If it's hidden away, it must be valuable.
The guards were still coming up with plans for escape that could not possibly work, mainly because of their rapidly dwindling rations. They were out of options; they had no choice but to go along with the plan or be offlined by a disappointed Chopper.
"He knew we couldn't argue with him! Chopper plans for everything." The blueish guard angrily paced across the floor.
"Well, what are we gonna do then? We need energon, and I can't think of any easy way of getting it," the rusty one pointed out.
"What do you think our chances are if we try to get Chopper's energon?" The blue-ish mech dragged himself to his pedes, a faint glow coming back to his optics.
"Well, I figure we can get there sometime he won't be at the door, then bust in and grab stuff?" The third asked.
"Great plan! Brilliant! Now tell me what's gonna happen when Chopper catches us? Because you know he will," the rusty mech growled.
"Well, d'ya think tryin' to kill Sharpspike is any good either?" The fourth former guard's question silenced the others.
"Eh, good luck with that," the rusty one grunted after a long pause. "I heard he offlined twenty mechs with his bare servos… at the same time."
"Not to mention all the deathmatches he's fought and won," the blue one added, nodding grimly. "But we need the fuel. Death by Chopper or death by Sharpspike… what do you say, mechs?"
"We're dead anyway. Let's give it a shot." The former guard pulled a cloudy yellow mini-cube out of his subspace and downed it in one gulp. "Mmm. I was saving it for a special occasion, but this seemed as good a time as any."
While the guards prepared for what they were certain was their last failure related to Chopper, the two fliers in Chopper's office swiftly located his remote and headed to one of the secure vaults. This one was built into the city's foundations. Faint scratches surrounded the lock, commemorating the effort of countless attempts to access the vault—and countless failures.
Before the two mechs reached the lock, the dark red mech pulled his companion behind a broken metal slab.
"Not so fast." The red mech peered around the pile, quietly transforming his servo into its sonic knife configuration. "Are there any alarms? Traps? Hidden guards?"
"Yes." The medic concentrated, recalling the guards' positions from the times he had watched Chopper's security feeds. "One's normally on a ledge above. The other is in a hidden alcove."
"What kind of weapons do they have?"
"I know one has a blaster, but he only uses it at close range. Burns too much energon for precision targeting. The other might have an energon prod, but I've only heard rumors."
"Alright, here's the plan: you go on the other side and toss an empty energon cube. I'll use the remote to open the door. They'll look for the one who threw it, and I can get in the vault safely."
"What!? I don't want to get offlined while you get all the Energon!"
"Do you have a better ide—"
"Ey! We got lucky! Chopper ain't here this orn or the next," a voice interrupted from far behind the two mechs.
Both fliers instantly crouched down, dimming their optics and flattening their frames against the metal slab. The dark red mech's faded plating blended well against the rusty surface, but the green medic's gleaming paint reflected little shimmers of light.
Four guards moved into the red mech's field of vision. He silently edged away from the medic, fully aware that the guards would spot the shiny green plating much sooner than his own dull maroon paint.
"Keep it down, if we get caught we're not getting any energon!" The faintly blue guard, who seemed to be in charge of the group, waved at the metal slab without noticing the two fliers hiding in its shadow. "Let's get to cover before we figure out what to do."
"Nah, that thing's hardly big enough to hide two of us, and the guards haven't seen us yet," the brown one said slowly. "Besides, Chopper had a fancy expensive thing with shiny buttons, remember? I think we need it."
"Oh no. I'm not going into his office, that place is creepy." The rusted one nearly jumped up, but the other three pulled him down. "He'll offline us for sure."
"If ya want to get caught, I suggest ye don't take us with ye," the brown one grumbled.
"Let's just try to get to this energon place, alright? We gotta think of something," the blue one whispered.
"Thinkin's not our strong suit, if ya get my meaning," the rusty guard pointed out. "But I've got an idea. Just play along."
The dark red mech, crouched in the shadows, permitted himself a slow grin. A plan was forming.
