METATISIC: PART EIGHT

TITLE: Metatisic., Metatisic: Saga One
TYPE: Transformers G1 fiction
AUTHOR: Megan Seekings & A. Chandler
FIRST RELEASE: 1985, 1986, & 1987.
Revised edition 5/8/03, 2004-2008
RATED: PG

_{SUMMERY: Unable to obtain it from their native planet of Cybertron, Decepticon leader, Galvatron resorts to excavating an asteroid particle that has tested positive for Cybertonium, dispatching a crew to retrieve it. But as the surface layers are removed, trace outline of an ancient staircase unintentionally leads the party on a sudden and very unexpected journey deep into Cybertronian history prior to the first Great War some 14 million years ago!}


continued...

>> Energon intact: 0071.93% 0000:0008800 >>>>  

Cyclonus sighed at the schematics. He was hardly 100% energized, but he entertained the logic that was the intention from the very beginning. They were captives after all, accused of suspicious activities and disobedience to a commandment not one of them knew anything about in a world just beyond the lambency of the prison bars directly before him that he understood even less.

Freedom had been much too temporary. It wasn't much longer, as the last of the remaining Rougeon hauls were still being fed into the graters, that the general Sarterius had sent the order back to Pycon to corral the three Decepticons back aboard the roller-cell once more. Now, from his seat in the corner, his legs drawn up to his chest, Cyclonus nonchalantly regarded the cage from its floor to back the ceiling before landing on the rows of supercharged neon to his right.

"That wasn't even enough to even tickle my transistors." Scourge complained. For a moment, his face appeared lopped in half in the murk dark. Crescents of neon sketched across his cheeks pegging pin-lights of whitened gold into the vats of his eyes.

"Anything more would have been a luxury" Cyclonus declared.

"Mm, they don't want us to be at our max that's for sure. Only functional."

"Yes, and able to stand whatever trial they are preparing us for I'm sure."

Halos of current sped the length of the prison bars Scourge stood beside, "They activated the charge. Er, Cyclonus?" he hestitated, "Rumble is right, you know. You don't seem all that concerned given our circumstances."

"I AM right! You hear that?" Rumble homed in on the distorted echos of the combine still resounding the camp and pointed. "Soak it in 'cause there's your trial, O' dear commander!"

"You're both wrong." Cyclonus leaned into the cell wall, huffing his admission at long last.

For the lieutenant, the reason was a lot like seeing at the dusk. To see a dimly lit object, you had to look just away from it. The rods and cones of his mind's eye also functioned like that. Cyclonus panned slightly away from the facts in an effort to glimpse past them. He had it ...He actually had it much earlier, knowing it even before they reached the Ohiiden camp. He spoke nothing, turning it over in his mind, approaching it from different directions to see if his conclusions were sound. All those years of experience, all that reading and the intensely disciplined intelligence --it all converged on their problem. He foraged through the filing cabinets of his memories, pulling a fact here, another there. There could be no certainties, but there was no other logical explanation.

"I've just been deep in thought" he said, "--About this place. About where we are and how we got here. I was rationalizing our situation earlier."

"And?" Rumble stepped closer.

"And? Heh ...And that there's nothing I 'can' rationalize. I've heard of these places Sarterius spoke of, just like I heard them when we were at the ruins on that asteroid. About this, this Bractos. Even the least historical savvy Decepticon ought to be familiar with the legendary Bractos. It was the capital metropolis of the ancient Decepticon empire millions of years ago in our golden age."

The second-in-command paused. A new seriousness infected his whispery tones.

"Even when he met us, the General Sarterius said 'By order of the empire of Ta'nak'. I was debating even then. Bractos existed in the heart of Ta'nak so, how? ...How can this be true?"

"Perhaps it is another Bractos?"

"I don't think so, Scourge." Rumble shoke his head, "It still wouldn't explain why they wear the Decepticon crest of allegiance."

"Nor how they knew about Cybertron either" Cyclonus added. "Clearly these Transformers are indeed Decepticons much like us, but they are of a quite earlier period. It's no wonder why we are odd to them."

"You mean to say that we're somehow in the past! That's your conclusion?!" Scourge hunched towards him. He accented the word 'Past' in a inconceivable tone.

"What I'm saying is that we are clearly no longer citizens of time as we know it to be, and this is not the Cybertron of the 21st century. We ARE on Ta'nak --And I have my hunch that the structure remains we discovered earlier today has a lot to do with the cause of our being here now. What I don't know is how."

"All good and well," Rumble snorted. "So we figured it out, but that still doesn't help our situation, or about what we're supposed to do now. Our ancestors think we're traitors, Cyclonus!" Worry spidered his expression as his optics leapt to a nest of troopers patrolling the grounds outside. "And being a Decepticon taught me at least a few good cardinal rules. One of them is that Traitors are slagged!"

