobot base, informing Red Alert of his findings and his intent to investigate. Zoom-Zoom declined a request for backup, he was a Spec Ops bot and this was an operation that would require stealth and subtlety, and opening a groundbridge nearby could blow the mission to pieces before it even began. He'd maintain radio silence unless the situation broke down and he needed back-up. Assuming he could call for back-up by then. Fine. A 2 hour window before Red sent in back-up unless he received an all clear signal.

The security director was not happy with the plan but eventually relented on these terms. Zoom-Zoom pulled over and quickly began to download what information he could about the area. The terrain would be hilly and rugged, with low visibility within the rock formations. A large mech could still stand out easily if they stood to full height but a smaller one would be able to manoeuvre through the gullies and caves unnoticed if they were smart about it. It was the sort of place that the minibot did his work best in.

Already, he was beginning trying to decide which paintjob would serve him best. Once the reconfiguration system was activated, the minibot would not be able to change again for several hours, lest he risked the system going haywire. The basics of night time camouflage still required one to match the color of landscape, which is why he hadn't allotted a black colour scheme. Pure black actually made one stand out more as it wasn't a natural colour and actually showed up as white under infra-red.

In the end, he decided on the rust-brown camo scheme as he activated his dampeners just as he pulled off the interstate highway and into the state park road, the asphalt crunching beneath his tires. There was no point keeping them off since he'd already shut down his scanners to prevent his idle sweeps from tipping his quarry to his presence. If he came near another Cybertronian, he would not be able to detect them but more to the point, neither would they be able to distinguish that he was anything other than a human vehicle. His lights, he left on just to maintain that illusion for a bit. He travelled as far along the highway as he dared, past some camping grounds for the organics (what were they even doing here at this time?) and just taken a turn off that took him past the visitors center which was shut when-

There.

Zoom-Zoom was only a couple of kilometres off from where his calculations predicted the general area of where the unknown flier had gone down. The minibot switched off his lights and then idled for a bit beside the road. He wanted to be certain that when he moved, he was not under any observation. It might seem silly to sit in the middle of nowhere where it seemed like no one was about but Zoom-Zoom knew the value of patience when it came to stealth.

Minutes dragged on past before the minibot eventually stirred. Aside from the local wildlife, nothing had made any untoward movements during that time and Zoom-Zoom figured he was safe enough for the moment. He engaged his nannite reconfiguration system and his paintjob was transformed into a dark rust brown camo scheme only seconds later. Zoom-Zoom transformed silently, then tracked his way carefully up into the rocky terrain.


The game was on.

[Deleted]

There were worse places to be grounded, Megatron had decided. After following a wide corridor of rock some fifty meters, he'd come upon a towering formation ribboned with thick bands of colour. Burnt umber merged into ochre, and then into a strange layer of minerals that gave the stone an indigo sheen. The former-miner ran a claw down the rock face, through the colours, and some ingrained instinct threw a casual scan. It highlighted nothing of value, of course, but equally nothing like anything he'd seen under Cybertron's surface.

Around the other side of the structure there were tire tracks. They were closely set but with a deep tread, suggestive of a fortified human vehicle or a deceptively massed Cybertronian. They were also far from the beaten path of human tourist's.

Megatron's optics narrowed, the looseness that had crept into his shoulders vanishing from his frame.

This was a regular Decepticon patrol route, situated between a small energon mine and a site of confirmed Autobot activity. Both points were some forty miles away in either direction, but it was entirely plausible that someone had noticed traffic between the two. Autobots. Given recent events, more likely MECH.

He pinged a query to Soundwave, then waited for the spymaster to consult Breakdown's reports and comb the fly-over footage from the Eradicons who had run this route. Megatron cast his optics about for anything else out of place. Some kind of bird shrieked at him, flaring its wings in some aborted gesture of intimidation, then flew off. The landscape interfered with his scanners, but there was nothing overhead and no heat signatures within forty feet of him.

Megatron was already walking when Soundwave reported back: the tracks had appeared at an unknown time between the last patrol 3 days ago and now. The large fluctuation between day and night temperatures made a thermal analysis unreliable in determining how recent they were. No activity had been recorded at there co-ordinates before.

