Disclaimer: If you think I own Transformers, you need help. Lots of it.
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"He's a traitor, Aurora," Nexa said flatly.
The blue femme shook her head. "He is not!"
"He was an Autobot and now he's a Decepticon. How does this not equal him being a traitor?"
"He never betrayed anyone. He didn't give the Decepticons any secrets or shoot anyone in the back or anything!"
"He shot Hot Shot in the front, doesn't that count for something, Aurora?"
"Oh, please! I know that you don't believe that Wheeljack could miss fatally wounding someone from that range anymore than I do!"
"So he's still vehemently against murder, what's your point?"
"What's my point? He's still fiercely against murder! He hasn't changed!"
"He changed sides, that's enough change for me."
"Nexa, you don't understand! He—" Nexa cut Aurora off.
"No, Aurora. You're the one that doesn't understand. There's one thing worse than a Decepticon, and that's a Decepticon that used to be an Autobot. Despite any aspects of his personal character, Wheeljack falls into that category. He is a TRAITOR, Aurora. And traitors cannot be allowed. Period. End of story. Any questions?" Aurora stared silently at here and Nexa stared right back as she opened the door to the room they'd been in and walked out, promptly colliding with Hot Shot. The yellow Autobot stumbled backwards a bit, then turned tail and ran from the two femmes.
"Hot Shot!" Aurora shouted after him. The younger transformer, however, continued running down the hall.
Nexa grumbled as she brushed herself off and asked, "What's his problem?"
"Do you think it might have something to do with what we were discussing?" Aurora asked back disapprovingly, her arms crossed. Nexa didn't answer as she stared down the hall.
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Hot Shot desperately wished he could tell whether or not Scavenger was awake. He wished that the large, green Autobot currently sitting with his back against one of the large crates that littered the room with his head down on his chest, hadn't dragged him into a training session. The frustrated Autobot threw some swift punches into the air, his mind not really in his actions. He had enough to worry about as it was, and what he really wanted to be doing at the moment was sitting alone somewhere and sorting out his thoughts. Instead, his thoughts were piling on him like snow. Very, very heavy snow. So heavy that the sudden punch in the gut he received from Scavenger couldn't knock them off.
"You're not paying attention, Hot Shot!" Scavenger observed, irate. "Now, come on, get back on your feet." Thoroughly annoyed by his hulking instructor, Hot Shot slowly got to his feet. He immediately wished he hadn't, as a searing pain shot all through his head, and then was replaced by an overwhelming fuzziness. "Hot Shot? Hot Shot!" Scavenger lunged forward to catch the unresponsive youth as he collapsed. The green Autobot shook Hot Shot, but when he showed absolutely no sign of waking up soon, Scavenger hoisted him over his shoulder and carried him down to the med bay, cursing all the way.
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"What's wrong with Hot Shot? You have to know, Red Alert, you've been in there all day!" Aurora demanded.
"Yes, I know what's wrong with Hot Shot," Red Alert replied.
"So what is it?" the blue femme asked impatiently.
"Can I sit down first?" the medic asked back.
"Fine. But hurry up," Aurora said, allowing Red Alert to take a seat with the other Autobots and taking a seat herself.
"Well?" Optimus asked, only slightly better at hiding his impatience than Aurora.
"Well, sir, Hot Shot has a glitch."
"For Primus's sake, Red, we've figured that much out already!" Jetfire interrupted. "Tell us something we don't know, why don'cha?"
"Jetfire, you idiot, he's not done yet. Let him finish," Nexa said.
"Thank you. As I was saying. Hot Shot has a glitch, specifically, Glitch A-B-B-A, better known as the Chiasmus Glitch.1 Judging by the blank looks on your faces, most of you have never even heard of it, which is understandable, because it's pretty rare. At least, there aren't that many proven cases, as, really, the only symptom of the glitch is fainting under severe stress. Well, it starts out as under severe stress, gradually, the required amount of stress goes down, and –"
"Woah, woah, woah! Slow down!" Jetfire interrupted again. "I can only handle so much info at once! Go slowly, please!"
