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Date: Wed, 1 May 2002 21:44:50 EDT
Subject: Brawn part 2
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The Transformers: Chronicles of Brawn

Part 2-Traitor!

    The night was so much darker than it had any right to be. Subsystems 
rerouted power time and again, failed, and finally succeeded in bringing 
Brawn around to semi-consciousness. Again, there was pain... both new pains 
and old pains, and now that the adrenaline rush had subsided, he was able to 
concentrate his full attention on it.
    "Warning... immediate medical attention required. Risk of permanent 
shutdown at current levels. Energy output operating at 12 percent..."
    "Tell me something I don't know..." Brawn muttered to himself as his 
internal sensors rattled off his status. Last thing he wanted to do was slip 
into another quad-million year coma due to a crash on Earth. The way the 
humans were treating the place, it probably wouldn't be around anyways.
    Prowl was knocked cold again, but that was to be expected, his wounds had 
been a lot more serious than Brawn's. Brawn had found a small grouping of 
trees east of Lookout Mountain that looked level enough, and brought the ship 
sliding through in an emergency landing. At the last minute, he learned that 
the reverse thrusters for breaking had been damaged in the attack, and 
instead of a rough, but manageable landing, he had gotten a wild, 
uncontrollable--and very painful--landing, finally stopping when the shuttle 
had hit one of the smaller Appalachians.
    No volcanic eruption this time however. Just normal maintenance programs 
doing what they could do to bring him back to an awake state of being.
    Megatron... the Decepticons... attacking Autobot City...
    The thoughts flooded back to him in a huge rush, all of a sudden. He had 
to do something, had to get out of here and warn them. He stumbled through 
the wreckage of the shuttle, his legs not wanting to move at even a quarter 
of the speed his urgency required. Finding a patch of night time sky in one 
of the many holes, he pulled himself out, let his internal compass direct his 
gaze to where Autobot City should be...
    He didn't even need the internal sensors though. The west was ablaze with 
the lights of battle fire, even miles away from where he was. So bright was 
the continual use of lasers, the violent explosions, and the blaze of fire in 
general that the stars themselves could not be made out overhead.
    "No!" he exclaimed loud in to the night; a short, frustrating wail of 
negativity directed at no one, and utterly useless.
    Sparks ignited along his back, caught fire, and then extinguished 
themselves again. They needed him right now... he knew a few old school 
warriors were down here such as Wheeljack and Snarl... and if he wasn't 
mistaken Windcharger had been assigned temporarily as human liason between 
Magnus and the humans, as well as Blaster in charge of communications. 
Perceptor was there too, but smart as he was, he was no fighter either.
     Brawn looked hard at the sight. No doubt Perceptor and Wheeljack were 
either working hard in the repair bay, tending to the wounded, or dead.
    "Gotta get out of this place..."
    He tried transforming to his vehicular jeep mode, but that just caused 
even more glitches to erupt inside and his internal sensors to start yelling 
at him. He felt his mind going blank again...
    Immediately he stopped trying to transform and slunk back down into the 
ship. He looked over at the body of Ratchet, wishing that he was alive right 
now to help patch him up, as he had so many times before. In Brawn's early 
years, he had had little to no respect for medics, or those who didn't 
perform out on the battlefield. But the last few decades had proven to him 
just how valuable those brains were to the war. More important even than 
him...
    "Ratchet... it's not right... they need you more than they need me. I 
shouldn't be the one alive, it should be you... I..."
    "You can't change the past Brawn, only the future," Prowl said suddenly 
from off to the side. "Ratchet's dead, and trust me I feel his loss. But 
logically there was nothing that you could have done to change that."
    "Nice to see you're not coughing up smoke anymore, at least," Brawn 
replied, his tone tired. "But that doesn't change the fact that Ratchet would 
be more useful right now than I would."
    "Brawn..." Prowl said quietly, "Ratchet is still here."
    The small Autobot looked at Prowl as if he were mad. "Ratchet's dead 
Prowl, are your optics damaged? He fell into total system failure right 
before me, there's no coming back from that, it's..."
    "Nevertheless, he is still here."
    For a moment, Brawn was still confused about what Prowl was suggesting, 
complex thought not being one of his strong points. But then suddenly the 
realization swept over him. "Oh no..."
"He has medical supplies that we need, and as you pointed out, he will no 
longer function again."
"I will not despoil the dead!" 
"Brawn, Ratchet was a medic. He was in the business of saving lives, that's 
what he enjoyed doing best, no matter how much he might have complained about 
having to do so. The Autobots are in trouble out there, and they need what 
ever help we can give them. We need his help to do that, and we need it fast 
before our systems fail altogether as well."
Brawn looked hard at Prowl, and then looked hard at the corpse that was known 
as Ratchet, once his friend. His stoic gaze washed over the destroyed body 
and he shook his head, whispering a few words under his breath from the 
warrior's code to protect him from evil.
"Fine... just fine then... show me how..."

