Brains: DID HE JUST ERASE THE ABILITIES OF TARN.
The battlefield paused. The aura around his body vanished. His telekinesis faded. His connection to the time stream was severed. He lost all his magical abilities, leaving him with strictly his base physical strength, and one of the original abilities of his frame remained, the ability to clone.
Tarn: Fascinating. Truly impressive.
Wheelie saw his opening. His small size made him easy to overlook. He had been hovering near Ratchet's position the entire fight, watching, waiting. As Tarn turned his attention back toward the fallen medic, intending to finish what he started, Wheelie threw himself directly into the path between them.
Wheelie: Not today.
His ability worked silently, invisibly, a passive theft of luck from anyone he made contact with. Tarn shrugged off the attempt entirely, unaware anything had even been taken.
Tarn backhanded Wheelie without a second thought, sending the small bot flying, his focus already returning to Ratchet.
But Megatron Prime, still recovering near the edge of the courtyard, caught Wheelie mid air, cradling him gently before he could hit the ground.
Megatron Prime: I have you.
Wheelie said nothing about what he had done. He simply smiled weakly, knowing that somewhere deep within Tarn's frame, every scrap of fortune he had ever possessed now belonged to someone else entirely.
Tarn raised his sword above Ratchet's broken form, intending to end it there. The blade came down at blinding speed, but with a loud clang, something had caught it, holding the full crushing weight without so much as a tremor.
Tarn looked down.
Mirage had stopped the full force of the attack with his forearm plates.
Mirage: I have seen everything now. You will not hurt anyone in this universe ever again.
Tarn's optics studied him carefully, recalculating everything he thought he understood about the battlefield.
Tarn: And who exactly are you supposed to be.
Mirage did not answer with words. He struck the broadsword with his fist and it shattered into pieces.
Tarn stood frozen, staring at the broken hilt in his hands, unable to believe what he was seeing. He slowly looked up at the one who had done this, his optics wide with disbelief.
Tarn: How did you.
Mirage did not hesitate. He drove a punch toward Tarn for the very first time. Tarn went sliding several meters across the fractured pavement, his frame recoiling from the impact, shock plainly visible on his face, something he had not experienced once during the entire fight until now.
Tarn: Impossible. How can a nobody.
Mirage rolled his shoulders, his frame beginning to glow with the familiar crackle of stored energy.
Mirage: I am not a nobody. You do not know how long I have been waiting for someone, something, that I could hit as hard as I wanted without thinking twice. To let all my agony out on someone who deserves every bit of it.
Tarn recovered quickly, swinging both fists in a rapid left and right combination, aiming to end the confrontation before it could escalate further.
Mirage raised both forearms and blocked each strike directly, absorbing the full force of both blows without moving from his position. The sound of the impact never came.
Tarn: You dare.
Mirage: I dare quite a lot of things.
He surged forward and unleashed a strike of his own, the blow landing across Tarn's frame, sending him staggering backward further and further, another particularly devastating hit launching him clear off the ground and out toward the edge of the atmosphere before he managed to teleport himself back down to solid ground.
Tarn: How can you.
Mirage flash stepped toward Tarn and drove a punch into his faceplate, a blow so devastating that everything behind Tarn leveled instantly, buildings, rubble, the last standing wall of the courtyard, all of it flattened in a single expanding shockwave. Tarn was launched away again, this time vanishing entirely from sight.
Megatron Prime: How can this be. How can he challenge something like him.
Brains: It is his ability. It allows him to absorb one hundred percent of damage and store it in the form of energy.
Tarn spawned back into view, dragging himself upright, his frame smoking faintly at the edges.
Tarn: So that is why there was absolutely no sound loss when you were blocking my devastating blows without breaking a sweat. But I am certain it must hurt somewhere. Psychologically. Emotionally.
Mirage did not respond immediately. His optics flickered, just once, something unreadable passing behind them.
Mirage: You have no idea what pain I carry. And you never will.
Tarn straightened fully, wiping a streak of energon from his mouth, studying Mirage with something closer to genuine curiosity now than arrogance.
Tarn: Then let me find out.
He came at Mirage again, faster this time, the dark chrome blur crossing the broken courtyard as though he was never there one moment and standing directly in front of Mirage the next. Mirage did not move. He simply stood there and let the strike land directly against his chest.
The impact cracked the pavement beneath his feet in a spiraling web, yet his frame did not so much as shift backward.