"Erm, what do you mean when you say 'glitch?'" Rad asked.
Red Alert sighed and explained, "A glitch is, quite simply, a slight error in a transformer's programming."
"Red Alert's recent escapade into insanity is a good example of a glitch," Aurora added, smiling.
The medic glared at the femme, then continued, "Glitches are a very diverse group. Some glitches are automatically corrected once they occur, and thus only occur once. Some are permanent, and a few glitches only occur once, because they're fatal. Some glitches barely affect a transformer's life, some of them define what one can and cannot do, and a few are, as previously noted, fatal. Mostly glitches are in the programming from the very beginning of a transformer's life, but they can be caused by severe head trauma."
"So, what kind of glitch does Hot Shot have?" Alexis asked, apparently the only kid still paying any attention.
"Ah, yes, the glitch Hot Shot has," Red Alert said. "Glitch A-B-B-A, the Chiasmus Glitch. It's a pretty nasty one. It's chronic, but it changes over time. You see, in order for the Chiasmus Glitch to activate for the first time, an extremely large amount of stress is required. The victim spends a long amount of time offline, and they take a long time to recover. The second time the Chiasmus Glitch is activated, less time is spent offline and in recovery, but less stress is required for it to activate and so on and so on. It's possible for it to eventually reach the point where barely any stress is required for the glitch to activate, but the victim only spends a few minutes offline and in recovery. At that point, any large amount of stress could prove to be fatal."
"So, what you're saying is this glitch could kill him, and even if it doesn't, he'll have to ritire early because of it?" Optimus asked.
"Very early. Usually, 'bots with the Chiasmus Glitch are around my age when the glitch activates for the first time, and they usually end up retiring early," Red Alert replied.
"Red Alert?"
"Yes, sir?"
"This isn't good. This is not good."
"I know, sir."
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Red Alert watched Aurora type things into the large computer in the control room. Although he was pretty sure he knew what she was doing, he asked anyway. The femme swiveled her chair about to face him, smiled brightly and simply said, "Finishing." She turned back around and resumed typing.
Red Alert sighed and asked, "Finishing what?"
"New firewalls," Aurora replied shortly, not bothering to even look away from the monitor this time.
"What do we need new firewalls for?" the medic asked, despite having a good guess at what the answer would be.
"Well, the ones you made are so obviously inept, since wot's –his-face managed to hack through them."
"Sideways."
"Eh?"
"'Wot's-his-face,' I believe it was. His name's Sideways. And my firewalls are not inept."
"Oh, his name. It's not important. And don't you try to, 'my firewalls are not inept' me. Wot's-his-face hacked through them TWICE, didn't he? You can't hack in twice on just dumb luck. Your firewalls are inept."
"They weren't the same set of firewalls," Red Alert said, regretting it even before Aurora retorted.
"You idiotic medic!" Aurora yelled, swiveling to face him again. "That's WORSE! Arrrgh, you medics make my head hurt. Is it REALLY that hard to think logically? Just stand back and let a techie handle this, OK?"
"Oooh… Burn!" Billy said. Carlos snickered as Alexis rolled her eyes and sighed.
Red Alert dutifully ignored the commentary and asked, "So, you're a techie?"
"Again, is thinking logically really that hard?"
"That's rather ironic, coming from someone who never seems to act in a logical manner."
"I never act in a logical manner, do I? You are such a medic. Any half-decent techie could tell you that the laws of logic are applied differently when pertaining to people, depending on the personal character of the 'bot in question. What makes perfect logical sense to me might terribly confuse you and what might seem logical to you might seem completely illogical to me. Like, say, why you continue to prevent me from finishing this last firewall. In other words, shut up and let me do my job, please." Having finished her onslaught, the femme turned back to her work. Red Alert glowered briefly, then left quietly.
