I grew up watching the 1980s Transformers cartoons, so this story takes place in a universe formed of a fusion of cartoonverse, G1 and fanon. IDW not included.

I stumbled across a Wheeljack/Sunstreaker fanfic, which got me thinking, "How would that pairing actually WORK?" At the same time, I was suffering trauma from playing Borderlands 2. Hence, this story was born from an unstable mix of brain chemicals and explosions.

Disclaimer: I do not own any iteration of Transformers—not the toys, not the comics, not the cartoons, not the anime, not the live action, not the swag. Please support the proper owners of the franchises. Except Bay. Don't give him the money to screw up more of my childhood than he already has.


"Hey, Sunstreaker. I just finished a new blaster. Can test it out for me?" Wheeljack asked, proffering the small, unassuming metal object.

Never one to turn down a free weapon-of-possibly-explosive-destruction, Sunstreaker reached out. "Sure, I'll take it out to the range right now."

The engineer's hand snapped back. "No, not the range. The only way to know how a weapon really performs is out in the field. I want you to try it out in battle, and tell me what you think."

"Yeah, no problem," Sunstreaker grinned. "The Cons won't know what hit them."

Sunstreaker and Sideswipe leapt away from each other as a laser blast struck the ground where they had been standing. The red twin spun around and brought down Mixmaster with a well-placed fist. Sunstreaker dodged another shot from Thrust, who was firing at them from the air in his jet mode.

The conehead grew over-confident and flew within range. Sunstreaker whipped out Wheeljack's gun and fired, hitting the jet squarely in the nosecone. Sparks erupted along the Decepticon's body as he shifted into robot-mode.

Thrust yelped in shock. "What the-?"

Sideswipe ran, leapt off Susntreaker's interlaced hands, and activated his jetpack. He was in the air and before Thrust even knew happened, Sideswipe punched him in the jaw.


"It worked good," Sunstreaker reported after he had a wash and shine. "But what's the point in having a gun that forces alts to robot mode and robots to alt mode? I only took down the Cons from sheer surprise."

"It forces mechs out of their current transformation and into another one? Interesting…" Wheeljack mused, fins flashing as he started breaking down the weapon.

The yellow warrior paused in the doorway. "Wait, what was it supposed to do?"

"Cut off control to their limbs," came the cheerful reply.


It wasn't long before the engineer presented Sunstreaker with a modified firearm.

He eyed it warily. "First things first, what is this supposed to do?"

"This," Wheeljack declared proudly, "should overload your target's t-cog, and rapidly force them in and out of alt mode. With any luck, they'll get stuck halfway."

Sunstreaker recalled every time Wheeljack accidentally blew up his lab or melted off someone's arm. He was suddenly glad all that destructive force was on their side.

"Alright, I'll let you know how it goes," he said, giving the gun a casual twirl before pocketing it in subspace.

For once, the Lamborghini appeared more confident than he felt.


Sunstreaker cursed as he dodged behind a stack of concrete pipes and fired a few rounds over the top before taking cover. He ran along the length of the pipes, rolled out into the open and snapped out two more shots, hitting Shrapnel dead-on. The Insecticon went down, smoke curling from the scorch mark on his head. Sunstreaker kept running, winding up back-to-back with Gears.

The gun functioned…like a normal gun. Anything he hit was knocked back, but there was no surprise transformation or malfunction of any sort. Sunstreaker expressed his displeasure with extreme violence. As always.

He aimed and pulled the trigger.

Click.

"Move!" he yelled, pushing a minibot into the dirt as a laser blast flashed over their heads.

"What the Pit?!" Gears shouted accusingly as scrambled to their feet.

"The stupid blaster's out of juice!" He turned it over, looking for the cartridge as Gears provided cover fire. "What sort of genius makes a weapon without enough—"

The gun beeped.

And beeped again.

The beeps increased in frequency as the gun grew hot in his hands.

"Oh, slag!"

Sunstreaker hurled the device as hard as he could. It went flying over Gears's head and blew up in Skywarp's face.