Wow, three weeks since I last updated *Sigh* I am getting slower and slower in my updates... I hate that. And, I only started writing this version of this chapter on May 10th... I had been working on a different version since April 30th to May 10th that was faintly based on 'Speed Metal' but I couldn't get it to work. The entire time I was working on that version of this chapter I wrote a grand total of -get ready- 305 words... Yeah... I scrapped that version. But at least my updates consistently long, this is my fifth straight chapter that is over 10,000 words, and my sixth straight that is over 8,000, so I have that going for me.
Anyway, what I has happened with me since my last update? Well I got numerous plot-bunnies for stories I am never even going to write, like a Fallout plot-bunny, two different Mass Effect plot-bunnies and a Halo plot-bunny... My muse likes to give me ideas for stories that will never be written lol. Oh! And I turned seventeen since my last update and I ordered Mass Effect 3 recently :) I don't know if I will be able to get another update in this month solely because of Mass Effect 3 lol.
One last thing, I have started to go back and fix grammar in my first ten chapters, I've only fixed two so far, but it's a start. And I noticed that this whole time... Shadowstreaker hadn't mentioned to the Autobots who killed Cliffjumper... So I fixed that in the chapter he first meets them.
Thanks go to Crystal Prime for beta reading.
semperfi97 - I am glad you liked how I portrayed our troops, I get very mad when the people that keep us free are disrespected. And yeah, our weapons for our infantry don't do much against a Con... But we have yet to see a S.T.F tank, aircraft or ship in action... Maybe they will do a little more against a Decepticon.
jayna prime - *Watches you slam head against desk* Now why did you do that? *Ponders* Anyway, I was thinking that Shadow' is very stubborn and I haven't lost my mind hehe. And I am glad you liked the chapter. :) I didn't like the village scene or how the soldiers were killed. :/ My muse can be blamed for that one. *Face-palms* Man, you are inpatient, aren't you? Lol.
Devil-O-Angel - I know what you mean by the plot-bunny farm *Looks at warehouse full of unwritten plot-bunnies* I get plot-bunnies all the time lol.
Sailor Shinzo - It was the way you phrased it, to quote "Why did I get the feeling that Starscream has become very interested in Shadowstreaker, if you know what I mean?" Almost ever time I have personally heard someone use the phrase "If you know what I mean?" It was used in a suggestive way, you can blame Whose Line Is It Anyway for that haha. But I glad you weren't thinking that way and I am sorry for misreading what you meant, it was just confusing on my part.
Fox Of Magic - I am glad you like it, and I didn't exactly update it soon... I need to work on that lol. But at least you can read it now. :)
Sky'sLimit5 - Yes, yes he will tell her... It will just take him a while lol.
KayleeChiara - Yeah, I figured after five chapters of not having anything related to the episodes it was time to move on lol. And he tell her eventually, he is very stubborn you must remember. :)
Disclaimer: Transformers belongs to Hasbro. I only take credit for this story and my OCs.
November 2, 2012 3:32 P.M
Autobot base, outside Jasper, Nevada
Two mega-cycles had passed since we recovered the Energon Harvester from Afghanistan.
The Decepticons had been idle since Afghanistan, which wasn't very surprising considering how the Decepticons often fell into long periods of inactivity before suddenly reappearing. And since the Decepticons were in one of these periods of inactivity, there had been very few noteworthy events in the last two mega-cycles, only two noteworthy events in fact.
The first noteworthy event was how Jack and Miko had their birthdays back on the twenty fifth of October, which made Jack seventeen and Miko sixteen. It wasn't rare for humans to share the same birthday, in fact, I read an article when I was still a human about how for every day in a human year, there were over nineteen million human birthdays. But even though there were a lot of humans that shared the same birthday, it was still uncommon for humans to meet someone who shared their own birthday.
The second event -and definitely more important- was how General Shepherd was thanking us for saving his soldiers in Afghanistan by having the S.T.F upgrade our computer systems while also refitting or expanding our base.
The reason for upgrading our computer systems was simple, the base technology was severely outdated even by human standards. And there was only so much Moonracer and Ratchet could get out of a motherboard from a nineteen seventies human computer, no matter how much they modified it. But the new computers the S.T.F were installing had almost a one thousand times the processing power and had literally several hundred thousand times the data storage capacity. That was obviously a massive improvement over our old computers, and our new computers would be even more powerful after Ratchet and Moonracer modified them.
The med-bay and all our storage hangers were being expanded by the S.T.F. The med-bay was undergoing the process of being tripled in size and having the medical equipment upgraded in a similar manner as the computers in the ops center, and the storage capacity of our hangers was also being tripled. Our armory was in the process of being moved down to the Safe.
I think we should have moved the armory down to the safe a long time ago, it was a pain to go up to the ground floor, chose a weapon you wanted to use down at the shooting range, and then ride the elevator down to the Safe. It was annoying to go through all that just to fire a weapon you don't normally use, but just want to get some practice with.
With the armory being moved down to the Safe, Prowl requested Optimus' permission to turn the armory's former area into a brig. Why Prowl wanted to build a brig I have no idea, but I suspected the reason was mostly so he could put Springer in there when he got annoying, which was basically all the time. It was that or Prowl wanted to have a place to detain any prisoners we capture, which is a very unlikely event, but it was still a possibility that was worth preparing for.
Along with the expansion of the med-bay and storage hangers, the refit of our base gave us the opportunity to construct new personal quarters for anymore new arrivals that we may receive, and also a rec room for relaxing. The S.T.F were also building a separate washrack for the use of Arcee, Moonracer or any other femme that may arrive, which was something that I am certain Arcee was happy about, especially since there now was no chance of me seeing her in the washrack again. The S.T.F also were installing some hidden turrets on top of our base for security.
