22-Enemies (Starring Mirage the badass)

He hated fighting, he hated combat, he hated the battlefield. It was dangerous, barbaric, and a little repulsive. However, there was one aspect of fighting, one tactic in particular, that Mirage abhorred above all others.

Mirage gritted his dental plates and stared at his target with the intensity of a supernova. In a simple, graceful motion he raised his blaster, took aim, and destroyed one of his enemy's vital engines. He didn't watch in sick satisfaction as his target fell. He ran, closing the distance between himself and the blue seeker. This wasn't over. Not yet.

Thundercracker fell to the ground with a thud, and Mirage descended upon the fallen jet. He took the other mech's hands in his own twisting the appendages just so motor wires were snapped and the hands rendered useless.

He became another mech entirely. His reluctance to fight replaced by a need for revenge. His foot connected with the jet's amber cockpit once, twice, again and again until the cockpit was reduced to shattered bits of broken glass, and Mirage's foot was buried in Thundercracker's internals.

His entire form trembled and burned with rage. Images of his bond mate attaching himself to the seeker wouldn't leave his processors. It annoyed him that Sideswipe got so close to the enemy. The memory of his bond mate being thrown from the air, the Lamborghini's body hitting the ground and convulsing with a sickening thud, seeing Sideswipe surrounded by a pool of his own energon, it enraged him. The hatred coursed through every fuel line in his body and threatened to consume him.

So engrossed in his assault, he didn't hear the, "whoosh," of another jet's engines approach. The sound of transformation burned in his audios, and a foot connected with his jaw. Mirage toppled backwards, and noticed Skywarp hovering menacingly in mid air.

Mirage didn't even have time to recover. A barrage of blasts from a null ray riddled his chassis. He could hear an irritating high pitch whine over the sound of gunfire.

"Starscream,"

He was next Mirage decided. Yes, Sunstreaker had attached himself to him. He was injured much in the way Sideswipe was.

Mirage rendered himself invisible and transformed; he circled round the battlefield until he was directly behind the seeker.

"Come out from hiding Autobot scrap!" Starscream cried. He continued to fire in the same spot he'd last seen Mirage.

Mirage transformed back into robot mode, rendered himself visible, and tore the seeker's feet out from under him. He spun Starscream round, and flung him at Skywarp. The black jet toppled over and fell to the ground with a crunch.

He lunged at Starscream and treated him much the way he did Thundercracker. He tore at the seeker's cockpit and the internals inside. He took the jet's null rays in his hands and bent them at ninety-degree angles. The whole time ignoring the jet's pitiful cry of, "Skywarp! Skywarp! Skywarp!"

"Skywarp!"

How could he forget the damned seeker was a teleport? He should've dealt with him first, should've ripped him to shreds so that...

On the hard dusty ground he could see the silhouette of a seeker appear behind him. He saw the interlocked fists rising above the jet's head, watched them come crashing down, make contact with his helm, but he couldn't move.

For a moment the world was blissfully, peacefully dark. He regained consciousness to find null rays gouging him, kicks pummeling him, fists connecting with every area of his body and producing every type of pain imaginable.

From the corner of his optic he could even see the battered and broken Thundercracker. His hands dangled limply from his arms, but that didn't impair him from raising his null ray and firing.


Mirage teetered on the brink of consciousness and unconsciousness.

Part of his processors told him to slip back into the peaceful depths of recharge. Every part of his body hurt. His helm felt as if it had been on the receiving end of Megatron's fusion canon, and only charred bits of his head remained. His arms throbbed with an excruciating, indescribable pain. It felt as if Primus were sitting on his chest plate crushing him. And his legs, he felt nothing in his legs, which terrified him. What if his legs were blown off in combat? When he was offline he couldn't feel this immense pain.

However another part of his processors told him he needed to be online. There were voices swirling around his audios talking about him. Were the sparks in the matrix deciding whether or not to send him to the pit, or were his comrades discussing his fate. He needed to know what was going on.

"Fragging slagger took on a trine of seekers! What the slag was he thinking? By all accounts he should be dead." Ratchet. So, he was still alive. Unless of course, he'd gone to the Pit, and Ratchet was his eternal tormenter.

"Kid beat 'em senseless. Made things a lot easier on th' field. He's a hero." Ironhide. Ironhide was here too. He must still be alive.

"His actions were most reckless and illogical. They will be reported to Prime."

"Aw Prowler! Looks like Raji's finally got some bearings. Don' ruin it for 'em."

"Yeah." This voice was much closer. It breathed in his audio in a soft whisper. "Ya got bearings of titanium babe. Now you gotta pull through for me." Mirage felt a soft flutter against his lips. Pain shot through the area.

Sideswipe. Sideswipe was all right.

He had to see him, touch him, make sure he was functioning. All of a sudden the pain didn't matter anymore.

He brought himself fully online and turned on his optics. He ignored the worried officers gathered around his berth, the many machines connected to his prone form, and his dented body. The fact that he looked like he'd been sent through a compactor was unimportant.. He immersed himself totally in the fretful gaze that met his.

"Raji," Sideswipe breathed. "Raji why did you do something so slagging crazy?"

"Sideswipe," Mirage flashed his lover an annoyed look. "You know how much I fragging hate Jet Judo.