This story, which was originally supposed to be silly little two-shot, just snowballed itself nose into a multi-chapter fic.
D:
Ah, oh well.
Enjoy :D
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The good news, Sideswipe knew exactly where he was now, Bakersfield California situated in the Parking lot next to a Petco.
He finally had gotten enough sense to pull over and ask for directions.
The good news, he somewhat knew how to get back to the Ark too. If he were able to get onto interstate 5 he'd be on a direct route to Portland. If he got to Portland, an area he knew quite well, he'd be able to find the Ark which was not but an hour's drive away from there.
The bad news was the fact that Portland, from his current position next to the Petco, was roughly 860.55 miles away (according to the map that nice trucker left him). That was 1384.92 kilometers if you wanted to go all metric. Yet by whatever measurement you decided to go by, it still added up to 13 hours and 31 minutes of driving time and that was if you traveled the whole way nonstop at a steady pace of 64.65 miles per hour (or 104.044 km/hour if that at all made any difference).
Now he was used to covering long distances. In fact it seemed every other week they were going on some harebrained adventured to other continents, off to the far reaches of the globe. But usually most of the distance was covered by shuttle (with the help of Skyfire or Omega Supreme) and though they did drive the rest of the distance, they were usually adequately fueled, tuned up and fit for travel.
Sideswipe, was undercharged, overworked, and was injured and sore in places he didn't remember being possible to get sore. Since when could kibble feel pain anyways?
Of the three main things that ailed him, the one that was the most concern was his lack of energy. He was at a whopping 32% capacity and a good 15% of that was being diverted to his self-repair systems. That left him only 17% to use for regular function.
There was no way in Hell he would get to Portland in one go with that kind of energy.
He had no energon cubes on him, and he was positive there weren't any recharge berths anywhere nearby. That pretty much left him with one option which was vampiric recharge (which was not actually what it sounded like).
The correct term wasn't really "vampiric recharge"; it wasn't like they were sucking the life out of some poor life form or anything. That was just a term Jazz, the ever faithful horror movie buff, came up with one day because he was bored.
The correct term was Ambiance Resonance Recharge; ARR for short. Essentially if a mech fell into recharge in an area where there was a high level of electronic devices in use (appliances, cars, etc.) he wouldn't need a recharge berth to supply energy and instead could siphon wasted or excess energy that dispersed and radiated from the surrounding area into his energy reserves. The problem was that it was soooo freaking slow when compared to a good berth or a nice cube of high-grade.
But Sideswipe didn't want to attempt "napping" again. That's what he tried last time and it resulted in him being taken hostage by an androgynous, totalitarian hussy.
Unfortunately the rest of his body was pretty much staging a coup d'état against him in the form of near crippling exhaustion. It was taking all of his will power (which was almost as low as his actual power reserves) to not drop where he was, in mech mode, and curl up for another nap.
But no, he wouldn't submit to his treacherous body. He was still in charge, and though basically everything in him but his mind was telling him to shut up and sleep, as long as his cerebral cortex was in charge, his body would be a dictatorship and not a democracy.
So he transformed, albeit painfully. His rear hubcaps were dented from the Boot and everything else just hurt from his spectacular crash into the desert.
He halfheartedly revved his engines, sounding more like a whiny kitten then the usually thunderous roar he produced.
Being the trooper he was though he rolled faithfully out onto the road, into the sunrise, while singing Billy Joel's 'Uptown Girl' in a desperate attempt to stay awake.
And as he rolled on, not a single thought drifted to the chaos that may have been going on at the Ark.
And boy was there a lot of chaos.
00000000000
He had wanted to go to Ratchet earlier. Really he did. But one thing had prevented him.
It was a short text message. Only 7 words long, but it was enough to scare First Aid pants-less.
If he wore pants anyways.
The message in question?
-
To: Protectobot-First_Aid
From: Sunstreaker
Subject: Warning
Getting my idiot. Tell others and die.
-
For a very long time he weighed the risks. On one hand, Sunstreaker could flatten him if he told Ratchet. On the other hand, Ratchet could flatten him if he wasn't told.
Either way he was flattened.
In the end though his fear of Ratchet won out against his fear of Sunstreaker and so First Aid went to Wheeljack's lab where Ratchet had holed himself up at.
He approached like he was treading on a landmine (and considering his location that was rather wise). The door was open and First Aid slowly peaked inside.
Wheeljack was not present, and Ratchet, who was sitting at Wheeljack's main work bench, looked like he was angrily rearranging Wheeljack's tools so they were in some kind of order. He was probably doing it to take his mind off of Sideswipe. Deny all he wanted, Ratchet actually happened to care about the twins a lot more then he did a lot of the other mechs on the Ark (how that ended up happening was one of the great, unsolvable mysterious of their time).
First Aid gulped.
"Um…Ratchet. Can I talk to you?" First Aid timidly peered through the door way, his head poked through and his hands gripping at the frame tightly.
