Fandom: Transformers G1
Pairing: Skywarp/Ezara
Rating:
Codes: Het
Summary:

Wanderer's Home acr 2 pt 25: Battle Reflex

"Autobots, transform and attack!" Optimus bellowed, bringing his gun around as Megatron and his troops swarmed around a remote military base. "Drive them back from the barracks!" He added, blasts from his rifle lacing the air between Megatron and the power facility he was going for with energy bolts, interrupting the Decepticon leader's flight.

"Oh Starscream," Ezara's voice was cloyingly sweet over the radio as she lead the Autobot air contingent onto the field. "Come out, come out wherever you are! We have introductions to make."

"Autobots!" Megatron snarled as Decepticon attention turned from the humans to the greater threat the Autobots represented.

"Attack!" Starscream screamed gleefully as he came out of the cloud cover with the rest of his trine, coming down from above and behind Ezara, opening fire on her with everything he had as the crossfire below started to take form. He privately cursed at the number of Autobot fliers in the air. Even with two full trines the gestalt plus two and Ezara wasn't for happy odds.

Skywarp and Thundercracker opened fire as well, each of them taking one of the two Guards. Thundercracker's fear generator pulsed through Skoldur's heavy frame, but didn't do a damn thing to rattle the heavy fighter's nerves, or her aim, as she targeted the blue Seeker for a ram.

Ezara's form flashed and flitted under him before darting skyward, Whippoorwill on her wing and a heavily frustrated Skywarp trying to get a lock on the erratic flitting of the smaller, faster fighter before they got above the others.

Starscream made a quick check and was pleased that the coneheads were managing to keep the Aerialbots occupied. Even at three against five, the gestalt was largely harmless, just irritating. It would be more of a problem if they actually used their gestalt form - if the coneheads kept them busy, they might not think of it.

Thundercracker rolled out of the way of the heavy fighter's ramming maneuver, switching to his blasters as he came up behind her, his shots doing nothing as they slammed into her. Starscream mentally rolled his eyes, twisting around out of Ezara's way and taking a shot at the heavy fighter when it was convenient, hitting her with his Nullifier.

"Frag!" he hissed when Skjöldur didn't fall from the sky, instead turning to face him with heavy blaster cannons cycling up to full power as Ezara and Whippoorwill dove down from above.

He shifted his wings, shooting straight up as she fired, dodging the blast by much less than he expected and twisting to avoid the shots from Ezara and her smaller flier. What sort of wing were they? The three of them couldn't keep up with each other worth a damn, without slowing down drastically. Sure the little one had potential to fly with Ezara if she lived long enough, but that big brute was more suited to ground assaults than air combat.

Meanwhile, on the ground, Megatron had moved towards the barracks, placing them between himself and Prime to give himself a few moments to adjust his cannon, preparing for a powerful shot. He knew that with the potential for human targets between them, Prime wouldn't take even a clear shot.

He wasn't as picky about collateral damage. Not with these stakes.

A grin crossed Megatron's face as he lined his cannon up while Squawkbox distracted the Autobot leader with his horrific concept of music.

Someone, a femme, screamed a denial above him; Ezara most likely. Maybe she'd come back with Prime gone. If not, he would have to kill her soon. She made the Autobots too dangerous.

He felt the drain creep into his circuits as he fired at just under full power - enough to kill even Prime. A screech and crash above him warned of a crash, but he couldn't spare the attention to check out who was going down.

Something huge and dusky red hit the ground between him and Prime, rattling the earth under them.

Optimus couldn't help the way his optics widened at the impact of the large mech - Skjöldur, the back of his memory bank provided. It was the way she stood, braced for the impact with the greatest amount of her frame between Megatron and him that really hit home as he watched her far wing, then arm and part of her chest dissolve from Megatron's blast.

In all that, she didn't wince, didn't make a single sound of discomfort or act like it even registered that she was missing a significant chunk of her left side.

"Get..." Optimus' words were cut off when she reached back without looking and twisted his blast riffle from his hand. One handed, it was clicked to high power and fired, grazing Megatron's head and leaving circuitry bare where it contacted.

The next shot punched through Megatron's chest as he dodged, firing back and wide, digging out a trench as the blast dug into the ground harmlessly.

"Bruticus, cover our retreat!" Megatron ordered. The five Combaticons on the field leapt together, assembling into the massive form of the huge gestalt that moved between Megatron and the Autobots, raising a cannon larger than Prime's trailer and opening fire on Ezara and Whippoorwill, trying to force them to break off their pursuit of Starscream's trine.

::Steady,:: Whippoorwill whispered to Ezara on a secure frequency when the Tezita faltered in the face of an instinctive fear. ::Big and dumb.::

::Big and dumb,:: Ezara repeated as they dodged another blast. ::Superion!::

::Forming,:: Silverbolt responded quickly.

::Ratchet! Skjöldur is critically injured,:: Optimus radioed.

::I am not,:: she responded, still giving cover fire.

::You're missing a third of your body - that counts,:: Ratchet responded.

::Injured, not critical,:: the stoic guard corrected, but she still returned Prime's blast riffle to it's original setting and handed it back, grip first.

::Retreat's the best option,:: Jazz radioed to Prime. ::Whiplash's analysis of what Linejack told us says that his gestalt is bound to his orders - if we back off, he won't follow us.::

"Autobots, fall back!" Optimus ordered, beginning to retreat, knowing it was the only thing that would get Skjöldur and Whippoorwill to back off. "We've driven them back," he added, knowing that would help soothe Ezara's reaction to a retreat call.

