Title: Questions
Summary: We all have questions. Some are slightly more important than others.
Notes: As I've said countless of times, I'm very bad at writing…however the also lies the universal truth that I'll never become better, unless I practice.
So here, and for the amusement of my overridden mind, A few characters make a lot of questions that may or may not be relevant, but that crossed my mind when I saw ROTF and don't let me sleep in peace because they never actually explained them. So there.
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Optimus was walking around the deck of the carrier the United States had gotten for them. His pace was low and slightly unbalanced, he needed to get used to the new weight of his body. Also, coming back from the dead was not helping, and he had to do some thinking
He approached Sam Witwicky, who was looking back at the water trail left by the enormous ship. Or maybe he was looking back at the place where he almost died. Who knew.
The two shared a few words, and Optimus assured him that no, there weren't going to leave the planet since they shared a common history, and that they'll remain here to work with the humans. After this, Sam looked relieved, and both went back to watch the sea.
"So what are you doing here and not below with Ratchet?"
"Ratchet has enough to worry for right now" on the floor below, where the humans stored the airplanes, Ratchet had dragged Jolt and installed a medic bay. Ratchet was currently working on Arcee, and Jolt, who was taking care of Ironhide, saw no damage in letting Optimus go.
"He told you to get out of his med bay, didn't he?"
"Sam, you should know already Ratchet never tells people to do something. He bullies them into doing it."
Sam laughed, and even Optimus made some sound in his chest that could be considered chuckles.
"Where are we going now?"
"NEST headquarters"
"right. Right. Uhmm.. What did 'N.E.S.T.' stand for again…?"
"There you are!" said a voice behind them. "Were have you been, shouldn't you be in the clinic resting?" Mikaela looked pissed. Loving, but still pissed, she probably looked all over the ship for Sam before checking the deck.
"You came looking for me? Aww, that's cute." But Mikaela ignored his attempts at romance, "I was actually looking for Wheelie, I thought you had him."
Optimus looked down at the female human, just as Sam was replying her 'why would I have your horny, traitorous pet?' "Who is Wheelie?"
"He's this little ex-decepticon that Mikaela adopted, He's like this tall, but he's a pain in the ass." He said indicating a level slightly below his knee.
"He's not that bad. And he helped us find Jetfire."
"The Jet." Said Optimus.
"Yes, he was another ex-decepticon, who warped us to the Middle East, where we found the tomb of the primes." Sam added for Optimus benefit. "Slightly deranged, and old, and rusty, but he was nice."
"It's kind of ironic hundreds of archaeologists went to Petra and never found the tomb, isn't it?" added Mikaela.
"Yeah, who knew all you needed was to tumble a half-an-inch wall to find humankind's greatest discovery."
"And what did those old scouts like Jetfire disguised as when there were no machines around?"
"Dunno, horses maybe? Or dinosaurs…" Sam said. Now a Cybertronian dinosaur, wouldn't that be awesome?
"Wouldn't a dinosaur be suspicious in the VI century?"
"Have you ever heard or Dragons?"
Either Optimus had missed a lot during his absence, or the humans were again mixing subjects. Why couldn't human languages be more straightforward like theirs?
There was a crash behind them. It was the twins, who where doing some sort of twisted ju-jutsu. Simmons, who was approaching Prime and company, had to jump around them to avoid getting squished under one of them.
"What's the deal with the Quasimodo twins—what? You are all thinking it!" he added when the two teenagers turned to glare at him.
"Just because they are not that good looking is no reason to insult them." Mikaela said in a hushed voice so Optimus couldn't hear her. Sure, they weren't the best looking mechs around, but for all she knew they were handsome for Cybertronian standards.
Maybe.
"Hey! Don't take it on me when even your Camaro friend can't stand them" for some reason, the three humans turned to look at Prime, and he had no idea what they were expecting of him. Simmons seemed to be waiting some sort of corroboration, Mikaela looked as if she wanted a denial of that, and Sam simply had no idea if this will look bad on 'Bee or not. "The twins are sometimes too energetic for some mechs," was his diplomatic response.
