Jack, a tired look adorning his face, exited from the house and walked into the garage after saying goodbye to his mother. He let out a sigh once he looked to his helmet resting idly on a workbench; a large dent adorning its surface. Since June was getting taken to work by a friend, he got permission to use her car to get to the base, and eyed the old vehicle with a nostalgic glare.
After the door finished sliding open to allow him to leave, he blinked in surprise when he saw a blue motorcycle sitting outside, parked in the driveway.
"Get on," Arcee said without hesitation. "We're going for a ride."
"Arcee..." Jack started, placing his hands in his coat's pockets. "It's fine. I don't need to burden you like this."
"Oh, c'mon," she beckoned with a chuckle, turning her front wheel to-and-fro as she spoke. "It'll be just like old times."
Upon hearing her words, Jack quickly relented with a grin. "Alright, alright," he smiled. Snatching his helmet off of the nearby bench, he fitted on the concealing, protective headgear and jumped onto her seat after making sure the garage door was closed again.
"All set?" she asked. Jack lowered his visor and gave a thumbs-up.
"All set!" he confirmed. With a revving engine, Arcee sped out of the driveway at a fast pace. She shifted to her top speed once they left town and both experienced the cool feeling of the wind whistling by them at its full force.
Five minutes into their joyride, Jack decided to strike up a conversation. "Ratchet told me that you were out with Soundwave for the whole night, the day before yesterday," he spoke. "If you don't mind me asking, what were you two doing?"
"We just talked," she replied, reciting the three words she was preparing herself to say for such an occasion. "Ya'know. Caught up on what happened while each of us were apart. Turns out, it was... a lot."
"It's really nice to know how close you two have become," he said again. "I mean, just think about it. He's Soundwave. The Decepticon we all once remembered as being nothing more than silent, menacing, and evil. I still can't believe how you convinced him to change like that."
"Yeah, neither do I..." Arcee sighed, her thoughts drawn to him. Her mind shifted back to reality as she suddenly realized the first part of what her companion said. "Wait, what do you mean by 'close'?"
"Um... just that you two became such good friends," the human said. "Ratchet told me how he saved your life back on Cybertron, and judging from how much time you've spent with him since he got back already, you're both still on really good grounds with each other."
"Oh, okay. Good," she spoke. The moment she finished the final syllable of her word, a faint, but noticeable vibrating feeling went out through the tar ground, and the two-wheeler was the first to notice it once it quickly gained in magnitude.
"A-Arcee?" Jack asked in a worried manner the second he felt the disturbance.
"Scrap-" was all the disguised femme was able to mutter, before the inevitable happened. With what sounded like a bomb going off, the the ground practically exploded from right beneath the two, and earth was thrown into the air like a geyser. Arcee spiraled away before she could even transform, while Jack was flung a short distance forward with a long-drawn cry. He landed onto the ground with a crunch of disturbed dirt from the impact, but was otherwise unharmed.
As he sat up and looked into the dirt cloud that hovered over where he and Arcee just were, a glowing, red light emerged through the haze of sand and dust, reeking malevolence with its very appearance. When the cloud parted, a tall Cybertronian; one with a thin and lanky, and partially blocky and thick shape, stood there. It looked directly at Jack in motionless silence; the eye dilating several times as it focused on his shape, and his alone.
"Greetings, insect," it spoke in a vaguely female, and highly robotized voice. With but two steps the Cybertronian was upon Jack, and she scooped his greatly smaller form off of the ground in her left servo before he could stand up and flee, grabbing him in a tight grip. Despite how much he fought back against it, the being effortlessly brought him up to her 'face', if what was made up of a single eye could even be called that.
"I recognize you. You're the human male I encountered last time. You shall be my first human test subject," she said upon examining him. "A prime age, a fit build, a healthy appearance... I predict that your dissection will yield interesting results."
"Wha- dissection?!" Jack shouted, panic coming into his tone.
"Not if I have anything to say about it!" The relieving sound of Arcee's voice was more like an aggressive roar, and what followed it was an arm blade that cut through the air from behind the Cybertronian, slicing into the bot's arm with a single, powerful swing. The arm carrying Jack was severed from the elbow with that single blow, and crashed to the ground below; the fact that he was still in its grasp leaving him unharmed.
Pulling himself free from the enclosed, but also now-limp fingers, Jack could only watch as Arcee began to pummel his attempted abductor. This strange bot; a Decepticon, as seen by the symbol on her chest, stood a pathetic match for Arcee, and could only try, and fail, to dodge Arcee's attacks or return them with slow, flailing limbs; one of which was now missing. Arcee continued her assault, punching, kicking, and slashing until a final swing sent the bot staggering back.
Arcee changed her arms into blasters and focused them on the femme opposite to her, causing her enemy to refrain from doing anything else offensive. "Don't move," she commanded, as a question was already primed to be asked. "You certainly look a lot like a bot I know. Who are you?"
The Cybertronian whom she spoke to clutched her new wound. "I am Shockblast, and that is all I will tell."
"I'm sure there's more than that..." Arcee growled back.
Shockblast went eerily silent, before she lifted her only remaining, whole arm up, and pointed a claw at Arcee. "Revenge," she said, causing the Autobot to raise an eyebrow in confusion. "Sic."
As soon as she said that, a deep quaking beneath where the three stood began again. Jack began to back up a fair ways, thinking something big was coming their way. His fears were recognized, as something rapidly emerged from the ground nearby with a wretched, inhuman scream and crunch of dirt that fell into and was minced in its mouth, revealing a long, thick, silver shape.