"What was that all about?" Alexis asked.
"Well, he's a medic and she's a techie," Smokescreen explained shortly.
"I gathered that much, but why does it matter?"
"Hmm, let's see if I can explain this. Y'see, medics and techies are, quite frankly, very similar. However, there is enough difference between the two to be noteworthy. Y'see, medics specialize in fixing broken transformers while techies specialize in building and fixing machines."
"Isn't that nearly the exact same thing, though?" Alexis asked.
"Yeah, a lot of people make that mistake, which is probably why medics and techies feel that it's necessary to argue all the time. Although generally medics can do a bit of techie work and techies can do a bit of medic work, the skills and stuff you need for either field are so different that no matter how good a medic is at techie stuff, an actual techie can do it better and vice versa. Medics and techies don't argue out of hate or anything like that, they just have different views on the way things work."
"Ah, there we go. Finished," Aurora said, closing the window she was working in and leaning back in here chair and stretching.
"Finished already? That was quick," Smokescreen noted.
"Not really. I've been working on this on and off since I got here. They're very complex firewalls," Aurora replied as the Mini-con signal went off.
"Huh. Good timing," Smokescreen said.
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Optimus surveyed the Autobots gathered in the warp room and noted that he was missing one more soldier than he should have been. "Where's Sideswipe?" the Matrix-bearer asked.
"H'es in the med by with Hot Shot. Do you want me to go get him, sir?" Blurr asked.
Prime shook hi head and said, "No, it's all right, Blurr, let him be. He'll be safe here. Let's go."
After the warp, Aurora noted that the rocky environment was a pleasant change from all the trees she'd encountered previously. The blue femme surveyed the rock formations, searching for the telltale green glimmer of a Mini-con. "I'm going to catch up with you today, Aurora, I can feel it," Nexa said.
Aurora laughed and replied, "Good luck with that. You'll have to slag two Decepticons in a row to catch up, and that's assuming I don't slag anybody."
"Well, maybe I'll finally get a little lucky. Law of averages, y'know?"
"Yeah, maybe. Just try not to do anything too stupid, Nexa."
"What? Me do something stupid? What a ridiculous concept, Aurora!" Nexa said, pretending to be hurt.
"Sure it is."
"You two do realize that the objective is to find a Mini-con, not slag Decepticons, right?" Scavenger asked the two femmes.
"Oh, sure we do!" Aurora replied, smiling at the large green 'bot.
"Doesn't mean we're not going to slag Decepticons anyway," Nexa added.
"It is part of what we do, after all," Aurora continued.
"Just like finding Mini-cons."
"And we've been slagging Decepticons longer."
"Plus we're good multi-taskers," Nexa said.
"Yeah, we can do both at once!"
"But apparently, you can't talk and do both all at once," Scavenger pointed out. The two femmes quickly clamed up and Aurora smiled sheepishly.
"Finally, they're quiet!" Jetfire exclaimed. "Maybe now we can get something done!" Nexa glared sourly at him, but refrained from speaking.
"May I speak now?" Optimus asked Jetfire in a very exasperated tone of voice.
"Uhh, sure, sir. Go ahead," Jetfire replied, slightly embarrassed.
"Thank you. Your orders, quite simply, are to recover the Mini-con before the Decepticons do," the Matrix-bearer said. "And to avoid conflict if at all possible," he added, shooting the two femmes a pointed look.
"What? You're not going to divvy us up like you did last time?" Nexa asked.
"No need to," Optimus said simply, shrugging slightly.
"Works for me!" Aurora said brightly, taking off and transforming.
The blue jet soared around for a while, not finding anything of interest, until she noticed something moving amongst the rocks. She swooped back around to get a closer look and realized that it was Wheeljack. The femme transformed, landed neatly beside the Decepticon, and greeted him.
"Aurora? What are you doing here?" he asked.
"Aww, come on, Wheeljack, think for a minute, will you? Why are you here?"