Rounding a corner led him down a shallow slope, and the rock walls became tighter, leaving only a few feet of clearance between the great spikes of his pauldrons and the walls of the corridor. The tracks led towards the maw of a sizable cave.

Cannon warm against his arm, Megatron moved to investigate.


<<OOC: The tracks can be entirely innocent and just something to pique Megatron's interest, but if you would like them to be Zoom Zoom's, and Megatron is now following him...>>

[Deleted]

Zoom-Zoom skulked over red rock and sandstone. He was careful not to leave a trail, well, as best as one could in this sort of terrain. Most of Zoom-Zoom's missions had been stationed on Cybertron or nearby colonies. Places that had been transformed into hulking metallic landscapes meant to be inhabited by Cybertronians. Nice civilized places where a bot could live comfortably and a mech that knew how could sneak about in peace. Zoom-Zoom was an urban mech at spark and most of his missions had catered towards those strengths.

So here, in the middle of Primus knows where? He actually wasn't doing all that bad. Zoom-Zoom had fought, clawed and dragged himself across the galaxy without stopping in his search and had trekked across innumerable planets, each with their own unique environments. After a while, he'd learnt to stop whining about them and to just push himself through. That didn't meant that he enjoyed them, inwardly he'd fume bitterly about everything that wasn't quite right or wasn't Cybertron but at the very least he didn't let the difficulties bother him. Adapt or die was the unspoken motto of Spec Ops and Zoom-Zoom had taken it to spark. Any mech that didn't tended not to last very long in Spec Ops.

He could still remember the first time he'd met the mecha that would later become his cohort. Zoom-Zoom had been scrapped off the front-lines and just freshly released from the med-bay when his new assignment had come in. Puzzled, he'd reported in for a debriefing and found himself meeting Vibes, leader of the Ninety Second Division.

The first words spoken to him had been biting and cold-

"Who's the idiot that taught you how to walk?"

Zoom-Zoom had shuttered his optics in confusion. "What-?" he'd asked in honest confusion. No one had taught Zoom-Zoom how to walk, that wasn't something that had been pre-uploaded before his onlining.

Vibes had stalked forward, studying him from all angles. "You walk like a damn front-liner," the mech accused, which Zoom-Zoom thought was unfair because he was on the front-lines so what else was he going to walk like. "Heavy, loud-" Vibes poked a finger into one of Zoom-Zoom's sensor panels, "-Aggressive. You've got a stupid walk and its going to make you fail your missions."

Not that the mech had sounded terribly worried about this prospect, even though failure meant death in this case. Vibes, as Zoom-Zoom learned later, had been numbed to the death of mecha under his command a long time ago. In fact, it was possible that the division leader had always been like this. Vibes originally had been a chemist and from the stories that Zoom-Zoom had managed to hear, had always been a bit detached and removed from his scientist cohort anyway. Completely disinterested in the war, Vibes servos had been forced when the Decepticons bombed the Polyhexian Academy where the scientist conducted his research. It was more out of disgruntlement than any real hatred that had made Vibes sign on with the Autobots. He went from making compounds meant to improve Cybertronian life to building explosives that took those lives with ease.

Not to mention the things Vibes could do to energon. The mech knew his chemicals and leaving him alone with their supply was always a bad move. Or a really good one, depending on who you asked.

If there was one constant about the Ninety Second Division, it had been Vibes, their kick-aft demolition leader. Mecha had come and gone, Garboil, Turbo, Zetar and a few others had been there for a long time too. But inevitably, they were transferred to another squad or killed in action or just disappeared on missions and never returned and no one ever knew what happened to them.

Vibes had never gone anywhere.

Not until the Exodus.

Zoom-Zoom had learnt just about everything he knew about being Spec Ops from him. He hadn't always leant the lessons well, he'd chafed under Vibes command just as he'd done on the frontlines. But unlike the front-lines, Vibes had been remarkably unmoved in the face of Zoom-Zoom's failures and mess ups. Each had been met with the same impassiveness instead of furious demands to shape or get better because otherwise he was going to die. And that, more than anything had galled him. He wasn't going to be just another nameless mech to fall under Vibes' command.

Somewhere along the lines, he wanted to prove himself to the mech.

And for the first time in his life, Zoom-Zoom had actually succeeded.

