Transformers: Vapour Trails
By Violetlight
Author's Note: Thanks again to the Good Idea Writing Club for giving me the swift kick in the aft I need (aka a deadline) to get writing. Just a warning to everyone, final projects are coming up so it might be a while before you see chapter 4, but I'll try not to take as long as I did for this one. Thanks again for reading!
Note 2: This chapter has the biggest changes made to it, especially in the last scene where I took Good Idea's advice about avoiding "talking heads" in dialogue. I didn't initially like how Frenzy just kind of disappeared in the last scene, so I've given him more of a role. Hope it's not too cute.
* If Nightbird's attention to Frenzy seems a bit OOC, remember that in "Enter the Nightbird", Frenzy did make one of his rare cartoon appearences when the Decepticons first captured her from the humans and Autobots, so I think her relationship with him in this story still fits with the character. Also, Soundwave had a hand in programming G1 Nightbird, so I think a jump from "programmer" to "teacher" isn't too much of a stretch now that she's an actual Cybertronian.
Thanks also to Lady Tecuma for listening to me rant on about my fic, and givng me some great ideas!
Chapter 3: Blow at High Dough
"Barribarribarricade?"
"What is it now?" the police cruiser growled in annoyance.
"Are we there yetyet?"
"For the last time, NO!" The Ford's outburst almost caused him to swerve off the highway, which of course made the little silver terror standing in his front passenger seat laugh hysterically, even as he fell off the seat with the sudden movement. For at least the hundredth time, Barricade wondered why in Primus' name he had ever bothered to retrieve Frenzy from the ruins of Hoover Dam's radio room.
"Imagine what would happen if you didididn't," Frenzy taunted as he climbed back into his seat. "Heeheeheeheehee."
"Stop hacking my processors!"
"Make me!" Frenzy challenged, then swore in several Earth languages as Barricade slammed his firewalls down, even cutting off the internet connection to the mini-Con's laptop. This caused another round of swearing as Frenzy's attempts to trap all of Tranquility's traffic lights in green at once were spoiled. "Yyyyyou're no fun," he pouted.
As entertaining as the idea of multiple vehicular homicide was, Barricade had no time for games. "If you spent anywhere near as much time actually working as you do fooling around, we wouldn't be in this position." Barricade's reprimand had about as much as an effect on Frenzy as any of his others. Frenzy just chattered to himself in some strange English/ Cybertronian/ Primus-knows-what chimaera of a language. He occupied himself by trying to hack around, over, and through Barricade's firewalls and by sticking one of his four hands out the window and extending his middle digit at random passing cars.
What any human drivers thought of that, Barricade did not care. The annoying vermin never questioned him; most went out of their way to avoid his alternate form, a Saleen S281 Ford Mustang police cruiser. He just hoped none of those cars were Autobots in disguise, especially as he passed nervously close to a semi truck and unpleasant memories of what happened to Bonecrusher when he had been in just such a position came flooding back. Barricade mentally chastised himself for being so paranoid. Unless Optimus Prime had taken to pulling a Wal-Mart trailer, he had nothing to fear.
Seeing his exit, Barricade turned off the highway and onto a country road which soon shifted from pavement to gravel as he followed the Global Positioning System coordinates he had been given, as ordered, the Mustang thought bitterly. A short time later he reached his destination: one of the random wind-carved rock outcroppings that stuck out of the Mojave Desertlike periscopes. He opened his passenger side door, kicked Frenzy out, purposely aiming the tiny silver mech towards a clump of thorny desert plants, and transformed. Barricade scanned the area with angry red optics and double-checked his GPS coordinates. This was the right place, so where was Megatron's little pet?
"I contacted you cycles ago," Barricade heard simultaneously from both somewhere above him, and behind the rock. "What took you so long?"
"Unlike some Decepticons, I can't fly," he looked at the rock face above him for the first source of the voice. A buzz gave Waspinator's position away. The insectoid was hanging upside down stuck to the rock, broadcasting his partner's orders regardless of the fact that she was close enough for Barricade to hear. Figures the little pest would choose an Earth form that looks like a bug that orbits garbage cans, Barricade thought as stalked around the rock.
Nightbird was sitting cross-legged in the shadows of the lee side, with Scorponok lying lazily in front of her. The end of his injured tail was lying in her lap as she welded one last segment into place, completing the repairs Blackout had no doubt begun. Her visor was down, and she did not bother retracting it, or even looking up, as Barricade came into view.
"Don't you have enough pets already?" Barricade snorted.