I had been surprised when I saw the turrets the S.T.F were installing up on top of our base. The turrets being installed used a highly experimental weapons technology -at least for humans- called a Helical Railgun. Unlike a normal railgun, a helical railgun is the hybrid cross of a railgun and a coilgun, the result is a weapons system that is more powerful than both a raligun and a coilgun combined. But like a normal railgun, the helical railgun's main issue is the extreme heat generated by its firing sequence. According to a S.T.F engineer I asked, because of its incredible tensile strength and resistance to heat, Adamantium was the only reason the S.T.F could produce helical railguns in a practical form, otherwise the production of helical railguns would be impossible for at least another three decades.
The S.T.F were installing four of these helical railguns on the top of our base, one to cover each side of the base. Each helical railgun was capable of a one hundred and twenty eight megajoule shot once every ten micro-klicks. That was enough energy to fire a fifteen kilogram Tungsten-Ferrous slug at approximately eight thousand meters per micro-klick, and impact a target with the same destructive force as a pair of Tomahawk Missiles. But against Decepticons, the helical railguns would only be able be useful for taking down seekers or other small and unshielded targets, and the helicals would be useless against any kind of shielded vessel. I had a few ideas for some modifications that could potentially fix this problem, I had already asked Optimus for his approval for modifying the turrets, and after I explained what I was going to do to the turrets, he gave his approval. I just needed to take the time and effort to try and modify the turrets.
All in all, the expansion and refit of our base was going to cost the S.T.F one point four billion dollars. Normally that would be about a quarter of the annual budget for an average military unit that was twice the size of the S.T.F 141, but the S.T.F was anything but average. The annual budget for the multi-national task force was ninety three billion dollars, and that was just the money provided by the U.S government. When you added up the funding from the United Kingdom, Russia and Israel -the only other countries that currently had soldiers and engineers in the S.T.F- the actual budget of the S.T.F was one hundred and twenty nine billion dollars. So the S.T.F still had over one hundred and twenty seven billion dollars to spend on their normal operations, whatever those operations may be.
Currently, I was sitting in the newly constructed rec room with Arcee, Bulkhead and Jetfire as we played Texas Hold 'Em with Lennox, Epps and MacTavish while in our holoforms.
"Oh this is bloody ridiculous!" MacTavish exclaimed after he lost the third straight hand he stayed in until the very end, this particular hand he had lost to Jetfire.
Jetfire's holoform had the same blue eyes as his true form's optics, and was of average height, about the same height as Epps' five feet ten inches. The hair of his holoform was cut short and snow white in color, appropriate considering I found out that Jetfire was the oldest Autobot on Earth by over ten thousand centi-vorns. It was no wonder he called everyone else at base youngling, it was because everyone else literally was a youngling compared to him.
"It is not ridiculous, you just haven't won the last three hands you've stayed in." I said dryly, giving MacTavish an amused smile while Jetfire collected the poker chips he just won.
"You Autobots must be cheating, it's the only possible explanation for why I'm losing." The Scotsman said, shaking his head in a frustrated manner as he started shuffling the cards since it was his turn to deal.
"Have you ever considered the possibility that your poker face sucks?" Lennox asked Soap, taking a sip from a beer bottle in front of him, one of six bottles the Shadow Company soldiers had brought with them.
"My poker face doesn't suck." Soap protested as he finished shuffling the cards and started dealing them out.
Epps tossed in his ante as well as the small blind since he was sitting to MacTavish's left. "I have to side with the colonel on this one Soap, I could probably read your poker face from across the room." He said, laughing at the sour look MacTavish gave him.
Soap continued looking at Epps for a moment, and then to Lennox, then back to Epps. "You're both arses!" He finally said after he finished dealing and waved a hand dismissively, causing the rest of us to laugh at his antics.
I stopped laughing after a few micro-klicks and looked at my cards, I had been dealt an eight of hearts as well as a four of hearts.
'A good start for either a straight or a flush,' I thought to myself as I tossed the big blind into the middle of the table since it was my turn to pay it.
Bulkhead -who was sitting to my left- looked at his cards before calling the big blind.
Bulkhead's holoform was completely bald, but a large black beard covered his holoform's face. Standing at about six feet tall and with shoulders that were as broad as a human get could without looking like a cartoon character, Bulkhead's holoform looked like a very mean and intimidating bouncer. But the look in the blue eyes of his holoform gave away his kind and fun-loving nature.
Jetfire threw his cards into the middle of the table. "Not even worth seeing the flop." He said, as he leaned back in the chair his holoform was sitting in and then looked at Arcee, since it was now her turn to bet.
Arcee's holoform was an attractive women about five feet ten inches in height with long light brown hair that would have gone well past her shoulders if it wasn't tied into a ponytail. Like the holoforms of Jetfire and Bulkhead, the eyes of her holoform were blue. But her eyes were a deeper shade of blue than theirs were, almost as deep a blue as the cobalt optics of both my true form as well as my holoform's eyes. Overall, Arcee's holoform was a real head-turner among the humans at base, judging by the looks from the occasional S.T.F engineer gave her holoform that walked by on his way to another part of the base.
"I'll raise," Arcee said, and then threw in an extra twenty five dollar chip after she called the big blind.
Lennox was next in line to bet and he quickly folded, but both Soap and Epps called Arcee's bet, which made it my turn to bet once again.
I looked at Arcee for a moment. It was unusual for her to bet at all right out of the gate, she usually waited until at least the flop to bet any chips. She likely had been dealt some decent cards.
I decided that Arcee's bet was worth paying to see the flop. "I call," I said, and tossed a twenty five dollar chip into the middle of the table.
It was Bulkhead's turn to bet again and he shrugged. "Ah, why not?" He asked rhetorically as he threw in a twenty five dollar chip to call Arcee's bet.
