Chapter 11 summary : Left damaged and alone, Drag Strip realizes that it's all been a plot… so now he's damaged and infuriated. But not alone for long. Continued from Chapter 9.
11. Jealous : Hollywood Makes Strange Bedfellows
Drag Strip came back online slowly. His whole chassis ached, and for a moment he wasn't sure what had happened to him.
Then his memory banks booted up as well and he remembered. Stephanie had lured him out there so that Sideswipe could live up to his loathsome designation. The recollection made him burn with fury. If she hadn't mode-locked me I'd have turned and fired. If she hadn't been in front of me I'd have driven out of the way – I'm faster than that stupid fragger Sideswipe any day--
Never mind the ifs. Get out of here first.
He checked his radar first. Nothing nearby. And since he couldn't hear anything, it wasn't likely that anyone was lying in wait, poised to attack him if he moved. Besides, he thought, if Stephanie'd wanted me dead I should be, well, dead by now. According to his chronometer, he'd been offline for nearly half an hour.
The scenario didn't quite make sense to him, but he could think about it later. He activated his optics.
He lay at an angle at the lowest point of the ravine, nearly wedged into a crevice in the rock. Thrusters offline, probably jarred in the fall, though his HUD assured him that they would be repaired in about ten breem. His forcefield had protected him otherwise. Everything else still worked except for his transformation sequence, and that was because of the fragging mode-lock the human had slipped on him while pretending to clean him.
Doesn't matter. I can get myself out of here in alt-mode.
His engine grumbled into life as he looked around, wondering which way to go. The road was a good hundred feet above him. With his thrusters he could have driven vertically up the face of the cliff towards the road; without them, that was not an option. The clouds overhead were a thick, roiling grey and he knew the storm would break very soon.
He decided he would simply have to drive along the ravine until it grew shallower and allowed him back on to level ground. It's either that or radio for help.
Drag Strip decided against the latter option. The last thing he needed was his teammates (or horror of horrors, Motormaster) finding out how easily he had been tricked. They would never forget that; they would laugh at the story over their energon years later. If his life had been in danger he would have commed them, but he was still safe.
Just stuck. But not for much longer.
He reversed, then snarled under his breath as a huge rear tire sank into a hole in the ground. All six tires spun, clawing him forward again. The base of the ravine was the most irregular surface he had ever seen, covered with boulders and shallow pits in the ground, but he had no choice if he wanted to get out; he had to drive over it somehow and keep going until--
Sheet lightning flickered, bleaching the clouds. It was so bright that Drag Strip almost missed the shape that cut through the sky; if the jet had not flown so close to the ground, it might have gone unnoticed. But the Phantom nearly skimmed the rocks as it zoomed low. Even the gloom of the overcast day couldn't entirely dull the red paintjob.
Fireflight!
Drag Strip hit the accelerator, optical sensors still directed straight up. There was something worse than his teammates finding out what had happened to him – and that was an Aerialbot witnessing it.
Since he was staring up while driving, he slammed straight into a boulder, forcefield shimmering as it took the brunt of the impact. And the sudden movement from below drew Fireflight's attention. He shot overhead, then slewed abruptly as if trying to wheel around.
The maneuver might have worked if he hadn't been flying so low. The tip of one wing clipped the side of a nearby cliff so hard that Drag Strip saw sparks fly from the impact, and suddenly Fireflight was spinning out of control, spiraling down. For a moment Drag Strip hoped fervently that he was going to crash and explode, but Fireflight seemed to recover at the last moment, his flight easing off. He disappeared behind a ridge of rock that jutted up high enough to cut Drag Strip's view off.
Drag Strip dialed up his audial sensors for the sound of a jet plane being splattered over the landscape. No, no such luck. What do I do now?
He checked his weapons, which were thankfully online. Maybe I can shoot him. The thought of the Aerialbots laughing over his humiliation – and sending Fireflight out to grab a trophy from the downed 'con – was too much to be borne.
A comm registered on his radio, and he recognized an Autobot frequency. Ignoring it, he began to maneuver as best he could so that his forward-mounted guns would be able to shoot at the position where he had last seen Fireflight. His wheels bumped and jolted over the rocky ground and the narrow walls of the ravine scraped his chassis as he turned, but he was ready now, braced to deal with at least one of his enemies.
His radio pinged again. Drag Strip hesitated, unsure of whether to keep ignoring it. Maybe Fireflight will think I'm injured and offline and defenseless if I don't answer. No, that wouldn't work. Fireflight had seen him driving – or trying to do so on that terrain – so if he didn't answer the comm, Fireflight might become suspicious. Snarling under his breath, he opened his side of the link.
"Drag Strip?" Fireflight said, sounding poleaxed. Must've landed on his head, Drag Strip thought. "Is that you?"
"No, it's Megatron in his Formula One racer alt-mode. What, you didn't know he was a triplechanger?"
"Okay, it is you." There was a hint of relief in Fireflight's voice. "Guess you're not too badly hurt. Silverbolt said one of the cast was lost out here and asked me to help with the search."
Drag Strip would have clapped sarcastically if he had been in root mode – brilliant, Silverbolt, send out someone who promptly turns himself into a casualty too! "Why the frag did he ask you?"
"Because my specialty is reconnaisance."
"Really? Mine is charity work with squishies."
"It's true!"
"Right. What kind of recon specialist flies into a mountain?"
"What kind of Stunticon ends up in the bottom of a canyon?"