------

Zoom-Zoom was pretty certain he was close to where his calculations had put the unknown flier. His pace slowed and his movements become a lot more careful as he ventured forth down rocky hills and narrow corridors. He listened carefully but aside from the quiet nightlife ambiance, there was nothing amiss that he could detect.

Or so he thought until he stumbled upon a set of tire tracks and the definitely Cybertronian footprints along side them. The tire tracks occupied his interest briefly, they were deep set, so a heavy vehicle. An alt-mode perhaps? They looked older than the Cybertronian's, so it was unlikely that he was dealing with two mechs at the moment. Or maybe he was, perhaps the second mech was here to help the first one. Whoever the second mech was though, he was fragging big though.

With a great deal of reluctance, Zoom-Zoom tracked onwards.

Whatever this was, it was going to suck slag.

[Deleted]

Megatron stood atop the tracks at the mouth of the cave, held still and silent as he allowed the acoustics of the dark tunnel to work for him. An engine, voice or other telling sign would be amplified and projected out to his audios. After a full minute, there was still only silence, and his sensors detected nothing untoward within the rock so far as he could tell.

He did find, however, that the size of the tunnel diminished rapidly after some thirty feet, and it would be necessary to crawl and break his way through if he wished to doggedly pursue the tracks. The tracks were suspicious, but not so much so that Megatron felt compelled to investigate them now, himself, when a Eradicon squad could undertake the same task with significantly greater ease tomorrow night. He sent a note to Soundwave indicating as much, and left his 3iC to make the minor rescheduling arrangements.

Turning his back on the cave, Megatron checked the progress of his diagnostic and repair systems. They were hovering at 38% completed, and his vents drawing in the cool desert air was aiding the overheated part.

He began to make his way back the way he had come, returning to the colourfully banded structure that had roused his interest. Rounding an erosion-ragged corner, Megatron's sensor net prickled with some instinctual unease and he paused. He'd been called paranoid in the past, frequently by Starscream, but the Seeker was testament to the fact that there was cause and merit in being overly cautious.

The sound of small rocks tumbling past one another, too heavy to have been disturb by a bird or common mammal. Someone miss-stepping, perhaps. His optics, narrowed in agitated concentration, roved the scene until he thought he detected a flicker of movement in the dark.

Megatron did not mind potentially speaking to empty air. He raised his canon-bearing arm, fist closed, and demanded, "Show yourself."

[Deleted]

Aaaand there was the down side to stealth dampeners coming to bite him in the aft, couldn't scan the environment at all to check for the enemy's position. Zoom-Zoom froze for only an astrosecond, right pede hovering just above the ground as he peered on ahead. Ooooh. Yeah. Big mech right over there. The outline was vaguely familiar as was the voice. His processor automatically catalogued the scene for future analysis since he wasn't going to wait around to get a better look. This wasn't a situation to waste time thinking, the minibot immediately began moving.

Zoom-Zoom crouched down low, so as to prevent his frame from silhouetting against the night sky and began to tread backwards carefully. Not quickly, because sharp movements would draw attention far more easily and help provide a stronger fix on his location. Time to do his best rock impression and hope that he could lose the big guy in the darkness and the rugged terrain.

He didn't even consider answering that question. Not when he was already was at a disadvantage and lacked the element of surprise. That could come later if he was caught and outta frags to give. Or, if you know, he actually managed to bring the Decepticon down. Then they could talk all they wanted.

Zoom-Zoom liked to live in the persistent delusion that he could walk away from anything.

It hadn't failed him. Yet.

[Deleted]

No answer; Megatron hadn't expected one, whether or not there actually was anyone toanswer.

He lowered his arm but kept the cannon primed, a faint purple glow of plasma that spun and circled deep down the barrel, waiting to be discharged. The warlord had always put great stock in his instincts, back from when a prickle of unease across the neck could mean the difference between walking into a tunnel about to collapse or watching from the outside. It had led to some impetuous, apparently borderline suicidal decisions during the war, but the intangible pressure of fate had kept him alive. It told him now that he was not alone, although not in imminent danger, either.

Megatron begun a proximity scan for temperature spikes, optics narrowing when he found that the rocks still retained enough residual heat from the desert sun as render the results inconclusive. He would have to look the old fashioned way.

