"This is pointless," Dead End said for the nineteenth time as Wildrider jumped up and down, cheering loudly. Below them and several thousand other cheering, screaming, blood-thirsty fans, the Predacons squared off against yet another team of Autobot prisoners.
"Aww, Deadster, you just got no sense of fun!" Wildrider slapped Dead End on the back; the 'clang' was drowned out by the sheer roar of the crowd. Wildrider's usual annoying yell seemed like simple conversation over the noise. "I keep tellin' ya, you need to get out more! This here is real culture, not that art crap you and the Dragster got into!"
Dead End tilted his head slightly, but did not turn to look directly at the red-faced, gray-bodied Stunticon. "Yes, a small group of fuel-starved, damaged, unarmed prisoners are herded into the arena so we can watch the Predacons tear them apart. So incredibly suspenseful, waiting to see if the body scraps will fall to the left or the right of the rivers of spilled energon. I'm so thrilled at the possibility that one of the Autobots might outrun Tantrum for five seconds."
"Deadster, you are ruining mah fun!" Wildrider's Texas twang came through more clearly when he was annoyed. He pouted and slugged back a can of energon. After squashing it flat and tossing it out into the crowd somewhere, he gave Dead End a conciliatory shrug of his shoulder wheels.
"Guess it would be more fun if the fights were more... I dunno..." The gray Stunticon gestured vaguely.
"Even?" Dead End suggested. "Not that that would make any difference in the end. Everyone dies, story over."
"Yeah, yeah--but what if the other guys were armed or something?" Wildrider said.
"Then it might be somewhat interesting," Dead End conceded. Random people in the audience getting shot--likely himself--could be considered 'interesting'. He wasn't prepared to escalate to 'fun'.
"Wouldn't that be a riot if the prisoners all escaped their cells and got weapons and ran around trying to shoot their way out and stuff?" Wildrider said, jumping up from his seat. He grabbed Dead End by the shoulder and tugged. "Come on, let's go!"
Dead End's visor flared with violet light and he scrambled from his seat to follow Wildrider, pushing his way past the oblivious, cheering spectators. "Yes, that would be a riot. Dare I ask what you are up to?"
"We're gonna make things interesting!" Wildrider yelled as he dragged Dead End into the currently-empty back tunnels and transformed to race down the ancient and grimy hallways.
"Do you have a clue where you're going?" Dead End asked as he rolled along behind Wildrider. It wasn't that he couldn't guess what Wildrider wanted to do; he just couldn't see what Wildrider could possibly accomplish in that direction.
"Yeah, lower levels where the gladiators and prisoners are. Cindersaur told me all about it--he got stuck with guard duty, has to miss the show," Wildrider yelled back. "YEE-HAAA!"
"Yee. Ha." Joy. Wildrider knew Cindersaur. Dead End guessed that it took one hooligan to know another.
He skidded to a halt just behind Wildrider as the latter suddenly stopped just short of a sealed elevator. The metal door was scarred and dull with oxidation, but the yellow and purple "Authorized Personnel Only" sign was fresh and plain.
"That requires an authorization key to use," Dead End pointed out mildly.
"And here's my authorization!" Wildrider transformed back into a robot and blew the control panel apart with his scattershot pistol. For good measure he blew the door open and jumped down the shaft. "GERONIMO!"
"Right, then. I'll be right along. I hope you realize you've doomed us both," Dead End called after Wildrider as he drifted down. He regarded the scarred, millenia-old doors that Wildrider had just blown apart; Megatron had built his Stunticons with far more firepower than the average Decepticon grunt--and with far less restraint. Or fear. What was it to the Earth-built elite if they destroyed Cybertronian relics that had stood for millions of years?
By the time he arrived at the bottom of the shaft, Wildrider was away out of sight; Dead End had to follow the sounds of screeching tires and shouts of "YEE-HAA!" The lower tunnels were dimmer and grimier than the upper works frequented by the arena patrons; what few lights still functioned were badly placed and far apart. In the shadows, the floor seemed black with ancient spilled lubricant and exhaust stains.
When Dead End reached Wildrider, the gray Stunticon was already in back-poundingly happy conversation with an ungainly purple and yellow Decepticon.
