A/N: Here we start our story in a very different place, the grammar and some of the spell in the prologue didn't come out quite as I'd expected it, but hay, it's a good enough starting point, I've been kind of feeling on a poetic high lately so I might upload some more captures very soon, anyway, on with the story!
Disclaimer: I don't own (I wish!) Transformers or Ghost in the Shell, just my OC's and the plot.
SPARK IN THE SHELL
CHAPTER 1: WEBCAM CHAT
The summer heat hung like hazy smoke in the air as the sun's rays beat down relentlessly on the suburbs of Tranquillity. In a quiet street on the outskirts of the city the locals were taking advantage of the sweltering temperature, the sounds of barbeque parties drifted over the hedgerows and fences. Kids played with water guns and garden hoses in the front yards and in one particular driveway, a certain yellow Camaro, the young Autobot Bumblebee, was being cooled off with nice cold water by a young and beautiful girl by the name of Mikaela Banes.
"Feel better Bee?" she asked smiling at her reflection on his hood.
"Much better thanks, this heat is pretty unbearable" the car replied via one the sound speakers.
"I know, but at least its cooler here then back on the base"
"That's for sure"
One of the bedroom windows opened up and Samuel Witwicky leaned out.
"Hay guys! The webcams set up and Deathshot's already online!" he called down.
"Okay, I'll be right up!" Mikaela replied.
"I'll be listening in!" Bumblebee called after her as she ran into the house, up the stairs and into Sam's room. In the corner by the window a computer sat on a desk with Sam grinning as the image of another Autobot, appearing as a silhouette in a large hanger-like room filling up the screen.
"Hello Sam, Mikaela, its good to see you both again" The strange Autobot said in a deep, basso voice.
"Its great to see you again Deathshot, is Morri there?" Mikaela asked as she slid onto Sam's lap.
"Yeah, I'm down here!" a female voice echoed.
On the screen, a figure seemed to climb up the giant shadowed Autobots side and then jumped onto the enormous desk in front and into the light of a nearby lamp. There stood a young girl with brunet hair and dark brown eyes; she wore a simple white hoodie and dark jeans. This was Morwenna Heartly Briggs, a simple art student who lived in the south west of England with her cousins Tom, Danny and Ashley, and an autobot sniper named Deathshot.
Sam and the autobots had discovered Deathshot had been living in England for nearly two years, arriving on Earth shortly after the battle in Mission city. However, as he entered earth's atmosphere the north poles magnetic field threw his telemetry off and he landed in England by accident, plus the violent entry damaged his communication systems so there was no way for him to call the autobots for help.
Not long after, Morri and her cousins discovered him in a meadow not far from their village, after they got over the initial shock of seeing a 30ft alien robot, he introduced himself and explained who and what he was and vice versa for the children, soon after they helped him find shelter in an abandoned airfield hanger.
For the past two years the autobot sniper grew to be close friends with the children, especially Morri, and last year, the Autobots and the agents at NEST located the lost autobot after 13 months of searching. Optimas Prime, Bumblebee, Sam and Mikaela and Major Lennox and his team flew over to England to retrieve Deathshot and bring him back to the secret base. To their surprise he declined the offer to return to America, saying he enjoyed his life in England with the 4 cousins and requested to stay and become their guardian. Prime said yes, and the children made a pact that they would come over to America the following summer to see the other Autobots and their new base. Since then, they had constantly been in touch via e-mail and webcam.
"Hay guys! Great to see you again! Your both looking good, you both looking forward to tomorrow?" Morri asked in a broad English accent.
"Yeah! The guys on the base have been looking forward to your trip for weeks!" Bumblebee replied enthusiastically.
"Is that Bumblebee? Hi there! It's nice to hear your voice at last, sounds like Ratchet did a fine job on your vocalizer" she said.
"He certainly did, the whole base has been talking about you Deathshot, everyone's eager to meet the autobot army's most elusive sniper, and I think Ironhide's especially keen to see your skills on the training field"
"Is he? Well he won't be disappointed, I do intent to have a little fun and get a chance to really stretch my wings, if you'll excuse the pun" Deathshot replied.
"I can't believe we only met last autumn, where doe's all the time go?" Morri added on.
"I know the feeling, I thought the college semester would never end" Sam replied
"Well we'll all be together this summer, and we've come with a whole bunch of ideas for things to do while your here in California" Mikaela said.
"That'd be great, the boys have been bored out of their minds the last few weeks, so I don't think we'll be bored to tears at any time on this trip, oh and that reminds me, will Darren and Hailey and her sisters be dropping in to say hi?" Morri asked.
"They won't be just dropping in, they'll be staying on the base for the summer break too, as soon as they heard you guys were coming, they decided to join in the fun"
"Miles and Glen too?"
Of course, and even Frenzy, Scorponok and Ravage want to see you" Sam said
"Frenzy and the drones? How are they doing? You said in your last e-mail Red Alert had been pretty hard on them" Morri asked.
"It's been a tough year overall but I think they've really gotten use to being Autobots since they defected, especially since they discovered a new calling in life" Sam said.
"And what's that?" Deathshot asked
"Playing the twins at their own pranks and annoying the slag out of Jetfire and Ironhide to no end, among other things, Prowls processor is near to off-lining with all the rule breaking, Red Alerts glitch has been taken to a whole new level of paranoia, Wheeljacks experiments have been blowing up more frequently and Ratchet's been a complete wrench wielding maniac" Bumblebee sniggered.
"So the former cons are..." Morri began with a grin.
"The Bases new pranksters? Yes" Mikaela replied smiling. Deathshot chuckled on the other end.
"Not that the twins have been happy, the prank wars have been going on for nearly 5 months now, so just a heads up in case anything happens while your over here" Sam said.
