Disclaimer: I don't own anything even vaguely related to Transformers. Except those DVDs I got on sale…
Thank you to everyone who reviewed, especially MissCHSparkles, I've been nosing around and have discovered even more inspiration from your works, and am eternally grateful for it. All the rest, I'm loving you too.
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We Are Women, Hear Us…:
"Elita, please, go to recharge. You're looking like the walking offlined and I don't think Theta will be able to look at you without crying for a while." Chromia did not beg. It wasn't in her nature and she wasn't going to do it now. This was simply a friendly piece of advice, with her favorite gun being polished as a prop.
Elita, however, was not taking the hint. She just continued to pace through the control room like a feral Terracon who'd had its territory ransacked. She looked worse, when she actually faced Chromia. The blue femme wondered absently how Optimus dealt with this behavior.
"I can't. Not until I figure out why those young, talented femmes rejected my very sought after offer of being in our squad, in favor of staying with Sentinel-Slagging-Prime."
Here we go again…
"I mean, I understand that Sentinel might have a spark in that roomy chassis and maybe that's why they stayed, but COME ON! He's basically a walking interface cable and they picked him… Maybe, I should call them up now? I know it's late, but when I asked them before, they were still sedated."
"The Earthling wasn't, and if I remember correctly, your offer was directed primarily at her," Chromia spoke, desperation to keep her friend away from the intercom as long as possible obviously visible in her demeanor.
"Yeah, but, I'm starting to think she hates me… Do you think she hates me?"
Great, now the rage had been replaced by a self-confidence problem that could only be fixed with encouragement. Another thing that Chromia sucked at, ugh…
"Elita, I think you're forgetting that the femme you're so eager to have join us, seems to find delight in hating everyone. It's not you, it's her."
The leader of all Autobot femmes still didn't look so sure.
Superstition:
"This isn't funny Billy!"
Still looking rather pleased with himself, the pumpkin mech laid smugly against the chair he occupied, watching his dearest and nearest jeep try and work around all the little bringers of supposed bad luck Billy had set up around the room. Open umbrellas hung on strings, little stuffed black cats were splayed here and there, salt piles were placed everywhere and the Honda motorcycle had found an impressive looking ladder right in the center of the door.
Fred, though he never cared to admit, was always very careful when it came to bad omens and signs, courtesy of his parents, and looked like he wanted to strangle Billy once he maneuvered his way around the giant ladder that, guess what, had thirteen steps!
Hello, Kitty:
Ravage couldn't believe what he was seeing. He'd been stationed on this planet for less than a week and he'd discovered a fairly attractive Cyberfeline like he was! True, this one was a little on the short side and its paintjob was probably useless when it came to stealth, but it was gorgeous.
Still staying very low to the ground, body completely shrouded by shadow, the Decepticat made his way to the rock this creature sunbathed on. He still wasn't sure if it was awake, but he didn't care, he wanted to talk to it. Perhaps it was single?
Pausing just long enough to check that he wouldn't be interrupted, Ravage stuck his paw out and tapped the yellow one on the head.
Startled, a pair of baby blue optics onlined and looked directly into the big metal panther's optics. Some of its yellow metal shifted uncomfortably, ready obviously, in case of an attack. Ravage was gonna either pummel the smaller feline or start courting him immediately, "Hello, little one."
Alright, now the yellow one looked really freaked out. What was with the alluring tone of voice?
"Hi, Ravage… Are you on something? You're acting really weird," The little one greeted, backing up the rock and away from the other rather quickly.
A sudden look of confusion and nausea swept over the darker feline's face. He knew that voice, that voice had caused him severe annoyance many, many times. It just didn't fit this picture.
"Do I know you?" Ravage growled, padding up and before the feline that was obviously a mech and was looking far too smug once the words left the panther's mouth.
The yellow one looked like he was soon to respond, mouth open and dentals showing, but was interrupted by an attractive voice just over the ridge from the rock both Cybercats occupied. A voice succeeded by two quick barks. Those barks sent Ravage on edge. He hated Cyberdogs almost as much as that red Mini-con forever following Starscream around.
"Bumblebee? You here?"
Disgust directed at himself from within, spread through him like a fatal acid, Ravage's optics widened in abject and absolute horror. Why, Primus, why? Out of all the evil, malevolent tricks the powers that be could have pulled on the loyal Decepticon, why did it have to be this?!