His large pedes and long stride saw him advance quickly on the source of that last skittering sound. The moon was swept over by clouds, putting the area into almost perfect darkness.

[Deleted]

Zoom-Zoom was experiencing the sincere feeling of regret. He wished fervently that he had not decided on this venture of exploring Nevada. That he had not taken upon himself to investigate the Decepticon activity by himself, even if it was his job to do these sort of things. Zoom-Zoom wished he'd never made the choice to come to this planet at all. Well. He already regretted that decision but this little escapade had move it into full-blown hate.

Because his processor had had the time to go over that brief glimpse and analyse the voiceprint plus there was that purple glow of what Zoom-Zoom was pretty sure was a fusion canon moving about in the darkness. All in all, it was all adding up to an extremely ugly picture.

Megatron.

He had Megatron on his tail.

The last time Zoom-Zoom had actually been anywhere near the Decepticon warlord had been all the way back before the war, when he was just another discontent mech listening to the gladiator that dared to challenge the norms of the world. The minibot had admired him then, had been swayed by his words and his fervent desire to change Cybertron into something new. The other street urchins that Zoom-Zoom ran with had all joined the Decepticons and Zoom-Zoom himself had just been about to sign up when things turned violent. For all his distaste for the caste system, Zoom-Zoom was not prepared to fight and he'd done his best to remain uninvolved...until it became increasingly obvious to him that the only way to survive was join a faction.

Zoom-Zoom was very much regretting that decision right now.

Fear was almost a tangible thing thrumming through his systems but he did not let it control him. There would be time to break down and freak out later, only if he kept going now. He moved lightly over the rugged terrain, resisting the urge to break into an all out sprint. That would be the quickest way to send himself to an early grave, for now he sidled back along the rocky wall, keeping track of that unwavering purple glow. He needed to get away somehow but there were not a lot of options down the corridor. Scaling the walls would create way too much noise and there was no way to let Megatron go past and get behind him. His camo mesh was good but they were way too close for him to pretend to be a part of the scenery, his sharp angles were far too unnatural to ever be mistaken for a rock.

So, back it was, trying to minimize his outline by hugging the wall as close as possible without actually touching it and risk disrupting even more rocks. Megatron of course had a far lengthier stride and had advanced quickly on Zoom-Zoom's last location. It would not be long before he caught up with him.

Then-there. A small alcove was tucked into the rock face. It would not hide Zoom-Zoom completely, but he packed himself in tightly. His camo mesh should keep him concealed until Megatron was closer, an improvement than him catching sight of the minibot at a much further distance. Then, Zoom-Zoom would attempt to rush past him and further down the passageway, hoping his small size and speed would get him past Megatron. It was beyond stupid when Zoom-Zoom didn't know what lay beyond the Decepticon but he did know that all there was behind him was just the wide open corridor with no cover. He would not be able to escape it before Megatron was on him.

The only way unfortunately was forward and into the unknown.

[Deleted]

From the warlord's canon, the faint, purple glow slid across the sand and rocks in a cool wave. It turned the already strange formations even stranger, accentuating the streaks of colour and lending a dim, poisonous colour to the earth. The sleek edges of his pedes cut into the ground like blades, but the soil was so dry and compressed already that he left no discernable footprints.

The landscape was still, dry and comparatively dead. This planet was teeming with lifeforms - in the soil, in the water, in the air. Their patrols had had to learn the hard way about algae and fungus. Digusting. Here, though, only the hardiest creatures endured the extreme climate, and those had gone into hiding upon his arrival.

Megatron still, however, had the sense of being watched.

Then, at the extreme of his peripheral vision to the left, movement. Not enough to discern what was there, but enough to give him a target.

Swinging his canon up, Megatron aimed at the matte darkness and fired.

[Deleted]

Hot plasma burned like the pits.

Zoom-Zoom had been carefully inching his way past the slagmaker himself when the Decepticon had caught movement and fired that Primus dammed fusion cannon. The shot splashed across his upper arm and shoulder, agony spreading through his body as even his long numbed sensory receptors took notice and decided to inform his processor about the horrible burning thing going on with them. Hot metal sizzled as the plasma ate into Zoom-Zoom's armour plating. The minibot staggered mid-step, an electronic shriek ripping itself from his vocaliser as the upper left side of his body just became painpainpainpainpain-

Damage reports -something his systems had not registered in vorns- started coming up. He'd swayed once with the force of the shot, then his survival instincts had kicked in, he recovered his balance and started running. There was no time to assess how badly he'd been hit, all there was to do now was haul aft out of there and hope he was fast enough to out-run Megatron himself.

