"First Season Finale: Part I"

[una]

((OOC: Oh I forgot to say this earlier like what OOP said, Poor Aurora. And nice post, Phoenix. XD ))

Her sorrowful eyes had changed back to her solemn features, ready for duty. It was sad but all they can do now was never forget Icebreaker and move on, fighting to stop this war before more lives were lost. For her, it was easy even though she hasn't been a soldier for so long, but no one forgets about death and the scars it leaves on individuals. It was a painful lesson, especially for Aurora who had witnessed a person who helped in her creation and loved her. In time, though, she will understand and slowly become stronger in those experiences, but now, the invisible tears streaming from her cheeks flowed vicariously, searching for answers that Whitegrazer and so many others in that age screamed to the heavens; the answers Aurora herself would have to look for herself. They can lead her, but she has to walk through the door and chose her own way.

"Whitegrazer, could you take Icebreaker's body to the infirmary?"

Optimus was being strong like a pillar on the inside for everyone like a leader should be. This was the second death he had to witness besides Nightmist. It was as hard as hers was, but he was coping like the others. Just like him though she too knew that Rhinox, Orcariner, and Saber-Fang, who she felt a small, familar presence approaching, will have to be told. Orcariner will be sparkbroken that his friend was now dead. It would be hard for him. Sorrow tried to leap from her optics again thinking about it but she quickly controlled herself. She carefully got the Maximal penguin into her arms, cradling the sparkless body to her like a mother would a child and began walking down towards the infirmary but stopped to look back at Aurora and just smiled at her and everyone before she continued. It was a reassuring smile that said that despite the tragic, everything will be okay. It will all be okay.

The smile never left her face as she entered the infirmary.

_________________________________________________________________________

Tarantulas had snuck into the vault where Megatron kept his storage of transwarp cells. Of course, thanks to his handy voice disguiser he made cycles ago, he should be able to get inside and grab one. He chuckled darkly as he cleverly got inside the vault. There was no one around and it was dark, which made it more comfortable to him.

Entering the vault, he activated the device, "Open transwarp module sixteen. Voice code - Megatron."

"Voice code Megatron confirmed."

He chuckled again as the computer acknowledged him as a transwarp cell popped up for him, but it didn't seemed to be fully powered.

"Only 75%? Oh well, it will get me where I need to go...away from this planet."
______________________________________________________________

Blackarachnia had witnessed Glowstick ruthless death by the hands of Megatron. The purple tin tyrant like Tarantulas called loved to show his power and intimidation to keep his crew in order even if it meant killing one. She wasn't a big fan of his, but he was competent. Scorponok, Terrorsaur, Waspinator, Snowtrix, and well all the incompetent deserved that death than Glowstick.

He killed a valuable asset. What an arrogant idiot.

Where was Tarantulas? She smirked, knowing where he was.

[Night-Hunter]

Saber hesitated as the Axalon came into view, her ears going back warily. She was uncertain about this but she knew she had to do it, she needed thier help with this thing inside her and if she was at risk of turning she'd lock herself in the brig until it past. After taking a deep calming breath she continued to walk toward the Maximal ship, knowing that it was only a matter of time before Sentinel caught her energy signature.

Lets hope they take me back after I ran off like a coward. She thought.

[Wintersong]

Wintersong bowed her head in sorrow for the loss, saying nothing since there really was nothing to say. Though she finally lifted it when Whitegrazer took Icebreaker's lifeless body away which to see him like that made her spark ache for someone she had seen as a friend. Looking away finally she sighed and looked towards the monitors wondering what they would be doing next. They still had to confront the Predacons about the whole situation but how would they.

-----------

Snow Trix turned away from the throne and headed to the halls again. She really wondered what the purple t-Rex could be up to, with him to kill a valuable member and get angry enough to do it said something. Though it didn't exactly intimidate, more of left them wondering what the plans were. Shaking her head the fox femme just stepped off the hover board and looked back though noticed Terrorsaur was there.