After Bulkhead called the bet, MacTavish dealt the flop by first tabling one card facedown, and then dealing the next three cards faceup. The flop was a six of hearts, a queen of diamonds and a five of hearts.
'One more heart and I have a flush, or if there's a seven I have a straight,' I thought to myself, keeping all emotion from my holoform's face so I didn't give an indication of what my cards were.
I looked at Arcee to gauge her reaction to the flop, but her poker face was very good, she didn't give any hint as to what her cards could be. But it was a different story with everyone else at the table, they were looking at the flop in disappointment. It was clear the flop hadn't done anything to help their cards.
Since we all called Arcee's bet before the flop, it was still her turn to bet. After Arcee looked at the flop for a few moments, she tossed two hundred dollar chips and a fifty dollar chip into the middle of the table.
Soap widened his eyes at Arcee's two hundred and fifty dollar bet, which was one of the larger bets so far in the game. "Two fifty? Lass, you're insane if you thinks any of us are going to call that." He said to Arcee, quickly throwing his cards into the middle of the table.
"I'm with you on that captain, I'm out." Epps said with shake of his head, also throwing his cards into the middle of the table to join MacTavish in folding.
I looked cross the table to Arcee again, two hundred and fifty was quite the leap from twenty five, especially for Arcee considering how she usually bet. Either she was bluffing, which she was very good at, or a card from the flop helped her own cards significantly. I had a feeling that she wasn't bluffing, but decided to take a risk anyway.
"Call," I said simply, causing everyone to look at me in shock as I called Arcee's bet by throwing the respective chips into the growing pile in the middle of the table.
"I guess I'm not insane," Arcee quiped towards MacTavish, causing Epps to laugh as MacTavish sighed and mumbled something under his breath.
Bulkhead shook the head of his holoform once Epps' laughter died down. "Too rich for me," Bulkhead said, throwing his cards in the middle of the table along with the cards of the others, leaving our current hand as a showdown between Arcee and I.
After Bulkhead folded, MacTavish tabled another card and dealt the turn card, a queen of spades.
I looked at Arcee and saw something flash in the eyes of her holoform that looked like excitement, the look in her eyes was gone before I could properly identify it. But her reaction was still enough for me to deduce that at least one of her cards was a queen, possibly both of her cards. Not a good thing for me unless the river was a heart.
Arcee checked instead of betting any chips, she obviously was trying to make me think the turn hadn't helped her own cards.
I checked as well, but I knew that the river had to be a heart or I was guaranteed to lose this hand.
MacTavish tabled one last card and dealt the river card after I checked, the river was a seven of hearts, which gave me a straight flush.
'Well, that isn't a hand I thought I would ever get in an actual game,' I thought, keeping the surprise I felt off my holoform's face.
Looking up at Arcee, I saw a pleased look in her holoform's eyes, she must think I don't have anything to beat her queens.
"All in." Arcee said, tone flat and serious as she pushed all her chips into the middle of the table, which was more for affect than anything else since she had more chips than me.
I saw that everyone else at the table was now looking at me curiously, waiting for my response to Arcee going all in. But I didn't pay them any attention, I just stared straight into the eyes of Arcee's holoform, and she stared right back.
The look Arcee was giving me was guarded and calculating, the look she gave an enemy when she was figuring out the most efficient way to offline them.
After Arcee and I continued staring each other down for a full klick, while everyone else looked back and forth between us, I finally broke the silence that followed Arcee going all in. "That is quite the gamble on your part." I said, not breaking eye contact with Arcee as I spoke.
Everyone else at the table simultaneously turned toward Arcee to see her response. "Indeed," Arcee replied simply, also not breaking our staring contest as she spoke.
I had to fight off the smile working its way onto my holoform's face as everyone turned toward me, it was comical how they all moved simultaneously.
"You must be very confident that your cards can't be beaten." I said after another moment of silence.
"Yes."
"Yes."
"Hmm"
"Hmm"
Everyone else at the table looked back and forth between Arcee and I whenever one of us spoke. And with how frequent Arcee and I were responding to each other, it looked like they were watching a tennis match.
There was another long silence, I was aware that everyone else was still looking back and forth between Arcee and I as they waited for one of us to speak or break eye contact.
I once again was the one to break the silence. "You have four queens don't you?" I asked Arcee, completely guessing on the number of queens she had.
A ghost of a smile formed on the face of Arcee's holoform before it disappeared. "Maybe I do and maybe I don't." She said.
"Judging by how you smiled slightly, you do have four queens. And here I was just guessing at the total." I said with a smile of my own.
Arcee gave a short laugh. "Well then congratulations, you successfully guessed how badly you just lost." She said smugly, flipping both her cards over to reveal both the queen of clubs and the queen of hearts.
When Arcee started to lean forward so she could collect the poker chips, I stopped her by raising one of my holoform's hands. "I have yet to call or fold, so the hand isn't over yet." I said, then proceeded to push all my chips towards the middle of the table. "Now it's over." I leaned back in my chair and watched in amusement as Arcee got a very confused look on her holoform's face and looked down at the cards on the table.
After a micro-klick, realization crossed the face of Arcee's holoform and she slowly looked up at me. "You don't..." She said, leaving her sentence hanging as she gave me a frustrated but amused look.
"I do." I finished Arcee's sentence and flipped over my cards to reveal the eight of hearts and the four of hearts.
Soap laughed at the dumbfounded look on Arcee's face as she stared at my cards.
After MacTavish's laughter had died down, Epps gave Arcee a dry look. "What are the odds of you having four queens and still losing?" He teased, causing MacTavish to howl with laughter again.
The look Arcee gave MacTavish and Epps instantly made them stop laughing and sober themselves. "Need I remind you that I know a half dozen different ways to eviscerate you with this poker chip?" Arcee asked the two Shadow Company soldiers while she held up one of the poker chips that she hadn't lost to me. "Or the fact that I could crush you into a pulp by stepping on you in my true form? Or simply turn you into dust with one of my weapons?" Arcee's voice was sweet and kind despite the fact she was almost threatening the two S.T.F soldiers.