Each step send a fresh burst of agony through his frame as those receptors did their job at long last but Zoom-Zoom ignored them with the experience that came from surviving the worst a hostile galaxy had to throw at him. He hadn't been joking when he'd told Ratchet that it was only a very bad day when he could feel pain and encountering Megatron automatically pushed this to 'Worst Day of My Life, Ever And Possibly My Last One Too."

Behind him and to his horror, Zoom-Zoom could hear the loud crash of the Decepticon as he pursued the fleeing minibot. The ravine was almost a blur as Zoom-Zoom hurtled down along it, scattering loose rocks and kicking up dust. The minibot hoped, desperately, that he would not run into a dead end. Perhaps if the passageway got narrower, he'd be able to squeeze through and leave Megatron behind. Zoom-Zoom wasn't counting on it though, his luck simply wasn't that good. His left arm hung as dead weight against his frame and would not respond to his commands. He could still transform his servos into pistols but the shoulder joint itself had been melted, the armour plates fused together.

Not that he was certain that his guns could do much damage against Megatron's thick armour. Annoy him, yes and make Zoom-Zoom's death a thousands time more painful. Damage something vital? Highly unlikely. Standing his ground was not anywhere near the table to be considered an option. Calling for help-?

Zoom-Zoom could only manage to get out a general panicked distress signal, which he wasn't even certain he'd tightbeamed it to the right frequencies. The last known co-ordinates Red Alert had of his position were before he'd even entered the State Park. The security mech had his heading, the general direction he was going in to investigate but nothing more.

If the Omega Base didn't pick it up, he was going to have to somehow survive the next eighty or so minutes before he missed his check-in with Red Alert and help was dispatched.

Right.

No pressure.

He could do this.

RIGHT?

[Deleted]

It was an Autobot, Megatron deduced as soon as the plasma bolt ignited the mech's frame, and not one he'd encountered before: the squealing yip of shock, alarm and pain was unfamiliar. It was also tiny, which further underscored how beneath his notice this particular 'soldier' would be on any other day. As it was, however, this Autobot was one of a very small number clustered around Optimus's ankles on this planet, and every death made a difference to the soft-sparked Prime.

He turned with a growl,the sound of his pedes slamming into the ground drowning out the Autobot's engine. It was laughable, really, but then what option did they have but to run from him?

The ravine twisted and split around towers of colour-striped rock. Megatron fell into a slow run, just fast enough to keep the injured mech from vanishing. There were more caves up ahead, and true to idiotic form, the Autobot took himself down a narrowing corridor that led straight into one. He would not be able to scale the rocks with the damage Megatron presumed he'd have sustained. The 'bot was now between the warlord and the cave, with nowhere else to run.

"A poor night to be out on your own, Autobot," he rumbled, slowing to a leisurely gait now that the mech had effectively trapped himself for him.

The plasma canon glowed on his arm, holding its charge in readiness for the next obliterating blast.

[Deleted]

End of the line…

The corridor had been gradually narrowing and then abruptly come to a halt in the form a dead end. Zoom-Zoom came scrambling to a stop, his optics desperately scanning the rock face for an escape. Then-there. A small tunnel leading into the rock itself. A cave...?

It did not matter, Zoom-Zoom could hear Megatron's taunting, which was top on his list of things he never wanted to hear, ever. He threw himself forward and ducked under the overhanging rock. Those blasted door panels scrapped across the rough surface thanks to their new configuration but Zoom-Zoom ignored this and ruthlessly shoved himself forward, earning himself scratches as the rock raked his frame. It was his long experience in operating in tight corners and small build that let him quickly crawl down it.

The tunnel lasted maybe ten metres at most. But it was small enough that Megatron did not have a hope of crawling after the minibot.

Zoom-Zoom wearily curled up, resting his shoulder at an angle that gave him the least amount of pain. He carried a repair kit with him but this was beyond the aid of the field supplies.