"What!?" barked Ratchet as he slammed down a pipe wrench causing the other tools on the table to rattle.
First Aid shrunk back in the doorway so only half of his face was visible.
Ratchet sighed, and rubbed his hand down his face agitatedly before resting his cheek against it. "Sorry 'Aid. I'm not in the best of moods right now. What is it?" He sounded drained.
First Aid hesitated. Perhaps this wasn't the best of times to explain the, uh, Sunstreaker issue.
The whole base was on the verge of fritzing over Sideswipe's disappearance which was weird in way considering the Twin's standing with quite a chunk of the Ark. Yes, there were 'Bots who actually cared for his safety but First Aid was under the impression that a good lot of them were just trying to find Sideswipe before Sunstreaker knew what was going on and decided to go on a killing spree.
Sigh. Well all their efforts were about to go down the drain, and First Aid was about to be the bringer of bad news.
"What is it, First Aid?" Ratchet hissed more vehemently.
"Uh…well… it's, err-" First Aid sighed, not trusting himself to think anymore. Over thinking tended to make him sound like an idiot. Instead he got straight to point and took the plunge. "Sunstreaker woke up."
Ratchet lifted his face from his hand, clear surprise written across his face. "He woke up so soon?"
"Uh, yeah. I was surprised too." First Aid scratched the back of his helm nervously, a human habit he picked up from watching human television.
"Oh frag. Stupid, stupid." Ratchet punctuated every "Stupid" he uttered by smacking himself in the forehead with his palm. "His fraking firewalls. How could I completely forget something like that? They'd dismantle those buffers four times as fast as a normal mech."
"It's, ah, been a stressful day." The Protectobot drummed his fingers against the frame of the door.
"Rrrr, I'll deal with him, just give me a-" Ratchet stopped, noticing for the first time First Aid's death grip on the door and defensive posture. "First Aid," he called, with suspicion lacing his tone, "Come inside please."
Warily First Aid slid around the door frame and took a whole two steps inside the room. He wrung his hands nervously and tried looking everywhere but at Ratchet.
"Closer," Ratchet commanded.
First Aid took another tentative step forward.
"Closer," Ratchet sounded agitated.
First Aid took two more baby steps.
"FIRST AID! GET THE HELL OVER HERE NOW, DAMN IT!"
First Aid jumped and scrambled forward, almost tripping over himself, to get to his boss.
"Park yourself right here and tell me what happened. What is Sunstreaker doing now? How is he?"
First Aid dropped in the seat his boss motioned toward. He felt like Ratchet's stare was going to bore holes in him soon if he didn't get out any answers.
"I, well, I'm sure he's…he's…" First aid gulped.
The look on Ratchet's face got darker and darker. "Be honest."
"Aw, nuts I don't know." First Aid gave up; basically capitulating to whatever fate would befall him.
"'Aid! This isn't the frakin' Spanish Inquisition. Just tell me what happened!"
"Sunstreaker woke up. And the first thing he asks me is 'Where's Sideswipe.' I didn't want to tell him but-"
"You told him Sideswipe's gone," Ratchet's voice was flat, and betrayed no hints of levity. "How did he react to that?"
"I-" First Aid stopped. Ratchet was going to throttle him. He felt himself rattling in his armor.
That and his fear of Sunstreaker came back with a healthy vengeance. The gold mech would kill him if he found out he was snitched out to Ratchet.
Ratchet was getting impatient. "First Aid. I am your Boss," the medic declared gravely. "Sunstreaker, if you make him mad at you, you may see in passing in the halls, maybe on the field. If he gives you a hard time or problems for doing something that I require of you from your job, come to me and I can promise you it won't happen again. Me though? Do you know your fate if you fall out of my good graces? You will have to deal with me every-fraggin'-day, and if I find you're hiding information from because you're a little scared of that gold pin head, then I promise I will give you something to really be afraid about."
That was the straw that broke the camels back.
"I didn't have a choice!" First Aid screamed, throwing his arms in the air. He had been pushed over the cusp straight into a breakdown. "He was going to flatten me! Do you know how scary he can be? I couldn't lie to him! He'd kill me! So I told him about Sideswipe. He went all silent and then he ran out! I didn't follow! I valued my life too much for that! I haven't seen or heard of him since. Except for the death threat he texted me if I told anyone. Oh Primus I'm sorry. Please don't kill me!" First Aid threw his arms protectively in front of himself and fell backwards out of the chair.
Ratchet all but rolled his optics at the quivering mess that was First Aid. "First Aid, calm down. I'm proud of you for telling me the truth," he said gently. "I don't expect you to take on mechs like Sunstreaker yet. You'll learn how eventually but until then telling me was the right thing to do. See? That wasn't so hard."
First Aid beamed.
"It's good you told me soon, too." Ratchet said with a more abrasive tone. "We can intercept that moron before he does something stupid. How long ago did he leave?"