For once, he didn't need worry about it. He saw her shock in her frame when she spotted the damage to her Guard. Even so, she and Whippoorwill darted over the battlefield in a tight zig-zag before joining him.

"Hers is the worst injury by far," Ezara reported quickly with a flick of her chin towards Skjöldur, who had Ratchet's undivided attention. "Everyone else is walking wounded."

::All Autobots - cease fire, break-off pursuit. Superion, cover our retreat, only fire defensively,:: Optimus ordered him, the group beginning to fall back as he transformed and opened his trailer for Skjöldur.

"In!" Ezara snapped and pointed firmly before the big Guard could object that she wasn't in need of immediate care. "I don't care if you aren't bleeding."

Skjöldur obeyed without argument this time and laid down in the trailer for Ratchet to work, or rather check that her innate damage control systems had worked correctly.

"Whoever designed you was insane," the old Medic muttered as Prime began to roll towards home.

::Just mindful of purpose,:: Skjöldur told him.

"How is she?" Optimus asked as they drove away, Ezara and Whippoorwill directly above him, Superion breaking apart to follow once they were clear.

"She'll live," was all Ratchet was willing to say.

::She will recover fully,:: Skjöldur added, her voice without a trace of pain or concern. ::Designed to do this.::

"That much is true," Whippoorwill admitted. "They are built different. Meant to loose limbs and more without significant issue. Emergency fuel line clamps every foot or so, no pain receptors, decentralized neural net and multiple power cores among other specialized features. She could take much more damage than this and still get herself home."

"Which is no reason she should have to, when there's an alternative," Prime said firmly, heading off the objection to being carried back he was sure was waiting. "It may be your duty to take shots for your charges, but that doesn't mean they can't try to take care of you too."

Half to his surprise, there was no objection from inside his trailer, or from above him.

"It'll just take some getting used to," Whippoorwill said instead. "We haven't had the vorn you have of this war and the breakdown of specialization. It is not normal to us yet."

"Understood," Optimus agreed.

"It's made us stronger in a lot of ways," Wheeljack offered from where he was. "And some of that design work you can blame on me, Ratchet - just watch out for the tertiary fuel lines, those can get in the way sometimes."

"I know her schematics," the CMO snapped. "I wasn't brought on line yestderorn you know."

"Are you sure those two aren't bonded?" Ezara asked Whippoorwill conversationally as the engineer and medic continued to trade insults and advise.

"They aren't bonded," she replied. "Long-time lovers ... that's another matter. Bonds aren't good in war, not for us."

"Besides, we wouldn't be able to stand each other for that long," Wheeljack offered, listening in on the conversation. "It's the age-old argument - don't know that you guys have it the same way."

"I doubt it, between lifespan and programming," Ezara replied, swinging a little closer to him. "It's extremely dangerous to produce a youngling alone, and time is not something we have much of, compared to you."

"No, but you don't necessarily need a mechanic to do the work for you, of either type, from what I can gather," he pointed out. "It's not so much the style of creating new mechs that's the difference, it's the style of everything. Function versus finesse - the Dinobots compared to the Aerialbots," Wheeljack admitted. "Though they would've worked out better with full Sparks - maybe over time we can get 'em up here, after we've finished the bugs in the programming."

"Maybe by then they'll have enough of a mind to choose for themselves," Ezara suggested. "Though by then they might be too alive to accept a Spark."

"If that's the case, I'll count it a success," he admitted. "Let's face it - that was the goal in the first place. A way to create new living mechs without needing Vector Sigma."

"We have done that. They might not be smart yet, but they are alive," Ezara reminded him. "A few more generations worth of creations and they'll probably be as smart as those with Sparks. Just a lot harder to kill."

"Possibly," he agreed. "We'll have to get back to that after we've finished our work on the de-programming from the Forge."

"Definitely," Ezara agreed cheerfully, a slight swoop in her flight path the only outward sign of how excited she was about that particular project. "It won't be worked out soon enough for me."

"How are things progressing?" Optimus asked them, eager for a distraction from the medical procedure going on in his trailer.

"Quite well," Wheeljack answered, his tone nearly as pleased as Ezara's. "It will never be a fast process, but the Spikes are still alive and doing well. Preliminary work on the Shadows trine indicates that the process will be quicker, and more effective, with those who weren't criminally insane to start with. The youngest of the three, Quickfire, only went through the Forge a ganon ago. While the hardwiring is the same, the effects on his processors is much less. There is real hope for many of them."

"Good to hear," Optimus said, his approval clear.

::What do you think their odds are?:: He asked Wheeljack privately. ::The Spikes - with, and without, Ratchet's assistance?::

A deep sigh came first. ::They're not going to make it either way, Prime. We're learning a lot from them about the mechanics of the change. It will save at least one of the Shadow Seekers and it's cutting the research time down tremendously. Even if they survive the procedure, which is likely, they won't survive Singer and Mitrix much longer than that. I don't know what they were told, and I don't want to, but they are expecting two bodies to study when this is over.::

::I know, Wheeljack. What I'm trying to find out is how long before I can ask Ratchet to help, in good conscience, to save lives,:: Prime explained. ::You think it will work after the Spikes, potentially?::

::Yes,:: he answered with as much surety as he could. ::I'll know better then, but I expect they'll be the only fatalities. For all their lack of concern for subject survival and questionable medical morals, those two femmes are amazingly talented at manipulating body and code.::

::Let me know when you are ready to start then. If you're confident he'll live through it, I believe it will be good to have Ratchet involved. After all, he can only make the odds better.::

::Will do, Prime,:: Wheeljack agreed cheerfully. ::I'm as eager as anyone to get to that stage of the process.::