Chapter 10 summary: Dead End and Wildrider participate in an energon raid… and end up trapped.
10. Drinking Energon: When Good Raids Go Bad
One of Megatron's favorite targets when it came to surprise attacks were energon storage facilities. No specialized equipment was needed to convert any source of energy; the Decepticons could simply descend on such places, grab whatever they could carry and flee with the happy knowledge that whatever they took had been meant for the Autobots.
Dead End didn't think that improved the taste of the energon, contrary to Thrust's claims, and there wasn't much point in the raids considering that all they did was grab just enough fuel to stave off the inevitable for a few days longer, assuming that they weren't deactivated by the Autobots during the raid. And the humans responded by either strengthening or disguising said facilities, or both, making it even more of an effort to attack them, then get out before the Autobots arrived.
Still, he knew better than to say anything when Motormaster ordered the four of them out on one such raid. The place in question was a converted human armory. Since Megatron had no interest in human weapons, that might have fooled him if Autobots with some form of mass-storage capacity in alt-mode hadn't made periodical visits to it. You can't con a 'con, Dead End thought as they approached the storage depot.
Sixteen tons of semi hit the gates at a a hundred miles an hour, which was enough to convince all the humans to either run or seek cover. Dead End stayed well back in case flying debris or organic fluids struck or spattered on his chassis, but unfortunately Motormaster noticed that and ordered him to enter the storage depot first.
So that I'll set off whatever trap the humans have set up in there, Dead End thought, studying the wrenched-open doors of the storage depot with a marked lack of enthusiasm. He looked around in the off-chance that Drag Strip might be talked into racing into the place first, but of course Drag Strip had gone chasing after some of the humans who had gotten away in a jeep. There was no reprieve from his imminent destruction.
"C'mon, I'll go with ya," Wildrider said.
Oh, even better. I might as well just shoot myself in the CPU now and get it over with. Wildrider had a habit of giving himself away to anyone in the vicinity and setting off traps by venting at them. Still, at least I won't die alone. Sighing, Dead End followed his teammate inside.
The entrance was high enough for humans, but the two of them had to duck their heads to pass through and a light fixture inside thumped Dead End on the top of his helm. He didn't have time to worry about the scrape on his paint, though, because Wildrider hurried ahead to a huge black blast door with orange hazard symbols plastered on it. Explosive. Yes, there's probably energon and death beyond that door.
"Why don't we get one of the humans to open that?" he said, glancing around in a desultory way. Breakdown was at the main entrance, but he took a step back at the mention of humans.
There was a loud rattling sound as Wildrider tugged on the door and it swung a little. Dead End eyed it warily, braced for a trap.
"It was open!" Wildrider caught the edge of the door – it was almost as tall as he was – and started to pull it ajar. Dead End noted the glow of energon from within and moved closer.
"Better tell Motormaster to pull up and transform," he said to Breakdown. "We'll have to start loading."
"I don't tell Motormaster to do anything. I'm not a mascot."
"Masochist," Dead End murmured automatically as he stepped into the energon storage room. Wildrider stood just inside the door, the light falling on his face as he turned this way and that, staring in fascination at the cubes stacked neatly along the walls. Enough to stave off starvation for a few days, perhaps, Dead End thought.
"Look at all this!" Wildrider said and flung out an arm.
There was a muffled clang and Breakdown shouted, "Watch out!" Dead End reacted instinctively. He threw himself at Wildrider, knocking them both flat and clamping an arm over his head in some futile protection from an explosion or gunfire. He realized a moment later that the sound he'd heard had been Wildrider's arm slamming against the door…
…and sending it swinging shut.
Dead End scrambled up and made a grab for the door, only to realize that there was, for some reason, no handle on the inside. His fingertips slid off the smooth metal – and, he thought, probably completed the job of pushing it into its frame. Breakdown yelped from outside, the sound cut off as the door snicked smoothly shut.
"Ooh, my face." Wildrider rubbed his olfactory sensors.