First Aid blanched.
Ratchet knit his brows. "How long?"
"Uh- about," First Aid nervously started counting on his fingers. "Four hours ago?" he stated timidly.
Ratchet's face went slack. First Aid felt the room's temperature drop several degrees.
"WHAT?!" Ratchet exploded with a broad spectrum of emotions underlying his voice ranging from shock, to horror, to rage.
"Well-I-was-not-sure-how-to-tell-you-and-was-sort-of-scared-that-you'd-over-react-to-me-letting-sunstreaker-go-which-you-didn't-in-the-end-but-I-ended-up-taking-a-long-time-to-gain-the-courage-to-tell-you-anyway-and-time-just-flew-by-and-" his Blurr impersonation was cut short as Ratchet rose violently from his spot and stalked toward him.
"THIS IS WHY I TOOK SO LONG TELL YOU!" First Aid screamed accusatorily and panicked as he backed away. "To avoid this part!" he then turned and fled in five flavors of terror with a furious Ratchet hot on his heels.
Out of the fire and into the frying pan.
00000000000000
"Ohhhhh,
We're half way there
Woooaaaaah!
Livin' on a prayer!"
How Sideswipe really wished he were halfway there. Unfortunately though he had only been driving for two hours. Hell, he hadn't even reached San Jose yet.
"Take my hand and we'll make it - I swear
Woooaaaah!
Livin' on a prayer
We've got to hold on ready or not
You live for the fight when it's all that you've got
We're half way there
Livin' on a prayer"
His Bon Jovi imitation wasn't as awesome and soulful as it usually was, but singing it anyways was doing the job of keeping him awake. Sort of.
Primus, was he tired.
Oh screw it. He had to recharge or it was going to either kill him, or he'd fall asleep in the middle of the road.
Last time he did that though it had gotten him in trouble. Parking spaces wouldn't be safe. He didn't want to get towed again (he shuddered at the thought of the boot).
Not that there was anywhere to pull over. All there was on either side of the highway were forests that just stretched on forever. He needed another place. Somewhere safe.
Then again, perhaps the forest would work after all.
He rolled off of the highway and transformed. Giving a look around, he carefully entered the forest and picked his way through the trees.
There was no way any humans could bother him back here! He traveled several hundred feet inside of the woods, far enough away that no one would bother him, but not far enough to get lost.
He found a mostly empty clearing despite a pile of garbage stacked up near a tree, and a raggedy old tent. Sideswipe dropped on the spot, landing on top of the tent basically crushing it flat, and transformed into vehicle mood (mostly so he wouldn't have to figure how to get comfortable laying on the ground). Since there were many vehicles nearby, ARR would work relatively well despite the odd location.
Sideswipe set his internal timer. He'd recharge no longer then two hours. That would be enough time to regain enough energy to let him keep going for another six or so hours on the road. He'd cover the distance, rest once more, and then finish the last leg of the trip in a final swoop. He'd be back at the Ark by the end of the day.
It sounded like a plan. He let his thoughts face, and went unconscious, completely unaware of the fact that the tent he had dropped on top of was actually someone's house.
0000000000000
So the Autobots came to the conclusion that Sideswipe was being held as a prisoner of war by the Decepticons. It was a logical conclusion that made sense but acting on it was way more difficult then they initially had thought it would be.
For starters, they weren't 100% sure that was actually where the red mech was. If the Decepticons did have him they made no move in informing the Autobots of this (using him to extort the Autobots and whatnot) and asking the Decepticons outright of Sideswipe's whereabouts would not be the smartest of moves. Secondly, even if he was with the Decepticons, it was tricky coming up with a strategic plan to rescue the mech.
There was no guarantee he was alive for one. And if they (they being the Autobot forces) just barged into the Decepticon base there was the chance that if he was alive, the Decepticons would kill him in defiance to the Autobot's rescue attempts. They'd have to be discreet. Perhaps send special ops to retrieve the young mech. But such a dangerous mission would need preparation and thought. You wouldn't send a mech behind enemy lines all willy-nilly. That could end up endangering the rescuer along with the rescue-y.
But they were working with such a large informational black hole and so many 'what ifs' that it was hard to come up with anything. And to compound the problem time was not on their hands.
So, much to Optimus Prime's disdain, the Autobots had spent several hours, throwing out and scrapping various plans and ideas, and were no closer to finding Sideswipe then they had been the previous day when they scoured the desert for him.
Prime felt his mood get darker and darker. It was times like these that you needed a Sideswipe, someone to make fun of the somber mood and up the cheer of everyone else.
But no. Instead all he got was room of frustrated mechs and a growing headache that seemed to acutely place itself right behind his left optic.
It could get worse, but not by much.
And then Ratchet tromped in, half dragging First Aid after him.
"We have a problem," Ratchet groused sounding like he had a tenuous grasp on his temper.
