The Siege Of SI-3432

[Foley]

[glow=red,2,300]Hikar VI[/glow]

Optimus Prime allowed his optic sensors to wander over the wasteland that once was a lush tropical forest. One full cycle ago it served as a battlefield between his Autobots and the savagely ruthless Combaticons. The Decepticon battle group had been pushed back hard enough that they gave up the fingerhold that they had established, but in their falling back they enacted Megatron's "scorched earth" policy leaving much of the planet's largest most continant barren and now useless. If the Decepticon Empire could not have Hikar VI, then no one could have it.

Prime sighed. Was this to be the price that had to payed now in order to stop Megatron's newest expationistic tendencies? Freed from the madness of Galvatron, Megatron seemed more determined then ever to rule the cosmos through tryanny. Finding and conquering the planet Destron had not helped matters either since it proved to be the first in many formally unknown worlds that carried other Quinticon creations nor did it help that the Destrons eagerly took up Megatron's banner. Then there was the other Decepticon front created by Scorponok and his forces. Rumor had it he too was boosting his troops and he too was on a campaign to rule all there was, this included Megatron's forces.

Prime turned away from the scarred vista at the sound of Hot Rod's approach. Enough musings on the uselessness of war and back to the business of fighting it appearently. "Report, Hot Rod."

"You were right," Hot Rod said easily, "That bunch of fliers that gave the Combaticons extra air support were some of the Destron new recruits. Just got a few other field reports from Springer and Ultra Magnus that filled in the gaps. They're called the Skycons and up til Hikar VI they were doing hit and runs on various Autobot outposts on the far reachs of our space."

"Training and prepareing to join up with Onslaught for a stab deeper in the region." Prime mused aloud.

"Looks that way," Hot Rod answered with a half shrug, "Springer's report said they were working with Scrouge and his sweeps, doing bombing runs on Niver II. That was before they demonstrated that they had gesult tech and made up a combined mech that called itself Decimator. It very easily lived up to its name."

"That would indicate they are a part of Megatron's forces." said Prrime, "Scorponok's split did not happen until Destron was conquered and he returned to Nebulos. These Skycons fought better then any Seeker I've ever seen including Starscream, and if they are now working hand in hand with the Combaticons, their threat level has become even higher."

"What do you have in mind to counter it?" Hot Rod knew that his leader was several steps ahead of him so he just cut to the chase of the matter.

"Are the Armorbots ready?"

"They have been trained and and modified with gesult tech, but they haven't been field tested." answered the younger Autobot, "Wheeljack and Hoist have voiced concerns that they still have issues in their Liberator combined form."

"I'm afraid we don't have time to work them out in a lab," Prime replied, "Cosmos managed to track the Decepticons some after they left orbit. I believe based on their course that they are heading to SI-3432."

"SI-3432? But that's..."

"A key energon processing center for this region," Prime said nodding, "Yes, Hot Rod, if Megatron can establish a beachhead there not only will be be able to strike Earth and Cybertron with ease but have plenty of energon to do it repeated and to back up each assult. Contact the Aerialbots, have them and the Armorbots report to SI-3432 immediately."

Hot Rod nodded and went to carry out his order at once.

Once Prime was alone once more he looked toward the heavens and the direction of the key planey. "And may Primus help us not be too late."

[roadblaster]

Warzone stood in front of his new troops, a group of promising mechs gathered from the Autobot's territories to form the Autobot's latest Gestalt combat unit, The Armorbots.

Warzone had been fighting wars since before these mechs were even protoforms. He'd fought on Cybertron, Earth and countless other battle ravaged planets and moons. Maybe the four Autobots in front of him would help to bring an end to the war? Warzone allowed himself a slight smirk at this tiny fragment of naivety.

He'd scanned their data-files over and over again. He knew what each of them was capable of, and the psychological reasons for them doing it. Before him were representatives of the four forces of the Autobot army- Infantry, Artillery, Navy and Air Force. Four volunteers who's knowledge of the different aspects of war would hopefully create something approaching a fully functioning, sentient Gestalt warrior. Some chance.

The four of them stood rigidly in front of their new commanding officer, barely moving a servo.

'They've waited long enough' thought Warzone and turned his attention back to the datapad.

'Hightide?'

'Present.' replied the powerfully built slate grey mech.

Warzone had fought along side 'Naval-bots' before. There weren't that many of them, and their attitude tended to reflect this.... Was this another grunt he'd have to drum the individuality out of?

'Kevlar?'

