Second part, with a switch.

.. .. .. ..

As the purple haze from their laser guns cleared, Thundercracker surveyed the wreckage littering the small café with obvious distaste. The delicate fabrics were torn and scattered all over the marble floor, imprinted with criss-crossing tire tracks. Synthetic stuffing torn in a frenzy out of the overturned poufs still floated down in soft white clumps, pooling amid broken dishes and spilled energon infusion. The two Autobot spies he and Skywarp had shot point-blank earlier had crashed through the aluminum lattice board behind them, knocking a table over. Their metal carcasses were effectively buried under piles of twisted lattice and half-eaten pastries. He tossed his oculars aside and shook his head morosely.

"Unbelievable. Another complete renovation in less than a quartex. Blitzwing's not going to like the sound of this."

Skywarp scoffed, and blew out his smoking gun with his vent. "Tch, he knows how prone we are to damage, running this joint out in the open. Besides, Megatron owes it to us. Not counting the income he gets from his factories, our division generates a huge percentage of that old slagger's revenue, not the Stunticons' bondage enterprise."

From behind the counter, Ramjet called out, "Oh, is that the one in the red light sector downtown?" He was handing out various weapons cleverly concealed underneath the glass display to the other jets.

Dirge kicked a few cups out of his way as he grabbed one rifle and five cluster bombs and made his way to the right side the main entrance. He flicked off the artificial overhead lighting and turned to face the other Seekers, a look of irritation on his dark faceplate. "Stunticons again? Primus, those circus freaks think they're so hot just because they can twist their afts in all those unnatural positions…"

Sunstorm, coming out of the kitchen at the back after shutting off the sound system, laughed as he took up his position in the central booth on the eastern wall of the café, carrying a laser rifle fitted with a ray grenade launcher. Thrust, hoisting a similar weapon on his shoulder, tossed Sunstorm some extra ammunition on his way to the western side of the entrance, almost tripping on a tablecloth sticky with energon meringue. "Really," he said to Dirge across him, "I wonder whose diodes started beeping like crazy when we saw Drag Strip slide under Dead End and start rotati—"

"Oh, really," Dirge shot back. "Like how badly your turbines went into hyperdrive that you almost crashed into a buil—"

Ramjet rolled his optics. "Knock it off already, you two," he cut in wearily as he jumped over a broken table to his station in the area behind Dirge.

Skywarp couldn't resist warming up to their argument. "You jets obviously haven't seen Menasor in action yet." He elbowed Thundercracker, grinning as they picked their way to their vantage point behind the intact glass display. "Eh, Cracker? Remember that show last week?"

"Mm," Thundercracker said distractedly. His optics dimmed as he retreated further into his thoughts. "I'm still worried our situation won't convince Megatron to spare the Constructicons long enough, what with him demanding another wing for his stupid lair…" he trailed off as he and Skywarp sat beside each other on the elevated platform behind the display, crumpling their elaborate bows against the cold glass.

Skywarp waved dismissively as he grabbed a cable from the energon charger under the register and plugged it in one of his mounted laser guns. "Like I said, he owes it to us. Hey, Ramjet," he called out. "you don't need to get the Combaticons here anymore, we can handle whatever backup those idiot Lamborghinis might've brought along."

Ramjet didn't reply, so Skywarp assumed he had just cut the standard distress call to headquarters.

"Do you think they were bluffing?" Thundercracker asked in a low voice as he took the proffered cable from Skywarp. Neither of them actually needed to recharge their guns after expending only one shot each, but they couldn't afford to run out of power in the face of an impending gunfight.

"They were secret agents; of course they were bluffing," Skywarp replied matter-of-factly. "It's part of their job."

"No, about their systems being resistant to the toxic energon."

"I don't think so," Skywarp said immediately, turning serious. "Primus knows how close I was to backflowing all over the table because of that cake's stench."

Thundercracker laughed ruefully. "I'd forgotten how sensitive your chemical sensors are. In any case, those were some slagging good modifications they had. Any other mech would have offlined in less than a breem." He peered over his right shoulder through the muted light of the glass display. "Ramjet! Are you sure you loaded at least two cubes of that trash into the batter?" No response. The sound of a plate breaking against something metallic echoed coldly in the silence. "Ramjet? Ramjet!"

Skywarp nervously leaned over to turn off the display's light. Only sunlight, filtering feebly through the torn curtains, illuminated the café. "Maybe he went out back. Hey Dirge, Thrust, where'd Ramjet go?" Still no response. Another plate crashed, but not loud enough to cover the sound of Sunstorm's muffled shout.

