Amid a thunderous roar of grinding gears and flipping armor plates, Soundwave completed its transformation and rose to its full humanoid height.
Through its optical sensors, it surveyed the unfamiliar port sprawled beneath it.
From the scout Barricade and a handful of grunts, it had learned that none of them knew why they had suddenly materialized here.
That, in itself, didn't particularly trouble Soundwave.
The universe was full of unknowns. Spatial displacement technology was rare, but it was hardly without precedent in Cybertron's long history of war.
What actually unsettled it was something else entirely.
When it had attempted to transform into helicopter mode and ascend for aerial reconnaissance, it had discovered that the entire airspace above this region was sealed — as if an invisible, indestructible dome had been slammed down over the whole area like an upturned bowl.
Even its prized pulse-shockwave cannon, fired directly at that barrier, had done nothing more than send a few rings of ripples shimmering across the surface.
"This is not Autobot technology," Soundwave stated, its electronic eyes flickering red.
"If they had something like this, they would have taken Cybertron back long ago."
Then... humans?
Honestly, Soundwave found it difficult to connect this level of technological capability to the insects crawling on this planet — creatures that hadn't even managed to leave their own solar system.
And yet, when it had come back online and finished reconfiguring, it had indeed spotted a few scurrying human vermin near its feet.
And the port district sealed inside this dome looked, from every angle, like a space that had been deliberately constructed...
While Soundwave was still mulling this over.
"Commander."
A harsh screech of tires erupted below.
Barricade — disguised as a Ford Mustang police cruiser — came tearing toward it with the small robot Frenzy riding alongside, both of them transforming at Soundwave's feet.
"My radar has picked up several organic signals closing in on our position."
Barricade paused, then added, "And one of the life signatures is showing a marked deviation from standard carbon-based biology. It appears to be... some kind of aberration."
"An aberration?"
Soundwave let out a cold sneer. It didn't matter who had set up this bizarre energy dome.
"If they dare cage the mighty Decepticons like animals..."
"Then grind everything in this port that's still breathing into pulp."
The words had barely left its vocalizer.
A black shape materialized like a phantom — without any warning whatsoever — atop a shipping container directly above Barricade's head.
"Big talk for a tin can."
Oomori Yakumo, dressed in a white suit, eyes bloodshot from extreme hunger, looked down at the Decepticons below with cold contempt.
He bent all ten fingers backward at an unnatural angle, producing a rapid series of sharp cracks.
The sight of these metal constructs that had appeared from nowhere pushed his already fraying temper — born of being trapped in this place — straight past its breaking point.
Not a single trace of food in the air. Nothing but the nauseating stench of machine oil and rotting metal flesh.
"I'm half-insane from hunger, and I don't have the patience to play house with a bunch of toys."
Four thick, scaled kagune erupted from Oomori Yakumo's back like a nest of vipers, thrashing wildly through the air.
"Get out of my sight before I decide to scrap you for parts."
"Ignorant carbon-based insect."
"You're not retreating — you're walking toward me?"
Barricade unleashed a grating laugh.
Its bone-crusher saw snapped out from its right arm and it launched itself upward with savage force, bringing the blade screaming down toward Oomori Yakumo's skull!
"You're asking for it!"
Killing intent flared in Oomori Yakumo's eyes. He flickered sideways in an instant — his half-kakuja state granting him a terrifying burst of speed — and whipped two of his kagune around like a pair of razor-tipped spears, driving them straight into Barricade's chest!
"CLANG!!"
The collision rang out like a struck bell.
The kagune — capable of punching through reinforced concrete — slammed into Barricade's Cybertronian armor and managed only to tear a deep gash that exposed the internal circuitry beneath, showering the area in blinding electric sparks.
The sheer rebound force sent a tearing, searing pain ripping through the roots of Oomori Yakumo's kagune.
"What?!"
Both Oomori Yakumo and Barricade were stunned.
But before Oomori Yakumo could even process his shock —
Soundwave had already raised its chest plate, training its massive pulse-shockwave cannon directly at the area where Oomori Yakumo stood.
"Purge commencing."
A cold mechanical tone rang out.
"BOOM——!!"
A blinding blue energy pulse erupted outward with devastating, unstoppable force.
The savage shockwave sent scrap metal and chunks of debris billowing in every direction.