'SIR, YES SIR!' roared the green slab of armour.

'Eager. Perhaps too eager.' thought Warzone, mentally adding this to the long list of negatives he had formed in his processors since he was 'volunteered' for this project.

'Shootout?'

'Afirmative' drawled the Artilleryman, his face-plate slowly shifting around the word as he said it. Shootout showed the most promise. His file had told Warzone of his being part of the infamous mortar team that had held the Decepticons at bay during the Siege of Pyrax.

'Thunderbolt?'

'Here sir.' said with derision, as Warzone had expected. Why was it always the flyboys who had to be trouble? It looked like another loudmouth would have brought down a peg or t-

Warzone's train of thought was interuped by Thunderbolt again.

'We're all here boss, you can see that. We're here, we're ready. What I want to know is, where are the Decepticons? My trigger fingers are getting itchy!'

The other recruits turned their gaze upon him. Kevlar and Shootout didn't look to happy about the interuption. Warzone noticed that Hightide had broken into a smile.

'All in good time, Thunderbolt.' said Warzone, 'We've got to do some further tests before we can so much as leave the facility. Command doesn't want some faulty mech crashing through the sector doing more damage than the Decepticons ever could.'

'but...'

It appeared that Thunderbolt was going to be the voice of the other recruits. He had interupted Warzone countless times throughout primary testing.

'At ease, mech. Command orders, we follow. That is the way of life in an army.'

As he said the words, he knew he was lying. He craved battle as much as they did. He was a warrior, not a test subject. He belonged in battle, not couped up in some lab being probed and tested.

And with that thought, The Armorbot's world changed forever.

The ground shook violently and warning sirens erupted from every corner of the base. They were under attack and it looked like battle testing would have to be carried out in the field after all.

[Foley]

"Hit them again, Brawl," Onslaught said calmly over the sound of the auto-guns that the lab complex/base used to defend itself. If this was all that was defending this research base hidden in the hindpart of Autobot space then the mission should be as easy as shooting protoducks in a row. "Bring the base around the ears of the Autobots' newest weapons as per Megatron's orders!"

Brawl just laughed insanely as he fired shot after mortar shot. Not for the first time Onslaught wondered if they were going to have to put the tankbot down someday. Would be a shame, he does have his uses.

"Die, ya Auto-jokes!"

Just not many. Shaking his head, he activated his comm unit. "Onslaught to Vortex."

"What is it, Onslaught?" came back Vortex's weaselly voice.

"Premeter report!"

"Blast Off and I knocked out their communications systems so they can't call for help."

As per the magnificent plan, Onslaught thought to himself. "Any Autobot response?"

"Nothing we can't handle," came Blast Off's arrogent reply.

"No sign of the Aerialbots or Optimus Prime, sir." Vortex added. At least he knew what his team's leader wanted to hear about.

Swindle, who had been standing with Onslaught and Brawl taking random potshots, looked up, "You expecting Prime, boss."

"Not really," Onslaught answered, "I am pretty sure Prime is still on Hikar VI mourning over our handiwork. It's the Aerialbots that is my top concern. The intelligence that Squawktalk and Soundwave dug up said that they were supposed to be on detached duty around here to help protect the base."

"What's so important 'bout this base?" asked Brawl, pausing just long enough to fire another blast that finished off one of the out lining buildings. "If it was so important, why it coming down so easy?"

"Idiot. It's not the base that's important," Swindle snapped, "It's whats inside that we want to pound to the ground."

"Occurding to our intel," Onslaught said forcing calmness inbetween the two smaller mechs, "There is a new gesalt team here and Megatron wants them off the battlefield before they walk onto it. And so do I."

Without warning the ground directly in front of them exploded taking Onslaught and Swindle off their feet and knocking Brawl on his side. Brawl quickly transformed and helped his teammates up. "Wha' happened?"

"WE HAPPENED, DECEPTICON!"

All three turned and looked up toward the nearly destroyed lab complex to see a bot that could be as massive as Onlaught standing beside a howitzer tank with a smoking barrel.

"And you would be?" asked Onslaught.

"Name's Warzone, this is Shootout." came the answer, "You can call us the Armorbots."

"And just what is an 'Armorbot'?"

Warzone grinned, "You're worst nightmare. Armorbots! Take 'em out!"

[roadblaster]

Onslaught was surprised at how quickly the tide of battle had turned against them. Although not in retreat, they were bogged down under heavy fire and unable to penetrate any further into the Autobot's defensive perimeter. The Autogouns were not a problem- Vortex's glue gun could render them usless with a single shot- The problem was these so called 'Armorbots'.