Tarn: No way.
Mirage: Yes, for the way.
He caught Tarn's fist before it could withdraw, gripping it with a strength that visibly startled him, and drove his knee upward into Tarn's midsection. The strike folded Tarn forward, air forcibly expelled from a frame that technically required none.
Optimus Prime, still recovering near the edge of the wreckage, watched in stunned silence alongside the others.
Optimus Prime: I have fought for a billion years, face to face with threats that shook Cybertron and Earth both. But Mirage. His ability is not a normal one. I feel like he has used something to boost himself.
Original Megatron, leaning against a fallen pillar, let out a low chuckle.
Megatron: That boy Is Super, isn't it.
Galvatron stood recovering nearby.
Galvatron: I do not understand how his ability works, yet it is proving remarkably useful against a being like him.
Berserker, still lying on the ground from before, turned his head to look, his optics wide with a mix of wonder and something else entirely.
Berserker: I want that power too. I might eat him.
Tantrum, beside him, simply shook his head slowly.
Tantrum: You would not survive touching him, let alone eating him.
Tarn straightened himself, driving both fists downward in an overhead strike aimed to crush Mirage into the pavement entirely. Mirage caught both wrists mid swing, holding the full weight of the attack without strain.
Tarn: You should be dead already.
Mirage: You keep saying things that are not true.
He grabbed Tarn's wrists and twisted them hard, forcing him slowly down onto one knee, then drove an uppercut beneath his jaw with his other hand. The punch carried enough force to send Tarn flying straight up into the air, tearing through the lingering smoke still hanging over the battlefield.
Tarn disappeared into the clouds for a moment before crashing back down to the ground a long distance away, carving a fresh crater into the already ruined street.
Tarn rose slowly this time, more carefully, his earlier confidence visibly shaken.
Tarn: You are absorbing everything I throw at you. Is that how your power works?
Mirage: I have been absorbing pain long before you arrived. Yours is just new fuel.
Mirage kept hitting Tarn again and again, throwing him around like a ragdoll, each punch landing harder than the last. Tarn was struggling to keep up. The Martian surface trembled beneath them as they fought. Mirage activated his ability, ten clones bursting into existence, converging on Tarn with reckless force.
Tarn roared, and the sound alone tore the clones apart down to their atoms, the shockwave shaking the entire planet to its core and flattening what remained of the uneven terrain.
Tarn: You are getting on my damn circuit. Enough playing, for good, as of now.
He summoned his sword again and struck at Mirage. The tip connected with his chest plate, and the entire blade shattered on impact.
Mirage blanked out from the pain, nearly taken under for good, but when his consciousness returned he unleashed a swarm of punches so devastating that Tarn was launched clear toward Olympus Mons, carving a straight scorched line the entire distance.
Tarn stood, coughing thick green fluid, his chest plating falling apart, his whole body shaking.
Tarn: Five hundred thousand punches. At that strength.
He coughed again, more fluid foaming from the cracks in his chest.
Tarn: I need more powe.
Mirage appeared in front of him before he could finish the word and struck him with enough force to send him shooting away like a projectile, straight toward Earth. Tarn crashed down within seconds, opening his optics to find his once flawless frame cracking apart in real time.
Tarn forced himself upright, struggling now, looking around wildly.
Tarn: I need more power. I need to find Megatron. I need that power at any cost. What is happening to my body? A bug like him should not have been able to touch me, let alone push me into this state.
He located Megatron Prime and jumped straight into the courtyard. Everyone still standing there panicked at the sight of him again.
Tarn: You caused this to me. I will not spare you.
Without warning he bolted toward Megatron Prime and struck him with the devastating force of a collapsing star. Megatron Prime's limbs separated on impact, his spark fluctuating violently, only the Matrix keeping him from total deactivation.
Tarn: Cat and mouse is over. The cat is going to feed.
He tore the Matrix directly from Megatron Prime's frame and discarded the rest of him aside. Everyone could only watch in horror as the events unfolded at a terrifying pace.
Tarn fused the Matrix into himself, absorbing the power of thirteen Primes and thirteen Knights in a single instant. His frame began glowing violently, green and red fluctuating across his plating. Mirage landed nearby. Tarn smiled.
Tarn: The final fight begins right now.
