Ep 1 (AR) - Shoot & Smash (Closed)

[Deleted]

Flashback here

(OOC: This takes place prior to Yakkity Sax and just after Open Spaces in the timeline)


He was alive.

Holy fragging Primus, Zoom-Zoom was alive.

The minibot had a death grip on Swift's broken frame and he stared around him in complete stunned confusion. What the slag. There was fire and smoke and the shuttle was burning but -holy frag, he was alive!- Zoom-Zoom remained unaware of it. He'd rebooted almost immediately after the crash. He'd done so much self-reprogramming that his processor was capable of coming back online even after he'd taken damage that should send him hurtling straight into stasis. Zoom-Zoom hadn't had a chance to check how much damage he'd actually taken, he was still existing in the blurry haze of the realization that his spark was still pulsing.

Whatthefragwhatthefragwhatthefrag!

Zoom-Zoom slowly shuttered his optics once. His optical feed fritzed for a moment and then dropped entirely before returning, some connections had to be loose inside his helm. With that realization came the rest of his awareness, yes he was still alive, also: crashing landing. Probably should do something about that.

He quickly ran a self-diagnostic as he began to take stock of the situation. Shuttle? It was never going to fly again. Zoom-Zoom did not mourn its death. Cockpit? On fire. Zoom-Zoom? Alive. Also, on fire and had been that way for a while now. He yelped at that realization, the downside to all the reprogramming he'd done to himself was that it had actually limited his ability to receive information from his internal receptors. Pain and other sensations were almost completely dulled to the point that he could barely feel them.

He'd been sitting in a burning shuttle, on fire for Primus knows how long but holy slag, he was ALIVE, fraggit!

Zoom-Zoom lurched to his pedes. Or, at least, he tried to. The roof of the shuttle had caved all the way in to just above his helm, he banged his helm and he fell back down almost immediately. His vision dropped out again for a moment before returning and Zoom-Zoom peered around through the smoke to find a way out. There. Across from him, to the right, was a huge gaping hole in the cockpit. Zoom-Zoom tried to crawl but that seeker frame he'd just used to cushion his fall? It had apparently decided to keep him, he was thoroughly tangled and -holy Primus, he was still on fire- Zoom-Zoom didn't have time to figure out a way to separate himself.

This time, he forced himself forward, ignoring every snag as Swift's frame caught on the torn floor plates as he dragged himself across. It took time and the sheer stubborn determination that powered Zoom-Zoom's frame in place of his spark, but eventually the minibot was free. He tumbled gracelessly out of the shuttle, seeker frame inclusive, and landed helm first on the ground.

Ground. Glorious, glorious ground. Zoom-Zoom would never take it for granted ever again. Without moving, he started running some sensor scans to get some idea about the environment he was in. Lots of organic life, carbon based, around him. Most of it was motionless, so it was probably vegetation. The atmosphere was quite moist and humid. The soil that his face was getting intimately acquainted with was a mix of silica, oxygen, carbon and trace elements .

Zoom-Zoom thought briefly about moving. The idea was extremely unattractive, though it was undoubtedly sensible. There was a seeker frame he needed to get untangled with. Plus, he was remarkably fortunate the energon had no yet caught fire-

There was a sudden wave of heat and pressure that swept across Zoom-Zoom's frame. He lifted his head up, his visual feed returning just at that moment -oh yeah, he was still on fire. He'd actually forgotten about that during the fall- to watch the rear end of the shuttle explode violently. It sprayed shrapnel in the opposite direction, fortunately, leaving another gaping hole to match the one at the front.

Well. There went all the energon.

Lethargically, Zoom-Zoom pushed himself up into a crouch and began to pull Swift's frame off. It took some doing but eventually he was free. He let the seeker's frame fall to the ground next to him before collapsing onto the dirt. Slowly, he rolled over once. Whump! Then again. Whump! And again. Until the flames wreathing his body finally died.

