ENERGON ARCHIVE (4)

Here’s the second half of the outline for #32, ‘Armageddon pt1’:

Meanwhile, the sustained Terrorcon assault on the planetary defence shield continues. Rodimus points out that to establish a (rescue-style) spacebridge portal in the locality of Unicron they’ll need to open the shield and the Terrorcons are certain to pounce. Jetfire turns to Ironhide for a status report on Omega Supreme, his “stopper.” Ironhide responds that he’s having some teething troubles with the Artificial Matrix, but they should be up and running any time now.

Just then, a partial and scrambled emergency call comes in from Rad at the AlterEnergy test site in the Mojave Desert. They’re under attack! Though the message breaks up, Jetfire knows instinctively it’s Kicker they’re after and responds by sending the nearest available troops — Grimlock and Swoop. In the Mojave Desert, Kicker is fighting Demolishor (re-booted and upgraded by Alpha Quintesson — now one of his agents). At first, Kicker thinks he can handle Demolishor, until that is Demolishor shrugs off Kicker’s energon blast. Clearly, Alpha Quintesson has tailored him for just this mission.

An AlterEnergy rapid response team, led by Rad, does its best to waylay Demolishor but, as he says, “I’m Demolishor — it’s one of those does-what-it-says-on-the-tin names!” and proceeds to trash every armed/armoured vehicle. Demolishor bags Kicker and departs, but Rad vows — “I will find you!”

Back on Cybertron, in his underground hub, Over-Run is suddenly alerted to the proximity of Starscream, and — plugged into the planet as he is — sees Starscream’s ‘death’ at the claws of Scorponok (back in #19) and his subsequent evolution/recreation into a being of pure energon. He grasps that Starscream is consumed by an unquenchable thirst for more and more energon, in even greater concentrations, and currently senses Over-Run’s affinity with the very (energon fuelled) core of Cybertron. He urgently summons the Omnicons (Arcee, Strongarm, Signal Flare and Skyblast). But before they can arrive, Starscream attacks — and a massive explosion rips up through the surface of Cybertron.

And finally, we return to Optimus Prime. Deep within Unicron he taps into a low priority sub-processor, hoping to modify a neural command pathway that will disrupt Unicron’s energon supply. As Prime uplinks, his consciousness is pulled into the supply stream, all the way to its distant point of origin. Not Earth, as he’d assumed, but another planet, Nervissa, a world devastated and consumed by Unicron’s Four Horsemen! Prime realises: while they focused their shields and bases on Earth… another energon-rich world was dying!

To be continued…