One who's going to blow your slagging head off for that. "It wasn't my fault! Stephanie and…"
He paused. Wait a minute, Silverbolt organized a search? That didn't make sense if they had wanted to kill him.
"What about Stephanie?" Fireflight said.
So obviously they didn't. Suddenly it all fell into place, down to sending Fireflight out looking for him. Stephanie thought that'd make him my new best friend. At least Drag Strip hoped that was what she had thought. The other possibility – that she had been trying to make him and Fireflight into more than friends – was too disgusting to think about.
"What did Stephanie do?" Fireflight said again.
Is he in on it too? Drag Strip wondered. Probably not. This whole farce was meant to manipulate us into palling up, becoming buddies. Well, let's see what I can do with it. He would have grinned if he had been in root mode. When it comes to lies and tricks, who better than a 'con to play the game?
"Your radio's working," he said. "Have you contacted the rest of your team to let them know you found me?"
"I tried, but they're not responding. I hope they're okay."
Of course. It was all so deliberate and obvious. Cut off from outside help, he and Fireflight were now supposed to start trusting and relying on each other. All right, let's see how much I can get out of the moron before I kill him. Though maybe if he's obedient enough I'll just ditch him once I'm done.
"They're okay," he said, trying to keep the usual dismissiveness out of his tone. "It's probably just this storm interfering with communications."
"It's interfering with something all right, Scavenger said." Fireflight sounded distracted. "A geo-something storm."
Drag Strip ignored that as he tried to think of what an Autobot would do in his place. Express concern? Yes. "I'm concerned," he said. "How badly are you hurt?"
"Oh, not much," Fireflight said. Slag. "My wing's busted and I can't fly… and I hurt my foot when I landed. But other than that I'm okay."
Good injuries! Drag Strip perked up. "I've got a mode lock on me," he said. "If you could get over here and take it off, I'll help you get out."
"Mode lock? How'd that happen?" But there were scrabbling sounds and clicks in the background and he could tell that Fireflight was climbing, hopefully heading in his direction.
He deliberated whether or not to tell the truth. Must be easy to be an Autobot – you just blurt out what actually happened without stopping to think whether that's the best answer or not. Right now he didn't think Fireflight would believe him – like all 'bots, Fireflight practically overloaded at the sight of humans – but he wasn't sure what other answer to give.
"One of the crew did it," he said reluctantly. "While he was supposed to be cleaning out my undercarriage."
"Why?"
"Because they're humans, that's why!" Drag Strip snapped. Part of his mind told him that that was not how an Autobot should behave, he was going to scare Fireflight off, but he was too angry to care. "They don't have the bearings to take a single Stunticon on face to face, so they stab me in the back. They're vile, cowardly little--"
The radio cut off abruptly. For a moment Drag Strip thought he had gone too far, before he saw pale fingers close around a ridge of rock in the distance. Slowly, Fireflight pulled himself up and began to clamber down the hill towards the base of the ravine. Drag Strip watched him, noting that he favored his right leg when searching for footholds.
Thunder crashed overhead and the first rain began to fall as Fireflight painstakingly reached the bottom of the ravine. Then he began to stumble closer, moving with laborious slowness.
Hurry the frag up, Drag Strip thought, relieved that his emotions didn't show in alt-mode. Fireflight was evidently injured – one wingtip was bent at an angle, metal crimped and raked from the brush against rock – but the Stunticons had all learned to jump at orders whether they were wounded or not.
Fireflight picked his way over the uneven ground and fallen rock, slipping once on stones grown wet from the rain. Drag Strip was beginning to regret having an open passenger compartment, even though his console had been redesigned to compensate for that; a little rain trickling down his screens and controls wouldn't hurt him. Still, he didn't enjoy the feeling. He muttered under his breath, but to his surprise Fireflight started to speak as he approached.
"Y'know," he said, "seems to me 'cons don't have a lot of ground to stand on when complaining about being stabbed in the back. I mean, after what Starscream did to us--"
Drag Strip snickered. "Oh yeah, I heard about that." He realized that Fireflight was glaring at him. "Hey, no biggie. We all get revved up over Seekers."
That didn't seem to have the desired effect. Fireflight folded his arms and his optics looked like chips of blue glass. "We trusted them and they led us into a trap. How do I know you won't do the same thing to me now?"
Drag Strip would gladly have run him over under any other circumstances. Even then, he thought of firing; his guns would take care of Fireflight's other leg and he would enjoy ramming into the Aerialbot's face again and again. Except… he wasn't sure how he would get out of there with the mode-lock engaged, and he didn't particularly want to sit in the bottom of the ravine, dripping with rain, until his thrusters came online again. Or, for that matter, until the other Aerialbots came looking for the Ark's version of the village idiot.
"I wouldn't," he said. "I need your help, and I wouldn't let anyone down if they'd helped me." Use his designation… and say something convincing, for frag's sake. "You have my word, Fireflight. We're in this together."
Primus, how cliched can you get? he thought. But it looked as though he had succeeded. The dubious expression slowly left Fireflight's face and he nodded.
"Okay," he said. "Thanks." Drag Strip stifled an urge to laugh. "Now, where's the mode lock?"
All the amusement was suddenly gone. Drag Strip hated the idea of being upside-down before an Aerialbot, but he supposed he didn't have much of a choice. And he couldn't stand having to look up at Fireflight either.
"It's attached to my undercarriage," he said, switching his forcefield off. "You'll have to turn me over."