Skywarp suddenly made to get up. "If this is their idea of a practical joke—" Thundercracker stopped him in time.

"Get down! Sunstorm?" Thundercracker called out hesitantly. "What's going on out there?"

"Nothing much," came a familiar drawl that made them both stare at each other in horror. "Just putting your other maidbots out of commission."

The two Seekers froze. "Aw, come on! We haven't even gotten to know you two yet, and you've already forgotten us?" another laid-back voice quipped.

Skywarp hissed violently. "I thought we fragging deactivated them!" He tried to stand up again, but Thundercracker quickly pulled him back down. "Let go of me, Cracker, I want to finish the job I star—!"

"Damn it, Skywarp, you can't just rush out there!" Thundercracker tried not to look panicked as he popped out a wireless communicator from under his thigh plate. He began punching some buttons on it, but only the dull crackle of static came out. He tried again, but nothing happened. He slammed his fist against the platform. "Slag, they've jammed our frequencies!"

"Not if I can help it," Skywarp snarled angrily. He powered up a small console he pulled from underneath the cash register and began rapidly hacking away at the keys, his optics fixed intently on the screen. "Stall them, shoot them, do whatever it takes, Cracker, just buy me some time!"

Thundercracker nodded. "All right." He shifted to a kneeling position and pushed a button that lowered the display slightly, increasing his visual range while still providing sufficient cover. He turned up his optics' sensitivity to compensate for the dim lighting. Suddenly he caught a flash of a sharp yellow wedge behind an upturned table against the darkened eastern wall. He grinned ferociously.

Found you.

He fired twice at the table and ducked. "Still alive, 'Bots?" he called out conversationally.

"It's going to take a lot more than that to disassemble us," Sunstreaker replied, shooting back enthusiastically.

Over the fwip fwip of his lasers Thundercracker asked, "How'd you two get around the café so fast?"

He could hear the other mech's conceited smirk as he returned fire. "V-12 engines, baby!"

Thundercracker whistled appreciatively through his vents. "Pretty impressive specs, Autobot, but do you have the endurance to match your speed?"

The Lamborghinis' laughter rang out through the empty café. Even Skywarp cracked a smile. "I'm sorry, did you want a demonstration?" Sideswipe teased, shooting through a different angle.

Skywarp noticed the purple glow of the Autobot's laser beam, and realized they had taken the other Seekers' weapons, but strangely he was too euphoric to care. "Too easy, Sideswipe!" he shouted back, not breaking his concentration on the console. "You've got no chance against our twin F100 turbofans. What kind of satisfaction are we going to get out of that?" Thundercracker laughed as he now shot with both guns over the display, but Sideswipe pulled his leg back in time.

Skywarp motioned Thundercracker to come closer. "Relay the communication on an infrasonic frequency," he whispered, "I can at least clear the airwaves that far without being detected." He raised one ocular ridge at his wingmate. "Enjoying yourself?"

"Am I?" Thundercracker retorted lightly, kneeling up again to shoot at a momentarily exposed headfin. "What's that smile doing on your faceplate, then?"

"Just call the Cassetticons already," Skywarp said, trying to force his lips down.

This sobered up Thundercracker. "Why not the Combaticons?"

"Because I can't clear you long enough to get around that blasted switchboard at headquarters. Hurry!"

Thundercracker dialed hastily on the communicator, not bothering to leave anything longer than an SOS. "Okay, I'm done."

"Good." Skywarp typed one last line of code into the console before stowing it away under the register. "Here, hold these," he said, quickly tossing a handful of cluster bombs and ray grenades at Thundercracker, who nearly dropped them in surprise. A thought suddenly occurred to him, and he grabbed one ray grenade from Thundercracker's fumbling hands and tossed it over the display. It exploded against the Lamborghinis' table instantly. "I'll cover you, okay?"

Thundercracker opened his mouth to ask what he was doing, but found out soon enough as Skywarp grabbed his free arm and abruptly teleported them both to where Ramjet lay prone by a bay window. "Damage report, Thundercracker," Skywarp said briskly, shooting both guns from under a table on the now exposed Lamborghinis, who shouted curses as they scurried for new cover.

