The Past Always Comes Back to Bite (RID2015 Fanfiction)

Chapter 1 - Escaped

It was a well-known fact that even a perfectly-planned strategy can have flaws, and this was no different.

They had immediately known something was wrong when the ship began rattling around, and even more when the lights began to flicker. A simple jump across space had suddenly become not so simple, especially for the Bounty Hunters. They'd been out for a quick score, and transporting two already incapacitated prisoners was easy pickings. Two young bots, barely out of the Well of Allsparks, cuffed and unconscious. Among the prisoners was also a minicon that was caged and barely moved except for an occasional growl accompanying glowing optics from the darkness.

It seemed all too easy, though they had to wonder what Shockwave had in store for them, or why he'd chosen them in the first place.

That's what they'd thought.

They left Greasefire in the prison chamber to make sure neither of the bots escaped, not that they expected them to. Moments after entering the Space Bridge, however, what had started out as a smooth ride instantly became rocked with turbulance.

Somewhere in the space they were passing through as they were warped from one side of the universe to another, they'd encountered a cosmic storm. Those energies rattled the ship from stern to bow, and all bots were knocked from their feet, except for their employer, who was seated in the pilot's seat and only narrowed his singular optic in response to the anomaly as the ship shook and creaked around him. Alarms blared throughout the cabin, lights flickering on and off for several moments, before they finally broke free of the vortex, and the ship's trembling eased. The lights remained red, damage reports manifesting on the screen. It wasn't serious, but enough to cripple the ship for a few minutes.

A few minutes was all it took.

The Bounty Hunters received a distress call from their member who'd been watching the prisoners, and it only took hearing the crashing sounds in the background to tell them something was up. Two rushed to assist their ally, opening the door to find him on the floor with deep, bleeding gashes all over his body, and the two prisoners gone through another door that had been ripped open. Energon was splattered all over the walls and floor, and clawmarks gouged out the sides of the doors.

They entered the next hall, only to see the pair disappear into an escape pod.

"GET THEM!"

But by the time they got to the port, the pod had blasted away from the ship, plummeting towards the planet below and out of their reach. The pair couldn't have possibly even had time to strap themselves in before ejecting. "Follow that pod's trajectory! Find out where it's going to land!"

They returned to the prison chamber, their fellow hunter painfully trying to get to his feet. "What happened!?"

"The lights went out... His optics opened... All I saw was murder... I don't think he was out after all. Maybe we were wrong takin' him out of that facility...!"

The remainders returned to the bridge, worried about what their employer might do to them, now that their prize had escaped. The optics of the one that had remained on the bridge were narrowed, but he said nothing. Of the four of them, he was the only one that was not a part of their group, hired at another time along with his two torpedo minicons.

The scientist stood, his solitary optic watching the pod as it plummeted towards the planet. "They escaped you..."

The hunters were silent, all certain that he would turn his arm cannon on them at any moment.

Imagine to their surprise when the decepticon gave a light chuckle, and then said one word.

"Excellent..."