Disclaimer: Hasbro and Cartoon Network own Transformers Animated, everyone owns anything else recognizable. Except the story; that's mine.
Chapter 2: Traffic Jam
Macbeth leaned back in the limo's driver seat, staring at the grey ceiling of the limo. He looked up when he heard feet approaching the luxury vehicle and saw his latest customer, yet another in-town, over-pampered, over-paid fashion model, approach. He quickly exited the limo and opened up one of the rear doors for the Spanish beauty to toss her shopping bags in and enter. She flicked her short black hair out of her eyes before slipping one long shapely leg into the limo and followed it up with the other. Macbeth assumed that she was imagining some dorky kid staring at her with holy music ringing in the background. Once she was in side, Macbeth shut the door gently behind her and got back into his driver's seat.
"Where to, ma'am?" Macbeth inquired automatically.
"The fashion studio, 1347 Star Lane," the woman replied, pulling an undergarment from one of the many bags sharing the back seat with her and rummaging under her white fur coat. Macbeth respectively kept his eyes fixed on the road as the model made yet another unnecessary between-locations outfit change. Honestly, Macbeth could understand that she was a model, but did she really need to change every time she got into the limo?
A little while later, traffic came to a stand still on the main road, locking Macbeth in among several other cars.
"What is the meaning of this?" the model demanded, "Keep driving!"
"Traffic appears to have stopped, ma'am," Macbeth replied, his apologetic tone coming out as tired and annoyed, "I'll see what I can do."
"You better, or my time wasted comes out of your pay!" the model snapped.
She slammed the screen between her and Macbeth shut and Macbeth sighed in annoyance. Spotting another limo from the same company as him locked in traffic further up the street he took the company cell phone from its place in the glove box apartment. Macbeth dialed in the number he could see stickered over the rear right tire. He spotted a series of nicks in the rear bumper and remembered that the limo belonged to a driver called Jimmy; he and Macbeth had been teamed up a couple of times on certain guard-and-drive assignments with large celebrities and Jimmy just never seemed to buff out his bumper scratches.
"Hey, Jimmy," Macbeth greeted when his call was answered. "It's Macbeth; I'm locked in traffic behind you. What's going on up there?"
"What else?" Jimmy replied, his Brooklyn accent coming in clear over the air waves, "Damn robots. Looks like the Autobot fellahs got into a scuffle with a living soda truck or something; you on a job?"
"With one very impatient, change-loving Spanish model," Macbeth replied with a tired sigh.
"Cool; try getting her phone number. We're gonna be here a while…"
The Autobots: Who didn't know about them in Detroit, or the world, for that matter? Ever since they had shown up around two or three years ago, life had been difficult for a motorist as the giant alien Transformers always seemed to be fighting their foes, the Decepticons, or some other monster. They had been shown on TV enough for Macbeth to connect names with faces and know a hint of personality.
First, there was Optimus Prime: the Autobot leader on Earth and one's poster boy of heroism.
Next: Bulkhead, the over-sized muscle head of the team who had dabbled in the arts world, revealing that he was a sensitive sort of guy with the giant's common capability for carnage.
Ratchet: The perfect cranky, rude-guy-next-door, and medic of the team.
Bumblebee: The youngest and most irresponsible member, who had even tried some boxing for charity once and Jazz: The only mech with any real status with in the Transformer military and, apparently, a ninja.
Finally, there was Sari Sumdac, daughter of Dr. Sumdac of Sumdac Productions and who, rumor had it, appeared to be more than human. This was more believed when the eleven year old suddenly turned into a teenager. Dr. Sumdac was very protective of her, though, and made sure that the media was as far away from her as the Transformers' home planet, Cybertron, was from Earth.
There had been one more: A stiff, British guy called Prowl, but he died. He had something going on with nature, Macbeth remembered that much. It's surprisingly easy to forget celebrities when they weren't around any more.
