Chapter Three
Darkwind
Kaon; that night
Thunderstorm was woken by the rumbling of thunder from outside. The other cadets scarcely raised their ears when the sky split open. She was forced to bury her head in her paws as the storm drew on for many long hours and she was concerned about getting enough sleep so that she wouldn’t drift off during training that morning.
Sunhawk roused from her dreams earlier than normal, gathered a few of her battle armor sets, and silently exited the room. Thunderstorm pretended to be asleep but she’d seen her leave. She got out of bed and looked out the tiny window on the empty wall. Outside in the city square, Sunhawk sat tensely, as if waiting for someone. A dark figure rounded a block and nodded at the cadet. She grabbed her battle armor and followed him around the corner.
Her optics drooping with exhaustion, Thunderstorm stumbled back to her bed and curled up again as the storm faded away into the far horizon.
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Sunrise was unwelcoming, as it came earlier than Thunderstorm had thought. She lifted her head to see Sunhawk back in the room waking the cadets up. She looked tired, as though she had no sleep. When she saw Thunderstorm, she smiled, “Nice day for training today, it’s not humid and it’s warm out. They want to meet us out by the river for our lesson so we’d better hurry up.”
Thunderstorm stood up and stretched, letting out a deep yawn. Sunhawk led the rest of the cadets out of the room and down out of the building. They trotted lightly to the north and soon the river came into sight. A few troops had already gathered. The two sergeants in charge were sitting proudly in front of the four troops in their squadron.
“I see we’re all here then,” one of them said blankly, looking at his partner who nodded solemnly, “Alright then…”
One of the other cadets raised his paw quietly.
“Yes, Blitz?” the other sergeant asked.
“So, what’re we doing today?” the little cadet squealed.
“Offensive tactics when facing an opponent bigger and stronger than you.”
Blitz’s optics grew wide and he grinned. Sunhawk tapped Thunderstorm on the shoulder with her tail as her gaze strayed from their instructors.
“Rockfall, show us how you’d attack me if I were an Autopaw,” commanded the larger sergeant. They both crouched down and circled each other like hungry wolves. The senior cadet leapt at the sergeant’s throat, but the soldier let him hit his paw softly and pinned him to the ground. He shook his head and Rockfall mewled in embarrassment, “Attacking a large foe’s upper body will be difficult enough, but you didn’t try to use your size and speed to your advantage and fake me out before leaping at me,” he shifted his look towards the other cadets, “This lesson is easy to learn because it’s not complex. All you have to remember is to try to confuse your opponent by faking one when and then darting the other before attacking and to try to knock their paws out from under them, that’ll cause them to fall and become vulnerable for further damage.”
Thunderstorm watched with wonder as the two soldiers demonstrated the proper technique of what they called a “Back Breaker”. The two sergeants stood face to face, “Now,” said the younger sergeant, pointing to his partner, “Tarheel is going to be the Autopaw. I’m going to try to knock him off his paws and still hurt him without risking injury to myself. This only works if the opponent leaps at you.”
The cadets edged in closer to get a better look at the move, their faces bright with excitement. One of the cadets mewled out, “Uncle, Ripcurrent, does it work one smaller Autopaws too? ‘Cause I-“
The younger sergeant stuck his muzzle into the blue cadet’s face and stifled a snarl, “I told you not to call me uncle in public, Cameo!”
Tarheel snickered behind Ripcurrent. He pulled away from his nephew and gave his partner a pleading look. The cadets shrugged it off and focused on the demonstration once again. Ripcurrent continued, “When Tarheel leaps at me, I’m going to use his forehead as a springboard to jump up above him, it’ll send him onto the ground and as you fall back down you want to land on his back. Landing hard on your opponent’s back will stun him and give you a chance to use the rest of the moves you know on him to cause even more damage.”