Dead End tapped against the door and called out to Breakdown, then realized that the door was so thick it blocked off any sounds from outside. Of course, the entire place was designed to protect humans in case all the energon detonated. He activated his radio.
"Breakdown?"
"Are you two all right?"
"For perhaps a few seconds longer, until the energon explodes or Motormaster wonders what we're doing in here. Open the door."
"How? It locked automatically when it closed, and I don't know the compilation for the lock. Can't you open it from the inside?"
Dead End ran his hands over the inside of the door, searching for any kind of lock and finding none. Wildrider joined him and hammered at the door with the butt of his gun until Dead End pointed out that that was doing more damage to the gun than to the door. He decided there was no point in prolonging the inevitable. "You'd better inform Motormaster."
"Inform Motormaster of what?" a deep cold voice cut into the transmission. "That you two fragged up again? I knew that already." Drag Strip said something in the background and Motormaster made a sound of disgust. "Yes, keep watching for the 'bots, slaggit!" he said. "They must be on their way but it doesn't matter. I'll take care of the two idiots and the energon as well."
The comm cut off. Dead End sat down, retrieved a soft cloth from subspace and began to polish his left leg.
"Aren't we gonna keep trying to get out?" Wildrider said.
"How? This place is a vault – even you must have noticed the reinforced walls and door. Even if we succeed, we'll only crawl out in the end, critically low on energy, and look up to see a ring of Autobot guns pointing at us."
Wildrider immediately looked up instead, at the ceiling just a handspan above his head.
Dead End sighed. "May I point out that your gun fires a beam of lasers… and that the interior of this place is highly polished, to better show off its contents to any Autobot visitors? Any ricochet will lead to your striking the energon." He had no great objections to dying – we might as well get it over with, given that it's likely to occur at any moment – but doing so in a blast of detonated energon was not just highly painful, it would leave a twisted, blackened, smoking shell unlikely to be recognized as the best-looking of the Stunticons. That was not exactly acceptable.
"Huh." Wildrider shrugged and subspaced his gun. "Okay, you wanna try?"
"I'm not certain that firing a compressed-air rifle inside this small space is a good idea either." Dead End made himself as comfortable as possible against the door – the other walls were stacked with shelves of cubes – and continued polishing. "Why bother? You heard Motormaster – he's going to take care of two idiots and when he's done with that he'll get us out."
Wildrider sat down as well, then stretched out luxuriously on the floor with a creak and metallic swivel of joints. "You got one thing wrong, Deadster," he said. "We won't be low on energy. We got all the energon we need right here."
"That's true." Dead End stopped polishing and reached for the nearest cube, inspecting it carefully. It was labelled "Industrial Grade". He wondered why the Autobots would be given such a low grade of energon. Probably intended for captured 'con prisoners – enough to keep them alive but not to do much else.
"The high-grade stuff's over here." Wildrider rolled over, fetched up against the other wall and plucked another labeled cube off the shelf.
Dead End caught the cube as it was tossed to him, then opened both. There wasn't much in the way of fumes, though when he took off his battle mask and tasted them he could tell the difference.
"Whatcha think?" Wildrider said, taking down a cube for himself.
Dead End swirled a little of the high-grade around his mouth. "Light and dry, but yielding to a faint sweet bouquet that just might be full-bodied with further aging."
Wildrider giggled. "That's funny. Here, do it with one of the medium-grade." Another cube flew across the room.
"Mmm. Warm and mellow, but the aftertaste leaves something to be desired. There's a creamy flavor, possibly indicative of a high alkali content."
"What about the low-grade?"
"Ugh! Acidic and astringent, only suited to the Autobot palate. Disgorging any fluids into it would only improve the taste."
"And this?"
"Wildrider, I can't keep drinking these. I'll end up inebriated."