* * * * * *
    
    The gruesome affair took most of the night to accomplish, and Brawn 
learned more about Autobot anatomy in that one night than he had ever wished 
to learn. He found himself having to do much of the work at first for Prowl 
was very weak, though quite knowledgeable about repair. "I've always tried to 
follow the example that Optimus sets forth for us," he explained. "Before the 
war, he had originally been built to be a medic, so obviously there's 
something in that knowledge that makes him who he is."
    Brawn hadn't known that before, but then, he had never really spent much 
personal time with Optimus. There were always battles to be fought, defenses 
to be constructed, plans of attack to be considered. It had gone on like that 
for so long. He sometimes found it unfortunate that he had been built in such 
a time that he knew nothing of what Cyberton and the Autobots were like 
before the war. But this piece of information somehow made sense about 
Optimus, and in a way, he understood it better than Prowl did. It wasn't the 
actual knowledge that was important, it was the "why" of the knowledge. Prime 
was-and always had been-about saving and preserving lives.
    Except now, he remembered. How easily it was to forget that his whole 
reason for being on Earth was to uncover a traitor to the Autobots-and have 
them destroyed. He found it a little sad that Prime had given such an order, 
in the old days he would have just had the traitor captured, find out exactly 
why they were doing such things, why they would abandon the cause. Perhaps 
the weariness of the war had finally gotten to him. Brawn could understand 
that.
    Before the sun had arose the next day, Brawn and Prowl were as functional 
as they were going to get. The two had opted to use metal from the 
ship-rather than from their fallen comrades-to seal their wounds once the 
internal repairs had been moderately fixed. Prowl armed himself with his dual 
incendiary missiles and acid pellet gun, while Brawn equipped himself with 
two dual action machine laser rifles that had been brought along on the ship.
    "We're as ready as we're ever going to get," Brawn said, and Prowl 
nodded. But before they had gone too far, Brawn stopped, and ran back to the 
body of Ironhide. Searching his remains, he found what he was looking for and 
then returned with what he was looking for. "For Chromia," he said, holding 
up the ring. "She'll want to know."

