Arms and armor ready, Optimus Prime felt the steady surge of focus return to his spark.
Stepping down from the ring that served as his mobile weapons platform, he drew an energized blade in one hand and raised a heavy battle shield with the other, lunging straight toward Skygnaw.
Beyond Megatron, the warrior Optimus sought to neutralize most was the Decepticon standing before him.
Seeing that Optimus had bypassed the Requiem Blaster for a standard melee loadout, Skygnaw let out a quiet sigh of relief, though his combat protocols remained on high alert.
"Shockwave! Handle the perimeter, Optimus is mine!"
Skygnaw leaped down from the ruined rafters, meeting the Autobot leader mid-stride.
Shockwave's single crimson optic flashed once. He gave an emotionless nod.
The tactical division was clear. Skygnaw would lock down their strongest combatant, leaving Shockwave to suppress the rest of the Autobot detachment. He did not need to wipe them out, only ensure they could not interfere with the primary duel.
CLANG!
The initial impact sent a violent shockwave vibrating up Optimus's arm, widening his optics behind his faceplate.
Thud, thud.
Both warriors were forced a step back by the kinetic recoil. A split second later, a dark crimson longsword and an energized blue blade collided once again in a shower of brilliant sparks.
"Optimus, it seems your power hasn't progressed much over these past few years."
Skygnaw delivered the jab smoothly, testing the waters.
For Cybertronian warriors, true combat capability was anchored to the physical resilience and processing limits of their frames. At the Prime tier, beyond personal experience and martial reflexes, crossing the next threshold required ascending to a Supreme-tier frame.
Optimus was well aware of the Thirteen Primes, but reaching that ancient, semi-divine state was nearly impossible. Aside from the original Thirteen who were created in that tier, millions of years of Cybertronian history had never seen another warrior evolve to that height.
BOOM!
"Skygnaw, today you answer for Ultra Magnus!"
Optimus's optics burned with lethal intent behind his battle mask.
The fall of Ultra Magnus had stripped the Autobots of a crucial pillar, extinguishing their immediate hope of reclaiming their homeworld.
Optimus recognized that he had underestimated his opponent. He had assumed a newly ascended Prime could not match a battle-hardened veteran who had survived countless frontline campaigns. Even if he could not secure a fatal blow, he had expected to control the engagement with ease.
Only now did he realize how wrong that assumption had been.
"Starting to understand?" Skygnaw allowed himself a cold smirk. He had purposely yielded ground earlier, drawing Optimus into an overextension before unleashing a brutal counter-surge that pushed the Autobot commander onto the defensive.
Without that ancient relic lance in play, Skygnaw was fully confident in trading blows toe-to-toe. Having clashed with Optimus several times in the past—even when he was merely a Commander-tier warrior fighting in skirmish units—he understood the Autobot's attack angles and cadence intimately.
Across the courtyard, Shockwave transformed his left arm into a heavy particle cannon. Using the Driller's subterranean tunneling to reposition at will, he moved across the collapsed structures like a phantom. The power core on his back flared intermittently, laying down suppressing fire that kept the other Autobots pinned away from the central duel.
With Ultra Magnus gone, the Autobot unit lacked a heavy Commander-tier anchor to bridge the gap.
While the Driller matched the surrounding Autobots in individual scale, the calculating presence of Shockwave directing its movement changed the tactical equation entirely. Shockwave's ruthless precision was legendary from the war on Cybertron, and none of them wished to cross his firing lane unprotected.
"Dammit! We have to break through this line, we're getting nowhere!" Leadfoot bellowed, his temper flaring as he blasted a chunk of pulverized concrete.
Every previous operation had been a straightforward sweep, but being kept at bay by a single defensive post was grinding on his patience.
"Hold your ground, Leadfoot! Keep your faith in Prime!"
Sideswipe maintained his composure, confident that Skygnaw could not overcome their leader. Optimus taking down the enemy was only a matter of time; the Autobots held the broader strategic field.
Yet when Sideswipe cleaved through one of the Driller's secondary tendrils and glanced back toward the central plaza, his spark dropped.
