I apologize for posting this late. Today… today was long. I helped my grandma move for seven hours. Then I had to deal with some… really heavy things with my family. No one is dead, just you know, things that could be considered worst. . This chapter hasn't been proof read yet, I also apologize for any mistakes.
One last thing: Happy Holidays! Or if you don't celebrate anything: enjoy the couple of days or weeks off!
Boredness sat deep in my bones as I lounged on top of the rafters of the Med. bay, wings unfurled. This was the hangar you would normally see me if you dare enter the building. Ratchet was pretty protective of the place, especially if one or both of the twins decided to 'check up' on me. I was becoming suspicious of their actions and noted the electrical buzz spazz when they grew near.
A sigh escaped my lips the longer I lied there, resting for the time being. Anna had gotten herself in trouble with her father and was grounded to her room. I dearly love the kid as a sibling but the barracks had too many smells to deal with.
Ratchet was out and about on the base and left me in charge. Thankfully, the door was wide open, allowing the gently breeze to blow in. Its cool touch glided over my thick scales, as if taunting me to leave my position and take a small flight. Oh, how my wings twitched at the thought. It has been sometime since a nice fly but I couldn't, I was on guard to deter those two from entering.
That didn't stop the little memory tease's of me flying high, ruling the sky as mine own. I scraped my claws across the metal beam and gritted my teeth, in need of feeling the adrenaline.
My flight plan was interrupted by a bot strolling into the Med. Bay. If I remembered correctly from the meeting, this was Jazz and it seemed he walked with a small limp in his step.
The bot surveyed the ground before his visor glanced up to where my wings dangled. "Aza'? Optimus wants ya ta meet th' rest of th' Autobots," Jazz explained and motioned for me to follow him. I took a moment to stare at him before responding to him.
"Uh, I can't. Ratchet has me guarding the bay until he gets back." My wings furled back to their respected spot in case I need to bolt. The bot wasn't giving any dangerous vibes but it is always best to be on the ready.
Jazz waved his claw styled hand as if he was physically brushing off my statement. "Don't fret. Hatchet is alrigh' with ya leavin'," he reassured and turned around to exit the hangar.
When he noticed I wasn't following, he stopped and gestured once more. "Com' on. Th're's nutting ta worry abou'." I glanced around the hangar for any sign of foul play before rolling off of the beam. Jazz rushed forward, hands out in front of him to catch my falling form. He must have forgotten the two powerful appendages on my back.
Said two limbs unfurled to catch the air underneath them. The bot stopped in his tracks when he saw me slow down to a hover. "Forgo' ya can do tha'." He brushed off the awkward moment and moved back towards the door. I flew after him, enjoying the fact I'm getting out of this hangar.
My wings ached from the lack of use, protesting in the slightest of movements. That didn't deter me from continuing and actually motivate me to fly some circles above him. Jazz peered up, curiosity barely evident on his face. I did a twirl before diving down, flying by him and making eye contact with him for a good long moment.
For some odd reason, he was curious but made no comment. Neither did I and instead took off higher in the sky, not too far from the bot.
We made it to hangar he was taking me to and both of us entered. Many different styled, size, and height bots stood around inside. Optimus stood next to one I met before: Hide. His cannons whirled quietly in their chambers as he spoke with the largest bot of them all.
The hairs on my neck stood straight up and put me on edge. I stopped to hover by the hangar door, unsure if it was safe to join the small group. My eyes flickered between each bot, trying to determine if they were a threat or not.
Jazz continued over to stand by Prowl and greeted him as well. Optimus noticed us entering and excused himself from his conservation with Hide. The leader of the Autobots strides over to me and welcomed me with a gentle smile. "It is good to see you in great health," he noted.
"Thanks. I am too and ready for the upcoming mission against a Jasper base," I agreed and gave him most of my attention. With the many other bots in the room, I couldn't allow my guard to be let down just to speak with Optimus.
He dipped his head to acknowledge my words. "Ah, yes. William told you about that. I only hope for a clean and safe mission." I agreed once more in a civil manner. The red and blue bot turned to be parallel with the side of the hangar. "I brought you here to introduce my team to you. The only ones who are not here is Sideswipe and Sunstreaker."
Yeah, Sunstreaker and I had a lot of time to get to know each other. His brother… I don't know. I felt conflicted about my opinion of him. One part of me, aka my brain, stated he was irritating and annoying all together. The other side, aka my heart, didn't necessarily 'say' anything but made me feel at ease with him. Actually with both of them and was key evidence of what was going on. But first, I needed to figure out what happening to me and why it included them.
I nodded after bringing myself back into reality. "Understandable. I had more than enough time to get to know Sunstreaker. Sideswipe… is on the same hand as well." Hide snorted with no remorse and received a stern look from Optimus.
