Prisoner of Destiny: Magic Adventures Part 2

"Megatron calling Cybertron.  Are you there, Shockwave?"

Shockwave's featureless face appeared on the viewscreen.  

"Shockwave here.  Proceed, Megatron."

"Be prepared to receive another shipment of Energon Cubes to Cybertron.  When will the Space Bridge be reopened?" Megatron asked.

"In 15 billion astroseconds, at these co-ordinates," Shockwave replied, and an image of the place where the space bridge was set to appear was put up on the screen.  It was in the middle of a desert.

"Excellent, Shockwave!" Megatron said approvingly.

***

"Hey, what's this?" Chip wondered, as he was working on something using Teletraan 1.  The computer had suddenly popped up an alert about Decepticon activity.  Quickly he typed to get more information.

"Hey, Teletraan 1 says that another Space Bridge will be appearing soon," Chip told Ratchet, who was busy fixing Gears.

"Oh wonderful," Gears grumbled, "Where?"

"In Death Valley, it looks like," Chip stated.

"Death Valley?  That doesn't sound good," Ratchet stated.

"It's probably named that because we're all going to die there," Gears said, "The sand will get in my relays, the heat will warp my tires and ruin my paint job, the glare of the sun will blind us all so we can't see the enemy to shoot them, and-"

"If you don't cut that out Gears, I'm going to short-circuit your mouth," Ratchet snapped.

***

Megatron surveyed the place where the Space Bridge was to appear.  For miles around there was nothing but sand and rocks.  No humans, no life forms, and no Autobots--yet.  It was the perfect location.  Theoretically, he could have sent Astrotrain to Cybertron, loaded up with energon cubes.  But that was uneconomical compared to the Space Bridge.  Not even Astrotrain and Blast-Off put together had that much cargo room.  And there was always the possibility of Astrotrain getting intercepted by Omega Supreme.  So instead, he divided up the load between his warriors and brought them to the transport site.  Sheba was too tired to come along; in any case she would be instantly summoned if anyone attacked Starscream.  He watched as Thundercracker and Skywarp were unloaded by Reflector, Rumble, and Frenzy, and the cubes added to an ever-growing stack.  Thrust and Dirge just came in with their loads.  Starscream, as usual, was ordering everybody around and being picky about it to boot.  Blitzwing and Ramjet were standing guard over the cubes, having been some of the first to be unloaded.

Blitzwing spotted something in the distance.  A dust cloud was being raised, like when a bunch of cars drive down a dry dirt road.  But in a few minutes it was obvious what that causing the dust cloud.  

"Megatron!  AUTOBOTS!" Blitzwing shouted.  Seconds later, the Space Bridge appeared.  

Reflector's three components hurried, and managed to place a small stack of energon cubes into the Space Bridge.  It did not close and activate yet.

Optimus Prime and a whole contingent of Autobots were now upon them.

"Autobots, TRANSFORM!" Optimus Prime ordered, while doing so himself, "Now, remember the plan!"

All the Autobots got their weapons out and began firing.  The Decepticons were rather heavily outnumbered, and soon it became obvious what the "plan" was:  not one Autobot was trying to blast Starscream, but they were eagerly blasting everyone else.  Optimus Prime took care of Megatron, knocking him out totally with a stun blast from his laser rifle.  

Several Decepticons--Skywarp, Blitzwing, Dirge, and Thundercracker--fell backwards into the Space Bridge field and didn't get up.  Pretty soon Starscream was the only one left standing.  

"Now Autobots!  Destroy the energon cubes!" Optimus Prime commanded.

"NO!  NOT THE CUBES!" Starscream hollered, and ran towards the stack.  

Several blasts from the Autobots' weapons hit the cubes in the huge stack outside the space bridge, and they all exploded when Starscream was only a few feet away.  He was thrown backwards into the Space Bridge.

"Prime, there's more cubes in the Space Bridge!  What do we do?" Hound called out.

"We go and get them, before they get transported!" Prime told him.  He and Hound, Perceptor, Mirage, Tracks, and Sideswipe ran into the Space Bridge, intent on destroying the cubes.  Sheba appeared immediately in front of Starscream, just as the doors to the space bridge closed.  She began to summon a Guardian Force, but something odd happened.  They were sucked into the Space Bridge pathway and they could see they were headed towards Cybertron.  But the minute the Guardian Force--Quezacotl--appeared, a warp hole opened in their path and they were all swept inside.  The next thing they could see was that they were not on Cybertron.  Nor were they anywhere on Earth.  They couldn't see any sky; it appeared they were in a large cavern.  And oddly enough, the cavern appeared to be well-lit as though it were daylight.  Torches were evident on the walls, though they seemed to be giving off a disproportionate amount of light.  There were two exit tunnels, on opposite sides of the cavern.  Even more strangely, there appeared to be a wooden treasure chest in one corner of the chamber.

