Sideswipe was mentally kicking himself. "Stupid, stupid Sideswipe! Way to go and follow the wrong vehicles! I should've known that wasn't Prime when I saw the 'How's my driving? Call 1-800-EAT SHIT' bumper sticker! Stupid!" he continued berating himself.
He was in his robot mode, sitting in a double wide parking space, in obvious distress. All the truckers that had been glaring at him because they assumed Sideswipe was being driven by some stuck up rich snob suddenly started to pretend he didn't exist.
"Okay, Siders, worse things have happened. Just gotta keep my cool and think logically. Think like Prowl. GPS is destroyed but I gotta find my location. What do humans use when they're lost? Oh, maps! Fricken primitive paper ones. Right. Now where does one acquire these things?"
Sideswipe looked up and noticed the truck stop's convenience store/diner.
He took a glance through the tiny building's large window. The diner was cute in a stuck in the 60's sort of way with black and white tile and bold, red plastic looking booths. There weren't that many people in the diner, just two really old men sitting in one of the booths. It appeared that they were pretty much ignoring each other.
Connected to the diner there was a little convenience store part that sold cigarettes, snack foods, novelty lighters and…road maps!
Sideswipe internally rejoiced.
He walked over to it, careful not to step on any of the truckers scurrying around the premises and got to his knees. Carefully he opened the glass door, and much to his amusement it made a 'ding' as it hit a bell. He had his simpleton moments where he was easily amused. So what?
He tried reaching his arm through the small door and stretched his fingers to get a better reach. He barely was able to brush the counter where the maps were stacked. Unfortunately, as he waved his fingers a small gust was created blowing the papers farther away.
"SLAG!" Sideswipe cursed.
If anyone in the diner was fazed by the cursing, giant red robot obstructing the doorway they sure didn't show it.
One of the old men calmly took a sip from his coffee.
Sideswipe tried to reach and grope for the maps that were now scattered around the floor just out of reach. Unfortunately he couldn't get more then part of his shoulder through the tiny door frame, without breaking it anyway.
In defeat he dropped his arm with a thud, creating a small (to him anyways) crack in the floor. The small wind from that move only blew the papers farther from his reach. He glared.
He needed a new approach.
He looked around wildly and noticed a middle aged woman with red hair and a light blue apron. She appeared to be filling a rounded, glass liquid container with the substance humans referred to as "coffee."
"Hey! Hey, you!" Sideswipe hailed. "Female with the red, poofy thing on your head!"
The woman turned his way. Sideswipe squint his optics to see her nearly microscopic name tag. "Cheryl."
The woman stared up lazily at the red mech and pulled a small notebook from her apron pocket. "What can I get ya, Hun?" she drawled.
"Can I have one of the maps?"
The woman turned her head toward the floor, causing her soft red fro to bob with the motion. She looked back. "Sure thing, Sweetie." She swiped one off the ground and held it out almost in Sideswipe's reach.
Sideswipe grinned and made to grab for it but the woman stuck her other hand out, palm up and said, "That'll be a buck fifty."
Sideswipe stared blankly at her. "A what?"
000000000
The Autobots had to return their injured back to the base but Prime had ordered a few of the more undamaged mechs like Hound and Smokescreen to stay behind. Their job was to search the desert for his missing soldier.
And searched they had. They combed every part of the battlefield but there was no sign of Sideswipe. No pieces of armor, no abandoned weaponry or any sign the mech had even been there. Their search efforts were fruitless and they had to return to the base empty handed.
Prime felt a major headache coming on. Every suggestion he threw out in an effort to find the young soldier was either shot down or came up empty. He had to keep trying though.
"Can we triangulate his position via GPS?" Prime asked.
"Negative. His Global positioning systems aren't responded. They may have been damaged or taken offline," Wheeljack responded unhappily.
"Blaster, Jazz. Any sign of a stress call over the airwaves? Any panic signals?"
"Negatory, Prime. No sign of Siders on the airwaves," Jazz replied. He was typing furiously, and the lights from the screen were flashing across his face.
"I'm gonna expand the signal to cover a wider range," Blaster said, hooking up a wire from a port near his audio directly into the computer system. "I'll bounce a resonance feedback through a satellite and see if old Sideswipe bounces a signal back."