Optimus and Skygnaw were locked in absolute parity. The Decepticon was giving up no ground whatsoever.
"Bumblebee, this isn't looking good!" Sideswipe called out, severing another shifting tendril while dodging a sweep of debris.
The Driller's combat doctrine was straightforward, but its modular structure was remarkably resilient. Built from hundreds of interlocking armored rings, its body could coil, expand, and spawn secondary drilling heads at will.
"Sideswipe, hold the line! I've already pinged the Aerialbots!" Roadbuster yelled over the din of weapons fire. "Keep them occupied, Silverbolt's flight wing is closing on our vector!"
Among the Autobots present, Roadbuster was the most determined to keep both Decepticons from escaping.
Skygnaw and Shockwave had orchestrated the deaths of Impactor and Twin Twist. Even with Blackarachnia absent, Roadbuster refused to let this chance slip away. When dealing with high-tier Decepticon commanders, standard rules of engagement took a backseat to total neutralization.
Optimus had not issued a formal tactical retreat, leaving field initiative open, but requesting immediate air support was well within their protocols.
"Good call, Roadbuster!" Bumblebee chimed through his audio frequency.
Against the lumbering bulk of the Driller, either Sideswipe or Bumblebee had half a dozen ways to dismantle its primary drives if left to their own devices. But with Shockwave watching their every move from atop the beast, any reckless advance would be met with pinpoint cannon fire. Fighting under such constraints was precisely what had pushed Leadfoot to his limit.
While the titans clashed inside the reactor grounds, a solitary figure slipped through the peripheral ruins toward a battered white sedan parked in the outer lot.
Vaskot had survived by pure circumstance.
When Skygnaw had breached the facility, Vaskot was standing well clear of the engine assembly. Sensing the imminent disaster, he had retreated through the emergency access tunnel, slipping past the initial crossfire.
Mindful of that strange, piercing cry he had heard earlier, Vaskot moved with extreme caution. Reaching his sedan, he pulled open the door, slid inside, and turned the ignition key.
Click.
Vroom—
The engine turned over smoothly. But as Vaskot gripped the steering wheel, a sudden movement in his rearview mirror made his blood run cold.
Dropping out of the overcast sky was a mechanical bird, diving directly toward the vehicle.
Laserbeak executed a tight roll, slamming onto the roof of the car. A twin-barrel machine gun deployed from his underside casing with a sharp mechanical snap.
Ratta-tatta-tat!
"No—!"
Vaskot's panicked shout was swallowed by the roar of gunfire as heavy-caliber rounds shredded the roof and tore through the cabin.
Thud.
Laserbeak hopped down onto the crumpled hood. Peering through the blood-spattered windshield at the lifeless form slumped over the steering wheel, the mechanical bird opened his beak in a raspy, metallic chuckle:
"Pleasure doing business with you."
Inside the complex, the clash between Skygnaw and Optimus Prime had reached its peak.
Blows traded with devastating speed, shockwaves rippling through the ruined foundations as neither warrior yielded an inch.
For Skygnaw, this duel was far more rewarding than it was for Optimus.
It was his first true trial against a combatant of identical standing. Optimus Prime was a formidable adversary—a veteran who had survived the most brutal theaters of the Great War.
Worse, Optimus was operating in a reinforced state, equipped with sustained flight drives and the implicit threat of the Requiem Blaster waiting on the field.
Through this prolonged exchange, Skygnaw had fully integrated his Prime-tier combat subroutines, cycling through his heavy weapons loadouts and gaining firsthand data on how high-tier frames operated at absolute limits. His tactical processing was refining itself in real time.
Adversity was the only true catalyst for martial growth; effortless victories merely bred complacency.
Before reaching the Prime tier, taking on Optimus Prime had felt like an insurmountable hurdle. Back then, encountering the Autobot leader meant executing immediate evasion routes or working as an auxiliary harasser.
Now, meeting Optimus head-on gave Skygnaw a clear, grounded assessment of his own parameters.
He had quietly arrived at the apex of the Cybertronian hierarchy. He no longer needed to look over his shoulder every time an Autobot battle group took the field.
