Here it is, my first Prime fanfic... asides from the ones I've been sort-of helping with. But I don't think they qualify... they weren't my ideas, afterall.
Summary said it all, but just in case you forgot in that short time: basically, I'm being a bitch to the mechs, and making them go into a kind-of heat instead of the women for once. Which kinda seems weird, considering on our planet it's always the other way around. But they're aliens, aren't they? Since when have they ever abided by our laws of nature? Anyway, so as far as my little mind's concerned (for this fanfic, at least), both mechs and femmes can go into heat at any given time. It increases the chance of a sparkling being produced, obviously, but also can have minor alterations on the affected mech/femme's judgement.
This is a Megatron/OC, Starscream/OC, Soundwave/OC and Knock Out/OC fic.
There was something strange happening on the Nemesis that day.
For starters, it wasn't very often that you found the normally laid back Knock Out pacing around his Med. Bay, looking increasingly agitated and clearly waiting for somebody (or somebodies) to arrive. It was even more rare to have Soundwave in that same Med. Bay, who seemed to be watching the medic's nervous and slightly annoying movements, judging by the way his helm was tilted. What appeared to be some kind of results were displayed on the main control screen, and every so often the red mech would cast an apprehensive look at them, as if hoping he'd find something within it that would ease his tensions. If there was anything there to calm him, he hadn't found it yet.
Seconds ticked on into minutes. There was nothing filling the air besides from the sound of Knock Out's footsteps and the tense silence between the two mechs. Personally, Soundwave had always kind of creeped out the medic. He and Breakdown were not used to the eerie officer, unlike the rest of the soldiers on the Nemesis. What did you say to somebody who, more than likely, wasn't going to respond? Or even worse, what if Soundwave played back a recording, and Knock Out had no idea what he was implying? It wouldn't make him look good. Nobody wanted a medic with only half a processor.
Eventually, the doors slid open, and a disgruntled Starscream stalked into the room.
"What is it this time, Knock Out?" he snapped, stopping a couple of metres away from said mech, folding his arms over his chestplate. "I don't enjoy being literally dragged out of my berth in the middle of the night; particularly not by that overgrown brute you call an apprentice."
"Perhaps you should learn how to answer your comm., Starscream," Knock Out shot back, pausing in his pacing to give the Second-in-Command a look.
Starscream opened his mouth to make a witty retort, but Soundwave effectively beat him, stopping anything before it could begin.
"What is it this time, Knock Out?"
Starscream not-so-discreetly made a face at hearing his voice emanating from the Intel. Officer, but was wise enough not to comment. Soundwave got him into enough trouble already, he wasn't looking to permenantely piss him off and earn himself a permenant spot in the Med. Bay via their beloved warlord. Megatron suited being a vegetable. The ever-so-brilliant Starscream? Not so much.
"We're still waiting for Megatron," he admitted, casting a sidelong glance at the door, as if the mech himself might stride through at any minute.
"Did Breakdown have the guts to yank him out of his berth, too?" Starscream asked sarcastically, glaring at Knock Out, lips pursed to the side in annoyance and hands on his hips.
Knock Out had enough of a processor to know that replying to Starscream might not be the brightest of ideas.
It took a while, but in the end Megatron did make his appearance, though looking no more pleased at the rude awakening than Starscream did. However, unlike his loud-mouthed and overdramatic Seeker, he did not immediately bite his head off for it. Instead he came to stand close to the mentioned flier's right (who unintentionally flinched away on instinct), red optics raking over the Med. Bay for any hint as to why he was there, before settling on the vain medic.
"This had better be good."
Taking this as his cue, Knock Out bowed to his leader, and turned his attention to the screen.
"Ah, you may not like this..."
There was something strange happening on the Nemesis that day. The halls were empty, the Decepticon foot soldiers were working with next to no supervision, and their commanders were nowhere in sight. Soundwave was a given; he was rarely noticed anyway. However, it was unheard of for Megatron to lock himself in the main control room and forbid anyone to enter, or for Starscream to refuse to leave his quarters for anything. Only Knock Out seemed somewhat obliged to wander around the ship some, but even then he appeared to much prefer the safety of his Med. Bay. The Vehicons weren't exactly comfortable with the out-of-character happenings, but knew better than to stop and gossip about it. The majority of the higher-rankers may be MIA, but Soundwave might still be listening in.
The sleek car cruised along the abandoned desert road, leaving a slight trail of dust behind it. It was a still and almost perfect night, with no breeze stirring the earth and the temperature actually being rather reasonable for once. Music played in the interior of the vehicle, constantly switching channels as different songs came on, and almost seeming as if it were keeping the lone machine company.
