Intro
Sitting at the table for breakfast were three people she had never seen before each with a complete breakfast on the plates in front of them. Two pancakes, an egg over easy and three slices of bacon. One of them bantered telling the one straight across from him where to stick it while the other calmly and carefully watched the other berate and make fun of him. All the while she sat wanting the one yelling to shut up. She wanted him to shut up so badly. The third person opens their mouth to speak and the one yelling stops, looks at the third person with a look of indignation, grabs one of his pancakes and throws it at the third person who in turns flies backwards and ungracefully lands on their back with no life in the body. At this she couldn't help declare, "Thou hast kill'd mine body with a pancake!?"
Brandy awoke to find herself tangled in the thick blankets she snuggled into the night before. The position she was lying in proved to be uncomfortable at best so she unravels her limbs twisted into the blankets all the while wondering how she managed to get into such a predicament. "Guh... stupid...get offa me!" She grunts and after a few successful rolls she finds herself unwound and staring at the window which was thankfully covered with a dark curtain. She noted how bright the sun appeared to be outside and thought to herself how much the sun was going to hurt when she actually steps outside. Not caring to change clothes or take a shower, Brandy opens her door and walks out to her kitchen to find some breakfast.
Recalling the dream, she suddenly felt like having pancakes. Minutes later, the sound of mixing and cooking in the kitchen awoke the rest of the household who in turn required for her to continue making pancakes along with some bacon. They hadn't had bacon in a while. Brandy stops for a second trying to recall if they even had the heavily sought after breakfast meat. After her memory fails her and a few pancake flips later, she goes to the fridge to sate her need to know. "Do we even have bacon?" she mindlessly yammers and the household reassures her that they do indeed have bacon. She searches and successfully finds the package of bacon. A few more minutes pass by and the faint sound of music radiates through the small house. Brandy quirks her brow and turns her head in search of the device the local radio stations regularly abuse. "Where is that coming from?" One of the house mates who was waiting at the table for Brandy to finish cooking looked over, "We got a new radio. Our other one spazzed out and broke so we got a new one." Brandy bobbed her head. "I wonder what could have happened to make it crap out like that." The house mate shrugged and went back to whatever they were doing. Since she was cooking, Brandy decided that everyone would like eggs and she in turn gets some eggs and makes one for each of them. By the time she was finished she stopped and looked at the plates. "No one is in a throwing mood are they?" In reply, "We will be if you don't hand those plates over."
With breakfast over and a day to herself set in front of her, Brandy decides to take a look at the broken radio. With the lack of knowledge to fix the device, she figures she just wants to see if there was a wire loose or if it had any visual implications of being "broken". A while later with the radio cracked open and the search going nowhere, Brandy was more and more convinced that it wasn't going to give her the answers she was looking for. Frustrated, she puts the broken radio in the trash and wanders off in search of the new radio.
Deep in her mind, new things yeilded opportunities and in this case, the opportunities to see how fast the new radio's CD player could skip forward, what color the lights were, how long was the antenna, and could she steal it for night time sleep? Locating the radio wasn't hard. It wasn't a commonly seen radio but she gave a look of disapproval at the tech. "Wait a minute... this is not new!" She ran a short finger over the device noting its aged appearance and a tape player at the front...
Half a world away was a metal titan and his crew on board a ship miles high in the atmosphere. This particular titan stood on the bridge of his ship commanding his officers the way he saw fit. His underlings approached carefully, spoke respectfully, and walked on eggshells as they gave reports of Earthly findings and exploits. They were of course always ecstatic to give him the coordinates of a new energon deposit. Big or small, they were always happy to give their leader such news which often meant the rather hostile entity wouldn't lash out and carelessly destroy a shipmate. After the latest report, Megatron looked to the communications hub commonly housed by Soundwave, who wasn't currently present, and inquired of the decepticon who took his place. "Any word from Soundwave?" The smaller decepticon turns and meekly answers his leader, "We've received transmissions from Soundwave with coordinates of his current position, but nothing regarding the mission objective."
Megatron brings his face forward looking out over the Earth's middle eastern landscape. "Be sure to let me know the moment Soundwave sends his transmission. I anticipate our findings will greatly aid the Decepticon cause."
"Perhaps Soundwave is slacking in his duties, Lord Megatron." The voice came from Megatron's second in command as he approached from behind. Megatron snorts, "You couldn't compare with Soundwave's level of success, Starscream. You on more than one occasion have brought nothing but embarrassment to our cause." He stops and turns to look at Starscream who in turn shrinks back from the towering titan, "Until you bring something of worth to the table, I suggest you remain silent so I don't blast you into the next dimension!" Starscream further shrinks back from Megatron.
As the leader lets up, Starscream rights himself and leaves the bridge to wander to his quarters talking to no one and justifying himself. "All day and all night I put up with this treatment! I oversee all of our lords important projects and yet he feels I don't bring anything to the table!?" He continues to rant, sometimes stopping dramatically giving a show to those passing by. "Perhaps I'll make my own investigation regarding our little project. I can find everything before Soundwave can and present it to Lord Megatron. This will no doubt put him in a rewarding mood." With a grin on his face, the seeker marches off to put his agenda into play.
