Darkecho character history
By Brian Brousseau
all_are_not_lost@hotmail.com
Darkwave was a Predacon who protoformed as a vampire bat named Nightwing. Although his beast mode was mammalian, the other Predacons accepted him because vampire bats are also sneaky blood drinkers and Nightwing looked a bit like the ancient Decepticon hero Soundwave.
Nightwing was a small, blind, and ugly little Predacon who never had much in life. He clawed his way up from the Pit as a young protoform but never seemed able to ascend any higher. He acted mature although it was hard to actually determine a mental age for him. He didn't act young or old and crotchety, but he didn't really seem to be seated in "middle age" either. His personality was sort of ageless and unremarkable though he was a likable little fellow. Nightwing wandered through life in a rather oblivious fashion for a few stellar cycles, always seeming to be a bit distracted. He felt that there was something very important he was forgetting, something that he was supposed to be doing, but he couldn't quite figure out what.
Eventually Nightwing heard about a group of Predacons that wanted to fight for change on Cybertron and improve the Predacons' lot in life. This struck a chord with Nightwing. He knew a thing or two about getting into locked places because he occasionally found it necessary to steal energon so he joined these revolutionaries immediately as their "intrusion expert". Among the group was a vile and treacherous cobra/raptor fuzor named Whiplash whom Nightwing did not like. The feeling was mutual. Nightwing felt compelled to follow the Predacon Honor Code strictly while Whiplash was a little less than honorable.
One night while Nightwing was guiding Whiplash and another Predacon named Deathrattle through the darkened lower levels of a Maximal Power Station with his sonar, he fell victim to Whiplash's treachery for the last time. Deathrattle set the explosive device below the power center's core and began heading out with a load of energon cubes. While Nightwing was busy gathering up his own load of cubes and preparing to evacuate, Whiplash shot him in the back and threw him down a power conduit shaft.
Nightwing fell down the seemingly endless power shaft with his leathery wings, now useless after the treacherous blow, fluttering behind him in the wind of his descent. The ugly and torn Predacon cried out his rage and cursed Whiplash as the explosion rocked the station above and raw power surged down the shaft and arced all around him, wracking his already broken body with incredible pain. Nightwing went offline. His spark rejoined the Matrix. His shattered body impacted on the bottom of the shaft.
He awoke in the darkness of a long unused sub-sector. Leaning over him was a small and pathetic looking tinkertoy of a robot that said simply "Out... Freak". He quickly sat up and looked around at the sorriest bunch of rejects he had ever heard. They all introduced themselves to him. There was Puddlehopper, a Maximal jeep that had no robot mode. Wart, a hideous sub-moronic horny toad. Goatslither, the ram/snake fuzor. Dogbot, the non-transforming half-dog/half-robot. Thunderbunny, who had the power to shake the very ground but suffered from uncontrollable leg spasms. Owlapus, the bird/octopus fuzor. Orcatron, the killer whale who had the misfortune of having flippers instead of hands and feet in robot mode. Shine-on, the Maximal floor-buffer. And sitting quietly, watching, was Master Brain, large and immobile.
Darkecho stayed with the freaks and tried to educate them and keep them alive. It was not easy. He had to return to his former life as an energon thief to feed them all. But then one night his new life was changed forever when he ventured to the surface to take advantage of the recent chaos at an energon refinery to steal some energon.