"I didn't see you checking on Scorponok to see if he was still functioning." Nightbird placed her multi-tool back in her trans-space "backpack" and gave Scorponok an affectionate scratch on his optic ridges before letting him scurry off to test his new tail laser on the local flora. "It's lucky that he was. Symbiotes don't normally survive if their partners are killed."
"You better not have called me all the way out here to give lessons in pet care. What do you want with me?"
"Don't flatter yourself, Barricade. It's not you I want." She got up and walked past the police cruiser to the other side of the rock, where Frenzy was trying to untangle his leg from a small sagebrush he had got caught in. A smile crossed Nightbird's mouthplate when she saw the little mech. "Hey Frenzy."
"Nnnnnnightbird!" Frenzy squealed as he tore away from the bush and scurried up Nightbird's offered arm to perch on her right shoulder, the very shoulder Waspinator was trying to land on. Frenzy swatted him away, and started chattering to Nightbird excitedly. A sulking Waspinator took out his frustrations by joining his brother in a game of shoot-the-cactus.
To Barricade's surprise, Nightbird seemed to understand what Frenzy was babbling, answering "no, not yet, but Starscream's looking for him" to what he assumed was a question. A deep growl rumbled in Barricade's vocalizer as he impatiently watched his supposed partner open up to Nightbird in ways he never did with him.
"I hate to interrupt this little pet reunion, but can we get on with it?"
"Frenzy is nobody's pet," Nightbird said calmly, not rising to his bait. "You, Frenzy, and Scorponok are the only survivors, correct?"
"Unless you count the fraggin' Autobots, yeah. So what?"
"Starscream has ordered us to return to Mars …"
"Didn't take you long to become his pet, did it?"
Nightbird ignored him. "However," she continued, "we're not going there. Not yet, anyway."
"Why not? Is Starscream that much of a disappointment?"
"You would know," Nightbird smirked, and Frenzy cackled even more hysterically than before. It took Barricade a few astroseconds to figure out what she meant. Then he felt like purging his tanks.
"As I was saying," she continued before Barricade could think of an equally disgusting riposte, "we won't be returning to Mars immediately. I have a few things I need to do here on Earth first, and I need Frenzy's assistance."
"Frenzy? Help? In what multiverse?"
"I need to discover just what the humans did with our fallen comrades' remains, and to achieve this, I'll need to hack into their military networks. I could do it myself, but it would be a lot easier with your help, Frenzy."
"Can we have funfunfun?"
"Of course we can, brightspark," Nightbird cooed.
Barricade snorted again at the endearment. "You do remember what his definition of 'fun' is?"
"After I have the information I need, I don't care if he wipes out the entire Internet."
"Can you do that?" Barricade asked Frenzy, to which the little Decepticon just giggled manically. "Guess there was a reason to go back for you," he muttered to himself.
"Go back?" Beneath Nightbird's visor, her optics narrowed. "Barricade, you're supposed to be taking care of Frenzy,"
"I have! It's not my fault the little fragger can't keep himself in one piece!"
To Barricade's not-quite surprise, Nightbird seemed to have expected this. With a tilt of her head that seemed to say "not again!" she calmly asked, "Frenzy, do you have something to tell me?"
"No," he lied, and jumped off Nightbird's shoulder, a useless move since she grabbed him with an experienced snatch out of the air. She retracted her visor, and it did not take her long to spot the partially-repaired seam down the middle of the little mech's face.
"What happened?" she demanded as Frenzy tried to struggle out of her grip, and was answered by a high-speed stream of babbling Cybertronian. "Slow down! … You what? … Well that was stupid of you! How many times have I told you to be careful with your shuriken? … "You're just lucky your Creator gave you one Pit of a self-repair program!"
"Satified?" Barricade asked sarcastically.
"For now," Nightbird answered. "You had better be more careful from now on," she scolded Frenzy as she placed him gently on the ground.
"I will," he sulkily promised. "Sssssssorry."
Crossing his arms, Barricade asked, "so what am I supposed to do while you and the hyper hacker go play Frag-With-Computers?"
"You get to play Spy-On-The-Autobot."
"My second-favourite game. Can I play Smash-The-Autobot, too?"
"I don't know, can you?"
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"You tell me. I wasn't the one that got my aft handed to me by Bumblebee."
"Shut up," Barricade muttered, and turned to the giggling Frenzy. "You shut up too. At least my head wasn't hacked off by a human."
"You're both pathetic," Nightbird interrupted before an argument could erupt between the two mechs. "Can we get back on topic here?"
"Yeah, about your little plan," Barricade continued. "Problem: There are four Autobots, and only one of me and Tranquility's infested with cars that look just like them."
