A Walk On the Wild Side

AN: THANK YOU TO ALEXLUKE, GIRAFFECHAN, and RAP BEAR for your AWESOME SUPPORT AND FEEDBACK!

AN: Since last chapter was kinda dark and so many mentioned Smoky going 'dark side'… no, I haven't written a chapter to follow this up. Maybe later though. I can certainly add the idea of others being 'infected' by the twins and their haunted pasts and acting out. Currently working on several other projects, including some awesome TMNT fics, so I'm hoping to work out a few more outlines for this fic so I can keep it updated. I enjoy the weekly updates and hearing everyone's feedback (even those not so happy with a character or scene) :D

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It was a typical day at the ARK. Chaos reigned. Screams, shouts, bangs, clangs, threats and retribution abound. The same catalyst who started the Autobot meltdowns was currently being berated by Ratchet while the ambulance chased the guilty Lambo through the ARK.

Prowl was riled up into a spitting fit, but his target wasn't red or a Lamborghini.

In fact, it was a normally docile mech who was being verbally abraded by Prowl's surpassingly caustic vocabulary. Prowl's emotional center had reached its tipping point, and he was what the humans termed, spitting fire.

The focus of his ire was Hound.

The Jeep kept his optics on the floor, shuffling from pede to pede, wincing when Prowl's volume exceeded normal parameters.

One of the reasons for Prowl's outburst came pelting by the SIC's desk.

An elk, strong and powerful and with an impressive set of horns.

It paused by Prowl's desk, nostrils flared, expelling several hour bursts of whistling air in an irritated manner, and made another two circuits around the room before finding the open door and darting into the hall, where Tracks screamed and careened into a bulkhead to avoid hitting the terrified animal.

Prowl 's doorwings were draped about his shoulders as a stately cloak, a harbinger of retribution for the base's current state of chaos.

"If you any have more animals in your menagerie, I suggest you make it known now," Prowl growled, engine vibrating so hard his plating rattled.

Hound toed the floor, unable to meet Prowl's gaze. He opened a subspace pocket and withdrew no less than a dozen rabbits. They took one look at Prowl and jumped from the Jeeps servo, landing with a thud on the floor and trying to escape over the highly polished floor. Their feet couldn't get traction and they spun, back legs pedaling for all they were worth, but gaining little ground.

It would have been comical if a boa constrictor hadn't detected the fresh meat, and slithered toward the unsuspecting hares.

Hound freaked, grabbing the snake and holding it aloft, where it writhed and twisted and squeezed his hand, its plans for a hot meal now foiled.

Prime entered the room, a vulture perched on top his helm. It appeared as calm as can be. Swaying with Prime's movements but making no intention of leaving such a lofty position.

"Hound, the avians have made a mess of the rec room," Prime stated flatly, as if he didn't have a huge bird on his head.

"Sorry, Prime," Hound muttered, clutching a knotted snake still trying to escape his grip. "They like where it's warm and the energon dispenser runs a little hot after Wheeljack tinkered with it."

"Well, we've tried everything to get them out of the room, but they keep flying in circles," Prime said. "Do you have any way to get them out of the ARK and back into the wild, where they belong?"

Hound's expression drooped. Crestfallen, he muttered, "Turn the environmental controls low, and turn off the lights except those leading out of the ARK. They'll seek the sunlight to get warm. And it would help to put bird seed in the hall leading out of the ARK."

Prime's vulture chose that moment to lift its wings, appearing as a regal crest. It bobbed its head a moment, wings held wide in an expectant hug, before it settled itself onto its Prime perch, observing the proceedings in the hopes of something dead.

Prime held out his servo expectantly.

Resigned, Hound emptied a subspace pocket, providing the mentioned bird seed, as the base didn't habitually stock it.

"And this?" Prime asked, pointing to the buzzard on his head.

"Barry likes sunlight and road kill," Hound said wisely. "I think there's a carcass a mile from the ARK, 14° North. Just wander around the road for a few minutes. He'll go find a meal."

"Thank you," Prime muttered curtly, exiting the room, his carrion crown swaying.

Hound turned his attention back to Prowl. He was going to offer a sheepish wave but the boa still held in his hand writhed and squeezed, demanding to be released so it could chase one of the bunnies hopping around Prowl's office. Their back legs had difficulty in finding purchase on the highly polished floor, giving them a cartoon aspect as they tried to dart hither and thither.

And apparently two were in a libidinous mood.

Prowl glanced down in time to see the male kick up his back legs and roll onto his tail in a fast- but happy- ending.

"You are to clean every single room in which your menagerie has created a mess," Prowl said slowly. "If I see a single trace of an animal, you will be required to reclean the room until it meets my standards. Am I understood?!"

"Yes sir," Hound muttered.

"I suggest you begin in the Command Center, and you will not stop until this base is reset to order."

