7 - Stylor's Stories and Game Over

[Grand Moff Muffin]

STYLOR'S SEQUEL

"You do know Elvis is dead, right?"

"No, Elvis is not dead. He just went home."

- Men in Black
___

I don't know how many of you remember what I said in my last newstype column, addressed to my 'admiring public' all those years ago: "You know you can believe me when I say that this outfit I'm wearing, this seemingly clumsy metal outer casing, is set to be the fashion item of the future. Metal is in, man!" Something like that.

Well, it is an older, wiser, altogether more sombre and hopefully less shallow Stylor who writes to you today, upon his bittersweet return to his beloved homeworld.

I don't return alone, but I do return as the sole survivor from that group of five brave, or rash, volunteers who pioneered Arcana's Headmaster process in order to defend their city from robot invaders. It is a small mercy to me that I don't have to be the one to break to you the news of Galen Kord's death on Earth at the hands of Lord Zarak. That information was brought by the second contingent of Autobots to visit Nebulos, and, I am given to understand, conveyed to the population at large by HiQ's assistant, Kari. But I and my two brothers-in-arms, Muzzle and Quig, have had the sad duty of telling the friends and family of Arcana, Duros, Grot (edit: sorry, I mean Gort), Hotwire, Lug and Spoilsport of their loved ones' noble ends battling the planet-eater, Unicron, and those of Haywire and Recoil of their tragic deaths in the collapse of Scorponok's base on Earth. The families of HiQ, Lube and Rev, I had a perhaps less sad but more complex message to convey - how their loved ones still live, like Muzzle and Quig, despite everything, thanks to the time-bending powers of the Last Autobot, and yet have been altered by the Powermaster process to such an extent that they are now one with their Autobot partners. Whether they will one day allow themselves to be seen on Nebulos as they are now, I do not know.

Although I do not feel bound to personally offer my condolences to the acquaintances of the fallen Nebulans who allied themselves to the Decepticon Transformers, I have paid my respects to Lady Zarak, to inform her of her husband's heroic ending. I couldn't read her. She shed no tears in my presence, but promised to send word to her daughter, Llyra, from whom she has been estranged, apparently, ever since they received word that her lover had been killed by her father on Earth. Poor kid...

I feel sure that Firebolt, Peacemaker, Pinpointer and the Double Targetmaster Nebulans will pay their homeworld a return visit one day, despite choosing to make new lives for themselves on the far more populous and diverse planet that is Earth, a planet that makes claim to be the birthworld of the human species. It is a truly remarkable place. Its people come in a wider array of colours and facial features than we have here on Nebulos, and they have a greater range of wildlife, music, foodstuffs, religions, literature - you name it. Where Nebulos counts its population in millions, they have billions. They are behind us in a number of areas, technologically speaking, but ahead of us in others.

We've brought one of them back with us - one Alessandro Santella, an Italian and Earth's first interstellar ambassador. He is keen to learn everything about us, and teach us about his world. This charming young man has been respectfully accompanying me and my two comrades on our sad rounds to the friends and families of the deceased, many of whom have said how much they appreciated his condolences. When it came to Gort's friend, the lovely Marita, who now works as a clerk in Koraja's law courts, I sensed there might even be something more between them... but I say too much, as usual.

We've also brought back with us some less charming specimens - the Nebulans who go by the names Blowpipe and Caliburst, who we captured last year on the planet Klo, where they were accessories to the acts of genocide perpetrated by their Decepticon allies. They will stand trial here for their crimes, and, if justice prevails, receive stiffer sentences than those handed down to their former comrades, Hairsplitter, Singe, Sunbeam and Zigzag, who were dropped off on Nebulos by the Autobots two years ago.

The six of us arrived here this time also through the agency of our Autobot friends, but humans must not rely on them for all our future traffic between Nebulos and Earth. If our worlds are to become close, as I feel they must, we need our own means of interstellar transport. To that end, I will be appearing before the Council of Peers tomorrow, with one goal in mind - to secure a resolution to re-establish contact with our one-time trading partners at Cameron Space Control, and seek their assistance in bringing their cousins on Nebulos and Earth together into the space age.

Trust me - it'll be all the rage.

THE END

[Fortmax2020]

Oh Stylor - you tease!

[Grand Moff Muffin]

STYLOR'S STATEMENT

"Fifteen hundred years ago, everybody knew the Earth was the centre of the universe. Five hundred years ago, everybody knew the Earth was flat, and fifteen minutes ago, you knew that humans were alone on this planet. Imagine what you'll know tomorrow."

- Men in Black
___

It has been a turbulent time for the planet Nebulos, a dark time, but hopefully also a time for renewal and the rebirth of our civilisation.

Needless to say, I was dismayed by the Council's decision, following my passionate appeal for their approval of a resolution to re-establish diplomatic relations with Cameron Space Control. Although the vote was a narrow one, the elder Peers, led by Lady Zarak and Peer Sorgen, came down strongly against the proposal, and also recorded their intention to propose a motion in the coming weeks to banish the three newly returned Autobots - Chromedome, Nightbeat and Siren - from our world. The younger Peers supported my position, but lacked the numbers needed to carry the day. I left the city, feeling quite depressed, and returned to our ship in the forest, where the three Autobots were resting to conserve their precious fuel.