Sheba blinked, as though she was just waking up.  The Autobots stared at her intently.

"Why did you bring us here?" Optimus Prime demanded.

"Wha...?  Me?  Bring you here?  I didn't do that!  I just woke up!" Sheba protested.

"It happened while you were in the act of Summoning that huge bird," Sideswipe stated.

"I guess that means I shouldn't be summoning Guardian Forces in my sleep," Sheba sighed.  She looked around and saw the Decepticons that had been brought with them.  They were all knocked out.  She cast Full-Life on Starscream first.

"What happened?" Starscream said as he got to his feet.  Then he saw the unfamiliar surroundings.  "Where are we?!" he wanted to know.

"I haven't got a clue," Sheba said, as she cast Full Life on Thundercracker, then Blitzwing, then Skywarp, then Dirge.  There was a brief standoff once all the Decepticons were revived.

"I was afraid she was going to do that," Perceptor sighed.

"Oh great, now what are we going to do?" Hound asked Prime.

"We're going to get out of here," Prime replied.

"Well, no time like the present.  I don't like the atmosphere around here," Tracks sniffed, and went to one of the tunnel openings.  The instant he reached it, an invisible force threw him backward.

"HEY!" Tracks complained, "What was that?"  Quickly he ran to the other entrance.  The same thing happened.

"Looks like the Autobots are stuck here!" Blitzwing gloated.  He headed for the tunnel that was closest to him.  But he had no better luck than Tracks had before him.

"AAAAGH!" Blitzwing shouted, as he was repelled backwards from the doorway.  "That's it, I'm BLASTING it!"  He got his weapon out and fired at the doorway.  The laser beams went through the tunnel.

"Hey!  How come my laser blasts can go in but I can't?" Blitzwing complained.

"Perceptor!  Can you figure out what's causing that?" Optimus asked.

"Right away, Prime!" Perceptor replied, and he approached one of the doorways.  He stopped short of it and tried to stick his hand into the tunnel.  It bounced back, almost as if it hit an invisible wall.  Quickly he transformed to microscope mode and examined the wall surrounding the exit.

"It's not a solid wall, and there are no holograms in here," Perceptor said at last, "I can find no scientific reason for this barrier.  There's no obvious power source for any kind of forcefield.  And a forcefield shouldn't let laser blasts past it.  As for the walls, the composition is unlike anything I've ever seen.  Blasting through it would be impossible because of the density of the molecules."

"Hmph," Skywarp snorted, "Maybe you guys can't get out, but I can!"  A blue light enveloped him, and he vanished.  But a microsecond later, he reappeared exactly in the same spot he'd been standing in.  "Hey, what gives?" he complained.

"Sheba, why don't you try to warp us out of here?" Starscream asked.

Sheba concentrated and cast Warp.  Nothing happened.

"Why didn't it work?!" Starscream wanted to know.

"I don't understand; it should have worked.  My Full-Life spell is working fine.  Wait, hold on.  When I was trying to cast the spell, I was thinking of Earth," Sheba told him, "Lemme try again."  Sheba cast Warp a second time, and a blue light enveloped her.  She vanished, and appeared again a few dozen feet away.

"Ok, so now we know there's nothing wrong with my teleport spell.  Skywarp, try teleporting again--just a few feet away."

"Okay," Skywarp told her, and teleported.  He appeared again, a little farther away.

Sheba looked thoughtful.  "Hmmm, looks like nothing's stopping us from teleporting within the area.  That means something must be blocking us from teleporting out.  That probably explains why I'm still here."  

"Well, well.  Looks like we're stuck here," Optimus pointed out.

"Wait a minute!  If that barrier has nothing to do with science, maybe it has something to do with Magic," Sheba realized, and she went to one of the tunnel entrances.  Gingerly she put out a paw and slowly moved it towards the mouth of the tunnel.  Strangely enough, her paw did not bounce off anything.  She was able to put it down inside the tunnel.  She walked forward, and found she was able to go into the tunnel without any resistance.

"Seems okay now.  Okay Blitzwing, try coming in," Sheba said.  But as before, Blitzwing could not enter the tunnel.  So, Sheba ran back into the tunnel to explore it.  A few minutes later she returned.  "It looks like a dead end," she told them, "There's a switch on the floor, but when I pressed it, it didn't do anything."

"That's strange," Mirage commented.

Sheba came outside the tunnel and cast Dispel, hoping to shatter whatever forcefield was in place.  But Blitzwing still couldn't get into the tunnel.  

