Predaking Unleashed

The swirling towers of smoke that marked the ruins of what was once Steelwing's workshop had stopped their belching ascent to the sky. The twisting pillars of smoke had melted away to soft blanket of light-grey fog that the approaching Jetstorm identified from miles away. The Vehicon general slowed the speed of his approach, buying himself every spare nanoclick that he could to prepare himself for the variety of tragedies that he anticipated may be waiting for him when he caught up to the Predacons. He knew Megatron very well and was frighteningly aware of Megatron's long memory for payback. The general shook as he psyched himself up.

 

Jetstorm: “Ok Jetstorm, whatcha gonna do? Whatcha gonna do when Predaking and the largest arms on Cybertron run wild on you? Well, what AM I gonna do, huh? I'm gonna do whatever it takes! Predaking can't unite if I take out one of the Predacons! So who will it be? Oh, I know! Headstrong! I'll take out slow and stupid and Predaking won't have a leg to stand on! Literally! Headstrong is a jerk anyways! Or maybe Divebomb! His warrior-head-within-a-bird-head look always bugged me! Like he's wearing a mask or something. I hate that guy! Or maybe Cybertron's answer to ADHD, Rampage! I'll throw a Duran Duran video on and he can take care of himself! Oh, so many Preds to choose from and so little time! I know! I'll take 'em all out! Jetstorm, afterburn!”

 

The optics mounted on either side of the nose of Jetstorm's flight mode narrowed with determination as his speed rapidly doubled, racing him into battle. He focused all his attention on the area beneath the smoky haze floating from the workshop and quickly counted one, two, three, four Predacons. Where was Divebomb?

 

As the thought occurred to him, Jetstorm's audio receptors filled with the deafening battle-cry of the airborne eagle. This startled the Vehicon, but not enough to have him fail to avoid the twin particle beams that tore from the blasters mounted beneath the eagle's metal wings. Jetstorm spun from Divebomb's assault and tried to cut a tighter circle than his adversary to come up from behind him, but the Predacon was too nimble. Divebomb let out another caw and swooped past Jetstorm with his talons ready to tear into him. The Vehicon narrowly avoided having one of his wings torn off by twisting away from the eagle. Jetstorm accelerated in a successful attempt to get some distance between the two. Divebomb swooped down low to try and undercut the speedy Vehicon but stopped and transformed to his warrior mode, his optic visor wide at the spectacle on the surface; the Predacons were under attack!

 

Jetstorm saw the attack too and also immediately transformed, waving a hand of innocence in front of himself.

 

Jetstorm: “Don't look at me, beak-freak! That has nothing to do with me! It was you guys that were hired to kick MY exhaust! And it's a ground assault! I don't have any ground assault friends! I hate ground dwellers!”

 

Jetstorm stopped his plea when he saw that Divebomb wasn’t paying attention anyways. His attention was on the surface assault. He transformed to his beast mode and let out another battle cry, unleashing his particle beams onto the ground below. Jetstorm initially thought that a chance to run had fallen into his lap but stopped himself, thinking he could assist the Predacons in an effort to curb Megatron's fury. Jetstorm decided it was in his advantage to side with the Will of Megatron.

 

Jetstorm: “Jetstorm! Afterburn!”

 

Smoke from the surprise attack filtered with the flames from explosions that surrounded the Predacons. Razorclaw could hear the attackers attempting to surround his team and called out to his troops.

 

Razorclaw: “Rampage! Tantrum! North north east and maintain your position!”

 

Tantrum and Rampage transformed and headed in the direction ordered by the lion commander through the smoky haze. Tantrum was forced to divert his course when a succession of blasts erupted in front of him. Rampage leapt over the burst of firepower but the bull found himself pinned behind a shattered slab of debris. Tantrum transformed and took cover.

 

Tantrum: “Rampage, he's got me pinned down!”

 

Tantrum was surprised when he found Rampage barrelling toward the ground beside him and hit the metal surface face first and hard! Rampage transformed and shook his head.

 

Rampage: “I just got punched in the face twenty times so fast I couldn't even see!”

 

Tantrum: “Stop being a bitch.”

 

Tantrum stood from behind the debris and aimed his electro-sword into the surrounding smoke and squeezed. The sword sent an exploding web of lightning spreading outward into the smoky horizon. It was unclear if the impressive strike had neutralized any adversaries.

 

Rampage: “You might hit one of our guys Tantrum! We have out orders, so let's go!”