A surprise awaited me there, in the form of HiQ's former assistant, Kari, whom I had never met before, but who was anxious to speak with all of us. She was quite agitated, but the soft-spoken Quig had calmed her somewhat, and in the space of a few minutes she told us her extraordinary story.

As I had been told previously, when the Powermasters left Nebulos, Kari travelled to Koraja to share her news with the Council of Peers - her news that HiQ had resurrected the legendary Autobot Commander, Optimus Prime, that they had left Nebulos together, and that Galen was dead, slain on Earth by Lord Zarak and Scorponok. Their reaction had not been at all what Kari was expecting, in light of her favourable experience with Optimus Prime, Goldbug and the others. She found that a mood of near-total hostility towards the Autobots now prevailed amongst the senior Peers, foremost among them Lady Zarak, who had inherited her husband's position upon his departure the previous year, and who had done much to restore his image in the public's eyes. She seemed particularly horrified at HiQ's building a new body for Optimus Prime. She denounced HiQ as a traitor, and Kari only narrowly escaped being arrested as an accomplice.

The elder Peers, led by Lady Zarak, had done their best to blacken Galen's name. He had been too well known for this to carry much weight with the population at large, and Kari had been somewhat heartened by the city's mourning for him in the days that followed her revelations, despite lacking government endorsement. Yet the Peers had disbanded the World-Watchers, of which Galen had been head, and taken direct overall control of the Nebulan security forces.

Kari had met with Llyra separately to share the sad news, and in her case the effect was as Kari had expected, and she did her best to provide comfort. Llyra had been prepared to hear that Galen was dead, it seemed, but not that it was her father who had killed him. It hit her very hard. But then Llyra shared something with Kari that was unexpected - Zarak's daughter feared for her life.

It seems that since the departure of Galen and Lord Zarak, Llyra and Lady Zarak had quickly drifted apart. Lady Zarak - who, I now learnt, was only Llyra's step-mother - blamed Galen for the loss of her husband, while Llyra defended Galen's position. Furthermore, although Lady Zarak had been automatically appointed to her husband's seat on the Council, it was Llyra, his child from his first marriage, who stood to inherit the bulk of his wealth, and Lady Zarak did not like that one bit.

Llyra escaped a number of accidental near-misses in the months that followed - a bridge on their estate whose planks gave way, a rare, venomous spider found in her bed-chamber, and a brake failure on her hover-bike. Each seemed innocent enough in and of itself, but... you get the picture.

Shortly after Kari's visit, Lady Zarak suggested that Llyra take an ocean cruise alone on their private yacht to get her former fiance's death into the proper perspective. Llyra agreed, but slipped away from the yacht soon after it left their private harbour. As she made for the shore, the yacht exploded.

Llyra went straight to Kari. Although they had only just met, Kari was one person Llyra knew she could trust, owing to her recent alliance with the Autobots. Kari agreed to help Llyra disappear. For some reason, Lady Zarak did not report her step-daughter's apparent demise, but rather let it be known simply that they had fallen out, and that Llyra had gone travelling alone to distant, more sparsely populated parts of the planet, and didn't know if or when she would return. In her absence, Lady Zarak assumed full control of the family estate.

Just as Kari was the only one Llyra felt able to trust then, we were the only ones they felt they could trust now - three Autobot Headmasters and a human from Earth.

Muzzle, the former private detective, and Quig, once Librarian Master at the Optical Storage Archives, had been taking copious notes throughout Kari's tale.

Clearly, we all had an interest in the events that had been described. Regardless of our wish to see justice done, Lady Zarak had declared herself to be our foremost enemy on the Council. If it could be proven that she had attempted to carry out murder - and in fact believed she had succeeded - that would be the end of her, and possibly of her closest allies as well, making room for younger blood on the Council, and, potentially, a different government policy regarding the Autobots and our fellow humans on Earth and Cameron.

We asked Kari what she wanted from us. Her first request was for us to take Llyra off-world until the situation with her step-mother was resolved. We quickly agreed to this, and made arrangements for her to be discreetly picked up by Siren and brought back to our ship. Secondly, they wanted us to expose whatever it was that Lady Zarak was hiding. Kari had anonymously hired two private detectives to investigate her affairs. Both had gone to survey the Zarak estate, but neither had returned, and Kari could not report their disappearances to the police without revealing her own interest in the matter.

One of the two missing detectives had been a good friend of Muzzle's back in the day.

Quig said he would pull some strings at the Optical Storage Archives and see what he could find out there. Alessandro Santella volunteered to seek assistance from Marita, his new friend at the law courts (of whom he had been seeing quite a bit, apparently). Muzzle reckoned he knew a few people in the police department who he could trust for sure, friends who had stood by him when he was framed in the scandal that put him out of business. And me... there wasn't really much I could do but wait and see what they all dug up.
___

I'd give anything to be able to go back in time a week and do things differently. If we had had any suspicion at all that Lady Zarak had a Decepticon attack tank in her castle, we never would have let those three police officers go in there alone with their search warrant. But Quig's revelations about the Zarak estate's inexplicably high electricity usage only came after Muzzle's police friends had put Kari's story together with other unresolved disappearances in the area and decided to go in hard and fast before anyone could be tipped off and evidence erased.

