Chapter 1: Enter the Rookie
Long ago, Autobots and the Decepticons were at war. After millions of years of fighting, they fought the final leg of the war on a strange blue planet called Earth. My fellow Autobots fought bravely, but the Decepticons had us constantly on the defense. Fortunately, we found many very useful allies among the planet's sentient species, a race of small organic creatures known as humans. Though small and quite... squishy, humans proved to be very creative and tenacious. It was those traits that allowed us to finally gain some sort of advantage over the Decepticons. Finally, there was some chance of an Autobot victory. Unfortunately, it was not to be. During the final battle between our then-leader Optimus Prime and the ruthless Decepticon leader Megatron, there was a strange and terrible occurrence that shall forevermore be known as the Event. There was a flash in the sky and a strange vortex, similar to a space bridge. From that vortex, he emerged. This terrible foe, originating from some unknown dimension, was unfathomably powerful. He killed Optimus Prime and Megatron in a cowardly and under-handed fashion. With the faction leaders dead, both sides were at a loss. His forces decimated both Decepticons and Autobots alike. The Decepticon second-in-command, Starscream, attemted a foolhardy attack on the terrible enemy. The unfortunate seeker hadn't a chance. It was not long before he turned on Earth itself. Forests were razed. Mountains were blown apart. Entire cities were leveled. The planet's destruction was iminent. Because we had sworn to protect our human allies, we tried to save as many as we could. Despite our best efforts, we were able to save less than fifty thousand before the planet was destroyed. Not knowing what to do, we put the humans into stasis until we had the resources to truly help them. For reasons I myself do not understand, I was chosen by the Matrix to become the new Autobot leader. I then turned to the Decepticons and their new leader, Soundwave, to negotiate a temporary cease-fire. Though known for being a very sadistic Decepticon, Soundwave was also a very rational mech. The war was put on hold until he could be dealt with. Now, many thousands of years later, the cease-fire still stands, as he has not yet been defeated. Every time either side comes close, he disappears into another timeline. The best Autobot and Decepticons scientists searched for a solution for several centuries before, only twenty-five years ago, they finally developed the technology to travel into other timelines to combat him and his minions. Thus came about the founding of the Jumpers, a team of Autobots, Decepticons, and humans that had been awakened from stasis shortly before the technology was developed. It is the Jumpers' mission to travel into other alternate timelines to combat his forces, and perhaps prevent tragedies like the one that befell Earth. Now we look to you, Autobot Goldbug, to further this cause by aiding the Jumper team you have been assigned to. Report to the Jumper ship the Nameless at 0800 megacycles to meet Team White Noise. The team leader, White Noise, is a talented flier and a skilled warrior. I have the greatest confidence that you will be in good servos. I wish you the best of luck. -Rodimus Prime
The other orbital cycle, Goldbug had stared as the message he had received for several long seconds before letting out a loud whoop. He had been accepted into the Jumpers! Good bye, no bot taking him seriously! So long, everybot constantly comparing him to his brother! Hello, time-and-reality-travelling heroics! The golden minibot had waited eagerly for megacycles for the next orbital cycle to come around, barely calming down enough to recharge. Now he was heading down to the space docks to meet the team leader, a flier named White Noise.
He walked down the docks, looking for a ship called the Nameless. It did not take him long to find the ship, and standing in front of it was a 17-foot-tall white and red Autobot flier, whom Goldbug would guess to be going over some sort of checklist on the data tablet he held in one servo. This must be White Noise. Standing his nine-foot frame as straight as possible, the minibot walked over to the slender mech. With a salute, he made his presence known. "Autobot Goldbug reporting for duty, sir!"
Glancing up from his tablet, the mech whom Goldbug assumed to be White Noise gave him a quick once-over. The mech had a noticeable accent, which a human would probably say sounded Australian. "Hmm. Bumblebee's younger brother, right?" he commented.
Goldbug bristled internally. He had held some hope that he would be able to go at least a few orbital cycles without being compared to his sibling. Forcing down his annoyance, the minibot replied, "Yes, sir."
"Let's get this over with, then." the white and red mech replied with a sight, walking up the ramp and into the ship's cargo bay.
Immediately upon entering the ship, Goldbug nearly tripped over a small, black and dark purple figure. "Hey, watch where you're going, you thick-bolted glitch-head!" A female voice shouted.