Zoom-Zoom wearily dragged himself what he considered a safe distance from the burning ship of death, death and more fiery burny death than the Pit itself. Then, he leant his backstruts against one of those big carbony thing. His legs stretched out in front of him, Zoom-Zoom was absolutely wrecked. He just wanted to shut himself down into recharge.

But. He couldn't. Not until he certain he was safe.

He skimmed over the diagnostic report. A whole heap of internal errors came up, he allocated a small section of his processor to start working some patches to deal with those. As for actual frame damage...he'd gotten off pretty lightly. A few loose wires in his helm, his outer armor was scorched but that wasn't something that would slow him down. His struts had been thoroughly rattled and somehow, his colour nannites had been reset to their previous setting on Centra Vita Eight, painting him a bright red target amongst all the greenery around him but he was, all in all, in one piece.

Zoom-Zoom dipped his servo into a concealed cache near his hip joints and fished out a cube of energon. He drained it and was relieved to feel a fresh surge of energy through his circuits. That would keep him going for a while. Now, it was time to get the frag outta there and away from the incriminating crash site of fire.

Before he could take a step though, Zoom-Zoom's sensors detected a energy spike in his near vicinity. Automatically, he started to back away, his dampeners immediately activating. To his great frustration, he discovered that he couldn't override the colour his nannites had been set to. He ducked behind some foliage and hoped to slag that it would conceal him from whatever was coming. Then, it had happened, right over by the front of the crashed shuttle. Behind his visor, his optics widened in disbelief as a glowing green portal opened up.

A groundbridge. Someone had a fragging groundbridge.

Seriously Primus. What the slag.

Whhhhyyyyyy?

[Deleted]

Ratchet hadn't been happy about it.

"You're still recovering," the medic had growled. "Yes, I've repaired the worst of the damage and yes, you're going to be fine - after at least a week of light activity on base. Tramping through a South American jungle does not qualify as light activity on base!"

He was fine. He was a frontliner, built to take damage and operate through it. He was the also the best Autobot suited to provide both heavy lifting and heavy defensive cover for an investigation of the crash site. It had been a bad crash. Post-impact fire. All of the shuttle's occupants were likely dead.

What the medic hadn't said, but both of them had thought, was that their sensors had indicated it had been a Decepticon shuttle.

That was fine by him.

Eventually, Ratchet had relented enough to open a ground bridge to the site.

"I'll send Red Alert through when I can get a hold of him," he said as they stood in front of the glowing portal. He pointed sternly. "Don't over-extend yourself. I can't replace the plating over the damaged area until your self-rep has finished the last of the repairs. So be aware that you're carrying almost four tons less armour than you usually do. That's a big weak spot."

Yeah. He knew.

His rifle in hand, Fortress Maximus stepped through the bridge.

----

The first thing that hit him was the humidity.

Maximus grimaced, even as his cooling systems automatically shifted plating and cycled open vents to deal with the heat. It hung in the air as thick as the smoke, black and gritty waves of the stuff pouring off the crumpled remains of what had once been a shuttle. It was now little more than scrap, half-buried in vegetation and smashed trees and gutted with fire. A long trail of mangled foliage and loam ploughed through the jungle, indicating where the shuttle had impacted the ground.

The soil beneath his feet was black and littered with debris. Maximus eyed it warily as the ground bridge closed behind him. Smoke and whirling ash hazed the air, dense and grey. It was hard to see. Unconsciously he laid a hand over the massive seam of raw nanite weld running diagonally up his midriff, through layers of mesh normally protected by a layer of heavy plate armour. Not a good time to be ambushed right now.

Especially since at least one of the shuttle's occupants had survived.

The figure stood upright amid the debris. His red paint was a beacon against the smoking wreckage behind him.

The heavy rifle in Maximus' hands whined to life as its fusion generator fired up. Without hesitation the big Autobot squared his feet and aimed the weapon, lowering into an offensive stance.

A Decepticon shuttle.

"Hold it right there!" he barked. His voice thundered over the sound of the roaring flames. "Don't move! Put your hands where I can see them!"