Turning back at the yellow one, Ravage was disappointed and quite surprised to see Bumblebee reverted back to his true form, grinning down at him with gleaming optics. How could Ravage have thought those blue orbs were even remotely attractive?
"Bee, what are you doing all the way out here? Sentinel has been looking all over for you,"
"Sorry about that Wasp. I was kinda… indisposed."
Body still facing Bumblebee and radiating obvious disdain and contempt, Ravage's head turned just enough to catch sight of a medium sized Cyberjackal heading down towards them, paintjob mostly a sort of green, contrasting with the landscape of red rocks and wispy white organic flora un-named by those in control of the planet. Oh, slag, he was bigger than Ravage… and those dentals looked lethal…
40 Days and Nights:
Walls were closing in on him, the lights were too bright and Hot Shot was wondering what was so wrong with Decepticons anyway. Wheeljack was engaged… The yellow Autobot with the already heavy conscience filled with grief and more guilt than any mech his age should ever hold was feeling rather empty at the moment. Like he was caught in the tide, being pulled out to sea to be condemned for all eternity to rust at the bottom of Earth's oceans in emotional agony.
Wheeljack was engaged… Maybe if Hot Shot had begged forgiveness a little harder, forged on without pause, he'd get another chance?...No, the gold and black mech had made up his mind, he wouldn't change it based on the pleadings of the Autobot who'd left him in that fire so long ago.
Wheeljack was engaged… Hot Shot didn't even know who the lucky femme was. Rumors were circling that she was formerly a Towers femme, very pretty, but with very little wit. How could Wheeljack want that? How could he even tolerate someone like that? Unless he was doing it out of some form of Decepticon duty, in which case, Hot Shot couldn't stop him even if he crashed the wedding, guns a blazin' at the last second. Nah, his old friend would probably still bond with the little glitch to spite him.
Completely still atop his berth, night covering Cybertron in darkness, save for the moon and stars, Hot Shot felt a little something in him snap like a broken circuit.
The yellow bot gave a short, empty bark of laughter, one arm covering his face as saline formed in his optics, "Wheeljack's engaged…"
Bath House:
Truthfully, Wasp wasn't sure if it was polite to stare or not. For the first time ever, Sentinel had brought his cadets on his yearly retreat to the most famous Autobot resort and here the mechs were, midsection deep in just the right temperature of water… without their armor. The sign out front said no armor, which literally meant they had to shed their coverings and bathe in the company of their sergeant and each other with just a layer of bubbles covering them.
Truth be told, the green mech found it very relaxing, but couldn't stop looking over at Bumblebee and every single one of the post humans. They were all just so… different, and weird. He'd been caught staring at Rad and those weird purple lines that marred a lot of his arms and chest. Actually, all the Earth mechs had those lines somewhere. Carlos had one that looked like an explosion below his right shoulder strut, looked like it had really hurt. Billy had two jagged pinkish lines running up his spinal column and Fred had one that looked suspiciously like the nozzle of a laser gun, circular and wide.
Bumblebee, and Wasp was somehow grateful for this, occasionally looked over to their comrades as well, averting his optics the moment one of the others almost caught the look on his faceplates. It wasn't pity that went out to the Earth cadets, more like silent reverence and awe at how much their new friends had gone through.
"Cadet Wasp, did you hear a word I've been saying?!"
Tripping on a loose stone under his left ped, Wasp found himself splashing faceplate first in to the warm water, subsequently dousing the others, including his fairly irritated sergeant.
Head resurfacing, the green mech looked over at Sentinel nervously, finding it difficult not to giggle at the handful of bubbles that had lodged onto his head, making him look like Mr. Clean on vacation.
"I'm sorry sir. I think there might have had water in my audios. You were saying?"
Tadpole:
"Where is she? She was supposed to fly right over that waterfall an hour ago," Demolisher grumbled from his position, crouched in the reeds in a rather pathetic attempt to blend into his surroundings, "Think she got caught?"
From above, circling between and through light green clouds that made the planet a rather pleasant sight, Thrust snorted, "If she was, we would have heard it over our comm. links. Do you think the honored "guards" would stay silent if they got their servos on an Autobot femme?"
"…No." The yellow tank admitted, sinking lower on his treads.
Before he could go back to moping, however, Thrust chose that moment to brighten his day in the last possible way he could have thought up, "Demolisher, you've got an energy signature heading your way at twelve o'clock low!"