Fireflight went to one knee, caught hold of a fender and turned him over. Even though it was done carefully, Drag Strip felt every circuit heat up with embarrassment; being in such a position before an Aerialbot was something he would never forget. He would have to make sure Stephanie knew how very displeased he was. Maybe he would make her take a mouthful of gasoline and then shove a flame past her teeth.
"Uh…" Fireflight said. All Drag Strip could see from his position were a lot of rocks and the Aerialbot's knee, so he stared at the rocks. "Where's the… oh, is this it?"
"How can I tell?" Drag Strip said irritably. The collected water had run out of his passenger compartment, but there was now more rain pelting down over his exposed undercarriage. And Fireflight's touch made his plating crawl. "I guess I'll know the difference if you yank out my transmission. Just do something!"
Fireflight muttered something about him being just like Slingshot, but continued to fumble around while Drag Strip watched his diagnostic queue with one optical sensor, waiting for a damage report to pop up. The other optic, trained on what little of the landscape he could see, noted the level of rainwater flowing through the bottom of the ravine. Since he was upside-down, it came halfway up his chassis to his tires.
There was a click and a snap. The words Mode Lock disappeared from his HUD.
Drag Strip gave the command to transform and nearly sagged in relief as his limbs unfolded and his chassis changed shape. Fireflight took a step back and tripped over a now-submerged rock but caught himself in time with a hand to the other side of the canyon wall. There was a tentative smile on his face.
Moron, Drag Strip thought. He was smiling too, though for a completely different reason. Memo to Optimus Prime: next time, take the Styrofoam packing peanuts out before you jam the processors into the cranial units. You must've forgotten to do that here.
Water sloshed over his feet and had risen above his ankles, but although the rain beat down fiercely it didn't seem to be rising any further. "Is that the mode lock?" he said, glancing at the small piece of machinery Fireflight was holding. "Give it here."
"You could say please," Fireflight said, but handed it over. "Why'd the humans put it on you?"
"Doesn't matter," Drag Strip said absently, checking his radar. Odd. That was flickering, lines subtly distorted, and yet it hadn't shown up on his HUD. Now he wasn't sure which was damaged – his radar or his self-diagnostics – and the Constructicons would gripe about having to repair him. He was going to level the sets for that one.
"Yes, it does," Fireflight said. Persistent little fragger. "Did you do something to them?"
"Did I do something to them?" Drag Strip said, jolted out of his preoccupation. "For your information, they got a mode lock on me, and lured me out here so Sideswipe could make a sneak attack on me! You want to blame someone for this, blame them! Now leave me alone." He turned and looked up at the cliff before him. A hundred feet, but he could climb it and then it was just a simple drive back to the sets.
"Wait a minute," Fireflight said from behind him.
Drag Strip found a handhold and pulled himself up, fitting his feet carefully into crevices on the rock. Much as he loved speed, there was no point in rushing this and falling.
"Drag Strip! You… you said we were in this together…"
The cliff face was slippery with rain and more water beat down on him, rattling off his armor. Drag Strip risked a glance down and saw that he was almost twenty feet off the ground. Keep going, he thought and continued climbing.
"You lied to me!" Fireflight shouted.
"I'm a Decepticon! Just what the frag did you expect?"
There was an inarticulate yell from below, and Fireflight leaped at him. His fingers closed around Drag Strip's ankle.
The forcefield was active again, and Fireflight's hand could not have touched Drag Strip's plating, much less hurt him. But the jolt to his ankle jarred his foot loose from its gap on the cliff, and sent his foot plunging down. Reflexively he dug his hands hard into the holds he had found – too hard. Weatherworn rock crumbled away under his fingers and he didn't even have time to gasp before he fell.
His forcefield was online, which helped, and he landed half on Fireflight, which helped too. The Aerialbot tried to scramble clear just as Drag Strip drew his gun. Before he could shoot, though, Fireflight hit him in the head.
Drag Strip was the lightest in weight of all the Stunticons, so a punch from a fighter jet, which weighed considerably more, might have jolted a circuit board loose. Fortunately his forcefield protected him – there was a ssszzt of energy counteracting the blow – though he still ended up knocked flat on his back. His right elbow hit the ground with jarring force and for a moment his grip on the gun loosened.
Fireflight staggered up, holding the side of the cliff face for support, and drew his own weapon. Drag Strip grabbed a rock with his other hand and flung it as hard as he could, but Fireflight fired a split-second before the rock smashed into his arm.
A colorless ray that twisted everything in its path, like heat-waves rising in a shimmer from a fire, struck Drag Strip full in the face.
He didn't cry out or make a sound; he'd shown enough weakness before an Aerialbot already. Instead he tossed his gun to his good hand and fired. There was a scrabbling sound before him, a gasping cry, the clank of metal against rock and a strange, faraway rushing in his audials.
He didn't know whether he had hit Fireflight or not, because his vision was suddenly distorted. The ravine had turned into a vertical funnel through which water ran upwards, and Fireflight was now a bizarre red-and-white mosaic high over his head. The words Photon displacement flashed across his HUD, but that was the only thing unaffected by Fireflight's shot. When he looked down, he could see his hands where his feet should have been, and he seemed to be standing on the sky.
The only good thing about a photon displacement gun, he thought bitterly, was that Fireflight could only shoot him once. After that, further shots would do nothing until the effects of the first one had worn off.