[Deleted]

Zoom-Zoom's first thought was; holy frag. That is big. Like, Decepticon-going-to-crush-you-under-my-pedes big. Who the frag is this guy?

Then the fragging huge fusion rifle was pointed straight at him and he wilted at this turn of events. Slagging. Big. Gun. Why me, Primus? So much for his dampeners, a quick check revealed that they were actually offline due to damage from the crash landing. That would have been useful to know a few moments ago. So he could have hauled aft and run far, far away as soon as he'd noticed the ground bridge.

He scowled at the vegetation. Why was it green? Red would have been better. As it was, Zoom-Zoom was a clear target for anyone with a functional pairs of optics.

Aaaand he was rambling and the big guy (Autobot? Decepticon? Sir Stomp-A-Lot? He had an Autobot faction sigil but he had red optics and he was pointing a rifle at Zoom-Zoom's head and that wasn't very Autoboty of him) had yelled something at him. Oh? Not to move? Well there went that running away plan. And he was supposed to put his servos where the big mech could see them?

Zoom-Zoom could work with that. He held his servos out unthreateningly in front of him. Now, if the mech got a bit closer, well...inbuilt weapons were a beautiful thing. And his in particular did more damage at short range.

"Mech, do you have a problem with how I parked this thing?" he called out obnoxiously. He was terrified out of his spark but damned if he was going to show it. He was operating on pure bravado with nothing to back him up at all. It was highly likely that he was quite drunk with relief that he'd survive the crash and that was making him stupid. More stupid than he normally was. Had the fire overheated his processor? Yeah, it had. There went his admittedly limited processor to vocalizer filter and all of his impulse control. "Because I refuse to move it. You're just going to have to deal with it. I do not negotiate with Decepticons. Or Autobots. Or anyone, really. Not even with big, ugly fraggers like you."

Which was a complete and total lie because Zoom-Zoom had negotiated with plenty of Decepticons during his travels. Gotten some pretty sweet deals out of them too. And also, Sir Stomp-A-Lot was fairly easy on the optics; Zoom-Zoom had thrown in the insult because he wasn’t thinking clearly.

…

Naaah, he totally would have called him that even if he was in his right mind.

If the big mech was an Autobot, then well slag. Double slag actually. Zoom-Zoom wasn't about to return to the ranks just yet. He'd do his best to worm out of it.

"If you are a Bot though, then I'd appreciate directions to the local Bot base so I know how to avoid it. I'm kinda on break from this whole war thing right now." One that he'd awarded to himself but who cared? Waait, nope, shouldn't have said that. Shouldn't have said any of that judging by the slagged-off expression of the other mech. Oh well. He really wished he could do a do-over with this whole crash-landing on the planet business.

Wheee, Primus, did the ground look tempting to collapse on. Zoom-Zoom contemplated falling back down then remembered that violated the no-moving clause and that there was a fusion rifle pointing at him that would punch a few holes in him if he disobeyed the rules.

Standing it was.

See? He could be good and follow orders. Sir Stomp-A -Lot hadn't told Zoom-Zoom he couldn't shoot him and it looked like he was fresh out of the repair-bay. The plating down his center, that looked like a good place to aim. First chance Zoom-Zoom got, bam, then hauling aft out of there as fast as he could go.

Ahahaha, Zoom-Zoom was totally going to get shot and his aft pounded.

He was so dead.

[Deleted]

Maximus bristled.

A deserter.

One who had just piloted a Decepticon shuttle into a crash landing on a foreign planet. He could be a Decepticon or an Autobot, and the shuttle stolen. At least he sounded like the latter. On the run from the Autobots, on the run from the war.

And he was mouthy too.

Maximus had been insulted before. Worse names had been hurled at him by more offensive people. The worst of the worst. He would not have lasted long as a prison warden if he were incapable of dismissing hostile threats against his authority and his life. Tough banter had irked him then, but years of watching the attitude shrivel beneath the crushing gravity of imprisonment had taught him the value of patience. The toughest neck eventually throttled itself against the rope.