"See!" claimed Simmons, to which Mikaela said "that's not what he meant!"
Actually, the twins were sort of 'new' to war, and were not as experienced as the rest of his soldiers, so more often than not, they exasperated the most patient mech. Ratchet and Ironhide knew this, and during their joined leadership, they assigned Skids and Mudflap to help Bumblebee evacuate the humans. Later, one of them –most probably Ironhide— would have to go and apologize to 'Bee for that, but there was no other option really. The sisters were too fast and slower fighters will decrease their performance, and to line up the twins with Sideswipe… No. Just no.
"—and what's with the robo-tyger?"
"Who?" asked Captain Lennox, whom Optimus had not noticed till he rejoined their conversation.
"A robotic tiger, or maybe a big cat of sorts. Anyway, 'Bee totally skinned him." Said Sam.
Ah. Ravage. Soundwave was not going to be happy about that. "You didn't happen to see a masked mech close to that cat, did you?" Prime asked. Most probably, Soundwave had stayed well away from the fight, but if he was in it, then it was really a miracle they won.
"Are you kidding? Half the time I had no idea if I was firing at the same robot or not." Said Lennox, the teens nodded. Back then they had been too busy running for their lives to care who or what was chasing them.
"Nice call, by the way. We would have never found the deceptions on time without it." said Lennox to Simmons, who replied, "It's the touch, I never lost it after all. But how did you manage to arrive here so quickly?"
"We were told to take the Autbots back to Diego Garcia. We just…made a slight detour." In all his military career, this day will go down as one of coolest. Not only did he get to save the world once more, the got to take revenge on one of his superiors. He still felt warm and happy inside when he thought about it.
Meanwhile, Simmons was looking at Lennox as if he was crazy, and even Sam was frowning. "Really? Detour?"
"Yeah, what's wrong with that?"
"A detour. From New York to the Indian Ocean?"
"Yes."
"And you ended up in Egypt?"
"…yes?"
"How? Didn't anyone notice the deviation of 20+ degrees?" Sam didn't know much, but Egypt was slightly away from North Africa.
"I have friends in the right places." Said Lennox mysteriously.
"And Advisor Galloway had nothing to say against that?" that last one was Optimus. He didn't like Galloway much, but he had dealt with annoying bureaucrats, and they tended to get angry when things like mutiny happened.
"He's not available at the moment."
"Oh, my god, you killed him" was what Mikaela said with something between, shock and admiration, because really, who talks like that?"
"No, our plane had some problems before reaching Egypt, so we had to drop him on somewhere in Saudi Arabia—with a parachute!" he added when Sam and Mikaela gave him looks of horror.
"Who's this Galloway anyway, and why don't you like him?" asked Sam.
"He's just a jerk under orders of the president who's pissed at the Autbots."
"Why?"
"Because he wants them to share their military technology with us, and they can't because there's a Code of Interplanetary Conflict they must follow."
There were replies of 'ohh' and 'cool' but Simmons was more practical, "Do Decepticons follow this cod of conduct too?" Everyone lifted their heads to stare at Optimus again. "As strange as it is, most of the time they do." He said.
"Nice." then the humans drifted away form their topic (whatever it was) to wonder how many other civilisations the Autobots had met before, and to ponder the possibility of Optimus ever meeting a 'jedi knight' and a 'predator'.
So much for a quiet place to think, Optimus began to consider if going back to the med bay and face Ratchet was better. He couldn't exactly transform back into his alt mode—he still had some parts of Jetfire installed in him— but maybe he could go and lie on his back for awhile…
"Where's everyone?" asked Lennox after a while.
"Ratchet is still working on Arcee, Ironhide is with him, and Sideswipe is talking with, uh… the other Arcces' about Sunflowers and Sunshines'." Answered Mikaela.
"What?" Lennox had always taken Sideswipe as a maniac, but this was weird, even for him.
"Yeah, I know, it's very strange. He keeps wriggling his hands on the sides of his face as if they were ears and doing strange posses, but they seem amused."
