Chapter 1: The Maximus
From Axalon RPG
A Maximal taskforce confronts shadowy Predacon military installations and enemies from the future-- including themselves. A lasting bond is formed among several of the taskforce members that will take them through many more engagements, and lasts to this day.
Contents |
Enter the Maximus...
The Predacon Alliance, in a treaty violation, secretly constructed a military installation in the Forbidden Territories of the quadrant. The Predacon Alliance officially denied knowledge of the facility. Thus, the Maximal Alliance in response, sanctioned a taskforce to destroy the facility.
To that end, a Maximal cruiser dubbed 'Maximus' commanded by Guyver was sent. Of note: The Maximus itself can transform into a robot. Guyver for his part forms that robot's head.
The taskforce also included: Jungle, Icerunner, Squirrely, Jennifer Scott and Sabretooth.
Aware of the Maximal taskforce, the Predacon Alliance covertly dispatched their own agents. The Predacon agents consisted of: Funeral Pyre, Hopp, UniRage and Marauder.
Initial casualties for the Maximal taskforce were Guyver and Sabretooth. Thus, Jennifer Scott imposed her authority amongst the remaining group which was much to Squirrely’s distaste.
Fortunately, the Maximus though heavily scarred, did reach its destination. Jennifer Scott remained on the Maximus to fend off the attackers while Jungle, Squirrely and Icerunner went down to the instillation.
The surface team had their share of difficulty but did reach the facility’s core. By dropping several of Icerunner’s ‘ice bombs’ into the core, an implosion resulted.
Enter the Planet of Nebulos...
Several weeks after the successful destruction of the Predacon facility, the crew of the Maximus received a new assignment. A band of Predacons, which the Predacon Alliance insisted were rogue, occupied the planet of Nebulos which was the site of one of the final battles of the Great War fault between the Autobot and Decepticon Transformer factions, 300 years ago.
However, two recently constructed orbital defense platforms laid between the Maximus and the planet. Disguised as Predacons, Icerunner, Squirrely and Sabretooth, boarded and destroyed the platforms. Fighters from the surface attacked the Maximus directly, but Jungle, Guyver and Jennifer Scott were able to repel them with the Maximus’s arsenal.
The battle on the planet surface was anything but easy as the Predacons refused to surrender despite their prior losses. However, once the people of Nebulos were freed, the tide turned enough to force the remaining Predacons to withdraw.
Future Tense...
The Maximus was in the process of tracking the Predacons which fled the planet of Nebulos. Of note: in the battle for the liberation of the planet, Sabretooth was left with near critical injuries. The Maximal Alliance dispatched reinforcements for the taskforce. The reinforcements consisted of: Temperance, Volotar and Pyre.
Volotar converts into battle armor for use by Temperance. Pyre and Funeral Pyre are one in the same. However, having been given the right price, Pyre switched sides. He is a mercenary without faction or loyalty. Much like Jennifer Scott in the regard. Also a mysterious protoform arrived along with the group. However, before its purpose could be revealed, urgent news came in over subspace channels.
It was reported that the Transformer home world of Cybertron was destroyed by ships supposedly from the future and barring Predacon emblems.
The Maximus detected one such ship and so engaged it. The Maximus, though still damaged from its last battle, was able to cripple the future Predacon ship. A boarding party consisting of: Squirrely, Pyre and Jennifer Scott was sent over to retrieve data from the ship’s computers in order to determine the point in the future it was from.
Squirrely, Pyre and Jennifer Scott however seemed to be more concerned with bickering with each other then the mission. Squirrely and Jennifer Scott never got along and Pyre seemed to be friendly with Jennifer, making him thereby unfriendly toward Squirrely. Of note: the feud has to this day, has yet to end.
A survivor was found amongst the wreckage; a future version of Pyre. During the resulting battle, one of the ship’s transwarp cells exploded, causing Squirrely to be upgraded into a TM. The explosion also caused the ship’s integrity to be compromised as well. However, the taskforce did escape, with the data tracks they were after. Squirrely felt confident that the future Pyre did not survive but Pyre was not so sure.