He tried to adjust the setting on his gravito-gun, only to realize that he couldn't see it, and the fingers of his right hand still tingled with the after-effects of his elbow striking the ground. So he just kept firing blindly ahead of him, hoping to hit Fireflight somehow. A rock, changing in shape as though it was a lump of clay worked with invisible fingers, plunged through the clouds below his hands. He offlined his optics – his CPU couldn't make sense of the data from them.
"Stop!" Fireflight's voice was breathless, and taut with pain. "Can't you hear that?"
"What?" Drag Strip snarled. He stopped firing for a moment, audial sensors dialed up. The odd rushing sound hadn't stopped – in fact, it was louder now – but he was waiting for something else, the metallic slide and whir of components if Fireflight transformed to bring his missiles to bear.
"Water…" Fireflight said, and suddenly the sound in the distance turned to the roar of a landslide, the crashing of rock muffled under tons of water. Drag Strip whirled around, optics coming back online automatically, and saw nothing. The sound in his audials had turned to a loud gush that echoed back and forth from the ravine's walls.
"Flash flood!" Fireflight yelled and began to scramble up the far wall. Drag Strip only had time to subspace his gun before the oncoming water hit him like a battering-ram. Even though he was in root mode it knocked him off his feet.
His intakes closed automatically, hands scrabbling for a purchase and finding none as the rush of water swept him along with it. He might have recovered even then if the flood hadn't smashed him against the wall of the ravine. Half-dazed now as well as blind, he thrashed weakly as he sank below the surface, flinging his arms out.
His fingers slipped against wet stone, but suddenly a hand closed around his wrist, gripping so tightly that it hurt. Drag Strip couldn't have cared less about the pain, though. The water was still climbing, over his neck, over his mouth, and he wondered what would happen when his oxygen supply was cut off. Stasis lock, if I'm lucky?
"I've got you!" he heard Fireflight shout over the roar of water and the clamor of internal alarms. "Climb up!"
Nearly choking now, Drag Strip reached up with his free hand and caught at a crevice in the rock. Bracing himself, he scrabbled at the cliff wall with his feet and managed to push himself up. Fireflight hauled upward, servos whining as they took the excess weight, metal scraping against wet rock with a high-pitched sound that stung Drag Strip's audials, but he was climbing again, halfway out of the water now.
"There's a ledge…" Fireflight said breathlessly.
Drag Strip hooked an arm over the edge of the shelf of rock and pulled himself half over it, wrenching his wrist free of Fireflight's grip at once. Then he lifted his legs over, one by one, and lay flat on the ledge for a long moment, vents cycling, water pooling beneath him. His chassis stung with scrapes, and his spoiler ached from where the flood had flung him against the cliff.
Fireflight panted through his intakes nearby, but Drag Strip ignored that as he turned his head wearily away. His optics went back online, but to his surprise his vision was normal again. Perhaps his self-repair systems had fixed it. He felt a little better, though that didn't last for long when he glanced down to see what looked like a raging river just ten feet beneath him.
"You okay?" Fireflight said. He sounded tired too.
"Yeah, no thanks to you." Drag Strip got his elbows under him and pushed himself up. "If you hadn't shot me I'd be fine. I'd have gotten out of there by myself. Now I can't see slag and I'm stuck Primus knows where with you."
Fireflight's gaze dropped to his fingers, which were resting on the ledge. "I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't know--"
Without warning his hand came up and a pebble flew through the air. Drag Strip couldn't stop his reflexive flinch aside, and the pebble struck the wall beside his helm.
"Wow," Fireflight said. "For someone who can't see slag, you dodge pretty well."
Drag Strip rolled over to get his knees beneath him and brought his gun out and up in the same smooth movement, pointing it straight at Fireflight. Nothing like being embarassed to make you forget about any injury, he thought as he realized what he had done instinctively. Fireflight, not having time to draw his own weapon, raised his hands.
"The effects of my gun only last for five minutes or so," he said, "so I knew you could see."
Drag Strip's lip curled. "Typical useless Autobot weapon. Doesn't kill anyone, doesn't destroy anything and doesn't even have a permanent effect."
Subdermal cables tightened along the sides of Fireflight's jaws, but he was silent for a long moment. "Look, can I put my hands down?" he said finally. "My arms are getting tired. And I'm not going to start a fight – I'd have to be crazy to try that here."
Without lowering the gun, Drag Strip glanced at the water below them – and realized that it was higher than when he had last seen it. Of course, the rain hadn't stopped; the flood would keep rising. The road had disappeared beneath the swirling currents.
He looked around. The ledge was barely large enough for the two of them, but there was a rocky overhang that kept the worst of the rain off them. He could shoot Fireflight and climb up there, but if he slipped and fell there would be no one to help him. Whereas Fireflight, slag-soft like all Autobots, had shown he was willing to do that. He might do it again.
He put his gun away and Fireflight lowered his arms. Overhead, the sky turned white again and the thunder sounded like two boulders hurled at each other, meeting with audial-splitting force.
"We'd better go higher," Fireflight said.
"That's brave of you," Drag Strip said, pulling himself to his feet.
"Brave?"
"Yeah, aren't you the one who's scared of heights? Oh no, wait. That would be your mighty leader."
He had the satisfaction of seeing Fireflight's optics burn like balefire in the near-darkness – apparently the Aerialbot could bear insults to himself but wasn't so good at taking slurs to Silverbolt. But Fireflight only said, almost under his breath, "Once we're safe and on level ground I'll be happy to beat the slag out of you for that. For now, let's just get out of here."