"You do that." Prime approved the action.
Optimus was truly concerned. He would've been worried for any of his soldiers if they had seemed to disappear off the face of the Earth. However with Sideswipe there was one added thing that made the situation so dire.
"So do you think Sunstreaker's gonna go on a rampage the moment he wakes up, or do you think he'll be in shock long enough for us to escape?" Huffer moaned.
"Shut up, Huffer." Ratchet was not in a good mood. "I have Sunstreaker on extra neural buffers. He shouldn't wake up any time soon and by then we'll hopefully have found our red dunce."
"M'not getting' any acoustic signs of Sideswipe. He's not in the immediate area, not even in the state of Nevada," Blaster said with defeat. "The good news is since there's no sign of him he's probably alive. If the Decepticons bumped him off I doubt they'd hang around to clean up the mess."
Blaster received a stony glare from Jazz. It was scary.
"Well, we have no leads. What now?" Optimus enquired.
"We need a change of tactics," Prowl spoke up. "Expanding the search radius would seem logical but we're lacking a focal point to begin at. We need to retrace our steps. Jazz, you said he was last seen engaging Skywarp in aerial combat, correct?"
"If ya wanna call it that," Jazz muttered. "But yeah. Trailbreaker an' Brawn said last they saw he was giving Skywarp a rough time."
"Now what do we know about Skywarp?"
"Primus, Prowl! Does this look like th' time fer twenty one questions?" Ironhide's tone was clipped.
"Just go with it Ironhide," Prime sighed.
"Alright, fa-hne. Skywarp's an idiot." Ironhide folded his arms over.
"He can, uh, he can teleport?" Bluestreak scratched the back of his head, unsure if that was the right answer Prowl was trying to get.
It was. "Exactly. There was a period of time between when Sideswipe was last seen and when the Decepticons were falling back where Skywarp just wasn't there. Let's think about this logically for a second. We don't know where Sideswipe is. Last we saw Sideswipe, he was with Skywarp. After that he was gone without a trace. What can we most likely infer from this information?"
All mechs stopped what they were doing and turned their attentions on Prowl. The Datsun simply waited for a response.
Ratchet gave one.
"Skywarp finally grew a brain, teleported and took Sideswipe hostage," Ratchet answered coldly.
00000000
Sideswipe felt like a complete idiot. Knew he looked like one too, but he was kind of desperate.
Here he was, a 20 ft tall robot hunched over an absurdly tiny pay phone, holding the receiver carefully between his thumb and forefinger next to an audio while he tried to dial 911.
He remembered Spike saying something about that number being used in emergencies, and if this whole ordeal didn't warrant an emergency he wasn't sure he knew what did.
Maybe he could patch a message to the Ark to send Skyfire or something to pick him up.
He tried to carefully, oh so carefully to punch in some kind of number. Unfortunately his entire finger pressed into the entire keyboard.
"Damn."
He tried again and just dented the entire number pad in.
"DAMN!"
This went on for some time. Sideswipe had to keep changing phones because he kept breaking them. He was at the last one in the row of them before he finally was able to successfully dial the number.
He heard ringing. He heard ringing!
Never before had such a sound sounded as glorious and welcome as did it then.
'9-1-1. What is the nature of your emergency?' the dispatcher questioned tonelessly.
"Geeze, you have no idea how happy I am to have gotten a hold of someone! No idea!" Sideswipe was downright jovial.
"Sir, calm down. Where are you calling from?"
Sideswipe blinked and glanced down the barren road. "Hell if I know. My GPS was fragged. I'm at a pay phone somewhere."
"We'll trace the call, Sir. Is the nature of your emergency fire or criminal?"
"Neither. My designation is the Autobot Sideswipe. In battle I was separated from my team and need a call patched to the-"
"Whoa, whoa. Did you say Autobot?"
"Yes. I got separated from my team. I need to contact the Ark."
"Excuse me?"
"My com's screwed, and I can't get a hold of my team. I need to contact the Ark."
"Uh-huh," the dispatcher replied skeptically. "You said Autobot."
"Primus, were humans stupid. "Do I need to spell it out for you? Me, Autobot, need to call base, Ark."
"Riiight. And I'm President Lincoln." The dispatcher chimed sarcastically.