"You look lost Terrorsaur, guess you didn't catch the whole cause of Megatron's anger." She said to him since the others didn't seem to care to share what occurred.

[Alak]

Terrorsaur looked over at Snowtrix who was addressing him.

"No," he replied, "I only saw the aftermath."

He never spoke with the smaller Predacon but now was as good as time as any.

"Where's Glowstick?" he asked.

The squid was nowhere to be found. Terrorsaur could only spot the puddles of mech fluid and the random arrangement of Glowstick's personal items all across the floor. Items which were being collected by his teammates.

[Blackrosefencer]

"Temporary truce Starshadow, and where in my sentence did I say you couldn't enjoy fighting the Maximals? You can still fight but without the use of firearms, that is for now, and yes I have something planned but as of right now is of no concern to you. Though I am growing very little patience with you feline, so I suggest you watch your tongue or you just might be meeting the lava pits next."

Megatron addressed the black panther in front of him and called her Starshadow. Then he walked out leaving the other Predacons to do as they pleased. Arachnitron watched the others reactions. Most didn't care one way or the other about Glowstick's death, but there were some acting oddly remorseful. Arachnitron didn't speak; she just watched.

Suddenly, she found herself face to face with the panther female, Starshadow. She turned to address the spider.

"Your name, recruit?"

Arachnitron scowled. "Are your audio sensors malfunctioning? Glowstick already mentioned my name, she answered coldly. She crossed her arms over her chest plate and continued. "My name is Arachnitron."

"Where's Glowstick?"

She turned to the bot that the Predacons called Terrorsaur. "Glowstick's down there," she answered emotionlessly pointing to the lava pit where Glowstick's body had landed. She didn't care that she was interrupting the conversation of the other two Preds; she was hoping to distract Starshadow from further investigation. What is your name? And then the next question is always: Where did you come from? She didn't want anyone asking her too many questions. "You know what they say," she continued smirking. "It's better to burn out than fade away." She chuckled demonically. She turned her back on the other Predacons and began to walk towards the door to exit the bridge.

[Wildfire94]

((That's find Blazemane He'll just follow))

Onyx glanced towards the other Predacons, still a little surprised none of them had some remorse for the loss of their teammate, possibly one of the few who actually had a processor or was sane. Shaking his head a bit the black mech followed after Steelclaw after he acknowledged Starshadow who seemed lack any change of attitude even now, he hadn't quite figured what to feel about her, whether to just say she was plain crazy and a psychopath or both and had her moments of some sanity. Regardless he would just have to watch himself around most of them, especially Megatron.

Moving the hover board over to the hall that lead to the crew quarters he followed Steelclaw to his personal quarters, setting the remaining items with what the bear had gathered before turning to him,"My choice in meetings might be unfortunate or I just seem to have bad timing with the Maximals but I ran into about four of them when surveying the land. One of them was well my maximal counter part, so to speak."He said,"She wanted me to relay a message to you and wanted to see if you would meet her in forty five cycles but she didn't say what for."Onyx explained not knowing how Steelclaw would take the message.

Unfortunately meeting Maximals was seen as a sign of treason or being a spy for them, though Onyx was neither. He was just a soldier who was a bit more subtle about his approaches to things, and being a lunatic, power hungry mech just wasn't his nature.

===============

Back in his quarters Megatron continued to carefully examine the golden disk brought back to him by Inferno, pondering on what this could possibly mean with it being of alien origin. Perhaps there was more to this planet then he was really not looking into, perhaps it was the organic planet he suspected to being Earth but in it's more prehistoric times. Until he really could be sure it was just his theory, just his way of testing his hypothesis and previous assumptions to where they had crash landed from the beginning. For now the tyrant set the disk in it's floating laser protected containment area before coming to his energon like hot tub and focusing his attentions on what was going on around his ship and possibly the Maximals thanks to Glowstick's use of the meddling fuzor.