He'd had a thin opinion of deserters back then too.

He still did. But now he was hurt, his rifle was in his hand, and together with the smoke and fire and falling ash it distracted his mind with thoughts he would rather not be having at the moment. And his hard-worn patience had corroded a lot during the unpleasant years between then and now.

Maximus set his jaw.

"Watch your mouth," he growled. He stepped into the smoke, warily picking his footing through the scorched debris. A coat of ash had already thickened on his shoulders and tank treads. It fell upon the robot as well, dusting his red paint with a dirty grey patina. Maximus kept his rifle trained and his expression stony as he loomed over the strange robot, and reminded himself to keep it short. Civil.

Find out just who this deserter was first. Then take appropriate action.

"Your name," he said. "Faction. Former faction, if that applies."

[Deleted]

Zoom-Zoom tilted his head back. Then a little bit more. Then again. Sir Stomp-A-Lot was tall.

Big.

And too fragging close for comfort. The minibot supressed the fear in his field and resisted the urge to break down and beg for mercy. Those looked like servos that were used for crushing the helms of mouthy minibots.

His brilliant plan to shoot and run had gone and crawled away to die in a hole somewhere during the big mech's approach. The way that rifle had never wavered from Zoom-Zoom's frame spoke volumes. He was dealing with an experienced frontliner, a cautious one at that. Getting away from the mech was going to take the sort of skill Zoom-Zoom only wished he had.

Since Sir Stomp-A-Lot was asking questions, Zoom-Zoom figured that he was probably dealing with an Autobot. Which was...still kinda bad. Bad because shooting a fellow soldier tended not to go down well. Bad also because he would be expected to report to Autobot Command which was around here somewhere so he could not excuse himself on the grounds that he would only report to his CO in Special Operations. It was the excuse he'd used to keep him on the move when he'd encountered random Bot patrols. It was perfectly legitimate, even if he was very low on Spec Ops, he still did answer to them and not the main Autobot army. Except, Spec Ops was kinda, you know, gone. But he was looking for them! It was just, at the same time, he was free to do what he wanted. And he'd gotten used to that. It was nice and having authority hanging down on him wasn't.

"Zoom-Zoom," he offered grudgingly. "Autobot infiltrator. Special Operations. Do I get a designation or should I just make something up for you?"

He was about to ping his ID codes when he was struck by the terrible realisation that he didn't know them. Zoom-Zoom flailed mentally. Yes, he'd been fragged off at the Autobots when he'd returned to Cybertron to find everything gone but had he actually gone ahead and completely deleted them from his processor? Surely, he hadn't. Surely, he hadn't been so stupid. They had to be archived somewhere inside his helm. He diverted a sub-routine to search the slag out of his processor for the accursed codes. Without them, his word meant absolutely nothing. He needed to stall for time.

And wait- former faction...? Did Sir Stomp-A-Lot think he was a deserter? That was quite a big accusation with consequences Zoom-Zoom did not want to think about. Because he wasn't exactly-well. He wasn't sure what he was. He'd come home to a dead planet so it wasn't like he'd decided to abandon the Autobots. If anything, Zoom-Zoom had seen it as the Autobots abandoning him. And yet he'd still come looking for his command element because there was obviously something wrong with him. He missed the Bots he'd served with, they were good mechs.

"Do you have any Spec Op Bots with you?" he asked hopefully. "I'm trying to return to my cell, the Ninety second Division. Yeah, I know, a bunch of nobodies but they're who I'm looking for. If they aren't here, then well. It was not a pleasure to meet you and thank you for pointing a gun in my face. I'll never forget that, really. I'll be leaving right away. Spec Op things to attend to. Vitally important things to take care of. Seriously, you don't need me here."

Please just forget what he'd said about being on break, Sir Stomp-A-Lot. It was stupid and the big gun was making him nervous and that meant he really wasn't thinking about what was coming out of his vocaliser. Also don't ask about his codes. Its not suspicious at all that he doesn't have them. Really. Please.

