SPECIAL CHAPTER (500 Reviews!) 'The Law of Potter'.
Takes place WAY later on the 'Little One' Timeline so SPOILERS!
Once more:
LITTLE ONE SPOLIERS
(even though I tried to keep some things under my hat for later reveals, not explaining the 'how' something happened just that it did)
~….~ Over a bond
/…./ over a comm.
Words-like-this generally emotions projected over a bond.
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Shadowstrike thanked Primus every day for Jazz.
The mech had been the older brother Harry had always wanted, and he had given Shadowstrike the skills to survive just about anything.
And when you were a Potter, that was worth its weight in gold.
Harry had learned long ago that his luck was that of the Devil's. It was either hellishly bad, or 'divine intervention' good with occasional moments of both at once. Changing dimensions hadn't changed that fact. His childhood with the Autobots had only solidified that knowledge, and once the Decepticons had become aware of him…
He had been the cause of many spark-attacks and crashes as a sparkling, and was still a leading cause of stress even now.
Shadowstrike couldn't say he didn't love his job though. Exploring space? Absolutely amazing, and once the gravity of Earth was gone, he could really let loose with his flying. He had to watch out for other things of course- like the time he almost got caught in a sun going supernova, or the time with the black hole, and the once when he found a previously undiscovered wormhole- but it was a rush with a view he never got tired of.
And once the whole 'fixing Cybertron' issue was solved, a permanent Space Bridge was put on Mars that allowed instant travel from Cybertron to the planet that had sheltered Cybertronians in their time of need. So Shadowstrike got to see his old home whenever he wanted, while also having entire sections of space laid before he pedes that had never been seen with human eyes.
He was loving every moment of it.
O~O~O~
The mission had been a simple one. Once Optimus had sent out the message to the Autobots to head for Earth, he had sent out a beacon. Autobots had responded, had come to Earth, but they were not the only ones to pick up the message and turn their attentions to the Sol System and the third planet.
Even now, so long after it had been sent out, Extraterrestrial Life was still responding to the message. Some were drawn by curiosity, others by hope, and still more by unsavory plans. For the friends they had made, for the memories they had of Earth, for the home it had offered when they had no home to call their own, Optimus had set up a rotating guard of the Sol system, but especially for Earth, using the Space Bridge they had anchored between Cybertron and Mars.
And it was Shadowstrike's turn to watch over his old planet.
O~O~O~
The first sign something was wrong, was his twitchy wings.
Strike's wings only ever twitched that way when something was about to happen. Something big- something dangerous. He shifted his weight, wings twitching sharply, and upped the sensitivity of his scanners.
~Strike? What is it?~
Shadowstrike settled a little at the sound of one of his Caretakers over their Bond. Even though he was older now (much, much older than he had ever dreamed of being) the two front-liners could still settle his worries. The wary-protective-alert feelings pouring over the Bond also helped to settle him, despite the twins not being present on Mars at all, and in fact being back on Cybertron. (If Harry was thankful for one thing above all others, it was that distance had no effect on the Bond he shared with the twins that had taken him in as a sparkling.)
~Nothing. Yet.~
~And that means…~ Sunstreaker's voice was alert as he joined the conversation his twin had started.
~My wings are twitchy.~
The wary-protective-alert feelings pouring off his Caretakers sharpened, deepening and swelling over the Bond. ~Be Careful.~ they commanded him and Shadowstrike grinned lightly to himself. They had plenty of experience with his twitchy wings and knew by now not to question the accuracy of them. It never failed- if his wings got twitchy, something was about to go down.
~I always am.~
~If you need backup, we're only a space bridge away little one.~ Sideswipe's voice was steady, the rock he had always been.
~I know Caretaker. I'll probably be able to handle it, but put the others over there on Standby please?~ he enforced the verbal words with a flood of feelings wary-alert-prepared-thankful-love.
Love flooded back over the Bonds he shared with the twins alongside 'affirmative-agreement-readiness'and Shadowstrike turned his complete attention back to his surroundings even as he basked in it.
O~O~O~
"Sweet Primus…" Shadowstrike's whisper seemed to echo across the distance, his optics and the optics of all those around him, focused sharply on what it was that had made Strike's wings so twitchy.
There, approaching the Sol system and Earth, were ships. Great, hulking ships, drifting closer to the planet. Ships that were painted in such a way as to provoke images of death, and pain. If Strike was seeing the outside of the ships right, if he was seeing what he thought he was seeing, the ships themselves were decorated with trophies. Trophies taken from the kills of whoever-whatever- is on the ships.
Bones, and weapons, spatters of blood mixed with the remains of bodies and ash.
