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01.13.2003
...after a terrific battle;
the crudely wrought but formidable Astrotrain, whose galling
but self-assured swagger enlightened the boldness of his automated
brethren even as it tested the fidelity of his quondam ally Blitzwing,
frustrated the more graceful tactics, worried the time-tested
drill, and enervated the resolve of the Autobot advance guard,
whose discipline and experience was worth to the task of meeting
their foe but not sufficient to drive them to victory against
the unexpected and troublesome excursions of these bold new Decepticons;
nor could the fortune-favored boldness of the Autobot general
Rodimus, at the command of the Quintesson legions who at the
time were renowned to the remotest posts of empire for their
strength of arms as well as their guile, long withhold the inevitable
command to retreat against a foe not corrupted by the dire matrices
which had softened the will and weakened the pneumatic limb-pumps
of even the most doughty of his men; thus, the embrace of a once-martial
technology provided the weapon that great Megatron could not
-- a lack of self-reliance and a crippling addiction to the fineries
of distant laboratories exacerbated itself among the most feckless
bastions of the robotic centurions, and their skill in combat
became contingent upon their satiety at the electroatomic teat
which at once enriched and imprisoned them; and commonly seen
throughout the regions, even into the heart of territories previously
thought impregnable, were such frivolities previously associated
with indulgent and grandeed empires of the east as transforming
into hang-gliders, affiliating one's outer casing with the names
and marks of commerce of local merchants, and rampant fornication
with such local compact automobiles as could be found at shopping
plazas and promenades; and even the high counselor Perceptor,
once thought to be the wisest of viziers and a reliable bringer
of certitude and assurance, was often found to be immersed in
forty-weight imported from the farthest-flung norther reaches
of the empire; eventually forced by circumstance into the admission
of his council's debility to the task at hand, the adamant Optimus
Prime gathered them to his breast, detailed his strategies, and
demanded a vocal assertation of allegiance, and soon a force
of some three dozen of the most fell Autobots was readied for
deployment, their strength bolstered by a baker's dozen Gobots,
a handful of Robotech Masters, and a small company of Shogun
Warrior mercenaries; but the cunning Astrotrain, ever daring
in his reliance on instinct to take the day, drew up a team of
scouts, heavily armed and taking the form of harmless Scandinavian
cars known for their practicality and high safety ratings, and
bid them enter into the festivities of the upcoming Feast of
Champions, held around this time each year and celebrating the
birth of the famed inventor of the spark plug, and commanded
them at the height of the festival to pillage and destroy at
their whim, so breaking up the materiels and instruments of war
that no offensive could be mounted; so instructed, the scouts
carried out their orders with alacrity and elan, waiting until
a tin effigy of the First Plug, which had been filled with savories
and set alight before being hoist high above the camps, reached
its bursting point and exploded, spilling its delectable contents
at the great iron feet of the Autobot soldiers, to unleash a
fury of destruction: the camps were besieged by the enemy at
the height of the confusion, and while casualties were few, the
cost of arms and equipment lost in the fray is impossible to
calculate, particularly when the account of the battle has gone
on at such great length, giving the present author little space
to perform such economical and mathematical calculation; and
so it was that when Bumblebee brought tidings of the ill fortune
to the emperor at his villa at Lower Cyberlia, so staggered was
the aged ruler to hear it that he asked for a moment of silence
to honor the many batteries, fenders and small missiles lost
in the raid; and when the moment was nearly up, Octane, who had
previously incurred the wrath of his leige by insolently, if
ignorantly, inquiring as to the precise nature and duration of
a moment, broke the silence when one of his diodes, which had
been lost to a laser attack from the long-dead but nonetheless
spoken of in fearful whisper Decepticon warrior Scorponok at
the Battle of Radon Hill, chose an inopportune moment to burn
out and sputter away its life; such a disrespectful display was
interpreted by Optimus as an ill omen against the hasty prosecution
of the war against the barbarian usurper, and he ordered all
units to stand down until he had had such time as to think further
on his plans; thus he ordered his trusted advisors from his chamber,
all save Wheelie, from his chambers while he contemplated this
new turn of affairs in an acid bath; upon his
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