Thundercracker was still dazed from the teleportation and the sudden use of his full designation, but he kept his hands steady as he opened the control panel on Ramjet's chest. "Ramjet's still functional, but all his vocal and motor circuits have been ripped out." He shook his head. "With the proper tools, I could render him slightly serviceable, but right now there's nothing I can do."

Skywarp sighed out of his vents as he leaned back against a table leg, cooling down his guns. "We'll just have to carry him out of here, then." He fidgeted uncomfortably. "Hey," he said suddenly, sounding uncharacteristically shy as he looked away. "Could you take my skirt off? I can't reach that far back in here. And I could take yours off, too."

Thundercracker was silent. Skywarp fidgeted again, trying to control the sudden rush of hot air from his afterburners. "Look, it's impeding my movements, okay, and it's not like we can always keep shooting on our knees." He looked back at Thundercracker, who was now wearing a small smile on his faceplate as he just looked at Skywarp, who looked away again. "Oh, shut up, are you going to do it or not?"

"I haven't even said anything yet," Thundercracker replied innocently. He moved closer and straddled Skywarp's legs as he reached around behind him, pretending to feel around his back for the latch that would release the curved sheet of metal. For once, he was glad for Megatron's weird fetishes.

"Um. Cracker," Skywarp's whispered shakily beside Thundercracker's audio receptor. "That's not my skirt."

Thundercracker snickered as he ran his fingers along the wires underneath Skywarp's empennage. "Consider this a personal favor from me, Skywarp," he whispered back, letting their helmets bump softly.

Skywarp arched suddenly when he felt Thundercracker strumming a cable than ran through his left pylon, his optics glowing feverishly bright. He clasped his arms tightly behind Thundercracker's wings and bit back a whimper. "And what are you going to do?" he asked, trying to keep his voice steady. "Make me overload while the Autobots blast us to scraps?"

"You have the strangest ideas about interfacing, you know that?" Thundercracker's voice was heady as Skywarp alternately gripped and stroked his wings, unmindful of the laser beams flying overhead. "But you're right, there are a couple things we need to take care of first." Skywarp heard the short click of his skirt being undone. Fumbling, he did the same to Thundercracker's skirt, the metal clanging on the floor. Thundercracker pulled Skywarp close, pressing their cockpits together, and fired at the Lamborghinis without breaking his gaze on Skywarp, who suddenly caught Thundercracker's lips in a crushing kiss while he blasted his own lasers carelessly over his shoulder.

Just as Skywarp thought he was going to lose control on his processor, Thundercracker slowly broke the kiss. "You're really getting off on this, aren't you." he said, smiling at Skywarp's glassy optics. He pulled away and grabbed Ramjet behind him. "What are you waiting for, Skywarp? Get us out of here already!"

Skywarp shook himself out of his stupor, his spark still burning almost painfully inside his chest cavity. He reached for Thundercracker's hand and teleported them to Thrust's location, where Thundercracker quickly assessed that he sustained the same damage as Ramjet. Skywarp surprised the Autobots by shooting at their exposed backs, and teleported again to Dirge as they retaliated into thin air. He set Thrust on the floor beside Dirge's inert body near the entrance's broken doors, and Thundercracker did the same with Ramjet. He gave Dirge's panel a look-over and shook his head.

"They're all in the same state. It looks like they were offlined first by some kind of foam, look." He motioned to Dirge's faceplate, the lower half smeared with a thick pale substance.

"It's icing from the cake," Skywarp said, wrinkling his faceplate. "Trust those slagpits to use all of our own weapons against us."

An engine roared from the street outside, followed by loud, insistent honking. Thundercracker shot at the Lamborghinis, who suddenly popped into view, blue optics glittering, to see where the noises came from, but they ducked immediately. "That's Rumble and Frenzy! Let's go grab Sunstorm and get out of here!"

"I don't have that much power left to teleport more than one mech with me," Skywarp said. Thundercracker suddenly noticed that his vents were expelling air too fast. "You'll have to run out ahead of me and bring Ramjet and the others outside, while I get Sunstorm myself. Give me the bombs, they should cause enough of a distraction to cover me."

Two more laser beams fizzed over them, but Thundercracker just stared incredulously at Skywarp. "Have your processors fried? Sunstorm's too close to them and you're too low on energy to defend yourselves against two fully functional Autobots!"

Skywarp shook his head, and smiled tiredly. "I can manage one last burst of energy, Cracker," he tried to say reassuringly. He took the bombs from Thundercracker and turned around, but a hand shot out and gripped his shoulder tightly, almost denting the metal plating.