The sarcasm went over Sideswipe's head. "Really? Wheeljack told me he off-lined years ago."
"Look, kid. I can't tell you how many of these 'I'm an Autobot' calls we get."
"Huh?"
"' My camaro turned out to be a giant alien robot. There are drunk Decepticons raving about metal moons. Metal dinosaurs are breathing fire in my living room.' I've heard it all and quite frankly it's not funny anymore. I'm gonna hang up and I don't want you to call back. You could get arrested for obstructing an emergency line."
"This isn't a joke! Do you know how long it took me to punch in the code for this airwave?"
The dispatcher hung up.
The tiny phone receiver snapped between Sideswipe's fingers unable to handle his crushing grip. He dropped the fragments, stood up, and promptly began smashing the defenseless payphone under his ped until it was a sparking pancake of wires and metal.
0000000000
"Hey bud! The horn means you're in the way!"
Sideswipe was mad. He was still injured from his crash landing, his jetpack was still broken, he still had desert shrubs jammed up in his peds, and he still didn't have a frakin' clue where he was.
And now he was in traffic.
He ignored the angry beeps and horns from the overworked and overstressed humans behind him. It wasn't like he could make the short school bus in front of him go any faster.
It was hot on the highway. Heat haze rippled over the asphalt and it was taking its toll on Sideswipe's undercarriage. It was times like these that Sideswipe wished he had heat resistant armor like his brother, but nooo. Their stupid creators just had to give him pile drivers instead. Load of help that was doing him right now.
There was angrier honking behind him. Sideswipe revved his engines in annoyance and considered going in reverse to mow over the source of the horn.
He was too tired for that though. He needed to recharge. It had been a long day and was nearing dusk already. The sky was darkening, changing from hues of blue to hues of red as the sun began its descent under the horizon.
He needed a nap.
No longer patient enough to deal with the slow moving line of cars, Sideswipe transformed and tiptoed over tightly packed vehicles. The drivers who had been honking at him suddenly went quiet.
He jumped off the beltway overpass and landed on the grassy medium below creating a tremor. He transformed and rolled off one of the exits.
He drove for a while until he found a strip mall, made himself comfortable in one of the parking spaces, completely missing the "no parking here at anytime" sign, and fell into recharge. There was no point going on with only half of his energy capacities anyway.
An hour later a tow truck rolled behind Sideswipe.
0000000
When Ratchet had put Sunstreaker on all those extra neural buffers to keep him in stasis lock, he had made an uncharacteristic mistake. It was a minor oversight caused because his mind had been too set and focused on Sideswipe's disappearance, but would have major repercussions.
Sunstreaker was built specifically for war. Everything in his design was made for combat. Every bit of programming and code had a function. His creators had been extremely thorough in his design and had taken several things into account when they constructed him.
Sunstreaker had been built with a resistance to codes designed to incapacitate the body. That way, if by any chance he was ever captured by the Decepticons they wouldn't be able to 'drug' him with malicious code or render him helpless with paralyzing viruses.
His firewall would essentially cripple the bad strains of code or buffers not long after they were uploaded onto his system. He usually would gain complete control over his systems within a bream.
Said firewall began to target the neural buffers, taking them apart one by one until the anesthetic systems were taken completely off line.
He began to come online.
Sunstreaker's violet-blue optics flickered to life and the gold warrior sat up feeling like he had gotten run over by Astrotrain. Lights were brighter, sounds were sharper, and he definitely was not feeling 100%.
Something clattered and Sunstreaker turned his attention to the source. First Aid had dropped a tray of medical tools in shock of Sunstreaker's abrupt waking. "Sunstreaker?" The protectbot sputtered in surprise.
"What? Ow." Sunstreaker pinched the bridge of his nasal plate with his thumb and forefinger. Primus did his head hurt.
"It just, you were on so many neural buffers. You shouldn't be awake. I guess Ratchet must've set a timer on them to disengage or something." The poor medic looked confused trying to make sense of the situation.
"Right," Sunstreaker muttered sarcastically. The medic obviously wasn't aware of his superior defensive firewalls and it was strange for Ratchet to forget.
Sunstreaker looked up, looked around, went silent for a second, and then he asked something that chilled First Aid's core. "Where's Sideswipe?"