The rain had grown heavier. Once he stumbled out from under the overhang and climbed up on top of it, Drag Strip could barely see ahead of him – he felt as if he was staring through a curtain of flickering water. And his radar wasn't working at all now. He crouched and extended a hand back to help Fireflight up on to the shelf of rock, thinking that at least the Aerialbot would have functional radar; he had no idea which way led back to the sets now.
The sets. Since they were built on much lower ground, perhaps they had been washed away by the flood. Good. Serves the humans right. He couldn't help regretting that all the footage of him would have been ruined too, though.
The overhang turned into a much narrower ledge and they shuffled along it for more than a dozen yards, arms spread for balance, before Drag Strip's radio pinged. "Are we going the right way?" Fireflight said.
Drag Strip would never have admitted that he had no idea. Chestplate and engine block pressed against the side of the cliff face, he looked around surreptitiously but could see nothing. And the ledge was hardly more than a footpath that might well taper off and disappear soon.
"Isn't your radar working?" he replied.
"No. I don't know what's wrong with it."
Drag Strip felt the fluid in his fuel lines turn to sludge colder than the rain. Although this was a setup, the Aerialbots would never have deliberately disabled one of their own, and it was too much of a coincidence that Fireflight's radar was out as well. He was beginning to be afraid, not that he would ever have showed that before a 'bot.
Lightning flickered overhead, but to his relief it lit up the slope and showed the dark shape of what looked like a cave near the summit of the mountain. It was at least sixty feet above their heads, though, unlikely to be submerged. Unless the flood was caused by one of Megatron's doomsday weapons intended to destroy the world, in which case Drag Strip supposed his waterlogged remains would be laid to rest in the Decepticon Crypt with a small plaque saying "collateral damage". He wondered if the other Stunticons would miss him.
No. Do not go all Dead End, not now. When the next flash came, he used the split-second of light to find the closest handholds on the cliff-face and pulled himself up laboriously. Fireflight followed in his wake – even though Drag Strip would have preferred sending the Aerialbot up first to test every crevice in the rock, he didn't want Fireflight losing his balance and toppling down on him.
Finally he pulled himself up to the mouth of the cave, scrambled in and listened to Fireflight clambering up. He waited for Fireflight to ask for help, so he could refuse, but that didn't happen; fingers clawed at the edge of the rock and Fireflight got an elbow over with an effort that left scrapes of paint against the stones. His vents heaved air. Slowly he lifted one leg and then another, then rolled over into the mouth of the cave, away from the storm.
I could kick him down. Drag Strip thought of the distance between them and the ground – two hundred feet? Three? – and the swirling depths of water rushing through narrow ravines at speed. In the next flash of lightning he saw the dents on Fireflight's armor, the crumpled wing. Even with self-repairs working, he wouldn't be able to fix that wing by himself, so if I were to kick him down--
"Did you call for help from your team?" Fireflight said abruptly.
"That's none of your slagging business," Drag Strip snapped before he could think twice.
Fireflight rolled over, pulled himself up and sat with his back to the cliff wall, glancing down at the water. "Did you see that?" he said after a moment, his voice distant and quiet. Drag Strip didn't bother replying. "It was a floating tree with a cat clinging to the branches. I hope the cat's going to be all right."
Wildrider sometimes went off into useless conversational tangents, but he was a certifiable lunatic. Drag Strip didn't think Fireflight had any such excuse for his inanity. "Why isn't your radar working?"
Fireflight turned to look at him. "Radar? Oh. I'm not sure."
"You said something earlier about the storm interfering with communications…" With a heavy sinking feeling in his internal components, Drag Strip tried to remember what exactly the Aerialbot had said. "A geo-something storm…"
"Geomagnetic." Fireflight's optics lit up again, but this time with evident pleasure at recalling correctly.
Drag Strip could gladly have hit him. "What the frag are you so happy about? Geomagnetic storms are bad news. They throw everything offline." No wonder the Seekers decided not to go stormflying, he thought bitterly.
"How'd you know that?" Fireflight said, though he sounded more curious than annoyed at being corrected.
Part of Drag Strip told him to keep silent; the Aerialbot didn't deserve any answers from him. Another part, though, felt a superior kind of pleasure in knowing something Fireflight didn't, in being able to explain something to him.
"Heard Thundercracker and Skywarp talking about that kind of weather once," he said. The Seekers, with millions of years of flying experience, were far more aware of all the nuances of weather conditions than the Aerialbots, who were younger than even the Stunticons. He could only hope the storm wouldn't last too long.
He couldn't be certain whether he saw a tiny flash of admiration in Fireflight's optics before he looked away again. "So that's why you haven't called for help," he said. "You don't want your teammates flying out from your base in conditions like these."
Primus, is he really that naïve? "No, it's because I can get myself out of this without anyone's help. Least of all yours."
"But…" If Fireflight had been planning to bring up the very recent past, one look at Drag Strip's face seemed to convince him not to do so. "What's so bad about us working together? Even Prime and Megatron did that once--"
"I don't care. That treacherous little flesh creature wants us to make friendly, so I'm not going to do it. And you're an Aerialbot. I wouldn't pal up with an Aerialbot if Motormaster ordered me to."
Fireflight's mouth tightened. "Too bad. You and Slingshot are so much alike."
Drag Strip mulled that over. Was Slingshot the fastest Aerialbot or the most determined to win or just the best-looking one? Never mind. He settled back and stared up at the roof of the cave, wondering if he could get some recharge.
