1,2,3,4, Dynobot Marine Corps.

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The Players-
Sludge, the Dynobot Marine Corps Commander- f-for-feasant-design.deviantart.com/gallery/29053936#/d2w7tqa

Synchro, his second in command- f-for-feasant-design.deviantart.com/gallery/29053936?offset=48#/d37p288

Salvo, the hulking brute of a transport/artillery platform- f-for-feasant-design.deviantart.com/gallery/29053936#/d33lcal

Scald, naval artillery- f-for-feasant-design.deviantart.com/gallery/29053936#/d37p2n4

Scupper, Demolitions- f-for-feasant-design.deviantart.com/gallery/29053936#/d33laj5

Slice and Swipe, Dynobot Clones- f-for-feasant-design.deviantart.com/gallery/29053936#/d33laj5
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Slobber, the commando- f-for-feasant-design.deviantart.com/gallery/29053936?offset=24#/d37p2k8

Smelt, the lava cannon- f-for-feasant-design.deviantart.com/gallery/29053936?offset=24#/d37p2go

Squall, the submarine- f-for-feasant-design.deviantart.com/gallery/29053936?offset=48#/d33l3d5

Stagnant, All terrain, amphibious assault- f-for-feasant-design.deviantart.com/gallery/29053936?offset=48#/d33l325

Spine, Dynobot Engineer- f-for-feasant-design.deviantart.com/gallery/29053936?offset=24#/d33l550

Spike Dynobot Medic- f-for-feasant-design.deviantart.com/gallery/29053936?offset=24#/d33l5f6

Grimlock, Dynobot supreme commander- f-for-feasant-design.deviantart.com/gallery/29053936#/d2w7u48

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The mission was go.

Autobot Intelligence had discovered that Decepticon scientists had found away of refining Energon into a more potent form- a move that would surely bolster their war effort and make the Autobot's quest for peace even the harder.

Autobot Command wanted this facility taken out quickly, and that meant only one thing- The Dynobots. 60-odd mechs who, although being far from model Autobot citizens, were ironically probably the Autobot's best chance of victory.

The Attack would come in three waves. Firstly Swoop and the mechs in the Dynobot Aerospace division would carpet bomb the area, clearing the mines that had been placed there to provide an extra dimension to the areas already not inconsiderable defences. The Decepticons had been using minefields since the earliest days of the conflict- They were a primitive but effective weapon designed to emphasise the supposed 'superiority' of the flying Decepticons over the surface bound Autobots. Ratchet dispised the weapons, as did Autobot command. Only one Autobot saw them as a means of fighting the Decepticons at their own game, and that was General Grimlock. He'd had one of his own troops, the Demolitions expert Slab fitted with a pulse-mine laying drill aparatus.

The next line of attack would be a two pronged assault- The main thrust of which would be performed by the Demolition and Infantry divisions led by Slag and Snarl. Their target was the lab itself- a heavily defended chunk of reinforced, armour clad Decepticon architecture that would prove a tough nut to crack. Numerous Decepticon battalions were stationed inside it, both guarding it and undergoing procdures that would allow them to process this new, more efficient energon. The odds were against them, but no-one was better than cracking open buildings than Slag's team, and the 20 mechs under Snarl's command were reknowned for their ability to 'mop up' Decepticon troops as well.

The second target of this assault was the one that concerned Sludge and his troops- the storage facility. His team was primed and ready to go. Sludge stared at the comms panel that was housed in his wrist, awaiting the signal they were all waiting for.

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Swoop's airmechs had done their part- the open areas surrounding the facility were ablaze- the explosions could be heard by the marines as they lay in waiting, hidden. Synchro himself was a flyer and could appreciate what they had done. He wished that the 11 of them could stick around and help out with the main assault. They weren't the strongest of mechs, but each and every one of them was a capable fighter, thought Synchro, and with a target this large he thought that they could use all the help they could get. It wasn't to be though- Swoop and his unit had been ordered to fly straight to the Hyrax Spires after their last sortie to provide air cover for a besieged Autobot division. General Grimlock took perserve pleasure in Autobot Command's constant requests for the use of his aerial unit. Only he had had the foresight to see the advantage in a well drilled, destructive air unit, and he liked it when the Autobots came begging.

