Broken Wings
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Chapter 6: Ramjet's Misfortune
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Ramjet carefully turned the page of the magazine he was engrossed in. He'd been reading a lot of magazines lately. The Autobots left the human publications lying around a lot and staring at the pictures in them was a good way to pass the time. This particular magazine was one of his favorites, meaning he kept it in his subspace to look at again and again instead of leaving it next to the door where Red Alert worked or on the table where Inferno took him to drink energon. It was full of pictures of Earth cars. Some of them looked like the Autobots, but they weren't Autobots. They were just Earth cars. However, what he liked about this magazine in particular was that it had a lot of pictures of a car that looked like a solid white version of Red Alert. It didn't have the red plating or Earth glyphs that decorated his keeper. This white version also had a human female in shiny black clothing sprawled all over it. In fact a lot of the cars had human females posing with them. Were they the owners? Were they mates? The clothes they wore didn't look like the clothes humans usually wore—at least the humans he's seen. The women in this magazines were dressed so minimally he wondered why they even bothered to wear the clothing at all as it covered so little. But it didn't matter. What mattered was that the white car looked a lot like Red Alert in his alt-mode, and staring at it made him miss his keeper less.
There came the sound of an engine from below his perch, the comfortable spot he'd found at the entrance to the Ark. It was a safe place to wait for his keeper's return, where no one bothered him as they came and went from their home. They were usually too busy to harass him. He was used to the squeal of rubber tires on decking and the sound of revving engines as the grounders hurried out or dashed in. What he wasn't used to was the sound of brakes and transforming and footsteps right below. He leaned out and looked down at the figure standing below him. "Red?"
The figure of his keeper stood there looking up at him, smiling with a little crook to the side of his mouth.
The magazine fell from his hand. "Red! Love Red!" Ramjet squawked and leapt to his feet and then down onto Red Alert, throwing his arms around the smaller mech and holding him tightly. "Red! Oh Red!"
"Miss me?"
"Red miss," Ramjet whimpered, trembling hard in the arms that now embraced him. "Red miss."
"Let's get out of here, Ramjet," said Red Alert, taking his hand and leading him away.
Ramjet laughed. His keeper was back. Inferno had not mentioned his return. Or had he? Of course Inferno barely paid any attention to him these days. But now here his beloved was! Excitedly he bounced forward, pulling Red Alert behind him into the Ark.
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Inferno was beginning to worry. Ramjet wasn't in any of his usual spots—not waiting outside in the Ark's thruster cowling, not watching television inside their quarters, not sitting outside of Red Alert's office. Nowhere. He decided to walk the halls once again, hoping to find the mech, but then decided perhaps it would be more efficient to just 'comm the security office.
::'Yo, 'Ferno! What's up, my mech?:: came Blaster's effervescent response.
::I can't find Ramjet anywhere. Can you locate him for me?::
::Certainly. I've got the code for his locator right here. One klik annnnnnnnd...::
Inferno felt relieved that Red Alert had left the security codes for Ramjet's tracker with the communications mech. He still was annoyed by Ramjet's presence in their lives, but he had to keep Red Alert happy.
::Looks like he's down in the storage bays. Hall three.::
::Down there? Whatever is he doing down there?"
::I've not had any alarms go off, or any reports of anything happening, so I doubt he's been getting into any trouble. He probably just went exploring and found somewhere interesting. Gotta say, he's really been behaving himself here.::
::It's not like him to wander about places he doesn't know, as much as I keep hoping he does and gets lost.::
Blaster chuckled. ::Not liking Red's little pet? Well it looks like he's somewhere in bay four from the locator readings. I'm not seeing anything on the cameras down in there, but there's a lotta junk in that bay. I think it's Wheeljack's project graveyard.::
Inferno began moving for the closest elevator. ::I'll go take a look and bring him back. If he moves from there, ping me.::
::Sounds solid. Let me know if you need any further assistance.::
::Thanks Blaster.::
Inferno found hall three and bay four easily, and immediately understood what Blaster had meant by 'Wheeljacks project graveyard'. The room was cluttered with a panoply of the inventor's failures as well as other reminders of their time on Earth. There were pieces of Grapple's solar tower stacked into a wall, opposite a matching wall of remnants of Megatron's solar needle. The short lived recharging chambers were there as well as the battered remains of Autobot X. What appeared to be a rejected Dinobot torso sat on a large shelf. In a large pile were all manner of broken weapons.
"Ramjet!? You down here!?" called out Inferno.
Something clattered at the back of the bay.
"Ramjet?"
Silence.
Inferno moved to where he thought he'd heard the noise come from, passing a small-scale prototype of the Negavator, the thing that had brought him and Red together in the first place. A tiny smile touched his lips as he remembered hauling Red Alert out of the burning bunker, and then holding him in his arms for the first time, the smaller mech dripping with cold foam. It had been at that moment he'd realized that he wanted to be so much more than friends.
"Ramjet?"
This time he was answered with a sob from behind a precarious looking stack of... what were those? More rejected Dinobot parts?
Inferno moved around the stack to find Ramjet sitting there leaning against the wall of the bay, his legs pulled up to his chest and his arms wrapped round his knees. And on seeing Inferno he turned his head away, pushing his faceplate against the wall.
"Ramjet, whatever are you doing down here?" he asked. "You're supposed to be somewhere I can keep an eye on you."
Ramjet only responded by burying his face into his knees and seemingly trying to make himself smaller.
Inferno sighed. "Come on. I'm not going to punish you. Just get back to the room right now."
The seeker looked up at him with fearful optics.
"Now Ramjet. Not tomorrow." Inferno walked up to him and took him by the arm, pulling him to his feet. And when he tried to drag him forward, the seeker balked and refused to move. "Ramjet! Stop making this difficult!" Inferno snapped. He turned to look back at the seeker, and suddenly let go of his arm. Something was wrong... horribly wrong.
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"Broken Wings" continues in Chapter 7: Inferno's Guilt
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Author Note: This chapter, short as it is, contained a whole lot of world-building, much of it regards to daily life in the Ark. It was interesting to write as well with the first part being from Ramjet's point-of-view. On top of this were a number of fun G1 cartoon references, both in Wheeljack's project graveyard and of course in a mention of the Negavator.
Oh, and just a heads up... Chapter 7 is not for the triggery reader. I figure that realistically they're a minority in the reader base, but gotta warn the minority. So if you have issues with reading about Non-Con or Dub-Con, just move along. Plenty of other stories out there to enjoy.
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Transformers and all related concepts, characters, worlds, and events are property of Hasbro and Takara Tomy. Original characters and story elements are property of E. Potter, writing under the pen name of Miratete.
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