"What?" Optimus eyed his CMO askance, not sure he really wanted to know. He had enough problems as it was.
"Sunstreaker," Ratchet snarled, half throwing First Aid beside him, before crossing his arms angrily.
First Aid stood stone still next to his Boss doing everything in his power (hence the statue impersonation) not to incite his wrath.
"What about Sunstreaker?" Prime asked.
"He woke up," Ratchet answered.
Several mechs stopped what they were doing and the other half shuddered, obviously hoping to have avoided Sunstreaker's waking.
"How's he doin'?" Jazz frowned.
"Wouldn't know." Ratchet sent a sideways glare toward First Aid who looked like he wanted to shrivel up on the spot in fear and shame. "He apparently left the Ark four hours ago."
That was quite the bomb to drop.
"What?!" the top three of the commanding element all yelled at the same time.
"Jinx!"
Prowl and Optimus glared at Jazz obviously not in the mood.
The saboteur frowned. "M'sorry. Reflex. Ignore it."
"How'd he get past Red Alert? He'd know if anyone tried to leave the Ark?" Hound asked with confusion.
"Maybe because you all have Red Alert doing state sweeps instead of focusing on the ARK?" Ratchet snapped back. "This whole search party we've got going has been a fragging mess and has only helped screw up the functions of the Ark. We're no closer to finding Sideswipe then we were yesterday and now we've lost his brother."
"Ratchet's right. We are not managing this situation well at all," Prime groaned. "Any ideas on where he went?"
"He shut his comlink off. Trust me. I was screaming at empty airwaves the entire way here."
"That wasn't all you were screaming at," First Aid, muttered dejectedly. Ratchet kicked him in the back of his leg.
"Duh. He's gonna try t' find Sideswipe," Blaster said like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
"Oh, hell. You're right," Ratchet covered his cerulean colored optics with one hand.
"Thing is though, unlike Siders, I can actually find Sunstreaker. His GPS should be perfectly intact right?" Blaster asked.
"You're right!" Jazz giddily jumped clear over a consol like it was a hurdle, and landed himself in a chair next to Blaster. He pulled on a device that looked strangely like headphones and furiously began typing away at the consol. "Ol' Sunshine's GPS is intact. We can triangulate his position. And with a little magic from the Jazzmeister, and ol' Blaster here we should know where he is in about thirty seconds."
"Good. Wheeljack, Inform the Aerialbots sweeping the desert to prepare to receive coordinates so they can intercept Sunstreaker, where ever he went."
"Gotcha Prime."
"Oh Primus, where he went is so obvious," Prowl informed the mechs in the room. "Sunstreaker is not an idiot. He can put two and two together."
"What are you getting at Prowl?" Prime asked with mild trepidation.
"He probably came to the same conclusion we did. He probably thinks Skywarp took Sideswipe. And when it comes to his brother, he tends to not act rationally. If he assumed his brother was taken as a prisoner of war by the Decepticons, what is the most likely course of action he would take?"
Everyone, but Blaster and Jazz, stopped what they were doing. A dreadful silence ensued as Prowl's words finally started to make sense.
"No. He wouldn't," Hound said in disbelief
"Not even Sunstreaker would think of…" Ratchet cut himself off, rethinking the rest of that statement.
"Uh, yes he would." The attention of the room focused on Jazz. "We found Sunny. He's on route to the Decepticon base. Arrival time, 3 minutes and 42 seconds.
Another, excruciating quiet ensued, as the mechs let that piece of knowledge fully percolate into their processors.
The silence was broken by Optimus, and while it was an extremely un-Prime like thing to say it pretty much summed up what every other mech in the room was thinking.
"Damn."
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Dead end stalked the halls almost in a ghost like manner.
He absentmindedly ran a shammy rag over his arm, despite the fact that it already disgustingly immaculate, as he walked, wallowing in the insignificance that was existence.
Whump.
The hollowed thud echoed through the empty hall.
Dead End was snapped out of his pity-party and actually turned to look at the source of the sound. He was in one of the outer halls, so whatever had made that noise had been in the ocean outside.
It was probably nothing. Even if it was something it didn't matter. When it all boiled down nothing really mattered.
As for the sound, sometimes, some of the larger sea life, such as the great whites or other large fish, would ram themselves up against the hull of the Nemesis. It was no big deal really-
WHUMP.
Dead End jumped that time.
That did not sound like a shark.
The hull groaned and creaked as if something was trying to pull apart the wall by its seams. As quickly as the sound came it stopped.
For a moment it was quiet and Dead end probably should've taken that moment to evacuate, but he couldn't really motivate himself to run.
What would the point be? If something happened it happened.
And something did happen.
A white hot energy blade punctured through the hall's wall, springing a little leak.
The leak grew as the blade was dragged down to the floor, creating both a horrid squealing and popping sound as metal was ripped, heated and then re-cooled by the ocean outside, and a massive tear that was spewing ocean water.
Then the blade vanished.