As it was, three more Nebulans were dead by the time Chromedome, Nightbeat and Siren moved in and engaged Fasttrack in pitched battle, and half the Zarak estate lay in ruins before the Decepticon was dead. When more police arrived, they soon discovered evidence of over a dozen murder victims dating back over the last four years.

After everything, I half-expected Lady Zarak to turn out to be an alien robot in disguise, but no, she was just a bitter and twisted woman. She is now behind bars, and Peer Sorgen and two others have resigned their seats, making way for elections to those three non-hereditary posts in two months' time, while Llyra assumes her father's seat immediately.

Muzzle has got his private detective's licence back, and the proposal to banish the Autobots from Nebulos has been quietly dropped.

THE END

[blueshift]

Really enjoyed this, Martin

[Grand Moff Muffin]

Sept 13, 2018 18:05:20 GMT blueshift said:

Really enjoyed this, Martin

Thanks mate. I know people read the stories because the view count keeps going up, but it's still good to get feedback!

I assume people realise that these are sequels to tfwiki.net/wiki/Stylor%27s_Story .

Martin

[blueshift]

Sept 13, 2018 18:07:24 GMT Grand Moff Muffin said:

Sept 13, 2018 18:05:20 GMT blueshift said:

Really enjoyed this, Martin

Thanks mate. I know people read the stories because the view count keeps going up, but it's still good to get feedback!

I assume people realise that these are sequels to tfwiki.net/wiki/Stylor%27s_Story .

Martin

Oh yeah, LOVED that story back in the day!

[Grand Moff Muffin]

STYLOR'S SPEECH

"Human thought is so primitive, it's looked upon as an infectious disease in some of the better galaxies. That kind of makes you proud, doesn't it?"

- Men in Black
___

Honourable Peers, thank you for asking me to stand before you again. You have requested that I provide you with an explanation for the seemingly inexplicable recorded images now playing on the screens in front of you. I will do my best. I'm no scientist, but you have asked for this information to be presented in laypersons' terms, and I think I can do that.

What we are seeing here is a Boeing AH-64 Apache twin-turboshaft attack helicopter, bearing a Decepticon insignia and firing an M230 automatic chain gun, AGM-114 Hellfire missiles and Hydra 70 rockets, destroying the Nebulan city of Melanossus. Not since the attacks of Scorponok's forces on Koraja and Splendora five years ago has our world seen loss of life on such a scale. However, I realise it is not the horror of the recent massacre that you wish me to discuss today, but rather how it began and how it ended, with the Decepticon helicopter, Tracer, seeming to appear out of nowhere to rain death upon our civilian populace, and then vanish again equally mysteriously before our armed forces could retaliate.

You may not realise it, but you have seen this phenomenon before. I am now playing for you archive footage of the battle between the Technobots and the Terrorcons in the city of Splendora. Focus your attention, please, on the Technobots, and note their relative sizes - the tiny motorcycle, Afterburner, the slightly bigger car, Lightspeed, the much larger drill tank, Nosecone, and the full-size aircraft, Scattershot and Strafe. Now see how they transform and combine into the giant warrior, Computron. Afterburner has become Computron's right arm, Strafe his left... and they are the same size! Afterburner and Lightspeed have both enlarged several times over in order to become limbs of the Technobots' combined form.

Tracer is a Decepticon Micromaster, just seven feet tall, able to sneak in and out of human settlements under cover of darkness and lie low until he is ready to reveal himself, transforming and enlarging as he becomes the lethal attack helicopter we have all seen in action here today.

I know, it seems like magic, and it is terrifying. How can we possibly protect ourselves against an alien race that can turn themselves from dwarves into giants with the wave of a wand? My answer to you is simple - we humans also possess this power!

The man you now see on your screens is Dr Henry Pym, an Earth scientist who was the first to discover and isolate a rare group of subatomic particles that have become known on Earth as Pym Particles. They are the key to altering the size and mass of objects and living beings. Initially, Pym used his discovery to shrink things, including himself, as he became the superhero known as Ant-Man, but in due course he also learned to increase the size and mass of objects. The process works, in laypersons' terms, by shunting matter into another dimension when shrinking, or by accruing extra mass from that dimension when enlarging. The Transformers have possessed this knowledge for millennia, but our cousins on Earth have also mastered it, and even surpassed the Cybertronians in some respects.

Shortly before the Decepticons' attempt to take control of Hoover Dam, the size-changing Insecticon known as Kickback, newly arrived on Earth, infiltrated Avengers Mansion in New York, apparently for a dare, just to prove that he could. You can see him on this security footage, released later by the Avengers for publicity purposes. It shows the Insecticon evading automated defences as he penetrates deep into the heart of the headquarters of Earth's mightiest heroes. Now we cut to a scene that shows this impeccably attired young lady, Janet van Dyne, observing the diminutive intruder on a security screen, before effortlessly shrinking down to insect size herself as she assumes her non-secret identity as the superheroine known as the Wasp. Not only does she become tiny, but wings sprout from her back, enabling her to fly, and, as you can see, she packs quite a sting and quickly sends the painfully surprised Insecticon packing.