* * * * * *

    The road was quickly found once they got away from the crash sight, and 
soon Brawn and Prowl were in vehicular mode and racing back in the direction 
of Autobot City to the west, headlights on full and ready for anything 
unexpected. They soon came upon just that.
    Two vehicles racing in the opposite direction towards them, lights also 
turned on, making it hard to make them out in the dark distance.
    "Stunticons?" Prowl asked, as they both transformed and readied 
themselves for a fight. 
    "I don't remember seeing any, but its always possible."
    Prowl shot one of his missiles off overhead, timing it to explode 
overhead to act as a flare, but it soon became clear that these were no 
Stunticons.
    "Hound? Sunstreaker? What are you two doing here, I thought you were both 
on Cybertron," Brawn asked, amazed.
    "We were," Hound replied, looking at Sunstreaker then back at Brawn. "But 
Prime ordered us down here not too long back in case of any trouble."
    "We were locked out of the city before the defenses went up," Sunstreaker 
added smoothly, "And we've been staging hit and run tactics against the 
Decepticons all day and all night."
    "None of them very effective though, so we thought we'd come up here and 
see if there were any survivors on board the ship. We could sure use a 
strategist like you about now, Prowl."
    Prowl nodded, "I've spent some time thinking over the situation, and once 
I get a better look at the lay of the land, I believe that I can create an 
affective battle plan."
     "Any other survivors up there?" Hound asked.
    Brawn shook his head. "No, we're the only two."
    Hound looked at Sunstreaker again, and Sunstreaker looked at Hound, and 
then they both nodded. An uncomfortable moment seemed to pass, and Brawn was 
about to make some remark, but then suddenly the two were transforming to 
their Earth bound modes. "No use going up there any more then, let's see what 
damage we can do to the Decepticons before this day is through."
    Without questioning, Prowl and Brawn followed their example and 
transformed as well, again heading back towards the city. Brawn couldn't help 
feeling that something was wrong though. Perhaps this war has had an odd 
effect on us all... Hound, usually a pacifist in many respects, gleefully 
looking for an excuse to get back to battle. And Brawn himself? He was 
beginning to feel less like an effective fighter. What good was all the 
strength in the world to him now, when he barely understood what he was 
fighting for. Why wasn't he acting more like Hound, ready to kick butt at a 
moments notice? Had the deaths of Ironhide and Ratchet so drastically changed 
him? Where had all the questions come from?
    "Maybe it's just a phase," he thought. "Once I get back into battle, then 
maybe I'll begin to start feeling like myself again. I owe Megatron a 
pounding for what he did. And I intend to pay him as harshly as I'm able."
    The drive was long back to the city, however, and many, many questions 
were pondered without distraction. He thought about war. Not only the war 
between Autobot and Decepticon, but war itself. He thought about the 
usefulness of intellectuals like Ratchet and Perceptor who were able to do 
more than just fight as he was able to do. He thought about Skids-an Autobot 
he had never really known well who they say had thought far too much about 
too many things... and what had happened, in the end, to him. He even found 
himself thinking about the humans...
    They fight wars, just like us... but they find time for other things as 
well in between wars, and during the wars. Not everyone fights, some stay 
home and do other things. There was a time when Brawn would have considered 
those who did not fight useless waists of lives, not contributing directly to 
the war effort. But perhaps there was something else... something more 
important...?
     The sun arose before long, and with the banishment of night came the 
clear signs of destruction to Autobot City. Decepticons were no longer 
buzzing around like mad flies around rotten meat, but were instead gorging 
themselves inside the city itself, the defenses broken. 
    "So much for hit and run tactics," Brawn muttered, "Any ideas Prowl?"
    Prowl transformed back to robot mode and the others soon followed. "I 
believe so. Hound, I need you to create a hologram, one of an Autobot 
fleet..."
    Brawn pointed to the sky, "Hey that's pretty quick work, Hound."
    Hound looked around, then up. "That's not one of mine."
    "It's reinforcements!" Sunstreaker exclaimed, "About time too, I'm too 
beautiful to die out here."
    "In that case, I say we head right in and fight it out, hard and fast," 
Brawn suggested. "None of this playing around stuff, we go in and mow them 
down."
    "Works for me..." Hound replied, "But... what the heck is that?"
    Prowl and Brawn looked over to see the dark, huge, menacing form of a 
Decepticon warrior gestalt coming fast in their direction from the city.
    "It's Bruticus!" Brawn exclaimed, looking up at the enormous transformer 
and readying his guns. What had he been saying earlier about the relationship 
between size and intelligence? "How the heck did he..."
    But the sentence was never finished, for Sunstreaker had shot him in the 
back, Hound doing the same with Prowl.