His entire body shattered outward, green flames erupting from the fractures, and from within that inferno rose something new entirely, a heavy, immovable tyrant wreathed in green fire, standing sixty five feet tall, gripping a mace of unimaginable weight, eyes blazing green, crowned with heavy horns and thick armored plating.
Tarn spoke from within the new armor, his voice now carrying a deep, ominous resonance.
Tarn: This is your Ragnarok, bug.
The size difference alone was staggering. Mirage looked almost like a small insect standing before an elephant.
He did not back away. Brains screamed a warning from a safe distance, his voice cracking with fear.
Brains: MIRAGE, DO NOT GO NEAR THAT THING. NO.
Mirage ignored him entirely and went straight for a punch.
Tarn: Let us test your breaking point. And your hope.
He swung his fist, and the impact carrying the force of a small star sent Mirage hurtling all the way to Neptune in a single strike. Tarn's laughter boomed across the vacuum of space in that new ominous voice, his full power restored. Mirage bled, for the first time, forced to use the gaseous surface of the planet itself to generate enough thrust to steady himself.
Mirage: Energon. Ever since the recalibration, I had forgotten what it looked like.
Tarn teleported behind him instantly.
Tarn: Get ready to be squashed, bug.
He drove another strike. Mirage blocked with both hands, but the resulting shockwave obliterated Neptune entirely, the planet disintegrating into scattered debris across the void.
Brains: NO. A WHOLE PLANET, JUST GONE. RATCHET, AT THIS RATE THE ENTIRE SOLAR SYSTEM WILL BE DESTROYED.
Ratchet, freshly healed, forced himself upright and activated Heaven's Express one final time, teleporting both combatants to a stray, empty point somewhere within the Andromeda Galaxy.
Tarn looked around, unbothered.
Tarn: Seems one of your friends arranged this for us. Very well, my toy. I will enjoy every second of breaking you.
He punched Mirage into a massive rock formation the size of a small moon. Mirage landed hard, energon bleeding freely from his mouth.
Mirage: Is this it? Why do I feel so numb? What is happening to me? Is it because he is hitting too hard? Is it because I am about to die? What is happening?
Tarn landed in front of him and lifted his heavy foot, stomping down directly onto Mirage's neck and skull. An entire section of the rock giant shattered from the impact alone. Mirage lay limp in the resulting crater, a low groan escaping him, his pain endurance clearly reaching its final threshold. Tarn lifted his foot, then pinched Mirage between two massive fingers, dangling him like something lifeless.
Tarn laughed, savoring the moment, and flicked him aside with a single finger. The force sent Mirage crashing straight through the entire planet, out the other side, landing hard, a visible dent now permanently marking his frame.
Tarn: If my never breaking toy were to actually break, I would be rather disappointed in him.
Mirage lay completely numb, his body trembling as he forced himself upright onto his knees, head hanging low, energon leaking steadily from his faceplate.
Tarn teleported in front of him and closed one massive titan hand around his frame entirely, the grip large enough to cage him completely.
Tarn: Did I break you? I have not even discovered ninety nine percent of what this armor can actually do. Come now. Where is that stubborn hope? Where is your sarcasm? Where is it?
He began to squeeze.
Mirage's optics snapped open. He struggled violently, a scream of pain tearing from his frame as the pressure increased.
The glowing eyes of the armor widened at the sound.
Tarn: So you do have a breaking point. An actual one.
He squeezed tighter, and tighter still, the plates of Mirage's frame creaking, then cracking under the sheer force of the grip. Mirage's screams grew louder, more desperate, until Tarn finally slammed him down into the surface below with enough force to nearly split the planet in half. Mirage went completely motionless.
Tarn scoffed.
Tarn: An unbelievable kid who thought he could stop a nightmare. Rest well, kid. I am sending you to your creator.
The armor's size shifted further, growing to six hundred feet, now outgrowing even the tallest peaks around them.
Mirage, all this time trapped in his most turbulent phase, confused and afraid of what was happening within him, suddenly woke, his optics flickering back to life.
Tarn's voice boomed as he looked down at him.
Tarn: So you woke up. How will you.
Mirage clenched his fist. The action alone sent a shockwave rippling across the entire planet, blowing away every trace of yellow dust in the atmosphere.
Mirage looked up, his optics flickering.
Mirage: One fist. Is all I need.
He stomped the ground and launched himself at near light speed, driving a single punch into the Titan form. The force of the single hit brought forth the complete destruction of the entire planet, the massive rocky world splitting cleanly in half. Tarn reappeared, visibly shocked.