At the other end of the scale, observe now the giant Decepticon Bruticus, foolishly menacing New York, the superhero capital of the planet Earth. Before I show you what happens to him, I must explain that not all Earth's superheroes are humans, or even mutant humans. The Asgardians, for instance, are a humanoid race of extradimensional beings from a small pocket dimension adjacent to Earth. They travel around what they refer to as 'the Nine Realms' via an interdimensional nexus called the Bifrost. They were at one time worshipped by the humans of Earth as gods. Anyway, what you see now is what happens when the most powerful of their number hits a Decepticon combiner with his special hammer. I can watch this over and over all day. I have, actually.

The final video clip I want to show you was taken by a motion picture crew on the southern rim of the Grand Canyon in the United States of America. In the distance, you can see the Decepticon Skullgrin emerging from his Pretender shell. But observe the disabled woman in the foreground, as she presses a switch on the arm of her wheelchair. See the ribbons of printed circuitry unspool from hidden compartments in her chair and wrap around her body, energising her crippled limbs, invigorating her dormant muscles. See her rise into the air, held aloft by powerful electromagnetic fields, and smite the Decepticon with a mighty thunderbolt.

The first Circuit-Breaker, alas, flew too close to the sun - sorry, a reference to Earth mythology - and is now receiving treatment at a private psychiatric hospital. However, the technology that she pioneered is now at last in government hands, and being re-purposed for use in planetary defence. As the recent Decepticon incursion here has demonstrated, Nebulos also needs such technologies for its own defence. In your wisdom, you have already consented to establishing formal diplomatic ties with Earth, and re-establishing them with Cameron. I urge you to go further, to work with our fellow humans, pool our knowledge of cybernetic enhancement with Earth's experience in dealing with extra-terrestrial threats and Cameron's mastery of space travel, to create an interstellar alliance that will never need to fear the likes of the Decepticons again.

And if you need any advice on how to make the purely functional Circuit-Breaker costume that I've shown you today a little more stylish... you know who to call.

What? No! Not Janet van Dyne! Me!

THE END

[Grand Moff Muffin]

GAME OVER

September 2018, the planet Derut Four, well outside the jurisdiction of Cameron Space Control and other civilised law enforcement authorities.

Tracer - and to avoid any confusion, we refer here to the Decepticon of that name, last surviving member of the Micromaster Military Patrol, rather than to the Nebulan ex-convict who once worked with the Autobot Double Targetmaster Scoop - could taste freedom. Winning the Galaxy Kombat Murderpit tournament would be his ticket to untold wealth, a new body, a new identity and a new life far from the clutches of vindictive Autobots and humans who wanted to bring him in for questioning about matters such as the massacre he had single-handedly perpetrated on that peaceful village on Klo in 1991, his lightning raid on Nebulos in 1992 in revenge for the Autobots' eviction and killing of Fasttrack, and numerous subsequent petty crimes of mass murder on various worlds too insignificant for their names to be logged in his long-term memory banks.

All that baggage would soon be left behind, and he looked forward to commencing his new life with a clean criminal record and restarting his killing career from scratch. All he had to do to earn it was win three more rounds of this ridiculous competition, which meant doing what he most enjoyed doing in front of crowds of bloodthirsty spectators.

Tracer wasn't complacent. More than half of the sixteen combatants in the tournament were forces to be reckoned with, but they were not Transformers, and were no match for him if he applied his tactical intellect to the matter of their destruction.

Tracer had observed his fifteen rivals in the days leading up to the first elimination round, eavesdropped on them as they socialised with one another prior to trying to kill each other. He knew which ones would pose the greatest challenge, and had a fairly clear idea as to who would not survive round one.

He had been proven correct in most instances. Zordak, the techno-organic demon from Otherplace (the Limbo of Belasco and Illyana Rasputin) had easily killed the Dire Wraith, Wulix, in the first battle of the tournament, while Vortiss, a lesser demon from Temporal Limbo, unwittingly conceived by the Autobot Skids back in the 1980s, had made short work of Nynadra, a former rebel fighter banished from the Shi'Ar Empire. Those results had been predictable, and caused no headaches for the bookmakers. Similarly, no-one was shocked when Honir, a minor Asgardian adventurer, recently seen fighting Sharkticons on the planet Pequod, demonstrated his spear-throwing prowess in the Murderpit, bringing down Klor, the psychotic, cybernetic shrikebat from the planet Dromedan, who had by all accounts been driven insane the day his homeworld and family were consumed by Galactus. S-S-Scumb, a Reptilian vagabond from the planet Plun-darr, wanted for genocide, used his spiked club to fatally unseat Rorza the Rocket Cycle Racer from Rigel Three, and Tracer himself expended very little energy in wiping out 'The Juggler', Rorza's pal and fellow former Cosmic Carnival star.