Dead End was frozen in his tracks, salt water pooling and rising to his ankles.
He watched with morbid fascination as Gold fingers wedged themselves through the rip, and suddenly the split in the wall was wrenched apart creating a large, gaping hole.
The last thing Dead End saw was a wave of water, and gold hurdling at him.
Well it was inevitable really that one day he would expire, it just appeared that it would be happening a little sooner then he expected.
At least the way he would go out would be interesting.
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"Lord Megatron! There's been an apparent Security breach!"
A seeker was talking to him. Which one Megatron wasn't sure. There were a lot of seekers in the Decepticon base. It was just that no one really cared about them.
The seekers were sort of the paper tissues of the Decepticon army: You used them to wipe your nose and then you threw them away.
Come to think of it the only seekers he used (that had any real worth anyways) were Starscream, Skywarp and Thundercracker…and sometimes, sometimes, Sunstorm. But that seeker had more issues then the New York times and was often in solitary confinement so he wasn't seen much anyway (In fact, he appeared so little that there was a running bet circulating the Nemesis on whether or not he really existed).
The rest of them were nameless fodder really, there just to bump their numbers up.
This one was garishly bright green. When was the last time he had seen an optic-burningly green seeker? Was it when Cybertron's orbit was tearing the Earth apart? That was months ago.
Normally Megatron didn't care what their names were but for some reason it was bothering him. What was this seeker's name?
Hurm… It was Acid something. Acid Lark? No. Acid Gale? Closer, but no…
Acid Rain?
"The tear in the hall has been repaired by maintenance drones, but there is an unidentified mech on board the Nemesis."
Grrr. It was driving him insane! What the hell was this flyer's name?
"Lord Megatron?"
Oh wait.
"What is it, Acid Storm?" Ha! And who said who couldn't keep track of his seekers?
"Sir, there's an Autobot infiltrating…Well, more like attacking the base."
That threw Megatron for a little loop. "An Autobot. As in just one Autobot."
"Uh, yes Lord Megatron. Just one."
"A spy? Is it one of the blasted special Operation mechs?" How he hated the Autobot special Operations team. Particularly that Psy-op of theirs Jazz.
"Um, no actually. This Autobot is being quite vocal about his presence."
"Hmm. Is it an Autobot deserter perhaps?" That, at least, would be interesting.
"Well last I heard he was screaming something about putting Decepticon heads on a pike so no, I don't believe so, Sir."
Wow. Autobots were dumber then he initially had thought they were then. What would possess one Autobot to attempt taking on the Decepticon ranks in such a forward manner? With out backup? There had to be catch. It must've been one of their idiotic little schemes to undermine the Decepticon regime.
"Interesting. That will be all…" Megatron actually, in the thirty seconds he took to speak with the jet, had forgotten his name again. "-You," he settled with and walked briskly toward the command center.
He entered the room on a balcony that was raised above where the majority of the troops were converging.
"Decepticons!" Megatron called down to his troops, all of them turning from their… Whatever it was they did when they weren't in battle, and gave him their unbridled attention.
"It appears there's an Autobot somewhere in our midst foolish enough to take us all on alone."
There was some jeering and laughter from the crowd, apparently amused that an Autobot would wander solo behind enemy lines.
"It was getting boring around here anyways!"
"I was dying for some target practice."
"I bet you we can offline 'im in four seconds flat!"
"Ha! I bet we can do it in 2."
"Which one of those morons is it?"
That last one was actually a good question. Acid Rain, no…Acid… Bah, who cared? The seeker with the awful green paintjob hadn't told him which Autobot had decided to foolishly brave the wolves den. "Soundwave," Megatron Hailed. "Triangulate the Autobot's position and bring him up on the monitor."
"Yes, Megatron," Soundwave complied and suddenly all the monitors flickered to life revealing the identity of the Autobot trespasser.
"We can take him no pro-oh slag! It's that Autobot!?"
The mood in the room suddenly changed.
"What? Who's that Autobot? I can't see! Move your damn skid plates!" Rumble complained as mechs of much larger size crowded around the screen.
"The yellow one!" someone yelled out.
"What? The lame bug?" Frenzy growled, trying to shove his way through the crowd as well.
"No! The other yellow one!"
"Wait. The one that bent Thundercracker's wings backward the other day?"
"Uh…yeah. Yup. That's him."
"Well Slag."
That was the last Autobot anyone (mostly anyone. There were a few psychos who'd battle the gold mech simply for the fun of it) wanted to pit themselves against. Sure if enough of them attacked all at once they could take him down, but some optics and limbs would be lost on the Decepticon's side before that'd be possible. It wasn't as fun of a prospect as simply beating up on a helpless minibot or something of the like would've been.
"What is he doing here, and when can I take him on?" Drag Strip asked with unbridled glee in his voice.
