Disclaimer: I don't own nothin' at all! I don't own nothin' at all, yeah, yeah, yeah!
Much thanks to all the people who reviewed and to those who gave private messages claiming to actually like my adding Slipstream. I didn't think she'd come off so well, but I guess things can turn out favorably after all.
=-=-=-=-==-=-=--=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
High-Grade Anatomy:
"WHERE ARE THRUST AND SLIPSTREAM?"
If Megatron was surprised by the obviously angry drunk femme from the Autobots flying into his throne room and demanding to see the town tramp and village idiot, it didn't show on his face. As a matter of fact, he'd been waiting for at least a week for the news of Thrust and Slipstream's little deal to reach this particular femme's audios. Megatron had made it a point to make sure he was there when Thrust had his own aft handed to him and Slipstream and the femme got into a "cat fight", as the post-humans called it. He had Shockwave install a camera in the room as proof.
"Hello, Alexis." The tyrant greeted pleasantly enough, giving a look towards Shockwave and privately comming him to turn on the camera, the spy immediately following the order, internally wondering why his leader hadn't shot the green flyer yet.
"Obviously you think that was a rhetorical question," Alexis said taking out her right servo, charging it with her electric energy and fired off a sort of lightning bolt to perpetuate her next words, aiming at an object to blow away as well, "WHERE" the ceiling "ARE" a window "THRUST" Cyclonus' rotors "AND" the Decepticon flag put up behind Megatron's head "SLIPSTREAM?"
"For the love of Primus," Megatron snorted, the flag being pulled from his horns after it fell from the tack holding it up by Shockwave, "Calm down and stop acting so ticked. What would Prime think if he saw you like this?"
"First of all, I AM ticked and second of all, I really don't giving a damn what Optimus might think of this right at the moment," Alexis practically yelled, sending little tremors down the lesser Decepticons' in the rooms' back struts, but only making Megatron grin more. He'd never seen one of Prime's adopted spawn drunk or very angry before, so this was a once in a life-time gift from Primus to him. As such, he was going to draw this out as long as possible without anyone raining on his parade.
Raising a servo to his comm. link he got in touch with Thrust and sent a message for him and Slipstream to be in the throne room in the next five minutes. When the line disconnected he also sent a message for Demolisher to stay away from the throne room for the next five or so hours and go on scout patrol with Wheeljack, hanging up before the tank could question his first set of orders.
Once done with that, he turned back to the still angry as anything femme, "Thrust and Slipstream will be here in exactly four minutes and fourteen seconds. So, any particular reason you're here, alone and obviously intoxicated?"
Breath Again:
Oh, Scorponok decided that once he got back to the base, he'd never go outside again. In fact, he might never leave his soft, fluffy berth Shockwave had given him years ago and the scavenger had actually managed to keep intact, along with the blanket Scorponok was going to slip under as soon as possible.
Behind the now slightly chipper scavenger, Swindle trudged along, some of the mud from the tunnels behind them causing him go slower than he would have liked. Leave it to Sureshock to find the half-dead moron and send Swindle as an escort to keep said moron from passing out on the way back home, and without even a good-bye kiss! The overconfident, self-serving, smokin'--
"Damnit, Scorponok, slow down!" Swindle called, stopping to pound one of his peds on the ground as hard as he could and dislodge the mud flecks.
"Can't stop! Must see Shockwave, must get to berth and cuddle!" Scorponok called back, legs and pinchers moving twice as fast in anticipation and leaving the red Mini-con in the dust, cursing a long string of words the digging parasite had no understanding of.
Host of the Future:
"Prowl, please, I'm begging, don't make me go back to that camp! I can't do it again, especially with these kinds of questions! Alexis might beat me over the head with Sentinel Prime for asking this, Moonracer probably hasn't even begun anything that could lead to getting sparklings yet and Firestar is Flareup's sister, I don't want that femme riding me for reviewing her sibling on this!"