Salvo too, was conspicuous by his absense. He wasn't defending the Hyrax Spires, but Moon Base Two. Word had been recieved that Decepticon troops were planning an assault and the massive Salvo had been placed in orbit to welcome them to that sector of space. Synchro thought about Salvo. About how useful he'd be here too. About how he was only one of a few mechs he knew that could go toe to toe with Devastator and give him a run for his money. It seemed to Synchro that the deck was well and truly stacked against them.

A welcome distraction arrived in the form of a tiny, almost inaudible tone from his comms array- the signal to attack.

Synchro, Slice and Squall stood on the deck of Scald under a temporarily erected holo-shroud designed to make the Dynobot look like a Decepticon Fuel Scow as he sailed straight towards the wharf where Decepticon loading drones were performing the mundane task of unloading cargo cannisters containing the raw materials needed to refine the Energon.

Scald sailed towards his target, his sensors on edge. He had very little faith in the abilities of the shroud's designer, the somewhat erratic Spine. Scald wanted to be ready for whenever the device inevitably failed. His thermal cannon was charged, vibrating with the strain of containing its pent up enrgy, and his other turrets were rotating in unison, locking on to a target momentarily before sweeping around to the next one.

Beneath Scald, in the torrent of destabilised matter than formed the water ways of the planet Cybertron, Scupper and Swipe were acting out there part of the plan. Swipe had swam ahead, disabling the detection grid by hacking into its cicuitry and inserting a section of code he had created himself. To anyone watching the grid's readouts in a security bunker, it would seem like just another night. Scupper, meanwhile, was going to work on the quayside drilling holes into its imposing reinforced structure with the impervium drillbit than emerged from his right wrist when he retracted his hand. He had already drilled 5 holes and stuffed them with explosives. 10 more and whichever poor soul was on the other side of the wall when he detonated them would have to contend with millions of tonnes of destabilised matter flooding in and destroying them and everyting else that was in their with them. He knew that the bubbles created by his drill could possibly give his position away, but hoped that anyone on the quayside above him would have their attention elsewhere, namely the loud, and distinctly uncovert assault performed by 30 Dynobots on the other side of the compound.

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Sludge too, was thankful of the diversion as he silently climbed up out of the dark liquid and out onto the jetty that led to the compound's back door. Alongside him were Slobber, Smelt and Stagnant, and he was glad they were there. They weren't just his troops, but his friends too. He nodded to the three of them, a previously agreed signal, and he, Slobber and Stagnant ran towards the bulkhead at the end of the path, ducking down as they ran to keep within the shadow of the structure. Once in place they split up, Sludge turning to the right and the others bearing left. With their backs flat against the structure they each charged up the cryo charges the were carrying and waited. Smelt remained in position and transformed. His lava cannon was loaded and primed and he directed a stream of pressurised molten metal at the access hatch. He monitored the hatch and was pleased to note that its reinforced hinges were begininning to buckle. No one else would have noticed these tiny hairline cracks, but Smelt had an eye for such things. He stopped firing, transformed, and immediately went into a sprint towards the hatch.

On either side of it his team mates sprang into action, slamming their charges into the melting door and stepping back as they exploded. The Dynobots had learnt that this type of doorway was all but impervious to artillery and explosives and had come up with another way of cracking them. Ironhide had been using Liquid Nitrogen to fight Decepticons for years, so it seemed only natural that going from one extreme of temperature to another in a short period of time might do the trick.

