Sorry for the wait. This week's been busy not to mention I went to the rodeo. It was all wildcard rounds meaning it was several people's last chance at getting into the championship be it barrel racing or bull riding, only two can advance from each round. The poor Kroger guy lost a wheel in the wagon race and went flying, he's ok though. The wagon racers are usually 60+ so that's a feat and he got an extra loud applause for walking away from that one. I still didn't get me a Stetson grr, my head was smaller than the sizes they had in the booths so I'll have to go to a Cavenders, those are damn nice hats and I've got my eye on a skyline black one. (My heads not that small!)
Disclaimer: I do not own transformers, only my OC's
The next morning Anna felt sore. It felt like someone had possibly steam rolled over her body and then didn't have the courtesy to finish crushing her. As if the stiff beds weren't already wreaking havoc on her back now she had angry Decepticons beating her senseless to compete with. Groggily opening her eyes, Anna was unsurprised to find she was in the human medical bay. She closed her eyes again and tried to find a few more minutes of sleep.
Then it clicked, Tyler. Her eyes darted around the room but quickly found him, literally right under her nose. His head rested on the edge of her bed upon crossed arms and she could see his steady breath pushing a stray wrinkle of fabric from her thin blanket back and forth. She was surprised Johnson hadn't forced him into a bed but found it kind of cute that he had slept there all night. It was strange seeing someone asleep, she thought it was impossible for a human being to look so calm. Across the room Victoria was as peacefully asleep with Cooper curled up next to her side and Anna couldn't help but think they were cute together, as much as she detested kids, especially that little monster.
She couldn't help the strange urge to touch Tyler's hair and found it a feathery consistency between her fingers, another foreign feeling. She couldn't help but wonder what kind of shampoo and conditioner the base had lent to him and wondered if he would share some, but that was just a stupid tangent, her friend was alive and so was she. Anna was up now and couldn't sleep so she gingerly got out of the bed making sure not to disturb him and found her shoes at the side of the bed. Her head throbbed viciously with the sudden movement and she became acutely aware of just how sore it was, that hit to the head against the vending machine must have left a nasty bruise.
Tiptoeing into her shared room was thankful easy since her roommates were fast asleep. She grabbed aholt of a clean pair of clothes and other domestic items she thought would be needed. She didn't think it was time for her monthly monster, her womanly senses weren't quite tingling yet, but her lower stomach was beginning to ache.
After taking a quick shower she changed into a tank top and shorts and stood at the wash racks entrance examining her split ends. When she got home she was getting a haircut, the last time had to be around Christmas, definitely time for another one. Anna sighed, giving up on the hopes for a trim any time soon and peered down the hallway that curved out of sight where she knew the back rec room was.
Her subconscious mind at flashed her warningly with of a vivid mental image of the Decepticon's hologram. His unnatural predatory eyes were locked onto hers with every intention of extinguishing her insignificant life. Anna shivered at the memory, feeling his grip and harsh treatment through the after effects of her sore body. There was an apparent purple and yellow bruise forming where she had been grabbed and poking it make pain flare up her arm. Against her screaming instincts, she followed down the hall with a stronger urgency pulling her in its direction, curiosity.
Cautiously, she cracked open the door to the recroom and found it fairly cleaned up. The broken mountain dew cans were gone and the stains were for the most part removed. The bullet holes in the walls had been freshly painted over and the ceiling that had been peeled away like a can lid by Ironhide was firmly welded shut. The thought of the mech created a fresh flare of anger but she tried to ignore her feelings and focused on the task at hand. They went through a lot of trouble to make sure the room was clear of evidence, she wondered why. Anna swallowed her apprehension as the Decepticon came to mind again, lightning never strikes in the same place twice, right?
With her senses on high alert, Anna walked up to the Mountain Dew machine and felt the normal slick plastic of its front. She trailed her fingers down the glowing green machine and could have sworn it shuddered. Anna pressed one of the dispenser buttons and waited. The machine rumbled and spit out an ordinary can that shot out and would have smacked her leg if she hadn't the sense or reflexes to step aside. The rogue coke can flew across the room and smashed into the wall where it burst open into a fizz of yellow liquid.
"I know what you are. You don't have to hide," Her instincts again told her she was being stupid and ignoring them went against everything she had been taught.
Anna backed up jerkily as the machine shuttered unnaturally. She could feel her heart leap into her chest as her body released a dose of adrenaline and she complied by going into flighty crouch. The vending machine twisted and unfolded in barely a second into a green and red robot that stood a good two or three feet above. It had four piercing red optics that were slanted viciously and added to its serrated teeth. It stood in a slight crouch with four taloned arms dangling dangerously at its side. It raised an arm and transformed it into something that looked startlingly like a rotating gatling gun and advanced on her while producing strange clicks and other mechanical sounds she couldn't describe. Anna backed away further and squeaked when she lost her footing and fell on her butt.