"No ma'am." Epps and Soap said at the same time. The synchronized response from the two soldiers made them sound like children who just been caught stealing from the cookie jar by their mother, which was appropriate since Arcee did sound like a human mother speaking to her children.
"Good. Now, I assume I don't have to tell you to stop trying to make fun of me?" Arcee asked Soap and Epps calmly.
I stiffened slightly at the tone Arcee used, it reminded me of the tone she used when I accidentally saw her in the washrack, not an incident I liked to recall.
'Even if the view was-' I mentally Gibbs slapped my CPU to stop it from forming any thoughts related to seeing Arcee in the washrack while Epps and MacTavish replied to Arcee's words.
"No ma'am." The two Shadow Company soldiers repeated their previous response, and were again completely synchronized with each other.
"Good," was Arcee's short reply to the words of Epps and MacTavish. After she spoke, she looked away from the S.T.F soldiers and casually stacked what remained of her poker chips into four small towers.
For a few micro-klicks, no one said anything, we were all in different stages of shock and slight fear of how intimidating Arcee could be when she wanted to be.
Only when Epps slowly started collecting all the cards on the table so he could shuffle them did we return to talking and joking as we had been before Arcee calmly scolded MacTavish and Epps.
After I had collected the poker chips I won from the previous hand, Epps started dealing out the cards and we all prepared for the next hand.
We played poker for another breem before Lennox, MacTavish and Epps had to return to their own base and Bulkhead had to go pick Miko up from detention, it seems like that girl never learns her lesson when it comes to behaving in school.
After Bulkhead and the Shadow Company soldiers left base, Arcee, Jetfire and I went to the ops center. At the moment, we were watching Jack and Raf play Forza 4 with Bumblebee, unfortunately, Springer was watching their race with us. The other Bots at base besides the four of us were Ratchet and Moonracer, and they were getting accustomed to the new computers.
"You tricked me!" Jack said to Raf, while the younger human overtook him in their race.
Just like Raf, Jack had changed since I first met him in February. The now seventeen year old Jack now stood at six feet two inches, while he was only two inches taller than he was when I first met him, he was slightly broader and more muscular.
"I didn't trick you... I just didn't tell you that car sucks in the corners." Raf said smugly.
I was about to make a comment when an alarm sounded from the new workstation.
The installation of our new computers came with a few minor upgrades to the workstation, increasing its size to allow both Ratchet and Moonracer to work side-by-side chief among them.
Moonracer typed a command into her part of the workstation as we all started walking over. Almost as soon as she typed the commend, the main screen zoomed in on an anomaly in what looked like the Florida Everglades.
"Hmm... Subterranean energon deposit?" Jetfire guessed as he briefly looked at the screen before looking at Ratchet.
"Good guess." The white and red medic said to Jetfire before typing a command into his part of the workstation. "But the deposit isn't very large, I'd say about ten storage containers at the most." Ratchet said after he finished typing his command into the computer.
"Barely even large enough to activate our sensors, we shouldn't even bother trying to go find it." Springer said with a dismissive tone.
"Every container of energon helps in the long run." Arcee countered as she looked at the screen with a thoughtful expression of her faceplate. She spoke again after a micro-klick. "I'm going to go check it out. Jetfire, you're in charge until either I return, or Optimus and Prowl get back from patrol." Arcee said, as she grabbed an energon scanner from the workstation.
"Hey, can I come?" Jack asked. "It's been too long since I've been off-base, and I need to do something other than fall prey to Raf's cheating." He said as he jokingly pointed a thumb at Raf.
"I am not cheating nor am I tricking you!" Raf protested with a laugh, knowing Jack was only joking.
Arcee shrugged her shoulder-joints. "I don't see why you can't come along, Jack. It is just a routine scouting mission." She said, and then started walking toward the ground bridge as Ratchet started to activate it.
Springer stepped into her path before she had taken four steps. "Requesting permission to..." Springer looked Arcee's frame up and down, causing Arcee to start glowering at him while folding her servos over her chestplates. "Accompany... You in the field TIC." Springer finished suggestively with a mischievous smile on his faceplate.
My spark pulsed darkly and a quiet growl worked its way out of my throat as I got the overwhelming urge to punch Springer for the way he was looking at Arcee, and I may have done exactly that if Arcee hadn't beaten me to the punch... Literally.
In a move that I doubt Jack or Raf could follow with their human eyes, Arcee uncrossed her servos and punched Springer in the tank, causing Springer to fall to the floor while he doubled over.
Arcee looked down at Springer without a trace of pity. "Request denied." She said in an icy tone, stepping over Springer as he laid on the floor and continued on her way to the ground bridge, which had been activated by Ratchet when she punched Springer.
"You coming or what, Jack?" Arcee called over her shoulder-joint, causing the human in question to shake his head and run to catch up with his guardian.
A few micro-klicks after Jack caught up with Arcee, both of them disappeared through the ground bridge.
Springer slowly got back onto his pedes after Arcee and Jack left. "She's still playing hard to get, but I can tell she's interested. I will have her right where I want her in a jour's time." He said, dusting himself off as he looked at the spot where Arcee disappeared through the ground bridge.
I glared at Springer for that comment, and before I knew what I was doing, I had crossed the distance between us and Gibbs slapped him in the back of the helm hard enough to knock him forward several paces.
Springer immediately grabbed his helm and starting rubbing the spot I Gibbs slapped him "The frag was that for?" The green Triple-Changer asked angrily, as he turned around to look at me with a look on his faceplate that mirrored the tone in his voice.
