Sixshot in Pursuit

"Damn it! Looks like Ultra Magnus has companions. Take this guy out, now! We absolutely can't let another Autobot get away, or there'll be no way to answer to Lord Megatron!"

Although these guarding Decepticon soldiers had suffered heavy losses, they had not given up on pursuing Ultra Magnus. After all, Megatron's punishments were anything but light. Moreover, they had heard that Optimus Prime had also escaped from that lord's grasp. Megatron was surely looking for somewhere to vent his anger. If they offended him at a time like this, their sparks definitely would not survive!

What these Decepticons did not know was that the one they were facing was not some poorly equipped Autobot prisoner, but Starscream, whose combat strength was in no way inferior to Megatron's. He had merely changed his appearance and disguised himself as Ultra Magnus.

In fact, if these Decepticon soldiers had inspected the wounds on their destroyed comrades' mechanical bodies, they would have noticed something was wrong. There was no one among the Autobots with firepower this fierce, was there?

But driven by their intense sense of duty, these foolish Decepticon soldiers had no time to think about such things. They had originally been nothing more than prisoners on this Number Nine Exile Ground. Now that they had finally earned a chance to hold their heads high, they could not go back to their old lives.

Unfortunately, Starscream's weapons, equipment, and radar systems were far more advanced than theirs. He leaped out from his hiding place and fired two air-to-ground missiles, one to each side. After two sharp explosions, the only two pursuers left on the other side became two blazing fireballs, their sparks burned away completely along with them.

"Great System, my mission should be one hundred percent complete now, right? Can you give me my reward?"

Well, Starscream and Ultra Magnus did not actually have any friendship between them. He had not needed to save this Autobot warrior in the first place. He had only wiped out all the mechanical guards here to bring the completion rate of his previous system mission up to one hundred percent and obtain the perfect reward.

However, careless Starscream had not concealed the traces of battle. After all, the aftermath of being taken down by Autobots was somewhat different from being taken down by powerful Decepticons. Still, this was an abandoned exile ground. Normally, no tactical expert would come here specifically to examine the evidence, so the odds of Starscream being discovered remained negligible.

"Host, Ultra Magnus has not yet fully reached the safe zone, so your mission still requires an escort phase. Please keep up the good work!"

Fine! It seemed the Ever-Changing Steel System really was rather fussy. Still, with Starscream's escort capabilities, covering Ultra Magnus's escape should not have been much of a problem. So he continued maintaining his transformed disguise as Ultra Magnus and flew into the sky in robot form.

Although Ultra Magnus had already fled far away, that distance could be covered in minutes by a supersonic fighter jet.

But what Starscream never expected was that Ultra Magnus had always had an archrival. He was a highly unconventional Decepticon warrior who was not stationed on Cybertron long-term, instead wandering throughout the universe. His name was Sixshot!

It seemed that Starscream had failed to check the stars before heading out today. Sixshot could have come earlier or later, but he just had to show up when Ultra Magnus chose to break out of prison, coming to visit his old opponent and stumbling upon the scene of devastation.

"Are there any Decepticon soldiers still alive? I am the ninja warrior Sixshot. Say something, all of you! I don't care about the other Autobots—I want to know where Ultra Magnus went!"

Grabbing a half-dead Decepticon from the ground, Sixshot shook him so violently that he was nearly falling apart, yet he could not extract a single word from the soldier's memory storage.

"What exactly happened here? These Decepticon soldiers appear to have suffered fierce missile attacks. Ultra Magnus doesn't have equipment like that. Activate the radar system. I want to know immediately how these Decepticon soldiers were taken out!"

As a ninja warrior who had fought across the universe for years, analyzing destruction was one of Sixshot's specialties. Moreover, his built-in scanning system possessed an extremely powerful comparison program.

"Beep beep beep. Based on trajectory and wound analysis, these Decepticons were destroyed by air-to-ground and ground-to-ground missiles. However, no Autobot warrior in our memory database possesses matching firepower!"

Well, this result truly surprised Sixshot. Those so-called Autobots who always loved peace did not seem to carry weapon systems this violent, did they?

Could it have been friendly fire from some Decepticon?

"Match the Decepticon flight units again. Who possesses this kind of firepower?"

"Beep beep beep. There are approximately a dozen candidates with this level of attack power, including Starscream, Skywarp..."

Well, Starscream was actually the top suspect. But he was the Decepticons' air commander. Making reckless accusations like that could get you into serious trouble.

And Skywarp seemed to hate the Autobots most of all. Could the ultimate suspect be Great Dinosaur Saurus? It was said that his attitude toward the Autobots had been unpredictable lately, and he had even openly opposed wiping out the Autobots entirely. Could he have betrayed Megatron?

After ruling out every suspect one by one, Sixshot suddenly realized that none of the Decepticons matching this firepower profile had anything suspicious about them.

"Damn it, this must be someone hiding very deeply! Track Ultra Magnus's escape route immediately. Once we find him, every mystery will be answered. I really wonder what kind of opponent we'll encounter next. I'm actually feeling a sense of anticipation. Is this the loneliness of an expert?"

It seemed that although Sixshot had not found an answer, he had not given up pursuing Ultra Magnus either. Even if that Autobot warrior fled to the ends of the earth, Sixshot would be the one to destroy him!

"System lock acquired automatically. System error. System error. Two Ultra Magnuses have appeared on our display. One is flying through the air, while the other is speeding across the ground in bus mode. System error!"

Well, this was becoming more and more interesting. Two identical Ultra Magnuses had actually appeared on Sixshot's radar...