"Well? Have you gotten over your little episode?" Thundercracker asked.
"Yeah, thanks for helping us," Jazz said.
"No problem. If you want to save the Cybertronian race, we have to fly there. Hmmm, you can't fly, can you?" Thundercracker noted, shifting his weight on the brown earth that made the cliff.
"No," Cliffjumper said shortly.
"We have to change that, don't we? Wait a minute…." Thundercracker shifted his weight again and concentrated for a moment. Before anyone had a chance to enquire as to what he was doing, he waved a hand, and the Autobots' worlds shrunk.
Before they knew it, Skywarp burst into laughter and Thundercracker was desperately holding back chuckles. Perceptor was suddenly afraid to know why the seekers suddenly looked extremely tall, or why his eyesight felt off. He braced himself and looked down.
He was a bird. He was a Primus forsaken bird.
Perceptor's scientific mind immediately analyzed his new body. He had a blue breast and neck, and by quickly examining his light brown wings he judged himself to be the earth breed of Cordon Bleu, and since he was male he assumed he had the breed's red mark above both of his ears.
Oooh… was that a worm he just saw slithering through the grass? It looked so fat and delicious… He took two hops forward and nearly dipped his head to eat it, but then the Autobot in him jerked him away. No. He was not about to eat a worm and become a slave to his form.
He looked around and saw Jazz, now Jazz the Peking Nightingale. He had an orange breast and light yellow feathers on the tips of his wings, and generally he was light green. Jazz looked at Perceptor as if to ask, 'What on Cybertron just happened?'
Perceptor swung his head around and saw a confused Bumblebee and a fuming Cliffjumper. Cliffjumper was a Cutthroat finch, and had the breed's traditional brown feathers with a bright red stripe that went around his neck. Bumblebee looked taller than Cliffjumper, surprisingly, and Perceptor judged him to be a Sun Conure. He had a bright yellow breast with dull red along the edges, though green prevailed the rest of him.
Perceptor looked around to find Beachcomber and Grimlock, and he found them both behind him. There was radical difference between their breeds. Beachcomber was a simple white dove with a pinkish beak and bright white feathers, and Grimlock was a falcon. Grimlock was a freaking falcon.
Perceptor subconsciously hopped back a few steps.
"Well, that solved that problem," Thundercracker commented. Cliffjumper let out several angry and probably vulgar chirps. The seeker shrugged. Perceptor got distracted briefly because he noticed a bush around one of the trees covered by small, bird-bit-sized red berries. They looked tasty. They were round and fat, little drops of dew dripping off of the red flesh. He wanted to have one. He hopped forward, intent on taking one, when he stopped. Wasn't there something about this world's food being dangerous for the living?
First the worm and now this. Perceptor shook off the strong temptation and concentrated on what Thundercracker was saying.
"Sorry, but it's the only thing I can think of right now. Do any of you know how to fly?"
Unanimous shaking of heads.
"Well, there's no time like the present. C'mon little birdies!" Skywarp said cheerfully, transforming and taking off. Cliffjumper jumped up and shot after him, screeching what everyone assumed to be obscenities. Perceptor inwardly marveled at how easily the previously red minibot took to the air. It only confirmed the rumor that Cliffjumper could do anything if one got him angry enough.
Grimlock hopped off the cliff and swooped with the two awkwardly. Giving a bird-like frown, he started flapping his wings harder against the air. It only served to make him unbalanced, and with an irritated caw, he struggled to imitate Cliffjumper.
Bumblebee reluctantly hopped to the edge and, with Beachcomber, took off. Both of them were nearly blown away by the wind, Bumblebee flipping upside-down for a moment. Bumblebee let out a panicked collection of chirps and Beachcomber swooped under him, but there was no need. Bumblebee righted himself and started flapping his wings unevenly. It wasn't perfect flying, but he wasn't plummeting to the ground.