"Don't you dare terminate on me, you piece of slag," Thundercracker growled, his optics glowing fiercely. Skywarp winked as he gently pulled away, and blipped out of sight.

Thundercracker's face was drawn as he half-crawled out of the café's entrance, bearing Dirge and Thrust over each shoulder and dragging Ramjet beside him. Hazily he saw that the area had already been cleared of the few curious passers-by that gathered on their private street. Just as he almost collapsed on the sidewalk under the weight of the three mechs, Rumble and Frenzy ran to his side and took Dirge's body from his shaking arms. He set down the other two bodies slowly.

"Thanks," he wheezed. He stood up and looked at the shadowy truck the Cassetticons had jumped out of. "Taking the day off, Motormaster?" A quiet laugh issued from the truck's grills.

"Strictly speaking, he's not supposed to be here," Rumble said, dragging Dirge's body, "but we thought you needed some heavy-duty transportation."

"Where's Astrotrain?"

Frenzy laughed, straining as he and Rumble each hauled Thrust and Ramjet into Motormaster's trailer. "He's off chaperoning Starscream somewhere. Megatron's orders." He leaned heavily against the compartment door, winded. "Aren't you coming in yet?"

They heard a succession of ground-shaking blasts from the café. Thundercracker gripped a window sill to keep himself from keeling over in a faint. "No, not yet, Skywarp and Sunstorm are still—"

Two figures suddenly materialized beside him. Skywarp fell to his hands and knees, turbines whirring wildly, letting Sunstorm roll off his sagging fuselage. He looked up at Thundercracker and held one thumb up, grinning crookedly. "Made it back… blasted those… slagging…" He coughed up a little energon on the sidewalk. "… Sunstorm, he… he's still online…"

It took all of Thundercracker's self-control to keep himself from tearing Skywarp to pieces for making him so worried. Frenzy and Rumble rushed to the golden Seeker, whose dim optics were flickering erratically. He tried to speak. "S-sky… warp… wait, I… I can s-still… I-I can fight…"

Skywarp nodded weakly to the Cassetticons, who immediately loaded Sunstorm into Motormaster and jumped in after him. "Get your afts in here, you two!" Rumble shouted, ready to shut the door.

"Hold on!" Thundercracker swung Skywarp's right arm over his shoulder and hoisted him up by his waist, but he got no further than one step when a wall of bright violet light erupted right in front of him. His initial shock melted away into a heavy, numbing dread. On the other side, Frenzy was shouting something about an energon barrier activating while Rumble seemed to be shooting at a thick metal post on one end of the sidewalk, to no avail.

"You all go on ahead!" Thundercracker shouted, suddenly realizing that they had committed a major tactical error. "Get them to Bombshell's lab, he'll know what to do!"

He made out the vague outline of Rumble waving madly through the barrier. "But what about—"

Skywarp's optics had gone dark, but he shouted back hoarsely, "We can handle these creatorless bastards! JUST GO!"

Motormaster's tires screeched against the road as he sped away. Thundercracker felt Skywarp go limp, falling instantly offline. He picked up his wingmate's unconscious body in his arms and turned to face the gaping entrance, where the twins were each slumped against a door frame.

"I wondered what would happen if I ripped this out," Sideswipe said, weakly holding up the console Skywarp had used earlier, its torn wiring still sparking faintly. Thundercracker noticed with savage glee that the Lamborghinis looked as mutilated and exhausted as they were, their once-dapper black suits now ripped and hanging in tatters.

"A barrage of bombs later, and you glitches are still functioning?" he rasped. He locked in his knees, ignoring his preservation system's commands to make them give way. He looked at the twins balefully. "Are there any more modifications—" he spat the word— "that I should be aware of?"

Sunstreaker pulled a pained smirk through the soot smudged on his cheeks. "There's always my dashing good looks."

Thundercracker coughed a fitful laugh at the absurdity of the situation as his knees finally buckled, losing the strength to remain upright. He carefully set Skywarp down and watched the world tilt precariously around him with disinterest. Sunstreaker suddenly rushed to his side and caught him before he hit the ground, but Thundercracker feebly tried to push him away. "I don't need your slagging help, Autobot," he slurred as he fought off the intense desire to recharge.

The last thing Thundercracker saw was Sideswipe standing over his twin, their expressions unreadable against the harsh glare of the energon barrier. "I wish I could say I wasn't going to," he heard Sunstreaker say regretfully before he shut down completely.