That couldn't possibly be right. The only thing in front of Demolisher was the river and waterfall--
Before his optics, and before he could move out of the way, the river rose up before him in what could only be the biggest splash ever, and sprayed his entire body, every plate of armor and visible joint in water. Some little pieces of vegetation stuck to his face and his green optics rolled as he heard Thrust cackle in amusement at his expense. Out of the water, along with another wave of the accursed wetness, came Alexis in jet mode, three little figures waving from inside her cockpit as she docked on the shore, mud sticking to her underside. Ha! Demolisher wasn't the only one leaving there with a little something extra.
"You're late." The tank commented off-handedly, shaking himself of the extra droplets.
"Yes," Thrust added, coming in for a landing just near enough to the femme that she wouldn't be able to kick him when she transformed, "We had thought you'd forgotten all about us."
Alexis stayed silent in favor of her cockpit opening to let out the three restless Mini-cons who'd been stuck inside her for the past hour having to endure dodging Decepticon look-outs and her deep rolls underwater. Poor things were probably a little woozy and dented by now.
Blackout was the first to emerge and bounded excitedly over to Demolisher, beeping things at a million miles an hour. The tank couldn't understand anything other than that his partner missed him and was worried for his Bulk's safety. He then immediately leapt onto the tank's leg and just hugged him like he never wanted to let go.
Inferno followed soon after, albeit very slowly, swaying to-and-fro, his motherboard a little frazzled from the journey under the waves. Thrust picked him up in order to steady him, one dark digit rubbing the Mini-con's back like he actually cared. And he did care, just in installments.
Sureshock was the last to emerge, Alexis quickly transforming the moment the orange scooter touched ground, looking fairly pleased at finally getting off base and succeeding in this little escapade. Sureshock looked a little pleased as well, but for a whole other reason.
"Your Mini-cons were really worried about you two," said Alexis, allowing Sureshock to hop on her servo and scurry up to her shoulder strut, "What happened that you would leave them mid-battle?"
"Megatron ordered a retreat," Thrust answered, Inferno finally seeming to register he was on solid ground again and sort of clinging to the stealth jet, "We tried to go back, but these two were already unreachable by comm. link."
"We went back later," Demolisher added, "But these two were gone. Where did you find them?"
"Hiding inside one of our crashed medical ships, under a pile of medical equipment."
"Rather clever of them," The tactician complimented, pink optics flashing in approval of his Mini-con. Inferno would have blushed if he could.
Tell Me Sweet Little Lies:
Perhaps Optimus should have been a little nicer to Elita? He'd missed her since his mission to Earth and wanted very much to go back to the way things were, but as it turned out things were not that simple. Their personalities had changed, along with their opinions of each other. Their connection had dulled and was flickering, he could see it in her optics. He was sure she could see it in his as well.
That actually seemed worse than what he was currently doing.
"I suppose I should be thanking you about now, eh, Prime?"
"You could, but it's not really necessary."
At the very back of the cave Optimus had discovered an hour ago, sheltered from the acid rain and cold winds blowing outside, Megatron looked disbelievingly across the fire keeping them warm, at his arch nemesis. Say what now? He'd heard and seen Optimus be humble before, say a billion times, but never with a depressed, pathetic as Pit sound in his voice.
"You're seeming rather miserable these days, did I blow up anyone close to you lately?" The Decepticon warlord asked curiously, fiddling with the wires sparking at his right side to make him look like he wasn't all that interested in finding anything out about Prime's current moody attitude.
"I wouldn't be surprised if you did, but so far nobody I can think of," Optimus answered, poking a stick farther into the flames, burning himself and yet not feeling it. That really kind of freaked Megatron out.
"Well then," Here, Megatron threw on the fake caring voice, followed at break-neck speeds by anger covering his slight worry for the one and only Autobot he'd ever been remotely friendly towards, if only for a millisecond, "What's your slagging problem? You've been acting like this for weeks, even during battle and it's become extraordinarily bothersome. As your adopted younglings say, what's the deal?"
Optimus just kind of looked at him in utter shock for a few moments, only pulled out of his stunned, rigid pose by his pain receptors telling him the stick he was holding had reached his servo and the fire was making his metal skin uncomfortably warm. He then dropped the stick and flapped his crispy servo back and forth for a moment, thus causing Megatron to give a little chuckle.
Holding his servo to his chassis Optimus said the only thing he could think of at the moment, "I…I, um, am… sorry?" Like he said, the only thing he could think of.