From what Macbeth had gleaned from the news reports, the Transformers were a race of super advanced, intelligent alien robots from a planet called Cybertron that had been in a civil war in which most of the robots fighting in it had been around longer than the Earth had been made. The good guy Autobots, defenders of the universe and Earth, were on one side and the bad guy Decepticons, who sought only domination and destruction, were on the other.
A few months ago, the Decepticons' leader, Megatron, had been defeated and captured by Optimus Prime and was now in some jail somewhere on Cybertron, turning the aforementioned Autobot team from zero-to-hero status. Now the same Autobot team hung out on Earth as a sign of good faith and further protecting Detroit from any monsters spawned by the rampant All Spark energy that had been scattered all over the place when the All Spark, the source of Transformer life, had been destroyed in a previous duel with Megatron.
But sometimes (like now), Macbeth wished that the Transformers would take their "good faith" home and let the human military take a shot at the monsters. At least then, half the city wouldn't be trashed taking out a bad guy while the humans were forced to wait in dead lock for the roads to open up again.
The slide behind Macbeth slammed open.
"What's taking so long?" the model snapped.
Macbeth took a deep breath, resisting the urge to snap the woman's neck with a swift karate chop, and prepared for a very long, annoying three hours…
- - - -
The Detroit Police Headquarters was bustling about in its usual way, moving criminals and victims alike in and out of the numerous interrogation rooms and holding cells, filling in and filing away paper work, or just generally shooting the breeze with fellow police men over cups of coffee. Charles was at his desk, doing his fair share of the paper work, when the main entrance door was suddenly kicked open, letting in three police men laden down with large crates. They were led by a mountain of a man with balding blond hair and a mustache. His light blue work shirt was already stained under the arms from the work, but he carried more crates than the other police men.
"Alright, boys and girls," he yelled out, "Everybody line up and get ready to pick out your new toys; Christmas came early this year!"
There were excited mummers as several people cleared away their desks to make room for the crates and people gathered around eagerly. Even Charles put down his pen to come and look.
Once in a great while, Captain Fanzone, the aforementioned mountain of a man, dropped his harsh, violent, hard-guy façade to get all his police men, his unofficial brothers and family members, new gear to work with. It was his way of saying "good job" to all his men and it was one of the things that made him bearable to work with. That, and ever since the Transformers had appeared, the government opened its wallet more for Detroit's police department; better than sending in official military forces and causing a panic.
Charles patiently waited until the crates were cleared enough to let him into them. People came away with new Billy clubs, tasers, shields, masks, helmets, gloves, boots, and all sorts of other gear. He even spotted a chainsaw among them, but quickly pretended not to see it in order to avoid imagining scenarios in which a chainsaw would be necessary. When the crates were clear enough so that he wouldn't have to shove to get to them, he walked up to one.
Three flash grenades, four new pads of report sheets, many pens and pencils, a pair of gloves with removable finger tips, and night vision goggles; nothing Charles didn't have already. He was about to leave it when he spotted something glittering under the gloves and goggles…
Moving the items away, Charles blinked in surprise at what he found. The officers on either side of him also blinked in surprise as Charles drew the new item out.
"Throwing stars?" Charles asked.
"Wow," the man to Charles' right laughed, "Are we going ninja or something, Fanzone?"
"Eh, I was in a rush so I just kinda took what was given to me and ran," Fanzone said, shrugging helplessly.
There were eight, circular, silver throwing stars sheathed in a black leather belt, positioned in a way that they could be drawn from any number of angles. Charles pulled a small tab at one end and the tab pulled out into a longer belt; he could strap the belt across his chest if he wanted to. He drew one of the stars and turned it around in his hand. It was light, sharp, and reflected Charles' warped, fuzzy image back at him.
"Amazing," Charles muttered.
"Hey, Charlie," one of police men asked, "Do you even know how to use that thing?"