"Hey, hey, hey! Whoa! I'm sorry for kicking you yesterday!" definitely being stupid.
The earth born transformer halted but didn't drop its aggressive stance or remove the weapon from her face. In fact it waved the weapon before her in threat and clicked in its alien tongue. Since coming to the base and hearing stories from Sideswipe Anna had come to the conclusion that Autobots were the good guys with blue eyes and Decepticons were the bad guys with red eyes. But if anyone stood back and thought about it that was just stupid, both sides were living beings, no matter how strange the thought of sentient robots were, maybe like humans there was always an acception. This almost screamingly obvious Decepticon had rescued her from the clutches of a particularly vicious fellow con's hologram so she thought perhaps this one might be different.
"And, I wanted to thank you for getting rid of that…guy yesterday," she added hesitantly.
It glared at for a moment while its fresh processors slowly clicked then the earth born transformer cocked its head in a quizzical way and said something that came out as nothing but a high pitch scratch to Anna's ears.
"So…thanks," she added with a forced smile, hoping the creature understood English.
The con powered down its weapon with an audible whine and the cannon stopped spinning at the ready. It stepped back a couple feet giving her much needed breathing room. Anna rose slowly into a crouched position then stood up right on the balls of her feet, ready to run at any second. Her heart hammered against her chest wildly and she had to force herself to stay put. She felt a breath she didn't know she had been holding released rapidly and her lungs sucked in another vacuum of air before clamping shut again.
"So do you have a name?" she asked, grasping for something mundane that wouldn't spark a destructive wire and cause the creature to kill her. It made a loud series of mechanical sounds that made no sense to her what so ever.
"Um, how about I just call you Dewbot. You like that, yeah?"
Awesome and original, she sarcastically told herself.
It cocked its vicious looking head in a dog like fashion and made more warbling sounds. Anna smiled, unsure of what it meant and hopped that it was acceptance, if the creature could understand her at all, "Dewbot it is then."
The robot turned it's hand over in a fluid motion and popped open a compartment within its wrist and produced a can of mountain dew. Dewbot held its hand out and presented the sugary coke to her.
Anna took it from his serrated servos, "Thanks," she smiled warily.
It watched intently as Anna popped the tab open and took a sip; truthfully she wasn't much a fan of the stuff.
"It's good. The best coke I've ever had," she said, feigning praise in hopes of keeping herself on its good side.
The coke must have been a sign of truce and she wasn't willing to break that so soon. Dewbot made a whirling chorus of chirps and she could have sworn she saw it smile through its sharp teeth before it transformed back into its place against the wall, now nothing more than a harmless vending machine, or so it seemed on the outside. She gave the disguised vending machine a pat and left with her peace offered drink in hand. At least she knew now the creature wouldn't kill her and her curiosity was well satiated.
When Anna arrived back in her temporary room she was surprised to find everyone missing from it. Their beds were stripped save for hers and not a trace of their belongings were to be found. In a panic she threw her empty coke into the cleaned out waste basket and darted out of the barracks. Outside the loud whine of engines rumbled through the thick salt tasting air and deafened the ears of anyone nearby. A private jet and a couple helicopters waited impatiently on standby as passengers loaded their generously donated suitcases of scant belongings into them. Anna instantly recognized her roommates and suddenly felt panicked when a painfully obviously situation occurred to her, what if Tyler or Victoria, or even Cooper was leaving too?
She began to jog towards a woman she knew when a flash of shock-green and red blurs zoomed around her. Anna jumped back as the two small vehicles circled around tauntingly with revving engines that she could barely hear over the powerful flying machines. They were the twins, she knew that much, and her last meeting with them had left anything but a good impression on her. Her brow furrowed viciously and she glared at the two vehicles for startling her nearly as bad as the first time they had met.
"What the hell do ya'll want?!" she shouted over the roaring turbines.
Skids and Mudflap transformed and preformed a strange attempt of an earth dance that was easier describe as a warped version of the moonwalk while making rapping sounds, "We sure scared yous!"
Anna could have taken their skulls and bashed them together then tied them to the top of a lamp post upside down but she didn't have the physical strength to do so. Instead she settled for cursing them out at the top of her lungs.
"Go the hell away you jackasses!"
They stopped their prancing and one gasped, "Bro she did not just call us what I think she did."
"I thinks she did. She went and called us jackasses."
"Uh what's a Jackasses?"
"I don' know. Look it up on the World Wide Web."
The green twin gasped when he finally understood the phrase, "Oh no she did not!"