Fireflight sighed. "Look, I'm not asking you to… to make friendly, whatever that means for Decepticons. I just thought we could work together to get out of here."
"Why should we?" Drag Strip said. "My thrusters will be online in less than half an hour, and once the rain stops I'll fly out of here. As for you… well, I can't believe I have to explain this, but just activate your emergency beacon and your flyboy friends will arrive to save you."
Fireflight fidgeted, but said nothing.
"What?" Drag Strip had no curiosity regarding any Aerialbot, but he sensed a vulnerability. And he wouldn't have been much of a Decepticon if he had left that vulnerability untouched.
"I crashed, remember?" Fireflight looked down at his hands. "I haven't done that in a while, but I did it now. And if my team finds me, I won't even have anything to show for it, because you'll be gone."
"My core's breaking for you. What are they gonna do, beat you up?"
Fireflight's head came up at that. "'Course not. But if I fly twenty missions without crashing or getting lost, Silverbolt will give me a present."
Drag Strip felt a small bitter trickle deep in his fuel tank, as though he had swallowed a caustic. Fireflight could barely fly straight and he crashed headlong into mountains when he spotted something interesting on the ground. Yet he was promised presents?
"Last time it was only ten," Fireflight said, "but he says that since I'm getting more experienced--"
Drag Strip decided to change the subject before he shoved Fireflight down the mountainside, and grabbed at the first topic that came to mind. "You said I reminded you of Slingshot. How?"
"Oh," Fireflight said. "Well, um… he's a pain in the afterburners too, but he'd never give up. Doesn't matter how bad the situation is, or even if he's outnumbered and outgunned. Just digs in his turbines and won't quit."
"Yeah, well, I'm faster on the ground. Better reflexes too."
"Unless you get sideswiped?" Fireflight grinned. "Relax, I'm teasing. I've seen you in battle often enough. You're kind of… together."
Drag Strip had never heard anything like that before. He knew very well that among the Stunticons, he was possibly the least "together". Unlike Motormaster, he doubted himself. Unlike Dead End, he was never calm. And unlike Wildrider, he found it difficult to enjoy life since he always had to think about winning.
"Sure," he said, trying to speak with casual surprise, as if Fireflight had said, You're yellow or You're a 'con. "Of course I am."
Fireflight nodded. "I mean, you don't crash into things. And I'll bet that even if you did and another 'con made fun of you, you wouldn't care."
Drag Strip thought of all the times Motormaster had done much, much more than simply make fun of him. He couldn't keep count; it had gotten to the point where only physical discipline – or other things physical – really registered with him. Fireflight had clearly meant "together" as some combination of tough and cool, and at any other time Drag Strip would have enjoyed seeing an Aerialbot fawn over him like that. Now, though, he found himself wondering if his apparent togetherness was the result of being slagged so many times that he just didn't care.
Change the subject, he thought desperately, and looked at the cave mouth for inspiration. To his surprise, the rain looked as though it was stopping and he quickly pointed that out.
"Radar's still fragged, though," he muttered. All the scrapes and dents he had taken made themselves felt. The only thing he could be pleased about was the fact that, having crashed, Fireflight wouldn't be getting gifts from Silverbolt or anyone else.
"Hey, look," Fireflight said. "A tree's growing out of the cliff, just over there, and there's a nest in it. I hope the birds are all right."
Since Drag Strip was bored almost into recharge by anything organic, he tried to redirect the conversation to something a little more interesting. "What's Silverbolt going to do to you when he finds out you crashed?" he said, trying to keep any eagerness out of his voice.
"He worries until he's sure I'm all right," Fireflight said without looking back; he was leaning out of the cave in what Drag Strip assumed was an attempt to get a better look at the nest. "Then he sometimes gets a bit mad, but after I apologize he always calms down and we talk about what I could do better next time."
Drag Strip thought of planting a foot in the small of Fireflight's back and pushing with all his strength; it was an effort not to actually do so. "So I guess you'll go straight to him once we're out of here."
"Sure, if he's around. He was saying something to Trailbreaker this morning about putting a plan into action, so he might be busy."
Oh, was he? Drag Strip thought, instantly suspicious and mentally filing that information away for future reference. He couldn't help wanting to find out more about Silverbolt, though – well, not specifically him so much as the way Silverbolt dealt with the members of his team. "Does he--"
Fireflight twisted around, optic ridges coming together. "Hey, is your internal compass working?"
Distracted for a moment, Drag Strip shook his head.
"Mine neither." Fireflight sat back against the side of the cave, still frowning, and began to fumble in a subspace pocket.
"It's the storm," Drag Strip said, pleased again that he knew more. "Interferes with the Earth's magnetic field." The lack of navigation didn't particularly bother him. As soon as his thrusters came back online, he could fly, which would automatically give him an excellent view of his surroundings. He could make his way back to the sets through trial and error.
"Yeah, but I think I've got something which would help." Fireflight kept searching.
Drag Strip bit back a sneer. "Something else Silverbolt gave you?"
"Uh-huh." Fireflight produced whatever he was looking for, and the satisfaction of finding it was evidently enough that he didn't notice the tone of Drag Strip's voice. "After I finally did ten missions without crashing into anything. But I was trying so hard to make it that I guess I slacked off afterwards. Slingshot says I got distracted with a vengeance. I ended up on top of the Skylon Tower and the tourists had a field day taking pictures." He smiled sheepishly, seemed to realize that no reply was forthcoming and fell silent.
