When my security systems alerted me to something approaching the junkyard I immediately went to the screen, bringing up the snapshot the surveillance had captured and relaxed into a smile. "Hey guys! Guess who's back?!" I yelled out to the others, cupping my hands around my mouth to make my voice carry and suddenly there was life.
"About time, maybe things will start to get interesting around here." Crosshairs mumbled as he crawled out of the little den he'd made for himself. "I've been reduced to counting birds as they fly across. This place stinks." Complaining as usually I waved a dismissive hand at Crosshairs, ignoring him for the most part as I moved through my workshop to move some stuff aside and of course found Brains trying to snack on bits of metal.
"Brains! How many…STOP EATING MY PROJECTS AND MY TOOLS!" Quickly grabbing him I wrenched my screwdriver from his mouth only to find it completely bent. "You little…"
"Easy now, shouldn't pick on somebody smaller than yourself, especially not a helpless little 'bot like me." Brains told me as his wiry hair smoked and I growled, clenching my fist whilst desperately trying to refrain from punching him. In the end I turned around and threw Brains towards Wheelie, expertly landing him on the outside couch.
"Wheelie! Kick him for me."
"Gladly." Wheelie gave Brains a solid kick who yelled about foul play and that this was abuse but I ignored him. I swear to god, I am up to my ears in bored robots who are starting to really get my temper in a flare. Bumblebee and Drift drove up from the gate towards the shack, dust rising under their wheels before finally they transformed after Cade had got out, carrying a kit bag with him.
"See everything is still intact." He noted however no sooner had he spoken, Grimlock charged through a car stack and knocked it over, the metal creaking and moaning before the inevitable crash which made Cade flinch away from it instinctively whilst I just stood there with one hand holding my head.
"I feel like I'm mothering eight children all under the age of three, it's crazy around-Slug! Spit that out, spit that out right now! If you get stomach problems again I am not helping you, no way." Already it was chaos and it was not even midday yet. Hound had accidentally set charges everywhere by dropping them in his sleep as he rolled over so there was an entire area where we couldn't go unless we wanted to be blown sky high, however it seems like Scorn didn't understand me when I had said 'restricted' and had how set them all off, blasting him backwards into another stack pile which became knocked down and once he'd rolled back onto his feet, he had entire cars pinned onto his spikes. With a grim expression, I shook my head and clapped Cade on the shoulder. "Welcome back." And he looked oh so happy to be here.
"I am happy to report that there were no altercations, conflicts or engagements during our absence, sempai." Drift said to me as he gave a traditional bow to me. "We would have been back sooner, but he wanted to circle back and hide because he thought we were being followed." With a rather irate tone Drift scowled at Bumblebee who flung up his hands with defensive attitude as his radio whirred.
"What? There were…tingles…shooting all up…my spine!"
"It's okay, so long as you're all back safe, unharmed and nobody followed you, I'm happy with that." I cut the argument before it could escalate, using calming motions with my hands. "And Drift? Don't call me sempai, it's more than a little weird."
"But you are not quite a sensei." That was his logic? Okay fine, if it kept him happy then it doesn't really matter what he called me. Giving a shrug Drift jumped up into the air and summersaulted whilst drawing his blades and standing upon them to balance and meditate. I shall never understand how that kind of thing was even possible. Turning around I faced Bumblebee and tried to smile at him.
"Hey big guy, you're not still mad at me are you." Bumblebee rolled his head and eyes, giving a so-so motion with his hand which only made me smile more. "Well that's a little better than before. At least you're kind of talking to me. Do you at least want to talk about it? You can't continue being upset with me for being realistic forever, right?"
"Watch me." Bumblebee stated before walking past me. I stood there, completely stumped for a second before exhaling. Guess he needs a little more time. There was the sound of crunching behind me so I glanced back to see that Bumblebee had made himself comfortable on a car pile, leaning back and propping up one leg to make himself comfortable. Things didn't get any less crazy around here, if anything they just got worse. By the time Tessa had moved to Princeton for college, transformers were falling from the sky all across the world, both Decepticons and Autobots.
Knowing that I had to speed things up, I got into contact with Simmons and together, he and I arranged a system to take care of any Autobots we could locate and I mobilised the northern team to extract any Autobots I could get them to before TRF, however they were absolutely by no means permitted to engage without my say so. Simmons ended up moving to Cuba, the only place on earth where transformers were welcome to live in peace and harmony. Guess it was just Castro's way of giving the middle finger to the rest of the world and I privately applauded the guy for it.
