DISCLAIMER: I do not own this franchise I am only using it and some of its characters as a base universe for this story.
Chapter 19- First meeting
POV: Rainjet
" " Normal talking
": :" Bumblebee talking
(Note: this chapter takes place during season 1 ep 15 "Shadow Zone" of TFP)
"So, Knockout, how fast is Screams going to be recovering from this one? I asked walking over to Knockout, after my short time spent in the ward yesterday I got to witness the extent of the damage Megatron had done to Starscream. And the damage was very extensive. "He's going to make a full recovery within a few days. Megatron is in there with him now so I wouldn't go in if I were you." Knockout replied, I nodded my helm. I may be one of Megatron's favourites but there were still punishments for eavesdropping on his conversations.
"Well one can hope he does, but then again the minute he gets off that table he'll do something stupid." I noted to Knockout, it was true everytime Starscream was filled with termoil from a punishment he received he usually went off and did something stupid to get back at Megatron.
Knockout before Knockout could respond, the doors behind us opened and one groaning and limping Starscrem emerged. Knockout looked like he was going to drop his data-pad. "What did I tell you." I said motioning to him, "Starscream, h-have you lost your senses?" knockout questioned but Starscream just continued to hobble away, I choked down a laugh as Knockout continued to walk after the hobbling mech.
"You haven't fully recuperated." Knockout continued as he trailed after Starscream and I trailed after the two of them, "He's right Starscream, you could damage your systems if you don't take time to recover." I added. Though Starscream really didn't seem to care because he just waved us off, "Yes yes, I know Rainjet, and I feel fine, Knockout. Never better. You're a brilliant physician. Now both of you get out of my way!" he pushed Knockout into me and hobbled quickly away.
"He's going to hurt himself more if he doesn't take a minute to recover." Knockout grumbled watching Starscream limp away clutching one of his chassis, "Yes I know, I have enough field first aid skills to understand that." I replied. Starscream was already up to something and it hadn't yet been twenty-four hours since he'd been hooked up to the IC (Intensive care, though it's probably common knowledge by now) units.
"Rainjet, do you think you could do me a favor and-" Knockout started but I finished for him, I'd already gotten used to helping everyone stalk everyone else around here so the request came with no surprise. "Let me guess, follow him? Sure why not, I've got nothing better to do today anyways." I finished walking away. Knockout tapped my shoulder to add something before i got too far away from him, "Oh and make sure if he gets himself tangled up in another battle with Autobots to step in and help, I don't want him coming back in a worse condition than he already is." Knockout added, I nodded and trailed after Starscream. Making sure to stay far enough away that he wouldn't see me, but close enough that I would still be able to hear what he was saying.
I rounded a few corners heading in the same direction he'd been heading in before I found him, he was standing against a wall near one of the metal support beams ranting out his new plan to attempt to overthrow Megatron. "Once the blood of Unicron flows through my veins, our positions shall be reversed." He said. His back was towards me so I had no hope of steering any facial expressions but from the sounds of things he's stolen some dark energon and was going to attempt Megatron's failed plan of raising the dead.
"Great, here we go again." I muttered, watching him. I'd been standing in the open doorway watching because it was the only good cover in the random hall Starscream had chosen to stash his dark energon in. He turned around briefly to make sure he wasn't being followed or watched, jokes on him because he was.
The second I saw his helm start turning in my direction I jumped out of the doorway and hid in one of the janitor's closets nearby that way if he'd heard the door close and went to investigate, I wouldn't immediately be caught. I knew in the process of hiding I'd probably lose his trail, but with that speech and the dark energon I knew he'd most likely be heading to the hanger.
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(Switched POV: Twinwave)
Everyone had gathered around the monitor to check out the signal that Ratchet had picked up from a solo flying Con. "So what and who do you think it is?" I asked Ratchet as he enlarged the beacon. "Well, I had hoped that my growing expertise on the subject would remain purely academic, but though faint, this is clearly a dark energon signature, and it's moving fast." Ratchet responded. "Megatron." Optimus finished answering my second question, if it was Megatron again we would be in deep scrap if he managed to get control of another undead army. I mean we barely defeated the last one.