It had. Milliseconds after the cryo-charges detonated, Smelt's broad shoulder slammed into the door and it buckled inwards on its hinges as the other 3 marines rushed in after him. Neither one of them knew what lay in wait for them inside the bunker, but it was surely better to be in there than outside. The stream of glowing molten metal and 3 small, but noticable explosions, had alerted the guards and the area was covered in fire from the gunners in their sentry turrets. The battle of Kyllax Docks had begun.

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This outbreak of fire was the second signal that Synchro and his team had been waiting for, and Scald swung his large thermal cannon towards the cluster of pipes thatrose from the ground and travelled up the wall and through into the processing plant. The loading drones were not intelligent mechs, in fact they were barely sentient, but even they knew something was up. The scow they were waiting to unload started to buckle, its surfaces cracking with static. Its port side contracted while its starboard side rapidly elongated before folding in on itself until nothing of the ship remained. In its place was a metallic grey vessel with little or no load space. The drones followed protocol and went into system hibernation until a suitable vessel arrived.

The 20 or so motionless mechs were easy targets for Synchro Slice and Squall, dispatched so quickly in fact that they had performed the task in the time it took Scald to fire on the piping, ignite the contents and transform. Each and every one of them knew that harder targets would be found inside, but appreciated the fact that this part of the plan had gone quickly and efficiently. They were standing on an area of ground, which, if the plan went correctly, wouldn't be there much longer. Scupper had a habit of somewhat overdosing his charges, and they didn't want to be anywhere near here when the demolitions expert pressed the switch.

The force of the rapidly expanding, super-heated exhaust gas tore the piping from its housing, and it twisted and buckled as it strained to cope with its internal strife. It finally gave way and exploded, taking a section of the wall with it. Synchro barely had time to notice that the crack was smaller than the one in the simulations had been, but he was pleased to see his mechs carry on regardless. Squall had jammed the proton-ram into the crevice and gave the signal for Slice to activate it. The little Dynobot had done so and the aperatus expanded to triple its original length. The Dynobots now had a second piint of entry to their target.

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Beneath these events, in the depths of the dock, things were not going well. The plan had thus far gone without a hitch, but events were conspiring against Scupper and Swipe. An electrical storm the previous vorn had stuck the surface of the dock and had given it a momentary ionic charge. And so it was that a lone Decepticon service engineer, sent to investigate the effect that this would have on the defense grid, was on hand to see Swipe attach plasma cord to the doors of the dry dock. Unseen, undetected and unaware of the batle above him, the lowly engineer unholstered his blaster and shot Swipe in the back. He was a Decepticon through his political choices rather than any militaristic ones, and had never fired a blaster in anger before. He noted how bubbles of air and oil streamed from the wound while the Autobot slowly sunk away.

Scupper had enlisted into an army for military reasons. He was a fighter, highly skilled with explosives, but not the best with a blaster or an energon sword. He didn't give this a moments thought as he cleaved the Decepticon in two. The only thought going through his mind was what Grimlock had told him when he enlisted- 'You fight one Dynobot, you fight us all'. Scupper was concerned for his team mate and swam down to the stricken Swipe. He was badly wounded and would live to fight another battle, but was in no shape to play any further part in this one.

Events had made Scupper behind schedule and he had only managed to plant 12 of the 15 charges within their holes. He didn't have the time to drill another three holes so just attached the remaining charges in a cluster where he thought they would do the most damage. He then transformed and towed Swipe back to the extraction point. He would monitor the situation from there.

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'Surprise!!' yelled Smelt as he hurled the twisted door straight through the guardian drone that rushed towards him. They were in now, and had to find their way towards the centre of the facility. They faught quickly and efficiently and saw off wave after wave of guardian drones, stopping only shortly to brace themselves against the walls as the building shook on its foundations. It was far to early for Scupper to have detonated his explosives, it was far more likely that Slag's demolition crew were the source of these blows thought Sludge. They'd been known to pulverise a building to an almost molecular level before.