I was aware that the other Autobots were watching our exchange with apprehension, but I was too busy glaring at Springer to really care. "For being a sleazy dumb aft," I replied, as I crossed my servos over my chestplates.
Springer's changed from anger to slight disbelief. "You're angry about that?" He asked incredulously. "I'm not even doing anything wrong."
My glare turned into a scowl. "Ever since you and Jetfire arrived, ninety percent of the things you say to Arcee are either suggestive comments, or a sleazy attempt to hit on her. And you've been looking everywhere except her optics since the Sahara," I said with enough anger in my voice that I surprised even myself.
Springer rolled his optics. "Oh, and let me guess. You've never ever let your optics wander when looking at a femme? Especially a femme with a chassis like Arcee's?" He asked almost mockingly, as he tried go lean in my faceplate to intimidate me, something that wasn't going to work due to the fact I was more than a helm taller and more than half again as broad.
I leaned down slightly so I was the one getting in his faceplate. "No, no I have not. And I think you should start actually showing respect towards Arcee before all your ogling comes back to bite you in the aft in a way that makes the punch Arcee gave you look like a friendly tap." I practically growled, causing Springer to briefly pull his helm back at my furious tone before he leaned forward again, not wanting to seem like he was backing down from our confrontation.
We continued staring each other down for several micro-klicks before Jetfire put a servo on each of our chestplates and separated us.
"That is enough you two!" Jetfire said as he stood between Springer and I. "You're both Autobots, now act like it!" The old seeker yelled, looking back and forth between Springer and I with disapproval written on his faceplate.
Springer huffed and shook his helm. "I'm going on patrol." He said as he walked away from Jetfire and I and headed for the entrance tunnel. "There are too many unintelligent brutes at base for my liking." He said over his shoulder-joint, clearly meant to insult me, even though it was a very unoriginal insult.
A few micro-klicks after he spoke, Springer transformed into the Lamborghini Urus concept SUV that was his ground-based alt mode and left the base through the entrance tunnel.
I gave a sigh and shook my helm in an angry manner after Springer left base. "I'm going to go modify the turrets." I said as I started walking toward the bot-sized elevator, I wanted to go clear my CPU of the lingering anger I felt towards Springer before I talked with any of my fellow Autobots.
I quickly reached the elevator and hit the button for top side. After the elevator started moving, I leaned against the back of the elevator and waited for the elevator to arrive top side.
Three breems went by after I stepped into the elevator. In that time, I had managed to make the modifications to the turrets I had planned.
The turrets were now being powered by a small energon generator that allowed them to fire a seven hundred and seventy megajoule shot, more than six times as powerful as they had been originally. Not only were the helical railguns more powerful, but I had also modified the fifteen kilogram Tungsten-Ferrous slug they fired. Now each slug was coated in a metal we called Primax.
Of all the different Cybertronian alloys in existence, Primax was by far the most versatile. Primax came in dozens of different colors and levels of quality, the lowest quality of the metal was usually used for constructing buildings, middle level quality Primax was used for manufacturing medical tools and almost every basic Cybertronian technology, and the higher grade Primax was used for starship armor and the highest quality of melee weapons.
It was very rare for Primax to be found naturally, and what deposits of Primax that were found on Cybertron were always mixed in with other Cybertronian metals. Even after metal workers purified these deposits -or simply create it in a laboratory- the highest quality of Primax that was possible with our technology was only forty nine percent pure. That was far less pure than gold after humans purified it. But even though the highest quality of Primax was largely made up of different metals, Primax was still far stronger than any other metal Cybertronians had discovered. It was theorized that one hundred percent Primax was indestructible, immune to damage even from Quark-gluon plasma. It was also rumored that the Thirteen knew how to create Primax in its most pure form, and that they used pure Primax in the construction of their artifacts. But those were just rumors of course, that wasn't going to stop me from asking Solus and Megatronus the next time I visited them in the Pocket Universe though.
The quality of Primax I had used to coat the slugs of the helical turrets was sixteen percent pure, it wasn't the lowest quality, but it could be better. The reason I had coated each Tungsten-Ferrous round in Primax was because my modifications to the helicals had a slight side effect, the heat caused by the turret's firing sequence was increased by a factor of ten. So the Primax was there to prevent the round from simply melting before it was even fired from the helical's barrel, the Primax was also there to keep the small plasma-fission warhead I installed in each round from getting too hot and detonating before it could impact a target.
It may seem like over-kill or incredibly reckless to use nuclear weaponry, but for a Cybertronian, nuclear weapons were very easy to create, and even easier to focus the blast at the target you were aiming at. And since part of the warhead I created was plasma, which could soak radiation up like a sponge absorbs water, the small warhead wouldn't even give off any radiation when it exploded. So it was a win, win, there wouldn't be any problems with fallout, and the turrets were now actually useful in a fight against a Decepticon attack.
After I had modified the turrets, I immediately went to the mech washrack to clean off the grease and oil I had found myself covered in once I finished work on the turrets.
Right now, I was walking back into the ops center after I made my trip to the washrack.
I stepped into the ops center and saw Jetfire leaning against the wall next to the ground bridge while Moonracer and Ratchet stood at their spots at the workstation. Looking around the rest of the ops center, I didn't see Raf, Bumblebee or anyone else, it looked like the four of us were the only ones at base at the moment.
Jetfire noticed my presence and looked at me. "Shadowstreaker, come here a moment would you?" He asked, gesturing for me to stand next to him.
I walked over toward the old seeker and stood off to his left.
For several klicks neither of us said anything, just stood in silence while we watched Ratchet and Moonracer work.
"So," the seeker finally began in a quiet voice, causing me to look at him. "How long has it been since you started to like Arcee more than just as a friend?" Jetfire asked in a causal, off-handed manner.
I stiffened slightly and looked away from Jetfire. "I don't like Arcee in that way." I lied, forcing an even voice even though I was internally panicking.
