Pet Canary
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Chapter 1: The Empty
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The eight Constructicons sat beneath their shelter at the edge of the jobsite, refueling themselves on some rather generous portions of energon. Shockwave always knew how to keep the work going. A well fueled 'Con was a cooperative 'Con.
"Yo, Scrapper, what'cha looking at?" questioned Mixmaster.
Scrapper gave a little click and turned his head back the direction his body was facing, into the gathering of his team. "Eh, I thought I saw something moving over in the rubble of that building there." His hand rose and pointed back at one of the long-fallen buildings in the former neighborhood.
The rest of the group, their conversations pausing, all turned to look, but after watching for a couple of kliks, they went back to their conversations...except for Scavenger. The power shovel compacted his cube when only a couple swallows remained. Then he walked over to the ruins Scrapper had indicated. He set down the partial cube and walked back to the group.
After another couple of kliks, a tiny mech with dirty pink plating crawled out from the fallen building, darted over to the cube, paused a moment to look at the group of bright green and purple mechs, and then snatched it up and darted back beneath a fallen wall.
"I detected him in there," chortled Scavenger, waggling his sensitive shovel behind him proudly.
"I didn't think there were any empties around here," said Hook, his curiosity piqued. "I thought they'd all been killed off or had run away before that happened."
"Well, there's at least one. There could be more, I suppose," theorized Scrapper.
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Over the next few days, as the Constructicons continued with Shockwave's latest assignment, they also continued to leave a small portion of energon at the edge of the job site whenever they sat down to their twice daily rest and refuel period. And after leaving it, the tiny mech would shyly emerge from beneath the fallen wall, take it, and dart away to the safety of his hole.
It wasn't long before he came to expect it, and would sit waiting at the mouth of his presumed home, ducking into the depths when the delivery was made, reappearing to take the tiny bit of good fortune the Decepticon construction crew had decided to share.
Scrapper was usually the one to give up the few sips of his fuel, and he took a liking to the dull pink mech. He'd call to the tiny bot as he walked over, thinking of the little beggar as the 'site pet.' He placed the cube in the same place each time, the low end of a twisted girder, and would walk away slowly.
On one evening, instead of leaving, he only walked part of the way back to the shelter and sat down and waited, having decided to get a better look at the little mech. The pink mech began to emerge, but hesitated on seeing the much larger construction robot sitting nearby. "It's okay," he said softly. "I just wanted a better look at you."
Blue optics of the visor variety peered out of the shadows.
"Go ahead," he said, trying to sound like as little of a threat as possible. "You can say hello. I'm just trying to be friendly."
The tiny thing moved cautiously out to the cube, took it quickly, and then retreated back into the rubble that had once been a medium sized building.
Satisfied, Scrapper rose and returned to the others.
"So, get a good look at him?"
"Yeah, and I'm sure that 'he's' a 'she' now that I have."
"A femme? Really?" The others were quite intrigued. So few femmes had survived to the present.
"Doesn't look like a femme," rumbled Long Haul. "Well, except for the color. What makes you think this one's a femme?"
"Something about the way she moves and the way she looked at me. And I'm pretty sure she's a cassetteformer. She's the same size and roughly the same shape as Rumble and Frenzy. She still won't talk to me though."
"Eh, femme or not, he or she is kinda cute," said Scavenger. "But I'll go with whatever Scrapper says."
"She is kinda cute. She doesn't even reach my knees when she's standing."
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Three days later Scrapper had coaxed the mini-cassette into taking her miniature energon ration out of his hand. "Definitely a femme. There's just something about her," he said happily on rejoining the others. "And she's not in too bad of shape, all things considered."
Mixmaster cackled. "We should clean her up and take her back as a little gal-pal for Rumble and Frenzy."
"Yeah!" agreed Long Haul. It's embarrassing watching them trying to cozy up to the larger mechs."
"We could sell her to Soundwave," suggested Bonecrusher, a wicked glint in his visor.
"What would Soundwave want with yet another mini-cassette? How many does he have docking with him already? Five? Six?" Hook said dismissively.
"Yeah, but no femmes," said Mixmaster.
"I don't think he even likes femmes," returned Hook.
"I don't think he even likes mechs," snorted Bonecrusher.
Scrapper sighed. "I just wish she'd talk to me."
Mixmaster patted him consolingly on the shoulder. "Hey, can you blame her? Given the way most Decepticons have treated the empties? That brand on your chest pretty much just says 'Hi...would you like a sample of my weapon?'"
"You've gotta admit, empties make for pretty good target practice," chortled Bonecrusher.
Scrapper gave the bulldozer an icy glare. "Do you have to be such a psychopath? It's not in your programming."
Bonecrusher just chuckled, gave the team leader a devil-may-care smirk, and crumpled the empty energon cube in his hands.
"I still say we catch her and take her back for Rumble and Frenzy," said Mixmaster.
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Four days later, Hook sat with the tiny energon cube in his extended hand while Scrapper leaned on his shoulder. "Here she comes," he whispered. "Just hold it steady and let her take it from you," the front-end loader instructed.
The diminutive cassetteformer slipped out of her hole and paused a moment at seeing two mechs there with her meal.
"It's okay, little one," Scrapper assured her. "He just wanted to look at you too."
She crept closer, definitely wary of the new mech. Timidly she reached out and snatched the cube away, but as she turned to retreat, Hook's cable shot out and wrapped about her frame, binding her arms and legs. The cube hit the ground, splashing the draught of pink energon in all directions. The femme screamed and shrieked and struggled against the cable as Hook reeled her in, chuckling at his clever catch.
"Hook! Why'd you do that?!" Scrapper complained.
The crane just laughed and dangled her in front of them to get a better look at her.
The others, having heard the noise and seen that something was going on, all ran over to see.
Mixmaster grabbed the wriggling little femme in his hands to hold her still, the tiny femme shrieking like an unoiled hinge. "Listen to that voice," he laughed. "She could peel the paint off your plating with that!"
"That is an amazing voice," Bonecrusher agreed.
They could hear her fighting to transform, but she was too tightly restrained by Hook's cable. Scrapper stepped in and took her writhing form from Mixmaster. "Hey...easy there...easy little one. You'll strip your cogs down to nothing if you don't stop fighting it." He held her against his chest, trying to soothe her, wrapping his arms gently around the little thing to immobilize even further.
Her screaming stopped but she continued to wriggle in his arms.
"So why did you catch her," Scrapper asked Hook. "She was just starting to get friendly."
"Exactly. I thought it was about time to scan her for spyware. She might be working as an Autobot spy."
"Her? Look at her. She's definitely an empty. No Autobot would get this worn and scraped up."
"It could be a good disguise. Look, I'm just going to take her in, have Shockwave give her a thorough scan, and see if anything dangerous turns up. Chances are nothing will, in which case we'll just bring her right back here, or you can keep her as your little pet back at the base."
At this the dirty pink bot whimpered. "Let me go!" she cried—the first words she'd spoken so far.
Scrapper's louvered air intakes fluttered on hearing her speak. She wasn't mute after all. He tried to calm her again. "Don't worry. If you are just an empty, you'll be just fine. No one will hurt you," he assured her. And then he sighed and looked to the others. "Hook's right. It's best this way." He held her up by her shoulders and looked at her diminutive frame. "Anyone got a pair of stasis cuffs? Or just one? I think one will be all we need."
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"Pet Canary continues in Chapter 2: "Starscream Red"
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Transformers and all related concepts, characters, worlds, and events are property of Hasbro and Takara Tomy. Original characters and story elements are property of E. Potter, writing under the pen name of Miratete.