Summary: Taking place two weeks after the ending events of Project Abominations, a group of kids in Transport City are finally about to have their lives disrupted by fate, destiny, and the Decepticons. Rated for language, violence, and crude humor.
Author's note: Here you go, guys, the sequeal to Project Abominations! I hope you have as much fun reading it as much fun as I had writing it. To new readers: I highly recomend reading Project Abominations in my gallery to catch up. It's a long one, but it can't be that bad if there's a sequeal, right? Review when you can and constructive criticism shall be taken like a strong lass! ^_^
Oh, and if I make any geographical (don't know if that's a word, don't care) mistakes, my bad.
And of course...
Disclaimer: I do not own Transformers or any attached blessings to it, as they were intially created and are owned by the toy company, Hasbro. I only own the Efforts and the story.
Chapter 1: Prologue/ Meet the Kids
Welcome to Transport City, a city built with Transformer technology and human materials in the shallow seas just off the eastern coast of Britain between that ever-so-famous island country and the continent of Europe. Built upon spires of metal and stone and protected and made stronger by magnetic technology and force fields, the glittering metal city has its own parks, and its uniquely shaped buildings, often with few to no corners and sweeping, curved sides, make it a true vision of the future made a reality. Roads are skillfully made high over the bridges and among the towering buildings, making a fantastic and exhilarating ride when one was driving many feet above the paved streets below. Emergency hover vehicles dart between the buildings, above the ground-bound roads, and around the swooping sky-high road ways, independent of a true lane as they speed to do their duty.
Currently, the clouds are scarce in the unusually warm blue spring sky and the polished silver buildings glittered in the sun light. Humans and Transformers alike attend their duty of polishing the glass and metal buildings while below them more of their organic and metallic comrades travel the streets, attending to their own business of work and play alike. Occasionally, some cop cars would speed by chasing some hooligan or another, but that was to be expected with in any city.
On all but the western side of the island people come to and from the main land via ferries, cruise ships, fishing boats, and cargo ships to name but a few sea-bound travelers. Three battleships, all of His Majesty's Royal Navy, are currently docked at the island and sailors are chasing women and drink as they leave the ships. Far below the surface, underwater subway tunnels, both on the ocean floor for tourism reasons and beneath for practical, safer reasons, help people come to and from the mainland if they did not mind almost half an hour ride and refused to suffer sea sickness.
If a visitor thought that Transport City was pretty in warm, sunny weather, they would be advised to visit in the winter. That was when the sea would send in its icy army of frozen water crystals, covering everything in a shiny shell of ice that would jut up in certain places to create massive, impressive crystals. Once the snow came in, the ice and crystals would bond lovingly with the white powder and thus, the entire city would appear to be made out of crystals and snow, like some fantastic city of winter from a fairy tale.
Indeed, Transport City was a marvelously beautiful place for the Autobots to set their permanent headquarters.
Wait, Autobots setting their headquarters in Europe? But what of America, where they originally fought, and there was more land and space?
Well, it turned out that America just hadn't been the center of the political world enough for the Autobots. They needed to be where all sorts of political actions were so that they could easily talk with political leaders of all sorts. Since the Final Battle that had ended the Autobot-Decepticon War had resulted in the death of the Prince of England and unearthed many political scandals when careless tongues wagged whilst drinking at a victory party after the Final Battle, Europe had been the perfect place for the Autobots to build their city. That, and Europe had had many budding scientific minds popping up and the Autobot scientists wanted to be in close proximity with these budding minds, and its economy had been perfect for such enormous projects as a sea-bound city. With many eager, wealthy companies funding them and helping them, Transport City was built in a remarkably short time of three years and inhabited with in five. Now Transport City was the seat of power for the Autobots while Cybertron was still being rebuilt, forty Earth years after the war's end, with numerous bases all over Earth and the universe. Peace reigned and life was good.
- - - - - - - - - - -
"Josh! Get your butt up, young man! You're going to be late for school!"
Josh pushed the sleep from his mind, but kept his eyes closed.
"What's the date, dad?" he muttered.
"Josh?" his dad's distant, muffled voice called.
"What's the date, dad?" Josh yelled. He knew it was June 2nd; the first day of summer vacation.
A moment of silence followed before Joe Witwicky said, "Oh, my bad. Okay, but be up before noon, will you?"
"Why should I?" Josh called out, yawning as he rolled over in bed and snuggled deeper into the soft wool blankets.
"Because then you'll miss Jazz before his starts filming his movie."