~Strike?~
Shadowstrike makes no move to acknowledge the sharp worry in Sunstreaker's query. Instead he whirls to face his fellow Cybertronians, and begins to snap commands, his wings mantling behind him in a position of dominance and demand.
There is a moment where no one moves, optics focused on the approaching crafts, before Shadowstrike snaps in a voice he had learned from Optimus as a sparkling "Now bots!"
Cybertronians leap into motion even as Shadowstrike straightens, flaring his wings out and calling "Seekers! To me!"
He hears the whir of engines as the Seekers mixed within the crowd fly over it to land behind him, falling into flanking positions automatically.
He turns sharply to face the seekers behind him, his green optics gleaming, as he begins to speak "I don't know what or who is in those ships, but it is obvious that they are a threat. They carry trophies of death on their ships, and they came here to the Sol System. They threaten Earth, and if we fall here, they will have access to the Space Bridge and to our home Cybertron. So we cannot fall. As Seekers we are the best hope in holding them off in the air."
Shadowstrike pauses, his optics scanning the faceplates of the Seekers in front of him. "I will attempt to speak to them" Optimus had taught him that much in his sparkling-hood. Had taught him that all beings had a right to choose, deserved a chance to choose. "Try to make them turn back peacefully. But know that I do not expect that to work. That I expect we will need to hold the ships here, that I expect we will need to fight, and that it will not be easy." His wings twitched again, his instincts singing of the coming battle, and Shadowstrike knows even before he moves from his place that he is about to lead troops into battle.
It is a mark of the respect he holds amongst the Seekers that each of those there bow in a synchronized movement, their wings spread wide before rising sharply. Shadowstrike straightens up, transforming quickly.
He hears the other Seekers follow his lead, as he leaps into the air and begins flying towards the ships approaching the Earth. He sends out a hail and isn't surprised when it is picked up by a strange looking creature dressed in what appears to be armor and wearing bones as jewelry with skulls and spines used as a belt.
"Why are you here?" Shadowstrike asks.
"The third planet is full of resources we require the use of." The creature responds.
"The third planet is Protected. What resources would you seek to use?" Shadowstrike's voice is calm, but sharp and unbending. It is another tone he had picked up from Optimus mixed with a hint of Ratchet's 'no-nonsense-I-am-about-to-throw-a-wrench' one.
"We seek that which is called 'humans'."
And Shadowstrike's engines snarl sharply, his tone hardening and sharpening with angered warning "You may not have them. They are sentient and under our watch. Leave this place. I will tell you only once."
He is not surprised when the creature refuses sharply and offers him an ultimatum. "We will not. You will move or be Hunted."
The choice was an obvious one.
O~O~O~
Shadowstrike twists sharply, barking commands over the encrypted comm-lines as he dodges the ships' fire. / Silverstream! Move! Hotlink where is that info I asked for? Shadowstep that had better not be you down there or I swear to Primus-if you went out on your own again I will not be held responsible for my actions! /
Shadowstrike cursed sharply, dipping into a Wronski Feint as one of the small scouter ships the larger one had deployed tried to shoot him out of the sky. He angled himself just so, carefully turning his frame into a spiral as he plummeted towards the surface of Mars.
Troops leapt out of the blast zone, knowing what was coming from experience, while the scouter followed after him. At the very, very last second, Strike pulled up smoothly out of his dive. The scouter wasn't so lucky. Strike easily ascended back to his original height, aiming for one of the larger crafts.
He was right above the ship when he transformed, falling to land atop the craft and easily applying what his Caretakers had taught him of 'Jet Judo' to force the ship out of the air, riding the craft down towards Mars until the last possible moment before he shoved off of it and back into the air, transforming to his alt-mode midair.
/ Hotlink move it! Seekers! Formation Twins! / Shadowstrike had named this particular formation after Fred and George. His Caretakers had a formation named after them called Gladiator. Twins Formation focused more on misdirection, shifting and changing as it moved, Seekers dipping in and out quickly, with fast targeted strikes and ever-changing marks. Gladiator was meant as a more head-on charge, a heavy damage targeted formation.
The Seekers leapt into movement, Hotlink's voice snapping over the comm / Do you know how hard it is to fight and decrypt information from a system I have never seen before at the same time? I'm working on it, frag it. /
Shadowstrike smirked to himself even as he joined the other Seekers in formation Twins.
O~O~O~
Where were they coming from?
There was so many.
It was starting to stir his temper to life. While Harry had had an explosive violent temper when he was angered, his Caretakers and family had taught Shadowstrike to manage his anger and temper better as he grew.
Shadowstrike was a much calmer individual who was generally very difficult to truly anger anymore. He had learned to channel his anger, to let go, to breathe through it.