Megatron and his underlings watched the screen as Sunstreaker suddenly broke into a run. The hall security cameras followed him as he went Quarterback on Reflector, charging and then punting him so hard he went straight through a wall with a hollowed thunk.
Many cons snickered at the camera's misfortune. No one liked Reflector anyways. He didn't do anything important and had stalker like, paparazzi tendencies that served no purpose other than to annoy the hell out of his fellows.
On the screen Sunstreaker moved again. Hearing someone approaching, he hid in a doorway just as another Decepticon entered the hall and became visible on the monitor.
At this point, none of the Con's in the command center were even thinking about off-lining Sunstreaker anymore, and were all instead glued to the monitor screens as if they were watching some strangely woven soap opera designed specifically for sociopaths.
The room instantly quieted, a byproduct resulting from morbid fascination as an unfortunate stray seeker, one with a brown paintjob, was ill-fated enough to wander into the hall alone, completely unaware of the feral Autobot.
Of course no one had bothered to send a message through the comlines to warn said seeker of the impending doom. That'd be boring, and honestly, the others didn't really care that much.
The Autobot saw the Seeker before the Seeker saw the Autobot. Sunstreaker lunged with an energy blade.
Some of the Decepticons winced as they watched the brown seeker, old what's-his-face, get eviscerated by the enraged mech. Others cheered Sunstreaker on, thrilled by the violence. As for the poor seeker he was able to gush out one last audio splitting howl before Sunstreaker jammed the blade into his face, destroying his cerebral cortex and silencing him for good.
Watching Sunstreaker go on an angry, bloody rampage truly shook the fundamental stereotype that most of the Decepticons placed the Autobots in; that they were all squishy-hugging, peace loving wusses. Yet at the same time it was utterly fascinating to watch an Autobot engage in such acts of brutality, which happened to bring up the question-
"Why isn't he a Decepticon?" Scrapper spoke in confusion. He had just witnessed an artistic maiming that no Autobot should have been capable of. It was mind-boggling. "No really. Why isn't he a Decepticon? It doesn't make sense."
That was actually a good question, Megatron began to think. The yellow Autobot would make an excellent Decepticon.
"Decepticons!" Sunstreaker bellowed in the empty halls. "This is your warning! Release my brother, or I'll tear every one of your fragging heads off!"
It was an amusing threat really. Even that Autobot couldn't really believe that he'd survive against the Decepticons if they were taking the situation seriously. It was one thing to go against fodder and something completely different when going up against the actual elite of their forces. The Autobot was out numbered and outgunned. You had to give him credit for trying though.
However Sunstreaker's statement, in revealing why he was even at the Decepticon's base in the first place, did bring about a curious question.
Megatron walked down the stairs leading from the balcony to the ground level all the rest of his troops were on. He gave them all a stone cold once over and then turned his attention to the monitor.
"By raise of hand," Megatron growled not taking his fiery-red optics off the screen, "Did anyone take an Autobot prisoner with out my knowing?"
No hands went up.
"Did anyone kill an Autobot yesterday?"
No one responded.
"SKYWARP!" Sunstreaker roared again. "I'm coming after you, you Slagger! If any of you Decepticons harmed one servo on Sideswipe…" too enraged to finish his sentence he instead let out a wild war whoop and tore down the hall obviously in search of…something.
"His brother?" Thundercracker sent an accusatory glare at his trine mate.
"Skywarp, why does this Autobot seem to think that you took a prisoner?" Megatron voice was deceptively flat. The irritation was evident though. "Are you not telling me something?"
Every Decepticon turned to look at Skywarp. Skywarp threw his hands up defensively. "I don't have his brother. I dropped the Autobot on the battlefield! He's probably dead."
Megatron locked his gaze on the black seeker, torn between being impressed and severely annoyed. "You killed an Autobot? One of their front-liners?"
"Well, yeah. Actually I'm not sure. Well…" Skywarp paused densely. "I think so. I teleported somewhere his comrades couldn't get to him and dropped him 50,000 ft so, yeah, he should be somewhere in the desert in a million pieces right now."
Apparently Skywarp had actually gotten a good idea for once.
Well, even a broken clock is right twice a day.
"Good work, Skywarp. You may have rid us one of our biggest problems. This Autobot however," Megatron pointed to the screen, indicating Sunstreaker, "Thinks that we have taken his brother prisoner. Interesting."
Another gargled scream flitted from the monitor. The Decepticons looked just in time to see a freshly decapitated lavender Seeker fall, his head rolling away from his body like a discarded soccer ball.
"Hey. Hey!" Swindle yelled, recognition and ofense saturating his face. "Is that the guy who was in charge of the flamethrower? He owed me money! Damn you, Cozenage!"
"…we serisouly had a seeker named Cozenage?" Dirge asked in mild bewilderment, not the least bit disturbed that he saw a fellow seeker get beheaded. "What the hell does that even mean?"
"Both of you shut up!" Someone in the crowd yelled. "We're trying to see what happens!"