Perceptor glanced at Jazz worriedly. Jazz chirped reassuringly and led the unsure scientist-turned-bird to the edge. Perceptor looked like he was ready to jump away from the cliff and try to hop all the way to wherever the seekers led them, but a sharp jab from Jazz's beak told him that that wouldn't be okay.
Jazz jumped into the air, trying to figure out how hard and often he had to flap immediately, but Perceptor was having trouble even getting that far. He flapped one wing, nearly flipping over in a way similar to Bumblebee, then quickly flapping the other to right himself. A gust of wind came and swept him up, and for a moment he froze. The ground was miles and miles down. It looked like he would fall forever if he ever spontaneously turned back into a Cybertronian, which there was a possibility of seeing as he had no clue how this world's 'magic' worked, and further more…
Oh, wait. He had stopped flapping. And he was falling.
Perceptor started flapping his wings erratically, trying to find another updraft.
"Find a rhythm. Don't try so hard," a gruff voice said. Perceptor cocked his head to see the blue seeker watching him from above. He steadied his breathing and concentrated on slowing his movements. His new bird instincts took over for him and he was flying normally.
"Don't tire yourselves out too much, birdies. We've got one long flight ahead of us!" Skywarp said. There were several bird-like moans.
--
Sunstreaker and Sideswipe stared. They stared for a very long time. Both had totally bemused expressions, and both couldn't seem to stop staring.
"How in Primus's name…?" Sideswipe began, but couldn't finish. Sunstreaker shivered in the cold.
They were in a snowy valley. There were huge amounts of the tiny white crystals, almost completely burying the twins' calves and looking like it was going to try to reach their hips. A human could've been buried standing up in it and the twins wouldn't be able to notice. It would be Pit trying to walk through it. There were huge mountains around them covered with an even thicker blanket of snow, and the mountains surrounded the valley. I was hard to see anything through the snow, although Sideswipe could swear he saw the distant glow of a fire on one of the mountains.
"So… how do we get out?" the red twin asked.
"How should I know?" Sunstreaker asked irritably. Sideswipe shrugged and started trudging through the snow, having to dig through it at points.
"Where are you going?" Sunstreaker asked.
"Well, we're not getting anywhere just standing here, now are we? C'mon Sunny, snow and ice shouldn't hurt your paint job too bad," Sideswipe said. Sunstreaker grumbled a little at the hated nickname but he followed his twin.
It was too snowy for this. It was way too snowy. Sunstreaker actually wondered if he should shut off his coolant system. Ice was melting and re-freezing in their joints and servos painfully, and both of them wondered if this could turn out to be a serious problem. It was getting to the point where the ice was getting too close to re-freezing in important circuitry to be comfortable.
Sunstreaker could have sworn that he caught sight of vapor coming off his armor. It was odd, seeing as his armor was usually only a little warmer than a human's average body temperature. He scowled as he knelt down, thrusting his hand through the stinging cold to break away some of the ice gathering in the servos of his lower legs. He wasn't a medic, but it didn't take much expertise to know that any human, Spike, Carly, Daniel, or whoever, wouldn't be able to survive long in this.
Sideswipe had lost count of how many times he had to wipe his optics clean only to have them blinded again. His thoughts had long-since regressed to one long whine that he didn't think his brother was in the mood to listen to. It was cold, it was dark, snow kept on gathering on their optics making it near impossible to see, and there was children's laughter in the distance…
Hold up. What was that last part?
Sideswipe and Sunstreaker both strained their audio sensors to catch the sound. It was indeed children laughing. The twins walked in the direction of it, and at the center of the snow storm there were six girls throwing snow balls at each other and running around on the snow.
"Hello? Who are you?" Sideswipe called. The girls paused in their game, all of them looking up to see their metal observers.
Muted silence stretched, making the sound of snow falling seem deafening. The girls' expressions ranged from surprised, to disturbingly content, to expressionless. Slowly, one girl walked to the twins and smiled. Snow stuck to her hair, turning it white, and apparently she had been in the cold far too long as purplish frostbite was on her fingers, her lips were blue, and her skin was abnormally pale.