"Oh," Wheeljack said shortly.
"Yeah. Way to go. You're about as bad at logic as Red Alert."
"But why are you talking to me?" the ex-Autobot asked.
"Well, why shouldn't I?" Aurora asked.
"Because, Aurora, I'm a Decepticon, in case you didn't notice. I'm not on your side anymore."
The blue femme pouted slightly and said, "Well, there goes my entire argument."
"Your argument?"
"Yeah. My argument with Nexa about you. Oh, and speaking of Nexa, you may want to avoid her at all costs, since she's out for you head to begin with and not in a particularly good mood right now. Not that anybody's in much of a good mood right now, and understandably so, but still…"
"Why?"
"Why what?"
"Why isn't anybody in a good mood?"
"Oh. It's, uh, Hot Shot. He's got a pretty nasty glitch."
"Is he OK?" Wheeljack asked, not bothering to hide the concern in his voice.
"For now, maybe. For the long haul, definitely not. Like I said, it's a pretty nasty glitch."
"For now, maybe?"
"He's comatose. While it's more likely than not that he'll come out of it, there's still that chance that he'll just not wake up."
"Well, it's not like it makes any difference to me whether he lives or dies. He probably deserves it, anyway," Wheeljack said, putting on a mask of cold indifference.
"How can you say that, Wheeljack?" Aurora asked, shocked.
"In case you hadn't heard, he abandoned me, Aurora."
"'Abandoning,' huh? Is that what they're calling it these days? Well, silly, old-fashioned me. I would've called it 'risking his life and his career, two of the most important things he's got, just to try and help you.'"
"What are you talking about?" the young Decepticon asked, genuinely confused.
"You don't know? Oh, of course you don't know! Hot Shot's too busy blaming himself for the whole thing to consider letting you form your own opinion that might contradict his! You only know what you saw yourself! Oh, no wonder you think he'd abandoned you! I'd probably think the same thing if I was you!"
"Aurora, what are you blabbering on about?"
"You don't know what happened to Hot Shot after he 'abandoned' you! 'Cuz I can assure you that he definitely didn't go home and forget you ever existed. Y'see, he managed to make his way out of the fire to Triquet and Wheelie. (Nexa and I were elsewhere at this time.) But rather than getting help from them like Hot Shot was hoping for, Triquet informed him that the fire was too dangerous and strictly forbade him from going back in. Naturally, Hot Shot acknowledged his orders, then went back in for you anyway. Not that Triquet didn't at least try to forcefully detain him, but Hot Shot can be pretty stubborn when he wants to be. Nexa and I found him unconscious later after the fire died out. It's a miracle he survived at all. And if it weren't for Optimus, he would've been court-martialed for disobeying direct orders, which, really, probably would've been even worse for him. I wouldn't be very keen on calling that 'abandoning' you, would you?"
Wheeljack paused to let it all soak in, only to have his thought process interrupted by Megatron issuing the order to retreat. "I have to go now," the Decepticon informed Aurora.
She nodded and said, "Alright, but think about it, will you?"
"Sure," Wheeljack replied as he warped out. Aurora took off and flew back towards where she came from until Nexa waved her down.
"What are you so happy about?" the blue femme asked, noticing the cocky grin plastered on her friend's face.
"2.5, Aurora. 2.5. And 2 to 1," Nexa displayed the Mini-con panel in her hand as she added the last remark.
"No way!" Aurora exclaimed. "How?"
"I got a little lucky," the black-and-gold femme explained simply. Aurora pouted. "I suppose you didn't slag anybody, then?"
"Not a one."
Nexa's smile expanded as she said, "Even better."
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"I do hope you've got good news, Thrust. I am not in the mood to be disappointed, and you are a lot more disposable than you think you are," Megatron said sourly, sitting on his throne, staring flatly at the tactician standing in front of him.
"Oh, I've got very good news, sir," Thrust replied.
"I suppose your mission was successful, then?"