The four former guards moved toward the energon vault, doing their best to be stealthy. Needless to say, they were failing miserably.
"Who's there?!" The guard stationed above the vault hefted his blaster.
"It's just me, remember me? Yer old buddy," the rusty one said with servos raised while the other three fanned out, searching for the hidden guard.
"Jes' you and three other bots, eh? I think you got some explaining to do for the Boss," the guard drawled, unamused by their pitiful attempt to fool him. "Now go away before I start shooting."
"Three other bots? Heh… no! No! Just me," the rusty mech insisted, voice wavering.
"Then who's that?" The guard pointed his blaster at the brown mech.
"Who's that? Gah, don't look at me! I don't know why he's there, honest!" The rusty mech tried to covertly shoo the oblivious brown mech away. When his attempt failed, he slowly backed away from the armed guard.
"Yeah yeah, move along. Wouldn't want to scratch your shiny paint, now would we?" The guard chuckled. "Move along, scrapheap."
The rusty mech jumped behind a convenient slab of metal, turned around to run, and nearly crashed into a sonic blade.
"It's our energon," the dark red mech hissed, waving his blade at the rusty mech.
"H-hey! Friendly! I don't want to offline nobody! Don't offline me yet, I got a great plan!" He desperately racked his rusty processor for any ideas. "There can't possibly be enough energon there that ye can carry it all and sneak around, right? I could distract the guards!" he said, waving his servos around.
"He's right, you know… we need a diversion." the green medic pointed out.
"Better him than us," the dark red mech reluctantly agreed. "It's a deal."
Meanwhile, the other three mechs moved toward where they had seen the rusty one disappear.
"We gotta think of something, quick! I can't take down half a guard with no energon."
"Rusty was right. We gotta hide and think." The three former guards rounded the metal slab.
"Hey, wha—where did ye get the two extras?" the blue mech asked, cautiously taking in the dark red flier's laser and sonic blade.
"I came up with a great plan! We four go distract them mechs by the energon, and these two will offline them so we can all have energon," the rusty mech enthusiastically announced.
"Did we agree to that?" The green flier glanced at the dark red mech, frowning. "I thought we would split the energon without hurting anyone—"
"It's a great plan! Get to it already," the brown mech interrupted.
"I have to admit, this is probably our best chance of stealing the energon. We'll go along with your plan," the red mech said, also frowning.
The four former guards spread out and ran into the open.
"It's me again! Remember me?" the rusty one said, grinning. He held up a piece of scrap that looked uncannily like a torso as a shield.
"So, ye want yer paint scratched? We can do that—and more!" The guard above the lock fired a warning shot at the four mechs.
Another guard stepped out from a hidden doorway, twirling a long energon prod.
"Enter the combination! Quickly," the red mech hissed to the medic, silently jumping out from behind the slab.
"Wait, what?" The medic pulled out the remote and started entering numbers at random, panicking at the sound of blaster shots. "I don't know the code!"
"Figure something out!" The dark red mech leapt into the fray, activating his sonic knife.
The medic hastily scanned the remote's keypad for well-worn buttons. Nine of them had scratch marks, so he quickly composed a program that would run through all possible combinations.
"Don't make too much noise, I need to concentrate," the medic hissed, claws flying across the keypad.
The medic's plea went unheard. After a short, thruster-assisted jump, the dark red mech landed behind the guard with the blaster and stabbed repeatedly between thick, military-grade armor plates. The unfortunate guard went down with a loud clunk, his blaster falling to the mechs below.
"Attack!" The blue mech caught the falling blaster and charged at the remaining vault guard.
The vault door suddenly popped open. While the vault guard was distracted, the four former guards assaulted him with their claws, fists, and pedes.
"Get off! Argh! Help!"
The guard's armor soon caved under the blows, and his pained cries swiftly quieted as he offlined. The four mechs stood back, feeling varying degrees of satisfaction and horror at their recent bout of violence.
