Fierce Battle with Sixshot

"Sixshot, don't you have a little too much nonsense to say? Who I am is none of your business. If you keep blocking my way, I'll make you regret it for the rest of your life!"

Seeing that he had nearly been exposed, Starscream immediately abandoned any lingering hope of luck. He pulled out his laser gun and opened fire on Sixshot. Of course, his machine gun had already been transformed through the disguise skill into Ultra Magnus's weapon; otherwise, Sixshot would certainly have recognized its owner.

But even with its appearance disguised, the weapon's powerful firepower gave Sixshot quite a fright. This was no ordinary laser pistol—it was clearly a ship-mounted laser cannon!

"Boom! Boom! Boom!"

"Thud! Thud!"

With no time to find cover, Sixshot had no choice but to condense his energy into a defensive shield. Yet after taking only three laser blasts, the Decepticon powerhouse's energy shield began to tremble, as if it could collapse at any moment.

"Who exactly are you? I'll tear off that fake mask of yours! Take this!"

Sixshot was no ordinary Decepticon warrior. One of his transformation forms was a laser gun, so when faced with Starscream's overwhelming firepower, he transformed into that form without hesitation and returned fire. In an instant, all kinds of laser bolts flew wildly through the air, making it seem as though a small force had stumbled into an encounter battle.

Although Starscream was perhaps slightly weaker in firepower, he was the legendary commander of the Decepticon Air Force. If he couldn't overpower his opponent, he could dodge. As an aircraft Transformer, avoiding attacks like these was child's play.

As for Sixshot, the sight of this nimble-bodied "Ultra Magnus" only deepened the confusion in his eyes. Yet no matter how he compared the data, he could not match the Autobot-form Transformer before him with any of the suspects in his database.

It wasn't as though Sixshot's system had never detected Starscream. After all, the other party's weapon systems and the missiles he occasionally fired were very similar to Starscream's standard equipment. But forcibly overlapping Ultra Magnus's appearance with Starscream's was simply unrealistic. At the very least, there was a huge difference in their size.

But Starscream had no intention of remaining entangled with Sixshot. He had only a little over ten minutes left in his transformation time. Once the disguise effect wore off, Starscream would be hunted by the entire Decepticon army. That was an outcome he simply could not bear!

He had never expected that greedily chasing the final 10% of mission progress would cause such enormous trouble. Sixshot was not someone he could shake off so easily.

"Sixshot, what kind of grudge do you have against Ultra Magnus? Did that guy look too handsome and steal your girlfriend? I think Optimus Prime's companion looks pretty good. Was I right?"

Perhaps trying to find a way to break through, Starscream actually began spouting nonsense. Sixshot might have been famous, but he had always lived without a fixed abode, and no one had ever heard of any female Decepticon warrior being particularly close to him.

"You bastard, I'll expose your true face! Sixshot, continue transforming—jet mode!"

Perhaps feeling insulted, Sixshot immediately became somewhat enraged from embarrassment. Seeing that his laser-gun form could do nothing to the opponent, he decided to take the initiative and close the distance in jet fighter form!

But Starscream's transformation form was also a fighter jet. Though the disguise system meant that even after transforming into a jet, he still looked like a rapidly flying truck from the outside, his speed was certainly no slower than Sixshot's.

Just as Sixshot completed his jet transformation, Starscream also assumed his fighter-jet form. He then took the lead, activating his engines and racing toward a belt of abandoned satellites on Cybertron's outskirts!

This had been Starscream's planned escape route from the very beginning. Not only was that place remote, with no Decepticon garrisons nearby, but it was said to have been abandoned after a major accident caused intense electromagnetic disturbances. Going too deep inside could seriously damage and interfere with a Transformer's internal systems. However, if one found the correct route, it was still possible to leave safely.

Against an enemy as difficult to shake as Sixshot, escaping without taking some risks was simply unrealistic.

"Stop right there! How can you disguise yourself as Ultra Magnus? Is your true form some kind of flying Autobot?"

What Sixshot saw before him was something he had never witnessed in hundreds of thousands of years: a seemingly ordinary heavy cargo truck spewing two streams of thruster flames from its rear—flames that only fighter jets should possess—as it sped through space at nearly twice the speed of sound. Who would believe that?

But if the scene before him were replaced with a spaceship or a high-speed fighter jet, it would make perfect sense.

However, the Ever-Changing Steel System's disguise technique was not something a Transformer of Sixshot's level could see through. Thus, he could only maintain his jet form and pursue Starscream into the pitch-black region ahead.

Since Sixshot had spent years carrying out missions across the universe, he was not particularly familiar with Cybertron's surroundings. Moreover, the abandonment of this derelict satellite field had been an extremely disgraceful incident back then. Few Decepticons knew of the place, and even among the Autobots, very few were aware of it.

But Starscream had once been an exploratory scientific researcher, so he happened to know of a secret passage through that ruined area. Though he had no idea whether it would still work after all this time, Starscream was going all out this time to shake off the troublesome Sixshot!

"Sixshot, why are you so curious? Neither of us can finish the other off, so why don't we both take a step back? Just pretend you never saw me today. Why waste so much energy tangling with me?"

"Heh heh, are you, the one impersonating Ultra Magnus, perhaps one of us Decepticons? Although I still can't analyze your data, I've already remembered this feeling. Even if you run to the ends of the earth, I'll catch up to you. You'd better save yourself the trouble and confess voluntarily. Otherwise, once I drag you out into the open, there'll be no way back for you!"