The Combaticons had fought their fair share of Gestalt teams in the past. The Protectobots were no match, being designed to negate his own team's destructive capabilities trather than combat them head on. Onslaught saw them as barely above civillian guard bots and had treated them thus on many occassions.

The next team on the list of many opponents was actually one of his own making. Megatron's spies had learnt of Auto-Command's
wish to take out the threat of the Combaticons quickly and Onslaught himself had come up with the plan. Swindle was 'allowed' to sell the Combaticon's technical plans on the black market and these datafiles had found their way to their designated target.

Onslaught wasn't sure of his feelings toward the Autobot engineers who had created the 'Battlebots'. Was it respect? Just maybe. They had worked incredibly quickly but their plan was always doomed to fail. The Autobot's personality components were willing, but the inherent design flaws he had placed within their schematics meant they were no match for his own team, and their combined form, Battalion, was nowhere near the sum of his parts.

He had made sure that 'Velocity' would have vertigo-like difficulties due to his over-efficient optical focus drives. 'Hardcase' had amongst the most inefficient engines he had seen. 'Laserblade' had been designed to sieze up mid flight and drop from the sky. He was particularly proud of his plans of what would become 'Speedbump'. A gyroscopic imbalance meant that the desert warrior was nothing more than a clumsy oaf. Onslaught's ego did not allow him to tamper with his own schematics too much, despite protestations from above him in the chain of command. It was decided that faulty targeting systems would be a means to an end. Inefficient gestalt couplings meant that Battalion himself was no use to anyone when he combined.

These new mechs were different though. He had heard their names, and read their hacked datafiles before he began the assault on the bunker. For a handful of Autobots crammed together into a military unit only recently, they seemed to be fighting above themselves.

His comms system buzzed into activity.

'Any chance of some air support here guys?? What the slag are Blast Off and Vortex up to??'

He recognised the deep bass rumble of Brawl and could only agree with the brute, had two of his team really been rendered useless by one simple Autobot jet and some missiles fired from a fragging boat-bot?

'Screw you clowns,' said Vortex in that voice of his, 'Lets combine and end this now!'

'Even under fire they argue amongst each other' thought Onslaught. 'Like a load of damned Stunticons.'

'Incoming mechs, boss, unknown signatures!! screamed Blast Off. 'three clicks outs, flying at multiple vectors!!'

'Interesting' thought Onslaught. he had the area's Autobot's tactical deployments memorised and knew that they had no flyers available to offer reinforcements.

'Skycons' he said, forming a slight smile beneath his mouthplate.

'Combaticons. Combing to form Bruticis!'

[Foley]

Warzone was mildly impressed with his new squads preformance. So far they were not only holding there own against some of the Decepticons toughest and most skilled fighters, but they were actually pushing them back further and further away from the research outpost. Kevler and Shootout's long range blast capabilities were giving Swindle and Brawl fits. Kevler had at one point went to robot mode and barreled Swindle down like a linebacker from the human game they called football, complete with victory dance until Brawl went into his 'bot mode and grappled with the armored hulk. Hightide, despite his slight reluctance to fight, was keeping Blast Off and Vortex on evasive manuvers letting Thunderbolt to get in some seriously good hits. Warzone picking his way through the firefight the his opponets somehow managed to keep sending his way, (he made a mental note that if they survived the battle that he needed to train his team on the importance of one-shot kills), to take the fight to Onslaught personally.

That was when he heard Blast Off's report of incoming air bogeys. Warzone knew the Aeirialbots were supposed to be on route from Earth but he thought it highly more likely that this was the new Seeker unit that Punch's last intelligence files, (some what brief and uninformative) had indicated that Megatron and Shockwave had cooked up. Not good. Then he heard the words that chilled him all the way to his Spark.

"Combaticons, combine to form...Bruticus!"

As the five Combaticons somehow managed to limped together, they began folding and linking to create a massive, hulking dogface grunt of a soldier that was armed to the teeth and programed to fight til there was nothing left. It did not matter if that meant nothing left of the enemy or itself.

Gazing up at the towering figure before him, Warzone frowned and mumbled to himself, "Ah...slag."

[Foley]

Once merged, Bruticus scanned the area around him for a moment in complete silence. Then without any warning he let out a deafening roar.

"Bruticus...angry!! Bruticus....DESTROY!!!!"