"Chopper must not find the frames," the blue mech finally declared. "C'mon, help me hide them."
While the four mechs were distracted with pummeling the unfortunate vault guard, the two fliers were busy subspacing as much energon as they could carry.
"Hey, look! It's an energon converter... wonder if it's worth more than a cube to subspace?" The red mech pointed to a yellow and grey cube-like object.
"Don't bother, those are unsafe. They don't even work with anything except radioactive materials, and that kind of energon would offline you if you had more than a cube an orn of it." the green medic said, moving on to another shelf of energon cubes.
"That's what you said about pre-processed energon, and I'm still online," the dark red mech protested. He thoughtfully examined the contraption. "I'll take it anyway. Some mech's bound to want an alternative energy source, no matter how unhealthy. At the very least, we could sell it for parts."
The red mech subspaced the converter. They swiftly left, but the green flier spotted the guards approaching the vault.
"There's still a lot of energon inside, but trackers are on those cubes… I hope they don't get caught." The medic winced sympathetically, recalling the four mechs' energon-starved appearance.
"Why do you care? We have what we came for. With this much energon—" a hungry gleam came into the red mech's optics. "We could fly! Actually fly, not just these short hops!"
"Wait a moment." The medic was unconvinced. "They helped us, don't you remember? They could get caught!"
"You're right." The mech's optics narrowed in sudden realization. "If they get caught it could lead to Chopper learning of—we have to offline them!" He spun around, preparing to attack, but the medic stopped him.
"No! No, that's not what I meant! Do you offline everyone who helps you?"
"Uh, yes. I find it to be safer when there's nobody trustworthy to stab me in the back. Every mech I trusted—even the ones I helped—turned on me." A shadow fell across his features as he gave a mirthless chuckle. "I've learned a valuable lesson since: scrap them before they scrap me."
"How could you say such a thing? We're medics! We're meant to help mechs, not scrap them!"
"Those medical restrictions were only going to get me scrapped. I did what was necessary to survive; I offlined them before they offlined me. Any other mech would have done the same."
"But… we have to help! We're medics!"
"See how long that attitude lasts when the mechs you try to help repay you with a fist to the helm," the red mech grunted. "Speaking of which, I'd say it's time to leave. Our 'friends' are back."
The two fliers glanced at each other, argument momentarily forgotten, before dashing away from the four former guards as quickly as possible.
"Ah!" The blue mech yelped and jumped backwards, not expecting two dark streaks—one red and one green—to race past. "What the—"
"Hey, where did the two mechs go?" The rusty guard looked around the vault, optics hungrily measuring the glow of energon.
"They left, and with all the energon they could carry," the brown guard observed, inspecting an empty shelf. He soon moved on, spotting a pile of triangular metallic pieces. "What d'ya figure these things are?"
"I don't know, but I see them under every cube here except those empty ones," the blue mech said, carefully poking the triangle attached to a bright blue cube. "Maybe we should leave them alone."
"Well, let's just pour the energon from the little cubes into the bigger ones and take it, 'cause I don't have anything that would take them triangles off." The rusty mech immediately demonstrated. When he was finished, a bit of energon was left in a smaller cube. He quickly drained it, optics brightening in surprise at the good quality. "Whoa, strong stuff!"
"Cheers! Good energon, at last!" The brown mech raised a near-white cube.
"Figure there's enough for all of us?" The blue mech claimed a deep cerulean cube.
"Of course! Let's get to collecting this energon!"
The four mechs continued pouring the energon into larger cubes and subspacing their prizes.
Back in his office, Chopper's gleaming rotor-blade slashed through his security console. The live feed of his looted vault flickered out and died.
"You've just crossed me for the last time, Seeker."
Some units:
orn - day
decaorn - 10 orns / 1 week
vorn - year
megavorn - 1,000,000 years
Sorry for the long gap between updates. We hope you continue to read and enjoy our story. Updates from now on will (probably) be more regular. We appreciate all comments/feedback/etc.
~The Voids