Despite the pleadings from Arcee, the stoic officer continued to look over the datapads she'd brought in, never once looking up at her puppy dog optics to acknowledge her try for sympathy, "Arcee, this is not a request, it is an order. Optimus Prime and his right hand men have no time to give me all the answers and I need an up-dated census on the femmes of the training camps anyway. Stop complaining and just do it."
Arcee allowed her dentals to grind together a moment and a dark look to settle over her face before speaking up again, a small silver lining forming along this ebony cloud, "Can I possibly bring an aid, someone who will keep these femmes from trying to offline me?"
Prowl's intakes cycled once before he nodded, "You can take Chromia She's not involved in any missions at the moment. Just allow her to leave when Ironhide calls her up or you'll be stuck with four femmes who don't really like you. You're dismissed."
The pink intelligence officer resisted the urge to leave with a snide remark, but held off. Prowl was a stoic glitch, but she didn't want to make him mad. Anyway, Chromia was a strong and scary femme, but Arcee appreciated having someone watch her front, back and sides.
…Now if only she could find someone to ask these stupid questions.
What You're Looking For:
The water rivulets dripped into the bucket as Wheeljack squeezed the towel in between his servos, careful to make sure it wasn't too soggy but not dry either. He didn't know why he even bothered, the yellow 'Bot on Wheeljack's berth was completely unconscious and was in excruciating pain, but it was simply the way he was.
"You stupid, foolish mech…" Wheeljack growled, laying the cloth on Hot Shot's grey optic band, some of the water washing away the coat of soot that had clung to him even when the slightly taller mech had dragged him from that flaming Pit that reminded Wheeljack so much of the one he'd been in so long ago.
The black and gold Decepticon hadn't expected to find anyone still alive in that fire that Megatron had ordered him to scout through, in fact, he hadn't expected to find anything more than some smoking shells of the very dead. And yet, he'd found Hot Shot, melting and buried in rubble with mechfluid boiling under him. At first Wheeljack had thought his optic sensors were playing tricks on him, but then he'd kicked the 'apparition', it had been solid, Hot Shot's optics had lit up for a split second to look directly at the mech standing over him and then gone completely still.
'Oh, how typical,' Wheeljack thought bitterly, grabbing another cloth to dunk in the bucket of water so he could try and scrub off the layer of grunge, 'I've been waiting years to get a fitting form of revenge and yet, when the time came, I couldn't let it happen.'
A sardonic smirk came to Wheeljack's face as he scrubbed hard against Hot Shot's stained yellow paintjob, still careful as he had been in Cadet training with the injuries his old friend had sustained in the fire. It was funny, in a really morbid way, how the mech he'd thought had abandoned him had much worse injuries then Wheeljack himself had in his own fire. True, both of them had been crushed under rubble, but Wheeljack had at least been able to move away from the flames and see all around. The way he'd found Hot Shot…
Maybe this was Primus' way of getting Wheeljack to just stop being angry at the 'Bot?
The gold and black Decepticon was so caught up in what was going on in his head that he didn't notice how Hot Shot seized a little when the wet cloth ran over a particularly thinned area of armor, where the fire had eaten through metal and melted sensitive wiring. The smaller mech was still unconscious, but his frame knocked up and down on the berth twice before Wheeljack took the cloth from the injury and pressed Hot Shot down with both servos. He held his old friend down as best he could, but a little tremor ran through Hot Shot again and Wheeljack felt like he was going to cry. His processor finally registered that his old friend, the one who'd trained him, might be dying. Holding him down, Wheeljack could actually see every burned wire, melted plate and hole that was made in that recreation of the nightmares that constantly haunted his recharge cycles.
It occurred to Wheeljack as Hot Shot stopped moving for the moment, that he wasn't mad at the Autobot anymore. Now he was just worried…
5 Minutes In the Closet:
"So," Bumblebee began, leaning against the storage room's far wall, the green bug to his front locking it and trying to block out the sounds of the rest of their unit giving little chuckles and wolf-whistles, "What exactly are we supposed to do now?"