" Where'd he find more of the bad stuff?" Arcee asked as she and Bulkhead arporched us, "And what's he going to do with it, recruit another army of the undead?" Bulkhead finished. "Zombiecons?" Miko asked excitedly, I'd almost forgotten that she hadn't seen the last batch of Megatron's army up close and there was no way in a Kaon pit I was letting her get near one.
"We cannot rule out the possibility, especially since Megatron seems to be heading to a familiar site." Optimus said responding to MIko's excitement, "I guess it's all servos on deck then." I said. If we were dealing with more zombies Optimus was going to need all the help he could get. " Megatron has barely emerged from stasis, and it seems he's already making up for lost time. Bulkhead Bumblebee Ratchet and Twinwave prepare to roll out." Optimus said dismissing us.
I headed straight for my room to get my swords which now hung on the wall in it. I had no need to always have them on my person so I'd gotten Ratchet to build me the holders for my wall. I slid the two katanas into place into their case on my back, when a sudden thought came over me. "What if Rains there? It'll be there first face to face contact we've had in nearly a century, not to mention we both hate each other at the current point." I thought as I left my room. I knew I had to get over her but I couldn't help but wonder if a part of me and her still loved the other despite the amount of conflict and pain we'd caused one another.
Before I'd made it back to the ground bridge mainframe I heard the tell tail clang of Bulkhead's curled servos smash together. "Well you seem fired up to go." I said as I neared his side, "Megatron's got some nerve trying to raise the dead again." Bulkhead replied his optics fixated on the blank portal frame. I nodded my helm in agreement, though I was a bit suspicious. It wasn't like Megatron to revisit a failed plan, "But who knows what he's like now, he just came out of stasis after almost dying. His mind could be warped or changed because of it." I reminded myself as the swirling vortex of the ground bridge appeared on the portal frame in front of us.
The five of us stepped through and transformed one by one, when it came to my turn I hopped on top of Bumblebee. I wasn;t as fast as the others so he'd offered to carry me when we had to do this kind of stuff on missions. The five of us sped through and popped out the otherside into what Optimus had described as "An all too familiar site".
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(POV change again! It's been awhile since I've used this but I thought it would be best to describe our favourite femmes first encounter. POV: Reader.)
The Autobot's ground bridge portal opened up into the same alcove of valleys where Skyquake had perished. Starscream stood over the burial spot, the purple glow or dark energon poured out from inside the mound of rocks. Over top of everyone Rainjet stood on a cliff top, she'd followed Starscream here on request of Knockout and lucky too because Autobots had just arrived meaning she now needed to help Starscream.
Rainjet lept off the cliff top and landed next to Starscream, she readied herself for battle completely ignoring the screeches from Starscream telling her to leave. "Oh hush, will you?" she said eyeing up the prime and his four soldiers.
On the other side of the fight Twinwave had just entered, she didn't know this place at all and wasn't too fond of seeing her sparkmate over watching her commander mess around with necromancy (The art of raising the dead). "That's not Megatron." Bulkhead said in a little shock, "And he isn't alone either." Ratchet noted. ":Are you gonna be alright:" Bumblebee buzzed at Twinwave, she nodded her helm. It was about time she faced her femme.
"RISE, SKYQUAKE! RISE!" Starscream yelled as the purple glow and rumbling from the pile of rocks got louder and brighter, yet nothing rose to come and party crash our femmes first meeting. "Starscream!" Optimus said putting on his battle mask and readying his blaster, next to him stood Ratchet and TWinwave who now had both swords drawn and ready for combat.