Swindle and Dirge quieted and went back to watching the screens along with the masses.
Sunstreaker stood, violet optics glittering like ice, drenched in blue mech fluid, looking quite…beautiful in an angry 'I'm-going-to-beat-the-living-daylights-out-of-you' way that perhaps you had to be a Decepticon to appreciate. He slowly turned his head so he was looking directly in the security feed. He gestured rudely at the camera, pulled a rifle out of subspace and snapped off a clean shot.
The security screen for that hall was filled with white noise, and everyone in the command center groaned at the loss of their unexpected entertainment.
"Oh come on! Can't we get some good reception in here?" someone from the crowd groused.
"Hey let's just pull up another feed."
"I'm working on it!" Soundwave was shoved out of the way by Ramjet who instantly began fiddling with the security controls.
Megatron continued to stare at the screen as Ramjet tried to bring up another security feed. This Autobot was interesting. Very interesting. Megatron had never really paid attention to the mechs on the battlefield (anyone who was not Prime didn't warrant his attention) so he had never noticed how amazingly brutal this Autobot could be. Prime didn't realize what a strategic asset he had. He probably made the gold mech "hold back" or something retarded like that on the battlefield.
An idea spawned in the warlord's head.
Megatron tapped his chin thoughtfully. "Soundwave, how many seekers do we have on Earth?"
The communications officer was still brushing himself off all the while glaring icily at Ramjet (despite a lack of facial expressions) but turned to answer his leader. "26."
"How many are at base?"
"Seekers: 12 present." Soundwave paused and recalculated that number in his head. "Correction: 10 functioning."
"Hmm. Keep Starscream's trine here. Send the rest of them on the offensive against the Autobot. Do it in sets."
"Overkill?" Soundwave queried.
"Not necessarily. I wish to test this Autobots mettle." A dastardly evil grin spread across Megatron's face. "I'm curious to see how he fares. Send them to his position."
"You are a complete fool!" Starscream shrilly spoke up from behind.
Megatron all but rolled his optics. He wasn't even aware the Air commander was in the room. It had been, of course, only a matter of time before he made himself evident. Partly because he had something to say, and partly because he felt ignored. "Why procrastinate and play foolish games with the enemy? We could easily take this mech out and cripple the Autobot's frontline If-"
Megatron nailed Starscream in the face with a well aimed back fist, not even looking at the jet while he did so. It was kind of halfhearted, more of a reflex he developed for when ever he heard Starscream begin to speak, regardless of what the flyer was saying. All the same the blow knocked his second in command clear out.
The warlord's fiery gaze swept across his troops. "Any one else have an issue with my decisions?" he growled.
No one said anything.
"Good. Now, Men, make yourselves comfortable. I think we're going to be in for an interesting show."
Another feed was brought up on the monitors and Sunstreaker became visible once again. He was instantly confronted by two seekers sent on Soundwave's command.
Carnage ensued.
000000000
Sideswipe woke up and stretched painfully. He checked his internal clock and saw that he had woken up earlier then he had intended too. Oh well. It was probably better anyway, and, holy Primus, there was something touching him, and it was in his front seat.
Sideswipe ran a scan of the object.
It was a disgustingly grimy human, with graying hair, a gaunt face, and toothless mouth. His skin was pocked, and scarred, and the human appeared to be breeding several strains of bacteria on his person.
It was horrifying.
"GYAH!" Sideswipe shrieked, and would later berate himself for reacting like, well, Sunstreaker would've.
The man, startled by the noise, jerked up and looked around wildly.
"Wa-?" he gazed around aimlessly, mouth open revealing a maw of few and rotting teeth. "Who's there?" The odors wafting from the man weren't all that pleasant either.
"What are you doing in me?" Sideswipe asked, appalled. "How'd you even get in?"
"Hey!" The old man barked in agitation, sleepiness having worn off. "Who's in my house?"
That statement honestly confused Sideswipe. "Buh?" was the only response he could manage.
"Get out of my house!" The man screamed vehemently, clawing his long, dirty fingernails into Sideswipe's back seat possessively.
"It's not your house! It's mine! I am the house!…car." Sideswipe paused and counted to five before he started speaking again. "Dude… just get out."
"You get out! This is my home. I am lord of the castle. Leave before I send for the royal guards to smite thee!"
What bothered Sideswipe was the fact that the crazy toothless man seemed completely serious.
"Look, flesh wad. I have never transformed with one of you humans inside of me before, partly because I've never given one a ride, and partly because it sounds messy. Now I am in a crappy mood right now and am this close to transforming, but scraping your entrails out of my manifolds does not sound like a fun prospect. Now save us both the hassle and me the mess and get out."
"Who'sawhatit? Who said that?" The scraggly man looked around wildly.
"ME! Me you idiot! The bot you're treating like real estate!"
"…God?"
"NO!"
"…Jiminy?"
"N-what?"
"Are you my conscious?"