Josh's grey eyes snapped open and he sat up in bed, dark brown, almost black, hair spiked and contrasting against his pale skin. Around him, his jumbled bed made a nest of blankets that reflected the crowded mess of his room, filled with all sorts of music equipment and motor bike care supplies.
"I'm up!! I'm up!!" Josh yelled, jumping out of bed.
Two minutes later, he had yanked on blue jeans, socks, sneakers, and a yellow tee-shirt showing some band or another. He scrambled down the stairs of the Witwicky's home as he struggled to pull on a backpack and a blue and white cap of the Transport City Porpoise, the city's official soccer team.
Down the narrow stairs and to his left was a small kitchen where his parents, Joe and Mary Witwicky, were eating breakfast. Josh spotted a plate heaped high with toast and reached for the top slices. Mary Witwicky turned, smacking his hand with a spatula.
"Hey!" Josh whined, with drawing his hand and shaking it.
His mother handed him a freshly heated breakfast Hot Pocket in one of Josh's hands while the other gave him a paper sack lunch. Josh was never home for lunch and his mother didn't want him spending his money on some "street-side garbage" Between them the balding Mr. Witwicky went on reading his newspaper.
"Now remember, Josh," the forty-some woman warned. "Do not go on the High Roads; use your bike and go down well-lit streets only."
"And remember to get to the Autobots' place in time for the party, birthday boy," Mr. Witwicky reminded.
"Sure, mom, sure, Dad, thanks," Josh said quickly, kissing his mom on the cheek before stuffing half the Hot Pocket into his mouth and bolting out of the kitchen.
"Kid likes Jazz," Mr. Witwicky grunted with a small smile.
"Well, yeah," Mrs. Witwicky said with a small, nervous smile and shuffle. "I would hope he would, considering how close they are."
"Are we going to tell him?" Mr. Witwicky asked, looking up from his newspaper at his brown-haired wife. "We have to sometime."
"No," she replied. "There's no need to. Not yet…"
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
Josh, meanwhile, had exited the cozy apartment via a back window onto the fire escape. The building curved around the fire escape on either side of him, framing the view of the docks that surrounded all but the western shores of the artificial island making Transport City, and the glittering sea beyond. He paused, one leg out of the window and the other with in the Witwicky family apartment, and looked out to the fishing boats and ferries drifting in the water. Two fishing boats were about to crash. One honked and the other suddenly seemed to contort and it jumped into the air as a short-limbed, stocky robot with the fishing nets attached to one ankle. The men of the Transformer boat fell out as the robot transformed to get out of the way of the other boat. When it dropped back behind the other boat, back in fishing boat form, Josh could hear the fishermen's curses from where he was at.
He laughed, then turned and dragged a small motor bike out of the window and onto the fire escape. Un-strapping the helmet tied around its handlebars, he placed it over his head, turning up the collar of his pale denim jacket, and looked down, grinning, when he heard a clatter of machinery below. Two stories below him on the ground in the alley below, a garbage truck was emptying the building's dumpster into its back end. Josh kicked at the fire escape's banister and a part of it swung aside like a door; evidence of some one's stunt-gone-wrong when they accidentally pulled part of the banister off and only part of it had been welded it back on, making it this sort of door.
"Let's do this," Josh muttered, mounting his bike and turning it around to pass through the opening in the banister.
Kicking off of the fire escape, he started the engine of his bike up with a small snarl and fell through the air. The bike bounced when he landed on the garbage truck's roof, then, before the garbage men could yell, he rolled down the front of the truck and sped out of the ally way.
The streets beyond were crowded with morning traffic that honked at each other impatiently. Emergency hover vehicles sped by once in a while over head, their sirens wailing desperately that they were coming to the rescue. Small Transformers, like Minicons, and humans roamed the side walks, but parted for the motor-bike riding teenager. He grinned as he rounded a corner with tire-screeching rapidness and began speeding south, towards a large part of the docks that had been closed off for a recent film production.
Suddenly, as Josh approached the corner, a truck in front of Josh made him stop abruptly when it suddenly rose up on its wheels, warning of a transformation. The grille of the red truck parted as each half became shoulders. The rear tires were thrust out before their axle broke apart and the rear of the truck became legs and feet. The front tires and their equipment were thrusted out, becoming arms and hands. Finally, the hood rose up, flipping over to become a back, and an impatiently grimacing head emerged. A human man in a business suit tumbled out of the truck during the transformation, and was picked up by the Transformer upon the completed change.