"My name is Istas. Will you play with us?" she asked sweetly.
"What? Fleshy, how long have you been out here?"
"You're fingers are frostbitten, you need to get to your house!"
Istas looked down at her purple fingers briefly before looking back at them. "I've been out here for a long time. If you play a game with us we'll go to someplace warm."
The twins looked at her in horror. "You. Have. Frost. Bite. That. Can. Kill. You." Sunstreaker emphasized each word carefully.
Istas shook her head slightly. "Aminta doesn't allow us up where it's warm. She won't allow us to play near where she lives. We can't go up there," she said, gesturing vaguely around.
"Well you can take us to this Aminta and we can tell her she'd better help you!" Sideswipe said.
Istas cocked her head and smiled. "Just one game? Please?" she asked.
Sideswipe sighed and turned to his twin. "Okay, Sunny, I don't think she's going to budge on this. What's the harm in one game?" he asked.
Sunstreaker sighed. "This is going to ruin my finish, I know it. Okay, we'll play."
The girls all cheered and quickly gathered snowballs. "Think fast!" one girl giggled and a snowball hit Sideswipe on the shoulder. In comes the prankster's playful demeanor.
"I'll get you for that!" he grinned and flung a transformer-size snowball at the offending girl. She screamed in delight as she tried to evade the giant snowball.
"You'll pay for that!" Istas shouted playfully, and she started pelting Sideswipe with snowballs for the offense done to her friend.
Sunstreaker bent down and scooped up a snowball and swung it like a baseball at Istas. The girl somersaulted out of the way and the snow burst into a cloud against the ground.
Sunstreaker felt a snowball slap against the back of his neck. Before he had a chance to so much as swear the ice in the snowball trickled through the seams of his armor and shorted out his circuits. His body temporarily shut down and fell to the ground, though he was still aware of everything.
"Sunny..." Sideswipe didn't get any farther. A loud thwack informed the golden warrior that his twin suffered the same fate as he. Istas stood up and brushed herself off, never taking her eyes from the twins. She picked up another snowball slowly, and it was only now that either twin noticed how she and the other girls were always on top of the snow, never in it.
"Cold… It is very cold, isn't it?..." she murmured. She walked over to Sunstreaker and, as if she were simply rolling a teddy bear over, she turned him so he was on his back. The snow hissed against the yellow warrior's heated back, but slowly, the cold began to seep in. Sunstreaker glared at her and swore that as soon as his systems rebooted…
Painful cold jolted through his arm as Istas packed the snowball into Sunstreaker's wrist, and she began packing snow into his joints and against his armor. Cold pinpricked him with each flake that touched his servos, confusing his systems and making it all register as pain. Two girls wordlessly followed their apparent leader and began packing snow against the golden warrior, and Sunstreaker assumed that the last three girls were doing to same to Sideswipe. Cold. Oh Primus, it was so cold. He mentally shook himself out of the stupor threatening to envelop him. Okay, his computer was almost rebooted, three, two, one…
"Never look back 'cause it hurts…"
Sunstreaker paused when Istas started singing softly, oh so softly. Her voice was so quiet that the snow and the cold should have silenced it, but the Autobot could hear it loud and clear.
"My heart is so cold.
I feel the frost,
never look back."
He thought he heard someone lightly strumming a guitar, and wind chimes sounded in the distance. Nature was singing with the small girl.
"I feel the darkness on my shoulder,
the frost is in my heart.
So cold my hair is frozen,
touching my skin, my flesh."