"Oh, yous gonna get it now!" The green one warned with a pointed servo.
She couldn't remember which robot was which and at the moment she could frankly care less. Anna placed her hands on her hips and scowled severely at the mousy twins.
"I'm fixin' to saw that finger right off if you don' get it out of my face!"
She wasn't sure if her voice could carry over the engines but the Cybertronians seemed to have no trouble understanding her. The red twin made a vicious cat noise at her, "She thinks she's gonna whoop yah good bro."
"Oh yeah? I'd like to see the midget human try."
"What!" Anna screeched in her mind and was ready to pull their wires apart or anything she could get her hands on. She would have done it too if it weren't for the powerful roar of an engine that sounded Sideswipes arrival. It wasn't enough warning for the twins though as the candy apple red Lamborghini slammed on its breaks and preformed a fluid one-eighty and smashed it's rear-end into both of them. The mousy duo fell over ungracefully, swearing in cybertronian that Anna's sensitive ears picked up even over the whining jets.
Suddenly, she was overcome by strange symbols dancing blurrily across her vision and she found it hard to focus. Her eyes twitched uncontrollably as she tried to blink them away and strange sounds began filling her head that sounded strangely mechanical but not in the way she had been hearing the other robots speak in their own tongue. It was much more in depth, she heard more tones and quickly changing decibels she didn't think were possible and there were so many different frequencies of them she thought her head would split in two.
"Anna!"
The angry voice of Sideswipe filtered through the chaos after it slowly began to dissipate and she began to think clearly again. Anna didn't know when she had crouched to the ground or when she had thrown her hands to her head in a vain attempt to stop the migraine. She was left short of breath and the blood flowing through her body could be felt vividly with every beat.
A loud engine revved and she looked up to see Sideswipe in his alt form with his passenger door hung open impatiently. Anna wiped the sweat from her brow and shakily dove for his interior and away from the wide-optic twins who were ogling uncomfortably at her. Sideswipe shut his door and Anna welcomed the nearly soundproof interior as she tried to quell her pounding head.
"What was that?" he snapped in a wavering tone that sounded borderline angry and concerned.
"Can we just get out of here? Please," she hated to beg but she wanted as far away from this place as possible.
Sideswipe complied without a word and sped around the waiting passengers and their waiting crafts. Anna ducked her head low and tried her best not to be seen, especially when he sped through the entrance gate and past angry guards.
The ride was quiet since Sideswipe never turned any music on so Anna numbly listened to the hum of his engine to pacify and stabilize her mind. He drove driverless and Anna couldn't help but think how odd it was to see a steering wheel moving on its own. In the center of it was that strange mask symbol and with it her mind pricked with questions. She peeled her eyes off the burning Autobot insignia and stared at the long straight road ahead.
It was strange to be riding in a car that was so low to the ground; it felt like she was almost sitting right on the asphalt. But it still wasn't stranger than sitting in a Lamborghini or even stranger, inside of an alien being. It was odd how he chose such a powerful and expensive car yet there were none of the bells or whistles on the inside. There was nothing but the bare essentials like a completely stripped down vehicle. She found herself longing for her tall pickup truck and with it her home again.
Her eyes trailed to the coast line that flew past them and she continued to gaze at the crystal blue water and tried her best to listen to the engine so not to let her mind wonder. She didn't know how long she had sat in a silent stupor when Sideswipe's voice finally came through the speakers in a low tone.
"How long did you have it?"
Anna looked at his dashboard quizzically, "Have what?"
"What do you mean what? The shard. How long did you have it?" he snapped.
Anna bristled, "Since I got here. Why?"
He answered her question with another, "And you didn't think to tell any of us?"
It was that damn shard again, that's all they care about, it seemed Sideswipe was no different meaning he wasn't really ever her friend. Oddly, she wasn't very surprised by his betrayal.
"I didn't know what it was when I got it and so what does it matter? That piece of bull crap didn't do anything useful anyway."
Sideswipe slammed on his breaks and sent Anna flying forwards into his dashboard since she never bothered to put her seatbelt on.
"Ow! What the hell!"
She pried herself off the dash and rubbed her aching forehead with eyes clenched tightly shut. She felt her eyes beginning to water from the excess whiplash that sent tendrils of pain through her already throbbing and bruised back head.
"Get out!"
The passenger door swung open and his seat flipped over to tump Anna ungracefully out into the sand before she could even attempt to follow his snapped demand. His door slammed shut and he revved his engine angrily before shooting off down the road.
"Fine then! Just leave me here you asshole!"
She fruitlessly picked up a clump of white sand and dead grass and chunked it as hard as she could at his retreating form already a mile down the road. There was no stopping the angry tears from spilling down her cheeks and with no one to watch she allowed them to flow freely. Anna crouched down at the side of the road, hugging her knees to her chest, and cried for all she was worth.