The sixth battle was more interesting, as one of its participants was 'The Reedman', a formidable mantis-like robot assassin from the planet Elpasos, formed from a swarm of spherical microbots. His opponent was Lynxana the Hunter, a mercenary from the lost planet Thundera, who had reportedly been hired to kill S-S-Scumb, assuming they both lasted long enough to face one another in the arena. If forced to choose, Tracer would have put his money on the robot, but Lynxana succeeded in parrying his blade-like arms with her sword skills long enough to hit him with enough bolts from her blaster pistol to dismember and ultimately destroy him.

Next up, Cylkith, a Dark Elf from Svartalfheim, required the use of but a single mystical energy blast to end the career of Psyko Stabkill, the mad bounty-hunter from the planet Scarvix. And finally, another surprise, when a human dancing girl called something like Daisy Daylight, who had been conscripted in at the last minute to replace an injured Skrull gladiator, somehow fluked a victory in a shootout with Blaydze, a robotic killer clown from Halfworld in the Keystone Quadrant. The bookies hadn't seen that one coming.

Eight players remained to compete in round two, which would take place tomorrow.
___

Cylkith and Zordak were the two combatants who might pose a real risk to Tracer, and by watching them fight, he was developing a plan for dealing with them. He really didn't want to face either of them in round two, preferring to observe their fighting styles further and giving his tactical battle computers more data with which to refine his response to their unique skills. Fortunately, he didn't draw either of them, but he did get matched with the fighter that he would have ranked third after that pair, namely Vortiss, the lesser demon from Temporal Limbo. Vortiss was big. Like Tracer himself, he only barely complied with the tournament's size and mass limits (limits that prevented Tracer from transforming and expanding to helicopter mode), and his skin was tough, but not tough enough to withstand Tracer's slashing, arm-mounted rotor blades, and soon after their combat commenced, the creature, like the crowds, was begging the Decepticon to finish him.

Tracer had hoped that either Cylkith or Zordak might be knocked out in this round in a surprise victory by one of the lesser combatants, but in this he was disappointed. Cylkith used his power of teleportation to evade Honir's hurled spear and stab the Asgardian in the back, while Zordak's techno-organic form proved resilient to Lynxana's sword and blaster, and the Otherplace demon quickly ended the Thunderian's hopes of collecting the bounty on S-S-Scumb's head, along with her life. But the final duel in round two again went contrary to excpectations, as Dolly Downbeat, or whatever the human's name was, slipped agilely past S-S-Scumb's clumsily wielded spiked club and somehow ended up on his back, wrapping her arms around his bulbous neck and completing Lynxana's mission for her by coolly snapping it.
___

Tracer was triumphant. The tournament was now his, he was certain of it! Why? Because three opponents remained - the Dark Elf, the techno-organic demon and the human. And Tracer had been drawn against the human in the semi-finals! Things couldn't have gone better if he'd scripted them. Now, he would only have to fight one of the two fighters that he feared in any way, and he would do so after observing them in three fights. His internal computers were already working overtime, analysing possible battle outcomes based on what he'd seen of them to date, and soon they would have even more data to play with. The only way it could get any better would be if the loser of the Cylkith-Zordak match managed to seriously injure his opponent before the end. Then it would be a Decepticon in prime condition going up against a wounded, exhausted Dark Elf or demon in the final, and victory would be all the swifter. But either way, it was all over now as far as Tracer was concerned.

He gave barely a thought to the pink-skinned human who now faced him in the Murderpit. He had killed dozens of humans in his time, and he knew that this one's weapons and martial arts skills posed no threat to a Transformer's armour. A minute from now, his rotor blades would spatter her blood over the arena floor, and the more interesting semi-final, between Cylkith and Zordak, could begin.

His attention was elsewhere when the human touched the bracelet on her wrist, and circuitry began winding its way up her arms and legs, and down her front from the metal ring around her neck, generating an electromagnetic force-field around her body and levitating her off the ground. He turned back to her just in time to see electricity crackling around her hands and a satisfied smile on her face.

THE END

GAME OVER: WALKTHROUGH

The following sixteen individuals participated in the 2018 Galaxy Kombat tournament on Derut Four:

Blaydze, a robotic killer clown from Halfworld in the Keystone Quadrant
Cylkith, a Dark Elf from Svartalfheim
Dani Dareheart, a human Cameron Space Marine Lieutenant and Circuit-Breaker operative
Honir, a minor Asgardian adventurer, recently seen fighting Sharkticons on the planet Pequod
Klor, a psychotic, cybernetic shrikebat from the planet Dromedan, which was consumed by Galactus
Lynxana the Hunter, a mercenary from the lost planet Thundera, hired to kill S-S-Scumb
Nynadra, a former rebel fighter banished from the Shi'Ar Empire
Psyko Stabkill, a mad bounty-hunter from the planet Scarvix
Rorza the Rocket Cycle Racer from Rigel Three, a former star of the Cosmic Carnival
S-S-Scumb, a Reptilian vagabond from the planet Plun-darr, wanted for genocide
The Juggler, Rorza's pal and a fellow former star of the Cosmic Carnival
The Reedman, a robot assassin from the planet Elpasos, formed from a swarm of microbots
Tracer, a Decepticon Micromaster from Cybertron, last surviving member of the Military Patrol
Vortiss, a lesser demon from Temporal Limbo, unwittingly conceived by the Autobot Skids
Wulix, a Dire Wraith from Wraithworld, formerly in the Dark Nebula, now in Temporal Limbo
Zordak, a techno-organic demon from Otherplace (the Limbo of Belasco and Illyana Rasputin)
___

"Hi, Katy. Can I borrow this? Thanks."