The human yelled as the truck began to walk away, human in hand. "What are you doing!?"
"Getting out of traffic, shut up," the impatient Transformer grunted.
Behind them, a white SUV carefully and awkwardly moved forward to fill the space the truck had left. Josh chuckled and shook his head. It was ticket-worthy for a Transformer to change their forms while in traffic, as well as transforming with a human with in the robot.
Weaving through the traffic, he crossed the street and was soon going downhill on a ramp to the docks. Over head, a high road crossed over the ramp and he heard the trucks and other fast cars rumble over head. Mostly Transformers took the high roads that were on bridges high over the city streets because many of them had low guard rails. It added a certain touch of Cybertron to the city.
Josh smiled when he saw the numerous trailers and stations of film equipment marking out the area of the docks that the movie was being produced. To the side of the production field was a line of cars and vehicles that were to be used in the movie—some crime thriller or another; Josh had heard that it was going to be the first full-length movie of the most famous crime-and-justice detective show ever. Among the stunt vehicles was a Martini Porsche 935 Turbo; slightly out of place amongst the newer cars, but according to rumors surrounding the movie, one of the side characters driving the 935 was supposed to like old cars. That, and everyone knew that that was how Jazz was famous in movies; some how, when someone was watching a movie and saw the familiar robot roll onto screen in alt-form, all the screaming fan girls made the movie a hit.
A temporary gate had been set up to keep the reporters (still sleeping at this early hour of eight AM) and fans at bay. The security guard perked and jumped to his feet when he saw Josh coming, but Josh skidded right under the gate, ignoring the guard, and went on to slide to a hockey-style stop by the Porsche.
"Hey, hey ,hey!" Josh whooped. "Look who's back in town!"
"Hey!" the security guard bellowed, charging after Josh. "You're not supposed to be here!"
"It's cool, George, he's with me," the silver car said, standing up.
Josh grinned as a grin appeared under a reformed visor when the car finished transforming into a silver and black robot.
"Go on back to the gate, George, this kid's with me," the robot told the startled-looking security man.
"O-Okay, Mr. Jazz," George said, glancing one last time at Josh before going back to the gate.
"So, Jazz, how long you gonna be here?" Josh asked, setting the stand to set his bike aside.
"Can't wait to get rid of me already, eh?" Jazz asked.
"No… I want to see how long we got to drive Prowl crazy," Josh replied. "I finally get my license at sweet, sweet, sweet sixteen today, and I want to use and abuse the power as much as I can in one hour against Prowl. Looks like you'll be here for a while."
"Yeah; we're here 'til next March! We're gonna be doing scenes in all seasons!"
"Sweet, that gives us ten whole months!" Josh cheered, smacking high-fives with Jazz.
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
"What do you mean I just earned myself a ticket!?"
"I'm sorry, Mr. Mucus Bummer," the police car Transformer said as he jotted down something on his pad before ripping a sheet off and handing it to the red truck Transformer. "But it's against the law to transform in traffic, and to transform with a human with in your self. Have a good day, Mr. Mercedes Blubber."
"It's Musclebumper!!" the red truck snarled, but took the paper sheet and transformed into truck mode with a mad clank, revving his engine angrily. His embarrassed human passenger hesitantly climbed into the truck when he opened his side door. The truck door slammed shut and the truck drove off, just barely keeping it self from slamming on the gas in spite of the cop it had just encountered in front of the Transport City Art Gallery.
"Well," a sixteen year old girl sitting on one of the walls splitting up the wide steps leading to the gallery said. "That was entertaining. I liked 'Mussel Bumper' particularly."
"Musclebumper is a conceited nickname, like Super Steven or the Jack-Star," the cop Transformer snorted as he leaned against the wall the girl sat on. "I couldn't help but to discourage this sort of display of ego in my own way. Enjoying your self thus far, Amethyst? It's a strange way to spend your first day of summer vacation."
"Father!" the girl exclaimed as a blush entered her sandy brown skin and sitting up. "I liked to be called Becky; Amethyst is too girly."
"What ever you say, Amethyst," the cop car said, flashing a rare, small smile as he stroked the girl's long, black, wavy hair and looked into her angry-looking, almond-shaped turquoise eyes.
Suddenly, a radio with in the cop car crackled to life.
Shh-k! "Officer Parker to Officer Prowl; we have a 5150 with a 905N at Aluminum Drive 1337; 5150 is a 417 and the other is a 230—oh crap, 556 with a 919 dragging along a 202 just appeared on scene; Requesting back up."