"Rainjet." She said eyeing up her femme, the two completely blocked out the resrt of the happebings around them. Twinwave had already advanced forward towards Rainjet, taking notice of the missile Starscream had launched at the rest of her team but yet she didn't take notice to Optimus telling her to fall back. She couldn't hear them, and apparently the smae thing was happening with Rainjet because no matter how much Starscream yelled Rainjet wouldn't stop copying the actions of her femme.
Neither of them had battle masks, though this would've been a good time to put them on because without hesitation Twinwave lunged at Rainjet attempting to slash one of her energon intake lines. Rainjet, who'd bore no weapons at the time, now transformed her blade for servo to servo combat. "Let's see how much you remember from our lessons, shall we?" she said tauntingly, which only made Twinwave angrier. She growled and took her second shot at her femmes touso aiming for her energon intake lines beneath her armour.
"I remember everything." she replied taking swing after swing at Rainjet, their swords and blade clashing at each other blocked an attack from the other. Both femmes no matter how much they hated to say it, missed the other and were nearly equally matched in combat. The rhythm of the femmes sword danced switched beat as Rainjet went on the attack leaving Twinwave to do defence.
Though Rainjet didn't have as long of a reach as her femme did becuase her blade was apart of her body, while Twinwaves was an extention of her own. "You know I'm here to protect Starscream from getting anymore injured than he already is, so if you'd kindly stop attacking me so I can do my job." Rainjet said as Twinwave blocked another swing from her blade. "Well, you're doing a terrible job of it." Twinwave replied, smiling a little evilly.
Rainjet looked beside their fight to see Autobots advancing and Starscream hiding behind a rock holding one of his arms in tow. "Now, it's been a pleasure distracting you. But I believe this is checkmate." Twinwave said putting a slash through Rainjet's cape (It turns into her wings) while she was distracted. Twinwave knew that it would do no harm to Rainjet, other than ground her until she got it fixed.
"She's changed a lot more than I thought she would've." Rainjet thought watching her femme retreat towards the rest of her group. She moved her helm to where Starscream was and rushed over to aid him, as she ran over a ground bridge portal appeared next to him. Without second thoughts Starscream dove through with her in tow.
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(POV: Twinwave, yeah there's going to be a lot of this today)
I watched the kids get to safety through our ground bridge, not caring about what was happening with Rainjet behind me. For once I'd worked up enough courage to land a decent hit on her.
Both vortexes were speeding up, it sounded like a ride at six lasers, the one where you get stuck to the walls because of how fast the ride was spinning. "Ratchet, what is happening?" Opimus asked, matter from both bridges was now creating sort of a worm hole looking thing in the space between them. "The dueling ground-bridge portals must be feeding back on eachother." he replied, almost yellig over the noise, "That doesn't sound too fun." I said as the whirling got louder. "Miko. we got to get the kids out of there." Bulkhead said, attempting to make a break for our portal. When he tried to dive through the energy transfer for both portals had created sort of a barrier, so when he hit our portal he just rebounded back towards where we were standing.
The minute he touched the ground it was like someone had pushed a button on a detonator because both portals imploded creating an explosion that shook the whole valley knocking all of us to the ground. "Ugh, w-what just happened?" Bulkhead asked after the dust had sett;ed from the explosion. "I can't be certain. But if two ground bridges sent to the same coordinates crossed streams, the feedback could have triggered a system overload." Ratchet said after he'd stood up.
"The kids made it through, right?" Bulkhead asked with a bit of exasperation in his voice, I was feeling the same thing. I hoped those three were okay and had made it back to base before the explosion, because if they didn't there was no telling what that explosion could've done to their human anatomy. "I'm sure they're fine Bulkhead." I reassured as Optimus made a call back to base asking Arcee if the kids made it through. "Negative. You don't see them?" her voice rang out through the comm link.