Oomori Yakumo watched in horror as his prized half-kakuja armor — the armor he was so proud of — was instantly carbonized before the sheer, overwhelming power of the blast and began to flake away, burning off like paper thrown into open flame.
"AAAAAAGH——!!"
Oomori Yakumo let out a bloodcurdling scream. More than half his body was catastrophically charred. He was hurled backward like a shredded ragdoll and crashed violently into a heap of discarded steel.
Barricade, though its armor had absorbed the shockwave, had been briefly stunned by the earlier exchange and suffered a momentary full-body lock-up.
"Pathetic scrap."
Soundwave lowered its cannon barrel.
Now.
"Move in!!"
Ryuuen Kakeru's roar burst from the shadows on the flank.
"SZZZT — SZZZT—!"
Two beams of deep-blue laser rope shot out in a pincer formation from a blindspot in the geometry of the battlefield!
No ballistic delay. No need to lead the target.
Before Barricade could react, the laser ropes had already coiled tight — lashing it and the wildly thrashing, desperately regenerating Oomori Yakumo in the rubble together into one immobilized bundle.
An instant later, a laser rope fired by Horikita Suzune snapped around Soundwave and pulled taut.
"Beautiful!"
Two hundred meters from the battlefield, at the top of a tall lighthouse.
Sakayanagi Arisu sat quietly on a wooden crate, the absurdly large X-SHOTGUN braced in front of her.
Through the scope, she locked onto the two massive figures bound below.
"One shot, two kills. Check and mate, gentlemen."
The faintest smile curved her lips as she squeezed the trigger without hesitation.
"BANG——!!"
Two shots rang out.
A gravity wave several times more powerful than a standard X-GUN detonated directly on Barricade and Oomori Yakumo!
"No——!" Oomori Yakumo's despairing shriek was cut off instantly.
His ravaged body — stripped of its kakuja protection — and Barricade's Cybertronian alloy armor were both obliterated under the crushing impact of the enhanced cannon, shredded in an instant into a rain of blood and a shower of metal fragments.
"We did it!" Ryuuen Kakeru licked his lips, eyes gleaming with excitement.
That brief flash of triumph lasted exactly one second.
"Barricade... you worthless inferior lifeforms!!"
Having watched its companion get annihilated before its eyes, Soundwave plunged into total berserker fury.
The massive rotary blades on its back ejected and became a high-speed death-saw, tearing through the laser net trying to restrain it — along with a sizable chunk of the ground beneath — in one savage sweep.
"RRRRRZZZT—!"
Then Scrapper burst out from behind it and bored straight into the ground.
Soundwave raised the heavy-caliber autocannon on its arm, deployed the electromagnetic railgun, aimed directly at the cover sheltering Ryuuen Kakeru and Horikita Suzune, and opened up with indiscriminate suppressing fire.
"Everyone get clear!!"
Ichinose Honami's eyes went wide with desperation. She stomped the concrete underfoot and launched herself forward, trying to get to them in time.
But it was too late.
"DA-DA-DA-DA-DA——!"
The furious electromagnetic barrage shredded the shipping container cover in an instant.
Faced with that absolute wall of firepower, the normally silent Yamada Albert let out a roar and threw his massive frame directly in front of Ryuuen Kakeru as a living shield.
"POP-POP-POP!"
But even the most powerful physique among high schoolers was tissue paper against an autocannon.
Yamada's body was torn through in an instant and dissolved into blue light.
"Albert!!"
Ryuuen Kakeru's eyes went bloodshot. He raised his Y-GUN and tried to return fire in a last, furious stand — only for a stray round to punch straight through his chest a heartbeat later.
On the other side, Horikita Suzune had not yet been touched by the autocannon, but she was closest to Soundwave — close enough that the near-range shockwave alone liquefied her internal organs. She coughed up a mouthful of blood and faded away, her eyes filled with bitter, unyielding frustration.
In just a few seconds, a formation that had been perfect moments ago was torn to pieces by Soundwave.
"Unforgivable..."
Watching her companions vanish one by one into flickers of blue light, Ichinose Honami's eyes burned crimson.
The muscle fibers of her Combat Suit groaned and creaked as her raging emotions drove them to maximum tension. The ring of pale blue light around her frame began to pulse erratically.
