Chương 34: LOG-032.

It all happened quickly, as a mass of cybertronians standing just outside the breach readied themselves. Weapons were charged, melee implements were looked over for any possible defects, and some elected to shift into their alt modes. Then? The explosives we'd set at the mouth of the breach were detonated. BOOM! Rock, dust and other material fell from the ceiling, even as Optimus Prime charged forward past the newly widened opening, followed by the rest of his team.

Behind them, I raised a servo, and swept it forward. My creations poured through the breach with all the relentless ferocity of ancient hunters born anew. I elected to follow behind at a more sedate pace, allowing a group of twelve Zakus to surround me as I inspected the inner materials that composed what I understood to be Unicron's frame. There was cybermatter everywhere, in a twisted parody to Cybertron's own construction.

But any sense that this was a home intended for our kind was shattered by the presence of brightly glowing and sickly looking purple lights located every few meters that just oozed a malevolent feeling. At least they lit things up a little. Standing just beyond the breach, I attempted to contact the forces we'd left outside. Thankfully, it seemed I was still able to power through the interference. For now.

"Dreadwing. The infiltration was a success. Tell Soundwave to lock in on my coordinates and activate the groundbridge." There was a brief crackle of static, before the Seeker's voice answered my own.

"Negative Shockwave. Soundwave reports that something is preventing us from acquiring your position. We will have to send additional troops the conventional way." Hm. Well that was annoying. Nodding, I began to advance, flanked by my escorts.

"Understood. I'm moving after the vanguard force now, send all available strike teams in after us to establish control points, but keep a few present at the surface in order to deter potential reprisal assaults. With luck, the Zakus will be able to keep up communications while they're in here." I got a slightly garbled affirmative from Dreadwing before the comm link cut off.

Shaking my helm, I gestured towards the distant sounds of fighting taking place further away, in one of the massive tunnels the vanguard group had gone through.

"We'll keep some distance from the main force. I'd like to analyse what I can while we're in here and away from prying optics." If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it. My protection detail all nodded silently, before beginning to move forward, their blasters at the ready. The fact that my escorts consisted of Zero and my three original Zakus, alongside some of my more... fanatical converted vehicons wasn't a coincidence.

They would be the least likely to ask questions, after all. It wasn't often that I got to study incredibly dangerous cybernetic organisms with complete lack of oversight, after all. Normally they were just boring, semi-dangerous types.

Indomina cleaved through yet another of the reanimated dregs with her talons before transforming, unleashing a blast of fire that sent the latest horde that had intended to assault their group scattering in all directions as they screamed at the attack's heat. Progress had been slow, but steady. With the Predacons constantly moving forward and annihilating any that stood between them and their objective, and the Autobots keeping close ranks around the reliquary, things had seemed almost... too easy, so far.

Of course that's when the first 'antibodies' her creator had been insistent on showing them appeared, the strange constructions soaring through the air using a pair of thick wings and a mass of tentacles hanging from their rear, all seemingly grafted around a core frame with a sickly purple optic on the front. She snarled as the things started firing lasers down at the group, before spitting out another blast which knocked one out of the air.

"Ranged weaponry! Knock out the ones further away! Flyers! Transform and rip them from the sky!" Several of her fellow airborne capable brothers and sisters promptly shifted to their altmodes, beginning to chase up after the abominations. Hearing a screech, she whipped around, her optics widening as one of the antibodies came mere feet from her faceplate before a blade pierced it's body, forcing it to the ground and finishing it off with a second and then third stab.

She stared for a moment as the Prime extracted his blades from the dead creature, before nodding to her.

"Remain wary, Indomina. These are not traditional combatants." Slowly, she nodded. Then she let out a feral grin, allowing a far larger, more primal blade to slide out from one of her arms.

"Then we shall deal with them in an unorthodox manner!"

Judging by all the bodies we were coming across, the main group were doing just fine. It was all still terrorcons of course, which meant they held less interest than the- I stopped, my Zakus pausing alongside me as I stared down at the offlined antibody creature with interest.... Hm. I stepped forward, waving a servo at my guards.

"Establish a perimeter. I want to study this thing." The green mechs all let out nods or affirmatives, before spreading out, covering side tunnels or just standing nearby in case something happened. I took the opportunity to ascertain just how damaged the strange looking drone was. From what I could tell, it had fallen to melee damage, three precise stab wounds perforating it's side. Good, it meant there would likely be less damaged components overall.

Shifting my digit into it's nanolathe format, I stuck it inside one of the wounds, allowing a thin mist of nanites to begin infiltrating the dead creature's systems. What I found was... interesting, to say the very least. [WARNING: LEGION OPERATING SYSTEM DETECTED.] [ATTEMPT INTRUSION: Y/N?] I paused, before slowly extracting my digit from the antibody. [INTRUSION ABORTED.] That sounded... promising. But not something that I wanted to do while Unicron was still around and free.

Maybe after we managed to lock him in the reliquary... and I managed to set up a few safeguards beyond my own internal electronic warfare suite. Standing up, I gestured to a pair of Zakus standing nearby, the duo straightening to attention.

"You two. Grab this thing and haul it back to the breach. Make your way outside and lock it up in a stasis field once you make it to the Nemesis. If anyone asks, you're operating under my direct authority, understand?" The mechs both nodded once before stowing their rifles, moving to grab the antibody by either side and begin dragging it away. I watched them both until they turned a corner, out of sight. Then I began walking again, my remaining escorts closing ranks around me.

That's when the ground shook, several large pieces of clumped up rock falling from the ceiling and smashing apart several corpses before it finally subsided. Another earthquake, stronger than before. As had been predicted. The problem was that the falling rocks had cut off the large primary tunnel the main force had been going down, cutting us off until we found an alternate route. We'd need to take a side tunnel, an unplanned for event. Fuck's sake.

Oh well, more time to study Unicron's insides while Prime did the whole big damn hero thing.