"How did that happen?" Prowl muttered, then through the radio, "Copy that, Officer Parker, we're coming."
He dropped down, transforming into a sleek black and white police cruiser and opened his passenger door for Becky.
"Come on, Amethyst; let's fix this. Then we can head over to the headquarters for the birthday party."
"It's Becky, father, Becky," the fifteen year old scolded as she dropped won from her perch and got into the car.
"What ever, Amethyst" Prowl chuckled as belts slid across Becky and he pulled into traffic, cruiser lights flashing.
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
He looked eighteen, with his height and lanky limbs, but he was really only fifteen about to become sixteen. He had pale peach skin with wiry, floppy copper-colored hair that often fell over his wide, nervously twitching pale green eyes. He was a nervous boy, obviously, and this showed when he fumbled with packages that he was unloading from an extremely large red, white, and blue space jet. Finally, the last of the cargo was unloaded and he sighed gratefully, he adgusting the askew red collar of the red, white and blue jumpsuit he wore.
"Hey, kid," a red truck Transformer grunted as he entered the dock area that the boy was unloading at. "I need a replacement part before my human gets off work this afternoon and I heard you're the only one whose got access to it, so where is it?"
"Sir," the boy said softly. "If you wait, the part you need will be on the shelves early tomorrow morning."
"Look, flesh bag," the truck Transformer snapped. "I'm having a bad day; I got a ticket for transforming in traffic to get over it, one of my human's co-workers spilled hot coffee all over my passenger seat, some woman's fuzz ball urinated all over my tire, and now I got this really annoying inner tick in my side that needs to be fixed now, you idiotic squishy, so where is that part??"
"You're about to receive a punishment far worse than a ticket if you talk to my son like that again."
The enormous air ship the boy had been unloading suddenly transformed, becoming a giant of a white mech with red and blue accents, glaring sternly down at the suddenly smaller (and meeker) truck Transformer. After a long moment of staring up at the enormous mech with an open jaw, the truck Transformer squeaked.
"Sorry, Mr. Skyfire, I'll leave you two alone and wait, but, uh, did you say s-s-son?" He asked, looking down at the boy.
"Have you ever heard of Breaker Labs?" Skyfire inquired.
"Huh? Oh, yeah, those super sigh-sigh-scientists!" the Transformer suddenly exclaimed, remembering a thing of great importance. "Oh! Breaker Labs, Efforts, bring the human-and-Transformer-race closer, Project Smelting, warm fuzzes, yeah, yeah, uh, I'll just, uh, see ya around, um… bye."
The truck Transformer suddenly dropped into his truck alt-mode and drove off, tires squealing on the pavement. The boy smiled up at Skyfire, who returned the smile as he offered a massive fist.
"Thanks, Dad," the boy said, touching knuckles in the mis-sized Rock.
"Your welcome, Michelangelo," Skyfire replied. "Come on; Benjamin will be landing soon and then the party will start."
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
Max stood on the edge of the half-a-football-shaped building, staring down the steep slope at the numerous polishers donning the building's shiny surface at the moment. The wind brushed its teasing fingers through his bright yellow hair, which peeked out from under his black and gold helmet like streaks of some careless child's paint job. His yellow tee shirt pressed against his thin body as his cargo jeans weighed heavily on his hips. His sea blue eyes sparkled with mirth as he looked down the building and its horrible heights. A black leather harness crossed an X across his chest and had additional straps circling his hips and his mid section, as well as crossing around his arms like a back pack, all connecting to one thick strip down his back that ended in a stor of clip-like contraption that held a skateboard. The skateboard's underside decoration had been scratched beyond recognizability.
"Your dad's not gonna be happy about this," one of Max's skater buddies warned behind him from the safety of the center of the small roof.
"Oh, come on, Brice," the fifteen year-old told the fellow skater, slipping a pair of tinted-lens goggles over his eyes as a white, toothy, mischievous grin crossed his face. "When has Pops ever been happy about anything I've done?"
Pulling the a skateboard from the harness on his back, he dropped it on the roof in front of him.
Turning suddenly, Max jumped onto his skateboard, and slid down the side of the building.
Window polishers on their platforms over turned their wash buckets as Max flew by, gaining momentum and whooping and hollering wildly. A high-built road independent of the ground that passed with in feet of the building came up and Max jumped, landing so that his board was grinding on the high road's guard rail. Transformer cars and regular vehicles alike honked as they sped past him, but he only laughed as the high road tilted down to return to the artificial ground. He leaped from the guard rail to grind off the edge of a red truck parked on the side of the road, making them transform into a robot as they cried out in surprise and shock. Jumping off the truck, Max landed hard on a bus bench, ground on it, and landed on the white, paved sidewalk.