Indeed he had lost a good asset within his ranks, but the squid had been a mere pawn to him, just as the remaining of his underlings were and when their usefulness was done with then he had no need for their services. Though he was quite curious to the goingons in his ship he wanted to see just what was going on among the Maximals and flipped the channel to see the visual of Feralnight's spy cam, an unknown spy among her ranks and not even knowing it. Though the sight he saw made him rub his chin, it almost seemed like their were saddened, mourning for something and he could only wonder if one of his Predacons had killed another of the worthless Maximals.

Maybe not a total loss, he thought with a sneer, it was one less Maximal to deal with and he for now only watched the proceedings to figure out what Primal would do next. If luck was in the Megatron's favor he could work his plan from here if Optimus made any sort of obvious plan among his own crew.

[starshadow]

"Are your audio sensors malfunctioning? Glowstick already mentioned my name, My name is Arachnitron."

"Oh sorry I didn't quite catch that at first," Starshadow said sarcastically. The new spider would probably be another pain in the aft, probably worse than Sonar.

I think I'm going to miss him... she thought with a sigh. It wasn't a joke. If Arachnitron was going to replace Sonar to be the new 'Queen (instead of KIng) Bane-of-my-existence' , she would go insane and would start trying to kill her, even infront of the Predacons. Usually, her banters with Sonar were always fun, sometimes a little violence was involved.

Watching Arachnitron leaving, the panther shook her head and transformed into her beast mode and headed outside the Darksyde.

((Where's Waspy?))

[Night-Hunter]

((OOC: Whoops, forgot about old Waspinator.))

Waspintor hid in the shadows as Megatron killed Glowstick then went on ranting about a truce with the Maximals.

Why Megatron kill squid-bot? Squid-bot didn't know about the truce, its not his fault. So why kill him? Waspinator wondered to himself.

Once Megatron had left, he crept out of the shadows and started to pick up Glowsticks things.

* * *

Inferno had simply watched as MEgatron killed Glowstick, to him it was a prefect punishment. No one underminded the Royalties authority like that and go unpunished.

Serves him right Inferno thought, then watched for a moment as Waspintor started to pick up the squids things before following after Megatron.

* * *

As Saber drew closer to the Maximal, she knew that she was within range of being spotted by the ships sensors. She still worried that they wouldn't take her back seeing how she had left when Optimus had been seriously wounded by his evil and deadily twin.

She kept her pace at a casual walk, so she wouldn't set off the ships defenses, that would be the last thing she wanted to do.

[Optimal Optimus Primal]

(( OOC: I hope Saber doesn't really think that. If she does, then she doesn't know Optimus at all. Hold your horses, N-H! They'll detect her. Sheesh.

Where is WorpeX? I certainly don't mean to rush anything with Icy's death but we do need to get rolling again. ))

Watching Whitegrazer gently pick up Icebreaker's body and carry him off to the medical bay, glancing back at everyone with a reassuring smile, Optimus was more worried about Aurora than anyone else. Although he was devastated by another loss under his leadership, this was obviously quite a traumatic event for the young Fuzor, and in all honesty, he wasn't sure what to say to her. It was a delicate situation. The wrong words could break her, and right the words might not be enough. What were the "right" words? Primal had to remind himself that she was going to be angry and upset no matter what; that was a completely natural reaction under such circumstances, much like how he was feeling. Perhaps he shouldn't single her out, though, and just address his entire crew.

Moving from the CR chamber and taking command back in the center of the main room, Optimus cleared his throat and desperately tried keeping himself calm. "Icebreaker's death will not be in vain," the Maximal leader finally broke the silence among those mourning their deceased comrade. "For some of us, this isn't our first loss to the team. For others... this is a brand new emotion. But remember that we mourn him together," he emphasized, implying that no one was alone, "and that our memories of him will keep us strong and drive us forward in his honor. His death is no one's fault but my own," explained Optimus, knowing some may seek justice or revenge on their own if they knew who killed the penguin. He hoped no one would do so. He hoped his team was better than that. After all, Nemesis, who allegedly accidentally killed Nightmist, was still alive and in their very own ship's brig. "I'm sorry, I wish I could give everyone more time to grieve, but there are things that still need to be done."