The green hybrid turned from the door and back to the yellow 'Bot, a sort of perverted grin on his lips, "Well, we could try out this little game. It sounds interesting enough and it might be fun."
One of Bumblebee's optic ridges lifted, "Fun in the next four minutes, thirty seconds and counting? Really, Wasp, not even you could—gack!"
Bumblebee's words were left to the air as Wasp sort of tackled him and started laying energy bursts on the black striped mech's lips and neck, servos holding Bee's wrists above his head and enjoying what time they had. He'd begged the post-humans to set this up for this exact purpose and was not going to waste it.
Apparently, neither was Bumblebee as he started to react and join in, internal fans clicking on and filling the small room with a soothing, wonderful sound. The mechs sort of tuned out the noises from outside that their party outside was making along the lines of laughing.
Gitty On Up:
"Love once more has let me down, Making this too easy…"
The little musical quote Moonracer often heard Alexis mutter around bondmates that passed the camp slid easily off of the Towers femme's glossa. She didn't understand what the phrase meant a few months ago, but now she comprehended all too well.
Oh, what the femme wouldn't give to get out of the Alphas area code. She hadn't seen any of her unit except Sentinel in the last three days and her brother was driving her insane with the preparations for her arranged bonding ceremony. Firestar had left Moonracer messages via Sentinel, as had some of the post-organics and the bugs, their sergeant happy to rid himself of the pile of datapads every visit, but it wasn't enough.
She didn't want to be in Mirage's home. It was so gloomy and stoic and lifeless that it scared Moonracer a little. Back at the camp everything was so full of vibrancy and excitement and felt really lived in, the way a home should feel. Her brother's home was nothing like that, despite his constant visits through the day to check on her, everything, including her, felt empty.
Moving from the table she'd had breakfast at, alone, Moonracer walked to the window to see the sky line and the random flyer to pass the time and relieve some of her boredom.
Opening the curtain, Moonracer almost screamed when visage of a certain deep purple and black Seeker became known to her optics, a ridiculous grin on his face and the rest of him sort of floating upside down. Moonracer didn't scream, but she did manage a gleaming smile as Skywarp righted himself with a backwards spin, "Hey pretty lady, mind if I come inside?"
"'Warp, what are you doing here?" The small femme asked, pulling on the latch that opened the door to the balcony, Skywarp landing in less than the regal fashion all the Alpha flyers seemed to display whenever they landed. It was charming in a rugged, Decepticon sort of way.
"Well, two little cyber-birdies told me to haul my aft over here before you exploded from sheer boredom. So here I am," Skywarp explained, helm twisting to get a better look at his new sort-of friend's current abode. The last time he'd been in a home this size was Megatron's private chambers and that was an accident caused by him crashing through three very thin walls.
Moonracer didn't want to look a gift computer in the hard drive, but the wording there caused her curiosity to rear its head, "Cyber-birdies? Who do you mean?"
"Your fellow femmes, of course," The Seeker explained, patting the Towers femme on the head like a puppy or even Ravage when he's in the right mood, "Alexis got a hold of me through various members of my faction who shall remain nameless on penalty of death, and Firestar, who tackled me, strapped me down in one of your bases' storage rooms and threatened to cut off my spike if I didn't somehow get you to smile on this trip. Or, you know, take you back to boot camp. Whatever's good for you."
Moonracer blinked. Moonracer smiled. And then Moonracer did something so spontaneous that Skywarp hadn't seen it coming for the life of him. She burst out laughing and jumped onto his back, her tiny frame weighing the equivalent to a feather for the tall Decepticon even as her arms settled around his neck to keep her grip on him, "Take me home, ye noble stallion!"
"My lady!" Skywarp responded, grinning like some lone nut, but happily following her request.