"…if I say yes will you listen to me."
"Ayup."
For the second time in less then a day, Sideswipe was doing everything he could to refrain from murdering a human.
"Then yes. I am your conscious. The car you are in is not a dwelling for humans. You need to get out."
"By my grandmothers cream pie I say nay!" the man declared with a crazed look in his eye. "Why would I give up my new and better house that dropped on my old house?"
Old house?
Oh, Sideswipe mentally smacked himself. The tent he ran over. And if he remembered correctly, tents were not usually considered a valid place of permanent dwelling. That meant this man was homeless.
"Look Mr… Whatever you're called. I didn't mean to run over your tent. If you could just get out, I could transform and help fix-"
"My names not Mr. Whatever! That would be Colonel Sharp to you boy," The crazed man pointed a finger accusingly at nothing.
Sideswipe felt his Spark drop. "You're a colonel? You're military?"
"For 18 proud years! I'm serving in Korea." He declared proudly, bearing a wide toothless grin.
Sideswipe noted the present tense, but the war in Korea had ended 33 years ago.
"You were a warrior?" Sideswipe asked in horror. He redid the scan of the human. His clothes were grimy, mix matched and layered, but he noticed that there was a rusted purple heart pinned to the breast of his coat and a worn Green Beret was set on top of his wild matted hair.
"Ayup! I'm on a stakeout! My buddies Tomcat and Sergeant Cookie should be back from recon at any time now! But SHHH!" He shushed noisily, finger to his cracked lips. "Don't tell the enemy. It's a surprise." The man opened Sideswipe's door and stepped out. He ran over to the junk pile that was collected near a tree, and pulled pair of broken, binoculars out.
The man pulled them to his eyes backward. "Any minute now they'll be comin' over the hill, and through the woods, and to Grandma's house we'll go!"
Sideswipe for some reason, felt his spark clench.
The human thought he was still at war. This man had some strange Post traumatic Stress Disorder and was completely insane.
And this colonel Sharp, a man, as warped and insane as he was, had once been a soldier like Sideswipe was. Despite the differences in size, and species, the Cybertronian felt a sort of unwanted understanding and camaraderie being created.
Here was a man who had seen combat. And he may have been so traumatized he had probably gone insane, couldn't assimilate to society and was left forgotten. And human's were frail, their minds fragile. Perhaps the man had gone to drugs to release himself from the horrors of war, and ended up destroying his mind, just like the stories Spike told him.
This man's fate was something Sideswipe was worried would happen to himself if he ever saw the end of the war.
Being alone, and obsolete. Not knowing how to do anything else but fight. It sounded like a terrible existence.
Sideswipe actually was feeling…bad for the human. Bad as in, instead of ditching him and getting back on the road like he initially wanted to do, he felt like he had to do something for the smelly, toothless old man.
Oh, Damn it.
Sideswipe popped his door open again. "Get in the in." He demanded.
The man jerked around at the sound of a voice, still holding the broken binoculars to his face.
"How'd you get so far away?"
"Get in the car before I change my mind." Sideswipe's engines rumbled.
The man dropped the binoculars and starred blankly at the Lamborghini. "Who said that?"
"THIS IS GOD TELLING YOU TO GET IN THE DAMN CAR!" Sideswipe raged, desperately trying not to change his mind.
The man happily complied and climbed into the passenger's seat.
Sideswipe cringed feeling the dirt, and oils from the homeless human rubbing off on his interior again. He simply shuddered, and shut his door, and rolled off.
"And they'll be coming around the mountain when they come," the old man smiled, and fell asleep in.
Sideswipe, worse for ware himself, valiantly drove along until he found an exit and took it.
He entered a small town, and drove all around it in search for a homeless shelter he could leave the man at. At least that way the human would have some place to refuel at, and a place to sleep.
He finally found a large building called "The Callaway Humane Shelter". "Hey, we're here." He slowly rolled to a stop, and Sideswipe rattled his frame gently, waking the old, homeless man.
"Huh who said that?" the Hobo looked around dazedly.
Sideswipe opened his door and let the old man out. Before any more questions could be asked, he had left feeling immensely proud of his good deed, and was back on route to I-5.
The old man looked at the building bewildered.
You really had to give Sideswipe props for trying. He meant well, really he did, and though he was better versed in Earth customs then most mechs, he still made mistakes regarding certain things.
Which is probably why when Sideswipe took the homeless man to a shelter he accidentally left the scraggily man at an animal shelter
Sideswipe really had meant well though.
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This chapter ended up so long. I'm happy with it though.
There was a lot more Sunstreaker in this. Next chapter should be equal parts Sides and Sunny. Sideswipe is not done with his harrowing road trip quite yet.
All the seekers mentioned in this fic were seen at some point in the show. I didn't make them up. (Had to make up some names though, but Acid Storm is actually cannon.)
Reviews are loved and constructive criticism is appreciated :)