Chapter Twelve
Forward sat at his desk at his home. It was only his home now though; earlier in life he had lived in an apartment. Now he had moved in with his girlfriend, Nowli. They had gotten together quite some time ago. He had become an intelligence agent not long ago after the decrease in interest about the Seekers. It had been half of a vorn since the Seekers had last been seen. No one had ever come for the yellow and green ones or the twins. It was because of that that Sentinel had been forced to finally release the twins more than twenty stellar cycles ago under the condition that they'd be under watch. That was why he'd moved in with her in the first place: to watch over them more easily.
Speaking of said twins...
"Glyde, what are you doing?" Forward turned around to face the yellow and black Seeker. The mech was standing there, looking all innocent, but his brother was absent from the scene.
"We need help," Glyde admitted, somewhat reluctantly.
"What happened?" Forward wasn't too surprised.
"Cloud got stuck...again."
Forward sighed. This happened way to often for his liking. The twins had been living with him and Nowli ever since they were let out. It was mainly because they had nowhere else to stay, and Nowli had taken a liking to them. Forward hadn't seen them as much as she had, but they weren't awful or anything of the sort.
He followed Glyde outside of the home and around to the back. There, Cloud was seen in the air, held up by two metal claws. "This was a stupid idea," Cloud told them.
"You say that every time we attempt it," Glyde reminded him.
"And I mean it every time."
The problem was, Nowli had gotten a little paranoid lately and had set up a security system to make sure no one snuck up on them. It was Glyde's brilliant idea to use the security system as a training course to see if either of them could get through it. Glyde had been successful after a while of trying, but Cloud just couldn't seem to get the hang of it. The things boredom does to one's mind.
And Forward was the only other person who had the code to shut it down. The other bot was Nowli.
"Stop doing this," Forward instructed them while he keyed in the code.
"What else are we supposed to do to entertain ourselves?" Glyde asked as Cloud hung limp in the air.
"Make some friends," Forward suggested. He shut the system off, hearing Cloud almost fall to the ground before activating his thrusters and landing gracefully.
"They don't like us," Glyde reminded him. "And I don't like them either."
"Oh come on," the white and mint green Seeker disagreed. "You just have to show them that you're not a Decepticon.
There was no answer from Glyde. Forward knew that Cloud was the more sensible of the pair, and thanked him for that. It would have been worse if they were both like Glyde.
"Listen to your brother, Glyde. He makes sense."
Glyde gave a small glare to the ground mech, but didn't say anything. Forward held back a sigh. Glyde was like that, and he had learned to deal with it. He was kinder to Nowli, but Forward wasn't sure why. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that Forward had been the one that usually tracked down their sister, but Nowli had helped him with that. So had Hound, but not as much because the green mech had a life outside of their special little group.
Ah, the group. It still existed, but it's just been lying a little dormant. There just hasn't been any need to continue any investigation about the Seekers if they we're leaving them alone for so long. More members had joined their team, but it was too late for any action. Two of them were a pair of twins that usually helped Ironhide and Nowli watch over the stockade. With more bots in the stockade, there was reason to increase security. Especially because Acid Storm had escaped from his cell six times throughout the period of time he was in there for. No one could figure out how he managed to override the security system from inside the cell, but he had. Six times. Thankfully, he had never made it completely out of the stockade. Someone always caught him and he was restrained and in the end put back in a cell. When he wasn't trying to escape, he was talking. He was pretty friendly with them, even though he wore the Decepticon insignia on his wings. Well, not friendly as in he wouldn't hurt them if he needed to, but enough to carry on a conversation with.
Dawn, on the other servo, was quiet and didn't speak a word to them. She never did attempt a break out like Acid Storm did, but some bots still preferred him. Forward guessed that she just had never forgave them for separating her from her sparkling. He and Jazz had never told anyone about the sparkling, and it seemed Mirage and Hound had kept quiet about it as well.
"Forward!" A soft voice called out to him from the front of their home. He left the twins in the back to go and greet his girlfriend, who had just returned from her shift on guard duty. When he rounded the corner, she smiled cheerfully at him. "What were you doing back there?"
"Cloud got stuck in your security trap again. Why do we need that? No one's going to attack us that hasn't already," Forward tried to convince her.
Nowli's smiled shrunk, but didn't disappear. "I'm afraid, Forward. I can't explain it, but I'm nervous about something."
"Well, you and I both know that they aren't going to stop using your trap for training or whatever they do. So, either it gets shut down, or we continue to free them over and over again." He followed her inside as he talked.