Now would be a really good time for something to explode in the shuttle. If only the energon hadn't blown up earlier. Zoom-Zoom could really do with a distraction about now.

[Deleted]

Spec ops.

Maximus greeted the news silently.

In his life he had only met a handful of their agents - after arriving on Earth. His path had rarely crossed theirs during the war. On rare occasions he had dealt with the aftermath of their work at the prison. That was about it.

His finger relaxed fractionally over the trigger of his rifle. It was possible this mech truly was an infiltration specialist. It could explain why he had been piloting a stolen Decepticon shuttle. If there was conclusive evidence proving that this 'bot was who he said he was Maximus would not be one to ignore it, no matter how flippantly he spoke.

But something about the stranger's edgy manner prickled at him. On break from the war. That was not something a dedicated agent would say. If he was not a Decepticon, and not a soldier who had abandoned the ashes of the planet, then perhaps he had gone rogue. It happened. During the worst years of the war the discovery of an agent who had gone dark for duplicitous reasons was met grimly by Autobot High Command. Nobody wanted a mech who was that well-trained and knew that much running loose. Primus knew where he would end up.

Without moving his rifle Maximus lifted his gaze to the shuttle. It smouldered amid the crumpled trees, buried in loam and mulch. Flames crackled within it, muffled and glowing red-hot through cracks in the shattered hull. Clouds of black smoke seethed into the air. It wouldn't be long before the fire reached the fuel tanks. It was time to wrap this up, and fast.

Looking flinty, the big frontliner lowered his optics again. Protocol led him to say what any officer would have in that situation: exactly what Zoom-Zoom was dreading.

"That information is classified," he said. His red optics narrowed. "Unless you can provide codes proving you are what you claim to be. Then I can answer your question more conclusively."

[Deleted]

Operation Stall For Time had backfired rather spectacularly. It took all of Zoom-Zoom's willpower to keep from flinching. At this close range, any alarm in his field would tip off Sir Stomp-A-Lot. So with a considerable amount of self control, he remained absolutely still and did his best to remain unfazed in the face of his impeding doom and death.

Meanwhile, his processor raced. What the frag could he say to that? Sorry, in a rebellious fit of rage, he'd deleted them? That he'd forgotten his own ID codes? That given enough time, say a vorn maybe, he might be able to recover the information? He'd been sparked a data analyst, his systems were geared for storing massive quantities of information and hyper compresssing them. Zoom-Zoom didn't think he'd completely wiped the codes from his processor because that actually required effort on his part, he simply wasn't built to forget things. Somewhere, in his vast labyrinthine data libraries the information probably still existed.

It was just out of reach.

Given that Zoom-Zoom had just crawled out of a Decepticon shuttle he'd crashed, somehow he didn't think his answers would be well received. Now, how did he used to get out of these situations back when he'd first enlisted with the Autobots…? There had been several instances after some spectacular screw-ups when he'd been certain his commanding officers were going to go for his spark.

Sir Stomp-A-Lot was beginning to look impatient now and that made Zoom-Zoom nervous.

"Mech, I don't even have a designation for you," Zoom-Zoom blurted out thoughtlessly. Oh yeah, he remembered now. He made slag up as he went along and hoped for the best but expected the worst. An absolutely insane idea presented itself to him and he seized it with suicidal glee. "I mean, how do I even know that you're an Autobot?" the minibot glared suspiciously up at the big mech towering over him. "You could be a Decepticon in disguise. I give you my codes, that could compromise my mission and my division. I'm finding it rather suspect that you showed up right here, right now within kliks of my arrival."

Yep, he totally had a Top Secret mission now. Top Optics only. There was a code that he actually knew for that. It was very old though, Zoom-Zoom wasn't certain it was still up-to-date. All earlier blabbing could be put down to complete disorientation from the shuttle crash. That was his story now and he was going to stick with it.