"Arcee is the girly motorbike right?" asked Simmons, and Lennox and Mikaela nodded.
"So the other two motorbikes are…?"
"Arcee as well."
"Isn't that weird?" asked Simmons, while Sam turned to Lennox, "I thought one of them was called Chromia?"
Lennox shrugged. She… they, weren't very talkative to the human soldiers, so he knew little of them.
Optimus stopped what would possible evolve into another twist of their conversation. "How's Arcee?" He could ask Ratchet himself, or Ironhide, but he was not stupid enough to interrupt Ratchet while he was working.
"Ratchet said she's no longer in critical state, but it'll be a while before she's fully repaired."
Sam and Optimus nodded, for his part, Optimus was glad Arcee survived. Femmes where scarce enough to have one die in combat.
"Hey Optimus, are there many female bots in Cybertron?"
Optimus directed his gaze to Mikaela, "Not many, why?"
Mikaela shrugged, "no reason, I was just wondering. Are all of them that small?"
"Usually, why?"
Mikaela made a strange sound in her throat and mumbled something that sounded like 'figures', but didn't elaborate beyond that. "So, can female bots make baby bots?" asked Lennox; as a responsible adult and parent, the idea didn't gross him out or made him uncomfortable. The young people beside him however…
"Eewww!" "That's disgusting!" "Robo-sex! now my mind is really tainted!" were some of their comments.
"Actually, they—"
"We don't want to know!" cried Sam raising his arms in alarm when Optimus was beginning to talk. Oh well. The less they new about Femmes the better. Optimus Shrugged, as did Lennox, "I was just asking, what with the Allspark and the remaining shards gone, you guys have a lesser need to produce energon, right?"
"The Allspark is our life-source, but the energon is what keeps us alive, and in great quantities, we can use it to create new Cybertronians."
Simmons and Lennox grunted as if to say 'interesting' but Mikaela came close to Sam and whispered once more, 'Why did we fight in Mission City, then? I thought they said it was the ultimate weapon'
Sam replied in equally low tones. 'Beats me. Maybe they didn't know they could create new life 'til now?'
'Perhaps it was only the "ultimate cheapest solution to Megatron's massive conquest plans".'
Optimus could hear them perfectly, but chose to ignore their critics once more.
"Then Megatron's possible next move is to recreate a Solar Harvester and raise his army." Was what Lennox concluded.
"Yes, but he needs an equally strong source of energy to power up the machine, like the Matrix of Leadership."
Which reminds him…
"Sam, if you will, hand over the Matrix of Leadership. It needs to be kept in a safe place." Optimus extended his hand, but the human looked at him with a blank look, and soon his face lost all colour it had.
"I thought you had it."
"…"
Sam and Optimus remained stupidly in the same position, not one of them moving. Mikaela thought this was a good moment to mention, "The fallen took it to the top of the pyramid. We assumed you took it when you came back."
The only sound was the sound of the waves, and of Simmons huffing and looking skywards, while Lennox passed his hand over his hair and sighted.
Then the pager of the ship turned on, and the sombre sound of Ratchets' voice in a bad mood was heard. "Optimus Prime, come downstairs for repairs." Was all he said, then the ship went back to it's normal state of quietness, but the peaceful mood was gone as everyone who knew Ratchet turned to look at Optimus.
"I'm going to go talk to the captain. Tell him we have to go back to get the matrix." Said Lennox.
Prime felt that his little walk around the deck had not been a good idea after all.
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So that's it. Now usually if people criticize I cry, but I'm gonna squint and brace myself and wait for your comments.
And thanks to SkyHighFan! You sure cleared up some things that didn't add up. I just assumed it was Florida because there were American soldiers and white sand. Ooops. ^^;
Yes, Sideswipe is talking about Sunny, and thank to MikoTenma for clearing up that thing about the Arcee(s) but still, this begs the question, where are Chromia and Elita-One… are they going to be counted in the new comics? (well, not Elita, cause she died, but where is chromia?)
Also, what do you guys thought of the movie? Lots of plotholes? Not enough plotholes? Best thing after chocolate ice cream? Tell me.