The other girls joined Istas with her singing, and their voices ringing sweetly. They didn't even seem to be singing about the cold anymore. Their voices spoke of something deep inside of the twins, a desire, and they took it and spun it into sound. Their song wasn't about just lyrics. It was about everything, and nothing at the same time. They were singing for every voiceless soul, every silent prayer a child whispered with hope in their mind, every heart broken in all of time. They were singing for the people wrecked by their lives, for all innocence lost, and every bittersweet word that had left a mortal's lips was strung within, falling from their tongues like rain. They sang for the child waiting for death to envelop them like a shadow, but always hoping that one day the shadow would leave. They sang for the mother watching her son leave to go to war, knowing in her heart that she will never see her child again. They sang for the man who had lost everything that he ever held dear and who had no one to talk to. They sang for the girl who blossomed in youth and withered in age, having never experienced love. Sunstreaker's systems registered as rebooted and ready, but he didn't move. He wanted to hear them sing. They were packing snow higher and higher, and he dully realized they were burying him and his twin alive. He didn't care. As long as they kept singing, he didn't care.
As long as they kept singing.
--
Kelly trudged through the snow with Bluestreak in tow. Bluestreak was talking, a lot. She had learned to ignore it about an hour ago.
Bluestreak, for his part, was happy talking and not paying attention to the creepiness of the situation. They had gone from the nice warm place he had landed in to here in only a few miles. Kelly had refused to say why they were there, and he didn't exactly have anywhere else to go so he had to follow her. He looked around while he chattered, just up in the sky. That's odd; he could've sworn he just saw a flock of the most random birds fly overhead…
"Quiet, I think I hear something," Kelly said, ears perking slightly. Bluestreak was silent, and then he heard it to.
"Sometimes I regret I had to do,
'cause our love was somehow true.
But I had to leave you,
for the sake of the moods."
"Shit, the Sirens. They've got someone," Kelly growled. She scrambled through the snow until she was able to look down into the valley, and then she swore vehemently.
"What? What?" Bluestreak followed her, and stopped in shock of what he saw in the valley.
Six girls were burying Sideswipe and Sunstreaker alive, and they weren't fighting!
He braced himself to rush at them, but Kelly pulled his wrist. "No! If you go any closer, their song will affect you just as much. They'll bury you to!" That made Bluestreak stop. "Wait for a friend of mine. She was supposed to act as guide for those two down there, but I guess the Sirens got there first."
"Frozen tears turn into my skin.
Frozen memories of you.
Sometimes I see your face,
as pure as you are mine."
"But… but… I've got to help them! They're going to die and I'll lose another friend and—" Kelly thwacked Bluestreak to silence him.
"Istas works a certain way. After successfully luring someone into a snowball fight she hits them at their weak point, and then sings to them to calm them to the point of being a rag doll with which she can do as she will. She then buries them into the ice, and moves on with the rest of the Sirens. There's a small time window between when the Sirens leave and their victim actually dies. Oh! Look, someone's coming." She pointed down the hill and Bluestreak could indeed see someone climbing up.
"Thank goodness you're here! I was starting to wonder if you'd get here in time to help," the figure said when she was became more than a blob in the distance. She pulled off a hooded jacket she was wearing at let it fall to the ground.
She was a pretty girl, narrow shoulders, green eyes, and really long black hair that was tied in a braid that reached her waist. She had an identical red scarf to that of Kelly's tied around her neck and a shirt that looked like it used to be green was drenched in blood as well.
"Bluestreak, meet my friend Ciera. Ciera, meet my friend Bluestreak," Kelly said.
"Pleasure to meet you," Ciera said politely.
"I feel the darkness on my shoulder;
the frost is in my heart.
So cold my hair is frozen,
touching my skin, my flesh."
Bluestreak didn't return the greeting as he was busy staring horrified at the scene of the twins almost completely buried under the snow and ice. Ciera looked at it with narrowed eyes.
"The Sirens are almost done with the song. There's only about one stanza left. Let's move!"
With that, the three ran from their place above the valley. Bluestreak switched off his audio sensors just when the haunting song began to make him want to lie down in front of the Sirens.
"Never look back because it hurts.
My heart is so cold
I feel the frost,
never look back."
