Ricochet squeezed the trigger and a meter-long unbroken stream of plasma burst forth from the Nightstick’s barrel. The blast was too late however, as Megatron’s thrusters pushed him up and out of harm’s way, transforming to flight mode in midair. The blast streaked past his lower chassis, missing Megatron’s flight system by mere centimeters. But that was only the first stroke.

Its path now unobstructed, the bolt lashed out and struck a corroded data-con pylon. From there its dispersed energy split into four separate bolts, continuing their flight in random directions. Megatron had just managed to lock down the last of his vehicular components when the first of these bolts, having careened off three other pylons in the meantime, struck him in his right wing. The second and third bolts struck in sequence, in the right booster and the nosecone section, respectively.

The final bolt would have struck Megatron’s midsection had the first three not sent him tumbling to the ground.

As Megatron’s systems crashed one by one and he slipped into stasis, Ricochet’s braying filled his dimming senses, joined by the sound of transformation and Nightstick’s own chorus of laughter.

[...]

“He’s gonna get out!” Scoop groaned, glancing back nervously. “And he’s gonna be mad when he does!”

Ricochet’s vicious smile quickly melted away. “Oh, smelt, that’s a good point! I mean, why wouldn’t I have thought of that?” His face contorted in anger as he slapped the shaking bright-green mech across the back of his head. “Tool! You’se a frakin’ bulldozer, act like one fer once in yo life!”

“But he’s going to kill us dead! Deader than dead!” Scoop groaned, rubbing the spot where he’d been struck.

“Go get a drip-pan if you’re gonna be leaking the whole time you’re here, you strutless pile of tin,” Crosshairs grumbled from the other side of the room, reclining in a makeshift chair, his feet kicked up on Megatron’s drone-tank. The black and red robot idly picked something off one of his wrist-mounted cudgels. “He’s not getting out, and even if he does… he’s only got one place to go… down.”

Ricochet stopped for a moment to admire his own handiwork. The ruins of the Underbase provided him with plenty of raw materials. Megatron’s chained form now dangled over an old coolant shaft. This pit sported a line of low-intensity cutting lasers at its opening, followed by a mass of slowly rotating gears. A little further down, a row of plasma torches sparked slowly, casting a hellish glow up the tunnel.

Two smaller mechs also hung by Megatron, both of similar build to the one Ricochet had murdered outside. They whimpered quietly as they watched Ricochet’s every move.

The Autobot smiled, lazily swaggering across the room, arms waving with a showman’s air. “If’n he breaks loose, or if I throw this big switch on the wall, he gets zapped, ground up an’ roasted… it ain’t gonna kill him, but it do dump him inna thousand-meter drop fulla old cables and nasty sharp edges, and at the bottom of it all… the ol’ standby, big-aft fraggin’ vat o’ acid!” Ricochet looked up into Megatron’s face with a grin full of evil intent. “You gettin’ alla this, Megsy?”

Megatron’s face was impassive. “I do believe so. You weren’t satisfied with merely one cliché deathtrap, so you went
with five.”



- Do Over