The Great Seeker

Will post when not lazy.

((YOU COPIED ME!!))

"Jetfire Jetfire!"

;P So?

Looking down at the person that called him, he said, "What?"

"I can't find Khronos anywhere! I last heard her grumbling about something with The Fallen and she just uped and left me. Thats not like her." Meredith was very worried, more for her Guardian than herself. Khronos took her everywhere, even if it was dangerous. So for her to leave little Meredith behind must of mean it was very dangerous.

(Didn't realize that you'd replied! D:> OH NOES.)

Jetfire's engines gave off a low whine, too low for even Meredith to hear, and gave off a slight hum; much like what Khronos would do, but this hum was different. It was...grave, worried, knowing.

As Meredith waited for him to answer, Jetfire wondered why Khronos had left the tiny human to go see the treacherous bastard, The Fallen. Only a few things would rouse her enough to see his face, and Jetfire hoped nothing bad had happened.

Turning to leave, he heard Meredith ask if she could come along. Growling, but nodding anyhow, he grabbed her, placed her in his chassis-cockpit, and warped to the only place he knew the two would ever meet up again on such a short notice. The Archaic Decepticon had just seen his daughter this morning; neither The Fallen nor Khronos would have wanted to leave Earth, even for a moment.

As he came out of the warp gate half of a trillionth of a second later, he raised his hands (out of habit) to the blistering Sun that sat overhead, the blinding white sands of the desert ground causing Jetfire to see spots.

"Welcome to Egypt, hybrid," the old growling Decepticon said, his voice sounding none-too-cheery but his tone faking patience.

"Lovely" Meredith grumbled the words. She was just starting to get used to warping with Khronos, Jeftire was totally different. She smothered the gag-reflex all the same. Meredith glanced around the white sea of sand, expecting to see at least a pyrimd or a river or something, maybe a camel, but she was dissapointed. She sheltered her silver eyes from the blistering sun.

Meredith rumbled lowly, it was a draconic sound, it could mean a number of things really, but this time it was worry for her guardian. "Jetfire...what could Khro be doing out here, and...what do you think made her leave me behind?"

He didn't answer her, mainly because he just couldn't; partially, because he just didn't hear (or, really want to hear) Meredith speaking.

Taking a few cautious steps out into the desert, Jetfire kept a vigilant watch over everything-- the skies, the ground, his internal scanners, and even his own "gut" feeling that had become infamous throughout the Wars--as well as hoping and praying that nothing horrible has happened to his daughter, Khronos...or to the surrounding human civilizations.

Khronos sat atop the cliff, looking very much like a black, metallic gargoyle sitting in the Sun.

As her blood red gaze flew over the Egyptian deserts, she sensed three familiar beings come up onto her internal radar system; two of them were Meredith and Jetfire, out near the Karnak Temple in Luxor, while the other was a being she'd been dreading to see, but had planned on his return since his death just a few years ago.

Not even turning to the mech as he appeared a few yards behind her squatted form, Khronos growled, her gaze narrowing some at his disgusting presence, "Hello, Fallen. So nice of you to join me." He snorted.

Snarling, The Fallen replied, his tone showing sarcasm though his tone was malicious, "The feeling is mutual, femme. Now, our agreement?" She finally stood up, her form liquid as she turned and stared up at him, unafraid.

Not like she should have been; she'd known him for far too long to be pitifully afraid of a mech just hardly 10 feet taller than her.

Her tone flat, Khronos said, staring up at the smirking mech with a glaring gaze, "Our agreement will come after one of us has been claimed a victor, and you know it." As he snorted again and turned to walk off, Khronos stayed her ground and continued, pointing a clawed hand at him, her index finger following him, as she continued, "You and I both came up with the rules, and have agreed on them with our very sparks. Now, unless you want to say that you are backing out of this fairly-ruled challenge, then our agreement becomes null and you are banished."