It was a quiet and routine scout around the area at this time of night; nothing was out of place as usual. In fact, it could almost be considered a waste of Energon. The Decepticons probably wouldn't be able to find their base if they drew a map and threw it in their faceplate, but you could never be too careful. Careful, like the speed that the car was moving at. Unfamiliarity with Earth's customs and laws had led to it being somewhat-overly cautious when it came to driving, not wanting to suffer through another lecture from Optimus Prime on how they should keep a low profile. Plus, it was also due to a genuine respect and consideration for the little fleshy beings that run amuck on this planet. It was theirs afterall. They may be bigger, better and stronger, but it wasn't entirely their fault that their war had left the Transformers' home planet and ended up on theirs.
"You alright out there, Aurora?" Came a voice through her comm. link, startling her out of her thoughts.
The femme would've jumped in surprise, if the voice wasn't so familiar and she wasn't in her vehicle mode. Instead, she chuckled softly at herself, and opened up her comm. link. She probably should've seen this coming. They'd only landed on Earth a mere few days ago, and already her mentor had slipped back into old habits; ones that dated way back to the peak of the war on Cybertron. It was most likely a good thing that she wasn't easily wound up by people trying to smother her or check up on how she was doing every five minutes. If she had been, there was no doubt she would've gone insane quite some time ago.
"As right as I'll ever be. Honestly, Ratch'. At the rate you go on, you'd think that I was completely irresonsible."
Her words were only teasing, but there was some slight truth to them, as well. Ratchet had not only set up a mentor-apprentice relationship with her, but also what resembled a father-daughter one. His somewhat protective stance with her was amusing, particularly when there was nothing to be protective about. And there were times, times like these, when his worry was completely unnecessary. Other Autobots did this patrol all the time, and not once did they ever encounter a Decepticon. Pit, on their ship, they could probably be halfway around the world and well out of the way of the Autobot base.
"Well, maybe I worry about my apprentice."
"Maybe your apprentice doesn't need worrying about?"
"Maybe. But she has yet to complain, so I think I'm safe."
Aurora chuckled again at that, slowing down her already-casual speed to hang a right down a dirt track. Thank Primus. Her patrol wouldn't last too much longer before she could return to the base, and back the sanctity of her cosy berth. What she wouldn't do for some much-needed recharge right now. It was just unfortunate that the day she had been working hard, was the same day when it was her turn to do a late night scout.
"There's nothing out here except dirt, rocks, and little ol' me. Your concern is really not necessary. Besides, that's what comm.'s are for, no? If anything goes wrong, I'll be sure to tell you."
"You better."
That was probably as close to a concerned "Be Careful" as she was ever going to get. Ratchet never was a mech who settled for all that mushy stuff, or wore his heart on his sleeve. It really wasn't as bad as it sounded- an eternity of having to put up with the mech had honed her processor well. She'd learned to look past the grunts and grumbles, and identify them for what they really were. Indeed, she was well trained in the ancient and almost extinct language of Ratchet... well, most of the time, anyway. He was hardly an open book.
Ending the link, the femme continued on her way, going back to daydreaming about the comfort of her berth and a well-needed rest. Her new berth, mind you. They'd hidden their ship away from the Decepticons, and were currently attempting to keep it off the radar so that neither the humans or Decepticons learnt of it. If the looks on the others' faces at the thought of handing one of their own spacecraft's over to human intelligence were anything to go by, then they didn't want technology of that kind being in the possession of human's. Especially not Skylight. Aurora had seen the less-than-impressed look on her faceplate when she'd first encountered that Fowler guy. They were just lucky Bluespark had shoved their femme friend out of the room fast enough, before Skylight verbally bit his head off.
She probably should've known better than to get excited over finally getting some rest, though.
It came in the form of a strange glint in the sky, followed by a sudden flare on her internal energy reading chart that alerted her to Decepticon signatures; installed by Ratchet himself. It was there for but a brief few moments- long enough for her to get a fix on it's co-ordinates, yet not long enough for her to figure out what direction it was heading in or at what speed. Even some kind of hint as to who she was facing- she didn't want to run straight into the arms of Megatron himself, afterall- was not a luxury she could entertain. Following her previous advice to herself that it was better to be safe than sorry, she attempted to open up a comm. link with Ratchet again, to alert him of the situation and to be ready to call in any back-up if necessary.
Unfortunately, her comm. was scrambled.
