Prisoner of Destiny: Centurion Chaos

Prisoner of Destiny: Centurion Chaos


A number of Shockwave’s sentinel drones were doing repair work on Cybertron, when suddenly a group of dark green droids rushed at them.  The drones attempted to fight back, but the droids soon overwhelmed them, mercilessly pummeling any drone within reach.  One lone sentinel drone escaped, taking to the air to elude the droids.

***xxx***

“Sentinels, report,” Shockwave requested over the radio.

“Sentinel 5 reporting in,” came a reply.

“State your progress on the repairs to Cybertron,” Shockwave continued.

“Halted, for the moment,” the drone answered.

“Halted?  Why?” Shockwave wondered.

“We came under attack from some Centurion droids,” the Sentinel told him, “The others were destroyed.  I alone escaped.”

“Centurion droids?!” Shockwave exclaimed, “I’d better report this to Megatron.”

***xxx***

“Attention, Megatron,” Soundwave intoned, “Incoming message from Cybertron.”

Megatron entered the command center of his undersea base.  “Put it through,” he ordered.

Shockwave appeared on the monitor screen.  “Hail, Megatron,” he said, giving the Decepticon salute, which was the right arm across the chest with a clenched fist.

Megatron returned the gesture.  “How goes the work on Cybertron?” he wanted to know.

“Repair work has been halted due to Centurion droids interfering with my Sentinel work crews,” Shockwave stated, “If you still have the Key to Vector Sigma, you must bring it to Cybertron so that we can order the Centurion droids to leave my Sentinels alone.”

“But the key was destroyed,” Megatron said, “That means there is no way of controlling those droids.”

“We must stop them somehow,” Shockwave told him, “Unfortunately, they’re practically indestructible.”

Just then, Sheba arrived, stepping off the elevator of the docking tower.

“Maybe not,” Megatron mused, as he turned and looked at her.

Sheba stared back.  “What?”

***xxx***

A small group of Decepticons, led by Megatron, arrived at Decepticon headquarters on Cybertron via the Space Bridge.  Sheba was with them.

Shockwave, of course, was there waiting for them.  “Greetings, Megatron,” he said, “I see that you have brought Sheba with you.  Do you think maybe she can handle the Centurion droids?”

“The thought had occurred to me,” Megatron admitted, “While the Centurion droids are strong, they must have a vulnerability somewhere.  Perhaps Sheba can help pinpoint it.”

“Strong?  They’re indestructible!” Rumble stated.

"Quiet!" Megatron said, clearly annoyed at the cassetticon's chiming in.

“Indestructible, you say?” Sheba said, “Boy, I love a challenge.  Where are these things, anyway?”

“In the lower levels of Cybertron,” Shockwave informed her, “I was attempting repairs on some of the damaged infrastructure there, but the droids attacked my Sentinels.”

“Oh.  Okay,” Sheba said, “So, let’s get out there, then?  The sooner we take care of the droids, the quicker your Sentinels can get back to repair work.”

***xxx***

Shockwave showed Megatron and the others where the Centurion droids had attacked his Sentinels.  The place was littered with damaged drones, most of which had been beaten almost flat, or smashed to pieces.

“I remember when we tried fighting those things,” Rumble remarked, “I couldn’t even dent ‘em!”

“Maybe Starscream’s null ray would work,” Sheba suggested, looking up at her Guarded One.

“Perhaps,” Starscream said, rubbing his chin.

A greenish glow in the distance caught the attention of the others.

“Hey, what’s that?” Blitzwing wanted to know, as he pointed.

“The droids!” Megatron exclaimed.

Out of the shadows, a multitude of round green glowing orbs appeared to grow larger.  They entered the light, and Sheba saw gigantic dark green droids, and the glowing green orbs appeared to pass for the mechanisms’ heads.  There were dozens of them--maybe a hundred.  They slowly marched forward for a while, then suddenly a yellow square on one of the droids flashed briefly, and they rushed forward.

“They’re coming fast!” Starscream shouted, “Sheba, you’d better DO SOMETHING!”

“Hold on, I’ll get a summon ready.  You try to null them!” Sheba told him.

“There’s TOO MANY to nullify!” Starscream objected.

“Just TRY, okay?” Sheba replied.

Starscream snorted, but did as Sheba asked, anyway.  The blast from his null ray dropped a droid on the spot.  However, a few moments later it stirred and got back up, rushing at the group after its fellows.

“Rumble, activate your piledrivers,” Megatron ordered.

“Ready to shake, ready to quake!” Rumble said, and soon his powerful piledrivers were slamming the ground, causing it to shake.  It did knock the Centurion droids over, but they were quick to get to their feet, with no apparent damage.

“Gotta push them back,” Sheba realized, “TSUNAMI!”  Green orbs with red centers spun up around Sheba, then scattered in all directions.  The Decepticons vanished into the protective dimension as Leviathan, appearing as a watery ribbon, emerged from a glowing portal.  The Guardian Force solidified into its sea serpent form, then rose up in the air underneath a wall of earth that followed him.  Perched on the wall, Leviathan reverted to liquid form, pouring down like a waterfall.  The waves crashed into the Centurion droids, pushing them backwards, but not doing very much damage.  The droids immediately got up and resumed their advance.

Sheba quickly cast Scan, the minute she reappeared after the summon.  She took a moment to absorb all the information the spell was giving her.

“Well?” Megatron wondered.

“Their vitality is stupid-high,” Sheba said, “No wonder it’s so hard to damage them; it’s the highest I’ve ever seen, on anything.  Not only that, they absorb fire, wind, and lightning, and they’re super-resistant to earth, water, and ice.  Holy and Poison will have no effect at all.”