-The Brig-
Barricade could have laughed for the Autobots stupidity. Not once did they ever think the intruding hologram was him and that error in processing was nothing short of pathetic. But he was far too angry to be laughing anyway. The lumbering fool that was the Autobot's weapon specialist had been glaring and antagonizing him for the past twenty hours. Ironhide had obviously been in a sour mood before taking up guard duty and Barricade felt oh so honored that the mech had decided to take his agitation out on him.
On the upside, at least he was recovering strength. The Autobots had made good of their word and he received medical attention from a grouchy Ratchet and a fresh cube of energon, though it was a disgustingly low grade and a putridly small amount. The medic was silent the entire time he repaired him from within the cell but the tension in the tiny room was so thick an organic could have swam through it. At least his joints only creaked a little when he moved now and only a small ach followed, in time that would fade.
Barricade had thought all humans were equal in their stupidity and irritating ways but he was quickly learning that one human in particular, Galloway he called himself, was quickly standing out and working his way up on his termination list. Several hours after his brush with the human female the preposterous liaison came storming in thinking he was far superior to a Cybertronian. The weakling was flanked by human guards and Barricade couldn't help but think how laughable the fruitless need for them was. A true leader could fight for themselves and they surly weren't as weak as a human. As pathetic and whimsical as Starscream was, even he could fight his own battles. If Barricade could get just a servo through the bars he could squish the creature to the ground in a pile of messy organic parts much the way humans would crush an insect.
The pitiful creature began demanding where the phantom Decepticon was and what its motives were. Naturally he had no answer and merely told the fleshling he didn't know anything since his communications hadn't been working for over two earth years and he stuck to the story anytime he asked something new. Barricade grew increasingly infuriated with the fleshling as they began going around in circles but he didn't raise his voice, he merely replayed in the same nearly monotone fashion with the same answer every time and relished in the perturbed creature. Galloway's face had turned red and his voice rose in pitch with his aggravation until Barricade was certain he had reached the same frequency of a female human.
Galloway's attempt at threats were pathetic and hollow, he promised to rip him apart piece by piece and left with a final note with his brow so furrowed Barricade was surprised his eyes didn't sink back into his cranial, "Maybe you'll talk after we see just how you tic."
The stupid maggot wouldn't have the guts to even touch him; Barricade could see it through his increased perspiration and the nervous gulping of his throat. His heart rate was accelerated beyond normal parameters and his body was stiff, all signs of pathetic weakness.
Ironhide stirred from his standing position and pivoted to face the exit, obviously looking antsy about something. His facial plates turned into a more severe scowl than previously and Barricade evaluated his tightening posture.
"I didn't know pink was becoming a popular color among mechs."
Ironhide turned on the prisoner and shot him down with electric blue eyes, "What the frag are you babbling about?"
"Try checking your back struts, bit-brain."
Ironhide crossed his massive arms and silently preformed a diagnostic test to make sure the 'con hadn't done anything, not that he was capable of anything behind bars. His scans took only seconds and they came up empty save for a few problems he already knew existed. Earth's flimsy materials were anything but substantial but at the moment it was all they had to work with, a problem that was rightfully over taxing Ratchet's stress levels.
"There's nothin' there yah glitch head."
Barricade chuckled darkly, "Why don't you try physically looking?"
Against his better judgment, Ironhide twisted himself around to try and glimpse his back but the build of his frame made seeing over himself impossible. Fortunately the newly constructed metal walls were pristine and shinned enough that he could see his reflection in them. Sure enough nearly right smack in the middle of his back was a splatter of pink paint. His optics took on a brighter hue and his engine revved angrily.
"Those little punks-" he trailed off into his processor, trying to catch himself while in front of a prisoner.
Barricade was grateful that the mech's attention and anger was finally directed elsewhere. An uncomfortable throb that had been steadily pulling on his spark suddenly gave a painful tug that could have taken the hunter to his knees if he hadn't already been sitting down. Barricade ground his serrated teeth together and struggled to relieve the impulse to clutch the armor just above his spark. The sensation was odd, alien. His scans showed that nothing was wrong with his body besides the repairing systems. There was no sensible explanation for the spark wrenching feeling that threateningly flooded his chest.
Without warning the fuming Autobot snapped his head up and stared at the roof, no doubt receiving a transmission. Barricade didn't think the mech's features could become any angrier but he managed. Ironhide's engine growled so loudly that the soldiers loyally guarding from above unglued themselves from their poker game and pressed their noses to the bulletproof glass. Before Barricade could make a snide remark the Autobot peeled out of the brig faster than he thought the old mech was capable of.