He was stiff for a moment, as if he were thinking long and hard about the decision. He should have been; it was life or death here, but at least if they actually fought then there would be a fair chance that he could win. Backing down from the challenge would only make him disqualified-- not a good thing to do.

Finally, after a few minutes of contemplating a fair game or not, he roughly put his hand out and they shook.

"Fine," he growled, snapping his hand back up to his chest as his arms crossed in an irritated fashion. "But we battle here, now."

A glint showing in her optics as a large malicious smile spread across her face, Khronos hissed, tackling him instantly, "Then let us begin!"

They fell down the side of the mountain quickly, rolling as they fought with one another, scraping each other's faces and whatever else they could reach as they tussled.

This was a fight to the finish; though no words had been spoken as to what was going on, it was quite apparent: The Fallen wanted revenge of what had happened in this very desert, hardly 3 years ago.

It was the very battled as well; the only thing that wasn't there, was the ominous black monstrosity that had been The Harvester, which had been dismantled soon after The Fallen's defeat.

The winnings of the game were simple: if Khronos won, The Fallen would leave and never bother anyone again. If The Fallen won, all Hell would be to pay...

Jetfire felt the disturbance with his daughter's battle immediately; it sent a chill up his spine as he felt her rage for The Fallen course through to his side of their parental-child bond.

Even Meredith felt the old Blackbird's movements.

Meredith sensed what Khronos was doing through her guardian bond, and lets just say, she wasn't about to let the one who saved her, die for her. She banged her fists on the glass of Jetfires chassis cockpit, "Let me out! I have to stop this!" she cried out, tears streaming from her eyes. She hit the glass in desparation, yet it only felt like slight taps if anything at all to Jetfire.

Meredith nevertheless, continued her infernal beating to escape.

Becoming knocked from his sudden stupor of being caught up in Khronos' rage, he suddenly barked at Meredith, "Quiet child! This is not your fight, this is not your war! No matter what Khronos has done for you, we cannot get involved..."

After a few moments of awkward silence, Jetfire continued on, his voice softer, "Look. I know you wish to help her; so do I. But I fear they have given their lives up to a game of who-can-hit-the-hardest-and-still-stand-later. Only one can come out on top-- and they decide who it is.

"But," he added in slyly, "we can go and watch the fight, if you wish."

Though he was trying to be nice, it killed him to say the last statement. He'd rather not see his child be beaten after what she'd been through lately, but it was better than not being around to see her die, as she'd been there for his death...

Meredith had ceased her banging, her hands still resting on the glass, hot from the sun beating down on it. Her mouth hung open as she tried to think. 'Go and possibly see a butchering, or see my guardian triumph?' Meredith thought to herself. Tears started to roll from her eyes as she made the hard decision. She gulped.

"I-...lets go..." her words quiet and slow. She choked the decision, then hugged her knees in the seat of the cockpit. She was shaking from trying not to cry, giving off waves of distressed energy, an aura of emotional pain. She could only pray to Mana to protect Khronos, it was in her hands now.

(I couldn't figure out what to say... D: Sorry for lack of updates, so, here's a long read! ^^; Pretty much a Jetfire-rant, lol...)

Jetfire nodded, and began his trek across the desert.

There were thousands of miles between his position and his daughter's; he didn't want to warp, mainly for the fact that if The Fallen sensed him and thought Khronos to be cheating, no matter what would have been Jetfire's purpose there, Khronos would have been disqualified and, if his hunch was correct, then executed.

On the other hand, if he transformed and flew to the battlefield, then they would get to Khronos faster-- as well as allow the human female to be removed from Jetfire's chassis-storage center. He didn't really mind the female, but having her inside of him?...that was a whole 'nother story. Autobot or not, humans were just disgusting sometimes.

Jumping up and transforming on a dime, his thrusters fired up with a low growling noise quickly emitting from the engines, and he shot off with a thunderous BOOM! sounding from his engines as he went from 0 to 300 almost instantaneously.