People jumped aside and shouted in annoyance as he sped by, grinding on the edge of the sidewalk and what ever bench he came upon. He jumped and spun and leaped off all sorts of street obstacles simply for the fun of it, cheering and laughing as people shouted at him to knock it off. He passed from ground to air to ground again with little to no stability or safety in any move what so ever.
Suddenly, a yellow Transformer moved in his path and he shouted in surprise as he collided smack into the front of the robot. He landed hard on his back end with a grunt as his skateboard flipped away and landed, wheels up, on the sidewalk near by.
"Jeez, man, watch where you park it--" Max snapped, but fell silent when he looked up (and up) into the face of the robot who stood, feet apart, arms crossed across their chest, and a scowl of disapproval on his face, small horns glinting in the sun light.
"Oh," he squeaked. "Hi, Pops."
The yellow Transformer growled as he hauled the boy to his feet by the back of his shirt before picking up the skateboard and going to the road, where he transformed into a little yellow punch buggy. Max heard people snickering and felt a flush rise in his cheeks. When would the old bot just update his alt form already? The punch buggy opened its passenger door.
"You are in so much trouble, young man," Bumblebee warned.
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
Jess stared at her gun, a triple-barreled, thick-walled bazooka-cannon-laser-missile hybrid that she had invented herself and called Pointblank. It was dark green in color with golden rings painted around its muzzle tips. She had invented and conceived it with her father. The strawberry-blond girl with red freckles sprinkled across her peachy skin looked skyward with worried pale blue eyes. Her toes, clad in black flip-flops, twisted uneasily as her legs shifted in heavy cargo pants and her chest fluttered in a red tank top. Her father hadn't reported for two weeks now from his post in North Africa—where was he? Were the tribes down there suddenly attacking? Was he alive? Would she ever see him again? Would he show up on a surprise announcement during the birthday party that afternoon?
"Daddy, where are you?" she whispered.
"Hey, lady!" a red truck below her perch on the statue of Ironhide bellowed up. "Where is there a good paint shop? Some creep ruined my paint job with a skateboard trick. Hey, you! Blonde! I'm talking to you! Yeah, you! Where's a paint shop? Do you speak English, or are you some German chick? Hello? Hello--"
Jess rolled her eyes, then pointed Pointblank right down at the mech and pulled the trigger.
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
"Are you stupid!? What the hell made you think you could jump from one high road to another!?"
"My jet thrusters," the crumbled up blue mech on the table in front of her squeaked.
"Well, because of that your jet thrusters are way up your aft, idiot. Now, what do you have to say for yourself?"
"I'm really stupid for trying to jump from one high road to another."
"Thanks, Captain Obvious, what do you really say?"
The mech hesitated, the gears in his dented metal head turning to find the proper answer. Thinking he found it, he spoke it aloud.
"I'm sorry, Ms. Anne, for doing something stupid and getting myself in the hospital. It was a really dumb thing and I promise never to do it on pain of death."
"Good boy. Poppa; you can take it from here."
"Sure, Anne," the red and white mech said, placing the fifteen year-old girl with short red and white streaked hair with large, almond-shaped cerulean eyes on the table beside the bed. "I taught her well, didn't I?" he said with a grin to his patient and nodding to Anne.
"Yes you did, Dr. Ratchet," the patient said sadly.
"Hey, Poppa, where're the Jacks?" Anne asked, picking up a book set on the bed side table and flipping through the mech diagrams with in. "They haven't been in for their weekly burn treatments yet."
"Busy; that's all I need to know," Ratchet grunted, tearing a length of twisted steel from the mech patient's mangled legs. "Hopefully, they can keep themselves un-crispy until after Benjamin comes home today and after the party. Have you ever considered getting new legs, Mr. Jumper?"
His patient wimpered negativly.
Saint Judy's Hospital intercom clicked to life, echoing through the hall ways and reaching into the room where Anne and Ratchet were repairing the reckless driving mech.
"Uh, hey, guys? We got what I think—I think it's some sort of truck Transformer in the lobby and I can't really tell if he's red or black or even has armor after what ever the hell fired on—wait, who did this?—Oh, I see. Clarification: Code Pointblank in the lobby."
Ratchet and Anne exchanged looks and rolled their eyes and optics.
"Jess," they simply agreed, then resumed their work.