Sludge had expected more resistence. They all had. They had the element of surprise but Intelligence said that the facility was full of seasoned Decepticon warriors, not these guardian drones. He wasn't the brightest of mechs, but even he could sense that someone somewhere had got something wrong and accessed his comms panel.

'Synchro, you there?' he asked. He knew that Synchro was the tactician of the squad, hell this was his plan they were following. Surely Synchro would know what was going on, wouldn't he?

'Yes Commander, on schedule', Typically saying only what needed to be said. 'Your team?'

'We good, Synchro. We only got drones here. What you got?'

'Drones?' repeated Synchro, 'We've got Sweeps this end!'

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Synchro's unit had made good ground in their assault of the facility. Scald and Squall were amongst the larger of the Dynobots and rarely took prisoners. They were a blunt instrument, slamming into the guards and setting about them with their energon swords. Slice was living up to his name, acrobatically jumping out from between his two team mates and using his twin energon knives to take out his fair share of Decepticons. Synchro witnessed all of this from the back of the group, were he hovered some thirty feet from the ground- the perfect position from which to take pot shots at the facility's defenders.

They had finally worked their way to a large door at the centre of the area. Each of them had memorised the lay out and knew that this was the entry point to the cavernous storage hall containing the very thing they had been sent to destroy. They couldn't call on a lava/cryo charge to open it, and Scald's size meant that he couldn't transform and use his thermal cannon. They'd have to do this the old fashioned way.

They simply ignored it and started ripping sections of plating off the surrounding wall. It took time, and Synchro provided covering fire while his larger team mates went to work. Eventually a hole large enough for Slice to fit through was created and he slid through, knives at the ready, while the others peeled back reinforcing beams so that they too could fit through.

'Seal it up! Seal it up! yelled Slice as he scrambled back out of the hole.

His teammates trusted Slice enough not to have to asked questions, and immediately started packing the gap with torn slabs of metal. Synchro had just enough time to peer through and see row and row of identical blue and grey Depecticons before his comms signal erupted to life.

'Slag it!' he murmered before taking the signal.

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This was unexpected. They knew that the target contained a considerable Decepticon presence.....far more than the scientists and guard drones they had encountered so far, but this was a 'worst case scenario'. The Sweeps were famed as the epitome of decepticon design- ruthless killing machines without equal, whatever weaknesses they had were easily negated by their strength in numbers. On another day Synchro would have relished the chance to fight them, as he knew that a dynobot would more than be a match for a Sweep in one on one combat, but today, he had only a handful of mechs and there were how many of them? 80? 100? he couldn't tell, their rigid lines of formation went back into the shadows where Primus only knows how many more lay hidden. He just hoped that they weren't running on the refined energon they'd been sent to liberate/destroy.

Sludge and his team knew what had to be done, and doubled back the way they had come. Whatever resistance was in this sector either lay dead at their feet, or had long since fled. They couldn't be too careful though and edged around towards Synchro's unit. The corridors were filled with smoke, either as some rudimentary defense measure or from the discharge of their weapons, maybe a mixture of both. They had each recieved only modest wounds in the fight to get this far and did not wish to recieve anymore before the met up with the rest of the unit, so slowly edged their way along, looking down the line of sight reticles of their weapons. As they turned a corner, the four of them all turned quickly, snapping their weapons towards a new target that emerged from the smoke and debris.

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'Hold fire' yelled Sludge, recognising the silouette of one of his own mechs, Scupper. The demolitions mech had seen a group of Decepticons follow Sludge's team into the bunker and had decided to follow them in and stop them from getting in the way. A few well tossed grenades had seen that they hadn't.

As the newly joined 5-piece worked their way towards their stricken colleagues, Scupper informed his commander of Swipe's injuries and that the little Dynobot was now in the hands of the unot's medic, Spike. Sludge kept Scupper up to date with the situation inside the facility and Scupper was not happy to hear that some Sweeps had made an appearance. They encountered a few Decepticon blockades on the way there but these were no match for Slobber's twin pellet cannon or Stagnant's lightning gun.

