Chapter 258: The Death of Ironhide

Diego Garcia, Autobot base.

Jet fighters streaked across the overcast sky above the installation, dropping payloads along the perimeter.

The moment the base came under heavy fire, garrison forces had called for emergency air support from the nearest airfield. Advanced interceptors scrambled to the grid, throwing their ordnance into a distinctly lopsided battle.

Even though the Autobots had always been protective of their native technologies, sharing them only in measured drops, years of cooperation had nevertheless allowed military channels to assimilate a respectable tier of upgraded battlefield hardware.

Down on the scorched tarmac, the gestalt Superion held the vanguard line, engaging Skygnaw head-on while the surrounding Autobots laid down suppressing fire.

Compared to Superion's desperate, ragged cadence, Skygnaw moved with total composure.

Superion's courage was undeniable, but his chassis was already scarred from repeated concussive impacts. The giant's optics burned with unyielding fury, but raw resolve could not bridge a structural chasm.

"Ratchet! Where is Optimus?!"

Hound braced behind an overturned carrier, his Cybertronian rotary cannon roaring continuously as spent alloy casings piled into a small mound around his pedes.

If there was one Autobot on the field who proved an absolute nuisance, it was Hound, operating as a walking munitions depot.

Click... clack...

The empty drums spun out in dry rotation. Hound spat out the metallic nub of his energon cigar, and without skipping a beat, pulled a heavy-bore scattergun from his back racks.

Before he could pull the trigger twice, Ratchet's raspy shout cut through the deafening noise.

"Optimus is closing on our airspace! Hold your ground, he will be on the field within minutes!"

The transmission echoed across the open tarmac, reaching Skygnaw's audios clear as day.

Optimus is en route.

Skygnaw's optics flared slightly.

He had intended to clean up the secondary Autobot lines quickly, but Superion surged forward with sudden, desperate ferocity, throwing his massive weight into an unrelenting grapple to hold him in place.

"Skygnaw!"

A unified roar composed of five distinct vocal processors shook the air as Superion lunged like an enraged beast. His right hand fired a sustained particle beam while his left drove forward in a crushing fist.

Superion's combat output far exceeded standard commander-tier combatants, but he was not an innate Prime. Surviving this long against Skygnaw came down to his specialized layered plating.

The Aerialbot combination relied on an energized particle lattice capable of diffusing incoming beam energy, while mitigating kinetic shockwaves across its structural frame. Without it, Superion would have ended up like the scattered Autobot frames already littering the smoking concrete around them.

"Lord Skygnaw! Lord Skygnaw!"

Just as Skygnaw prepared to bring his heavy systems to bear, Grindor's hulking silhouette broke through the smoke.

During his brief absence from the frontline, Grindor had taken some fire, his armor scorched by defensive turrets. In his massive arms, however, he securely cradled several translucent, crystalline rods.

Superion backed off half a step in defensive posture, but the moment his optics locked onto what Grindor was carrying, his voice erupted across the channel:

"The space bridge pillars! Intercept them!"

The strategic weight of those artifacts was beyond question. Even with reserve components still sealed within the Ark, surrendering a single pillar was a bitter loss.

And Grindor was holding five of them.

"Splendid work, Grindor."

A faint, sharp smirk crossed Skygnaw's faceplate.

He glanced at Superion and the battered Autobots struggling to regroup behind their giant, giving a cold, dismissive scoff before opening the retreat channel. "Grindor, break formation and withdraw!"

"Understood, Lord Skygnaw!"

Grindor's reaction was immediate. Shifting cleanly into his heavy transport helicopter form, he banked away from the airfield.

Skygnaw raised his right arm, a point-blank photon blast throwing Superion backward into the tarmac. Twin shoulder pods pivoted up, releasing a suppressing spread of micro-missiles that drove Hound's support team behind cover.

With the lane clear, Skygnaw shifted into his aerial assault mode, rocketing into the clouds along their original approach vector.

Throughout the skirmish, Skygnaw had refrained from drawing the Phase Shifter.

It was not a matter of hiding a precious relic out of fear. He stood firmly in the Prime tier; no Decepticon had the leverage to demand he surrender an Iacon treasure. Relics were prized, but Megatron would never antagonize an equal over an artifact.

He held it back simply because an Autobot line devoid of Optimus and Sentinel was unworthy of his trump card. He intended to save that edge for when Optimus stood before him once more.

As his thrusters climbed through the slipstream, a distress ping from Crankcase flashed across his operational feed.

Why are the Dreads trading fire with Autobot units?

Skygnaw's logic processors ran the scenario. His explicit orders to the three trackers had been simple: shadow Bumblebee's group, maintain passive telemetry, and relay coordinates without engaging.

Picking a direct fight made no tactical sense.

Speculation was pointless; he would know the facts once he reached their vector.

Yet as Skygnaw adjusted his course, he did not realize Crankcase would never have the opportunity to answer for the blunder.

Ten minutes earlier, along the open interstate...

Seeing Hatchet torn apart by Bumblebee and Dino in the span of a breath, Crankcase and Crowbar abandoned their pursuit of Sam's vehicle, pivoting their firing arcs to slow down the two Autobot interceptors.