Charles thought about admitting that no, he couldn't, and just putting the stars back and taking the night vision goggles instead. But, before he even knew what he was doing, he flicked the star in a better position in his hand and flung it forward, as if he would a Frisbee. People ducked and dodged the small streak of silver as it flew past, snipping off the tip of a thug's Mohawk as he waited, handcuffed to a bench, and pinning itself into the forehead of a picture of Fanzone.
People applauded Charles' skills or laughed at the indignant look Fanzone got from where the star had landed. Charles smiled nervously, nodding to everyone's compliments as he went over to retrieve the star. How had he done that? Well, truth to tell, he had played a lot of Frisbee in the police academy; using a ninja throwing star wasn't all that different. He thought….
He sheathed the star back in its proper place and tied the belt around his waist.
"Alright, everyone," Fanzone shouted, clipboard in hand. "Show's over. Everyone come over here and tell me who got what for the paper work. If you want to switch or put something back, do it now or else suffer what ever rank or position change you'll get from your new upgrades."
It's not the mods, but the mech who controls them that counts…
No one saw Charles scowl in confusion.
What, he wondered, the hell was that about?
While the police men registered in their new gifts, Toby entered at the side of a tall, average-looking man in an over coat; Detective Josh Owl. Toby was talking a mile a minute.
"…There for, under Chapter 26, section C2, Paragraph 4, line 67," Toby was saying, "We can nail all three of them for theft, trespassing, animal cruelty, and laundering of charity money. And if we manage to get them locked up by this Labor Day, we can receive their full bounties and bonuses from the justice department!"
"I have no idea what you just said, but it sounds good," Detective Owl replied. "Did you have coffee today?"
"No."
"Then why the hell are you talking so fast?"
Toby stopped short, blinking in surprise, and scratched his head as he looked at the floor oddly.
"I don't know," he said in a regular-paced voice, "I just… seem to be doing that a lot lately."
"Since when?"
"Oh, about a month now. My ex left me because I couldn't stop talking fast. Communication issues and all; it was my fault."
"Well, just think before you speak and you'll do fine."
The two began walking again, but Toby accidentally ran face-first into a taller police man. His light brown eyes widened in surprise at seeing the throwing stars strapped to his chest.
"Holy--!" he exclaimed, "Is this a police force or the GI Joe squad!?"
"Just Christmas day at the police station," the police man chuckled before leaving the station.
- - - -
Mean while, Rick Biggens woke up in a trash pile in an alley way somewhere in Down Town Detroit: the slums that separated the decent Up Town from the ruined Old Detroit. He looked around at the abandoned street, already sensing de ja vu about the situation; he had been in it many times before. Like all the other times he had woken up in an alley's trash pile, he closed his eyes, placed a hand to his aching head, and asked himself the age-old question.
"What happened last night?" he groaned.
His memory started just like it usually did with this question: With him in a bad mood and gulping down beer in an attempt to dissolve the hard rock in his stomach. A woman approached him, he blew her off, and she stomped away in a huff. Like usual. Some poor sap in a mid-life crises came in, sobbed on his shoulder until he was drunk, and was escorted out. Like usual. Some crappy jazz or rock band came on, and the beer finally kicked in, making him flirt with someone younger than him through a haze of alcohol before she blew him off. Like usual. Finally, closing time came around and out side of the bar in the parking lot, he was approached by some thugs he had forgotten he had pissed off and he fought them.
Like usual.
That explained the bruises, that explained the hangover, that explained his life; an endless cycle of screwing people over for money, getting drunk, fighting, and waking up bruised and bloodied in a trash pile, though whether he fell in it or was flung into it was interchangeable. It was almost disappointing.
Sighing, Rick hauled himself to his feet. He mentally ran through his default plan of hobbling back to his apartment for coffee, shower, and a nap before finding out who he could hire himself out to that day as a hit man, a body guard, a get away driver, an anything. Along the way, he would probably question why he didn't finish high school, only to remember that he could never take orders, even from his teachers and—
A wave of dizziness swept over Rick and blew off his train of thought, making him fall against the rough brick wall with a small cry of pain as he clutched his head with both hands and a fresh flood of memories swept into his head.