0000000000
When Sideswipe woke from his extremely brief recharge, he discovered two things. One, he wasn't where he remembered being before he fell "asleep" and two, to his horror he couldn't move. He tried to roll forward but something was trapping his tires in place.
Agitated and slightly hazy from a not so effective recharge he ran a scan of himself and located the foreign object.
Wouldn't ya know it, a wheel clamp. His day just got better and better.
Too out of it to be angry right away, Sideswipe merely groaned and braced himself for unpleasantries as he forced himself to transform; despite the object jammed under his back tires.
"Ow. Ow. OUCH!" Pain lanced through Sideswipe as he agonizingly transformed out of his vehicle mode into his bipedal form. It required much creative twisting and embarrassing writhing around the horrible metal obstruction locking up his form before he finally got out of his vehicle mode. To his horror though, the awful metal had gotten twisted around his legs, trapping them together like a pair of gnarly shackles.
In agitation he tried standing and promptly fell over. Growling he dragged himself across the grimy ground with his arms before pulling himself back up to sitting position. His entire front, already scratched up and abused, now had a smudge of brown grime that streaked down his entire chest plate and legs.
He was no longer in a parking spot in front of that strip mall he found. He was in a lot alright but it was filled with cars and vehicles of all colors, years, and brands. Some of the cars were shiny, polished, new speed demons while others were rusted, scrap heaps that probably would rattle apart if driven. There was no discrimination though. All of them adorned with their own pair of "boots".
Slowly he came to his senses. "Where the heck am I?"
"You're in an impound lot."
Sideswipe had not necessarily been expecting a response.
A human entered the lot. It had a sharp angular face and probably wore sunglasses a lot because it had a strange tan line around it's eyes and just above it's cheekbones (making them more pronounced then they already were). Its hair was short and it jiggled when it moved. It must've over consumed its fuel source when it refueled.
"You don't seem that surprised that I'm not really a car." Sideswipe tried wiping some of the filth off his chest plate.
"We saw the Autobot insignia and did a system check on your particular vehicle mode to find out who you were. You are the Autobot known as Sideswipe," the man said matter-o-factly.
"Ok then." Sideswipe was mostly clear headed now, the grogginess having faded away due to his own overriding exasperation riling him up. "Why was I impounded?"
"You were in a no parking zone."
"I was?"
The human male (At least Sideswipe thought it was male) nodded.
"Look. There must be some kind of misunderstanding."
"The only misunderstanding was you thinking that you," the human jabbed its stubby digit in Sideswipe direction, "could park in a tow away zone."
Huh. Was that what the sign had meant? Regardless. "Are you serious? You're not serious are you? I was taking a nap. Do you have any idea what I've been through this past day?"
"S'not my problem, Son. You should've thought about that before you broke the law." He began walking away.
"Hey. Hey wait!" Sideswipe called trying to get up, only to trip because of the mangled metal locked around his ankles. He cursed, but at least the human stopped and turned back to him.
Sideswipe decided that this set of circumstances required a silver tongue and tact. Maybe he could use this situation in his favor. "Look. I'm an Autobot. I'm not familiar with all your human customs yet. If I broke some kind of law, just help me contact my command base and we'll pay whatever fine you need. That's what you humans do to solve your problems right? Pay fines?" That's what happened every time he got a speeding ticket anyways.
"I'm afraid we can't do that." The man shrugged, face stony. "On top of being in a no parking zone you have other serious infractions stacked against you."
"Like what?" Sideswipe spat in irritation. This was beginning to grate on his nerve receptors.
"I figured you'd enquire, so I prepared this brochure for you." Unaffected by the giant glaring robot the man stepped closer and held up a tiny pamphlet. Sideswipe begrudgingly took the absurdly small piece of paper between his thumb and forefinger.
Carefully Sideswipe unfolded it so as not to tear it apart, magnified his vision capacity 50X and began to read out loud. "Why your car was impounded." There was an absurd smiley face graphic next to this statement. "'Your vehicle was impounded because you or another individual driving your vehicle has: a suspended license, a revoked license, or does not have a valid license at all-' A license?" he tilted his head bemused.
"Do you have a license, Son?" the man asked with grim seriousness.
"No, but-"
"Well that's partly why we have our little dilemma here."