Then the lumbering tower of destruction moved forward with the intentation to reduce the Autobase to a smoking pile of rubble. Thunderbolt was the first to respond to this renewed attack and was nearly batted out of the sky by the Blast Off-arm like he was an annoying fly. This galvanized the others into attacking much to Warzone's approval. Hightide was surprisingly the first one to launch an attack, swinging an energon cutlass and making several deep slashes in the Swindle-leg. When Bruticus kicked Hightide away, Warzone took up the attack on the same spot, landing several repeated shots from his blaster. Kevlar sounded off a charging run at the giant's other leg with a impressive battlecry. Warzone was surprised that Kevlar's impression of a Terran linebacker actually managed to stagger his foe. Thunderbolt managed to evade being knocked out of the sky and started making repeated strafeing runs, focusing on Bruticus' back as was Shootout in his tank form. They appearently remember the old intelligence of the gesalt's weak spots there, but it also appeared that this flaw had been corrected.

Bruticus roared something more about destroying Autobots and managed and kept up it's counter attack with it's fists and weapons. One massive fist almost crushed Warzone if it had not been for Hightide's flying tackle to move his leader out of his way. Nodding his thanks, Warzone ordered his team to fall back to a nearby newly made creator. Once they all were gathered together, he took a quick survey of his team to size up his options.

"Nothing we do stops that thing," Thunderbolt said as he landed in his robot mode.

"What's the matter, flyboy," Shootout drawed leaning against the crater wall, "Thought you had an itchy triggerfinger?"

"What's the plan, sir?!" Kevlar asked eagerly and standing at full attention despite what appeared to be a decent sized hole in his side armor and substructure inside.

Warzone knew that Kevlar's eagerness to fight and please his commander may end up being more harmful then good and something he would have to address and soon. Looking over the side of the crater, Warzone saw that now that Bruticus had lost the Armorbots as opponents, the gesalt returned his destructive attention to smashing Autobase. The number of battle options were dwindling down fast.

"We are going to have to merge." he said at last.

"Have you lost your mind?" Hightide exclamed stepping forward, "You heard what Preceptor said! We run the risk of a serious malfunction if we merge before his team as the process perfected!"

Kevlar yanked Hightide back by his shoulder, "Are you saying you're going to disobey a direct order from your commanding officer?!"

"At ease, Kevlar." Warzone said trying to stop a fight before it starts cause he could tell Hightide was getting worked up.

"But, sir! Hightide..." began Kevlar.

"AT EASE, SOLDIER!" Warzone barked this time. Kevlar immediately clamped his vocal processor closed. Warzone began to pass around his squad, "Hightide is only voiceing his concern and it's one I happen to share. Preceptor told me that as it stands right now once our minds enter gesalt mode and create the unifed persona there is no way of making sure that we would regain our independent selves once we returned to our seperate bodies. In brief we five would be nothing more then mindless husks. A good commander knows that in any battle he may end up sending his troups to die, thats the cost of battle. This is different, this is something I will not order you to do."

"So what ya fixin' to do, sir?" asked Shootout, returning to a full standing position.

"Take a vote." Warzone replied, "Way I see it there are two options. One, we merge, do what we have been trained to do which is protect lives of our fellow Autobots and in the process maybe risk our lives."

Shootout folded his arms, "And the other choice?"

"We keep fighting as is and run the risk of getting everyone here killed." He looked at Shootout first.

"I say merge."

"Kevlar?"

"Merge, sir!"

"Thunderbolt?"

"No guts, no glory. Merge."

"Hightide?"

Hightide looked conflicted. "It all comes down to acceptable loses doesn't it?"

Warzone nodded, "I don't like it anymore then you, son, but sometimes you have to deal with things you don't like in war."

"And we are definately at war and this is what we were modified for," Hightide said sadly, "Very well, i say merge."

Warzone patted Hightide's shoulder, "I feel the same." Taking a few steps so that he stood in the middle of the crater and solomnly said, "Armorbots...combine to form, Liberator."

Warzone began to float as his body folded to form the torso. Hightide and Kevlar walked forward and began shifting to create right and left legs respectively. Once they were in place the Warzone-torso settled down on top of them and locked. Thunderbolt then leaped up and formed the left arm as Shootout transformed into the right one. Both then locked into their places on the torso. Finally a noble looking visage rose from the torso locking into place as the gesalt's head. Once the process was complete, each limb let out compressed gas and settled into place.

Looking around, the gesalt Liberator finally announced his presense to the universe.