Back on the bridge, one of the officers report to Megatron that Starscream's signal was heading away from the ship. "Keep tabs on him. I'll kill him when he returns."
The autobot base was rarely a place that bustled with activity. Today wasn't any different from the previous but the amount of activity incurred from the decepticons had Ratchet unmoving from his place at the computer consoles. "I don't understand what they are up to, I don't know if it's a relic they found or if it's is something Cybertronian, autobot or decepticon!" Ratchet huffed to his longtime friend, Optimus. "Easy, Ratchet. They haven't pursued any course of action that would harm humans so there's no need to get so worked up, old friend." Ratchet straightens himself but his face betrayed his concerns. "Optimus, they could have found something that would greatly increase the amount of power in their arsenal. It's bad enough we are sorely outnumbered, but their actions deem this as something that could severely turn the tides against us."
Optimus didn't quite know how to provide any sort of comfort. All he could do was put a reassuring hand on Ratchet's shoulder, "We've lost many comrades but remember that Megatron has made mistakes in the past. He is determined and impulsive and that tends to backfire on him. Not everything is as it seems." Ratched resigned himself to that statement and went back to working on the consoles.
The day continued without any issues. Optimus went over stolen information from the Nemesis database, Ratchet scoured information and continued to hunt the decepticons objective while Arcee, Bumblebee and Bulkhead entertained the humans they guarded everyday. Smokescreen babbled about how he was "destined for greatness" for the millionth time and as things got a bit boring, Wheeljack came rolling in for a brief visit. "Heey Jackie!" Bulkhead approached Wheeljack as he reverted out of his transformed state and pat him as hard as he could on the back. A basic greeting between the two. "Hey Bulk. Thought I'd drop by and see what you all were up to."
It was common knowledge that Ratchet didn't hold Wheeljack in any high regard and snorted whenever he talked about any sort of action that could have revealed anything about their whereabouts or could have gotten him killed. Wheeljack was getting quite annoyed at the older bot, "Hey, oldie, I don't see you out doing any field work. Keep yourself cooped up in here and you'll be better off as scraplet chow with how rusty you'll get." Ratchet turns and eyes the seasoned bot, "I keep myself useful here so I can save your sorry aft when you DO get into trouble. I'm also currently tracking the decepticon activity that has recently picked up in the past day or so." Wheeljack folds his arms, "Better you than me."
Brandy walked into the saloon tightly bound in a corset and girdle making her way to a table where two men sat playing cards. One was a hostile looking man with oily skin, dark hair and a long mustache taking up a portion of his face. He had one gun on the table but another was stashed away. The second man was clean and presentable with a monocle and top hat, blonde hair
and clean shaven. Brandy huffed and plopped down into a chair at the table the two card players sat. The two men looked at her, then looked at each other as if to ignore Brandy. Feeling like she was unable to breathe, she drew in some air and slowly blew it back out. Some of her brown curls flew away from her face at the breath.
"It's your move, old friend." The unkempt man regarded the clean one looking for any sign of faltering. The clean man looked back at his opposing player and says nothing. Brandy grows agitated, for she could no longer count how many days they kept playing this game, and how many times the play was repeated over and over again. "Are you two really going to keep doing this!? I'm getting tired of this, this doesn't solve anything! Nothing good will come of this! Stop it, Stop it right now!" At that, the two card players look over at Brandy, her short figure rigid and tired from the restraining clothing, her hands gripping the sides of the chair. One pair of eyes give her a tired and agreeing gaze, the other icy with a look of contempt. Without as much warning, the clean man grabs the gun takes her life away.
Brandy rolls out of her bed and crashes to the floor. The pain of connecting with the floor brings her back to reality. "Whuh? Wha the hell?" She observed the dark surroundings and grabbed for the alarm clock she usually had set next to her on her bed. 3AM. Sighing, Brandy picks herself up from the floor and goes to settle herself back down into the bed when she realizes she needs some noise. She goes back and finds the new radio, takes it and brings it into her room. With all the fuss earlier about it being an older model the radio was starting to grow on her. She found some old tapes that she liked to listen to, pops open the player to find a tape already in it. "Oh... someone must have been playing this earlier." She takes the tape out and sets it on top of the radio, puts her own music in the player and presses play. "I think this will help me keep the crazy death and destruction dreams to a minimum." She then goes to turn off the light, flops down into the bed and curls up into the blankets for a hopefully less terrifying sleep.
The Nemesis bridge became quite noisy as Soundwave sent them a transmission. It happened again but it came from no device. It was like the signal pulse was created out of thin air. Not only that, the pulse was much more concentrated than the last time.
Ratchet mulled over some readings attained with the help of the virus that he and Wheeljack infested Laserbeak and Soundwave with. They were picking up some vague information, namely location and something about a pulse. At around three in the morning, Ratchet got an idea of what the Decepticons were after.