"No sign." Ratchet responded, the five of us started walking over to the location of Starscream and Rainjet's ground fridge portal. "Ratchet… could the children have been transported onto the Nemesis instead?" Optimus questioned as we walked, "Not likely. If Starscream and Rainjet didn't arrive at our base, the mostly likely explanation is a dislocation. The children may simply have been bridged to an unintended destination." Ratchet explained answering Opimus' question. "So then where in the world are they?" I asked, those kids could be in serious danger if they got bridged to the arctic or in the middle of an ocean.
"That I don't know, because they don't have location beacons like we do we can't track where they are." Ratchet responded as we continued to walk along. I was worried about them, there was no telling where they'd been bridged and how long it was going to take us to find them. All of a sudden we stopped at the pile of rocks, or what had been them. Now in its place a massive creator was left, empty. "Look. Skyquakes tomb is empty." Optimus said, I mean it was pretty obvious considering we weren't staring at the twisted remains of yet another dead Decepticon.
"How'd we miss Skyquake rising and shining?" Bulkhead questioned, I had no idea and I didn't think Ratchet did either. But I had a feeling that wherever the kids had ended up, he had surely followed. "It seems Starscream got what he came for." Ratchet said looking down into the empty hole. "Another matter for another time. Right now, our priority is locating Jack, Miko and Rafael." Optimus said. He sent for a ground bridge, I was worried about those little munchkins and was hesitant to leave without making sure they were here first.
":Twinwave, we're going to find them:" Bee buzzed as the ground bridge opened in front of us, I nodded my helm but took one last look before taking a step through it. A whole lot of nothing greeted my optics, I sighed praying a little to Primus that they were okay and that we would find them soon.
When everyone poofed back into base the first thing everyone did was regather around the computers as Ratchet tapped away on the hoping to find any sign of them. "Ratchet, If the children we misdirected to an unintended location, is there any way to get a fix on their coordinates?" Optimus asked, it was relatively the same question I'd asked him a few moments ago. "If they were lost Miko would've called me by now." Bulkhead said without giving Ratchet a second to answer Optimus. ":And Raf would have done the same with me. But what if we try calling them?:" Bee buzzed, "And I think Jack would've called Cee by now too." I said answering the first half of Bee's statement.
"Call them? Yes!" Bulkhead said he accessed the comm system and dialed Miko's number and waited. A familiar ring tone sounded in the base and everyone moved around trying to get a fix on it, Bulkhead was smart enough to turn all the way around to face the ground bridge and spotted Miko's pink flip phone in the ground bridge portal frame. "That's why Miko hasn't phoned." he said signing and picking up her phone. "Now I know what she meant by 'You made me lose my phone'" I said as Arcee tried to call Jack too.
"Hello? Jack? Can you hear me? Nothing." she said as the sound of static echoed from her comm link. "We're dealing with fluctuating energy profiles inside a wide-distortion field. But it may be possible to back-trace their coordinates." Ratchet said, finally speaking for the first time since we'd gotten back to base.
A buzzing started behind us where Bulkhead had put Miko's phone down. "Miko's phone, it wasn't blinking before." He said poking the flashing phone to open it, the phone flipped open and Bulkhead read the message that had appeared on the screen. "It's a message. 'In alternate dimension with zombie. Help.'" he read, "That doesn't sound possible." Arcee commented and I had to admit even I was a little skeptical. "How would they have even got there?" I said as soon as she'd finished speaking. We all looked towards Ratchet for answers, "Ratchet, can we triangulate the geographical position of the cell phone signal?" Optimus asked as he too looked to Ratchet for some answers.
"In a parallel dimensional plan?! Let's find out." He said tapping away on his computer, "Now, calculating for relative time delays and ionospheric distortions, the signal emanated from the exact location as the original ground fridge coordinates." Ratchet said, by this point everyone had gathered behind him to watch him pinpoint the kids location and everyone seemed a bit relieved that we'd managed to find them. "But we already looked for them there." Bulkhead said, throwing his arms up in the air in frustration, it wasn't everyday that the three teenagers under your care got trapped in an alternate dimension.