“Do they have any weaknesses?” Megatron wanted to know.

“Elementally, no, but their Spirit stat isn’t all that high, meaning Magic is the only way to stop them,” Sheba said, “I’ll have to see if I can get them in Vitality Zero status, but if all else fails, the non-elemental attack spells will likely work best.”

“Well, if Magic is the only way to beat them, hadn’t you better pass around some Guardian Forces?” Blitzwing asked Sheba.

“Might not be a bad idea,” Sheba agreed.  She let Starscream junction Quezalcoatl, and gave Pandemona to Blitzwing.  “Don’t be summoning, you two,” she warned them, “That’ll only heal the Centurions.”  Fortunately both Starscream and Blitzwing already had some stocked magic--including Flare--that Sheba let them keep in reserve for emergencies.  As long as they didn’t have any Guardian Forces junctioned, they couldn’t use those spells anyway.

The Centurions were getting a little too close for comfort.  “Hey, those things, can they fly?” Sheba wondered.

“Negative,” Shockwave replied, “One of my Sentinels was able to escape through flight, and was not pursued.  I do not believe they have aerial capability.”

“Well, then,” Sheba began, as she rose into the air with a few powerful wingbeats.

“Take to the air!” Megatron ordered.  He fired a few blasts of his fusion cannon at the advancing droids, but even that powerful weapon could do absolutely nothing to the Centurions.

“Good idea,” Starscream remarked, as he joined Sheba in hovering just out of reach of the Centurion droids.

“I don’t understand why you’re wasting firepower on those things.  It’s not hurting them one bit,” Sheba said.

“Maybe you could try slowing them down with status effects,” Megatron suggested.

“I guess it’s worth a try,” Sheba said, “RUNAWAY TRAIN!”

The Centurion Droids suddenly found themselves trapped in a railway crossing gate.  A series of flames lit up a spectral track, and a train with a ghostly face appeared at the top of it.  It began barreling towards the droids, and when it hit them, it did no damage at all.  The only status effect that showed up on them was Vitality Zero, and only on about a third of the droids.

Blitzwing then cast Flare on one of the droids that was in Vitality Zero, and the mechanism collapsed immediately.  It did not get up.  

Starscream did the same, and got identical results.  “It’s working!” he exclaimed.

“Can you keep summoning until they’re all affected?” Megatron wondered.

“Yeah, I guess so,” Sheba replied.  The second time around, only a quarter of the droids were newly afflicted with the negative status.  It took several more rounds of summoning Doomtrain before all the Centurions looked like it had a semi-purplish tint to them, which indicated Vitality Zero.

“It’s going to take too long to defeat each and every one of those things with a Flare spell,” Sheba remarked, “Here, let me clean ‘em up all at once.  ETERNAL BREATH!”
The Decepticons disappeared with Sheba into the protective dimension, momentarily confusing the droids.  A strange dark glowing grid appeared under the Centurions, and high above hovered what looked like a bizarre space ship that was mostly white and blue with purple accents—the Guardian Force Eden.  The grid moved the Centurions up and over above a great blue crystal on Eden’s upper surface, which began emitting energy.  The energy became a focused blast, which sent the Centurion droids into the center of a galaxy.  There was a massive explosion, and at the end of the summon sequence, all the droids keeled over, defeated.

“Excellent work,” Megatron remarked.

“Thanks,” Sheba replied, as she stopped hovering and landed.  She approached one of the fallen droids.  “This thing REEKS of Magitek,” she said, as she examined it.

“Magitek?  If that’s so, why weren’t the droids using Magic?” Starscream wanted to know.

“I think the enhancements were intended to deter both magical and physical attacks, but it’s focused primarily on negating physical damage,” Sheba replied, “The only magical capability appears to have been elemental absorption.  Whoever built these things was mainly concerned with deterring invaders that could only do physical damage, but had the foresight to make them difficult even for a magic-user to handle.”

“So, uh, what do we do with them now?” Rumble piped up.

“We should disassemble and examine them,” Megatron said, but no sooner had the words left his vocalizer than the air around the droids began shimmering.  Moments later, the Centurions all completely vanished.  “WHAT?!” the Decepticon Leader exclaimed in surprise.

“What happened to them?” Starscream wanted to know.

“No idea,” Sheba said, “Doesn’t seem like they got teleported anywhere.  Maybe they simply disintegrated.”

“Perhaps,” Shockwave agreed, “But, now that they’ve been dealt with, I can resume the repairs to Cybertron’s infrastructure.”

“Excellent,” Megatron replied, “And now, we must return to Earth and see about our next shipment of energon.”

***xxx***

Once Sheba and the others had returned to the Undersea Headquarters, the Decepticons that hadn’t got to come along all wanted to know how Sheba had handled the Centurions.

“You ended up having to use Magic, right?” Thundercracker wondered.

“Yup.  Physical attacks were completely ineffective,” Sheba told him, “But, they absorbed a lot of elements, and were immune to others, so I had to go the non-elemental route.”

“She used Eden, and it completely vaporized them!” Blitzwing said, “You know, I don’t know why she doesn’t use that Guardian Force more often.”

“It takes longer to summon than the other Guardian Forces,” Sheba explained, “If I need a GF to appear quickly, I usually go with the most compatible one unless the attack isn’t going to do much.  Oh, and by the way, I don’t think Eden’s attack is what caused the Centurion droids to disappear.  Something else is going on there, but I don’t know what.”

“Do you think we’ll ever find out what happened to them?” Starscream asked.

“Ah, who knows,” Sheba said, shrugging.

THE END?