"I'm fine with the way it is right now." She walked over to grab a cube of energon. "Want any?" She asked Forward.
"Not now, I just had some earlier." He relaxed himself on the couch, staring out the window at the crowded street. Nowli soon returned to sit next to him, facing the same direction. Forward noticed she looked tired. "Something happen?"
She groaned. "Sideswipe nearly started a fight with Shockwave again." Ah yes, Sideswipe. One of the twins who had recently joined their team. He wasn't too fond of Decepticons, and every Autobot hated Shockwave. Sometimes, Forward would forget about Shockwave and some other Decepticons that were still in the stockade. Unfortunately, the large one, Lugnut, had his personality component removed and stored in the detention center when he nearly killed them all in his rage at Megatron's deactivation.
Blitzwing was also still there. He hadn't gotten any saner ever since he was shoved into his cell. He is usually found talking to himself with his many faces and personalities. Sometimes, when they were bored, Autobots would just listen to his strange conversations with himself, laughing here and there. It really was amusing sometimes, and Forward wasn't innocent when it came to eavesdropping on him.
"What happened?" Forward asked the black and white femme.
"Ironhide delt with him. Shockwave kept calm through most of it, but you can just tell that he wouldn't mind harming Sideswipe, or worse. And that's not just it. Ironhide told me Sentinel's all moody again after his last fight with Elita-1."
Forward nodded. That was like him. Elita-1 was an Autobot who turned into a techno-organic, joining the Decepticons when she felt betrayed, and then found a way to cure herself with the help of Optimus Prime. She then rejoined the Autobots, albeit somewhat reluctantly. While she had been techno-organic, she had allied herself with her own creation, Waspinator. Both were found, but when they were found - and it was actually on a whole other planet - there were other techno-organics living on that planet. Waspinator had refused to return to Cybertron, saying that the Autobots would only put him back in the stockade. Blackarachnia returned with Optimus after much persuasion and was finally cured. Her and Sentinel didn't get along most of the time, despite being friends in the past. She had reformed a friendship with Optimus Prime, and sometimes Forward wondered if it was ever more than that. She must see Sentinel a lot, because recently he's been complaining about her attitude towards him.
"Again?" Forward responded.
Nowli nodded. "This time, it was something about the way Sentinel takes care of things, you know, usually irrationally."
Forward chuckled. "Yeah, he needs to think more before he acts."
Nowli took a drink of her energon. "I'm hoping Optimus becomes Magnus instead of him when the time comes." Forward agreed. Optimus Prime would make a much better Magnus than Sentinel ever would.
The twins came back inside at that moment, greeting Nowli before walking into their shared room.
"See? Cloud's fine," Nowli joked.
Forward chuckled. "Still, I think you're being too paranoid."
She finished her energon before stretching out her joints. "I think I'm going to take a quick recharge. Wake me if anything happens."
"Nothing exciting is going to happen," Forward assured her before getting off the couch so she could stretch out on it and recharge there.
"You never know with those two," she reminded him, her optics offlining.
"Correction: You never know with Glyde. I'm pretty sure Cloud can keep him from any trouble in the short while you'll be recharging." He walked away though, not hearing any answer. It seemed to him that she had already gone into recharge, so he left her alone. Walking down the hall, he heard arguing coming from the twins room.
"I'm not joining the Autobots!" He heard one of them state. He figured it was probably Glyde, but they sounded alike.
"It won't be that bad," the probable Cloud tried to reason. "What's wrong with them?"
"They tore up our family! I'm never going to join them! They're evil!"
That stung Forward a little, but he kept listening.
"They're only trying to take caution-"
"You're siding with them? You don't care that they offlined our creators and drove our sister off of Cybertron!"
Forward wasn't sure if that last part was true, but it was a very likely possibility. They had never found Shadow or any other Seekersever since the orbital cycle when Acid Storm and Dawn were captured. Most of them thought they had gone to join the other Seekers, if they were still on Earth's moon.
"I don't like what they did, Glyde, but you can't say they're all bad. What about Forward and Nowli?" That proved Forward to be correct with his guessing on who was who.
"...The others are bad! None of the others care about us!" Forward was glad that Glyde didn't hate him or Nowli, but he wished he wouldn't be so quick to judge all Autobots. Although, Forward did understand why he would be so mad at them.
"Are you saying you'd rather be a Decepticon? Those bots would care about you less than any Autobots do." Forward tensed. He wanted to really know Glyde's true answer to this question.