Everyone with their hearing still tuned to the song noticed the distant chimes in the distance, moving in time to the song. The Sirens stepped away from the now fully-buried twins and disappeared into the blizzard.
"Bluestreak! Do you have something that could warm them up?" There was a nod. "Turn it on, we need it!"
Bluestreak nearly tripped over himself scrambling to the soon-to-be-graves of the twins, and he turned on his plasma ray and set it on 'heat.'
He shot the gun several times in quick succession at the snow, and it melted under the lasers. Melted ice and snow poured out to the sides, turning into intricate patterns of cold jewels, sparkling in the light of the shots that left Bluestreak's gun's barrel.
"Just keep shooting. We're going to get them out," Kelly said. The snow melted, and only then did Bluestreak relax his aim and look up at the snowy sky above.
--
They had been walking in silence for a while now. The Dinobots don't talk much to begin with, The Wanderer apparently had no need to talk, Red Alert was watching The Wanderer suspiciously, and Hot Rod was just looking at everyone in turn. The air was thick with tension, and he could swear the slightest noise could make someone snap.
Red Alert didn't like The Wanderer, that much was obvious. The fact that The Wanderer didn't seem to trust them much didn't help matters at all. She didn't trust them to have her real name, didn't trust them with enough information… she didn't even trust them to see her slagging face.
His thoughts were interrupted by the distant clattering of a caravan and the clip-clop of hooves. The Wanderer stood stock still, and after a moment she turned to the Autobots.
"Our ride is near. Come, we can let no one know what you are. They are liable to allow the information of our whereabouts leak to the wrong people," she whispered.
"How are we going to hide from them if we are riding with them?" Red Alert asked crossly. It was hard to tell with the burqa, but he could swear that The Wanderer looked irritated.
"In this world, I have more power over form than you would in yours. Be silent." With that, she waved her hand.
At first, no one noticed any difference. Red Alert was staring at The Wanderer as though she had gone mad. Then he noticed that she seemed to be his size. And then he noticed he felt something brushing the back of his neck and going down past where a human's shoulder blades would be. More afraid than he thought he had ever been, he reached behind himself and took a handful of the thing that was brushing him and looked at it.
Oh. Great. Primus.
He was holding a handful of wavy, fiery red human hair. He didn't want to know what the rest of him had become.
He looked down, and promptly let out a screech.
Okay, maybe he wasn't a he anymore…
"What did you do to me?!" Red Alert shrieked, and he was horrified to find that his voice was slightly higher than normal.
He could swear The Wanderer was stifling laughter when she said, "I made sure you all would be harder to detect. Here you go." She drew a mirror out from under her burqa and handed it to the security director.
Red Alert looked into its depths and saw a face that did not belong to him. He saw a young beautiful woman, perhaps around her early twenties, with bright blue eyes peering under long curly lashes and red hair that framed her slightly pale face nicely. Red Alert slowly put down the mirror and looked at what he was wearing, and he was mortified to see his dress showed cleavage.
In reality, it really was a nice dress. It was made of red velvet with a little red lace on the neckline. It wasn't tight; in fact the skirt was full enough to billow slightly in the wind. The sleeves were short and ruffled a little. Red Alert silently promised that if anyone dared laugh at him he would rip their eyes out.
He looked up and around at everyone else. The Dinobots looked basically the same: all had broad shoulders with floppy brown hair that went into blue eyes, (Swoop's hair was more blond than brown,) and Snarl and Swoop were a little shorter than Slag and Sludge.
Hot Rod was tall but well muscled with bright blue eyes. His hair was blond with red highlights and was cut like a traditional beach boy's. Currently he was staring at tanned hands that seemed to belong to him now.
The Dinobots seemed to be doing much the same, though Slag was looking around at everyone else. "Why Red Alert look like girl now?" he asked. Red Alert fumed as Hot Rod let out a surprised sound and all eyes went straight to him.
