TMC 17-2

Panting, groaning, and wounded, the Autobots and their allies were in their base, trying to grasp what happened. “What IS this?!” protested Prowl. “The Decepticons are striking at points of now strategic value and doing nothing but waiting for us before SHOOTING at us! There was nothing of value there! Pit, even that recent skirmish in Chun-nan is nothing more than an Energon drain, since we found that the amulet they were after was nothing more than something to sell to tourists! Primus, I’m spinning my wheels here!”

“Well, stressing over it,” replied Goldbug Magnus, “isn’t going to help. All we can do right now is to stop the Decepticons where we can.”

“With how much we’ve been gobbling up Energon,” retorted Prowl, “I don’t know if we CAN sustain it! Ratchet’s running low as it is and he shouldn’t have to patch us every single day!”

“I hate to sound callous, but it IS part of the job. In any event, there’s not much else we can do. …Hey, on a slightly related note, where’s Optimus?”

“…I thought you knew. I was gonna ask you.”

“If he’s gone charging off alone again…Teletraan, where’s Optimus?!”

“He and Blackarachnia are currently in the old English countryside,” reported Teletraan. “He mentioned that they’re fighting a blast from the past, but the call cut out before he could explain who it was. He’s still alive, from what I can detect.”

“Send a Sky Spy to his position,” ordered Goldbug. “We need to know how many we’re facing, or even WHO we’re facing.”

“There’s also the matter of Cliffjumper not here.”

“Oh, that? He’s investigating an incident in Shamar. Oil’s being drained from their reserves.”

“They don’t suspect us, do they?”

“No, they don’t. They think it’s a Decepticon, but they want us to confirm it. So, I sent Cliffjumper to help them out in any way they can. If he gets overwhelmed, he’s comes back, and we send backup.”

“Very well.”

---

Shamar, once known as the Middle East, still as enchanting as its legends say. Cliffjumper always wanted to check it out and this mission was the perfect opportunity. A Male Mobian White Oryx and a few G.U.N soldiers approached him as he parked at the President’s Mansion. “I never thought I’d see a Transformer face-to-face!” chuckled the Oryx. “I’m Naaman Abdallah, President of Shamar.”

“I’m Cliffjumper,” returned the bot. “It’s a pleasure to help in any way I can.”

“Let’s talk inside,” invited Naaman. He led Cliffjumper’s holo-form through the Mansion into the War Room. Naaman’s staff was waiting for them. “Ladies and Gentlemen, the Autobot representative, Cliffjumper,” he introduced before sitting in his seat. Cliffjumper sat between a female Sand Cat and a male human. “Now, as I’ve mentioned last night,” continued Naaman, “I invited our Autobot friend to confirm our thoughts on this being a Decepticon raid on our oil reserves. Mr. Cliffjumper, many of us are still confused by your faction symbols, even going so far as to mistake Thundercracker for an Autobot at one point when Unicron ruled Mobius.”

“Let me show you my faction’s symbol first,” began Cliffjumper. He rolled up his sleeve and showed off the Autobot symbol tattooed on his shoulder. “This is what bots on my side show off and we’ve got blue optic lenses. The Decepticons wear this symbol,” the tattoo became the Decepticon logo for the duration of the rest of his explanation,” and their optics are redder than my paint-job.” The symbol returned to the Autobot one.

“Well, that confirms it,” declared the human male. “The Decepticons are raiding our oil reserves. Fuel, possibly?”

“I mean, oil CAN be converted into Energon cubes, but it’s a very bitter taste for us. We only convert other fuels into Energon as a last resort and this planet is saturated in natural Energon crystal, so much so, it’s too much of a good thing for us.”

“So they shouldn’t even be so desperate,” surmised Naaman.

“That’s not stopping them from taking it,” grumbled the female sand cat as she looked on her tablet. “I just got a call that the Decepticons stole 630,000 gallons of oil an hour ago.”

“That’s 15,000 barrels!” exclaimed the human.

“Were they seen converting it into Energon cubes?” asked Cliffjumper.

“That’s the glowing pink beverage you lot consume, right?” asked the sand cat.

“Yep.”

“Then, yeah, they were seen doing just that. Just to put this in perspective, one thousand barrels of oil makes one tiny cube!”

“So, this team of Decepticons just stole fifteen cubes in the past hour,” summarized President Naaman.

“Rest assured,” promised Cliffjumper, “I won’t let them take one more quart of oil in ANY second in time.”

“We appreciate that. We’re using Chaos Fusion Drive power like the rest of the world, but it would be nice to have a back-up power source.”

---

Over in the desert, the Decepticons that stole the oil were meeting with a person and their aid. The leader of the Decepticon team was a heavily-built femme with the alt-mode kibble of a mining drill, the second was a mech with a twin-rotor helicopter alt-mode, the third was a jet with the nosecone as his feet, the fourth was a mech that had motorcycle kibble, and the last was a tank with the barrel above his right shoulder. “With all due respect, sir,” began the jet-mech, “it was the Shamaran Military that brought Autobot attention, and yet, you summon us!”

“I would lower my voice, if I were you!” warned the person’s aid. The jet-mech continued.

“First, you gave us a useless ring!”

“That ring holds more power than you realize!”

“Then you tell us to scavenge for our own fuel!”

“You have the equipment!”

“And then you tell us to search for more useless rings!”

“The Seven World Rings are meant for our use! Stop speaking for your boss as she was the one who organized this meeting with nothing to show for it!”

“She is in the middle of deciding whether or not it’s worth the effort for her to speak to you directly, Erazor!”

“YOU ARE THE ONES NOT WORTH THE EFFORT FOR MY MASTER TO ADDRESS DIRECTLY!” The jet-mech then squashed the aid. As he wiped his heel, the motorcycle-mech took his turn.

“We only ask that you take this matter seriously,” he explained. The person then flicked their hand and the mechs were flung into the wall. The femme looked directly at the person as they lowered their cloak to reveal a muscular man with light purple skin, a cardinal red beard and ponytail curving upwards, pointed ears, and black eyes with red rings. He wore a brown cape, gold armbands, brown and white baggy pants held up by a brown and gold belt, and brown, curly toed boots.

“The only matter I do not take seriously, madam,” he snarled, “is you! The politics of the Transformers BORE me! You side with a human with a demeanor equivalent to that of a pouty child and, apparently, you do not understand what the Seven World Rings can do or why you were tasked by that man to go after them. Tell this Eggman that I shall honor our agreement if you bring me the Rings. But return to me empty-handed again, and I shall bathe the deserts in your innermost Energon! So decrees the Erazor Djinn!” He then faded in mist. The mechs picked themselves up.

“…I hate him!” grunted the tank-mech.