"Well, Sunstreaker does hold a strong distaste for your kind and I do apologize for that." I scoffed and waved his statement away with a flicker of my wrist.
"Nonsense. Don't apologize for someone else's actions or likes/dislikes. We also did get off on the wrong foot, I must say. Partly his fault and partly mine. But that doesn't matter. Do introduce me to your team." The longer I talked, the more my sentences became formal as I took note of how he spoke.
Optimus took the opportunity and started off with the closest bot to him: Ironhide. The black iron giant straightened his back when his leader motioned to him. "This here is Ironhide, my weapon specialist." He tried to look 'down' at me but I was eye level with the red and blue leader. So he took it upon himself to intimidatingly spin his cannons and take a step towards me.
Danger bells rung inside of my head. I didn't let that control me and bared my fangs at him, on the ready to spit acid-venom if need be. His head recoiled slightly back in reaction. A smirk etched its way onto my face, one of my deadly canines popping over my lips. This didn't stop Optimus though and he continued on like nothing happened.
Next, he motioned towards a bot I haven't before, like many others in the hangar. This Cybertronian was red in color like a special twin I know of but had a different shade; a more saturated red compared to Sideswipe color. This bot also had two curved blades attached to the outside of their forearm; sharp and deadly, me likey. "Our spy, Mirage."
When the bot was introduced, they dipped their head in greetings. "But you can call me Dino." Ah, Mirage, or Dino as he just stated, is male by the sounds of it. I'm going to take a long shot and guess all the other Cybertronians in here are males.
The Autobot's leader moved on to another teammate, a black and yellow bot. He was nearly the same height of Jazz, maybe only a foot taller. Kind of hard to tell when they were on opposites of the room from each other. "Bumblebee here is our scout and is the guardian of Sam Witwicky who you may meet later on in the future."
After learning his name, his color scheme did remind me of a bumblebee. The door panels did add to that thought. Heh, cute I must say.
But, we weren't done yet, there were two other bots that I have yet to know of their names. Optimus continued down the row to a red, white and blue Cybertronian, about the same height of Prowl. He and Bumblebee shared the same kid-ish face. How old were they all?
Right as Optimus was going to introduce the bot, he took it upon himself to do it. "I'm Smokescreen, the other scout and warrior. Especially when Bee is off base with the Witwicky kid." And I was right, another male judging by his voice.
Prowl snapped his gaze at Smokescreen, anger evident on his face. But a look from Optimus deterred him from saying anything rash towards the childish 'warrior'.
"Yes, Smokescreen is also brother to Prowl and Bluestreak, who is the last of our team on Earth." The attention moved over the last Cybertronian to be introduced. His body style resembled both Prowl and Smokescreen, both stated as his brothers. The only thing that caught my eye though was the lack of blue on his body as his name would state he should have some. I decided against of bringing it up and really wanted to get out.
There was just too many of them and I have been in here too long. "Uh, I don't know if anyone has told you but I'm Midnight but you can call me Azar if you want." The scales on my arms began to feel itchy, a sign of my anxiety starting to grow out of hand.
"The meaning of fire in Persian. Ha, that's a little ironic," Smokescreen decided to point that fact of my real name.
Thankfully, Optimus stepped in before I did anything… out of line. I didn't need the reminder of the irony of me being part dragon and able to control fire with the name that meant fire. "Azar, thank you for coming. The next time we should talk is during the preparation against Jasper."
Once closing the introducing between everyone, mostly all of them left to go fulfill their duties. Jazz and Prowl stayed behind and I approached by the former. "Aza', if ya wanna, ya can go abou' and around th' base. Just sta' within th' boundaries of th' base," Jazz offered, somehow able to know that I wanted to go for a fly.
"I will… thank you." It felt wrong yet at the same time right to thank him for his proposals. Ah, inner turmoil fighting over the controls. I smile in appreciation at him before taking my leave and soaring high into the blue, cloudy sky.
Some clouds were a little bit dark, alerting to me there is a chance of rain. I took that with a grain of salt and continued heading nearly straight up. My wings protested against their forced use but I pushed passed the aching.
Once high enough for my liking, I leaned back with the help of my wings and fell into a dive. My eyes closed, trust completely in my senses.
Freedom bloomed in my chest as I plummeted back down to Earth. Even as this creature, I used the things given to me to their limitations, especially flight. That's what every human dreams of: to be able to fly off of the ground with no help of machinery or another human. Or at least, that's what I dreamed of as a small child.
This was better than what I imagined though. A kid's imagination couldn't beat the reality of flight. With the wind blowing through your air, the ability to go anywhere you want quickly, and all in all freedom it was a dream come true.
Something buzzed in the back of my head, the signal I was waiting for. I opened my eyes noticed the ground closing in at a mild speed and unfurled my wings, not yet letting them catch any air.