Megatron slapped his palm to his face, chin balancing on it as he looked back up in frustration at the now injured Autobot commander, "I don't care if you're sorry. You're sorry about everything. It's your most functioning program. I want to know why you're acting like your bondmate has left you or something."
The mostly blue semi seemed to cringe at that comment and Megatron realized he'd hit the mark dead on and had somehow beaten it into the ground with just that one sentence. Suddenly the tank really didn't want to be in that cave anymore. Perhaps he could survive the acid rain if he ran the six hundred miles back to his current base camp?
Oh, Primus, don't start crying. Please don't start—Frag.
No longer looking at Megatron, Optimus actually brought his knees up to his chest and planted his face atop them. His arms then crossed over whatever was seen of his optics and a procession of muted sobs left his vocal processors. Primus, how pathetic was he right now, breaking down in front of his worst enemy like a youngling? If there was any justice he'd have been blown up before he'd ever thought this would happen.
Megatron didn't want to move. Inside he was actually having a little—oh, slag it—a big panic attack. What did he do? Why was Prime like this? Why did he have to open his trenchant mouth?!
Power:
"I don't suppose there's any advice you could give me for these cadets Optimus seems so fond of?"
Scavenger didn't look back over at Sentinel. He continued in his rather active workout, legs continually thrusting and jabbing through the air rather quickly, the dummy he was using, not shaped like a Decepticon like all the others, but rather like certain Autobots that got on his nerves. Sentinel actually flinched when he noticed the one Scavenger was laying into looked an awful lot like Mirage of the Towers.
The yellow and black bulldozer didn't look over to Sentinel, but did speak, "What advice would you like me to give? Be precise, I haven't got all day."
Sentinel would beg to differ, optics roving over the training room that had seen better days since the fighter had arrived, chunks of the walls were missing, littering the floor with rubble and two of the lights above their heads were flickering on and off every few minutes. Primus help whatever cleaning crew came in every so often.
"Well, sir," Sentinel said as respectfully as he was able, "They're all very… different from my previous and current recruits and I've found them holding back their abilities more often than not. Is there any way to curb that behavior?"
"Not really, no."
The sergeant could practically hear a circuit in his cranium come loose at that. Was every 'Bot that came in contact with those insubordinate crank-shafts insane? He'd have thought a veteran such as Scavenger would at least give him something. Drop him a fragging line, a hint, ANYTHING!
Just as he was to take his leave, the blue sergeant stilled as Scavenger spoke again, "However, I might make a suggestion that could keep them from driving you crazy, if you'd like."
"I would, like, yes! Er, sir."
For a simple moment Scavenger stopped beating the practice dummy and turned to Sentinel, looking rather amused at the mech he'd always considered such a stiff, "Try actually listening to them, get to understand them and you'll see they're actually very friendly. A sort of, you scratch their backs they'll scratch yours, type of deal."
"And this actually works?"
"Oh, we never had to try that, they actually like us. It could work for you, though. Give it a month or so."
…If I'm not dead by that time, Sentinel thought, ignored once more as Scavenger went back to the dummy.
What's in a Name?:
It struck any Cybertronian that met the Earthian younglings as odd that they didn't get Christened with new names. Cybertronians, even small, useless ones had names that made them imposing or seem harmless. Graceful but unpolished, simple but meant something. Earth names didn't really translate to anything they readily understood. And thus, some of the other cadets and friends, or even enemies of the post-humans began giving them little nicknames. Some they kept to themselves, others shared their ideas with the ex-humans, thereby irritating them or making them a little happier.
Somehow, Billy was the first to get a nickname, from Sentinel as odd as that sounded. It actually started off as an insult that caught onto everyone else. Black Lie, on account of him bending rules so much as to border on the most outrageous of lies. The sergeant was also trying to mock the black lines on the post-human. Oh, how that backfired…
Fred, like everything else he did on Earth, immediately followed Billy after that. A suggestion made by Jetfire of all mechs, for the dark jeep to mull over. Nightrider, considering all the countless trips he made to the nurseries when the sparklings had bad dreams and wouldn't quiet down for their berth-mates. Fred liked it, truly, but had trouble remembering it when others actually called after him with it.
