The Good, the Bad and Starscream

Chapter 18: Legacy

The next three days were fairly uneventful. The next set of Iacon relic codes was long and difficult to decipher, so both Optimus and Soundwave spent long time working on it respectively. Which basically meant no confrontations between the two sides in the course of three days.

The Autobots still went on patrol, the Grounders on the roads and Starscream in the sky, just to make sure everything was fine in Nevada.

On the Nemesis, shortly after Cylas had been taken away to get dissected by Knock Out, due to his failed attempt to please Megatron, Swindle and Brawl had more or less fully recovered and were ready to be deployed for battle. Both their rubsigns had been removed, making their purple Decepticon insignias visible at all times.

Swindle had made sure to take advantage of Thundercracker's departure, to save Skywarp from Starscream, by wandering the halls of the warship alone, until he reached his former quarters. Once inside, he activated his own secret safe, unbeknownst to anyone else on the ship, and acquired his own signature weapon: a big, black arm cannon, which could be attached to the roof of his jeep mode. Now he was no longer unarmed and could finally defend himself, if not against Autobots, then against aggressive Seekers.

Afterwards he rejoined Brawl in the medbay, and they had then proceeded to head for the command center along with Knock Out, as Cylas had returned.

Oh, the expression that cyborg had when Megatron told him he had earned a place at the table - Knock Out's dissection table, that is! Priceless!

After the cyborg had been taken away, Swindle had given him a devious smirk and said a quick: "Bye-bye, Cylas!", before the two Combaticons turned their attention to Megatron.

"Now that that has been taken care of," Megatron announced and gazed at his newest returning warriors, "I have a mission for you. Or rather, a continued task that you started, Swindle."

Swindle smiled widely, knowing what he meant. "You want us to find Onslaught and the others, right, my liege?" Swindle asked.

"Precisely. If the two of you are still alive, then the other three must still be functional. I want the two of you to go find them and bring them back. I want Bruticus back, so I can crush Optimus Prime and his team like bugs."

Swindle bowed theatrically, while Brawl just stood and watched in silence. "Right away, sir! We only need a GroundBridge and we'll be off!"

"Naturally," Megatron replied and turned to his intelligence officer. "Soundwave."

Soundwave paused his work and opened a GroundBridge portal behind the two Combaticons, who turned around and started heading into it.

"Do not return unless you have found at least one of them," Megatron warned. "You are on your own from now on."

"As you wish, my liege," Swindle replied before stepping into the portal with Brawl. "We'll notify you when we do."

-----

Bulkhead's recovery improved massively over the course of the next three days. Since the battle for securing Project Damocles, he and Smokescreen had become friends, apparently because Smokescreen had saved Bulkhead from getting beaten by Cylas, who had tried to exterminate Raf and the other humans in his house, to stop them from hacking the satellite.

When Bulkhead and Smokescreen returned to base, the former relayed the information that Silas had taken control of Breakdown's body, thus confirming the Decepticon was truly dead. Bulkhead had been rather furious over it. It wasn't easy to lose an arch-nemesis, who had formerly been a close friend, and then to see this nemesis as an abomination, controlled by a smaller, cruel being. It had been hard for Bulkhead, but at least the humans were safe.