While in the air, hardly any time passed before Jetfire recognized Meredith's questioning mind. It didn't take a mind reader to sense she was distressed with the entire situation they were all stuck in. So, Jetfire decided to fill her in.

"There are old rituals every Transformer knows, many of which have been here ever since the beginning of my race," he began softly, his cockpit having already become soundproof so Meredith's ears didn't explode from the noise of his engines. "One of them is what Khronos and The Fallen happen to be involved with.

"What it is, is simple: a battle to the finish, no help whatsoever becoming involved between the two fighters, and whoever wins decides what is to become of the loser. In this case, I can only think of one thing either would want. For The Fallen, to regain what he has lost: his power and his revenge against the universe. For Khronos, to have The Fallen banished for the rest of his days into some forsaken dimension.

"Unlike most other battles like this, just as I said before there can be no outside help. If there is any, then the one being helped loses automatically, leaving the other one to be the victor. If both are helped, they are both disqualified and the battle's agreements are voided."

Meredith understood, nodding to show this. "So thats why she left me at base...she did everything she could to keep me in the back room. I had a bad feeling when she locked the door then barricaded it." Meredith was pulled, she wanted to help, it was her instinct to help. "This is happening again, I left my family because I hated how they worked, this battle, its just like one of the battles that happened before I left. Heh, seems I cause a ton of trouble"

Jetfire shook his head.

"No. None of this is your fault."

Meredith sighed. "Maybe. I do know though that somehow this fight is my problem"

(Oh...like, after Mer says "I cause a ton of trouble," Jetfire Transformed and is now walking...lmao my bad. XD;; )

Jetfire shook his head. "Don't worry. Khronos won't fight your battles for you-- but, if you do somehow get involved, she won't let you get hurt." He turned his gaze down, smiling slightly as he muttered thoughtfully, almost regretfully, "That trait of hers was passed from me-- me, of all Cybertronians, she happened to become the most ruthless but also one of the kindest..."

He was shaken out of the slight stupor as he heard human screams with his sensitive audio receptors. The one good thing about being older?: you could still hear, despite the fact that you may have been in such a state of disrepair that your parts weren't even known, let alone sold anymore.

Meredith smiled, not hearing the screams at first. "Yeah, when I first met her I sensed something in her...yanno what I'm talking about right? Some humans can sense things on a different scale than others. Its like you guys with your Archaic stuff...though any human can be born with these gifts..." She suddenly heard the screams, Merediths hearing was strange. Sometimes it was deaf, other times it would randomly become superhuman. This was one of those moments.

At Meredith's sudden quiet response to hearing the screams, Jetfire remembered that he'd accidentally let down the soundproofing of his storage container on his chest, and he quickly replaced the "shield." But, it was already too late; Meredith had heard the sounds, and was now probably going to annoy the mech with what had happened until he let in.

Please Primus don't let that happen..., he thought to himself, staring up at the sky with a pleading look.

Meredith was no expert on Cybertronian body language from the inside, but she could tell from the air pressure that Jetfire was in a pleading mood. Many humans who could sense who people were on the inside, could also sense emotions of others. On the tips of human ears were receptors to changes in air pressure, it was debateable if they were really there, but some could sense it. She decided against asking an onslaught of questions, and only said "We better hurry, things sound bad..." her tone was serious, grave, almost as if she had given up hope.

Jetfire knew from the way her tone was that Meredith was holding back her questions, but he didn't complain; instead, he transformed once again and growled, "Hold on, human, things might get a bit squished in there."

As he shot off, going from just a few hundred m-p-h to well over a few thousand in just about 15 seconds, Meredith was just about crushed against the seat, the 7-Gs of pressure hitting her as he continued to gain speed.

About 5 minutes passed, and the pressure had already lifted to the point that Meredith could move again.

"Sorry about that," he said as Meredith gave a glare at his alt mode's controls. "It was either that, or warping..."