My northern team were glad for something to finally do and I had them scatter into smaller groups as I launched another probe up into space however this one scanned for incoming objects from space, feeding me the information and Brains helped me to decipher if they were Autobot or Decepticon. In a way I almost felt guilty for not offering the Decepticons the same chance I was giving the Autobots, however considering their past grievances, I just could not risk my team on a mercy mission for someone who could very well stab us in the back later. I just couldn't. Soon enough I was directing all Autobots under my undisputed command, arranging each extraction and ach time we had a target, I would be kept in the loop via a visual feed. I had taken the spy drone technology from KSI and developed it into my own software with Cade's help, so that for each operation I could keep a close eye on what was happening as the camera was attached to the Autobots themselves, one in the front and one at the back with a one hundred eighty degree rotation circle so I could watch their backs for them.
Unfortunately we did not have as much success down here as my other teams did, but we kept on fighting back. I refused to allow this TRF to go around shooting down transformers no matter what their allegiance, especially when they were one of us in the first place. "Hey! Hey guys! We got something!" Brains was yelling and instantly I stopped what I was doing, quickly putting down my tools and jumping down from my huge Autobot body to run to the control station we had built up. Cade reached it the same moment I did and I was instantly scanning each screen.
"What we got? Another incomer?" I asked however Brains was busy tapping away at keys before jumping down into the seat and grabbing the joystick he'd hooked up to the monitor.
"Nope, but we got touchdown, the probes made it to the planet Mars and we're going live." Intrigued the others all crouched down to get a look at the screens as a hot looking and extremely dusty looking rocky plain. "Alright, let's go for a little ride."
"This is awesome, check it, I'm flying a probe!" Wheelie cheered as he too jumped down and took over one of the other probes, switching to manual.
"Alright guys, let's start scanning and see what we find." I instructed as I reached between them and started running the program, not taking my eyes off the screen for a single moment. Although Brains and Wheelie were enjoying taking the probes for a flight, banking left and right I had to sternly tell them to focus so that the probes could actually complete an accurate scan. "It'll be a few hours before we find anything so let's leave them do their job for now. Come on guys, I don't trust you enough to not mess around behind my back." Switching back to automatic flight I picked both little Autobots and made them go help Cade scavenge for spare parts. Glancing back at the screen, I hummed with amusement. "What Simmons wouldn't give to be watching this now."
Going into the shack I grabbed myself a drink, feeling drained from the day's work which was still not done. In my head I had an endless list of things that I needed to do and a second list with things that needed to be done after that, however as I sat down in the recliner, I enjoyed a peaceful few moments of relaxation with a cold beer to wet my throat with. Smiling I leaned back my head, intending to close my eyes and catch a few minutes to myself.
The entire shook with the sound of a boom and a roar which had me leaping out my chair, beer flying everywhere as I stumbled to the door and wrenched it open. Grimlock was going crazy, whipping his head back and forth and roaring with flames shooting into the sky, his massive tail sweeping through entire mountain piles which scattered them everywhere. "Hey!" I bellowed, waving my arms as the Autobots ran to get out of Grimlock's way as he charged.
"He's gone crazy, the solitude must have finally broke him!" Crosshairs called as he vaulted over an old truck and hid behind it. "I'm not going to be the one to tell him to calm down, don't quite fancy getting eaten."
"You're such a…little pussy…aren't you…punk?" Bumblebee said to him a little smugly as he crouched over Cade, protecting him from the fallen debris as Cade yelled.
"What the hell is going on here?! Why is the dinosaur stampeding?!"
"Maybe it ate something." Drift suggested and I gave an incredulous groan before bolting forwards.
"Hound! Drive him towards the gates!" I yelled, running up one of the cars and springing off the hood to continue racing forwards. "Herd him towards me!"
"Gotcha, locked and loaded! C'mere you prehistoric fossil, time for a rodeo!" Hound rumbled, tossing a grenade towards Grimlock and when it exploded he roared, digging in his claws to skid across the ground and change direction. "That's it big boy, come to daddy. I got something for yer, catch!" Twisting my head to see Grimlock get another grenade to the face he was pushed down the long stretch heading for the gate so I slid to a stop, feet gliding over the dry ground before anchoring my feet. Grimlock showed no sign of stopping and a I had a whole lot of robot dinosaur coming straight at me with bared teeth and rather impressively large claws.