They eventually made their way through and found the rest of the
unit. Scald was putting all of his weight against a slab of metal that they'd ripped off another section of wall and used to block the hole. Synchro and Slice were sticking their blasters through any gaps that presnted themselves and firing blindly. Squall lay sat upright against the wall behind them, his right shoulder badly damaged by laser fire. Unable to use this arm, he had transferred his torpedo cannon to his left hand and was using it to fire shots either way down the corridor to keep what remained of the guardian drones at bay.

It was only now that they were all together, reunited with Scupper that anyone thought to mention the high explosive charges and whether or not their destructive force would be making an appearance anytime soon. Scupper merely shrugged in the way he always did, conveying the opinion that demolitions was not an exact science and it would happen when it happened.

It happened. At first there was a distant supressed bang, followed by low level rumble as the building started to vibrate. The vibration greww more and more powerful, causing sections of ceiling to fall down upon them.

The destruction of the dock wall beneath the surface was originally planned to flood the lower levels of the compound, destroying whoever or whatever was down there. It was believed that the main troop quarters were in this area and that flooding the area would be a quick and effective way of eliminating the majority of the troops there. As it had turned out, the majority of the troops were housed in the storage bay that lay before the Marines now, so the walls destruction would not have the effect that they had hoped it would.

Of course, what is planned and what actually happens are very rarely the same thing at so it was that of all the Dynobots, only Scupper knew that he had used 150% of the 'recommended' amount of explosive instead of his usual 110%, just to make sure.
Sludge didn't know this, Synchro didn't know this, the Sweeps didn't know this either, but right about now, they were beginning to feel its effects.

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The extra explosives had ruptured and cracked some sections of deck plating. This along with the force applied by millions of tonnes of unstable matter flooding in had greatly affected the structural integrity of the storage hall that the Sweeps were occupying. Parts of the floor were ripping apart and being shot up into the air as if from a cannon, proppelled by the force of the liquid beneath them.

Scald had let his slab of metal fall to the ground, more occupied with the ceiling falling down upon him. Through the gap the marines could see down into a room that was rapidly being filled not just with unstable matter, but also chaos.

Before the explosion, the Sweeps were merely protecting the refined energon against a handful of attackers. Now they were fighting for their lives. A wounded animal is a dangerous one, and the marines were now positioned at the Sweep's only exit point.

The Sweeps were known for their unfaltering, almost feral instinct in combat, but this was no longer the case. Half of them were scaling the walls, throwing their clones in front of them down into the surging liquid to make better their own escape. others transformed and attempted to fly out, hitting each other and rebounding into other versions of themselves clambering up the walls. With any luck, they would tear themselves apart, but the Dynobots were trained not to depend on luck.

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'Stand back!' ordered Sludge, before getting down on one knee and aiming a round at the area around the gap with his mortar tube. The other took his lead and started firing too.

Once the gap was large enough, Sludge shouted 'Get in there!' and they burst through the wall and into the cavernous room. There were hundreds of crazed Decepticons in there, but the marines had no choice but to take the fight to them. The room was large enough and now contained enough fluid for those Dynobots with aquatic forms to use them. Scald was the first through the breach and hurled himself off the gantry that circled the upper portion of the room. Transforming in mid air, his frigate slammed into the water's surface and threw up destructive waves in every direction.

Exposure to destabalised matter would not be fatal in normal circumstances. Its pressure could crush a mech if he got deep enough, but simple exposure was not a problem. What was a problem was the great amount of power it could generate under conditions like this- torrents of it slamming mechs against falls, crippling them or crushing their armour in on their own internal systems. It was this situation in which Scald now found himself. He was not concerned though, he was buit for this and his adversaries were not. As his fellow marines plunged into the surrounding maelstrom, he instinctively knew that they would either be operating beneath him or beside him. If anything was up in the air, he'd kill it.