"Well if we can't get out of here, let's make sure the Autobots never get out either," Dirge suggested.

"Good idea!" Starscream said.  He and the other Decepticons raised their weapons at the Autobots.  Prime and the others did the same.

Sheba walked into the exact center of the cavern between the Autobots and Decepticons, flopped down, and curled up.

"What are you doing?" Starscream snapped impatiently.

"I don't think there's any point in fighting," she replied.

"And why not?" Starscream asked, in a tone of voice that indicated increasing irritation over the situation.

"I don't think we'll be able to get out of here without them," Sheba told him.

"WHAT?!" Starscream and the other Decepticons sputtered at once.
"No, really, think about it.  Separately, nobody was able to go into the tunnel except me.  We tried blasting it, we tried casting Dispel--nothing works.  But there is an option we haven't tried," she explained.

"And what's that?" Starscream demanded.

"Try sending in an Autobot and a Decepticon in together," she suggested.

"ARE YOU CRAZY?!" several voices practically screamed at her.

"Well if any of you have a better idea, I'd love to hear it," she growled.  

So, Perceptor and Starscream--eyeing each other warily--both stepped towards one of the tunnel entrances.  This time nothing blocked them--they were able to go right into the tunnel.  They turned around after a few steps and came back.

"Now let's try the other tunnel," Sheba said.

This time, Thundercracker and Optimus Prime went towards the other tunnel.  Neither of them had any trouble going inside.  They came right back out.

Sheba suddenly realized something.  "Of course!  Why didn't I see it before?"

"What are you talking about?" Starscream asked.

"Two tunnels, one with a dead end and a switch, one we haven't explored yet--but I'm willing to bet there's an identical dead end and switch in the other tunnel," Sheba explained, "I've seen this kind of thing before.  Someone has to stand on the switch, to open the path in the other tunnel!  This is definitely that kind of situation.  We just might get out of here after all."

"All right, all we need to do now is split up," Optimus Prime stated.

"Hey wait.  Shouldn't we explore this main room first, to see if we can find anything useful?" Sideswipe pointed out, "Like that treasure chest over there, for example."

Skywarp had already wandered over to the chest and got ready to open it.  It was locked, so he used his laser to blast the lock off of it.

"Skywarp!  Don't open that just yet!" Sheba called out, and ran towards him.

Skywarp totally ignored her and opened it anyway.  A flash of light emanated from the inside of the chest, and a yellow creature resembling an oriental-style dragon emerged from it and attacked Skywarp.

"Oh great," Sheba moaned, and she doubled her speed.  The dragon's wind-based attack nailed Skywarp for 1700 HP worth of damage before she reached them.

Skywarp staggered backwards and shouted for help.

Sheba sprang on the monster and started ripping it with her claws.  The creature had tough hide, so it was difficult to cause much damage.  She leaped off and faced it, growling savagely.  Quickly she cast Scan.  The information only gave her the Level, HP, and MP of the monster.  Suddenly, two little angels floated down and touched her and Skywarp.  Immediately they were down to only 1 Hit Point each.  Sheba recognized the attack--"Fallen One"--and suddenly it dawned on her what she was up against.

"OH NO!  It's a DOOM DRAGON!" she exclaimed.  She hurriedly cast Curaga on herself.  The Dragon responed with an Ice-based attack called N. Cross.  Skywarp was frozen by the attack.  The only way to remedy that was for Sheba to cast a low-level Fire spell on him, but she was unwilling to do that because he still only had 1 HP and any damage at all would knock him out.  So, she cast Magitek Cure2 instead, and just in time too.  The Cure2 gave her 2500 HP, and gave Skywarp 2475 HP.  The dragon's next attack was called S. Cross.  That took 372 HP off of herself, and 1470 HP off of Skywarp--and fortunately it had the effect of thawing him out.  

"Skywarp, QUICK!  Teleport out of the battle!" Sheba ordered.  Skywarp was only too happy to comply.  He reappeared beside Thundercracker and the others.  All eyes were now on Sheba and how she would handle the monster.

At her next turn, Sheba cast Regen.  This would slowly restore her HP in case the Doom Dragon decided to use Fallen One again.  Instead, the Doom Dragon tried N. Cross but Sheba was immune.  Since Doom Dragons have 18,008 HP, it was going to take a very powerful attack to take it out in one hit.  So, she summoned Eden.  The Eternal Breath attack took off 25,091 HP, which defeated the dragon.  With the monster gone, Sheba was now able to check out what was in the treasure chest.  It was a bottle containing Megalixir--a medicine used for restoring Hit Points and Magic points for an entire party.  She carried it in her mouth and gave it to Starscream for safekeeping, directing him to put it in his chest compartment.  Then she went over to Skywarp and cast Curaga on him to restore his HP.  