"No, just drunk. And I'll help you!" Wildrider bounced across the room, arms full of cubes and dropped them in a messy heap into Dead End's lap. He picked up one of the half-full (half-empty, Dead End thought) cubes that had been tasted and drank it down. "Is that the industrial-grade? Tastes like feet. High-grade. Mmm-mmm! Goes down like a Seeker--"
"If I wanted crude I'd be drinking oil, thank you." Dead End was starting to feel light-headed, and he tried another of the high-grade. "Incompletely oxidized but opulent nevertheless, crisp and vivid and not too viscous." He swirled the liquid in the cube, holding it up to the glow of the rest of the energon. "Megatron should enjoy this."
Wildrider's purple optics flickered with a strange light of their own. "Yeah. Yeah, he should." He leaned back, shoulders to the door and scooped a great armful of the cubes onto his abdominal plating.
Dead End watched him to see if he was planning to hide some of the cubes in his passenger compartment, but Wildrider just seemed to be playing with them instead, though he dropped a few when the entire door shuddered from an impact from the other side. They both watched the door – Dead End preparing to scramble out of the way – but nothing further happened.
Perhaps the door can stand up to even a charge from Motormaster, Dead End thought, which means that we're trapped in here for the rest of our lives, though those will be prolonged somewhat since we do have so much energon at hand.
"Look, here's an empty one," Wildrider said. "More than one empty one. Two empty ones. Or is that one empty twos?"
"Five cubes, all drained." Dead End was a bit taken aback – had he and Wildrider really drunk all that? Oh well, the cubes are going to be consumed anyway, aren't they? And at least that way, perhaps he would be too intoxicated to feel it when Motormaster finally got them out and slagged them for their carelessness.
"Well, you know what we can do with an empty one?"
"Um, no, I'm afraid I don't. Hide it so Motormaster doesn't realize that we've started drinking these?"
Wildrider grinned. He set the empty cube between them and spun it on one corner.
"I think that only works with bottles, Wildrider."
"Whatever. Anyway, there's nothing wrong with drinking these. We might be in here for years and years and we can't let it go to waste." Wildrider watched as the cube came to a halt. "It's pointing at you."
"So? I'm not kissing you, if that's what you want. Mostly because I keep seeing two of you and can't be sure which one is real."
"Okay, we'll play truth or dare then."
"Truth." Dead End reached for another cube and sipped rather morosely – he felt as though he had crossed over from pleasant tipsiness to being aware once again of the nasty, brutish and above all short nature of life. "I don't think I have the coordination to do anything on a dare."
"Truth, huh?" Wildrider's mouth pursed up. "I got it. When we win the war, which continent d'you want?"
Dead End had been expecting something crazy, so he wasn't surprised. "Firstly, what makes you think we'll win the war? We're outnumbered and most of the humans support the Autobots. We're more likely to be defeated and dragged off to separate internment camps where we'll have to listen to Autobot propaganda while we rust away." He stopped when Wildrider held up a hand and brought his fingers and thumb together repeatedly in a blah-blah gesture. "And secondly, what makes you think we'd get continents?"
"Megatron said Earth belonged to us." Only Wildrider could speak as though he actually believed that; ah, the joys of insanity. "'Sides, none of the other 'cons really like it here."
"I don't really like it here."
Wildrider continued as though he hadn't heard that. "They'll all go back to Cybertron once they win the war, but Megatron might want someone to stay here and keep an optic on things."
"On a planet devastated by war and drained of all its energy? Yes, I can see us being given so munificent a prize for our efforts. No doubt Megatron will send periodic postcards from Cybertron. Having a wonderful time, do not wish you were here."
"So which continent d'you want?" Wildrider began playing with the cubes again, peeling their labels off. "I figure there's enough of 'em for all of us."
"Whichever one is farthest from the others. Antarctica, perhaps. Of course, the average temperature there being what it is, my fuel and fluid lines will freeze and I'll deactivate in short order."
"Cool. I'll take Australia."
Dead End frowned. "Why Australia?"
"Kangaroos."
From Wildrider's lunatic viewpoint, that might have made sense, but he didn't have the energy to figure it out. "Fine. Australia, you are hereby known as Wildriderland. Please evacuate the continent as soon as possible. Leave all televisions and stereos on."
