|
"You're kidding me. You're
THE Monsterbots?!"
Grotesque sighed and turned to face Hot Rod. The young Autobot was
staring at him in utmost shock. Grotesque didn't see what all the
fuss was about.
"Yeah. What's your point? Stunned by my good looks?"
"Pbbt… Yeah, sure." Hot Rod leaned against the wall and held
up his
hands. "I just wanna know what yer doing HERE. I mean, we're heading
to Nebulos for peace. And correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't you
guys the most enthusiastic Con smashers this side of the Wreckers?"
"Yep, that's us. `War is ugly, and we're the masters of both'. A
crappy little motto, but it confuses the hell outta the Cons!"
"So why come with us? Why not stay on Cybertron?"
Grotesque looked out of the window, into the vast void of space and
Cybertron disappearing over the horizon. He sighed. Did he really
want to go over the reasons NOW? He could just walk away- No. The kid
should know why. He didn't want people to think the Monsterbots quit
out of cowardice.
"I'll tell ya," he said quietly. "First off, you know
mostly about
us, right? The Monsterbots: Doublecross, Grotesque and Repugnus. And
you may know that we were great in the noble art of metal-munching.
For instance, there was this one time…" He smiled at the memory; it
had been such a clean victory. Repugnus had felt a bit put
out. "Repugnus had found out that Straxus was planning to break
through Scorponok's defences and grab some of his territory. So he
sent three of his troops in on a covert operation to knock out the
power on Scorponok's defences, so his army could attack easily.
"We decided to intervene…"
"There they are," said Repugnus. "There's the
slagsuckers."
We could see `em. Crosscut, Ferak and Macabre; three Decepticon
terrorists with serious mental problems. Ferak was a hyped-up bully,
Macabre was a sadist and Crosscut kept volunteering for things that
would get him slagged for some reason. Maybe he'd realised he looked
like a gimp.
They were in robot mode. Crosscut looking all blocky and dumb,
Macabre with spikes and horns sticking out of odd places and Ferak
being a conehead. They were checking around, making sure no one had
noticed `em yet.
"You know what to do," said Doublecross. "Well, I
don't," he said
again. "Oh shut up, I know you're just being pedantic. Your builder
cleans Unicron's exhaust pipe! Oh, shut up."
Did I mention Doublecross had two brains? He had two brains.
"Let's get `em," I said, cocking my rifle. "I'll take gimp-
features. Doublecross, you get Ferak, and Repugnus should get
Macabre. You're the only one who can match him in sadistic combat.
And if you can't, your smell will take him down."
"Shaddup and ATTACK!"
The `Cons looked up in surprise. They looked a bit freaked and I
can't blame `em; Doublecross was in creature mode, and they were
downwind of Repugnus. I grinned at them and then opened fire on
Ferak. To his credit, the conehead was able to get a shot on me
before I landed on him.
To my left, Doublecross was roasting Crosscut and Repugnus had
converted to monster mode, and was battering ol' Macabre. Ferak could
see he wasn't getting any help and transformed. I let him fly up and
fire on me, then transformed myself and flew up. I flew around him,
dodging his shots, before shooting forward and chomping off a wing.
He landed HARD.
I swooped down and grinned as the others finished their fights.
Doublecross had Crosscut in one mouth and tore out the guy's right
arm with his other, and then slapped him with it! Heh. Then Repugnus
transformed and punched Macabre in the head. Down went Ugly- Macabre,
I mean, NOT Repugnus, smart-pipe.
Anyway, the `Cons were wounded and in no condition to fight
anymore. Which was bad for THEM, because when we attacked we fired
off a flare, which Scorponok's troops saw.
I have no idea what those guys under Scorpy's command do all day,
but it seems they get really BORED. Otherwise they wouldn't have sent
about twenty jets! Led by Apeface and Krunix, no less! The trashed
guys took one look at the jets and ran off like scared little petro-
rabbits! We slipped away into the shadows and watched the pursuit.