 

Rampage recognized the rage that was rising from the frustration that brimmed within his Predacon brother and new exactly how to harness Tantrum's rage into something productive. He swiped his foreclaw at Tantrum's back, striking the warrior hard! Tantrum instinctively transformed to his bull-shaped beast form and charged at him. Rampage skillfully jumped ahead toward his original destination and Tantrum followed in a fury of his own. The firepower from the unknown enemy was instantly drawn towards the larger metal beast of burden and struck him hard, but Tantrum was so incited with aggression that the attack merely succeeded in making him even angrier! Tantrum snorted and lowered his head, hooking his horns beneath Rampage's tiger-form and flipped him aside, exactly as Rampage had planned. Tantrum led the way forward towards the destination that Razorclaw had originally intended.

 

At the centre of the assault, Headstrong put a hand above his visor to dim the glow of the flames of the battle and strained to identify the attackers. He called out to Razorclaw.

 

Headstrong: “I can't see a slaggin' thing! I think we're surrounded!”

 

Razorclaw looked skyward and saw Divebomb and Jetstorm strafe attack the ground below. The airborne Predacon and Vehicon struck with no precision, their sight skewed by the smoke that had risen from the battleground. Razorclaw saw this and called out to them in vain to strike when the enemy could be seen. With his team surrounded, Razorclaw saw only one option.

 

Razorclaw: “Predacons, unite!”

 

Although his command could not be physically heard by all of his team, it did not have to. As Razorclaw verbalized his command, a primal program that linked the each of the Predacons triggered a compulsion to come together. Tantrum leapt into the air, his body shifting and growing with a science that defied physics and landed next to Headstrong who's body had completed a similar process. Divebomb swooped towards the combining Predacons and his wings ejected from his chassis and merged with the form of Razorclaw, shifting and changing and came to rest on top of the awaiting Tantrum and Headstrong. Divebomb's chassis folded and spewed forth a massive spike-knuckled hand from his unified legs. This arm-like form of Divebomb slammed into the side of Razorclaw and was met by the lion's back-mounted weapon, itself shifting and jolting to become a massive single barrelled weapon of mass destruction. As Divebomb came to rest aside the torso of Razorclaw, so did the transforming body of Rampage who had revealed a mighty spiked hand of his own. The Predacons had successfully meshed together and now, enhanced by a dramatic increase in size, towered above the battlefield. Predaking lived again!

 

A monster had been unleashed on Cybertron, only this monster happened to be the perfect amalgamation of warrior minds and instinct. To say that the faultless hunting goliath known as Predaking had no equal among Transformer combiners was an understatement of stone cold fact. The truth was, Predaking had no equals. Period.

 

Seeing the mighty Predaking unite on the battlefield was enough to spur a hasty retreat by the Predacons' unidentified attackers. Jetstorm raced past the combiner beast's head toward the ground, spotting one of the attackers flee for his life!

 

Jetstorm: “Hey batter batter!! Swing batter batter!! Oh-ho!! It's a home run!”

 

Jetstorm unleashed a pair of missiles at the fleeing attacker as the mighty Predaking turned to follow. The ground-based warrior ran with surprising agility and fluidity. His strides were enhanced by an almost primate arm movement, but that was impossible. There were no earthen primates on Cybertron. Jetstorm attributed the motion to an injury that the diminutive warrior must have taken during the battle and was stunned when the fleeing soldier miraculously flung a slab of debris to the sky, sending it crashing into the incoming missiles and setting them both off before they hit their target. He did so without missing a stride.

 

As Predaking aimed his arm-mounted x-ray laser cannon at the fleeing trooper, Jetstorm found himself close enough to the trooper below to hear his words.

 

Trooper: “I could use some Slag-Maker! Now thanks!”

 

From behind another chunk of crumbled wall dove a purple-grey soldier that Jetstorm did not recognise, not that he had time to try. The weapon that the soldier wielded unleashed a fury of tachyon energy that struck with immediate devastation to the Vehicon general. The energy instantly ripped through Jetstorm's body sending crippling bolts of pain through his torn chassis immediately as he spiralled to the ground. Above, Predaking harnessed a fury of his own. Firepower tore from Predakings terrible arm-mounted cannon and transformed the ground below to a crater of rubble, smoke and flame.

 

Predaking wasted no time and bent low to examine the ruin left by his cannon. He waved the smoke away with his mighty hand and his optics and vast array of cranial sensors scanned for traces of victims and survivors. He heard a voice come from the south.

 

Voice: “He got Skids and Mudflap! Autobots, retreat!”