Tarn: A rebound. Let us test the spring, then.
He shrank down to his base size of sixty five feet and swung his fist down with enough force to flatten Mirage entirely. Mirage deflected the blow with his forearm instead, the resulting shockwave forcing the immovable armor to stumble four full steps backward.
Tarn: My my. This fight is taking real twists.
Back on Earth, Ratchet, Brains, and Wheelie were tracking Mirage from a distance.
Ratchet: Oh no. Mirage has reached a point where his power is constantly evolving, getting stronger, but it is damaging his core more and more with every use. His ability is turbulent.
Brains: At this rate he will either destroy himself fighting Tarn, or destroy Tarn entirely. It is impossible to predict right now.
Mirage and Tarn continued their fight, destroying whatever remained of the shattered rocky planet. Tarn tore another planet four hundred times the size of Earth from orbit and hurled it directly at Mirage. Mirage punched straight through its surface, destroying it in a single blow, then reached Tarn and struck him hard before landing on a floating piece of debris. He cloned himself into tens of thousands, the entire swarm bolting toward Tarn to strike him all at once with equal force.
Tarn reappeared, breathing heavily.
Tarn: A dying star punch. Truly, this boy is on par with me. But I am growing bored of this fight.
Tarn teleported and grabbed Mirage with over half of his true peak strength, Mirage's frame creaking and breaking apart slowly under the grip. Tarn teleported again.
Tarn: The largest black hole in this galaxy, with a diameter of six hundred and eighteen thousand astronomical units. If I strike you hard enough, you will be sent crashing straight toward the event horizon, and you will not survive this one.
Tarn struck Mirage with everything he had. As Mirage began to be pulled toward the black hole, something in him snapped back into focus. He started applying force to oppose the gravitational pull, but the black hole tugged relentlessly at his frame, trying to tear it apart, growing stronger by the second, until his frame began to crack and break. Still, Mirage kept fighting, until finally, in one final desperate attempt, he shot out a thousand clones at once, trying to escape.
Tarn saw the attempt and used his power to collapse the entire black hole by shrinking it further with his strength. The creation discs closed in around Mirage, gravity intensifying, damage compounding with every passing second. Everything went numb. His spark flashed once before it erupted.
Mirage pushed back against the crushing collapse of the black hole, the very force that had been destroying him now somehow powering him. With a silent roar, his strength spiked violently, destroying the creation discs entirely. Tarn's optics widened as light began bouncing off Mirage's frame in ways it had not before.
Mirage cloned himself endlessly, clone after clone reaching for the edge of the event horizon, until finally one broke free. The main body remained trapped inside the collapsing black hole even as it destroyed itself, gone entirely. But the clone body had become the main body in its place. Ratchet lost all tracking on Mirage as the true body vanished somewhere within a wormhole.
The new main body, formerly a clone, dove straight back into the fight against Ragnarok Tarn, each punch sending him crashing from planet to planet before the next impact destroyed whatever world he landed on. When Tarn finally came to rest on solid ground once more, he paused, his fury building visibly.
He grew again, back to his six hundred foot Titan form, and grabbed Mirage between two fingers, attempting to crush him outright. But Mirage, powered by his turbulent strength spike, pushed the crushing fingers back.
Tarn then pulled Mirage in and swallowed him whole.
Inside the body, Mirage immediately began attacking the vitals, driving straight toward the spark chamber. He punched Tarn's spark relentlessly, with everything he had left. Tarn began to feel a sharp, forgotten kind of pain, and screamed before Mirage blasted his way back out of the Titan form entirely, the massive spark held tightly in his hands. The armor regenerated instantly, preventing true death.
Tarn: You have angered me, insect.
Tarn summons his Mace.
Tarn: MACE OF SIN FOR THE ABSOLUTE RAGNAROK.
He throws the Mace towards Mirage, mirage pushed both of his palms forward Grabbing and resisting the cosmic brutal force of the mace that was pushing on it, before the mace suddenly Detonated The blast Destroys The whole solar system they were fighting in, Mirage's frame was half black, but his optics further flickering With Blinding surge.