"I am Liberator and I live!!!"

[roadblaster]

Without thinking, Liberator raised his rifle to his shoulder and dropped to one knee, all in one fluid movement. Once in his firing position, not a single servo moved apart from those in his trigger finger. Shots rang out from his plasma-charged rifle, each one finding it's mark on Bruticus' compact torso, exactly where Liberator had wanted it to. He didn't know it, but within his complex cerebral circuitry, the hibernating shell program marked 'Warzone' buzzed contently.

This new gestalt had succeeded in getting Bruticus' attention. His simple 'direct route' programming made it hard to distract the Decepticon, but once you did, he rarely went back to his original task without first dealing with said distraction. Warzone had known this, having studied the intel. He had made sure that his team knew this too. He was no scientist and knew nothing of the finer points of combined personality transferral, but if all 5 personalities to be combined possessed information, then surely their combined form would too, wouldn't it??

In this case, yes, it did. Bruticus immediately halted ripping a defence turret from its foundations and turned towards this new mech. He thought he had dealt with the compounds five defenders but now a giant mech stood in their place. He attempted to understand the situation, but gave up within the third pica-breem. He would just do what he did with everything else he couldn't understand....

'BRUTICUS DESTROY!' screamed the Decepticon, dropping his shoulders and sprinting towards his target.

Liberator now switched the targetting of his fire towards Bruticus' right ankle. He seemed to instinctively know that the armour would be weakest there. It seemed to him obvious that the under-chassis of a jeep-bot would be easier to penetrate than that of a tank-bot. Whether or not he was right, his tactic had worked, and Bruticus collapsed towards him. Such was his speed though, that Bruticus still slammed into Liberator, leaving both of them tangled up amongst the rubble of the base.

What followed, were anyone there to witness it, (The lab's staff had long since fled under the cover of the Armorbots original assault) would be best described as a brutal, almost primal hand to hand fight, the likes of which the sector had not yet seen. The two giants traded violent body blows whilst attempting to rip the limbs off each other. Bruticus had attempted to drive Brawl's gun barrel into the stomach plating of liberator and the Combaticon's ground assault mech would obviously be spending some time on a med slab having it realigned. He wouldn't be alone. Each component of both mechs had taken damage that would have put them in a temporary stasis buffer had they not been merged. This was assuming that they could at least separate. the twisted couplings and hydraulic rams that each now possessed meant that not even that was certain now.

It was this sight that greeted the Skycons as they came within visual range. Before them lay a mass of grey rubble and smoking craters. In the midst of this were two giant mechs, still trying to tear each other's heads off, both covered in green, brown, grey and tan armour, making it difficult to differentiate between the two.

'Target both mechs.' ordered the larger mech, Payload.

'One them is one of ours boss' replied Freefall.

'Acceptable losses. Freefall, Scramble, attack pattern omega. come in low.' replied Payload in a stern, authorive voice.

'Affirmative' replied the two Decepti-jets in unison before nosediving towards their targets.

'Kamikaze, Jetwash, you follow me. Attack pattern Delta- strafing runs from multiple vectors.'

'Affirmative' they replied, again as one voice.

Scramble was the first to start firing. There was only one thing he hated more than Autobots and that was non flyers. He had no qualms about killing the Combaticons. Blast Off and Vortex had the potential to be decent mechs, but this just wasn't to be their day.

'Slag 'em' he said to himself as missile after missile sped towards his fellow Decepticon.

[Foley]

Both Liberator and Bruticus ceased their mechanoid wrestling match when then came under fire by the new comers. Bruticus, somewhere somehow in the recesses of his simple gesalt mind, reckonized the fliers as fellow Decepticons, that was the only thing that saved them from being victems of his rage if only barely as he use the better part of valor and extracted himself out of the fire zone. The compound Autobot was not so lucky.

Once Bruticus was out of their sights, the fliers concentrated their surprising and effective attack on Liberator. This, however, by no means meant that the massive robot simply stood there and let itself become a target. Shootout's canon mounted on Liberator's left arm was brought up to bear and began firing. The tiny synaptic surge that was Warzone noted that Shootout's tiny fragment was guiding Liberator's aim and scoreing some amazingly close hits when he did not manage to make direct ones. The only thing saving these unknown fliers was their incredible aerial agilty.

While Liberatior flailed about like a gorrilla swatting at angry bees, Bruticus began to renew his urban renewal efforts on the lab's main building. Again it appeared that the lab was doomed.