Thrust had no visible mouth, but the glimmer in his optics suggested a sly grin as he said, "Very successful," and stepped to the side, revealing the Space team huddled together.
The Decepticon leader nodded his approval and said, "Yes, very nice, Thrust."
Further dialogue was interrupted by the hissing sound of a door opening and Wheeljack entering the throne room. "Am I interrupting something, sir?" he asked meekly.
"No, Wheeljack, come in," Megatron answered, glad to be spared from Thrust's inevitable bragging. Decepticons, regardless of supposed intelligence, were really all quite the same in their manner. Megatron supposed that that was why he'd kept Wheeljack around so far; he'd found the Autobot's attitude to be a refreshing change from the norm. Megatron wasn't quite sure how to fully manipulate Wheeljack yet, but he'd found that Wheeljack, by nature, required less manipulation than his other soldiers anyway.
"Sir, I have a question," Wheeljack said.
"Which is?" Megatron asked.
"Why did you save me in that fire?"
"What brings this up?" Megatron asked, obviously displeased with the question.
"Aurora told me some things I didn't know. It made me think. It's not important. I probably shouldn't have even asked. The humans have a phrase, 'never look a gift horse in the mouth.' I'll just be leaving now," Wheeljack said quietly, quickly leaving the throne room.
After the young Decepticon had made his exit, Megatron looked at Thrust and asked, "I suppose you know who Aurora is, Thrust?"
"The blue femme? Yes, sir."
"Good. I want you to pay close attention to Wheeljack the next time we encounter the Autobots, and if you see him talking to Aurora again, I want you to dispose of her accordingly. Got it?"
The tactician nodded and said, "Yes, sir."
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"Y'know, it's generally considered to be good manners to apologize after you nearly run somebody over," Aurora said disapprovingly, entering the control room and glaring at Red Alert, who was hurriedly typing things into the computer and paying absolutely no attention to the femme. She approached him and asked, "So, what's the problem?"
Red Alert paused the security video he was rewinding and said, "When I got to the med bay I found Sideswipe knocked out and I didn't find the Requiem Blaster Mini-cons at all. I wouldn't judge that as being a good sign."
"Is Sideswipe OK?"
"Yeah, he'll be fine, it's a minor injury. It's the Requiem Blaster I'm worried about. That's the kind of power we don't want in Decepticon hands."
"It's really powerful, then?" Aurora asked.
"Insanely so."
"So why haven't we used it yet? Does it steal your spark or some other severe repercussion that I'm unaware of?"
"No, it's just that the Mini-cons that form the gun don't like being used."
"Who would?"
"Yeah, but that won't matter if the Decepticons have them, which is why I'm worried about it."
"Assuming that the Decepticons did get them, then how?"
"That's what I'm trying to figure out," the medic said, resuming rewinding the tape. Aurora watched silently until Sideswipe appeared on the monitor and Red Alert allowed the recording to play forward until shortly after Sideswipe exited the screen, at which point the white-and-blue Autobot paused it. "I'm pretty sure I know who it was, but it never hurts to be sure." Red Alert typed something into the computer and the video took on a greenish tint and Thrust appeared on the screen. "Now, the question is, how'd he manage to get in here without triggering the alarm?" the medic asked, completely talking to himself by now.
"Let me see something," Aurora said. The sudden interruption startled Red Alert, but he allowed the femme to take over the keyboard. She hastily typed in a few commands and stared at what came up on the screen. The blue femme then quickly took a seat, shaking her head and muttering the word "no" over and over again. Seeking an explanation for her strange behavior, Red Alert inspected the data displayed on the computer and noted that Aurora had missed upgrading the firewalls on the alarm system.
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1 A chiasmus is a Latin poetic device. Basically, it's a series of 4 words in which the first and last word match in part of speech and the 2 words in the middle match in part of speech, or something similar (An ABBA sequence). An English chiasmus would be something like "a score keeper keeps score."