Sideswipe's jaw dropped but he quickly snapped it shut and jumped to his defense. "Because I don't have a license? Do you even realize how absurd that is?"
"The safety of the roads is no laughing matter Mr. Autobot," the man stated insipidly (in a very Prowl like manner Sideswipe noted dully). "An unlicensed driver is a potential danger to all other motorists on the highway. They may not know the rules of the road or practice safe driving techniques. Do you know how many unlicensed drivers get into accidents and cause havoc on the roadways everyday?"
"So do drunks, but that didn't stop them from getting these licenses did it? Besides I don't think any of that applies to me here. I am the freaking car! It's how I get around, you idiot! Do you stupid humans need a license for walking?" Well there went the tact out the window.
"By all means you could've walked. You Autobots have that capability after all. Then maybe you wouldn't be in the mess. However 'Driving a motor vehicle on public highways in the State of California is a privilege and not a right. This privilege can be revoked, suspended or denied. A valid California driver's license designates and identifies the bearer as competent to operate a motor vehicle according to state regulations.'" He quoted from some obscure handbook. "Instead you and your unregistered self choose to be reckless."
"I WAS TAKING A NAP!" Sideswipe threw the tiny pamphlet angrily. It simply fluttered to the ground.
"In a no parking zone."
"RRAARG!" Sideswipe made a motion to swat the human, but the man pulled out a tiny black box. A tendril launched from the device and hit Sideswipe in the arm, giving him a 50,000 volt shock.
"OW! What the hell?" It wasn't a particularly painful jolt but the unexpectedness of it made Sideswipe jump in surprise.
The man charged the taser again. "Son, we can do this the easy way or the hard way."
If Sideswipe had decided to throw out every Autobot protocol and moral standing just then he could've flattened the human and bolted out of there before any one was the wiser. However instead he cycled a deep gulp of cold air to cool his overheating insides and tried to stay calm and play along. "Alright, Asshole. How long do I have to be here? Overnight?"
The corpulent human pointed to the leaflet lying forgotten on the ground.
Sideswipe begrudgingly picked it up again and started reading. "'The vehicle in question will be impounded for 30 calendar days. The registered owner will have to pay the towing and the 30-day storage fee to get the vehicle back at the end of this period'." Sideswipe blanched. "30 days?" And there were fees as well. What was it with humans and fines?
"Minimum," The agitating man corrected. "Oh, and you missed the part where there is the possibility that the vehicle in question could be forfeited and taken from you by the state if you have a prior conviction for driving while unlicensed, or with a suspended or revoked license."
Sideswipe's jaw dropped. "You can't be- I am the vehicle."
"I must say. You're situation doesn't look so good, Mr. Autobot, especially since this is not the first time you've driven without a license. You apparently have several speeding infractions in the state of Oregon alone."
Sideswipe was speechless. He was Sideswipe, a mech known for being faster then a speeding ticket. No fuzz had ever been able to actually pull him over. The only cop who managed that was Prowl.
Apparently that didn't stop him from having a record.
"We'll have to do a review of your situation. In the meantime I'd start figuring out how you're going to pay for all of these storing fees."
"This is ridiculous!" Sideswipe roared at the man, tearing the tiny pamphlet to shreds.
The man shrugged. "It's all under the California Vehicle Code." He started walking away.
"This is an injustice! This violates Habeas corpus! I demand my rights! I want my damn phone call!" Sideswipe raged.
"Sorry, Son. Citizen Rights don't apply to giant alien robots." The man began walking away again.
"Yeah, well next time Decepticons try to pummel your city and your sorry ass you can bet this giant alien robot won't be there to cover it!"
He got no reply.
Just before the human left, Sideswipe ran a thorough scan of his captor's form for future reference. Just so he'd know which house he was going to have to "accidentally" crash into when the opportunity presented itself.
To his horror he made a somewhat jarring discovery when his scan was complete. The blobulous human had actually been female. Oh, ew. Oh yuck.
After filing that bit of disturbing information far, far into the back of his processor Sideswipe decided never again. Never again would he use semantics on Prowl or Ratchet or Prime. He never realized how truly infuriating it was.