Until it fell to pieces. In that case, uh. He wasn't quite sure what he was going to do then. He'd crossed that bridge when he'd come to it.

[Deleted]

Maximus regarded him with an unflinching glare.

But something akin to relief flickered through him. At least now he was standing on familiar ground again, with a dodgy bot in front of him whose story weakened under closer inspection. He'd played through this scenario hundreds of times in the past. Once it had been a wearying part of the job. Now it was oddly reassuring.

And with only a few words this stranger had put the possibility that he was a Deception back on the table. If that were the case, then Maximus had a simple way of dealing with Decepticons. He had inspected the crash site. There had been no survivors.

Without taking his optics from Zoom-Zoom’s face the big mech rose to his full height. Joints creaked and settled as he towered over the minibot, his tank treads caked in ash and limned in red light from the fire.

“Fortress Maximus, Autobot security,” he said coldly. “And when you can prove to me you are who you say you are I’ll provide you with my codes to back that up. In the meantime, keep your hands where I can see them and start walking.”

With his rifle levelled he pointed down the smoking path the shuttle had carved through the trees and earth as it had crashed. “We’re putting some distance between us and the blast radius should what’s left of your shuttle explode.”

[Deleted]

Not good. Not good at all. Things just kept going from bad to worse to situation utterly slagged. Was it too much to ask for Primus to give him a break? There was a reason why Zoom-Zoom did not do undercover work. He couldn't make up a story to save his life. He worked best when he was out of sight.

"Fortress Maximus?" Zoom-Zoom repeated the name to himself as he started walking. It sounded familiar. It took him a few astroseconds before it came to him. "I've heard of you!" he exclaimed. Finally something he did know! He'd snuck around plenty of Decepticon outpost and picked up bits of random information. He almost pivoted round to look at the mech before he remembered that there was a fusion rifle pointed straight at him. "You're the Warden! Garrus 9! What did that Skyjack mech call you again…? Ahahaha, yes. You were the living lockpick!"

It occurred to him after he said that that it probably was rather insensitive of him.

Everything went ominously quiet after that.

Zoom-Zoom's survival instincts were certain that now it was time to start running.

[Deleted]

Behind him, the sound of the big mech's footfalls against the dirt went silent.

Maximus stopped.

He stood frozen, his limbs stiff and his gaze blank. The pop and crackle of the fire fell somewhere into the distance as the words caught up to him. Smoke and ash whirled about him as they mockingly rang in his head. The living lockpick. Garrus 9.

A hollow roaring filled his mind as the shock faded, swept aside by anger. His rifle gave a sharp crack as his fist clenched over the grip, the joints of his knuckles whining against the pressure.

Zoom-Zoom would feel a gentle tap as the muzzle of the weapon pressed between his shoulders. The audible click of its safety being disengaged echoed through the trees.

When Maximus spoke, it was in a quiet voice throttled with wrath.

"What did you just say...?"

[Deleted]

Magnetic thursters were beautiful things. On Cybertron, they'd allowed Zoom-Zoom's alt mode to hover just above the ground. The powerful magnets worked by repelling against the metallic ground that made up Cybertron's surface. In a pinch, Zoom-Zoom had even used them scramble troublesome electronic equipment.

In his root mode, they were located in his back. Right now, they were pointed straight at the big metal mech behind him.

Sir Stomp-A-Lot stopped for a moment and Zoom-Zoom decided that now was a good opportunity to move. Especially since that was the moment the big mech's field went all murderous and a gun was placed at the back of his helm. His thrusters charged up as he prepared himself to run. The magnets gave Zoom-Zoom a speed boost as he launched himself forward by pushing against the big mech.

He ran towards the green foliage, moving a lot faster than any mech had a right to from a standing start. A little trick Zoom-Zoom had picked up during his time on the streets.