"Perhaps, but not in the correct dimensional phase, as their message stated." Ratchet said as he continued to tap away on the keyboard. "So then the better question is, how the frag do we get them out?" I asked with a little desperation hunting in my voice. "Well, if I can recreate the feedback loop which triggered the event, I might be able to generate a rescue portal allowing passage from their dimension…" Ratchet said, answering my question. "Back to base?" Bulkhead asked excitedly, he and a very skeptical looking Arcee were standing next to each other sharing thoughts on what the frag was happening. I was standing next to Bee who just looked really hopeful and Opimus just had a blank look as usual.
"No! We're talking about interdimensional travel here, Bulkhead!" Ratchet yelled as he spun around waving his arms all over the place. "Attempting to redirect the vortex trajectory would be far too risky." Ratchet continued, he looked like a mad mech and I couldn't blame him. I was pretty worried about the kids too. "Everyone knows that." Arcee said sarcastically as she looked up at Bulkhead.
"If the coordinates are not precisely the same, who knows where the humans will wind up?" Ratchet said, turning back around to his computer to finish the portal coordinates. "And here I was thinking you couldn't care less about them." I said watching him work, I didn't get a reply which I had anticipated but the way he was frantically working was response enough, the kids were growing on him and he was trying his very hardest to hide it.
"I'm sending a ground bridge now, their rescue portal has already been activated. Opimus, Bulkhead, Arcee and Twinwave go make sure they're alright and intact." Ratchet said pulling the lever to activate the ground bridge for a third time today to the same location. The four of us nodded our helm and walked towards the portal and disappeared into a plume of gold dust.
When we popped through the other side, we were met with three very tiny and familiar figures running our way. "Jack, Miko, Rafael." Optimus said, "I'm so glad you three are safe, but uh Optimus I believe we have a Starscream to deal with." I said motioning towards Starcream who seemed to be wrestling with a detached arm. "And he seems to be calling for a ground bridge." Arcee noted, "Well then time to go, punishments will be handed out when we get home." I said scooping up kids and running through the portal.
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(POV: Rainjet, yes I promise this is the last one)
"Rainjet, you do realize I sent you to go look after him yet he came back missing an entire arm?" Knockout said as he patched up the slash Twinwave as put in my wings. I was sitting on a med berth in his lad, I was hurt yet I was getting lectured. "Yes yes I know I know." I said trying to wave him off, I didn't really feel like explaining the whole story of what happened to him and I'm pretty sure Starscream and already fed him a bold face lie so there was no point in trying to undo that.
"How did you manage to get this cut anyway?" Knockout questioned as he finished the patch, I sighed already formulating a lie that would correspond with what Knockout had told me Starscream had said about losing his arm. "He got keen that I was following him and threw a piece of loose metal at me while we were in the hallway, and then a few seconds after he let go of it his arm dropped onto the floor." I said, I hated lying to him but I didn't think Starscream needed another punishment when he'd barely recovered from the first.
Knockout sighed, and I had a feeling it was because he knew he wasn't getting the straight truth out of us. "Alright, you're free to go. But just don't try getting into any fights for a while the patch still needs to set." I nodded and left his lab and headed straight back to my cozy computer room to rap up some research and hacking that Megatron requested I do. I had planned to avoid Starscream for the rest of the day, I knew he'd probably gotten himself into more trouble so I didn't want to get myself tangled up in that again. But I thought about Twinwave, It had been our first optic to optic contact since Airachnid's ship about a century or so ago and she had hesitated to hurt me before but now she didn't. "It's war, people change and turn in their loved ones. You saw enough of that first hand on Cybertron." I reminded myself as I slunk back into the computer room. Still something about the way she acted had seemed forced but I couldn't figure out why.
I hope you enjoyed this chapter, feel free to leave some feedback for me so I can make it a better reading experience for you guys!
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