Sideswipe scooted himself back, dragging the horrible metal contraption attached to his legs with him until he was leaning against a metal wall. He shoved a rusted white Subaru that was missing a front tire over a bit to give himself more room and dragged his knees up to his chest in despair.
He sat in silence listening to the hums and electrical whistles of the facility and the far off hollow echoes of sirens from the city some ways away.
He turned to the rusted Subaru. "I could've flattened it. I should've flattened it. Why did I put up with that bastard? It wouldn't have stood a chance against me. Really, what could that gross femme have done to stop me? Give me paper cuts with more useless leaflets? 'Son' me to death?"
The Subaru responded with a skeptical silence.
"You're right. If I had done that, no matter how satisfying it woulda been, Optimus would've just flattened myaft latter…Would've made me feel better though. Primus knows I need some kind of a pick up after this crappy day."
The Subaru said nothing.
"Yeah, yeah. Whatever. I guess I'm just gonna chill out here and wish I could go home then."
Sideswipe pulled his dead jetpack out of subspace, clung to it like it was a teddy bear of sorts, and began plotting his escape.
000000000
Sunstreaker was getting increasingly angry. "I'm not gonna ask again, Doc. Where's Sideswipe?"
"Uh, well. That's not something I'm at liberty to discuss right now. Look, you're still injured and need rest," the medic babbled.
Like a cat Sunstreaker sprang from the recharge berth, all the wires attached to him snapping apart, and rammed First Aid into the wall, scaring the poor medic bot senseless.
He was terrified, but at least his face mask hid it.
Sunstreaker locked his hardened optics directly at First Aid's increasingly frantic ones. True to his word Sunstreaker did not say another word. Instead he used his horrifying glare to get his point across.
"We-we don't know!" First Aid gasped out.
"What?" Sunstreaker gritted, tightening his grip on the protectobot's shoulder guards, lifting him some feet of the ground. "What do you mean you don't know?"
"We don't know!" First Aid wailed frantically, waving his hands in a frenzy. "We don't know where he is! He disappeared from the battlefield!"
Sunstreaker dropped the mech. First Aid crawled as faraway from the melee warrior as he could.
Sideswipe was gone. That thought ran through Sunstreaker's mind some thirty times in succession before he allowed other thoughts to take hold. First Aid said gone, not dead. If Sideswipe was dead he'd know anyways. Then where...?
Sunstreaker's optics flashed. "He was last with Skywarp."
"Uh, yes…" First Aid whimpered.
The pieces clicked together. Sideswipe had gotten himself taken hostage, the idiot.
That thought did not sit well with Sunstreaker. His brother, the one thing he cared more about then his own life, in the hands of the enemy? Who knew what would befall his brash sibling.
Those Deceptibastards were going to pay.
Sunstreaker wordlessly bolted from the medical bay.
First Aid numbly watched him go.
First Aid was between a rock and a hard place. Sunstreaker had the capability to pretty much squish the medic, luckily First Aid had avoided this, but now he was going to have to deal with his own boss instead.
Ratchet wasn't going to be happy.
000000000
"Sooo, what are you in for?" Sideswipe asked.
The rusted, white Subaru did not respond.
"Not a talker then? Was it really that bad, Subitron?" Sideswipe questioned.
He took the Subaru's, now dubbed 'Subitron', silence as a yes.
"I see. I can understand that," Sideswipe grunted as he tried to rip the distorted wheel clamps from his legs. They were surprisingly strong and the fact that Sideswipe was weakened from unattended injuries and a lack of proper recharge wasn't helping. "I can not believe I'm in this mess. No one's gonna let me live it down when I get back. I can hear Ratchet now."
In a low guttural voice that was supposed to be mimicking Ratchet Sideswipe grumbled, "See? This is what being an irresponsible little Fragger gets you. Wrar. Now I'm gonna throw this billhook at your head because I'm a grouch and like watching you suffer." Sideswipe tossed in another "wrar" afterwards for good measures.
Sideswipe took from Subitron's silence that the white car wasn't buying it.
"My impersonation was more accurate then you'd think." Sideswipe tried wrenching the 'boot' off again but failed miserably and almost smacked himself in the face instead when his hands slid from the contraption. Operation "jailbreak" wasn't running as smoothly as he had initially planned. "And I am responsible!" He added as an after thought.
Subitron replied with doubtful silence.