Wildrider laughed again. "You're funny when you're over-energized. You should do it more--"
The radio pinged on a Stunticon channel and Dead End opened his side of the comm, hoping he would be able to speak without slurring any words. "You okay?" Drag Strip said, then continued before either of them could reply. "We got 'bots on our radar… staying at a distance, the cowards. Motormaster's lasering the door open, but that'll take a few minutes longer."
"A few minutes?" Wildrider immediately stopped reattaching the labels, reached for a full cube and chugged it down in a few swallows.
"What are you doing?" Drag Strip said. "Are you drinking those already?'
"No. Glug."
"You two better leave some over for us! I swear, Wildrider, I'm going to--" The transmission was abruptly cut off.
"Did you do that?" Dead End said.
"Uh-uh." Wildrider had finished re-sticking the labels; he polished a sixth cube off with a visible effort and dragged the back of one hand over his mouth. "Thick – thick it was the bosh?"
With a sudden feeling of impending doom, Dead End activated his combat radar. Motormaster's hulking form instantly registered on one side of the energon vault. Two Autobot shapes showed up on the other.
Very close on the other side, perhaps even listening to see what was happening in the vault. Dead End glanced at Wildrider, and as one, they turned to look at the bare shelves on the other side of the room.
Wobbly on his feet though he was, Wildrider gathered the last few cubes from the shelves, piling them in an unsteady little pyramid at the base of the opposite wall. Dead End shunted power away from every other system to his forcefield, then beckoned Wildrider over. The two of them crouched down at the base of the door, as far from the stack of cubes as possible. The rest, a quarter of them empty, were tumbled around their feet.
"Give me your gun," Dead End said over the radio.
Wildrider groped around in a subspace pocket and handed him a clarinet.
Dead End had to restrain himself from hitting Wildrider over the head with that; why ruin a good musical instrument? "Gun, Wildrider. Give me your… oh, never mind. I'll do it myself. Just make sure your forcefield's at complete strength."
"I have a forshfield?"
We're both doomed, Dead End thought. He transformed, aiming both forward-mounted guns on the stack of cubes and wishing that they wouldn't keep drifting from one side of the wall to the other. "Eat hot… something, Autobots," he muttered, and fired.
The resulting explosion sent him slamming back against the wall, both optical sensors offline and his audials ringing with the sound. He was vaguely aware of small objects clinking and pattering down across his twitching chassis – was that debris or was it Wildrider retrieving more junk from subspace? Did it matter? – but from outside there were groans that he fervently hoped were made by the Autobots. Everything seemed to be moving, though, and all he wanted to do was curl up into a ball, hold his aching head and wait to die.
A hand shook one of his wheels repeatedly. Wincing, Dead End transformed again, his optics slowly coming back online. The first thing they registered was the muzzle of a gun, pointing between them at his CPU.
"Look, I found it!" Wildrider said, waving the gun in his face. The muzzle scraped lightly against Dead End's visor.
"That's very good, Wildrider," he said carefully. "Now would you mind turning around and shooting the 'bots instead?"
The 'bots – Prowl and Trailbreaker – were already scrambling for the building's exit as the roar of high-performance engines rose in the distance, and Wildrider's shots were so off-target that Dead End thought for a moment that he would hit Motormaster instead. To his disappointment, though, Wildrider stopped shooting when he tripped over one of the energon cubes and went over in a heap of flailing limbs.
The Autobots had already made their getaway by then, putting all the speed they could into a headlong flight as Motormaster barreled through the smoking rent in the wall. He transformed and stared down incredulously at the empty cubes.
"Did you two morons drink all those?" he said. One hand shot out, closed around a head-spike and hauled Wildrider closer.
"Leggo!" Wildrider swatted at Motormaster's hand, missing it by a yard or so. "No, we didn't glug that. Puh…" He seemed to be making a great effort to enunciate. "Puh…"
Motormaster's optics narrowed.
"Pow drank it!" Wildrider said triumphantly.