"Somehow I don't think that will be the main concern Sam, see, remember I told you guys Tom and Ashley are quiet the imformous pranksters of our village? Well after your last e-mail detailed Sideswipes prank on Ironhide involving the water balloons, rubber chickens and bumper stickers, they, in all their idiotic glory, are thinking of making this prank war a threesome and asked me to ask you if you could tell the drones and the twins that if whoever can pull of the most pranks in one week, will officially hold bragging rights for the rest of the summer, so if I were you, run for the hills while you still have chance" Morri said with a wide grin and a mischievous twinkle in her eye.
"In that case we'll tell Ratchet to stock up on sedatives ,sounds like this summer's going to be pretty crazy" Mikeala chuckled
"Indeed' I've been curious about the twins combat tactics, I want to see if their 'jet judo' is as deadly as they claim it to be" Deathshot said in a cool laidback tone.
"It's pretty good, but I know Bluestreak's really edger to met you, being a fellow sniper' an all he's looking forward to training with you, I know he eventually would like to try a sniper dual with you" Bumblebee said.
"Really? I like the sound of that, tell him I look forward to a good dual" Deathshot replied.
"We're all looking forward to meeting you all, We'll say cheerio for now because it's nearly midnight over here, We'll be leaving at 6:00am and the flight should take D..what, 4-5 hours tops?" Morri turned to Deathshot.
"About 5 hours maximum" he replied.
"So we should be arriving at the base' round about lunch time" Morri said.
"Awesome, we'll see you then, in the meantime we'll warn everyone, bye!" Sam smiled, Morri and Deathshot laughed as the screen went blank.
"So, what do you think?" Sam asked as he turned to face Mikaela. She smiled a devilish smile.
"I think we're really going to have some fun with them around" she replied.
"I agree, as you human say, the more the merrier" Bumblebee said, his internet up-link still online. Mikaela looked at her watch "I better go, dad's expecting me back at the shop". "Okay, I see you tomorrow beautiful" He smiled as he placed a kiss on her lips. "Okay, Bye" she whispered as she slowly drew her head away and walked out the door. Sam sat in wonderment at her, even after facing down Megatron and the Decepticon's she still remained by his side, she was truly amazing. Brave, smart, caring, while still stunningly beautiful.
He thought about how gifted she was as an Autobot medic, since Ratchet took her on as his trainee and she had really proven to be quiet skilled mechanic and nurse, this summer was to be her 3rd year at Autobot med school, as the other humans on the base called it.
Of course, Mikaela was not the only human who had proven they were helpful to the Autobots. Maggie Madison was now head systems analysist for NEST in Washington, with Glen as the team's main code-breaker and programmer, and surprisingly Frenzy worked alongside them both as the Autobots main informant on Decepticon electronic warfare.
It had not been easy for the hyperactive hacker to adjust to life among the Autobots, in the aftermath of the battle at Mission city his head and body were recovered from the Hoover dam base. Remarkably he was still alive and Ratchet reattached his head and made a full recovery. After being told the fate of the Allspark, Prime offered him a chance to switch sides and gave him some time to think about what to do, he thought better of it and eventually he agreed and defected.
The same went for Scorponok, three months later he was found on the boarder of Iran in a pretty bad way, exhausted, his tail blown off and his energy at a critically low level. He was flown over to the base, repaired and allowed to recuperate and then given sometime in the brig to think about where he stood now, Frenzy though was able to convince him to give the Auotbots a chance. So taking a chance he defected too, and found that life as an Autobot offered much more freedom then the Decepticons had allowed. He enjoyed teasing the twins, Sideswipe and Sunstreaker, digging burrows and horsing around with the human soldiers.
Ravage made planet-fall two more months after that. The impact from crashing into the earth severely damaged several of his CPU functions, when Ratchet and Mikaela patched him up they discovered in his memory banks he had been in a fight with Starscream not too long ago, and lost, badly.
He had barely gotten away when he jettisoned into outer space. After his recovery he was delighted be reunited with his brother Frenzy and made up his mind there and then to defect, much to everyone's surprise.
Sam also thought of how in the year following the end of the war, many more Autobots had found their way to earth.
Prowl and Bluestreak were the first, with Red Alert in tow.
Then Perceptor and Hound a few weeks after.
The twins Sideswipe and Suntreaker came third,
And the Ark arrived to earth, commanded by Ultra Magnas with Hot Rod, Cliffjumper, Trailbreaker, Wheeljack, Brawn and former Decepticon turned Autobot, Jetfire.
Life on the secret base had certainly gotten a lot more hectic since then.
And a lot more interesting.
He remembered the day Ratchet, Wheeljack and Perceptor managed to successfully resurrect Jazz using the remaining Allspark shard. That had been a really happy day for everyone.
And he was now looking forward to the summer and the promise of some good times ahead.
"Sam?" Bumblebee bought him out of his nostalgic line of thoughts.
"Hm? what?, oh right" he replied
He turned back to the computer screen and started e-mailing Miles.
"Hay Bee, after I'm done e-mailing everyone, How about we go out for a drive?" Sam asked.
"Sure, maybe we could swing by Miles place and see if he and Jazz wants to go for a race?" Bumblebee asked.
"Sounds like a plan" Sam replied
"Hay Sam..."
"Yeah?"
"I've got a good feeling about this summer"
Sam smiled in thought.
"I think your right Bee" he replied.
The webcam link disconnected and Sam spent the better part of the afternoon typing emails to all the other humans who knew and were friends with the Autobots. He felt good, excited even, and kept thinking about how the summer was going to play out.
The hot day passed by uneventfully, by early evening Sam and his guardian Bumblebee set off to Miles home for a bit of fun.
R&R please!