Oh, Prowl was well and truly pissed. Usually it took Sideswipe to rile him up to this level. Course, Sideswipe was the one who opened the cages and released Hounds hidden zoo, thus starting this insanity. If there was chaos to be found, the catalyst was usually carmine and stamped with a Lamborghini logo.

Hound exited, sighing at the boa on his hand.

"Sorry, Dave, but I'm going to have to take you outside. You'll have to take care of yourself now," Hound said mournfully.

The melancholy Jeep was bypassed by the rubious troublemaker being closely chased by a medical ghost brandishing a metric iron supplement.

The Lambo took the corner into the Command center with all the grace of a roadrunner being chased by a coyote. He skidded on his heel, leaving shallow grooves on the floor, and bolted in a fast counter move.

Ratchet, being more bulky and less graceful, overcompensated and slammed into Ironhide. The two tumbled, tripped over each other's pedes and went sailing across a consol, where a peacock was in full display. The bird screamed bloody murder and flapped its impressive wings to barely dodge the red and white metal avalanche.

Hound rushed in, arm outstretched to catch the peacock, forgetting he had a boa wrapped tightly around that fist. He attempted to retract his reach, balling his hand over the snake as it sensed another meal, and ended up punching the poor bird with a half coiled, hungry boa constrictor.

"Sorry Dave," Hound apologized to the snake, then to the peacock, who was now wobbling on unsteady legs. "Sorry Norman. Didn't want Dave to eat you. You know how he is!"

Norman was too dazed to voice any grief, not even when Hound snatched him up in his snake-free hand.

Sideswipe danced around the consoles, laughing as Ratchet and Ironhide apologized to Wheeljack for landing on the inventor's helm while he had been repairing the secondary relays in that particular consol.

Hound didn't have time to take in the full enormity of the chaos being before his optic caught the flash of black near Sideswipe's left pede. Before he had time to shout out and warn the Lamborghini, Sideswipe had stepped on the animal with a sickening 'crunch.'

Sideswipe's optics went wide. Guiltily, he looked down to see a noticeable red smear around his pede tip.

Hound sputtered, unable to process what had happened.

Ratchet extracted himself from Wheeljack and Ironhide and gained his pedes, a hammer in his hand as his wrench had been lost in the crash. He slowed upon finding Sideswipe slowly lifting his pede and showing the color of spent organic life.

Most of the fight left Ratchet.

What remained was quickly tamped down but the foulest odor the medic could every recall.

"The slag!" He barked, fanning his face. "What is that smell?"

Sideswipe shook his pede to get the organic parts off of it when the smell got worse. He curled his olfactory sensor, giving Ratchet a twisted grimace. "Smells like Unicorn's back chute!"

"Oh, Primus," Ratchet bemoaned, his tanks churning, ready to purge. "What in the name of the Unmaker is that horrible stench?"

"It's a skunk," Hound said sadly, staring at what was once Sandy, his favorite skunk. "The smell is a defensive mechanism."

"Slagging right it is!" Ratchet coughed and fanned his face, but the smell only got worse.

Sideswipe hopped around on one pede, trying to ward off the horrible odor. Unfortunately, the blood was slick and his untainted pede landed right in the middle of the skunk puddle and he went crashing on his aft…directly in the smell.

Sideswipe's optics leaked washer fluid as he got closer to the source of the smell.

"I think I'm going to be sick," he grumbled, optics going blurry from all the washer fluid attempting to clear his lenses. "We should bottle this stuff and use it on the Cons. The war would be won within one stink bomb."

Ratchet perked up, extracted a large glass beaker from his subspace. With a sharp knife he scraped Sideswipe's foot and the floor, clearing up the main source. Once secured, he capped the beaker and proceeded to purge his tank. Wheeljack grabbed the glass beaker before it smashed, holding it aloft while Ratchet finished emptying his tank.

Sideswipe, as nauseous as he had ever been in his life, looked to Hound.

"Please tell me there is a cure for this smell."

"Yeah," Hound said sheepishly, knowing Sideswipe wasn't going to like it.

And he was right.

Later that night, Sunstreaker returned to the ARK to hear the assorted stories of the hijinks and insanity that plagued the Autobot vessel, some stories too far fetched to be plausible, like Tracks requiring sedation after a mountain lion mistook his legs as scratching posts, thus ruining his finish.

He brushed off such nonsense and made his tired way to his quarters. Opening the door he found his twin in the middle of the room, sitting in a large metal basin filled with a thick, dark red fluid that covered his skid and crotch plates. His pedes were in similar basins and covered to the ankle in the strange fluid.

Sunstreaker stood over his brother trying to identify the strange conglomeration of odors coming off him.

"Don't ask," Sideswipe said.

Sunstreaker, after living his entire life around Sideswipe, wisely took the advice. He placed the drying cloths closer to his twin and went to his berth, ready to get some charge so he would have the mental and spiritual fortitude to get the full, detailed description of the fiasco undoubtedly started by his troublesome other half.

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Admit it… you never thought you'd read a story with a Lamborghini sitting in tomato juice! ;)

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