With luck, the magnetic discharge would disrupt some sensitive systems or cause the big mech to stumble. If not...Zoom-Zoom's servos folded into laser pistols. Push came to shove, he would not hold back. It was not ideal, he was dealing with a genuine Autobot, one with a great deal of authority at that. One who also had him completely beat in combat. Running was probably his best choice at the moment. He was smaller and much more maneuverable in the dense vegetation

"Sorry!" he hollered over his shoulder. "Just something I heard around! Not my actual opinion at all! Will you accept my immediate surrender or are you just going to murder me?"

Not that he had any plans to stop running any time soon. The down side to his thrusters were that they were absolutely fragging useless on this dirtball of a planet.

[Deleted]

He didn't see it coming.

The magnetic thrust caught Maximus square on. Though he was too tall for it to knock him back he reeled nonetheless; the discharge seared through the unarmoured mesh over his midriff and from there swept up raw circuitry. It hit his neural net in a nauseating burst before his dampeners could kick in. A nanosecond later the sight of the red minibot bolting for the cover of the trees was whited out by a flicker of static.

Cursing, Maximus dropped to one knee. The pulse had scrambled him, but from a kneeling position he was able to steady his rifle enough to lift it to his optic and line up the shot, his crosshairs laid over the minibot's back.

He fired.

Zoom-Zoom would be able to feel the heat and blast of the photon shot as it tore over his head and smashed into the jungle ahead of him. It exploded a tree into white splinters and pulp and kept on going, roaring through the underbrush.

Maximus swore.

Damn it. Traces of the discharge still lingered in his systems, tingling unpleasantly. His aim was shot, his rifle useless.

Part of him had to admit that the magnetic thrust had been a clever trick. The rest of him seethed as he staggered to his feet, his hand clapped over one of his optics, and blindly charged after the minibot. Deserter or Decepticon, Maximus would catch the little bastard in the trees and rip him apart with his own damn hands if he had too.

[Deleted]

Zoom-Zoom didn't stop when a piece of the local vegetation disintegrated in front of him. He did blanch mentally, it had been close and something told him that would have been him if Sir Stomp-A-Lot -correction, Fortress Maximus- was in top shape. Maybe the magnetic discharge had got to him but Zoom-Zoom didn't risk looking back to check.

He ran like his life depended on it. Actually, it totally did. Fortress Maximus was tearing through the organic growth behind him. The loud sound of his furious and heavy footsteps never faltered. Inside his processor, Zoom-Zoom was shrieking in sheer terror. It didn't help that every odd step or so, those loose connections shifted in his helm and his vision would drop out for an astrosecond. He'd had a few close calls with the big green and brown vegetation things.

Gaaaah, organic planets were the worst. If only his stealth suite was online, he'd have dropped the red paintjob and gone for something a little more subtle. Not to mention his dampeners were dead, otherwise he'd have stopped running like a maniac and actually put his infiltrator training to use. Instead, he was leaving a track behind him that any moron with a functional optic could follow.

A whimper began to build in Zoom-Zoom's vocaliser. He decided that he could really do with some divine intervention.

Dear Primus,
I know that you don't like me and have been conspiring to have me killed for a very long, long time. But please reconsider this decision. Let's be honest. I amuse you. Greatly. You take great joy in watching me run from one catastrophe to the next. If I die, the universe will be an incredibly lame place to live in. Plus, you'll have to deal with me personally. I think it's a win-win situation if we maintain the current status quo.

As his pede came down, he misjudged and ended stumbling on a large rock. His helm jerked hard as he regained his balanced and Zoom-Zoom's vision fritzed completely at this. He had a few astroseconds of horrified realization that he was essentially blind before he was running again. He was moving based on memory and from the sensor scans he was now running constantly on the environment. It pushed his already overheated processor to the maximum to collate all the information his scans were picking up and turn it into something he could navigate with. The sensor scans would undoubtedly sweep over Fortress Maximus and provide a clear beacon as to where Zoom-Zoom was but it couldn't be helped.

With grim determination, Zoom-Zoom pushed on. Then he ran smack into something. More organic growth. The good news was that it actually knocked the connections back in place. The bad news was Fortress Maximus had now had plenty of time to catch up with him.