Tarn summons another mace Of sin, he throws it towards Mirage but Mirage punches Right through it and Within a microsecond he reached The armour, Hitting it so hard that he sends The armour crashing through planets, And When Tarn stands up, He Finds Another planet Moving slightly until Its thrown punched By Mirage with enough force that planet crashes straight on Tarn destroying both the planets, The scene goes silent, Until a Blinding Beacon of Green Erupts Incinerating the planets.
Tarn: RAGNAROK IS DUE YOUR DOOM.
The armor shifted again, growing far larger than the planet itself, the world beneath them shrinking to the size of a ball compared to his palm. He dwarfed every star and planet nearby, reached down, and closed his hand around the planet Mirage stood on, crushing it entirely, believing the fight was finally over.
But within the closed fist, Mirage said nothing. With a low growl, he began punching the inner surface of the fist, over and over, faster and harder with every strike. Within seconds the Ragnarok armor began to heat, then glow red, the surface Mirage struck buckling under the relentless assault. On the final punch, the entire armor ignited red and began to collapse.
Tarn: WHAAAA.
The unbreakable Ragnarok armor did not simply break. It exploded, ending the surrounding galaxy in the same instant, vaporizing everything nearby and leaving behind a hollow void in space where no stars or planets remained.
Drifting alone in the wreckage of space and time, the clone of Mirage, having lost half his body, his spark pulsing erratically, turned his remaining optic to the left. He saw the scattered remains of the armor floating around him, a cracked skull among the debris, and Knightmare Tarn himself in his final moments, his body slowly turning to ash and fading from existence.
When Mirage turned his gaze to the right, he saw the faces of his friends. Optimus. Bumblebee. Hot Rod. Everyone he had fought for, all this time.
His half remaining lip curled into a small, quiet smile before his frame faded to black and white.
Tarn's entire form crumbled into nothing but ash.
Mirage drifted away into the silence of space.
Back on Earth.
Optimus Prime: What happened? I cannot find Mirage.
The team scrambled, trying desperately to locate him, but nothing came back.
Megatron: He sacrificed himself, didn't he.
Megatron Prime, alive and saved by Hound after his own near death, had been repaired to full strength after losing the Matrix, though it returned to him the moment the Ragnarok armor was destroyed.
Megatron Prime: Tarn is gone. He is truly gone. The Primes within me can feel it. But I was saved, and somehow the Matrix found its way back to me. I have some purpose left before I finally rest. There has to be something more.
Galvatron: We can think about that later. Our heaviest hitter is gone now, and that leaves us vulnerable to threats like that one. We got lucky this time, didn't we.
ON LOCKDOWN'S SHIP
Lockdown: I sensed a disturbance in this specific region of the Andromeda Galaxy.
Nightbird: Immediately, Master. It seems the evolved Cybertronians have eliminated the other Tarn, the one we knew so little about.
Battletrap: How can she see that far? That place is a thousand light years from our ship. I do not have powers like that. In fact, Master, why do I still not know what my own powers are?
Lockdown: Silence. I am working on it. I will soon alter your code and evolve your C-DNA. As for Nightbird, her ability allows her to enter a stealth mode, becoming invisible to jammers and any means of detection. She cannot attack while in this state, but she can escape completely. Beyond four meters of distance she becomes entirely unnoticeable, her footsteps and presence going utterly silent. Her secondary ability allows her to observe any location she has mapped digitally, viewing it live in three dimensional space, though only to watch.
Tarn: That is impressive. But nothing compared to my strength.
Scourge: When do we strike, Lockdown.
Thundercracker: I am eager to rain thunder down on them.
Thrust: I will put holes through their frames.
....
So guys Really sorry this chapter took over a month actually having really big issues in my life Rn going through some Transition phase in my life still haven't sort it out, But I will try to Commit for this book and it's chapter as much as possible on the other novel the chapter will be updated Tommorow.
.....
ABILITY CHART
CHARACTER- RAGNAROK ( ARMOUR )
Abilities- Unknown
Weakness- Unknown
CHARACTER- NIGHTBIRD
Ability- 1) FREE BIRD
Nightbird can enter a complete stealth mode, rendering herself invisible to jammers, sensors, and any conventional means of detection. While active she cannot attack, sacrificing offense entirely for pure evasion. Beyond four meters of distance she becomes fully unnoticeable, her footsteps and presence going utterly silent.
Ability 2)- EYES
Nightbird can remotely observe any location she has previously mapped digitally, viewing it live in real time three dimensional space from anywhere. The ability is purely observational, granting no means of interaction with what she watches.
...