Alexis had two names vying for her christening, from the mechs and the femmes. Elita had suggested the name Cellophane in consideration to Alexis' usually clear opinions. The post-human thought the other was delusional and rejected immediately. Then, Bumblebee suggested Kryptonite after hearing about a 'Superman' from Carlos and Billy. It paid homage to her coloring and her personality. But, no, the second she heard that she was less than happy. Her birth name was hers to keep and nobody would change her mind.
Carlos heard his new title leave everyone's vocal processors, but it seemed a little rude and often depressed him. Basketcase? And all because of his stupid arm! He knew that the others didn't mean anything by it (bar Sentinel) but he felt he really didn't need a reminder of how screwed up he'd been since his little accident with Cyclonus and the constant, not so little accidents on the firing range and whatever weapons room he didn't know even existed and wound up running through before his arm decided to try out a new toy. No, like Alexis, his human name suited him just fine.
Rad had two names that made him feel more humble than he actually was, but nobody could seem to decide which suited him best. Though both outlandish and embarrassing, many felt one of them was perfect for the teen. Half the mechs agreed on what Jazz had come up with. Red Light, on account of how many 'Bots thought the blue sports car was highly pleasing to the optics and must be a real ladies mech (this causing Rad to blush red hot every time). Hot Shot, on the other side, had suggested Rockstar. A lucky few of the Cybertronians knew that this name meant something relating to popular music, not the literal meaning. However, it seemed Arcee had decided for him that his Earth name fit him perfectly, since it was already very Cybertronian in its shortness and meaning. The teen had never been more grateful to a femme.
Heels, They Will Kill You:
"Excuse me?"
Moonracer, though extremely daunted and afraid of the green femme before her, continued holding up the welding tool she'd borrowed from the med-bay and the pair of red, heeled peds for femmes she'd found on sale in Iacon. She wasn't backing down now, now that she'd mustered up the courage to try being nice to Alexis after the incident with Sentinel and simulated combat a week ago.
"I found these and thought they'd be perfect for you! See, the red matches up perfectly with the green on your upper paintjob!"
Alexis eyed the heeled peds warily, as though any moment they'd animate and attach to her ankles themselves. It wasn't going to happen, but her teal optics still retained suspicion, "Moonracer, why would I need those? I have perfectly functioning peds, if you hadn't noticed."
"Well, yeah, but," And here the Towers femme paused politely, looking down at Alexis' peds that looked so flat as to be indecent, "A femme should have heeled peds. Yours look kind of, what's the word…"
"Masculine?" Alexis asked, optic ridge raising at the femme who in years was older but in wisdom, not so much, "Is there something wrong with my peds being like this, Moonracer? Do I offend you in some way?"
"No! No, no, no! I just thought that since you're new to Cybertron you'd, uh, like to, um, assimilate. Yeah, that's all!" And here the ditzy femme dropped both peds and the welding torch, a nice clang reverberating through the room that was the femmes' quarters on base.
As Moonracer bent down to pick up the objects, Alexis (for once) took pity on the new arrival and bent to pick up the welding torch, speaking almost kindly, "Moonie, I know you mean well, but on Earth, not all females are required to or even like, having heels."
"But… why? My femme creator said heels are part of what makes us ladies."
Alexis scoffed at that, "Moonracer, as nice as these are, I can't wear them. I'd trip all over myself, and everyone else. Also, heels give me back problems that quickly turn into migraines. And before you ask why, I'll have to finish this with saying I don't know entirely why, that's just how it is with humans… Also, they hurt. A lot."
Moonracer sighed, her shoulder struts slouching along with the rest of her. Primus, why was everything she tried to do for the post-humans destined to fail? And after she'd spent those credits on the peds…
The post-human, feeling just the slightest tweaks of guilt, pulled the peds lightly from Moonracer's servos, giving them a thoughtful look-over, "Well, if nothing else, you can give these to Firestar, because if I remember correctly, one of her peds got crushed in training yesterday and it's still all dented and missing paint."
A grin, with the exact opposite effect of the Grinch planning to steal from Whoville, spread across a large portion of Moonracer's face, a little bit of saline forming in her optics to make her look so sickeningly sweet as to make Sentinel gag if he'd walked in at that moment. This was followed by the slightly shorter femme giving Alexis a tight, slightly painful hug. If Alexis still had lungs, they probably would have popped at the moment.
"Oh, thank you Alexis! I'll go find her right now!"
And that's exactly what she did, grabbing all of her items haphazardly and bolted off and out the door, heading for the monitor room where Firestar had been forced to take the shift of Wasp, seeing as he was in the med-bay, recovering from Fred accidentally bowling over him earlier.