"Why don't you ask The Wanderer," Red Alert hissed each word.
"It was to add realism. Six men being led by me wouldn't look quite normal," The Wanderer said. Red Alert could've sworn there was amusement in her voice and quickly decided that he did not believe her reason. "Come on then, Tobar will only be here for a short while." And with that, she led the group through the growing mist down the road.
The mist thickened until the only thing Red Alert could see was a circle of light ahead of him. He heard a horse snort close by, and immediately he was on his guard.
"Halt! Who goes there?" a loud male voice shouted, causing Red Alert to jump.
"Easy, Tobar. It is merely I and some people I'm guiding," The Wanderer said in a calming voice.
"Aleta? Ah! Come in, I was just about to leave," the man, Tobar, said.
"How many times have I told you not to call me that?" The Wanderer said, taking Red Alert's hand and leading him through the mist onto a platform through a door, and everything was clear.
"And how many times have I told you I won't stop? I don't care what your blood says, Aleta, but you're a gypsy, through and through." Red Alert looked up at the source of the voice to see a cheerful-looking Roma man with black hair, a mustache, and two merry black eyes. He was by no means a small man, his shoulders were broad, he was tall, he looked strong… everything about him was big. The security director stole a quick look around the room he was in, and he determined it the inside of a colorful caravan. There was a comfortable-looking couch to the side with an obviously well-loved fiddle rested on it. There was a door behind him that led to another caravan that was connected to the one he was in, and he quickly judged it to be a train of caravans.
"And who are these men? And this beautiful young lady?" Tobar asked kindly, smiling through his mustache and patting Red Alert's cheek. Luckily, the Roma didn't notice Red Alert's baffled expression as he turned to The Wanderer.
"This is Hugh, Sam, Neil, George, Max, and Rose," The Wanderer said, pointing to Hot Rod, Swoop, Snarl, Sludge, Slag, and Red Alert in that order. "They need help finding friends. We are going to the outskirts of the Snow Mountains, preferably."
Tobar clapped his massive hands together. "I can take you there, though be careful of the Sirens. They've been very active since this whole upheaval began, though Aminta's presence keeps them well under control. Adrian!" A man that Red Alert hadn't noticed stepped out of the shadows. He wasn't as big as Tobar, but he still looked like he could crush Red Alert's new body with his little finger. He was burly, blond, Caucasian, and looked a lot less friendly than Tobar. There was a suspicious purple bruise that surrounded his neck, but Red had no time to muse on where it may have come from. "Please show these people to their rooms. The nice ones, if you please."
Adrian nodded and led the Autobots through the door and Red Alert noticed an easy conversation start up between The Wanderer and Tobar.
Almost immediately Adrian stopped at some doors in the next room. That was odd; the caravan looked a lot smaller from the outside.
"The men stay here. Make yourselves comfortable," Adrian grunted. The Dinobots picked the same room and Hot Rod was happy to have one to himself. Red Alert grimaced and followed Adrian through another room, which was a kitchen and dining room, to another sort of corridor with two doors.
"One room's yours, the other belongs to the Miss. Make yourself comfortable, dinner is in an hour, and before you ask, our food and drink is safe for your kind," Adrian said. His eyes lingered on the security director for a moment, and Red Alert suddenly felt chilled. Adrian turned smartly and walked down the hall. Red Alert stepped into the indicated room and realized with some relief that it was relatively plain, a bed in the corner and a small window that peered out into the misty darkness. Red Alert sat on the bed and sighed. This had been a very long day.
A/N
First of all, sorry for taking so long. Real life got in the way. Second of all, yay! I finally got it up! -grins- Okay, Maieve Avvi beta'd for me, so we all should thank her grandly. The song is not mine; it is called Frozen by I don't remember who. People seem to think that it is by Within Temptation, but Within Temptation's 'Frozen' is very different from this one. If the formatting came out weird, ignore it. FF is being a little wonky.