The Dreads had never planned on engaging an escort convoy they were clearly outmatched by. Yet before their deployment, Megatron had handed down a private, conflicting directive.

Ahead of Crankcase's position, a civilian freight hauler was cruising steadily, the driver breathing a sigh of relief as he steered around the debris of the collapsed billboard.

Before his relief could settle, the rear-view mirror reflected a black utility cruiser suddenly splitting apart, rising into a towering, feral mechanical warrior.

"Lord in heaven!"

The driver gasped in absolute terror, his foot slamming the floorboard.

The next second, the world tipped sideways.

Crash!

Crankcase and Crowbar advanced in their mechanical forms, Crowbar's sensory dreadlocks whipping wildly through the howling draft. They swept civilian sedans aside like toy bricks, temporarily choking the lanes behind them to stall Bumblebee and Dino.

The chaos, however, drew the immediate attention of the heavy escorts running ahead of the column.

"Sideswipe, let's take out these pests!"

Ironhide and Sideswipe dropped from the convoy's flank, cutting their speed before executing a simultaneous power slide that rammed Crankcase and Crowbar off the highway surface.

Metal screeched against gravel as all four mechs tumbled across the asphalt, coming to a halt on the cracked parking lot of an abandoned roadside motel.

They rose instantly, weapons leveled in a mirror standoff.

Muzzles locked on center mass, neither side eager to draw the first trigger pull.

"Decepticons, drop the iron," Ironhide rumbled, his heavy cannons humming with lethal charge. "And I might grant you a clean burial."

Coming from an Elite heavy veteran, the threat carried absolute weight. Two seasoned frontline specialists against two specialized skirmishers was an engagement with an obvious conclusion.

Sideswipe twirled an energon blade, offering a casual sneer. "How about we drop the heavy ordnance and settle this with clean metal?"

Crankcase and Crowbar traded a low, encrypted burst of dialect, their heads dipping in unison.

"On my count," Sideswipe called out. "Three, two, one!"

Clatter.

Heavy Cybertronian firearms struck the pavement together.

Yet just as Sideswipe drew his short alloy blades, Crankcase's back armor plates split open, deploying two spring-loaded, barbed spear-bombs.

Reaching over his helm with blinding speed, Crankcase seized both explosive javelins, hurling one at Sideswipe and the other at Ironhide's chest.

While Cybertronian intelligence often pegged Crowbar as an erratic scoundrel who lived for cheap ambushes, Crankcase was far more vicious when backed into a corner.

"Ironhide, look out!"

Sideswipe's blade flashed, batting his spear cleanly out of the air, but Ironhide's heavier frame lacked the same evasive twitch.

The spiked tip buried itself into his chest plating, detonating in an instant concussive flare.

BOOM!

"Treacherous scrap!"

Furious at the cheap trick, Sideswipe lunged forward, his blade severing Crowbar's helm in a single, fluid arc as the Dread attempted to leap. Spinning on his heel, he kicked Ironhide's fallen blaster across the pavement:

"Ironhide! Behind you!"

Ironhide caught the weapon, firing blind over his shoulder in a single reflex.

BANG!

Crankcase, lunging in for the kill, took the heavy slug point-blank and flew backward into the dirt.

Having absorbed an explosive spear to his primary chest plate, Ironhide stood entirely unfazed, brushing off the carbon scoring as if it were dust. Picking up the unexploded javelin Sideswipe had knocked aside, he drove the spiked tip deep into Crankcase's pinned chassis, looking down into the tracker's widening optics before depressing the firing stud:

BOOM.

"Threat neutralized. Pack it up."

With the ambush cleared, Ironhide and Sideswipe shifted back into their vehicle modes, accelerating to rejoin the main body.

Cleaning up the shattered asphalt would fall to regional road crews, leaving it an open question whether recovery trucks or news vans would arrive first.

Pushing their engines to the limit, Ironhide and Sideswipe caught up to the security convoy just as the transport entered the perimeter of the military facility Director Mearing had designated.

The moment the vehicles rolled to a halt, an anxious Sam sprinted over to meet them. "Did you take down those two trackers?"

Sideswipe gave a confident rev of his engine, dismissing the skirmish as routine.

Nearby, Lennox and Mearing were concluding access protocols with the garrison commander. Learning the Dreads were scrap, Sam still felt a lingering knot in his stomach, turning back to Lennox.

"Colonel, we have to keep eyes on Sentinel. He is the key to this entire move."

"Understood," Lennox nodded, turning toward the heavy weapons specialist. "Ironhide, take personal guard on Sentinel. Guide him down to the underground bunker. We have hardened personnel doors and active signal jammers down there; it will keep his signature masked."

"On it. Consider him secure."

Ironhide stepped toward the rear of the transport. Yet before he could open the bay, Sentinel Prime stepped down onto the tarmac on his own, raising an armored hand to decline the escort.

"Ironhide, have you still not grasped the reality?" Sentinel spoke with an eerie, weary stillness. "Our war against the Decepticons was lost long ago. We were never destined to prevail in this conflict..."