Tarheel asked the cadets if they understood and soon he dispersed them into groups of two for practice. Sunhawk was paired with this cadet named Hawkeye and Thunderstorm was put with another new cadet. He was shy and soft-spoken, but that didn’t matter because he had a teacher’s attitude and fixed Thunderstorm’s mistakes as he saw them.
“When you leap off the opponent’s head, put more strength in your back legs so it’ll lift you up higher,” he corrected as she jumped lightly off his tough forehead.
Thunderstorm nodded as she readied herself to try again, but Ripcurrent called all the cadets together for the end of the day meeting even though it was only around noon, “As you know, our day is cut short today due to the annual Challenger event when our leader is challenged by anyone willing to try for his leadership in a fight to the death.”
The cadets shuddered at the mention of the horrid event. Sunhawk had deserted Thunderstorm for Hawkeye and they were whispering quietly on the outside of the group. Thunderstorm felt alone and lost when her training partner walked up and sat down beside her, “Your new here right?”
Thunderstorm nodded silently, shuffling her paws nervously.
“Name’s Skyhawk, nice to meet you…” he paused in confusion.
“Thunderstorm,” she finished for him.
Skyhawk edged closer to her until their shoulders touched, “That’s quite an honor,” he stated, “to be named after Darkwind’s sister. She died before I was even a cub. No one knows what happened to her.”
Thunderstorm willed for him to go away. She wasn’t used to the affection she was getting from this complete stranger. She wanted him to let her be alone, to let her be left with her troop, but then she realized what she really was afraid of. She was afraid to be loved.
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Later that day, right before sunset, all the inactive soldiers and cadets gathered outside the square to see Darkwind standing proudly at the head of the soldiers, the Decepticat warlords surrounding him like bodyguards. A few senior soldiers hung off to the edges and riveted at their leader with hidden determination and fury.
Thunderstorm arrived with Sunhawk, and they settled in alongside the young soldiers. Sunhawk was so upset she hid her head in her paws and she even pleaded to the sergeants to let Thunderstorm stay in the dorm but they refused, but only because it was required by law to attend and they didn’t want to put in custody for some newcomer’s mental sake.
Soon Darkwind cleared his throat and the crowd silenced, “The time has come once more for my leadership to be challenged. Is there anyone thinking that they’ll make a better leader than I?” his tone was questioning and cocky.
It was silent and for a moment, Sunhawk breathed a sigh of a relief that maybe Thunderstorm wouldn’t have to see this event, but one of the diabolical looking soldiers rose up and shouted out his challenge. Darkwind raised his brow suspiciously and stepped down from his place into the square, “Are you sure Downpour, is it as you wish? I would never expect a warlord to fight me.”
Downpour growled at Darkwind for an answer and the leader narrowed his optics in pure evil, “Try to throw me off you piece of scrap metal!”
Downpour bunched his shoulders and pounced at Darkwind, who sidestepped without much effort and scraped the warlord on the side as he passed by. As Downpour recovered, Darkwind lunged at him and pinned him to the ground with his small, but sturdy paws. He struggled to get loose of his leader’s iron grip, but it was a futile battle. Darkwind reared upward and sunk his teeth into Downpour’s neck in a death grip.
Sunhawk tried to cry out, but no words came out and her mouth suddenly became dry as sand. Thunderstorm lowered her head at the ground as Downpour’s yowls rang throughout the city. Then, as Darkwind went in for the final blow, Thunderstorm felt an undeniable presence by her side. Did she dare glance? The urge was too strong and she looked to her right to see Skyhawk huddled against her side. His labored breathing fell in rhythm with the screaming of the crowd.
She felt something warm and gooey run down her side and looked closer at Skyhawk. A gaping wound in his shoulder was bleeding badly, the light purple fluid dripping violently from it. Just as Thunderstorm was about to say something, the crowd gasped. Darkwind had lifted Downpour up into the air and tossed him into the square. Like a hungry cougar, the vicious Decepticat leader buried his claws and fangs into Downpour’s chest and shoulders. He let out a bellow of pure agony and let his very own leader kill him in front of his kind.
