Disclaimer:Transformers is owned by Hasbro and it's related companies. No profit is being made off this story its just for fun. I only own my plot and my oc's. This is a work of fiction, and any similarities to persons living or dead is unintentional. Nissan own the rights to the NV200 taxis mentioned in the story.
Author's Note: This story is a mixture of Prime and the movieverse, with little bits of G1, RiD etc added where needed to make sense. Apollo is my own OC.
~000~
"Whatcha mean we're out of coupons?" Apollo groaned, as he rubbed his tired face plates, as he hunted his oversized desk for the large plastic box he kept the supplies stationery in.
He found the correct box, and after placing next to the human sized desk upon his desk, he shifted back into his alt-mode and materized his holoform. His second-in-command, a Mobility Taxi dubbed Tony, sat himself at Apollo's con-sized desk to continue their conversation.
"Steve used up the last one, after Greg upset a customer. They were threatening to sue. You know we don't want the humans to get wise to us. Its bad enough trying to hide our little side enterprise from Megatron." Tony told his tired leader.
"Megatron knows...kinda..." Apollo replied, writing down an order for new coupon books. "Officially, we're on a mission from Soundwave to do planetside reconnaissance. That our chosen cover enables us to make local currency, simply means we can bribe Knockout into not dissecting us. After all, we are his main suppliers of contraband waxes!"
The other vehicons in the oversized taxi garage laughed at this. It had been a pleasant duty to take the bright yellow and white Nissan NV200 Universal Design Taxis (UDT's). There was a team of fifty vehicons serving the town, quietly gathering intelligence from the town's well-to do humans. Well, forty regular UDTs and ten overworked NV200 Mobility Taxi's.
All the vehicons in the unit had been fitted with hardlight holoforms, and given every bit of human cultural data Knockout had been able to find. The result was a taxi company whose staff were almost indistinguishable from their human counterparts.
With the exception of Megatron's nephew Apollo Pax, the rest of the vehicons in the unit were too badly disabled to serve on the front lines anymore. Instead of scrapping them, Soundwave had proposed using them to increase his spy network. As long as their alt-modes were servicable, it didn't matter if they couldn't run or were missing servos or pedes. While most decepticons were wary of the silent Mech, the Taxicons quietly regarded him as their messiah.
"Speaking of Doc Knock, could you remind him that we only have so much capacity to store his contraband in our altmodes. That is, if he doesn't want to have to explain to Lord Megatron why were are acting as his personal courier service." Tony grumbled, as he inspected a case of Extra-cut Cutting Creme that he pulled from his subspace. "You might want to suggest he fits us with bigger subspaces."
Apollo grinned at his best friend, a twinkle of mischief in his holoform's tired eyes, "I could probably ask him to give some of the team female holoforms while I'm at it."
"What! Whatever for?!" Tony looked horrified.
"Some of our customers prefer using a female taxi driver after dark. I'm thinking one Mobility Taxi and four UDT's as female." Apollo ducked his head, though Tony could clearly see his shoulders shaking with mirth.
"I hope thats just a sick joke." Tony replied, clearly disgruntled.
"Fraid not. But I'll take volunteers...or maybe I'll just take the next five who upset the customers..." Apollo let the threat hang in the air, as he got his mirth under control.
The room fell silent as the remaining vehicons looked at their leader in horror.
Tony was saved from having to reply, when Rudy on dispatch duty, hollered out that he had a pick up on the other side of town. All the remaining vehicon's quickly found excuses to leave HQ, some returning to the Nemesis via groundbridge for their recharge cycle, others heading out in to the night to look for fares.
~000~
For the next three days service to their human customers went from strength to strength, as none of the vehicons wanted to be turned into femmes. Finally though, in true decepticon fashion someone slipped up.
Apollo had to field an angry phonecall from the Jasper General Hospital in the neighbouring town of Jasper. After telling the Hospital Manager he would investigate, he called in the offender.
~000~
Tony sheepishly slunk into Apollo's Office with his head down. "Sorry about the hospital incident, but that Autoscum two-wheeler showed up, I had to take evasive action or risk getting our cover blown."
"Well that sucks to be you doesn't it. Good work on the evasion though, and congratulations on your sex change!" Apollo grinned at his long time friend.
"No! Please for the love of the Unmaker don't do this!" Tony's terror could be heard though the office walls.