"I know that. I just don't want to be an Autobot. I'd rather just stay neutral like this. Let's just forget about factions and stay the way we are." Forward was relieved that Glyde didn't want to become a Decepticon.
"Alright. But if you were ever forced to choose a side, I hope you choose the right one."
Forward figured that was the end of that particular conversation, and decided it best to not be caught right outside their door if they chose to walk out at that moment. So instead, he walked back to his own room and sat down at his desk, deciding it best to finish the work he had been doing before Glyde had interrupted him because of Cloud.
He hadn't had any major assignments in a long time, so the work Forward was doing right now wasn't too exciting or appealing. It was very boring. Still, it had to be done. He didn't mind his job, but sometimes he wished he had a more normal life. Then again, if he did have a normal civilian's life, then he wouldn't have ever joined the Seeker team or learned as much combat as he did. He told himself when he was training that it would all be put to good use in the future. He supposed it was, even if it wasn't always exciting and sometimes he regretted it.
He worked for another megacycle before he heard something. It sounded like the twins outside, but he couldn't figure out what they were saying or doing. Leaving his desk and room, he walked past the still recharging Nowli and out the front door, moving to go around the house until he found the twins.
"I'm not changing my mind!" Glyde stated defiantly. They were both staring at something in the sky, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary.
"And I'm not going to force you, but understand that there's nothing there," Cloud reasoned.
"You say you're not going to force me and then tell me to understand your opinion like it's a fact."
"What are you looking at?" Forward cut in, following Glyde's gaze but seeing nothing, like Cloud had said.
"Glyde thinks he saw a ship," Cloud explained, sounding slightly annoyed.
"I did see a ship! It was there, but only for a moment! Maybe it's invisible!" Glyde wouldn't take his optics off of the sky, probably hoping to spot the ship again. If it even was there to begin with.
"It's just your imagination," Cloud told him. "There isn't a ship out there, so let's go back inside."
Glyde didn't move. Forward knew he wouldn't unless truly persuaded to, so he decided to watch the sky along with Glyde. They stood there like that for a cycle before Cloud sighed and went back inside. And while Cloud's sigh had been out of annoyance, Glyde's was out of depression. Forward just gazed for a moment longer before following the twins inside the home.
"Something happen?" An online Nowli asked from the couch when the walked in.
"Glyde's delusional," Cloud told her.
"I am not! I did see a ship and I'm not going to let you tell me otherwise!" He stamped his pede on the floor before walking back outside, defeating the purpose of going inside in the first place.
"A ship? What kind of ship?" Nowli asked as she stood up.
"I don't know, but it's not there and never was," Cloud said as if it were a fact.
"Hm, well anyway, I think I'm going to finish my recharge in my room." She made her way to said location, patting Cloud on the shoulder as she passed him.
Forward took the now vacant spot on the couch and decided to lie down. He offlined his optics and stayed that way until he heard Glyde yell something about an invasion from outside. He shot up, fully online, as Nowli stepped out of her room.
"What's going on?" She asked, looking at the door.
"I don't know." They both went out the door and saw not one Seeker like they should have, but five Seekers. Forward recognized only two of the new ones. Three of them had cone shaped helms and the other was younger looking. She may be older now, but Forward knew she was the same youngling he had spent his time tracking all of those stellar cycles ago. It was Glyde, though, who turned his thoughts into words.
"Is that you, Shadow?"
Cliffhanger? It's been some time since the last chapter with both of the twins. I like writing them, even though this chapter was from Forward's POV and not Cloud's. I'm also not a big romance person when it comes to writing, so I'm sorry if I do really bad at it in future chapter(s). Still...I don't really have much to say this time.
Prowls-little-angel: Sorry about the grammar thing, I wasn't thinking and put it all under one person. Then I fixed it, then realized that editing the chapter wasn't changing the published version, so I deleted it and reuploaded it with the correct author's note. I also just realized that in last chapter's note, I acidentally combined two sentences into one. It should say "I feel dumb for not getting it. As for Blitzwing.." and then to the end of the sentence. Us humans are great, when we're not ruining things... Sentinel would make a horrible Magnus. And you agreed with Slipstream about what, exactly? Thanks, I'm glad you like this story.
Kitty Ghost: Starscream...hm, I had never planned on putting him in here, he is offline and all, but I may be able to think of something. I'm not done writing this after all, even though I am close. At this very moment, I've just finished chapter eighteen. I hope the battle scenes I've written please you and the others. I'm not great when writing a scene like that when there are so many characters fighting. I'm glad you like the story.
Thanks for reads and reviews!