"Hey... HEY! Get back here!"

"What's up?"

"What do you mean, what's up? I haven't seen you in almost three weeks, and you just walk into my bedroom, pick up my hairbrush and head back out the door again without so much as a word about where you've been all this time... And you ask me what's up?"

"It's no big deal, is it? We often don't see each other for a month or more."

"I know, but the last time we spoke you said you'd tracked a Decepticon to a Murderpit on Derut Four and had arranged for an accident to befall one of the contestants so that you could take his place in the tournament. I didn't know you were still alive, let alone back at H.Q."

"Oh! All right... But I didn't say I'd arranged the accident. I told you one of the contestants had had an accident just around the corner from where I'd parked my star-fighter, and the organisers were desperate for someone to replace him."

"Yes, and I assumed..."

"A lot of people are now dead because of what they assumed."

"Tell me how you did it. We've lost four Circuit-Breakers in the last year, but new recruits step in to fill the gaps in our ranks, and do so with hope of survival because they see you coming back time and time again from what should be suicide missions. I'm worried that they might end up taking risks that they shouldn't, because they follow your example."

"Aren't you being a little unfair? You've done things I could never do, and Shaedira has been around longer than me and survived more missions."

"Yes, but I have Creation Matrix superpowers, and Shaedira does things by the book. When we complete our missions successfully, there's no mystery as to how we did it. But you... It's almost as if you had supernatural good luck, like those Twentieth Century mutants, Domino and Longshot."

"I don't. I'm the same as Shaedira and the rest. The only difference is that I don't reveal how I do what I do, so that it looks like luck. As for the Murderpit tournament, I survived it, but you could have won it."

"I could perhaps have used my combined Matrix and Circuit-Breaker powers to wipe out the other fifteen combatants all in one go, but I couldn't do what you did - fight four of them in turn, and make my opponents and all the spectators believe that each and every round would be my last. My target would have been scared and bolted after seeing what I could do in round one."

"All right, sit down, and I'll explain, though I prefer not to. I feel like a conjurer giving away the secrets of her magic trick. But since you're my best friend... I survived the Murderpit, and the other fifteen contestants died, and a lot of bookmakers lost a lot of money over it. But if they'd possessed all the data I possessed at the start of round one, they would have known how it would turn out. Everyone thinks I'm reckless because they don't have the full picture. They don't know what I know when I decide on a course of action."

"So what did you know that nobody else knew?"

"For a start, I knew that I was the only one going into the tournament with my eyes open. The other combatants were either fighting because they had no choice, or because they were driven by greed, rage, pride or desperation. Those who were in it by choice made their decision to enter first, before they knew who their opponents were, and then relied on the fact that they had been successful in the past to win. They chose to believe in themselves. The flaw in their logic was that everyone else also had a successful track record, or else they wouldn't be there, and had a similar self-belief."

"But you were different?"

"Sure. I wanted Tracer, but I knew I wouldn't get him by entering a tournament in which I was out-matched and killed before I ever faced my target. So I did my research on the sixteen contestants. Remember, I had the advantage of being a late entrant, after the initial line-up had already been announced. It was totally unfair. The organisers should never have let me in, and the other players should have objected, but they all thought I was harmless until it was too late. If they'd objected, they'd have looked stupid in front of the others, given my outward appearance. Serious loss of macho points."

"And what did your research on the other contestants tell you?"

"Only so much, to begin with. Posing as a dancer, I infiltrated the exclusive entertainment establishment reserved for non-robot tournament contestants, V.I.P. guests and event sponsors. I sweet-talked the high-rollers, got them to show off how knowledgeable they were compared to their rivals, and I got some of the contestants bragging about their prowess. I obtained copies of illegal recordings of some of them fighting in previous tournaments, and I pulled up all the data I could from Cameron Space Control on my star-fighter's computer. But then I latched onto the most important fact available to me at that stage - one of the fighters was Rorza the Rocket Cycle Racer from Rigel Three."

"I remember... Didn't he have a run-in with Optimus Prime and Sky Lynx on the Cosmic Carnival back in the Twentieth Century?"

"Yes. But what mattered to me was that he was from Rigel Three. What comes from Rigel Three?"

"Nothing, now. It was destroyed by the Black Stars. But the Rigellians escaped."

"And what did the Rigellians create?"

"Um... Rigellian babies?"

"No, you dummy, they created the Rigellian Recorders."

"What - you mean those green androids who precede all their sentences with words like 'Statement', 'Observation' and 'Interrogative'? I met one once. As I recall, it had no sense of humour."