Flying through the air with dented and damaged armor, watching his friends fight and be injured on the ground, watching his fellow Seekers be knocked from the air, Shadowstrike finds he is very much not calm.
~Son of Ultron! Pit-Slag! Glitched good for nothing fraggers!~ anger-worry-pain.
~Shadowstrike!~ worried-surprised-scolding.
Shadowstrike jerked just slightly. He hadn't realized he was projecting his thoughts and feelings through his Bond with his Caretakers until that very moment, when Sideswipe's sharp tone broke through the rant.
~Caretaker. Apologies.~ surprise-sheepish-apology.
~What has happened little one?~ Sunstreaker's voice was calm but unyielding. A demand for information.
~…My luck struck again. I may need that back up. And Ratchet. Make sure he's prepared for injured in a battle scenario please?~ resigned-worried-pained.
The wave of worry and reassurance, the sense of motion and accomplishment, reassured Shadowstrike he would soon have reinforcements and a medic who knew how to handle wounded coming in from battles.
He sighed over the bond ~Thank you Caretakers. The enemy is some sort of nomadic hunter. They aim for resources of other worlds, and will fight and wipe out entire races for them if I am reading this properly. Seeing as they came to Sol System looking for the resource 'humans' they are not above or against slavery either.~
Shadowstrike paused for a moment, spiraling down to the ground, transforming before he crashed, and using the momentum to tackle Shadowstep from the side, wrapping his servos around the mech's shoulders and heaving the bot out of the path of incoming missiles. He hissed as the heat and pieces of Mars slammed into his back-plates. / Shadowstep what did I say about wandering? I'm giving you to Ironhide for retraining at the end of this I swear to Primus! /
/ Sorry Boss! I had it under control! Thanks for the save though! /
Shadowstrike hissed dropping the mech and growling the command to 'be careful' before he went back to speaking with his worried Caretakers ~Hotlink is working on decryption, but you may want to bring Jazz and Prowl along with you. These defenses are like nothing we've seen before, and they seem to have an endless stream of reinforcements. I am beginning to wonder if they have space bridge technology of their own.~
His Caretakers respond in one voice, powerful like the tides of the ocean, and the gravity of black holes ~We'll be through the Bridge with reinforcements in a quarter-breem. Hold the line.~
~Yes Sirs.~
O~O~O~
Shadowstrike was in the middle of crashing when the Space Bridge whirred to life behind him.
He had been clipped by one of the Hunter's missiles defending the space bridge itself; forced from the sky by an injured wing. He transformed before he hit the ground, tucking himself into a messy roll to reduce any damage, and hissed a stream of curses he had learned from a drunken Prowl. He was pushing himself into a kneeling position when the Space Bridge finished coming online behind him.
It took less than an astrosecond for Shadowstrike to suddenly find himself with a set of golden and red raging walls between him and the enemies as his Caretakers barreled through the Bridge and leap over his knelt form to get between him and any ships that might have tried to take advantage.
A nano-klik behind them comes Ironhide, who barrels for the frontlines even as Ratchet, Hook, and Jolt, dart out and immediately begin barking commands even as they break off towards the wounded. And then Jazz was shot into the shadows and towards Hotlink with Prowl striding powerfully towards the frontlines with Optimus a step behind his strategist.
Shadowstrike feels his shoulders relax a fraction even as Jazz opens a com between them / One ah these days, yer luck is gonna offline all ah us mechlin'. /
/ Sorry Jazz. It's always been like this. /
Prowl joins the conversation / It is most illogical. No one should statistically have the luck that you do. /
/ Sorry Prowl. /
/ How damaged are you sparkling? / Sunstreaker interrupts any further comments with a voice like stone and optics gleaming towards the white of his Gladiator programming.
/ Dents and dings. The worst of it is my wing. I took a bad graze keeping the space bridge from blowing up. /
Shadowstep breaks into the conversation before anyone can continue, and Strike knows this is the mech's vengeance for threatening Ironhide Retraining as the he contradicts / That wasn't a graze Commander. That was a missile. It exploded. On your wing. /
And Strike can't even defend himself as Ratchet chooses that moment to scream over the line with a voice like thunder / If you're sitting there with a wing suffering missile damage winglet, I will recalibrate you into a toaster! Get over here! /
Shadowstrike pushes himself to his pedes, silently swearing vengeance as he marches towards the medics, knowing better then to fight the demand, especially with his Caretakers backing it.
It was supposed to be a simple mission.
Sometimes, he hated the famed Potter Luck.
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Quarter-breem: 2minutes.
It is three in the morning, please excuse any typos.