Zoom-Zoom's pistols heated up and he fired a few shots in warning in the big mech's direction before he was on his pedes again and hauling aft once more. He really didn't want to shoot the Autobot. It was the one line he hadn't crossed yet, no matter how much he'd thought about it in jest.

"Seriously, can't we talk this out?" he yelled. "I really am an Autobot! Like, possibly, the worst soldier in all existence. I even forgot my ID codes, that's how terrible I am! I'd surrender but I'm terrified that you'll kill me if I stopped moving!"

[Deleted]

Maximus ran.

Shot flickered back through the dense foliage, lighting up the brush. Pistol shots, he gauged, with low penetration power against his armour. Maximus still took cover behind a massive kapok tree, his feet between the gnarled roots and his shoulder pressed to the trunk. Even a pistol shot could do damage if it was deliberately aimed.

These shots did not appear to be deliberately aimed.

Somewhere deeper in the rainforest the minibot was yelling. His voice rang through the underbrush. Maximus fumed as he hoisted his rifle and waited for the last of the shots to spack into the mossy forest. As far as he was concerned the minibot had put his innocence into question the instant he had bolted. They ran, you chased. It was like instinct, so ingrained was the training to anyone who had worked as an enforcer of the law.

Maximus was not sure what he would do once he caught up to the minibot. Killing him sounded good about now.

But the heavy vegetation thwarted him. He was too big to run through it. Already his plating was caked in mangled foliage. The voice grew fainter as it slipped further into the forest.

'Just keep shouting,' thought Maximus.

Pushing back his frustration, he leaned out from cover and lifted his rifle to his optic. He couldn't hit a small red robot, but there were other targets in the jungle he could damn well take out.

He fired in the direction of the voice.

Ahead of Zoom-Zoom the thick trunk of a giant kapok blasted apart. The great tree twisted, cracking and splintering as it began a graceful plunge to the rainforest floor, dragging its vast spread of leaves with it. Other trees were caught up in its fall and smashed apart, until the air was filled with flying leaves and branches. With a thunderous roar the kapok crashed across the minibot's path, shaking the earth with its impact.

[Deleted]

Zoom-Zoom was first aware of the sharp crack that indicated Fortress Maximus was shooting at him. Then a brilliant flash of light ahead and yet another piece of the vegetation was destroyed. Zoom-Zoom had time to contemplate that his two offers of surrender had been both rebuffed with gun fire so maybe it was time to give it up. He wasn't about to risk a third and actually get shot.

Then the world went crazy. The big organic thing dropped right down in front of him whilst more of it rained down from the sky. Zoom-Zoom yelped and crouched down to make himself a smaller target. His arms curled around his head as large chunks of the vegetation rained down on him and pelted his frame. Each time he was hit, his helm jerked unpleasantly and the loose connections moved again.

It seemed to go on forever but eventually it was over. Zoom-Zoom cautiously unwound himself before he got a good look at his surroundings. The area right around him had been cleared of vegetation, he was an easy target for anyone who could see him. That another shot hadn't struck Zoom-Zoom right there where he stood implied that maybe Fortress Maximus wasn't as close as he'd thought.

Hope began to build in Zoom-Zoom's chassis. Cautiously, slowly and carefully he began to make his way out of the clearing and back into the dense vegetation. If he was careful enough, the rampant destruction here should mask his path from here on.

Then a sharp pain laced through his helm, bringing him up short as his servos reached up to grasp at his helm. His processor had had enough of the overheating and he was now due for a massive processor ache. His cooling systems had already kicked in, flushing his frame with coolant and opening vents. But they were overstressed, having had to have dealt with keeping him cool after being on fire. His fans rattled loudly and Zoom-Zoom felt utterly miserable. He was filthy from his mad charge through the undergrowth, it did not really bother him but it was another added discomfort. Slowly, he trudged on.

This had not been a good rotational cycle.