"Sentinel, what are you talking about?"

The chilling statement not only brought Ironhide to an immediate halt, but also froze Lennox and Mearing in their tracks as they walked back from the command post.

Every eye in the courtyard locked onto the ancient leader. A few experienced soldiers felt their instincts scream that something was fundamentally wrong, though the horrifying truth remained just beyond their grasp.

A suffocating silence descended over the yard. Unmoved by the stillness, Sentinel turned his back to the group, his deep voice carrying a cold, crushing finality:

"Autobots... the hour has arrived to consider material outcomes. The survival of our very species hangs in the balance."

"And to restore our dying Cybertron... we must forge an alliance with Megatron!"

In the next fraction of a second, Sentinel spun on his heel, the heavy rust-cannon in his right arm leveled straight at Ironhide's spark chamber:

BOOM!

"Aaargh!"

A visceral cry of agony ripped from Ironhide's vocal processor as the kinetic impact slammed his frame into the concrete.

"Cover! Take cover!"

"God in heaven! Sentinel, what are you doing?!"

"Sentinel, why did you fire on Ironhide?!"

Soldiers and Autobots alike stood frozen in sheer disbelief, the sudden horror of the act completely eclipsing the words Sentinel had spoken seconds prior.

No one could process why the revered former supreme commander would cut down Ironhide, his loyal lieutenant and veteran comrade.

"Sen... Sentinel... why... why this..." Ironhide rasped, his optical lights flickering violently.

He lay flat on his back, raising a trembling, desperate hand toward the mentor he had followed for eons, yet his servos seized, entirely stripped of motor power.

Where the specialized corrosive round had penetrated his armor, an insidious decay was eating through his structural alloys from the inside out. Corrosive rust spread outward from his chest wound, devouring the dark metal across his plating.

"Ironhide, you lack vision," Sentinel said, the aged benevolence on his faceplate stripping away to reveal an unyielding, merciless resolve.

"This shot was meant for Optimus Prime. Fortune favored him; he was absent from the base, and these meddling humans were on the verge of uncovering our arrangements."

"Now... I must expend this round on you."

Sentinel had grown rather fond of a human proverb: no wall can keep out the wind forever. The longer this charade dragged on, the higher the risk his accord with Megatron would be exposed prematurely.

He leveled the barrel of the rust cannon once more, pressing the muzzle against Ironhide's decaying chest:

"For the sake of our ancient camaraderie, I shall spare you an agonizing decline. Here and now, Ironhide... I strip you of your rank, and grant you leave to return to the Allspark!"

BOOM!

The second blast accelerated the corrosion instantly. The dark rot raced across his torso, consuming his neck and reaching his cranial unit within seconds.

"Sentinel..."

Ironhide's helm tilted sideways, the blue light in his optics flickering once before going completely dark.

The name of his mentor was the final transmission Ironhide left to the waking world, though it would not be the last time his name was whispered.

"No! Ironhide!"

"Damn you! What have you done?!"

"Sentinel, you murdered him! You murdered our brother!"

Snapping out of their shock, the Autobots leveled their primary weapons at Sentinel Prime, while garrison troops scrambled across the perimeter, training anti-armor rocket tubes directly on the rogue Prime.

Surrounded by heavy fire arcs on all sides, Sentinel's expression did not change in the slightest. Looking past the defensive line as though the weapons did not exist, he turned his head toward the empty air on his flank, barking with cold authority:

"Decepticon, I have delivered my tribute in blood. Do you still intend to lurk in the shadows?"

"What? Decepticons?!"

"Did they track us here?!"

"Check the flanks, secure the line!"

"Wait, what did Sentinel mean by tribute?!"

"Is he in league with them?! But he was our leader, how could he—"

Amidst the frantic panic of the troops, the light along the edge of the motor pool rippled, shimmering like heat off summer asphalt before resolving into a massive, heavily armored silhouette.

"Good grief... it's Skygnaw!" Lennox gasped, his blood running cold as he recognized the warrior who had dropped out of the sky.

"Sentinel Prime, humans have a saying: seeing the light and leaving the dark behind," Skygnaw said smoothly, his crimson optics sweeping across the stunned clearing. "I have already transmitted telemetry of your actions here to Lord Megatron."

"On behalf of the Decepticon High Command, I welcome your return."

As one of the two active Primes within the faction, Skygnaw held every right to speak for the Decepticon cause.

Yet watching a former Autobot supreme commander walk into the Decepticon fold with Ironhide's warm spark still fading on the concrete left an unspeakable chill across the yard.

"So you are the warrior Megatron spoke of, Skygnaw?" Sentinel regarded him with a measured, guarded stare.

Skygnaw kept his faceplate steady, filing the detail away in his memory banks. Sentinel had clearly established private communications with Megatron the moment Optimus revived him, keeping everyone else in the dark.

Soundwave had likely known the parameters of their secret alliance from the start, treating Skygnaw as a blunt, tactical instrument to draw out the garrison.

They truly believe I have been dancing in their theater, Skygnaw mused silently.

Little do they know... I wrote the script.

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