Sunhawk began to cry, tears streaming down her cheeks and her claws gripping the ground in horror. Thunderstorm closed her optics in her own self pain and let her head rest gently on Skyhawk’s muscular shoulder. He stared at her in wonder as he felt her body resting against his. It made him feel like he wasn’t alone anymore.
He nuzzled closer to her and followed Sunhawk’s lead. He cried for Downpour, he cried for the life they were forced to live, and, as he sensed her true spirit inside her, he cried for the pain that was being thrust upon her fragile soul.
A while later, Downpour was buried in the cemetery of Decepticat heroes by some of the warlords and senior soldiers. The cadets returned to their rooms and were left to sleep with the nightmares of the fight to the death in their head. Thunderstorm watched as Sunhawk left to the recreation area with Hawkeye, their tails intertwined. She felt a pang of anguish as she watched Skyhawk go into his room with the other three cadets in his troop, but as she looked away, Skyhawk gave her a look of promise and of hope.
Thunderstorm went into her troop’s dorm alone, and plunked down on her bed, curling up into a ball to keep warm. She let her thick tears soak the bed and wet her paws. She didn’t care anymore. It’d only been a couple of days and she’d already begun to feel the hurt and the fear, “How do they survive here day after day, especially with all this going on?”
The question was left floating in her head for hours before Sunhawk returned, her face happy and blushed. She had spent more time with that showoff. Thunderstorm ducked her head to hide her tears. Sunhawk noticed her and settled down next to her, wrapping her thick tail around Thunderstorm comfortingly, “Thunderstorm…” she whispered softly, a motherly tone in her voice, “I know how it feels. I’ve been through this before.”
Thunderstorm lifted her head with a grim look on her face, “No you haven’t! Your Ms. Perfect, you’ve never felt lonely before and you’ve been here for stellar cycles! I’ve been here for four days and I’ve seen killing tactics, our own leader slaughtering one of his soldiers, and I’ve felt the greatest loneliness imaginable!”
Sunhawk frowned as she was forced to watch Thunderstorm dig her face into her bed and cry her heart out. She gripped the bed tightly with her claws and ripped holes in it. Sunhawk laid her head on Thunderstorm’s shoulder as the rest of their troop came in and settled down for the night. Thunderstorm quieted down several hours later, her breathing slowed down to sleeping pace. Sunhawk gently lifted her body into her own bed and eyed Thunderstorm carefully before drifting off.
The wind and rain woke Thunderstorm later that night, near dawn. Her crying had stopped abruptly as she woke, but as she looked outside; she thought she saw the shadows flicker in the moonlight into the shape of a cat. The shadow’s broad shoulders, wide chest, and pointed muzzle were easily recognized and Thunderstorm felt the anguish build up inside her once again, and the doubt that Skyhawk would forget her was deep in her thoughts.
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Drenched and exhausted, Thunderstorm and her troop returned from training sodden with rain. Sunhawk went into the cadet facility and went straight into the dorm, not over to the mess hall to hang out and get a drink. Thunderstorm sat down at the bar to have a can of oil slid across the bar and into her paws. She saw Skyhawk sitting at the end, sticking his muzzle into a big barrel of high-grade energon and give her a reassuring look as he took a break, his snout drenched in a neon pinkish liquid. He smiled at her, he gestured for her to sit next to him, and she hesitated. It was a friendly gesture, she knew that, but she’d suffered enough sorrow due to him and a little bit of energon and being high that night wasn’t worth.
His face drooped when he saw her look away, but soon he shouted to a few of his buddies and they all joyfully trotted over and leap face first into the barrel like a bunch of crazed hyenas. She saw Airstrike, one of the other girls in her troop, walk over and plunk herself down next to Thunderstorm, “Bunch of freaks aren’t they. Never seen a femme do that, but who wants to get drunk on energon anyway. Of course we don’t have training tomorrow so it’s our one day off per week; I don’t blame ‘em.”