"ALERT: Maximal signal detected," Sentinel suddenly broke in. Of everything on their base that had been damaged in the Predacons' attack, at least the Maximals still had their scanners. Externally, nothing hummed alive to greet Saber.

And in the darkest of times, there was always a small beacon of light. Sentinel's notification seemed to help push Primal back into his leadership function while he let the others continue to calm down and gather themselves. "Identify," he ordered the Axalon's computer defense system.

"Unit Saber-Fang," it replied.

Saber-Fang?! The last ten minutes were certainly blowing all kinds of emotions around inside of Optimus. She came back? Was she okay? Well, he wasn't just going to let her come back alone. To send someone to welcome her would be a much better idea. "Feralnight, greet Saber-Fang outside. See if she needs any assistance." He hoped she was returning for good this time. Primal had not seen her since... It took him a moment to dig through his memory bank... Since his clone's last attack? Yes, he had lost consciousness and she had taken the opportunity to leave in her best interest. First they had just lost Icebreaker and now the saber-tooth cat comes back. Thank Primus. The former General's safety and wellbeing had been on his mind since the day he was informed of her disappearance. Finally there was something to set his overwhelmed and overactive mind at ease. It didn't quite lessen the pain and doubt of his leadership pertaining to Icebreaker's death, but it helped him to know that someone was able to return to them after all in this senseless and dangerous war. ((OOC: Feralnight kind of needs to NOT be around so Megatron doesn't hear about OP's plans. No offense, New Moon. Megs should only be assuming that Optimus will try to use his spy (Rattrap) to infiltrate the Darksyde and gather information, with a flier (Airazor) to carry him there in a timely manner. He shouldn't be suspecting Primal's trick with Ironclaw.))

"I'm not going far, I'll be ready for what Optimus wants me to do" "I'll wait here for Optimus"

"Okay." Rattrap replied, studying the badger. Sometimes the rat couldn't make heads or tails with him. "Hey, I heard you're Ironhide's descendant," he smiled at Ironclaw. "My great aunt was Arcee. Pretty crazy how we're all here, eh?" Coincidence?

"Airazor, Ratt-," Optimus stopped short looking around for his Spy. "Where's Rattrap and Ironclaw?" Then he spotted them down the hall a little bit. He had noticed the honey badger earlier when he left the group. It seemed as though Rattrap might have stopped him from wandering off too far. He hoped Ironclaw was all right. Normally Optimus would take the time to make sure his Maximals were handling another death as well as they could and talk to them, consol them, but unfortunately, he couldn't use up any more time than he had already alotted himself. "Rattrap, Ironclaw!" he called them over to him.

"And dere it is," the rodent said, knowing his name would be bellowed soon enough. "Come on," he encouraged Ironclaw to follow him over to their fearless leader. ((OOC: Mystrea, you can still have Ironclaw comment on what Rattrap said if you want. ))

While he waited for those he called for to gather near him, Optimus went on. "Cheetor, Dinobot and Tigatron, help Frilla get repairs done on our shields and autoguns. We'll need those operating again as quickly as possible."

"Frilla," he addressed the frilled lizard, "don't go too far just yet. I still wish to discuss something with you."

"Wintersong, you're on monitor and communication duty." Something easy for her to handle with less stress seeing that her gash still had a way to go for repairs in her beast mode.

"Aurora, if you still wish to tag along with me, you may do so. It's completely up to you. I know you're going through a lot right now," the Maximal Commander said warmly to the Maximal Fuzor. His optics were still sad inside despite how much he had been trying to disguise his anger and sorrow in his voice. He was hoping she would come since she needed the experience, but he would understand if she declined. Truth be told, Optimus could use the company on his aerial travel to meet Megatron and hopefully find out what the slag happened at the Axalon today.