"I really am!"
The unconvinced quiet ensued.
"Alright. You're right. I have my moments. So what? I like to live life on the edge a little, but can you blame me?" Sideswipe rocked backwards into a sitting position.
"My bro and I were commissions, ya know? Autobot's were losing the war so the high council called in for a warrior prototype to be made specifically for combat. The perfect fighter, they wanted. That's were Sunny and I came in. Instead of one they got both of us." He paused seemingly recalling various things.
He took Subitron's noiselessness as a sign to continue.
"We were built, and then everyone got paranoid because of our existence. So for the first few centuries of our lives, everything we did was regulated and restricted. We were always under tabs, and under the watch of the high council and higher ups. We didn't even get to go to the Fundamental Academy at Iacon when we where younger because everyone thought we'd burn the city to the ground or something. So of course, when everyone loosened their reigns on us and we finally got some freedom, we got into habit of testing the limits of that freedom. Living on edge; that's why we start things like jet judo and are so reckless sometimes."
The white car quietly sympathized.
"Some say it's stupid. I know it's stupid. It's how I got into this mess." Sideswipe briefly considered using his pile drivers to free his legs but decided he didn't want to risk damaging them any more then they already were. "And when I get back I'm probably going to have my favorite medic remind me how stupid it was by beating the message into me senselessly. Don't know why he bothers. It hasn't worked yet."
Subitron patiently waited for Sideswipe to elaborate.
"Primus, Sunstreaker's probably gonna take a whack at me too. It's not like we haven't been separated before. We have been twice. Once by accident in a city called Acerbinox (that place sucked let me tell you. I had some crazy old coot bartender chuck me out into the road).Also once when we both tried to going our separate ways. Didn't work. We lasted like what, 2 stellar cycles before back to war we went."
The Subaru remained still, responding with an acknowledging quiet. Sideswipe's face brightened.
"You know I've never really talked to anyone, except for my brother, like that before. Even if I wanted to most people would probably blow me off before I could activate my vocals. No one really takes me seriously unless I'm blowing something up or have something sharp. Probably because of the 'designated Ark prankster' rut I've dug myself into. Not that I don't enjoy it though, it's more of that rebellious nature I got from my Fledgling years I guess. Sunstreaker hates the fact that he always gets dragged down with me. Can't blame him since he never actually helps me, the bastard, but what can you do… And I really don't prank thatoften. Yeesh. You wire trap the minibots' quarters once, and convince Grimlock that white armored 'Bots taste like coconut and you're labeled for life…" Sideswipe trailed off. "Or it's because they're all afraid of me," he whispered. "Everyone is slightly."
There was a moment of awkwardness.
"Ok. So I have enough hidden firepower to set off a 30,000 pound TNT explosion, but it's not like I've ever gotten a chance to use it." Sideswipe reached for a large metal rod lying on the ground and positioned it between his legs and the 'boot of doom' like a crowbar. "And I have these really neat arm blade things I haven't gotten to break in yet, partly because I have no idea how to activate them on purpose yet, but they could do some damage. Er, don't tell anyone that please."
The Subaru silently promised to keep Sideswipe's confession secret.
Sideswipe pulled the bar and the metal wrapped around Sideswipe's ankles groaned and creaked in protest. Sideswipe wrenched the bar as hard as he could and to his delight the mangled wheel clamp snapped apart freeing his legs. He shoved the metal off and stood; delighted by the fact that he had the mobility of his legs again.
"You know what? You're alright." Sideswipe slapped the hood of the car as he passed it on his way to the fence. "It was great talking to you, but I really got to go."
He reached the fence and easily ripped a hole in the barbwire and chain links. He had one leg out on the side of freedom before he paused and looked back at the white Subaru.
"You should come with me!" Sideswipe declared enthusiastically.
The car politely, silently, declined.
Sideswipe optics dimmed. "I see. You want to serve your time. I can respect that." Sideswipe went back and patted the white car's hood again. "Don't worry buddy! I'll come back for you!"
The car remained perfectly still.
And just like that Sideswipe crossed the fence to freedom. However, before he completely left the facility he broke the taillights of every tow truck on the compound.
Served them right.
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Subitron is based off my uncle's car :D
This fic is going to be a little longer then I thought.