Scupper, Squall and Stagnant were the next ones in, each one firing all around them on their down and transforming as soon as they hit the water. Stagnant had managed to grab hold of a Sweep on the way down and tore its head off as he triggered his own transformation process.

Slice dived down into the room and was broadsided by a Sweep who had transformed into his hovership mode. He was knocked towards Scald and crashed into the rear desk where he lay prone. The Sweep instictively went in for the kill, his core programming overiding his own survival instinct. As he transformed upon the end of his own dive, scarlet talons at the ready, Scald's rear turrets found their target and the Sweep was obliterated at close range.

The hole they had torn now gave the Sweeps an even larger means of escape. The destabalised matter appeared to be as high as it was ever going to get, but they still wanted out. Sludge, Slobber, Smelt and Synchro remained where they were firing as much through the void as was possible. There was plenty of loose metal around following the ceiling's partial collapse and Smelt tranformed back into his cannon mode and started grinding up whatever was beneath him before internally melting it down and firing the molten metal at whoever came close to breaking though the curtain of fire provided by the others.

The mission had only started 20 minutes ago, but it seemed like enire vorns had passed.

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The surface of the mater was no longer the swirling mass it once was. Sweeps, or parts of them, lay on the surface momentarily before sinking under the golden, glittering liquid. There were still enough of them operational to make things difficult, but the odds were certainly better off than when Synchro had first gazed upon them standing in their neat formation, silent sentries waiting for an attack that might never come.

The Dynobots HAD come though, and they'd come to do a job. The huge tanks of refined energon were slung from the roof at the back of the hall. Their plating was tough enough to withstand the blasts of batle and repeated strikes by Sweeps slamming into them as they flew around trying to escape. A few had cracks in them, allowing some energon to leak into the matter below, but they would need to destroy the tanks if they wanted the mission to be a success.

Up above the water, guarding the escape point, Synchro began to hatch a plan. A few Sweeps had made it through the hole, but they were no match for four Dynobots with their eye in. Sludge, Slobber and Smelt were big mechs and not many got the better of them. There was a lull in the fighting when Smelt had to weld the actual door shut after one enterprising Sweep had triggered its access mechanism, but over all the battle was won.

Whilst his colleagues took care of whatever was left within the liquid below, Synchro gave the nod to Sludge, before transforming and flying directly over to the tanks. Once there he attached a limpet grenade to each of the four tanks at the section where they met the struts that connected them to the ceiling and then he, and the rest of the Marines retreated to a safe distance while the explosives did their job.

BOOM!
BOOM!
BOOM!
BOOM!

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The marines made their way back to their extraction point, and then on to meet the rest of the Dynobots just outside Iacon. The mission was a complete success. The Demolitions crew had gained access to the labratory before making their way through to the powerplant and destroying it, as agreed. The Infantry unit had dispatched any resistance they encountered with only minimal wounds recieved. It appears that General Grimlock himself had joined them on the assault. Spike was busy at work realigning a couple of twisted rotator housings, and Swipe was still under supervision, but overall the Dynobots had come out of it pretty well- all other damage was mostly superficial.

Grimlock called over Sludge to join him and Slag.

'The powerplant was destroyed?' he asked Slag.

'Completely', his demolitions commander replied, 'and we had go at some other buildings too!'

'Good.' said the General. And you Sludge? was your mission a success?'.

'Yes General, we did good. Got what we came for.'

Behind him, Scald sailed down a large duct towards the Dynobot base. As the Three Dynobot officers watched him, he activated a second, smaller holo-shroud designed to mask the presence of four large, pock marked and charred containers of refined energon that Grimlock would have studied, replicated and put to use making the Dynobots an even more destructive force. One that one day, may even be strong enogh to take control of Cybertron itself.