Just as she was about to throw caution to the wind and charge—
"Don't lose your head. Look before you strike. Rage makes you stupid."
Chris's voice reached her from just beside her.
His knees bent slightly, and the concrete under his feet fractured in an instant.
He launched himself skyward, clearing over ten meters of height, and landed a foot squarely on one of Soundwave's thrashing mechanical arms — using it as a stepping stone.
"What?!" Soundwave's optical lens snapped shut in reflex.
The next instant.
The black combat blade in Chris's hand extended in a flash — a bolt of black lightning — and drove with perfect precision straight through Soundwave's chest-mounted autocannon, punching through and shattering the glowing Spark within.
With a shriek of sparks, the storied Soundwave seized up and collapsed with a earth-shaking crash.
Hundreds of layers of Heart of Steel, amplified by the Combat Suit, seemed like overkill — Chris had honestly expected this to take a bit more effort. Maybe one more item.
He shook his head.
He landed lightly and, in the same smooth motion, used the flat of his blade to knock on the ankle joint of a Decepticon grunt that came rushing at him from the side.
"CRACK!"
The two-meter-plus mechanical grunt instantly lost its footing, dropped to one knee, and exposed the Spark in its chest.
Chris didn't finish it off. He turned to look at Ichinose instead:
"Do you see it? Since they're humanoid, the joints in the lower body and the energy core in the chest are their weak points."
"Don't try to brute-force your way through steel. Use your head."
Ichinose Honami choked back her grief and understood in an instant.
She drew a deep breath, her silhouette blurring into a dark afterimage. She slipped past a sweeping burst from another grunt and brought her long blade up in a rising slash from below.
"Reverse-draw — Sever!"
The blade flashed, and the grunt's leg joints were severed clean. Ichinose followed through with a backhand thrust, driving the blade precisely into the center of its chest.
With Chris providing fire support from the side and calling out weak points, Ichinose finally pushed the Combat Suit's mobility to its absolute limit.
And yet, staring at the field of mechanical wreckage around her, she felt nothing remotely close to joy.
Ryuuen, Horikita, Albert... the casualties were devastating.
"Senpai." Ichinose was breathing hard. "We need to go support Sakayanagi-san's group — the mechanical scorpion that separated from that helicopter earlier has disappeared!"
At that same moment.
At the watchtower on the edge of the port.
Sakayanagi Arisu watched through her scope as a red dot labeled as a "Threat" blinked steadily on her display, closing in on their position.
"It's the mechanical scorpion released from that helicopter earlier!"
Sakayanagi's expression tightened slightly. "Kamuro, Karuizawa — keep your Y-GUNs ready. Prepare to intercept."
"How are we supposed to intercept it?! It's underground — we can't even aim at it!" Karuizawa Kei's grip on her gun was drenched in sweat, her face pale as chalk.
Kamuro Masumi bit down hard on her lip. "If it dares to surface — even for just one second of lag..."
Sakayanagi glanced at her. "Exactly. So right now we're gambling."
"Gambling that this scorpion-bot will choose to strike rather than run out the clock, or just bring the whole lighthouse down on top of us."
"If it shows its head — even for a single second of exposed lag..."
Sakayanagi pressed her eye back to the scope, her slender finger resting lightly on the trigger, trained on the base of the tower.
"Between the Y-GUN and the X-SHOTGUN, we still have a fighting chance."
"RRRRRUMBLE——!!"
Before the words were even out of her mouth, the entire lighthouse lurched with a violent shudder!
A grinding, shrieking sound of metal being tortured came from beneath their feet — as if some enormous subterranean beast was gnawing and tearing at the tower's very foundation in a frenzy.
"Ahh—!"
Kamuro Masumi and Karuizawa Kei were both thrown to the floor and had to grab the railing in a white-knuckle grip just to keep from sliding off.
Sakayanagi Arisu was also pitched off her perch by the violent shaking, and her X-SHOTGUN nearly flew from her hands.
She let out a wry, helpless laugh, a flicker of resignation crossing her eyes.
"It looks like... we lost the bet."
The scorpion had, from the very beginning, chosen the safest possible tactic: destroy the tower.
With a deafening roar, the tall lighthouse began to slowly tilt toward the surface of the sea — and was clearly on the verge of collapse.
____
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