- - - -
There had been four of them; beefy, hairy, and dressed in winter coats in spite of the warm spring weather. The parking lot had quickly emptied of the other bar tenders once they were turned out, but Rick had found himself surrounded by these guys with no one to help him. It was hard enough to see in the dim lighting of the sole street lamp in the parking lot sober, let alone drunk. Words had been exchanged while Rick reeled on drunken feet, completely aware of what was about to happen and ready for it. Then the men had attacked and Rick had fought, already knowing that it would be difficult for his unsteady fists to hit anything properly.
But then, strangely, a hot fire suddenly filled Rick's limbs, unlike adrenaline or fear or anger. The fire burned his hands, making him want to cuss in pain, but his throat clamped up, making him mute. Suddenly, his fists struck out on their own accord, slamming into one of the attackers' face twice and instantly knocking him out. The remaining three men had gawped in shock at the sudden turn of skill. But suddenly, Rick was annoyed and angry at these disgusting men's defiance.
Spinning around, he had punched a second man in the head before spinning around one more time, bringing a foot up, and kicking him in the face. The other men snapped into action and charged him. Easily he had placed his hands on top of their heads as they came and launched him self over them, doing a front flip and forcing them to overbalance and fall, face-first, onto the pavement. He had crouched then stood even as the three men regained their composure and struck. He ducked and weaved the punches and grabs, only to come up and punch one of the men right under the chin. His teeth had clacked together painfully before he had been flung back and went sprawling across the pavement.
"Two down, two to go," Rick had snickered in a voice completely not his own.
The remaining two aggressors charged and Rick had easily ducked between them, under their swinging arms.
"Oh, this is just too easy," the strange voice had snickered again.
The two attackers turned ready to get at Rick one more time. But Rick would have none of it and proved it by back flipping high up into the air. The two attackers froze, dropping their jaws at how high Rick went—was it even humanely possible!?—Before he landed with a loud thump on top of one of the men, slamming his head into the pavement while he landed on their back. The final man, seeing his comrade fall and the inhumane abilities of Rick, had cried out and turned to run. Now the memory blurred, and when it came back Rick had the man trapped in a head lock in an alley way.
"What makes you think that you could fight me!?" the strange voice in Rick's mouth snarled, "What makes you think that you could just pick on me?"
"I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" the man yelled, tears streaming from his eyes. "We won't bother you no more, please, spare me!"
"Aww, you're begging," the strange voice had cooed. "I would let you go, but I'm in a bad mood…"
The man had screamed and gone limp in a faint. The strange voice had dropped the prone form and cackled, echoing its vile, cruel sound into the empty alley ways of the slum town and sounding like some maniac in a ghost story.
- - - -
Rick yanked himself out of the flash back with a loud gasp, dropping to his knees on the dirty pavement.
"That—that couldn't have been me," he panted, "I only fight! I don't go chasing fights and scaring the living jack out of people! What—what—what happened last night??"
He jumped when his cell phone rang, drawing him back to reality. Quickly, he drew the phone out of his pocket and answered.
"Yeah?" he panted, "Who-who is this?"
"Ricky, my man, how's it been going?"
It was Phineus; Rick's closest friend in the streets and unofficial manager. Phineus usually scored jobs for him and Rick. People suspected him of being a druggie or at least crazy because of his personality and energy, but Ricky could vouch against that accusation, having never seen Phineus doing anything so idiotic.
"It's been going… fine," Ricky said hesitantly. "What's up?"
"You're what's up, Rick!" was the heart-stopping response. "Everyone's talking about your bout with the Canadian guys last night! Wham, bam, pow, wow! You really did all that?"
"Uh… did all what?" Rick asked.
"Haha, love the sense of humor, big guy. Listen, because of the nice show you put up last night, I got guys from as far as Up Town Detroit asking for our, eh heh, 'services'."
What am I supposed to say to that? Rick wondered, That I lost my mind last night and did some jacked up stuff that I would never do sober and sane?