The closest thing Jack could compare the titanic creature to was a giant metal worm with a head consisting of nothing more than a gigantic maw covered in sharp, razor-edged teeth. Several serrated, saw-tipped tentacles poked out of its side and one was already heading Arcee's way like a whip. Arcee lifted her arms and blocked it on her blades, but the sheer force pushed her back several dozen meters from Shockblast. The beast let out a roar as it came between Shockblast and Arcee; its multiple plated joints twisting and turning like a drill as it crawled to the greatly smaller Autobot.
The tentacles swung about wildly, upturning the terra firma they emerged from and splitting any rocks in its path in twain as if they were naught but wet paper; all as its enormous head raised and focused on its newest prey, but Arcee managed to avoid every attack. But then, with another thrust at her, it finally managed to score a hit that grazed off of Arcee's upper, left thigh; its razors effortlessly sawing through the metal leg and inflicting a moderately deep wound in the black-tinted appendage. Unfazed, Arcee continued to nimbly dodge the other limbs, or deflect any dirt and rock it threw at her. After just barely avoiding a swing from the side, she slashed a blade downward and hit the appendage directly where its natural weapon and tentacle connected, slicing though soft metal and wire and causing the creature to let out a long, angered whine and squeal, before retracting the half-severed limb.
In a pained reaction it dove underneath the terrain before emerging behind Arcee like some twisted parody of a blooming flower, and pulled each of its limbs back, rearing up over the ground like a snake which allowed its shadow to overtake the Autobot. Arcee tensed her body, knowing the driller was about to bring the full force of its greatly wider mass down at her all at once in what would be an attempt to crush her, but instead of readying herself to dodge, a new shape emerged out of the corner of the Autobot's eye and caused her blue optics to gaze upward.
"Soundwave," she breathed with a smile, witnessing the sight of his transformed state fell from the cloudless sky.
Dive-bombing the driller, unleashing several rounds of red blaster shots all the while, Soundwave gained the attention of the creature, which seemed unaffected by the beams that impacted against its thick hide. Revenge turned its eyeless head to him just in time to witness him transform in mid-flight and land a powerful kick in the side of its face, right next to its circular, razor-filled maw. The force induced by the sheer momentum of it sent it off-balance and lurching to the side, but only slightly. Once it regained its composure several seconds later, it bellowed and began to focus on the newest threat with its several sets of teeth spinning about inside its wretched maw; creating a deafening buzzing noise.
Soundwave had landed on the ground by the time the driller began its recovery, and walked backwards to Arcee, who's entire expression lightened up upon seeing him. She drew her blasters out again and pointed the two weapons at Revenge as her partner was by her side, looking to her.
"Its plating looks thick, but if I focus fire on it I should be able to weaken it," she whispered to him, both watching as the creature finished recuperating and let out a thoroughly enraged scream. "That's how we can take it down. I'll keep fire on its face, and you keep the tentacles off of me. Go for their joints, if you can."
Soundwave nodded in understanding and curled his long fingers into fists. With the sound of Arcee opening fire, the battle resumed.
"You still attack my driller, though you must know you have no chance of defeating it?" Shockblast asked, as she held the grip of her remaining hand over the leaking stump of her arm, watching them attack her pet in the ultimate display of what one would see as a match between David and Goliath. "Your choices are most illogical. Revenge, destroy them, but focus on the femme first."
The driller obeyed like a loyal dog, and returned its complete focus to Arcee. But with every attack the driller attempted to make toward Arcee with its rending appendages, Soundwave would move to them and hit each away with a quick backstroke of his arm, allowing her to shoot at its neck and head with unhindered accuracy. By continuing with this method of attack, several of its protective metal plates were soon unhinged and shot off, falling to the ground below like stones and exposing the now-defenseless wiring and circuitry within. To Shockblast's surprise, she noticed the favor would soon turn to the Autobots if she did nothing. That's when she knew what pragmatic action had to be done next.
"Revenge!"
The sound of Shockblast's voice cut through the air like a knife. Without any sight of hesitation whatsoever, the driller suddenly stopped its current attack and turned to her, slamming all of its limbs to the ground in unison with a thunderous crash and sending up a thick cloud of dust and dirt that caused Arcee to stop her attack. With a quick pace, it abandoned its prey under the makeshift cover and slithered over the ground to its master at an incredible speed that betrayed its size, scattering sand and rock as it made a snaking trail.
"Let us retreat," she spoke next, looking down to her injured limb. With her words, the driller began to wrap around Shockblast's dwarfish form, protecting her from anything that had the potential to head her way. Shifting its bodily plates around, a compartment in the beast's very form opened, and the bot slipped inside after giving one last look at Soundwave and Arcee. After the plates shifted back into place, the driller let out another scream and dove into the ground behind it as if it were a fish to water; the rest of its extremely lengthy, thousand foot-long mass following it under the earth and vanishing from sight.
Cautiously watching the freshly-dug hole, Arcee, Soundwave, and Jack stood quietly and let two minutes of still silence follow, fearing that the being would resurface. When it was fully blatant that it was gone for good, Soundwave was the first to act. He walked to Arcee and immediately stared at the deep graze that adorned her thigh. Looking down at it, then back up to her, the Decepticon's view was held in frozen silence, as if desperately asking 'are you okay?'
"I'm fine," she affirmed before he could find a way to actually speak his mind, flashing a comforting smile. "It's just a scrape. Thanks for the assist, by the way."
The Autobot turned to Jack, who was just taking his helmet off, revealing a paled and very adrenalized face, still attempting to process what he witnessed. "Well, at least I know the real fate of my bike," he said, quietly laughing upon taking in a deep breath. "But... I don't think my insurance covers attacks by... whatever that was."
"That, Jack, was a driller," Arcee said, walking up to him, before shooting a worried glance at the hole. "And what we just saw is a big, big problem."