The only thing he could now was wait.

[Deleted]

As the cave was the only place that Zoom-Zoom could go when the corridor ended, and the steep walls afforded no further cover than the darkness itself, it didn't take Megatron long to locate and reach him. The cave was far too small to accommodate him, so he simply knelt a few meters back so as to look inside.

The cowering Autobot's outline was just visible. Wide ceruleun optics locked onto his, and the warlord smiled. The calibrations were almost finished - they would work well enough as a count-down to this mech's destruction.

Bracing one forearm across his thigh, Megatron leaned forward to unnecessarily emphasise the menacing loom. "Does anyone know you're out here, little bot?"

The thought that he could have sent a distress signal, and that Optimus and co. could be 'bridging in any minute, had crossed his mind. He kept his sensors primed for such an entrance, but as the seconds passed and the Autobot tried to shrink further back into the rock, it seemed less and less likely.

His tone turned conversational, optics narrowing thoughtfully. "Is this truly how you want to die, Autobot? Cowering alone? No honour, no valor, or even meaning?" A snort through his vents. "No significance?"

[Deleted]

This situation was Red Alert's fault, Zoom-Zoom decided. What was the point of being a mech who supposedly foresaw every contingency if he was going to let hapless minibots wind up in situations like these? If the security director had only seen fit to let Zoom-Zoom restock his subspace full of tricks, he would not be in his current position. There was nothing, Zoom-Zoom sourly decided, that a good grenade couldn't solve. Right now, he really wanted to throw an explosive at Megatron's face.

The Decepticon warlord was talking to him and part of Zoom-Zoom wanted to laugh hysterically. It was like a bad holo-vid, he thought. All, look at you all alone, there's nothing you can do, die beneath my pedes, puny Autobot! Words meant to demoralize and terrorise. Which was entirely unnecessary because Zoom-Zoom was way ahead of him and had already done that to himself, thank you very much. He didn't need any help in that respect and certainly not from Megatron.

If the next words Zoom-Zoom spoke were going to be his last, he supposed he should probably make them special. And memorable. Like he was living a vid-file -actually. Frag that.

Zoom-Zoom peered down the tunnel at the face of death staring up at him. "You know," he started tiredly, feeling sick to his very spark. "I thought you only talked this way in terrible Autobot propaganda holo-vids because I remember listening to you speak when you challenged the Senate and that was all inspired. Whoever did your speech writing, you should hire him again."

And then, because Zoom-Zoom figured that he was going to die anyway for lecturing the warlord himself on his intimidation tactics and hey, Megatron had stuck his head down the hole, the minibot lifted his one good arm and fire his pistol straight at Megatron's face.

Since the warlord was going to terminate him anyway, might as well give him something to remember him by.

Well. Sorry mechs. Guess I'll be seeing you in the Well. Unless you're already there, in which case I'll be most fragged off for wasting all that time looking.

[Deleted]

The blaster was of a reasonable caliber for a mech Zoom-Zoom's size. Megatron felt it, at least, and shutter-blinked when the energy round hit his cheek and left a scorch mark. He'd taken more powerful friendly fire in the war room from Starscream, and his grunt was of surprise rather than pain.

Still, he had to admire the little idiot's gall.

Touching a claw to the blackened plates where the shot had landed, Megatron gave the Autobot a considering look.

"Alright, then."

Then he brought his the muzzle of his canon up and fired straight into the cave's ceiling. One shot decimated the structure and sent out a thick cloud of dust and gritty debris. Megatron rose and flared his plates with a hard ex-vent, clearing out some of the dust and sand from between his armour and inside his vents.

Stepping into the rubble, he pulled aside the largest rocks. He didn't expect the Autobot to have survive the cave-in, small at it was, but he had a few minutes to spare checking that the scraplet had been crushed. His scanners didn't detect any lifesigns, at least.

He used the side of one pede to scrape aside the finer rubble, and caught a glimpse of metal. Sifting further, Megatron found that he'd been standing on the Autobot's arm.

Auto-repair sent up a notice in his HUD that the calibrations were complete. With nothing else to do here, Megatron cast a final look over the battered frame and took his leave on-foot. When he was back in the wider corridor he'd landed in, he flipped into his jet mode and roared off back to the Nemesis.