That in itself should've been some kind of warning that something was up. Her comm. shouldn't have been scrambled... not in a place like this. There was nothing to interere with her frequency, and none of the others had ever reported similar events ever happening to them. Granted, they were soldiers and she a medic-in-training, and they probably didn't need to call in support for a fight, but surely somebody would've noticed by now? The only thing that convinced her to investigate the energy signature slip-up alone was that no high-ranking and intelligent Decepticon soldier would ever make such a basic mistake... right? The probability that Megatron of all mechs would do it was pretty much next to none, so at least that was one less thing to worry about.
She didn't realise she'd slowed down to a stop, until she found she needed to start up her engine again just to make the turn towards the energy signature. She couldn't just finish her patrol, without searching after a Decepticon energy signature she found. It defeated the whole purpose. And if it was secretely following her, and she unintentionally lead it back to their base? Even worse- she'd never be able to forgive herself. Meaning that the only way onwards, was forwards.
I'm probably going to regret this, she couldn't help but point out to herself, sighing as she altered her course off the dirt road she'd been on, and into the darkness.
Soundwave was not a particularly emotional mech.
He wasn't a very open one either, so when Knock Out had requested that he and his two commanders to meet him in the Med. Bay for a check-up, he wasn't what one would call "willing." As far as he was concerned, his wellbeing was his own worry, and it was no business of some self-proclaimed medic. He could care for himself, and had no need of a systems scan simply due to the strange behaviour they had been displaying as of late... But, Megatron would have expected him to be there, and the spy was not someone who missed or was late for an appointment (nor, most importantly, someone who disappointed his leader). Not to mention, he had been hoping to get rid of whatever malfunction had entered his systems. It wasn't beneficial to the Decepticon cause for Soundwave to be so unexplainably unfoccussed.
He was regretting obeying the medic, now. Not only had he been utterly embarrassed and disgusted to think that such a thing was occuring, especially at a time such as this, but he'd been less-than-pleased that the dark red mech had no way of solving their dilemna... All he'd received was advice. Advice not to go out alone. Advice to stay away from any femmes (or any mechs that resembled femmes, which caused Soundwave to speculate as to what kind of personal experience Knock Out had had in these kind of situations). Advice to resist any urges or compulsions to leave the safety of the ship for an "innocent" fly and/or drive around the area.
Obviously Knock Out wasn't doing his job properly, because mere moments later Soundwave found himself outside and scouting for... something. For what it was exactly, he refused to acknowledge, refused to believe that he would succumb to such disturbing desires. In fact, he'd specifically chosen one of the most out-of-the-way places where he was least likely to stumble across an Autobot, let alone an Autobot femme. Hopefully the late hour lowered his chances even more drastically...
Apparently not.
His already silent engines slowed his pace as he attempted to get a better look at his object of interest; a lone car driving offroad, headlights switched on and moving at a seemingly casual pace... at least 20km/h underneath the speed limit. That certainly wasn't the normal organic behaviour around these parts of the world. But, zooming in on the car, it also did not register as a familiar Autobot Alt. Mode. The only one even close to comparison would be a cross between that rarely-seen medical 'bot Ratchet, and that chirping sports car that went by the designation Bumblebee. So was it, or was it not, Cybertronian in nature?
There was only one way to find out.
Soundwave banked to his right towards a crevasse, purposely catching the light and dropping the shields that disguised his energy signature for a brief moment, just to see what the reaction was. Judging by the way the car immediately began to slow down, it was at least familiar with the Cybertronian race, if not one itself. He sent out an encoded signal to scramble in attempts at communication or calls for help just in case, defences already back in place in case it could get either a permenant or temporary fix on him. The last thing he wanted to do was lead an unintended guess back to the Decepticon base.
If he was in the right state of mind, he might've discarded the foreign feeling of satisfaction at the thought of the vehicle being from his home planet, or perhaps he would've even done the right thing: fire on the Autobot. Or civilian. Did it really matter? If it was a human insect, then they were no friend of the Decepticons if they were capable of picking up Cybertronian energy signatures. And an Autobot? Even better. The less the Autobots were in numbers, the better.
Oppurtunity, he thought, transforming and landing in the crevasse.
An oppurtunity indeed. For more than one thing. Surely no self-respecting Autobot mech would have an Alt. Mode that would look so feminine?
I think I'll keep my opinion on this chapter to myself. Let's just say, hopefully we'll be seeing better when exams are finally over, and that I'm rather content to believe it doesn't exist at the moment.
Which leads me to add, following chapters will not be posted until another 6 weeks at the least; 7 December. My country is going into exams, and things are getting stressful. I start next week. As much as I would love to continue with this, I really need to be foccussed, and this is all part of my procrastination plan. So I must resist. If you see another chapter up too soon, feel free to scold me and tell me I'm a horrible person.