"Stop it Grimlock." I ordered him, refusing to budge as he roared at me so I drew all the air into my body and put every ounce of authority I possessed into my voice as I thrust out my hand with my palm facing towards him. "I said STOP!" snorting in surprise Grimlock ripped back his head and scratched his claws into the earth, causing huge ditches until finally he came to a halt with the tip of his nose just brushing against my palm. Oh thank god for that, I thought he was going to step on me and break through the gate. "That's better, good boy." I softened, stroking his nose as I looked up into the bright red optics. "Now what got you all up in a bother like that? You've gone and wrecked the place again. I'm starting to think you do it on purpose just so I make you put everything back."
A dull thud sounded and I frowned, wondering what on earth it was so I looked behind Grimlock who blinked then turned his head as if he too was surprised. There on the ground was a metal egg. No, I'm not kidding. It really was an egg. It was smooth and silver with interlocking patterns and slates all perfectly fitted together. Grimlock grunted and twisted his head slightly. "That's a…that's…Grimlock that's a frigging egg! Why did you just lay an egg?! Are you a girl?!" Grimlock snorted at me in distaste, seemingly appalled by the suggestion so I flung my arms up in the air. "Don't get pissed at me, you're the one who just laid a mother freaking egg the size of a small child! Was that why you were going all deranged? Labour pains?!" With another snort Grimlock turned around and picked up the egg between his teeth, stomping away. "Get back here mister-I mean lady-I mean…do I even want to know?!"
Chasing after Grimlock back to his den I stopped when I watched him put the egg down in a nest with three others with Slug, Strafe and Scorn all standing around the little nest they had built. For the longest time I just stared at the eggs as they all chirped, growled and squawked at me, wriggling and wagging their tails like golden retrievers or something. Eventually I simply resigned myself to accepting the fact that I would soon enough have baby Dinobots to take care of. "Okay. Sure. Why not? Why the hell not? Let's just hatch an entire army of little Dinobots. Sure. No problem at all…"
"Uh oh, I think she's finally lost it." Crosshairs said as everyone else came to check out what was going on. "Guess there's nothing for it, I'll have to take charge from now on. What's that thing they say in those movies? I call for a Vote of No Confidence!" He declared however Bumblebee thumped him on the head.
"The day you take over…is the day…I'll eat my own head." Bumblebee said to him with his hands at his waist, Crosshairs rubbing the spot Bee had hit him with a glare.
"Not a bad idea if I'm honest."
"That's it, you asked for it!" Suddenly those two were fighting one another, crashing and smashing into everything and Drift jumped in to try and separate them however when they both clobbered him, he too lost his temper and started fighting back just for the sake of it.
"You should probably do something, they're going to kill each other at this rate. Helen?" Cade prompted me but I was in such a tizzy that I could barely think straight. Making things even worse, Hound came wading in and jumped on all three of them, using his rather sizeable rear to crush them before they rolled him off and started to grab the scrap cars and hit one another with them, breaking them apart and yelling insults and threats to one another. When a minivan crashed only a few feet away from Cade and I, I finally lost my temper.
"Will you all just SHUT UP?!" My thunderous voice made everyone freeze in place and look straight at me with fearful gazes as I rounded on them. "I am busting my ass every day to keep you guys safe and hidden, working day and night trying to protect everyone from the TRF, the government, CIA and the military, yet you're all here fighting each other, trashing my junkyard and you don't even have the decency to offer me some help but just make things worse? Screw you guys! If you're so bored here, then there are the gates. Feel free to leave, I'm not going to stop you. I have had enough of your bullshit to last a lifetime. Sure, you might not like a human in charge in place of Optimus, but touch crap, I'm the best chance you have against an entire world full of humans who want to put a bullet through your heads, so pull your heads out of your asses and start acting like a team even if it goddamn kills you!" Now that I had got that out of the tank, I felt completely empty and washed out.
Unable to look anyone in the eye anymore I turned with my head held high and stormed away from them. Despite there being a fair walk back to the shack, both Wheelie and Brains were timid and quiet so I assumed that they had heard everything as I breezed past them into the shack and slammed the door shut behind me. Pacing back and forth I raked my hands through my hair, struggling against tears of frustration before I finally grabbed a beer from the fridge and took a large gulp. It didn't help much but at this point, I didn't care.
Feeling overwhelmed by everything and more pressure than should be mentally possible, I wanted nothing more than to have Jazz by my side. All I could do was grip onto my necklace as I curled up on the couch and cried as quietly as I could, needing to let everything out so that I could refresh myself and start clean. Actually, I ended up falling asleep right there, still clutching my necklace with the four rings.