"Yes, but the key word here is that they 'think', Rumble. They 'think' we're hiding something. They haven't proved it."

"So?"

"So, I intend to make them believe the opposite." Cyclonus' left brow curved when he smirked. "Our information must be important to them otherwise I have my doubts that Sarterius would have spared us this long to not just as soon condemn us all with those other robots."

"That's the puzzle that's not fitting for me." Scourge questioned. Hissing once when he pondered it, he shook his head, "Who were they? They were no Transformers I ever heard of."

"That I can't answer. It's just as much a mystery to me."

"Well they looked like Transformers."

Rumble pressed his lips together, unintentionally stretching the cord of current cuffed around his wrist until they clinked at the joint. "Who, or whatever they were, they've certainly incurred a lot of wrath. If your lie is going to work, Cyc, we're going to have to know a lot more and what it is these Decepticons hate so much about them."

"I think it would be also vital that we're all on the same page when we do" The Sweep leader insisted. "If they were to question us independently and discover that our stories don't match— "

"Right, we'll be goners for sure."


4


"Information forthcoming, General!" The soldier's announcement was just as rushed as his salute. Sarterius paid no mind, much more interested in the flood of mock-infrared that was beginning to fill the view screen at last. Half-hidden by the convention of other members of the squadron, they parted when the commander marched over.

"Many of the transmissions were coded, sir, but Coronach managed to pin the Rougeon center operation."

"Good, bring it up now!"

"Straight away!"

"General!" The mech seated before the screen popped up like a spring. Sarterius had learned to expect this from the young officer — as navy as the Cybertronian skyline itself, Coronach, one of Dourjer's new developmental seekers, was still fresh to military service and always seemed to be much too serious about the presentation of his formalities that he often over-exaggerated them. Sarterius had found the difference entertaining and a stark contrast to the serious-minded stoic bred that military life often brewed.

"At ease, Coronach." Sarterius eyeballed the flight of super-imposed pixels already sketching a thermal canvas of the Ta'nakian landscape, "I just want to know where they are."

"South-west of Nin'gur. It's the same area we encountered the minor disturbances last week and took some casualties."

"I never consider causalities to be minor disturbances," Sarterius replied with a note of irritation, "Neither does his majesty, Metatisic."

"Yes, sir." Coronach hovered his palm out across the console to adjust a pip on the map display and increased the magnification. Peppers of infrared dots seemed to float over the screen. As the General leaned over his shoulder, Coronach drew back to a smaller scale picking out another crop of warm images further away.

"There they are."

"Good. And they won't be for long!" Sarterius hammered his fist upon the control grid to empathize their goal. "Beat Down, report!"

"General?" A large soldier appeared at the commander's left.

"Beat Down, you will be taking Chamfer and Coronach with you. I don't want anything or anyone to get in or out of the Nin'gur passage. Also, cut any power you might discover that could be feeding the premises."

"If I can make a statement, general?" Coronach interrupted. "Most of the current was already cut by the first battalion. From the looks of it, they were quite thorough."

"Not thorough enough" Beat Down disagreed. "Excuse me, sir," He said tossing his knowledge to his leader, "The Rougeons have pilfered generators and the prisoners confessed that their allies have been tapping energon supply units. I'm quite certain that they still have ample power."

The news touched off a darker shade of red in the General's eyes; his jaw tightening, Sarterius spun sharply scoping the full range of his mech, "DESTROY THEM!" He snapped. "DESTROY THEM, YOU HEAR ME?! We will squash this pestilence in its nest once and for all!"

"The generators, sir?"

"The entire complex, Beat Down. Now that we have found them I will arrange for the second legion to meet you at the cusp of the passage once we've organized matters in Bractos."

"Of course."

Coronach's optics flicked once more to the view screen just as Sarterius began to walk away, "What better luck" he chuckled. "We won't have to concern ourselves much over possible resistance. Forward scouts registered little activity around the Nin'gur subdivisions. Rougeon vornlings and elderly mostly. No problem at all."

"I said everyone, Coronach."

"Uh?!"

"Everyone!"

"But ...but! Every pardon, general --Children? Rusted old mech?!"

"Enemies breed more enemies so that when they die their fundamentals survive to become the heirs of more sacrilege. If left unresolved the cycle resumes. An enemy is an enemy, Coronach. And petty things like age should have little to do with that fact --Destroy them all!"

The inexperienced herak youth was numb from the frigid air resounding his resolve, Sarterius could tell. The seeker stood gapped-face wanting to reply, but unable to mouth it passed the infectious stammering that he only seemed competent of at the moment. Defeated, the seeker pressed his lips together tight.

"Anything else, Coronach?"

"No, sir. Nothing further."

"Very well. Return to the monitor and report any changes you discover."

"Yes, general."

"Fellow comrades!" Sarterius announced aloud. "At ease, but we journey to Bractos in five astro-hours --Be ready."