I saw Jetfire give me a 'really?' look out of the corner of my optic. "You aren't that good hiding your emotions youngling," he said with a slight chuckle.
I gave a defeated sigh and looked back at Jetfire. "I started feeling the way I do back in June, before you and Springer arrived. I was injured in a battle with the Cons, it was after Arcee visited me in the med-bay that I discovered I cared for her more than as just as a friend." I explained, feeling strangely relieved that I had finally told someone about my crush on Arcee.
Jetfire nodded his helm. "I figured from the way you reacted to Springer's comments that you've been infatuated with Arcee for some time." He said. "So why haven't you told her?"
"I don't want to ruin our friendship. I know she doesn't like me in that way, so why go and ruin a friendship over a stupid crush?" I asked rhetorically.
Jetfire knew my question wasn't supposed to be answered, but he replied anyway. "Because you can never know exactly how someone else feels about you, youngling." He said, and then gestured to Moonracer and Ratchet.
"Take those two for example, they've been dancing around each other since before the war, I would know, I'm the one who introduced them. Both of them care about each other, pit, it wouldn't be a stretch to say that they love each other. But neither one of them know that the other feels the same way, and so they continue on in fear that if they tell the other how they feel, their friendship will be ruined." The old seeker said, he wasn't telling me anything I didn't already know, but annoyingly, he made a very good point.
I didn't know for certain how Arcee felt, or how she'd react. For all I knew, she had been harboring a crush on me just as long as I'd found out that I had a crush on her.
I looked at Ratchet as he worked alongside Moonracer. The white and red medic was clearly in denial about his feelings for Moonracer, the fact that he hit me with a wrench and stormed out of left the med-bay when I mentioned it was proof of that. But the mech was also oblivious that Moonracer felt the same way about him.
I shifted my gaze to Moonracer. The femme deeply feared the possibility that Ratchet would become uncomfortable with their friendship and avoid her if she told him about the feelings she harbored for him. And like Ratchet, she had been oblivious to the fact that Ratchet felt the same way about her. Even after I told her I believed Ratchet felt the same way, she still hadn't tried to tell him, she just continued as if our conversation in the med-bay two mega-cycles ago had never taken place.
Despite my best efforts, I couldn't stop myself from wondering if that was how Arcee and I were like. Both caring about each other more than just as a friend, but neither mech nor femme knew how the other felt, so they just behaved like they always had, as close friends and nothing more.
Seeing that I was deep in thought, Jetfire stopped leaning against the wall started to walk away. "Food for thought, youngling, food for thought." He said quietly, using one of the many human phrases he had grown fond of since he arrived on Earth. He disappeared down the hallway with those words, leaving me alone with my thoughts.
Almost immediately after Jetfire left the ops center, there was a ping from the workstation as Arcee opened a communications channel.
"Arcee to base, I need a bridge." She said in an angry, cold tone. It was a tone I hadn't heard her use since I first met her.
I walked over to the workstation and stood behind Ratchet. "Are you alright Arcee?" I asked, both concerned and puzzled why her tone was so angry.
"I'm fine, Shadowstreaker." Arcee snapped, and then closed the channel with those angry words.
The way she used my full name instead of her usual nickname for me was highly unusual, she hadn't used my full name since before Wildwing crash landed. It made me even more puzzled.
'What happened out there?' I asked myself, turning to look at the ground bridge as Moonracer activated it.
The moment the ground bridge was fully activated, Arcee walked through the ground bridge at a faster pace than she usually walked. The look on her faceplate stoic, impassive, not giving any indication of the anger she no doubt felt. But the look in her optics was vastly different. There was nothing except pure, unadulterated hatred and fury in her optics as she stared straight ahead, not even acknowledging our presence.
I had only seen that look in Arcee's optics only once before, when I told her that Starscream offlined Cliffjumper.
As these thoughts went through my processor, Arcee walked through the ops center without a word and vanished down the hallway, most likely heading for her quarters.
I looked at the spot I had last seen Arcee until I heard human-sized footsteps approaching me. Looking back toward the ground bridge, I saw Jack walking into the ops center while he looked at where Arcee disappeared down the hallway.
"What happened out there, Jack?" I asked the human teen, hoping Jack could shed some light on the situation since Arcee walked away without a word.
Jack looked up at me. "Our trip off-base started out like I expected, we walked around, searched for the energon deposit and made a some small talk. But about half an hour after we left base, the scanner Arcee took started picking up a strange energy reading, and after we searched for the reading for a while, we found that a recently-crashed Cybertronian ship was the source of the reading." He paused to take a breath. "Arcee went inside the ship and came back out within a minute, then she said that she knew who the ship belonged to. But I don't know anything beyond that, she hasn't uttered a single word since she said that she knew who the ship belonged to." Jack finished apologetically, clearly wishing he knew what was wrong as well.
"Did you see the Decepticon that the ship belonged to?" Moonracer inquired, there was a tone in her voice suggesting she had a suspicion about who the Decepticon was, but wanted to know for certain before she said anything.
Jack nodded. "Yeah, it was a femme about Arcee's height and colored black with purple eyes. And these... Things on her back that looked like spider legs. She looked a lot like a spider come to think of it." He explained.
Ratchet sighed at the description Jack gave of the Decepticon. "Airachnid... The femme's name is Airachnid." He said with a shake of his helm and a sad look in the direction of Arcee's quarters.
Moonracer gave a sigh that was similar to Ratchet's. "No wonder Arcee didn't even acknowledge us," the green and white femme said to Ratchet in a voice that was almost too quiet for me to catch her words.
A short silence hung over the ops center before I spoke. "I'm going to go talk to her," I said, and then walked out of the ops center and down the hallway.
It didn't take me long to reach Arcee quarters, and when I saw the light on the control panel was red, I knocked on the door.