Icerunner, Temperance and Guyver examined the retrieved information. Meanwhile, Pyre stole a shuttle and went after his future self. Jennifer Scott joined him. They tracked the future Pyre to a nearby planet and began round two. Pyre and Jennifer were again no match for the future Pyre who unfortunately for them escaped in their shuttle.
The Maximus did however pick them up and then using the recovered information was able to head into the future and track down the Predacon ships prior to their attack against Cybertron. There were three future Predacon ships in total.
Pyre, Jennifer Scott and Jungle were each sent to a ship to disable it while the Maximus provided fire support. However, the three Predacon vessels merged together into a single robot. Guyver therefore transformed the Maximus into its robot mode. However, the Maximus was outclassed. The tide turned once Jungle managed to cause an implosion within one of the ship’s cores. The force of the implosion caused the ships to separate, allowing the Maximus to finish them off.
Enemies of the Past...
The taskforce found themselves in the midst of some down time. The Maximus had been repaired and the crew had recovered, all except for Guyver and Jungle who were receiving cr-chamber treatment. Pyre and Jennifer Scott seemed to be getting even closer, but they still found the time to torment Squirrely and visa versa. Also, a new crew member, ReGex arrived who was inflicted with a virus that was slowly killing him. The good news was it could not be spread to others but the bad news was that there was no cure.
Temperance for his part was spending his free time making a clone of himself, should his body ever be critically damaged in battle. Temperance set about doing the same thing for ReGex so that his conscience could be transferred into it in order to end his torment. That good natured distraction however caused Temperance to shift his attention from his own clone whom turned out to be alive, alive and full of ill natured intentions.
Icerunner was attacked by the clone of Temperance but he withdrew after the arrival of Pyre and Jennifer Scott. Primevil however finally managed to subdue the clone. Primevil was the occupant of the mystery stasis pod from before. Primevil is bonded with vampire bat DNA, causing him to have a thirst for mech fluid. A thirst he had learned to control over time.
Jungle awoke in time for the taskforce’s next assignment. After the Great War, several bands of Decepticons established colonies near the outer rim to live out what remained of their lives in peace. However, one such colony was in the process of rearming in order to make war. The taskforce of the Maximus was ordered to halt the Decepticon uprising.
A future version of Guyver arrived, with a warning of how the taskforce would fail in their attempts to halt the uprising which would result in a second Great War. Given that the future Guyver had brought with him special weaponry to defeat the Decepticons, the taskforce accepted his aid.
Also, it was revealed how Jungle and Icerunner know each other. Apparently Jungle is a former agent of the MSP. Icerunner witnessed a botched MSP assignment which Jungle was apart of. However, instead of killing her as protocol dictated, Jungle chose to spare her. The revelation of Jungle being a former MSP agent was not welcomed news to Squirrely who is familiar with the MSP’s reputation of being sly and brutal. However that doesn’t instantly affect their friendship.
During the battle, Temperance, Pyre and ReGex disappeared through a temporal rift which formed as a result of the future Guyver traveling back through time. The battle itself ended when the future Guyver destroyed then entire Decepticon colony - something which got an ill response from the remaining crew.
The ‘victory’ meant that the future Guyver’s future never occurred, thus he vanished from existence. The real Guyver then woke up and the Maximus returned to Cybertron. During the battle, Temperance’s clone escaped. Once back on Cybertron, Jennifer Scott resigned from the crew.
Pyre, Temperance and ReGex were still missing, but upon receiving a distress signal from them, Jungle and Squirrely arrive and retrieve them as they had managed to return to present day.
To make a long story short, the temporal rift took the trio back in time to Temperance’s home world and there Temperance’s origins were revealed to him. Turns out that Temperance is the sole survivor of the oldest race. His home world was destroyed millions of years ago, when this universe was formed around the old one which Unicron devoured.
Pyre was having a hard time dealing with Jennifer Scott’s unexpected departure. So was Jungle for that matter. Pyre challenged Jungle to a sparring match which ended in a lasting mutual respect being forged between the two.