But something in him gave him a literal mental kick, making him sit up in surprise while his mouth spat out the first thing he could think of.
"Great, who are we doing what for first?" he asked.
It made little sense, but Phineus chuckled on the other end of the line and replied, "Meet me out side of the oil refinery tonight at seven. We're gonna be body bouncers at some high and mighty guys' rather low poker game. And get some rest; we're gonna have a long night ahead of us."
The line went dead and after a moment, Rick closed his cell phone and slowly pulled himself to his feet. He looked around, as if to make sure no one was actually there and had kicked him. Rick exited the alley way and the late morning sun instantly attacked his eyes, reminding him of his hangover. A sharp pain like a stabbing finger nail pressed itself into the center of Rick's forehead and he groaned, closing his eyes as he rubbed the spot.
"Screw this," he muttered, walking down the street, "I'm way to hung over to make sense of anything…"
- - - -
It wasn't hard for Blitzwing to find Shockwave; while the dampener the Decepticon spy carried may keep him out of detection of Autobots, the same was not said for Decepticon scanners. Blitzwing had only to hope that the signal dampener he had stolen from the Autobots would keep him shielded, and it had. Now he zoned in on Shockwave's signal, flying down to the crashed Decepticon spaceship on the dark side of the Earth's moon. The purple and tan jet flew down to a large gapping hole in the ship and transformed, landing easily on the dust-strewn floor with in. His Random side came out.
"Shocky, I'm hooooome!" he called.
A lone red optic glowed into life in the shadows and out of it strode a tall, broad-shouldered, slim dark purple mech with bug-like antennae and claws for hands.
"Greetings, Blitzwing," the other mech greeted. "I trust that you have a good reason to show your face around here after escaping your prison, but leaving our glorious leader, Megatron, to rot in jail?"
The over-energetic Blitzwing turned into his calm personality.
"Yes," he replied, and proceeded to tell Shockwave about the failed escape plane.
"Unbelievably," Shockwave replied, "It appears that the Autobots are getting smarter."
"But not by too much!" Blitzwing's energetic side exclaimed, "After all, you're good, but not good enough to be hidden in the enemy ranks for eons unless the Autobots are complete idiots--!"
"That's my point, Blitzwing," Shockwave sighed tiredly.
He turned away and walked over to a computer, whacking it once with one of his large claws to get it started, then began to type on it.
"I holed my self up here awaiting for such orders to come when Lord Megatron was captured," Shockwave said. "Already there are many Decepticons just waiting for the calling beacon to be sounded out. The hardest part will be the creation of a means of getting Megatron out of that cursed Stockades place…"
"We will figure something out," Blitzwing's calmest side promised. "The fate of the Decepticon destiny is in the balance."
"And the life of our glorious leader," Shockwave agreed, pulling a microphone to himself. Into it, he called, "Attention all Decepticons, this is Shockwave, intelligence officer of the Decepticons: If you are receiving this message, I have some news for you.
"Our glorious leader, Lord Megatron, has not been privately executed, as rumors would lead you to believe. He is alive, but we must all come together and act as one to plan and act upon an operation to free Lord Megatron from his prison. If you still wear the Decepticon symbol proudly, then come to me! Come to the source of this call that way we may band as one to spring our glorious leader from prison and take vengeance on the Autobots and they who jailed him!"
All across the universe Decepticons heard. They awoke from naps in their star ships, they looked up from where they were digging up oil and energon on abandoned planets, they turned away from their shared gambling games, stepped away from the shadows they were slinking in, and briefly scanned the air waves, pin pointing where the private message was coming from. Upon detecting it, they came. They turned into their alt-forms and sped across abandoned landscapes to their starships. They activated their starships and rushed to Shockwave's location, or turned into their avian modes and came on the flying Transformers' version of foot to answer the call. They had nothing else to live for, and had no one else to serve but their glorious Lord Megatron.
That, and they wanted some action.