"I guessed that Rorza might have a Recorder stashed away as a piece of standard equipment, and if so, I wanted it. While he was getting drunk, I used my Circuit-Breaker suit to break into his ship, and sure enough, there it was, Recorder 922, gathering dust in the back of the hold. I figured Rorza wouldn't miss it. He certainly won't miss it now."

"You hacked its command core?"

"Precisely, and when I was done, I had a reliable, expendable ally."

"Go on."

"My analysis of the opposition had identified two fighters that I knew I couldn't beat, even with all the elements of surprise on my side. They were Cylkith, a Dark Elf from Svartalfheim, and Skorbos, the Skrull race's champion gladiator. Both had been victors in previous Galaxy Kombat tournaments, though they had never faced each other before. But I reckoned Tracer could probably beat them. Dark Elves are vulnerable to iron, while Skorbos, although possessing high-tech armour that renders him invulnerable to most weapons, can be overpowered by brute force. If I was to prevent Tracer from winning the tournament and escaping justice for the war crimes he committed on Klo and Nebulos, I had to neutralise the threats that Cylkith and Skorbos posed to my life first."

"But you weren't responsible for Skorbos's 'accident'?"

"Well... all right, I was somewhat responsible for it. Cylkith was worried about Skorbos and the iron in his armour. So I seduced the Dark Elf and put the idea of how to do it into his head. Then I had my Recorder secretly film him doing the deed."

"You what?!"

"You've been a Space Marine for what? Five years? Don't tell me you've never slept with a non-human before?"

"I do not want to have this conversation... Do Nebulans count?"

"No, and I should clobber you for even suggesting it. Anyway, Cylkith was handsome enough and had a nice-"

"Never mind!"

"He was pleased with himself, as he had eliminated the opponent he most feared to face in the arena. And he was quite happy to put my name forward as a replacement, when I suggested I might have a means of defeating the other combatant that gave him pause, namely the Decepticon. And, as I told you when we spoke before, the organisers were desperate."

"Why didn't you take your tape straight to the authorities and get Cylkith disqualified?"

"I thought about it, but I feared that the whole tournament might then be called off, causing Tracer to flee. I still didn't have an exact fix on his location. Or, they might have found a replacement for Cylkith, and I couldn't factor an unknown like that into my calculations. Furthermore, if I'd betrayed Cylkith at that stage, he might have named me as his accomplice, despite my having an alibi at the time in question."

"So the tournament went ahead, and you won."

"I didn't win, but I achieved my goal."

"You killed Tracer."

"Kind of. I actually only killed one of my four opponents, the Reptilian, S-S-Scumb, and I'm not going to lose any sleep over that. The killer clown I destroyed wasn't alive to begin with. As for Tracer, I scared him so badly when I revealed myself to be a Circuit-Breaker at the start of round three that he transformed and expanded to helicopter mode, breaching the tournament's strict size and mass limits. Before his rotors could begin to turn, he was disintegrated by the arena lasers."

"And in the final round?"

"It was a best-of-three final, with the event organisers using their med-tech to restore the loser of each sub-round to fight anew. First of all, Cylkith and I had to fight hand to hand, no weapons or powers allowed, and I beat him."

"Don't Dark Elves have superhuman strength?"

"Yes, but he was exhausted after fighting Zordak the techno-organic demon, and couldn't lay a finger on me. He wasn't so young any more, and I'd made sure he hadn't got any sleep the night before the final."

"You-"

"What?"

"Never mind. Carry on."

"Anyway, I kicked him in the throat a couple of times, crushed his windpipe, and that was the end of him."

"Until they revived him."

"Yes. Then we fought with swords, of which he is a master, and he beat me, despite my modest fencing skills. That hurt, so don't ever tell me I always escape without a scratch, because I don't."

"But the organisers healed you."

"Yes, and then we were into the actual final, in which I could use my Circuit-Breaker powers and he could use his magic, and I knew I didn't stand a chance. He made my circuits constrict, crushing me, strangling me with my costume's neck ring. And I admit, at that moment I panicked, even though my rational mind knew what was coming."

"Which was?"

"The arena lasers vaporised Cylkith, just as they had Tracer, just as the organisers had promised they would earlier that morning, when I brought them Rorza's Recorder, which I said I had found wandering aimlessly following its master's demise, and it played for them the video tape of Skorbos's 'accident'."

"You trusted them?"

"Of course not. I gave them no choice in the matter. If Cylkith had killed me, I promised them that a copy of the tape would be broadcast automatically, along with evidence that they had known about his crime and did nothing about it. Skorbos was popular, and they couldn't afford to have their enterprise so discredited. The audience must believe it's all fair and spontaneous."

"Which it wasn't. Because you had it all planned out."

"Yes. But the audience still required a final, so we had to go through the motions, and Cylkith died believing he had won. They played the tape of his crime on the big screen for the crowd's benefit, told them it had only just come to light. They loved the plot twist, as it turned out. And there was no winner, so the organisers got to keep the prize money. Probably add it to the pot next year. They said they'd like to have me back."