Thunderstorm ignored her and laid her head down on the bar. She felt Airstrike’s paw on her shoulder and a pitiful sigh. Airstrike got up and brushed her friend with her tail as she turned and went back to their room. Thunderstorm cringed when she heard Skyhawk and his buddies joking and when she saw Sunhawk exit her dorm and meet up with Hawkeye near the mess hall. They nuzzled each other before settling down in the corner and chatting. Their carefree laughs brought a deep pain to her ears.
With a silenced growl, she turned around in blind fury and ran straight to her room. Sunhawk watched her go with a pain in her optics. She left Hawkeye to chase after Thunderstorm. Hawkeye narrowed his optics at them, but shrugged it off.
Thunderstorm burst into the door and threw herself into her bed, screaming into her paws. Sunhawk slowed down and stopped at the door. It was best to let her go. She felt Hawkeye’s presence by her side and tried to smile, but it was futile.
The sorrow in the air was too much. Sunhawk laid her head on his shoulder and cried. Hawkeye nuzzled her head in comfort. All the while, Thunderstorm had gone silent, and she store them down with a burning envy, “Damn it!” she shouted, and in her sightless rage she bit onto one of her claws and yanked it out of her paw. Purple blood soaked her bed and paw. Sunhawk gasped and rushed over to her friend’s side. The damage was permanent and she would forever be missing a claw and forever have a reminder of the day she was lost.
“Damn it…” her voice faded in agony and she went quiet for the rest of the night.
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Thunderstorm awoke in the morning on a bed in the medical facility. Her vision was blurred and her paw throbbed with pain. One of the medics saw her wake and smiled, “Glad to see you wake up. You really jacked up your paw there. Must’ve hurt real bad.”
She refused to answer and blinked to clear her optics. To her right, she saw a familiar face napping on the bed next to her.
“Ravager!” she exclaimed loudly, ignoring the sudden agony in her paw as she hefted herself up, “I never thought I’d see you again!”
Ravager snorted and drew his paws closer to his head, his face twisted in pain. The wound on his shoulder looked terrible. A medic came up to him when he groaned and put more medicine on his gash. He gritted his teeth tightly as though the medicine burned, but he soon relaxed and sighed. The same medic walked over to Thunderstorm and picked her paw up gently and pushed down lightly on the part beyond where her claw had been. The slit where the claw came out flexed and a sharp pain went up her left foreleg. The medic let go, “Alright,” she said simply, “stay right here and I’ll go get something for that.”
Ravager looked at her, “You alright kid? What happened?” he lifted his front half up and cringed as the wound on his shoulder.
“Nothing you would want to know, Ravs,” she replied as the medic came back with a strange metal device in her mouth. She instructed Thunderstorm to put her paw into the brace. She did and a steel spike drew into her paw. She tensed up as the spine cut right into her paw where the wires sheathed and unsheathed her claws. Thunderstorm resisted the urge to cry out and just bit her tongue.
“It’ll only hurt for a bit,” the medic assured sweetly, “this’ll keep the wires still so that when you unsheathe the rest of your claws it won’t hurt.”
“Whiteout!” one of the other medics called from Ravager’s side, “You’ve got to see this.”
She left Thunderstorm and rushed over to look at Ravager’s wound. A deep violet substance was seeping from it and Ravager had fallen unconscious, “It must be some type of poison. Didn’t he say they were attacked by Rebels when he got this?”
The other medic, “Yah… those Rebels are cruel using poison on their claws and teeth. There’s nothing we can do to help, the poison’s already taken affect.”
Thunderstorm’s ears drooped and she jumped out of her bed and prodded Ravager’s side with her small paws, “Come on, you can’t die! Not yet! Ravager!”