Outside, in the main area, the other cons were getting anxious. Apollo was known as a fair commander, dedicated to the true ideals of the old Decepticon way. However he could be ruthless when required, to achieve his missions.
A few more minutes later both mechs came out, damage noticeably absent from Tony's frame.
"Please congratulate our soon to be femme 'Antonia' joining the company!" Apollo annouced.
Everyone could see the mirth in his optics as he prodded a deeply reluctant Tony along towards the groundbridge. Once the pair were gone, everyone started to speculate and chatter about the changes.
"Do think Apollo will finally ask him on a date once Tony is a femme?" Greg asked David cheekily.
"Prime's sons don't date, and no Decepticon wants Megatron for an uncle-in-law." David replied.
"I never understood why Apollo left the Autoscum," Eddie put his two credits worth into the conversation.
"He left when Breakdown did. He helped Breakdown defect from the Bots to the Cons," David was about to say more when Rudy shouted at him for a pickup at the Jasper Hospital.
"Watch out for autobots David, unless you want to be Antonia's little sister instead of younger brother!" Greg hollered playfully.
"You can braid my helm cables, since you are the most likely to upset a customer and share Tony's fate." David snidely reminded Greg.
David rolled out, and the others went back to business as usual. They were getting a lot more calls from Jasper lately, as their neighbouring town of Jasper lacked a taxi service of its own, after a hacker (ie Soundwave) completely bankrupted the last taxi company there.
Apollo had decided to base the team in this town rather than Jasper, as Jasper was often crawling with Autobots. From here they could keep surveillance on Jasper and the Autobots human allies, without having the Autobots any wiser to their activites.
The Autobots always expected them to be loud and violent in their activities, but the seemed to forget they were callled 'Deceptive Constructions' for a reason. The amount to stuff they actually managed to slip past the Autobots was astounding. Soundwave had at least four pretenders, on placements within various parts of Earth's governments for the past two years.
Okay, so maybe Megatron didn't know about those, but the big boss was notoriously impulsive, The Cause wouldn't have survived all these vorns if Soundwave didn't work in the background to hold everything together. He often had to do stuff behind Megatron's back, or risk their loud leader tipping off his brother, the Prime to their activities. Megatron accepted this grudgingly, even though he trusted Soundwave with his spark.
~000~
Rudy looked disappointed when Tony returned to HQ looking the same way he left. The silent glare he was giving Apollo showed that the operation was a sucess though.
"Well come on Toni, show us!" Rudy impatiently called, before switching his headset on, to take another customer call.
"Fine!" A delicate sounding feminine voice came from the unusually grumpy male Decepticon, instead of his usual gruff tenor.
Tony transformed back to his altmode, then materialized a gorgeous, willowy blonde with rich warm brown eyes. Her uniform was pulling in all the right places to send human males awash with lust. To Rudy though, it just looked like Doc Knock had programmed the uniform too small for her holoform's frame.
"Doc Knock skimping on holoform clothes now?" Rudy asked, before telling another Taxicon, Joshua where his pickup was.
"I think he's been watching too many trashy B-Grade horror movies at the Jasper Drive-in. Some human mech is gonna try something, and I'm going to have to kill him and hide the body...or something..." Tony said in his new feminine voice, " I just wish I could change back to my own voice when I wanted to. I practically squeak when I talk now!"
"Doc thought it was quite cute, besides you are going to be picking up timid human femmes, not overcharged human mechs." Apollo helpfully pointed out. "Just be grateful your voice and holoform were all Knockout changed. If he'd turned you into an ACTUAL femme, you'd be fending off most of the mechs on the Nemesis as well."
"Arggggh!" Tony screamed in frustration, before checking his chronometer for the time and heading off for the usual daily school run.
~000~
Tony's rotten day went from bad to worse, when some of the mentally handicapped children started crying when they saw his new holoform. It took the teacher nearly half an Earth hour to calm them down enough that he could take them home. It made him late for all his other pickups, so ALL the parents and caregivers were angry/irritated at him.
To make matters worst, one of the disabled humans had accidently defecated in his alt-mode. He had to make a detour to the Jasper Self-service Carwash to clean it out, shuddering at the offensive odour. He was hardly paying attention to his suroundings when suddenly his alt-mode was rammed hard.
"What gives?" Tony shouted in his new squeaky femme voice.
The green SUV that rammed him backed up, then took off without a word. Tony recognised his estranged sire immediately. Bulkhead and Breakdown had been bonded, sparking him and his brother during their many vorns together before the war.