[Blazemane]

When Onyx deposited the items on his slab, Steelclaw acknowledged his help with a quiet, distant "Thank you."

My choice in meetings might be unfortunate or I just seem to have bad timing with the Maximals but I ran into about four of them when surveying the land. One of them was well my maximal counter part, so to speak.

Ah, yes. Her.

It was interesting that Onyx could talk with the Maximals so easily. Steelclaw didn't suspect him of anything; at least, he didn't have reason to yet. But he wondered why Onyx acted the way he did around them. For, while Steelclaw enjoyed amiable conversation with the enemy from time to time, he had been a Maximal himself once. Onyx, as far as he could tell, had always been a Predacon. So, did that make Onyx a merely curious soldier, or a frustrated, disillusioned one?

She wanted me to relay a message to you and wanted to see if you would meet her in forty five cycles but she didn't say what for.

Steelclaw sighed. It didn't matter what the nature of the message she would wish to convey was; she would inevitably take the opportunity during their meeting to try to find something wrong with him.

A stubborn part of him wanted that, and wanted to throw it back at her. The meeting would be as interesting as it would be frustrating.

But she must have met Onyx while Steelclaw himself was at the Axalon, so she would have wanted the meeting before she knew of all that had happened there. Frankly, meeting with her wasn't tactically sound anymore. And there was Glowstick's brutal execution. Whether that would, in the end, make him too emotionally spent to engage in a good confrontation of morals, or too grieved and angry to let him think clearly, it was going to influence him adversely in any meeting with Whitegrazer. He wanted time. Time to not be bothered by anyone who truly wished to bother him. Time to ponder all of what had just happened.

But persistent curiosity led him to the next questions.

"Did she say what she wanted to talk about, or where she wanted to talk?"

* * *

Cheetor, Dinobot and Tigatron, help Frilla get repairs done on our shields and autoguns. We'll need those operating again as quickly as possible.

Dinobot stopped himself from grunting in discontent. This was not a task he was looking forward to. But it was good to see Primal presenting something new for his crew to think about, and he wasn't going to detract from that.

Dinobot walked over to Frilla sullenly. "What do you need?" A second later, Cheetor showed up next to him, also wondering the same thing.

[Mystrea]

"Yes I am. I hope to live up to his potential." Ironclaw said to Rattrap and then smiled at the mention of his great aunt. He then heard Optimus call both of them over, the rat started making his way over and encourage Ironclaw to follow him. He came in close behind Rattrap and transformed beside him. He saw everyone leaving as they were allocated roles. However during Optimus' order giving he heard a name that made him twitch.

Ironclaw faced Optimus then took a step closer to him so he could whisper to him. "I know you might not listen to me but I don't think you should take Aurora with you. It's dangerous and she's emotionally unstable." he took a step back and awaited for Optimus response and orders.

[Phoenix]

(ooc: I'm still baffled by how anyone can be specific descendants of well known G1s. Right now I'm envisioning 'dear auntie Arcee' baking cookies for her favorite nephew.. It's a disturbing thought at best.)

Resisting the urge to follow Whitegrazer as she made her way off with the penguin's lifeless body, Aurora leaned against the now empty CR chamber to support her shaky legs. It hadn't been very long since she'd been begging for some action, yet now she just wanted a plain and boring existence again. An environment where everyone were busy with their own little projects, but they were all safe and accounted for, at a time where she had no idea what death encompassed and much less what genuine grief felt like.

All that was gone now. Shattered in such a short time.

Aurora only vaguely paid attention to Primal's initial speech about how nobody would ever get forgotten after they were lost. She heard the words, but had a hard time concentrating on their true meaning.

Through the corner of her eye she noticed Ironclaw and Rattrap comparing notes about their ancestry before Primal gave them and the others assignments to keep them focused on the task at hand.