"Sorry!" Goldbug yelped, and did a double-take when he saw that the voice belonged to a human. She was about five feet, ten inches tall. Her skin was a light brown color, and her eyes were brown. Her dark brown hair was cut very short, and she appeared to have a case of what humans called 'helmet hair'. She was wearing a suit of black and dark purple unisex body armor, with a Decepticon insignia emblazoned on the right side of the flat chest plate, with the Cybertronian characters for the Jumper Corps underneath it.
With a faint smirk, the white and red mech introduced the two. "Goldbug, meet our pilot, Erika Vasquez."
"Call me Ricky." the pilot said with a cocky grin, "And apology accepted."
"Oh, okay." Goldbug replied. He glanced at the human, puzzled. Gesturing towards the insignia on her chestplate, he asked, "What's with the, uh..."
The minibot's confusion was not without reason, since humans were traditionally Autobot allies. "Oh, that." White Noise explained, "You know how Decepticons sometimes poach talent from the Autobots? Well, Soundwave himself took notice of her skills as a pilot and offered her a position. Though technically affiliated with the Decepticons, Vazquez works for the Jumpers now, so faction is effectively moot until we get him."
One of the doors slid open with a whoosh, and a 24-foot-tall blue Decepticon strode into the cargo bay. "Ricky, get your aft in gear. We take off in a megacycle."
"Don't get your tailpipe in a twist, B.D." Ricky Vasquez huffed, turning around and walking through the still-open door to head for the bridge. The door slid closed behind her.
"This is Breakdown," the red and white flier introduced the gold minibot to the powerfully built Decepticon, "He's second in command of the Nameless."
Breakdown glanced over at Goldbug, sizing him up. Judging from the expression on his red faceplates, he was not impressed. "This the rookie, 'Fix?"
"He'll learn." The red and white mech replied, "If not, we'll send his remains to Bumblebee and wait for someone else to be assigned to this team."
"Hey, stop talking about me like I'm not here!" Goldbug whined, and suddenly a thought hit him. "Wait, why'd he call you 'Fix'? You're the team leader, White Noise, aren't you?"
A perplexed look alighted on the faceplates of both Breakdown and the Autobot flier for a fraction of a second before Breakdown burst out in raucous laughter and the red and white mech brought a servo to his own face with a loud smack. "He's not White Noise," Breakdown snickered, "He's our medic, Quick Fix."
Another 'whoosh' sounded as the door slid open once again, and in walked one of the scariest Decepticons Goldbug had ever seen. It was a tall femme, about Breakdown's height. She was mostly dark navy blue, with black arms and thighs and a gold stripe on each shoulder and to each side of her blood red visor. A pair of dark navy wings protruded from her back, pointing downward in a V-shape like some sort of cape. Her servos ended with wickedly sharp claws. Rather than the more common plantigrade, the intimidating flier possessed digigrade legs, each ending with a clawed foot. The femme's dark armor was covered in scars, and her facial features were hidden by a dark navy blue battle mask, with a thin gold stripe on each half of the mask. Instead of being of a boxy build, or even a softer-angled build like most other femmes Goldbug had met, the dark flier was all hard edges and sharp angles. She was frightening, even predatory-looking.
Gesturing towards the femme, Breakdown added, "That's White Noise."
White Noise approached the rest of the team, pausing to scrutinize the newest member. As his visor-covered optics met the dark blue flier's impenetrable blood red visor, he was filled with terror and was unable to suppress a frightened squeak. For a moment, he thought he might spring a leak in sheer terror. Those few nanoclicks seemed to last an eternity before White Noise finally spoke. Her voice was low and coarse, sounding more like a rough whisper. If Goldbug were to hazard a guess, he would speculate that the rasping quality of her speech was the result of some sort of permenant damage to her vocal synthesizer.
"Breakdown, get back to the bridge. The Nameless will be ready to take off in thirty clicks." She growled, though the sound was because of her damaged voice rather than being an actual growl. Goldbug froze when White Noise turned to him again. "You'll be monitoring communications." She rasped before turning around and heading to the bridge herself.
As he followed the team leader out of the cargo bay, Goldbug took some time to ponder his situation. This was certainly not what he expected. With a human assigned as the ship's pilot, one would expect that a Jumper team would have an Autobot as a leader. Instead, he found himself on a team whose command structure consisted of not one, but two Decepticons, one of them terrifying beyond all reason. His only consolation was the fact that a) faction was supposed to matter little in the Jumpers, and b) the fact that they were on the same team might just make Breakdown and White Noise marginally less likely to kill him. He thought back to the message from Rodimus, and how the Prime had wished him the best of luck.
'Best of luck indeed.' Goldbug thought to himself.