"I'll give you pow!" Motormaster snarled, and proceeded to do just that, shaking Wildrider until he rattled like a crateful of scrap; in the noise and clamor, Dead End's mumble of, "I think he meant Prowl" went utterly unheard. Finally Wildrider dropped to the floor strutlessly and Motormaster picked Dead End up by both shoulder-wheels before slamming him back against the door.
"I've a good mind to take you both to the Constructicons and get them to pump your fuel tanks dry!" he said.
"So you can get the energon back?" Dead End hung limply; he knew he should have felt pain and yet the massive amount of energon in his system meant he registered nothing except a warm, floating numbness. "Won't work, Motorm… muh… msh. Cause I tasted the high-grade and low-grade and medium-grade and high-grade and medium-grade--" There was a hard slap across his face. "Uh… it's all mixed up now. Won't taste so good second time around."
Since the logic in that was evident even to his over-energized processors, he wasn't surprised that Motormaster let him fall a second later, only kicking him in one shoulder for good measure before he turned to Breakdown and Drag Strip. "You two throw the idiots in my trailer and then carry the cubes. I wouldn't put it past these two to start drinking again if they're anywhere near these, and Megatron says that since we all but blew the raid we get the industrial-grade slag!" Muttering threats, he transformed.
Dead End managed to crawl to a half-sitting position when the doors of the trailer slammed shut and Motormaster's engine thundered into life. He was vaguely aware of the remains of the facility crumbling as Motormaster roared out, and Wildrider's optics flickered as he came back online.
"What happen'?" he said, peering around in a mildly confused way.
"We're going home," Dead End said without looking up from the new scrapes and scratches on his armor. He had to fill those in and reapply polish and yet he felt too tired and dispirited to do either. "And Megatron says we only get the industrial-grade energon." What had been the point of the raid? They'd ended up with nothing but minor injuries and distasteful rations to show for it, and he knew they would have just-kill-me-now hangovers the next day.
To his surprised, Wildrider grinned. He tried to push himself into a sitting position against the front of the trailer, but failed and slid slowly lower. When he spoke, half the words were slurred but Dead End could still understand him.
"Remember when I was peeling the labels off the cubes?" he said.
"Yes?"
Wildrider giggled. "Switched 'em. Put the high-grade labels on the ind-indushal-grade stuff and, uh, worse worser."
"Vice versa?" Dead End shifted a little closer, lightly nudging Wildrider's shoulder-tire with his own. Wildrider made a contented purring sound and turned, curling up against him and resting his head on Dead End's shoulder. He slipped quietly into recharge.
After that there was no sound except the rumble of Motormaster's engine. And if Dead End heard a low, rough chuckle beneath that – well, it was due to his being drunk rather than to the two-way intercom system installed in the trailer.
"Australia's a lucky continent," he said after a while.
Fire From Above : Yes, you guessed the reasoning behind the plan. Needless to say, it backfires since Drag Strip doesn't do indebtedness. Go him.
Taipan Kiryu : Oh, Silverbolt's plan is indeed painful and potentially deadly. Then again, he's going to be the last mech to lose any recharge over the possibility of Drag Strip getting killed. As for what his plan is, think Swept Away meets 48 Hrs. At least, that's what the plan is supposed to be. Unfortunately it turns out to be more The Odd Couple meets Lord of the Flies.
tomorrow4eva : The episode with Prime's body parts ("City of Steel") was one I tried to forget after watching it, even though it featured another of my favorite combiner teams. I don't think the 'bots even suspected the origins of the Alligatorcon despite its coloring.
The Autobots' offer of rehabilitation, while kindly meant, is impossible under current circumstances; as you pointed out, the Stunticons would all need some intense therapy, mental readjustment and character growth, which they're simply not going to receive under wartime conditions even if they wanted it. Given that such a process would take a lot of time, they'd also have 'cons trying to break them out or worse. Megatron isn't likely to let his handmade gestalt rot in an Autobot prison for long. He'd either get them out or kill them himself.