Drag Strip was silent too, though mostly because he was seething. On the Nemesis, Silverbolt was always the subject of crude jokes – some about his Aerialbot harem, some about his fear of heights. Even Motormaster, who never participated in the Stunticons' social interactions unless it was to assert some kind of control over them, had once talked about the possibility of dragging Silverbolt far up into the sky until he pleaded for mercy.
Unfortunately Silverbolt was almost never alone; the other Aerialbots stuck to him as if magnetized. And that's how he does it. Bribes them with presents, because… because he's too weak to keep them in line any other way. Yes, that's it. How pathetic.
And dumb. Give presents to one of your team and you'll end up alienating the others. Of course, it was possible that Silverbolt gave all the Aerialbots gifts, celebrating their accomplishments – no, I'm not going there!
"What the frag is that?" he snapped, looking at the object Fireflight had just taken out.
Fireflight twitched in surprise. "A gyrocompass."
"Don't you have an internal heading indicator?"
"You know a lot about jets." Fireflight sounded cautiously hopeful, as if he still hoped to forge some common ground and a compliment would be the best way to do it. So Drag Strip made himself grin.
"Yeah," he said. "Makes it easier to fight them."
That put Fireflight back in his place; he subsided, the brief flicker of warmth extinguished from his face, then cleared his throat and seemed to be addressing the gyrocompass. "The sets are towards the east, so I could use this to find my way back. Do… do you want to come with me?"
Why don't you leave me alone? Drag Strip wanted to say. He knew what the answer would be, though. Silverbolt had probably asked Fireflight to try to get along with his co-star, maybe promising him a hangarful of energon for his efforts. I don't have to go with him, though.
I shouldn't. Being with him… just isn't safe. Not that he's going to attack me again. But there's… another danger I'm not as used to. He wasn't going to articulate it any more clearly than that; if he didn't put it into words, even in the privacy of his own mind, it didn't exist.
In a way, he hated Fireflight more now than he had done before. Hearing him prattle about Silverbolt as almost a friend rather than a commander was galling. Seeing him show off the gift his leader had given him was worse. And yet an odd compulsion drew Drag Strip along. It was, he thought, like picking at a fresh weld covering a wound: you knew it wasn't good for you but you couldn't seem to stop doing it.
"All right," he heard himself say. Fireflight got up at once to lead the way out, explaining how the gyrocompass worked – because it didn't rely on the Earth's magnetic field – as he picked his way down the cliff, then pausing in his discourse to point out a white bird settling down on the tree growing out of the cliffside.
He's happy, Drag Strip thought. No, he's just stupid and oblivious. He doesn't have any idea of what life is really like, or what it means to be part of an army. Silverbolt's made that into some kind of party, complete with favors. And even if I bashed his empty head in, it wouldn't make any difference.
Then don't take it out on his head, a small voice whispered from the back of Drag Strip's mind.
"That way," Fireflight said, pointing.
The rain had stopped falling but the sky was still a blanket of shifting grey and the air was thick with the smell of mud and ozone. Drag Strip looked around but couldn't make out any recognizable landmarks in the hills and valleys around them; water and debris covered everything.
So he followed Fireflight in silence, though he soon took the lead; with his lighter weight and faster reflexes, he was better able to test the uneven ground, to leap back when boulders dislodged under his feet. Fireflight called out the directions from time to time, but soon realized that he wasn't getting much of a response. Then he suggested that they rehearse a scene or two while they trudged along. Drag Strip glared at him in a way that made him drop his gaze and rub at a scuff on the side of the gyrocompass.
After a few minutes of that, a new status report popped up in Drag Strip's diagnostic queue: his thrusters were back online. He said nothing. He could have taken off, left Fireflight behind, tried to forget about the envy and resentment and sick fascination that flowed deeper than the floodwater… no, I couldn't, he thought. I have to do something about it. Anything.
He kept moving, alternating walking with climbing, and didn't look at his internal chronometer or listen to anything until he heard Fireflight say, "Look!" Then he raised his head and stared into the distance.
He hardly even recognized the sets at first even though he was on a high ridge of rock that let him see for miles around. The Constructicons had dug some kind of makeshift moat around them to drain the water away, and had built light tentlike coverings over the sets as well.
"Wow, they do pretty good work," Fireflight said. He was on a slightly lower ledge that dropped away to a flat table of stone forty feet below them, still glistening wetly from the rain. Craning his head for a better look, he tried to step up to the ridge on which Drag Strip stood, and a stone turned beneath his injured foot.
With a gasp, he staggered and dropped to his knees, grasping at the ledge for support. The gyrocompass rolled away from his loosened grip, skittering several feet away along the ledge and fetching up in a shallow depression.
Drag Strip leaped down from the ridge, landing easily near the gyrocompass. He had a weird feeling that whatever was going to happen next was out of his hands; it was going to take place no matter whether anyone liked it or not.
"Ow." Fireflight sat up and lifted his foot across his knee, carefully manipulating the servos. He's crashed so many times he's used to it, Drag Strip thought in a detached way. "Could you hand me that?" he said with a glance at the gyrocompass.
Drag Strip took a step closer to it. A crumb of rock fell away from the ledge, gritting softly as it tumbled to the flatter ground below, but he grabbed the gyrocompass and shifted his weight at once, moving to safety. He studied the calibrated disc on the top, then the digital readout. The device was heavier than he had expected, solidly built. Then he turned it over.