"Well, that's my good deed for the day." Alexis grumbled, some of the struts in her back popping as she got up due to the pressure Moonracer had administered.
Lala- Ashley Simpson:
Rad was pretty sure that he still had a lot of his human hormones still coursing through his systems, never mind what Ratchet and Red Alert said. The blue teen was certain that he at least had adrenaline, and maybe a few that he couldn't pronounce that affected his view and mood whenever a femme walked in the room. At the moment, adrenaline was racing through him, all because Arcee was asking questions better left alone about his planet.
"Arcee, this is really inappropriate…"
"Oh, puh-lease! Your other friends in Sentinel's unit are happy to divulge this sort of info and I'm an intel. 'Bot who thrives on this kind of thing, so spill."
Rad tapped the keyboard in front of his absently, hoping that the strong-willed femme in Elita's unit would take his silence as a sign to drop this. Why did he have to work monitor duty with her exactly? Oh, that's right, because Ironhide and Chromia are sadists!
The femme wasn't taking the hints, though. She just continued to sit in her chair looking expectant, her face smiling. Inwardly, the sports car wondered if she knew he was as uncomfortable as he could ever be. Girls back home didn't do this, they just called boys idiots and walked out, but Arcee? No! Now he'd probably offline from embarrassment.
Sighing more out of habit than necessity, Rad turned back to the femme and gave a silent prayer that she didn't speak of this to anyone, especially Elita, because nice as the chief femme was, she had a mouth on her that would shame an auctioneer at the county fair. This could make its way to Optimus and shame Rad forever, or worse, make femmes look at him funnier than they already did. It would be in his best interests to be vague right now.
"Alright, I'll make you a deal. For every question you ask and I answer, you have to answer any questions I dish out for you."
The speed of her answer gave him zero degrees of comfort, "Deal."
Offlined from Embarrassing Questions Administered by an Over-curious Femme… Wonder if they'll use that in my eulogy?
"Fine, ask away."
Arcee gave a squeal that Rad generally believed only a cheerleader should be able to use and pulled a datapad out from the ten other datapads she'd been looking over for the past hour, this one covered in scratches and oil smears. Apparently she'd brought her own. She knew he was going to make a deal. The sneaky little…
"First question: When did you first interface after your transformation from organic to Cybertronian?"
If he didn't know better, he could have sworn that his audio receptors popped.
"………………I….haven't….yet….."
"What was that?"
"I haven't yet, damnit!!"
"Okay, okay! Yeesh," Arcee said, making a little note on her datapad about his temper and putting a check in one corner so he couldn't cheat when he asked his questions, "Second, if you had to, which Decepticon would you try to coax over to our side?"
Rad tilted his head a little to the left in contemplation. How do you answer something like that? None of the Decepticons seemed to like him, and Starscream had already come over to their side when Megatron almost beat him to death when the Seeker's relationship with Jetfire was revealed (albeit accidentally) by Skywarp, the moron. After the red Seeker, who was really left to bring over successfully?
"Well, maybe Wheeljack, if he ever stops being so angry and bitter at Hot Shot."
"Alright. Now, would you like to ask one of your two, or shall I keep going?"
"Hmm," At this, Rad leaned toward the femme by a few inches, his own devilish little smirk forming and giving Arcee the feeling she was going to regret agreeing to the deal. Tremendously.
Crooked Borders:
If High Wire had ever wanted to find himself in this position after his long hibernation he would have gone over to the Decepticons once Rad woke him up. And yet, for all of his success, here he was again, in the same situation he was a million years ago. At gun point by a Bulk who was too full of himself to see just how stupid he was.
"Cool it, Sentinel," High Wire beeped, poking the gun still aimed at him like a five year old human who was told not to touch something when he knew he'd get spanked for it, but did it anyway, "I'm just here to see Rad. He is on base I hope?"
The great blue colossus of a mech moved the weapon from the destructive range of the Mini-con and just sort of scoffed as he put the weapon back against the wall on the wrack with all the other weapons his unit wasn't allowed to touch. It was well known by most of High Wire's friends and collegues that Sentinel wasn't much of a fan of the Mini-cons, having the same view of them as Blurr when the sniper had first arrived on Earth. Except, while Blurr had changed, Sentinel had clung to the old ways. To him, the Mini-cons were still only tools who happened to have personalities.