Whiteout rubbed her back lightly with her paws comfortingly as Ravager opened his optics slightly. They were barely more than slits and his voice sounded racked with a deep pain, “Make me a promise, kid, please. The only thing I want more than a painless world is to make sure Leopardstrike is safe.”
Thunderstorm looked at him confused, “Why are you so concerned about Leopardstrike, especially after she snapped at you like that?”
“Because, kid,” Ravager heaved a big, crying sigh, “Leopardstrike is my little sister. I regretted ever splitting up with her in the crater and I regret saying no to a nice rest in Lakethtar,” he paused as his vision became blurry again, “Thunderstorm, my time has come and there’s no denying it. The rest of the dead are calling to me; I hear their yowls in my ears as we speak. Leopardstrike is much too young to die and I don’t want her to experience what it feels like to die or what horror tastes like when the spirits in the deepest pits of hell are shouting in your ears.”
Thunderstorm put her head on his and clenched her teeth tightly, “You can’t die on me! I looked up to you, fought for you, and now you’re just going to leave me alone with these Decepticats! I feel so out of place… I’m scared Ravager.”
Ravager reached out his muzzle and touched her forehead, “Me too kid,” his head fell against his curled up paws and his optics shut. He went still. Whiteout ducked her head as Thunderstorm kept nudging him and calling his name, her face drenched in tears.
Without a second glance at the medics for permission, she turned and bolted out of the medical facility and out into the city. Her foreleg ached but she kept running. She skidded to a halt in front of the cadet building. The setting sun stained the building red and reflected of the doors. She entered swiftly and ran into her troop’s room. Sunhawk and the rest stared at her in a look of surprise.
“Where’s Skyhawk!” she demanded to Sunhawk without saying another word. Sunhawk recovered from shock, “He’s out on the bluff west of Kaon relaxing.”
She watched as Thunderstorm zipped out again and, from the window, she saw her run up the bluff in the distance towards Skyhawk.
His snout was lifted high in the air as he felt the soft breeze and fading warmth of the sun. He turned his ears to hear thundering paw steps rattle the bluff and race up beside him. He looked to see Thunderstorm, her face full of sorrow. She lay down next to him and threw her head onto his paws and cried.
Skyhawk gazed at her in surprise, but soon adapted, “What’s wrong?” he asked with a whisper into her ear.
“Everything,” she sniffled, “I’m alone now… all alone. Ravager’s dead and now I’m left alone within a group of vicious soldiers and power hungry leaders,” she glanced up at him, “I’m scared… oh, Skyhawk I’ve never been so scared in all my life.”
Skyhawk licked her forehead and put his tail on her back, “You’re not alone, Thunderstorm. Don’t you ever think that.”
She drew up some of her tears as he continued, “I’ll stay with you until we both die. I’ll keep you safe.”
“Thank you,” she whispered and drew her body in closer to his as the air around them grew colder.
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Darkwind paced angrily in his domain, grumbling about as the schematic was projected as a hologram in front of him, “It’s wonderful... truly a wonderful weapon. I’ve never seen anything like it before.”
The Decepticons bowed before Darkwind and Megatron as they examined the schematic with interest, “This is a true instrument of terror,” Megatron admired, glancing down at Darkwind as the Decepticat’s jaw began to hang open, “It’s a radiation weapon? That’s even better.”
“Think of how many of those freaks we can slaughter with this,” Darkwind marveled. He gazed across the room at one of the Decepticons, “Is it built yet, Brawl?”
Brawl nodded eagerly and gestured for it to be brought in. The two leaders watched as the huge, veiled weapon was rolled out and put in the center of the room. The Decepticats holding the curtain pulled it down to reveal the ultimate weapon.
Darkwind and Megatron smiled with true evil, “This is far beyond awe-inspiring,“ Darkwind stated, “If it does as the schematic claims, that pathetic army of Autobots and Autopaws will be destroyed for good.”
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