"I bet they would."

"Hmmm. You called me crazy when I last spoke to you. Maybe I am. Maybe we all are. But I only pick fights I have good reason to believe I will walk away from. The others... I don't go anywhere near them."

"All right. We need to share some of this with the new guys. They have to learn to think like you if they're going to survive in this job. But we won't tell them everything."

"Damn right we won't. Anyway, I don't think those boys would get very far trying to flirt with muscular alien warriors."

"And you didn't even win the prize money..."

"Ah. Well, it's common practice to bet heavily on yourself. I mean, why not? If you lose, you're dead anyway. So I staked my modest life-savings on my surviving to reach the final."

"The odds?"

"Three hundred to one."

"Hell, I wish you'd cut me in on the deal."

"Gonna give it all to the parents of my nieces and nephews. Can't hang on to it, or that would surely jinx things and get me killed on my next mission."

"Ah! So you admit to being blessed with an element of good fortune."

"Of course, it would be irrational not to. And I'll admit, I do sometimes wonder what will happen to me on the day my luck runs out."

"Well, as Thor would say, when that day comes, we will leave behind us tales of deeds worthy of song that will make our ancestors proud."

"You've met Thor?"

"Sure. My uncle Spike was an Avenger for seven years, after all. Until he got too old for it."

"Oh, yeah, I forgot. Any chance you could introduce me to him some time? Thor, I mean, not your old uncle."

"You're unbelievable..."

"What?"

"Never mind. Have you still got that Rigellian Recorder?"

"Sure. Why? Want to do the old Creation Matrix thing on it?"

"Maybe, but not before I check its video log. Did it witness any of the fights?"

"Every single one."
___

Round 1:
Cylkith kills Psyko Stabkill.
Dani Dareheart kills Blaydze.
Honir kills Klor.
Lynxana the Hunter kills 'The Reedman'.
S-S-Scumb kills Rorza the Rocket Cycle Racer from Rigel Three.
Tracer kills 'The Juggler'.
Vortiss kills Nynadra.
Zordak kills Wulix.

Round 2:
Cylkith kills Honir.
Dani Dareheart kills S-S-Scumb.
Tracer kills Vortiss.
Zordak kills Lynxana the Hunter.

Round 3:
Cylkith kills Zordak.
Tracer is killed for cheating.

Round 4:
Cylkith is killed for cheating.

THE END

[Grand Moff Muffin]

STORIES LISTED IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER

MISCELLANEOUS
The year 1987: Battlechargers Forever / Transformers #23 and 32
Beginning from September 1988: Tales from the Cosmic Carnival / Transformers #44
January 1989: A Stopped Clock / Transformers UK #199-205, 223-227 and 251-254
The year 1989: A Stopped Clock: Chimes at Midnight / Transformers #60-61

THE LAST DAYS OF THE TRANSFORMERS WAR
The year 1990: Transformers UK #229, 237-239 and 255-289
The year 1990: The Magnificent Six (Transformers UK Annual 1991)
The year 1990: Transformers #67-70
The year 1990: The Last Days of the Transformers War: Xaaron / Transformers #71-73
The year 1991: The Last Days of the Transformers War: Unicron / Transformers #74-75
The year 1991: The Last Days of the Transformers War: Nucleon / Escort Duty / Breaking Bonds / Transformers #76-80
November 1991: Top Secret
December 1991: Another Time and Place (Transformers UK Annual 1992)
December 1991: The Reckoning

WHAT HAPPENED AFTERWARDS
The year 1992: Destiny of the Dinobots (Transformers UK Annual 1990)
The year 1992: Stylor's Sequel
The year 1992: Stylor's Statement
The year 1992: Stylor's Speech
The year 1993: The Last Minispy (time of narration)
The year 1993: The Last Minispy: Jaws of Steel
The year 1993: Earth's Mightiest Heroes
The year 1993: Earth's Mightiest Heroes: Minefield

INTERIM
1994-2018: Marvel Superheroes Meet the Transformers

TWENTY YEARS LATER
The year 2014: Twenty Years Later
The year 2014: Twenty Years Later: Kup's Story Retold
September 2017 to July 2018: Prelude to the Predator War
August 2018: Where Were You During the Predator War?
August 2018: Life and Freedom
August 2018: Cameron Space Marines
September 2018: Titanium Shott Blaster for Hire
September 2018: Titanium Shott Blaster for Hire: Death's Head vs Grimlock
September 2018: Game Over
September 2018: Game Over: Walkthrough

[blueshift]

Sept 20, 2018 5:12:53 GMT Grand Moff Muffin said:

STORIES LISTED IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER

Oh no does a list mean that's it, Martin? D:

[Grand Moff Muffin]

Sept 20, 2018 9:36:23 GMT blueshift said:

Sept 20, 2018 5:12:53 GMT Grand Moff Muffin said:

STORIES LISTED IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER

Oh no does a list mean that's it, Martin? D:

Highly unlikely. Every story is my final one until an idea comes for the next one. Perhaps tomorrow's catalogue poll will trigger something.

Martin

[Fortmax2020]

Hooray!