To her surprise the commander then addressed her.

"Aurora, if you still wish to tag along with me, you may do so. It's completely up to you. I know you're going through a lot right now,"

She lifted her head to look at him, forcing herself to smile ever so slightly. Although she did contemplate remaining behind to mourn her loss, there did not seem to be much point in doing so right now. It would probably be best if she tried to keep focused on something else, an opportunity Primal had just provided.

The fuzor nodded, forming her lips to a quiet "Thank you.." before following Primal.

[New Moon]

(( Shame on Megs, no cheating! And no problem OOP I figured Feral would have to do something to avoid that.))

Feralnight listened to Optimus' speech but she nodded slightly,"On it Optimus." She said before heading to the lift and stepping onto it, letting it take her down and watching the others go out of sight. She was glad to be out of the main bridge, having been feeling that her silence was going to be noticeable among the others since she was normally talkative at some point but this time she had been completely silent, save for her short words after they heard Icebreaker's condition. Sighing softly she just pushed the matter to the back of her mind and stepped off the lift when it came to a stop.

Looking around it only took a moment before the older fuzor spotted the saber-toothed cat and she trotted towards the formal general with a greeting smile,"Hey Saber-fang it's good to see you! How are you doing?" She asked as she approached the other femme and some of her former self coming up again.

Inside Frilla turned to Dinobot, Cheetor, and Tigatron for briefly before Optimus would speak with her,"Think the first thing we should work on are the shields, I've about gotten through half the bug issue Glowstick implanted into the systems so there shouldn't be too much there. But we get those running first and we do face trouble it'll save us some time at least if repairs are still under way." She told them, feeling the shields were important for now. The autoguns in such a situation would be the first targets in an attack so shields definitely would need to come first.

Though she was curious as to what Optimus had in mind or needed to talk about so she hung back for a moment to wait patiently for the Maximal leader.

[Wintersong]

Wintersong almost immediately wanted to object to being assigned monitor and communication duty, though as she stood there was still a slight sting to her gash and she growled softly in irritation, knowing she had no room to argue. It was a little irritating to know she had been caught up against an opponent too strong for her to handle, and one she had tried to avoid this time but had been too slow to do so. 'One of these days I'll get one of those tentacled freaks and pay them back for this.' She thought with a annoyance but knew one of them had been her own doing.

Turning to one of the available monitors she walked over and hopped onto the seat to better reach the controls while giving her internal repairs a bit more time to help her wound. But none the less she still listened to the others while her gaze was fixed on the monitors and still ready to spring into action if it was even needed.

----------------------

Before Snow Trix could answer it seemed their so called new recruit took that chance to respond herself and the fox couldn't help glaring at the new spider; she was already finding a deep dislike for this one just as the Predacons had no liking to Tarantulas and Blackarachnia. "As she pretty much told you he's gone Terrorsaur. Soon as Glowstick reported to old lizard breathe her beheaded him without a second thought, tossed him into the pits below and we ruined some of his plans apparently for a truce." She explained. She felt he at least outta know the full thing of what happened instead of him just being tossed in the lava pit for nothing.

Though she wasn't always one to converse with her fellow Predacons at least this was one of those rare moments Snow Trix thought her 'teammate' should be informed of what had occurred. "Call me odd to be saying this but Megatron made one of the stupidest moves he could have done, Glowstick was a valuable asset and he lost it."

[Night-Hunter]

OOC: I hope Saber doesn't really think that. If she does, then she doesn't know Optimus at all.

((OOC: Of course she doesn't really think that, its just a little paranoia.))

Saber-Fang stopped when she heard the lift activate and much to her surprise it wasn't empty, Feralnight was on it. She watched as the fuzor stepped off the lift and trotted towards her with a friendly smile, which put her at ease.

"Hey Saber-fang it's good to see you! How are you doing?"

The former general couldn't help but smile. "It's good to see you as well, Feralnight. I'm alright thank you for asking."