Looking back on his days as a mid-tier officer under Starscream, dodging both enemy patrols and volatile superiors, he couldn't help but reflect on how far he had come.
I really had to walk a razor's edge to reach this point.
Even with his thoughts processing parallel calculations, Skygnaw's physical strikes never slowed. He caught a brief opening to assess Shockwave's sector.
The earlier clash between Shockwave and the Autobot vanguard had noticeably settled down. Recognizing that the outcome of the battle rested on the central duel, both sides had settled into a cautious rhythm.
Shockwave's cannon remained charged and tracking, but held its fire. Likewise, while Sideswipe and Bumblebee kept the Driller's outer tendrils at bay with precise slashes, neither made another attempt to close within Shockwave's immediate strike zone.
BANG!
Optimus caught Skygnaw with a heavy shield bash, sending him skidding back across the broken concrete.
Instead of irritation, a subtle, confident grin touched Skygnaw's faceplate.
Almost there. Just a little closer...
Gazing past Optimus toward the mobile weapons rack, Skygnaw masked his true focus, maintaining an aggressive frontline posture. Many tactical maneuvers failed in the final seconds; he could not afford to let Optimus anticipate his interest in the ancient lance.
Yet the battlefield shifted before he could make his move.
A high-altitude engine roar split the clouds as several combat aircraft tore across the horizon.
Jets bearing bold Autobot insignias.
Vroom—
The sudden sonic boom drew Skygnaw's optics upward, prompting Shockwave to glance toward the sky as well.
"The Aerialbots?"
Having fought them across centuries, Shockwave recognized the unit instantly.
The veteran aerial team had arrived with impeccable timing.
Shockwave turned his single optic toward Skygnaw, his posture inquiring whether it was time to withdraw.
Skygnaw held the field authority for this operation; Shockwave required his signal to break contact.
Their objective had never been to wipe out Optimus and his squad here; doing so would have completely derailed the overarching plan with Sentinel Prime, aside from the fact that neutralizing Optimus under these conditions was impractical.
Terrible timing, Skygnaw thought with a grimace, casting a final, reluctant glance toward the Requiem Blaster.
Optimus caught the subtle shift in focus, immediately barking over the tactical comms:
"Silverbolt! Secure my armory platform!"
Silverbolt broke formation instantly, angling his descent to touch down alongside the other four Aerialbots, forming a tight defensive perimeter around the weapons ring.
That single deployment closed the window entirely.
A single ancient relic isn't worth throwing away the broader board, Skygnaw reasoned, though a pang of frustration lingered in his processor.
The Aerialbots alone were manageable, but their combined form, Superion, was a heavyweight force he could not overlook.
He was holding Optimus in a dead heat because the field remained balanced. When two equal forces were locked at their limits, the slightest external variable could shatter the equilibrium.
At that point, the question would no longer be securing the relic, but whether he and Shockwave could disengage cleanly.
"Optimus, we're on site!"
Before Skygnaw could even process the aerial reinforcements, a heavy shuttle touched down on the perimeter, deploying another detachment of veteran Autobots.
Familiar faces and new arrivals hit the dirt in rapid succession: Ironhide, Hound, Dino, Ratchet.
All veteran combatants.
Skygnaw swept his optics across the field. The window was closed; remaining here was no longer viable.
He had no secondary reinforcements inbound. Grindor and Dreadwing were assigned to separate covert operations under Megatron's personal seal, leaving only Shockwave and Laserbeak on this deployment.
"Shockwave, we break contact."
Skygnaw stowed his energized broadsword without haste, stepped back toward Shockwave, and vaulted onto the Driller's armored carapace.
Throughout the transition, the gathered Autobots, including Optimus Prime, held their positions with weapons raised, wary of a hidden ambush or explosive countermeasure.
"Understood," Shockwave replied in his steady, emotionless monotone.
The Driller's massive form coiled inward. Its tiered, alloy jaws ground against the bedrock, tearing a cavernous breach through the earth as the machine began its rapid subterranean descent.
As the ground rumbled and the titans sank beneath the broken foundations, Skygnaw retracted his faceplate, meeting Optimus Prime's burning optics with a silent, measured message:
Optimus... we will meet again.
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