"Your master's in the training room. Make sure you don't get stepped on," And with that, the sergeant took his leave without another word, not noticing and probably not understanding the motion of the BMX raising his right arm, bringing the left one over it with some force and the right arm drawing back to show his servo 'flipping the bird.'
When High Wire was sure the blue mech was gone, the BMX shook his helm and made his way for Rad, muttering to himself, "Sparkplug is right, he is a worthless crankshaft."
Paternal Familial:
"Stormtrooper! Acidstreak! Greyshift!"
Rather pretentious names, but Starscream certainly wasn't going to say anything about it to the distraught mech and neither was Demolisher. Both simply stood rigid as the mech creator of the three sparklings they'd been caring for rushed right passed Megatron and Thrust, optics shining in absolute joy at the sight of his little ones all together, in one piece.
The only sparkling that was fully out of recharge started chirping excitedly, reaching his stubby little arms over Starscream's much broader arms for the mech he obviously missed. This request was immediately fulfilled, the father mech lightly but quickly plucking his little one from Starscream and bringing him up to his chestplates, moving for the now semi-awake ones held by Demolisher, both twittering when they finally noted their creator was there! All three of them snuggled just above the mech's spark, creating a rather adorable seen.
The display would have been altogether too sweet if Starscream didn't know the parental mech from his war academy days. A rather large jet that looked much more like an Autobot than a Decepticon, blue optics and all. If the red Seeker remembered correctly, his name was Skyfire and was commander of a small group of trainees in the academy. And a single 'daddy', now…
"You see Skyfire, they're perfectly safe," Megatron said, walking in that regal way he always did around mechs who rarely, if ever, saw him, "I was surprised to find my second in command taking care of them, but it appears they were in good servos."
Skyfire didn't look over to his high commander, but did nod his head, his optics still checking over his precious creations, looking for any sign of hurt or discomfort among them. The one that was all grey, his oldest, looked back up at him with his own little smile, reaching up and sort of pawing his faceplate. As if to say everything was okay…
Demolisher watched this as Megatron, Thrust and Starscream talked around the white jet, seeing the tiny little winglet and the look on his creator's face. It was hard to keep his away smile away…
"Who found them?" Skyfire suddenly asked, causing all words to cease around him and a sort of heavy weight to fall on Starscream and Demolisher that could only be horror. This could not possibly be good, they hadn't told Megatron anything official about how the winglets got there, he hadn't asked, but if they said it now they were both expecting to be beaten within an inch of their lives. But the white jet didn't look like he was going to let the question fall on deaf audios and repeated the question directly to the red Seeker whom he also remembered from the academy.
Starscream looked from Skyfire, to Thrust, to Demolisher and to Megatron, who, unfortunately, looked very interested in his answer now. The red Seeker opened his mouth a few times, looking a lot like an Earth fish choking on air, but no words seemed to make it passed his vocalizer, only little fuzzy sounds like static. He couldn't think with Megatron staring at him with those burning crimson optics, with Thrust looking at him as if he knew what Starscream was going to say, and Demolisher acting nervous right beside him, shifting on his peds rather pathetically… And Skyfire just looked on patiently, two of his little ones falling back into recharge and the grey one looking curiously up at everyone.
Primus, Starscream felt like his processors were going to explode in his helm…
After continuing that dry fish act for a few more moments, Megatron stepped next to the white jet, placing a servo on his shoulder strut and looking directly at Starscream in the way of the commander, "Starscream, answer this mech's question."
Starscream seemed to cringe a little at the tone in the horned mech's voice, trying to form words properly once again, "W-Why do you need to know?"
"I'd like to thank my darlings' rescuer personally," Skyfire answered, Greyshift chirping brightly at Starscream, as though to coax him for the answer. In actuality, it seemed to only make the weight on Starscream increase by three-fold.
"You… wouldn't exactly be able to reach her. She's, um, unreachable by our comm. links."
"She?" Both Megatron and Skyfire asked at the same time, the act of which giving Thrust a little inner chuckle. If the squid-head was faced with this position, he'd have just lied, but nooo, Starscream had a conscience and morals.
Starscream only seemed to realize this when Megatron's face darkened like a rain cloud during hurricane season and Skyfire seemed only minutely more surprised. Greyshift just continued to look between the adults curiously, giving a little twitter every so often.
'Slag, slag, slag, slag…. Damn.' This little thought seemed to scurry around both Starscream and Demolisher's heads.