"Now, what did I tell you about touching magical things in strange places?" Sheba scolded.

"Alright, alright," Skywarp sighed, "I won't do it again."

"I wonder if there are any more monsters like that around here," Tracks said.

"Probably," Sheba told him.

"And we likely wouldn't stand a chance against them," Mirage pointed out.

"Well there's only one thing we can do about that," Sheba stated.

"And what's that?" Prime wanted to know.

"I'm going to have to loan out some Guardian Forces to Starscream and the others," she replied.

"What on Earth for?" Prime asked.

"Last time I checked, I can't be in two places at once," Sheba said flatly, "Obviously if I'm the only Magic user, whoever I don't go with is going to be at a serious disadvantage--they might not even make it out.  But don't worry--these guys know that if they use their Magic against you, they won't get out of here either.  And then I'll give them a thrashing to remember."

Ifrit and Siren were given to Thundercracker, Diablos and Shiva were given to Skywarp, while Starscream got Quezacotl and Leviathan, Blitzwing got Pandemona and Alexander, and Dirge got Cerberus and Doomtrain.  In splitting up, it was decided that Sheba would not go in the same party as Starscream.  That was because Starscream was almost as powerful a Magic User as Sheba was and had the most experience with it of all the Decepticons--and an experienced Magic user would be essential in both groups.  In any event if Starscream were in jeopardy then Sheba would automatically come to his rescue anyway.

The first party consisted of Sheba, Mirage, Thundercracker, Perceptor, Dirge, and Tracks, while second party was made up of Starscream, Hound, Skywarp, Optimus Prime, Blitzwing, and Sideswipe.

“Mirage, you should use your invisibility if you run into anything that uses very powerful physical attacks,” Sheba advised, “There’s no point in staying invisible around a monster that attacks with magic, though.”

“Gotcha,” Mirage replied.

"We're going to need to keep in radio contact," Optimus Prime told the other Autobots, "If we are going to have to trigger some switches in order to get out of here, we need to know when."

Starscream and the others had almost gotten to the switch Sheba had mentioned, when a group of monsters attacked them.  They looked like huge disembodied heads.  One of them directed a strange red, almost heart-shaped energy ball at Sideswipe, who was suddenly unable to move.  A pinkish aura surrounded the Autobot.

Starscream cast scan on one of the monsters.  “It’s called a Face, and it’s weak against Ice magic,” he stated, “Each one has 4550 hit points.”

“A Shiva summon should take care of that,” Skywarp stated, “DIAMOND DUST!”  Immediately the party vanished as four beams of ice circled down to the ground, forming a focal point from which a chunk of ice emerged.  Shiva, contained within the ice, opened her eyes, and the ice shattered, falling off her.  A blue-and-yellow tinged energy ball formed in her right hand, and she drew it back, as if winding up to pitch a baseball.  It grew in size and energy as she did so, and then she threw it forward with both hands.  The Face monsters were struck by the blast, and ice formed over them and then broke.  However, the attack only took off about half their hit points.  Each of the three Faces cast 1000 Needles on Skywarp in retaliation, taking a serious chunk out of his health.  It was Blitzwing’s turn next, and he cast Curaga on Skywarp to heal him.

“I think we’ll need a diversion,” Hound remarked.  He used his holographic projector to create multiple images of himself.  One of the Face monsters charged at a holographic Hound, wasting its turn.  Another tried using its stop-inducing Smirk attack on yet another Hound image, to no avail.

Optimus Prime tried shooting at one of the Faces, doing minor damage, certainly not enough to finish it off.  He ended up getting a torso full of 1000 Needles for his trouble.

Starscream sighed, then he summoned Leviathan.  The party vanished to the protective dimension, and Starscream concentrated hard to boost the Guardian Force’s Tidal Wave attack during the summon.  Fortunately it was enough, and the resulting blast of water cascading upon the Faces defeated them.  Then finally, Sideswipe was able to move again.

When the Autobots and Decepticons reappeared and the defeated monsters vanished, Starscream noticed there was some strange, primitive-looking gold currency and two Phoenix Down potions lying on the ground.  He collected the spoils and reached the switch, pausing.  “Starscream to Thundercracker.  Acknowledge,” he radioed.

“Thundercracker here.  Go ahead, Starscream.”

“What’s going on over there?” Starscream asked.

“We’ve just hit a dead end,” Thundercracker replied.

“I’m about to step on the switch.  Let me know if anything happens,” Starscream said.  He stepped on it, and there was a rumbling sound over Thundercracker’s comlink.

“Yeah, there’s suddenly a new passageway in the wall,” Thundercracker radioed back, “We’re going through it.”


TO BE CONTINUED!