When what he and his brother called 'The Incident' happened, they had fled the Autobots with their carrier Breakdown. Bulkhead had been caught and reprogrammed into a loyal Autobot, after he had tried to slow down pursuit so his family could escape. It still broke Tony's spark to know that his Sire no longer recognised him or his brother.
The young pimpled attendent of the carwash came out, "I have the incident on CCTV, and I even got the license plate. I've called the cops, but don't be surprised if nothing comes of it. That SUV has rammed several vehicles at this carwash, and the police never seem to catch him."
"Could I get a copy of the footage please?" Tony asked, trying to imitate a B-Grade movie damsel.
"Sure sweetheart, could I get your phone number?" The skinny attendant asked, giving his best smile, before heading back to his booth to copy the footage.
Shortly afterwards the attendant came out with a flashdrive and a piece of paper.
"I've given you everything from when you arrived, to when he left. Here's my number if you need anything, I'm James." James the carwash attendant said, smiling hopefully.
"Thanks James, here's my business card." Tony replied giving him a tired smile, "I'd better finish cleaning the human excrement off my rear seats now."
James made a hasty retreat at that, shutting himself back into his booth. The police duly arrived just as Tony finished the last of his cleaning.
"Good evening officers," Tony said politely, washing his holoform's hands and arms.
"Good evening Miss." One of the officers said politely.
"Heard you were rammed by another car," the other officer leered at her too tight uniform.
"I was washing the human effluent out of my interior, when I was rammed. The car was green and dirty. I didn't see the license plate though," Tony spoke carefully. "The attendant, James would have seen more, he recorded it on his CCTV. He said there have been other incidents"
"Yes Miss, but the make and model of the SUV is really common in Jasper, so we haven't been able to catch him yet, could we get your details please?" the pervy cop asked.
"I need to go report this to my boss, here's my business card. Its got my license number on it so you can get the rest of my particulars." Tony handed him the card.
The officers asked a few more questions, and Tony saw Bumblebee cruise past. The autobot hastily removed himself when he noticed the police officers talking to Tony though, Tony thought smugly. The polite officer noticed Bumblebee as well, and the officers were quickly in pursuit of the wayward yellow Urbana 500.
Tony took it as an opportunity to leave as well, carefully checking for cybertronian signatures as he took the long way back to HQ.
~000~
Soundwave was at HQ when he finally got back, which saved him having to give his report twice. He told them about the incident, especially mentioning how the local cops were hunting the Autobots for ramming cars at the carwash, and around the greater Jasper area. Soundwave nodded, taking the tiny human flashdrive into a servo.
Tony was given orders to cultivate the human attendant 'James' as a potential ally. Tony could see the amused looks from his fellow taxicons as Soundwave gave the orders.
Tony accompanied Soundwave back to the Nemesis, as he needed the medical bay for his injured rear spoiler. The silent Comms Officer gave Tony a data-packet with human courtship rituals, human psychology and sociology.
The thought of courting a fleshling revolted Tony, but Soundwave stated that they needed to use the advantage they had. He wasn't expected to interface with the human, just keep him friendly, and willing to tell the Decepticons any observations about the Autobots. The data-packet was given to prevent any cultural misunderstandings on Tony's part.
~000~
Author's Note: For the purposes of this AU story, Megatron and Optimus are siblings. Apollo is the product of Optimus (Sire) and Starscream (Carrier), and was from a overcharged one-night-stand, from before he became Prime. Apollo initially sided with his Sire Optimus, but left the Autobots when Breakdown and his children did.
Tony/Toni and David are the children of Bulkhead (Sire) and Breakdown (Carrier), who were a bonded couple before the war. "The Incident" caused Breakdown to flee the wreckers with his children. His son Tony's best friend Apollo, helped them escape and went with them. Apollo sought refuge with his uncle Megatron, and the newly outlawed Decepticons.
Please leave a review, and tell me what you think. I have a few ideas about where I want this story to go, but I'm fairly open to suggestions at this stage. I wanted to show some of the other aspects we don't see in the Prime series, including Soundwave's intelligence network. I also think that the Jasper Police might have felt more strongly about Autobots ramming other cars etc.
23/6: Just updated some spelling/grammer errors I missed the first time. Please leave me a review if you spot anything else I need to fix. I also decided to clarify a few points to make them easier to read.