 

Predaking instantly turned towards the voice and saw an armoured green transport vehicle scream across the terrain in an urgent retreat. Straddling the armoured and well-armed vehicle was the warrior that wielded the tachyon-emitting slag-maker and the primate-bot. A black car also joined the group and raced ahead of them. Predaking decided that this attempt at escape simply would not do. He raised his spike-knuckled hand and roared as he crashed it down onto the surface below. The attempt to crush the fleeing Autobots failed, succeeding in only causing the ground-based soldiers to fan out to present multiple smaller targets. The ultimate hunter shot to his feet and began to run toward the green truck while shooting his arm-mounted canon at the black car weaving on the ground. The truck called to his companions to rendezvous at the Sonic Canyon. Predaking brought his sonic sword crashing to the ground, its intense vibrations effortlessly ripped into Cybretron's steel skin. Despite his swift attack, the armoured Autobot was surprisingly nimble and dodged the mighty blow with ease. The thought that the Autobots may elude him occurred to Predaking as he rose from the ground, and the mighty combiner felt a sensation that he had seldom felt in all his megacycles of existence; indecision. He felt torn between the drive to complete the original mission of the Predacons and the need to follow the Autobots into the Sonic Canyons and crush them. This conflict was driven by a definite divide in opinion of the individual Predacon components, an event that almost never happened. In such instances, Predaking's internal programming would automatically default to the personal desire of Razorclaw, but this time the massive combiner felt at odds. A quick analysis of his quintro-cerebral processing unit revealed that the feeling of indecision was a result of a discord between Razorclaw and Tantrum. The blinding rage and resentment that the bull had felt clearly carried over to the present. Tantrum was well aware of the parameters of his mission and was well aware that those parameters meant much more to Razorclaw than they did to himself. He used his rage to defy his commander within the confines of Predaking and it was working! Razorclaw knew it too, and with but a single mental command, the mighty combiner disbanded and transformed into all his component parts. One by one, the Predacons collected on the ground. Tantrum's rage had given way to a smug satisfaction, but it would appear that the rage had merely transferred to his commander. Razorclaw snarled in his beast form.

 

Razorclaw: “We have a mission Tantrum and you are a fool! The Autobots are incidental! Predacons, follow me!”

 

Razorclaw burst back towards the shattered workshop as he felt as though justice had already been administered to Jetstorm in battle, albeit from Autobot hands. As he bound back to the original battlefield, he found the damaged Vehicon hovering above, listlessly tossing a piece of debris up and down in his hand.

 

Jetstorm: “The battlefield looks a little different than you remember, don't it? Yup, it sure does. Nice one, Predaking. Way to bury the trail under battle debris! Good job!”

 

Jetstorm offered a sarcastic thumbs-up and Razorclaw's optics opened wide in shock at the devastation that the monstrous Predaking had left in his wake. The search for traces of prey would have to start all over again and could take mega-cycles. Razorclaw knew that if the trail were ever to be found again, the physical prey may be long gone. He knew he had to take action right now. He refused to return to Megatron empty handed.

 

Razorclaw: “Jetstorm! Divebomb! Take to the sky and look for trails!”

 

Jetstorm's initial reaction was to lend the Predacon commander another sarcastic jab along the lines of 'you're not the boss of me' but the fury in the lion's eyes had the Vehicon bite his mechanical tongue. Both he and Divebomb transformed and took to the air and began their search while on the surface, Razorclaw sneered at Tantrum. The bull shrugged in his warrior mode and joined Headstrong and Rampage in looking for a trail in the debris. Razorclaw knew that this anger he currently felt was keeping him distracted and was absolutely a wasteful expense of energy. He stopped and inhaled sharply through his olfactory sensors. His internal scanners sifted and sorted through billions of molecules, trying to shift his focus from fury to the job at hand. He scanned through the molecules and searched for any hint of his prey. As Jetstorm and Divebomb returned to the surface to deliver their report, his sensors detected a trace scent! He immediately transformed and pointed his sonic sword in the same direction that the Autobots had run.

 

Razorclaw: “Our prey went in that direction! Follow it! At once!”

 

Razorclaw transformed and bounded off towards the Autobots. Rampage immediately followed with Headstrong not far behind him in rhino mode. Tantrum followed in turn, recognising that his defiance may have cost the team dearly. Divebomb squawked and flapped his wings, taking him high into the sky again as he followed his cohorts, leaving Jetstorm hovering above the wreckage with his hands on his hips in mock incredulity.

 

Jetstorm: “Well, I never! Jetstorm, afterburn!”

 

 

Done