"Yeah, go for it!" Wildrider yelled, bouncing up and down. "Cinder-baby, we'll cover for ya, go watch the fight!"
"Yeah?" The ugly, spiky-armed Cindersaur grinned--a horrifying sight--and thumped Wildrider on the back. Dead End noticed the almost inaudible crackle of Wildrider's forcefields protecting him as metal clashed loudly against metal; his brother Stunticon was crazy, not stupid. The same could not be said of Cindersaur.
"Yeah! You're nuts, 'Rider, missing the fight, but you wanna be a chump, I ain't gonna stop you." Cindersaur laughed heavily and shuffled off towards the way they came in.
"Might want to use a different elevator. That one's broken," Dead End warned him. It wasn't that he wanted to spare Cindersaur any trouble; he just wanted the fire-spewing moron to go far, far away as soon as possible.
"Yeah? Gotcha. Suckers!" The Firecon turned down a different hallway and was lost from sight and shortly thereafter, radar.
"We're doomed," Dead End again pronounced once Cindersaur was out of audial and optical range. "He'll figure something wasn't kosher, you know, after you sent him away and then trouble starts."
"Wanna bet?" Wildrider said, smirking like Starscream while bouncing from one foot to the other.
"He'd have to be stupider than... than Brawl!"
Wildrider just smirked even more and started to roller-skate around the chamber backwards on his foot-wheels.
"Ah, I see. How does he avoid being taken for a drone?" Dead End asked sardonically.
Wildrider giggled. "He likes to set fires; that's how you tell!"
Around the periphery of the badly-lit chamber, and down a dark hall beyond it, scores of cells lined the walls--cells filled with battered and broken Autobot prisoners. The stench of overheated lubricants, burnt plastic and seared metal hung heavy in the air.
Dead End regarded the prisoners in their dimly-lit cells; the Autobots stared back at him and Wildrider with grim, silent faces and masks. The nearest several Bots were extensively scorched; blackened and heat-warped metal testified to Cindersaur's idea of entertainment.
"I think," Dead End told Wildrider, "I shall go find the gladiator's armory. There must be one here somewhere. Back in Megatron's day, both sides were armed, I hear."
"Make it quick, these guys are too slagging quiet!" Wildrider said, bouncing from one foot to the other again. "I liked it better outside."
"This was your idea," Dead End felt obliged to point out as he sauntered out.
"Yeah, yeah, but it's too quiet. Hurry up!" Wildrider waved Dead End down the gloomy hall with a twitch of his gun, then turned to stare back at the prisoners in their cells.
They stared back at him until one of them, an orange and gray car-former, said, in a voice thick with hatred, "What are you looking at, Decepticon?"
"My next target," Wildrider said with manic giggle.
"I'm pretending to be Breakdown so I can freak out at all you guys lookin' at me and blow the place to hell!" Wildrider said, waving his scattershot gun around. He tossed off a few shots into the ceiling for emphasis, then jumped aside as chunks of metallo-ceramic rained down. "Whooo-hoo!"
"I found it, turn left outside the entrance and it's the third hallway on the left, second door," Dead End radioed the other Stunticon. "I even opened the door for you."
"YEEE-HAAAA!" Wildrider screamed, "Down on your knee-joints, Bots!"--
He cut loose with a barrage of laser-fire from his scatter gun. "Armory's left and third, make your plans, all your base are belong to us!" Wildrider yelled at the cloud of dust and smoke obscuring everything, then ran away cackling madly before the Autobots picked themselves up and realized he hadn't hit any of them--but the nearest cells were all blown open.
Dead End was waiting for him at the elevator shaft. "We are so doomed."
# # #
The prisoner revolt and riot was glorious. Even Dead End found it interesting--fortunately, his forcefields held. Swindle took bets on both sides and ran with the money; Wildrider had all the noise and chaos he wanted, and Motormaster was almost congenial for several weeks.
The Autobots had their revenge on Cindersaur in the confusion; the Firecon was found crushed to junk and set on fire.
It was merest coincidence that Menasor had been fighting in the same area...
-- END --