The three got away but later that day, Scorponok ordered an attack
on Straxus' border; he tore apart a mile of defences and marched 100
metres into the city, trashing it. That caused quite a few wee
battles for the next Vorn or so, trashing more `Cons than we alone
could!
Man, I musta been blessed by Primus when I came up with that plan!
Either that or I had some really good high-grade Energon last night!
Either way, we were celebrating for the whole night afterwards! I did
my joke routine, Doublecross tried to sing and Repugnus…
Let's NOT talk about what he did for his party piece.
Basically, it was a big Autobot victory.
Grotesque finished his recap. Hot Rod looked at him sceptically.
"The point of that was…?"
"The point is that we were some of the best. This was just one of
our many, many victories!" Grotesque sighed. "But… I keep
thinking,
recently, of the LOOK in Ferak's eyes when I was falling on him, and
I wonder what happened to the three Decepticons."
"They're all dead, last I heard," said Hot Rod. "Macabre
went out
killing Impactor."
The Monsterbot looked pained, and slammed his fist into the
wall. "Of COURSE! I heard about that! EVERYONE HEARD ABOUT THAT! How
could I have forgotten?" He sighed and said, "But then, Macabre
didn't really get named. He was just a faceless target, someone to
cry out `gotta-ACK!' so the big boys could strut their stuff."
Hot Rod looked shocked at this bitterness. "Um… Kay?"
"It's just a sore point with me," he said. "Anyway, I was
telling
you the story, wasn't I? Well, we continued fighting over the years
and clocked up an impressive kill rate. And then, a few days ago,
there was this battle…"
It was meant to be a diversion for another group; the Sparklebots.
But we got too much INTO it. We just kept firing and firing…
I could see, out of the corner of my optics, that Repugnus had a
gun. This was odd; he usually LOATHED firearms. But in this case, he
was pumping rounds like there was no tomorrow. I myself was yelling
out some war cry, I don't remember what, and tearing apart
wounded `Cons with my TEETH.
Eventually, we ran out of ammo and stopped. And I got a good look
around.
I felt sick. "Primus…"
The whole area was littered with Decepticon remains. There must
have been fifty or so. We had NO IDEA there'd been that many; if we'd
known, we would have retreated! But… we didn't notice. We were too
busy killing. And I realised we were in the open, that we could have
been easily picked off and died, and I JUST DIDN'T CARE. I wanted to
do the whole thing again, but with more Decepticons. More and more
and more.
The others… they felt the same. And we were worried.
"What's happened to us?" I asked.
"We've always been like this," said Repugnus.
"No. No, we didn't. Don't you remember the past few months?
Remember how bored we were?" I pressed on, every word being spat
out. "We've been bored and dead, except when we're fighting. Then we
REALLY come to life, don't we? Are our whole lives just fighting?"
Doublecross frowned, and his left head replied, "I know what you
mean. We used to actually feel alive and happy off the battlefield,
but recently… Well, we're just war machines. Nothing but walking
guns."
"Oh, come ON," said Repugnus. "Aren't you the one who
bragged about
slapping Crosscut with his own arm, Doublecross? You're talking as if
we were Decepticons…"
He fell silent. And then we knew. We knew what we were becoming.
Grotesque finished his story, fists clenched and his face down. He
looked up and out the window, watching the stars for a few minutes,
before saying softly, "we had to get out. Before we lost all that
made us Autobot." He looked at the kid with dead eyes. "You see
now?"
Hot Rod nodded. "Yeah. Man, I never expected things like that-"
"Well, you should," said Grotesque sharply. "We were in a
war, and
that's what happens to people in war. They sometimes go on living but
as something that's not Transformer in anyway. Happened to thousands,
kid. I envy Nebulos; it ended its war, millennia ago. It's the best
place for us now. Maybe there, we can find peace and I can regain my
humour. I hope."
The ship sped on towards Nebulos.
THE END
|