There was no response for several micro-klicks. "Whoever's out there, go away." The muffled voice of Arcee said in a flat, cold and almost threatening tone.
"It's Shadowstreaker, Arcee." I said loudly enough to be heard through the door.
Arcee paused for a moment. "You can come in," she said, warmth had replaced some of the anger and iciness in her voice. But there also was an emotion in her voice, one I had never heard in Arcee's voice before, sadness.
I looked at the control panel next to the door, the light was still red. "I can't exactly do that, Arcee. Your door is still locked. And I don't think you'd appreciate me knocking your door down." I said with a trace of humor in my voice, trying to at least slightly lighten Arcee's obviously somber mood.
"What? Oh, sorry about that. I'll unlock it for you." Arcee said as if she hadn't really been listening to my words, she clearly was distracted by something.
I didn't have time to wonder what was holding Arcee's attention before the light on the control panel turned green and the door automatically opened to reveal Arcee's quarters.
Arcee's quarters were smaller than mine, but not very much smaller.
There was a workbench against the right wall that had a disassembled Energon Battle Pistol lying next to a few different triggers and power cells, leading me to believe Arcee was modifying the Battle Pistol in some way. The workbench also was basically in the same spot as the workbench in my quarters.
The back left corner was occupied by a desk just like my own quarters, but the desk was much smaller, it was more suited for a bot of Arcee's size.
Something else that Arcee's quarters had in common with my quarters were the shelves lining the left and right walls. But unlike my shelves, the shelves in Arcee's quarters were packed with miscellaneous items, like parts of destroyed weapons, strange looking blue-tinted rocks, mangled pieces of armor that seemed to have -at one point- been Arcee's. Several other odd items were up on the shelves, I even saw what looked like the helm of an Insecticon on the left shelf.
I assumed from all the random items on the shelves that Arcee had a collection of souvenirs like I did, but she had a much larger collection than me, which wasn't surprising since she had been a warrior so much longer than I had.
The only difference between the arrangement of Arcee's quarters and my was that Arcee had her berth to the left and faced parallel with the wall, the berth was where Arcee was located.
Arcee was sitting with her pedes off the side of the berth, she was looking down at what looked like a holo-message and was replaying it over and over again.
I walked over to the berth and sat at a respectable distance from Arcee as she started the message again.
The holo-message began, and a dark red and white Autobot with light blue optics took center-stage.
"Hey Arcee," the unnamed Autobot said in Cybertronian. "If you're watching this then... Well... I'm offline, sorry partner. I hope I went down protecting you at least. Anyway, I am going to keep this short. I am leaving you my favorite sniper rifle, you know the one, Nucleon Charge Rifle with a shortened barrel and a thermal scope capable of zooming in on a Con's optic from fifty miles away?" The unnamed Autobot laughed, clearly very fond of the sniper rifle he was describing. "Alright, I really don't have anything else to say, you know how I'm not very good these things. So... Talk to you later partner!" The Autobot finished with a chuckle, and then ended the holo-message.
Arcee and I sat in silence for a few micro-klicks, she didn't repeat the holo-message again, just looked down sadly at it. And I waited to see if she was going to say anything.
"Who was he?" I asked gently after it seemed like Arcee was content to just sit in silence.
Arcee looked up at me. "Tailgate, he was my first partner." She said in a sad and quiet voice.
There was another short silence. "What happened to him?" I asked carefully, knowing this was going to be a very sensitive subject.
I expected Arcee to shout and yell at me for bringing up the fate of her first partner. But instead, she looked away from me as her optics looked to be on the verge of tears.
"He and I were... We were captured by a Decepticon named Airachnid... She was infamous among the Autobots for her... Interrogation techniques." Arcee said in a slightly shaky voice.
I gave a quiet sigh as I realized where this was going, but I didn't interrupt Arcee.
Arcee continued after she took a breath. "Airachnid captured us at different times, she held me for two-mega-cycles and Tailgate was captive for just one. We were held in separate holding cells, she restrained us, we couldn't even move, and we didn't even know we were both being held until... Until Airachnid realized she couldn't get any information from us..." Arcee paused and wiped at her optics as tears threatened to drop. "And executed Tailgate in front of me... She would have executed me too if Bee' and Cliff' hadn't shown up." She finished in a weak voice, clearly trying and failing to force emotion out of her voice.
I sighed again, Arcee's explanation for what happened to Tailgate was even worse than I thought it would be.
Arcee spoke again. "We had just started courting... And I couldn't save him, I couldn't save him." She said as a tear fell from her faceplate and her optics grew distant, she was recalling the traumatic event she had described.
I reached over and shook her shoulder-joint. "Hey! You aren't there anymore, and Airachnid is gone." I said, gently trying to bring Arcee out of her sad memories.
My words didn't work.
"But I didn't save Tailgate, I could've saved him, I should have saved him!" Arcee said in an almost hysterical fashion.
Arcee abruptly leaned over and rested her helm against my side while wrapping her servos around my waist, her optics were unfocused and distant so she likely wasn't even aware of what she was doing. But I was too shocked by her action to know for certain.
For a micro-klick, I just sat there unmoving, sure what I should do. I settled for resting a servo around her should-joints and giving her a comforting look. "You couldn't have saved Tailgate, Arcee, you had been a captive for two mega-cycles. You would have been offlined before you had taken a single step in his direction." I said in a quiet, comforting voice, hoping facts would bring her back to the present.
"But I walked out of the prison under my own power. I might have been able to save Tailgate." Arcee argued, clearly still stuck in her memories.
"You were restrained, Arcee, you said it yourself that you couldn't move. There was nothing you could have done for Tailgate." I said in a gentle, but firm voice as I gave her shoulder-joint a reassuring squeeze.