The first thing he saw was Fireflight's name neatly engraved across the base, and that was in large enough letters that he almost missed the tiny ones beneath it. He activated the zoom function on his visor and read further.
"No leader ever had a better team – Silverbolt."
As if he was watching from a short distance away, Drag Strip saw his arm extend, stretching out over the ledge. Fireflight caught the movement and stared at him.
"What are you--"
Drag Strip's fingers opened. The gyrocompass fell, hit the smooth stretch of rock forty feet below them, and shattered.
For a long, long moment there was no sound except the slightest echoes of the crash fading away into nothing. Drag Strip heard the quiet burr of his own engine and the whsh of cooling fans. Then there was a soft scrape of metal against rock as Fireflight turned to look down.
Slowly, as if with numbed hands and feet, Fireflight began to climb down to the shelf where the gyrocompass was scattered over a twenty-foot radius. He didn't say a word, nor did he look back at Drag Strip. Once he had reached the bottom, he began to pick up the broken pieces.
Drag Strip watched him, feeling suddenly at a loss. He knew he had to press his advantage at that point, say something to underline his victory. Make fun of Fireflight for taking a stupid toy so seriously, or at least laugh about it. The sounds wouldn't leave his vocalizer, though. He had never felt so… strange… as when he looked down at Fireflight, who was on his hands and knees gathering up the pieces of his gyrocompass. And once he had looked, he couldn't tear his optics away from the sight.
So what if the dumb thing broke? You can get another. Frag, Silverbolt will probably give you ten more if you drink all your energon without spilling. He tried to say all that, and failed. His limbs seemed to be as locked up as his vocalizer, since he couldn't move away from the spot either.
Fireflight continued to pick up the fragments.
It was just a compass! Drag Strip thought furiously. It wasn't your optics, was it? Your tires didn't get wrenched off, did they? I didn't twist your spoiler nearly in half, did I?
Fireflight dragged himself to his feet, the handful of pieces disappearing into a subspace pocket. He looked around as if searching for more debris that he had missed, but there was none. As if caught on a hook and dragged upwards, his gaze rose.
Drag Strip hadn't known what he expected to see in Fireflight's face – anger and resentment at best. He could deal with those, and was largely indifferent to them. He could also have coped with hurt, though what he was really afraid of seeing was an understanding of what was going through his processors at the moment.
But Fireflight only looked closed-off and oddly resigned. Drag Strip had always thought of the Aerialbot as being younger than he was – and the foolish naivety had contributed to that – but there was nothing childish in Fireflight's gaze now.
"You don't want me around," he said quietly. "Me or my team. I didn't know you hated us so much, even when we were doing our best to work with you. But I know it now, so we'll leave."
He climbed back up on to higher ground and over the ridge, limping only a little. Not moving, Drag Strip stood and watched as the small red shape made its slow, slow descent down the other side of the hill and towards the sets. The clouds drew back as he reached them, and sunlight struck flashes of red as another Aerialbot hurried out to meet him.
Whatever had stiffened Drag Strip's limbs in place loosened slowly, as if melted away by the warmth of the sun on his chassis. Taking his time, he followed the slight trail that Fireflight had left, heading towards the sets as well. He felt empty inside, as if some internal component had been yanked out and broken as well, but it didn't matter.
At least he was still alive, which was more than would be said for Stephanie once he found her.
The story continues in Chapter 13…
Fire From Above : The Constructicons play trumpets (as seen in the movie), so I figure Wildrider plays the clarinet. And yes, he just switched the labels to mess with everyone, but the silly trick got them out of their punishment.
Tugera : Well, they do say that genius is close to insanity. Wildrider has so much of the one that he should have an odd flash of the other as well.
They're all my favorites, in different ways. :)
Peacewish : I wanted Dead End to have the TF version of a wine-tasting session, complete with highbrow commentary. Glad you enjoyed it!
tomorrow4eva : I looked up your profile and just realized you're from Australia. But Wildrider wouldn't mind sharing the continent with humans as long as he could play with the kangaroos (who would become an endangered species in no time). Though driving off into the desert and getting stranded for lack of fuel is something that could conceivably happen to him. Still, he would probably come up with some way out that was just crazy enough to work.
Even Motormaster can't be pissed off at the other Stunticons 24/7, hence his laughing at the end. He's pleased, in his own way, when they succeed at an assignment or get some privilege for the team… he just finds it near-impossible to show that.
I don't think I watched cartoons when I was five, because I lived in Sri Lanka at the time. I didn't actually know about Transformers until February of this year. Maybe why the fanfics appealed to me more than the cartoons did, although they're fun to watch.
Taipan Kiryu : Good to know I gave you something to relax with after your hard days. :) Yes, Motormaster knows how to motivate his team all right. I just finished another fic for this meme, set a couple of weeks after the Stunticons are created and where Drag Strip considers leaving what he sees as a gang of losers. Motormaster changes his attitude on that.
Breakdown used malapropisms in "Cosmic Rust" ("This is a mutiny – no, no, this is a hijack – I mean, we're taking over this ship!") but you're right; Dead End only corrected him once in canon. It was such a cute moment, though, that fanon took it up and ran with it.
Let alone Wildrider, I didn't understand most of what Dead End said. I had to look up an article on wine tasting to write that part of the story. Wildrider's dialogue was sheer fun, though – it always is. Pair him up with another character who acts as the straight person to his lunacy (either Dead End or Geri, so far) and the story pretty much tells itself.
Thanks for reading and reviewing, everyone!