Jazz's form could be seen next the hangar we were at, Prowl standing shoulder to shoulder with him. Both of their gazed fixated on my falling body. The former seemed to have learned his lesson from early allowed for me to head straight down to the ground.
An idea came to mind.
I tilted my weight for the extra appendages to grip lightly onto the air. Since this time I wasn't being chased by those Decepticon jets, there was no reason to do what I did before. Plus, that puts a huge strain on my wings and they didn't need the extra pain.
The ground continued to come in, at a slower rate due to me changing my angle. I glided gently this time to be leveled with the earth and glanced over to the two.
Everyone else had left during my time high above them. Though, I could still see Smokescreen hanging over by an unknown hangar, his gaze also locked onto me. That was quickly fixed when Ironhide grabbed the plating on his shoulder and pulled him in the building with him. I couldn't help but laugh at his predicament.
My wings pumped harder, gaining speed easily as a need to impress the two washed over me. I turned in the direction of Jazz and Prowl, not entirely heading straight towards them.
The police Cybertronian seemed slightly astonished as his blue eyes stayed locked onto me. His partner was in the same boat as him but the visor made it a challenge to completely know what he was feeling. I took the opportunity to circle around them by their feet. Our eyes met, a smirk growing on my face as they dipped their heads.
I orbited around them two more times before taking off towards the human buildings. The appendages on my back carried me high above any building on the base, allowing me to observe the layout.
For the humans, they had their own spot on one side of the base. About thirty or so buildings lined that side, outnumbering the large hangars probably for the bots. Said beings had around twenty or so hangars for themselves. Though a good ten of them were on the smaller scale compared to the others like the Main Hangar.
Those hangars were lined up close together in a grid formation, all set up two by five. I observed as Bluestreak and Bumblebee entered two of those buildings. Wait… were these rooms for them?
During my observing, I noticed the tingling roaming outside from its origin. Automatically, my eyes snapped over to two Lamborghini's driving onto the base from some sort of road. A chain link fence slid closed behind them. They transformed, their gaze drifting up towards me.
Sideswipe smiled brightly and knocked his shoulder into the yellow bot next to him. Said bot scowled and moved away from his brother. I decided to peruse the feeling blooming in my chest and dove down towards them.
The yellow twin stopped in his tracks and touched the center of his chest… the same place where the tingling sat for me. Sideswipe had the same reaction this time and a time before. I noted to myself that the closer I got to them, the more the buzz came to life.
Both glanced at each other for a long moment before returning their gaze up to me. None of us said anything when I reached them as we silently addressed the situation. I circled around their feet and notice the buzz would point in their direction.
To say in the least, it confused me. My curiosity wanted to find out why I have the tingling and why it seemed to be connected with them. The defensive side of me wanted nothing to do with them.
Curiosity killed the cat… but satisfaction brought it back.
My wings carried me to land in front of them, eyes flickering between but not going anywhere else. They didn't look anywhere else as well and watched my actions closely. "What is it?" I started and needed to sooth my curiosity.
The two glanced once more at each other, confusion evident on their faces. Sunstreaker spoke up first before his brother could get a word out. "What do you mean?"
A flare of anger blazed to life inside of me. I jabbed fiercely at the origin with my pointer fingers. "This! Your brother knows a little about it. You should to since you were the first to shock me!"
They both touched the same spot for them and peered at one another, again. Neither spoke for a good minute, them seeming like they were having their own conversation silently. Until facing me, unease grow on their faces which caused me to feel the same. What was going on? Ratchet didn't know if the tingling was dangerous or not… or was he not telling me the truth?
Did they know if it was a threat towards me? One of them better tell me if it is or I swear on all things unholy someone is going to be stripped of their bolts and platings.
"Midnight, has Ratchet told you anything else about… the situation?" Sideswipe question and played a little with his hands.
"No and I haven't brought up the fact you also shocked me too. Which also did the same damn thing when Sunstreaker shocked me." A sign you could tell my stress levels were rising was the fact I had cussed. Unintentionally, I rubbed the heel of my hand where the tingling raced inside of me. "What is going on? Can you at least answer me that?"
Sideswipe sighed and I knew he didn't have a conclusion to this growing issue. "I'm sorry, I don't know. Ratchet would be the one to have all the answer, if there is one. We can go there now and see if he knows. It been a couple of days since you told him. He has to have an answer by now."
Wouldn't Ratchet tell me if he knew something by now? The Med. Bay was practically my bedroom and we saw each other every day. But I was in need of any answer and growing antsy for one. "Let's go. The sooner I know what is going on, the sooner I can assess the situation and figure out how to deal with it."
I took to the sky again and watched as they transformed swiftly into their alt. modes. Sunstreaker took the lead of our little parade and headed straight towards the Med. Bay. The door could be seen still open but that didn't mean he was actually in there. I followed the two of the whole way there, hoping for some kind of answer to this madness.