Arcee was silent for a several micro-klicks. "No..." She finally said. "No there wasn't anything I could have done to protect Tailgate. I was restrained, and even if I somehow broke my restraints I was weak from being Airachnid's captive for two mega-cycles. I would have been offlined in a micro-klick." She accepted with a quiet and regretful tone.
"I am glad that you've finally realized that, Arcee." I said with a relieved tone, glad that she wasn't blaming herself for Tailgate's offlining anymore.
"Thanks for pointing that out to me, Shadow'." Arcee said gratefully.
"You're welcome, Arcee." I said with a slight smile that Arcee couldn't see since both of us were looking across Arcee's quarters.
We sat there for several klicks, neither one of us moving or speaking, we just sat in silence and enjoyed each other's company.
"Hey Shadow'?" Arcee asked, ending our long silence.
I looked down to look at Arcee at the same time she looked up at me, and we both froze as we realized that our faceplates were very close to each other, and our lips were mere inches apart.
Neither of us dared to move, the question Arcee had started to ask long forgotten as we were seemingly locked in a trance while we stared into each others optic's, cobalt blue meeting azure at a very short distance.
I realized that there was a thin circle of purple in Arcee's azure optics, and the only reason I noticed it was because of our extremely close proximity.
It was then that I also realized that Arcee hadn't tried to remove her servos from my waist the entire time we had been sitting here.
'FALL BACK! ' A voice in the back of my CPU screamed.
I ignored the voice and continued staring at Arcee, and she continued staring at me.
'TACTICAL RETREAT! CODE RED! DEFCON-1!' The voice yelled again, this time, I listened.
I quickly pulled my helm away from Arcee and stood up. "I... Um... My ah... And... The thing... You." I fumbled as my cooling fans activated.
Arcee looked up at me from the berth with confusion written on her faceplate and an emotion I couldn't read in her optics.
I stopped talking a moment and just stood in front of Arcee's berth, not entirely certain what I should do. "Um... Bye." I finally said in an awkward tone, and abruptly walked out of Arcee's quarters and down the hallway toward the elevator so I could head down to the Safe.
One thought was going through my processor as I walked toward the elevator. 'You are the king of awkward situations' I Gibbs slapped my helm and continued walking down the hallway.
Arcee looked at the door to her quarters with a puzzled and pondering look on her faceplate.
What had caused Shadowstreaker to suddenly up and leave? And why did his speech become so awkward so quickly?
'That's easy, the situation you were just in was as awkward as the washrack incident.' Arcee thought, sighing as she looked away from the door was puzzled over the feeling in her spark when Shadowstreaker pulled away.
Arcee thought about what Cyberfrost told her almost four jours ago.
Arcee had laughed when Cyberfrost offered her a hug as thanks for helping to take care of Wildwing.
"Of course," Arcee had told the other femme, and then stretched her servos out to accept Cyberfrost's offered hug.
The smaller femme had wrapped her servos around Arcee and leaned toward her audio receptor. "That feeling your spark gets when you're around Shadowstreaker that you can't identify? You'll figure it out soon, and when that happens, don't push it away." Cyberfrost had whispered into Arcee's audio receptor, and then walked away.
Arcee had looked at her in confusion and surprise. Somehow, the smaller femme knew that Arcee got a strange feeling in her spark when Shadowstreaker was around. But -more importantly- what did Cyberfrost mean by not pushing the feeling away when she figured out what it meant?
Arcee brought herself out of her thoughts and went back puzzling over the feeling in her spark when Shadowstreaker was around.
The feeling she got when around Shadowstreaker wasn't like a feeling she had felt before. Her spark would beat several pulses faster and she found herself feeling happier, safer, like his mere presence was something she could add to the good things that happened that cycle. And when Shadowstreaker told a joke, laughed or just stood next to her, Arcee felt her spark perk up and soar. Like one of the birds of Earth would flutter its wings.
Arcee froze at that thought. 'Flutter?' She asked herself in slight shock.
Realization crossed Arcee's CPU, she liked Shadowstreaker, she liked him more than as just a close friend.
'You have a crush on Shadowstreaker,' she thought to herself with both a feeling of happiness and dread.
Arcee looked at the door to her quarters again and thought about when she and Shadowstreaker had come very close to accidentally kissing. Arcee's cooling fans activated at that thought. She had to admit, she had felt safe and... Content when she was resting up against Shadowstreaker. Arcee briefly considered the possibility of pulling Shadowstreaker aside and telling him about this feeling she just discovered, but she quickly snuffed that thought.
The last time she decided to act on her feelings for a mech, that mech was executed right in front of her optics. And when Cliffjumper was starting to become something more, he was offlined by the Decepticons. It seemed everyone who got close to her was offlined, she didn't want that to happen to Shadowstreaker as well, she couldn't live with herself if she acted on her new-found feelings for Shadowstreaker and he was offlined.
'I will not act on my feelings and allow Shadow' to be added to the list of offline mechs who get close to me,' Arcee thought to herself firmly, ignoring the sad feeling in her spark at her thought.
Looking away from the door again, Arcee sighed and looked down at the floor, thinking about how much she had lost, and how much she was now trying to prevent from being lost to the war.
So, Shadow' and Arcee almost accidentally kiss, Shadow' runs off and gives Sam Witwicky a run for his money in terms of his awkward speech, and Arcee realizes that she has a crush on Shadow'... Was it fluffy enough? Lol.
But then I kinda ruined it by having Arcee be as stubborn as Shadow' hehe, but she does have a good reason. Whenever you see your first ever significant other killed right in front of you and then when you start being more than friends with someone else and they are killed as well, it would be traumatizing and you would likely blame yourself even if the situation was out of your control.
This chapter's credit song is "Anberlin - Inevitable" This song really suits the chapter, especially the end when Arcee realizes she has a crush on Shadowstreaker.
So, please be sure to leave a review and thanks for reading. I'll see you soon.