* * * * * *

    Brawn awoke again, eventually--groggy with the residual affects of the 
blasts wearing off. "This is beginning to be too much of a habit," he 
muttered to no one in particular, for there was no one around to answer. He 
was in a cell, the bars charged with electricity. There was little room to 
pace, but there was some. He could smell the scent of battle, and realized 
suddenly that he must be in Autobot city itself.  
    Why the heck was he in a cell in Autobot city?
    He remembered seeing Bruticus and then suddenly the jolt of electricity 
in his back... he played it over, watching it through his internal memory, 
and realized with a shock that although he had seen Bruticus, he had not 
"heard" him. The Combaticon had not really been there at all, but merely a 
hologram...
    Though it went firmly against his logic processors, he realized that 
Hound must be the traitor. He had tricked him and Prowl with the hologram to 
distract them, and then shot them both in the back. But why? Why would Hound 
betray the Autobot cause? He was a pacifist-or at least, he used to be... and 
he had always gotten along well with the Earthlings... it didn't make sense.
    Hours passed by, and not hearing the sounds of battle, he had to assume 
that it had ended. The fact that he was in a cell meant that the Decepticons 
must have won, and all the Autobots in the city destroyed.
    He wasn't fond of Earth, but he didn't want to see it in Decepticon hands 
either. The loss of this battle meant that the Earth wars will begin all over 
again... Twenty years of progress down the drain in one night... If only he 
had been fast enough to get to the city, perhaps something else might have 
happened... if only he had found a way to realize the treachery of Hound... 
or if... if...
    The problem with "ifs" is that there are far too many of them.
    He brooded over these in his cell for quite a while, until he heard 
footsteps heading his way. "My captors, the Decepticons," he thought, 
"Probably out to have some fun with their prisoner." As a rule, Decepticons 
did not take prisoners, so Brawn knew that whatever they had planned for him, 
it would not be nice, and would end in death.
    Therefore, he was quite perplexed that the footsteps, once their owner 
came into view, belonged to Steeljaw, and behind him, Blaster!
    "Steeljaw! Blaster! Am I glad to see you two, get me out of here!"
    Blaster, tall sleek Autobot that he was, usually jovial and obnoxiously 
loud, looked coldly at Brawn from above. "Optimus Prime is dead because of 
you. But don't take too much joy in it, Megatron is on his way out as well. I 
hope you're happy, traitor!" 

* * * * * *
    
    "Traitor! What are you talking about?" Brawn yelled, "Where's Prowl? What 
happened to Prime?"
    "You know where Prowl is," Blaster replied, "Hound showed us exactly what 
you did to him with one of his holograms. To think that an Autobot could do 
such a thing to another Autobot... so violently... I always knew you walked 
the edge in battle, Brawn, but I never knew you'd cross it."
    Brawn was shaking his head, "It's not true. I was sent here by Prime to 
find the traitor... I'd never betray the Autobots, never!"
    "Do you think us all daft? Sunstreaker was with Hound, he saw the whole 
thing, and so did Huffer."
    "Huffer?" Brawn said, "How could he? He's dead."
    "You think one blast from a punk like you could have silenced him? He's 
tougher than he looks..."
    "No, he died on Cybertron...! What the heck is going on here!"
    Blaster shook his head in disgust. "You're a pathetic excuse for a robot, 
but you have rights, so you should know that everything you're saying is 
being recorded for use in your trial. Now if you excuse me, I have more 
important things to do right now-I have to clean up the mess your treachery 
has brought down upon us. The sight of you makes me sick. Steeljaw, stay with 
the traitor and make sure he doesn't try to escape. If he tries anything 
funny, kill him."
    And with that, Blaster left, leaving the mechanical lion behind to watch 
with angry eyes. 
    With all the shock of being accused of being a traitor, however, he had 
forgotten the first thing that Blaster had mentioned. Prime... Optimus Prime 
was dead. Dead! What was to become of the Autobots now?

End of Part 2