"I have that covered too."
"You just think of everything, don't you?"
"One of us has to," Nightbird said, just as Waspinator and Scorponok flew and scurried past respectively. Apparently tired of blasting cacti, they were now chasing a panicked coyote. "Waspinator," the insectoid hovered in place at the sound of his name. "Come here."
Barricade raised an optic ridge at the symbiotes. "If you think I'm pet-sitting, you can think again."
"If you think I'd let you sit here on your aft while I do all the work, you can think again!" Nightbird snapped back. "Waspinator is going to assist you in your part of the mission, whether you like it or not."
"Kiss my aft."
"Do as I say, or should I tell Starscream about your little … pen pal? Did you honestly think you could send reports to Shockwave through the spacebridge's transwarp network without my knowing of it?"
"You and Starscream can blow it out your exhausts! And that goes for your stupid plans too!" Barricade transformed and swung his door open violently. "Let's go, Frenzy."
"No," the little mech said resolutely.
"I don't have time for this sludge," Barricade muttered, and started to drive away, when Waspinator picked Frenzy up and dropped him down on Barricade's hood.
"Wwwwwe're not going anywhere."
"You want to stay with The Glitch, that's your problem. I'm leaving."
"Yyyyyou can't leave me. You promised Soundwave you'd pppppprotect me."
"Nightbird can do that now. You like her better anyway."
"Nnnnnightbird's different," Frenzy swung through Barricade's open driver's side window, extending the interface probe on one of his hands as he did so. Without giving his partner a chance to react, he stuck his probe into Barricade's interface port, disguised in car mode as the ignition slot.
"Frenzy! I'M GONNA KILL YOU!" Barricade shouted as his processors overloaded with data. Broken, fragmented images flashed in rapid succession before his optics:
Rumble, Frenzy's bronze-coloured, more robust twin, smashing his infamous pile drivers straight into an unfortunate Autobot's head ...
Ravage, the space-black felinoid, stalking something from the shadows, his single, blood-red optic staring out the darkness like a demon from the Pit …
Laserbeak and Buzzsaw, the twin avioids dive-bombing Autobots while the sonic booms of Seekers echoed through the skies …
Ratbat, another Pit-spawned demon, sinking his fangs into an Autobot's neck …
Feelings of pride and belonging accompanied the scenes – Frenzy's pride in his siblings, his sense of belonging, of acceptance in that group, something no force in the multiverse could take away from him.
Another scene appeared: Soundwave, the Symbiosis Master, calm and collected, as always, despite the chaos of the battle around him. A dark shape stood to his right, a quiet but deadly presence, waiting for his master's orders to strike. Barricade could not make out who the mech was …
No, it was not a mech. He should have known.
Nightbird is the only one my Creator ever took as a student who wasn't of his own Creation. Frenzy's voice through the interface was amazingly clear. Barricade watched as the scenes flickering before him focused on one showing a jet-black femme sparkling hugging a familiar metallic wasp to her, joy lighting up her optics as she excitedly thanked Soundwave for Creating a symbiote especially for her …
Still she is a sister to me.
The scene changed one last time. He saw two images of himself, from optics spread wide apart in their owner's shattered head, and shared Frenzy's sense of near-disbelief mixed with relief as he picked up the broken little mech, of pure joy that Barricade had come back for him …
You are my Protector.
Barricade blinked his optics. He could not remember transforming back to his main form; his head still spun with the data Frenzy had shared with him. He sat up and shook his head slowly, trying to clear his processors.
"Barribarribarricade?" The tiny Decepticon looked up at him with concern.
"I'm okay, just a little dizzy."
"Do yyyyyyou understand now?"
"… yeah. I think I do." He offered his arm, and Frenzy scurried up it to sit on his shoulder.
"Cccccome on. Nightbird's waiting."
Nightbird was sitting under the lee side of the rock once again. "Hey," Barricade offered as he sat down next to her. Frenzy shifted on his shoulder, curling up against his neck.
"Hey yourself," she continued to watch Scorponok and Waspinator either play or train, he was not sure which. Scorponok shot out of the sand directly below his hovering brother, then dove back in again, Waspinator soon choosing another spot to hover over.
"Look," Barricade broke the uncomfortable silence. "These last few orns have been the Pit …"
"I understand."
Barricade said nothing. They had an understanding; that was enough. No need to get all Autobot about it.
The two spent a few more breems watching the symbiotes. Finally Nightbird said what was on both their minds. "We're not friends. We barely know each other as comrades, but we're the only full-sized Decepticons left on this rock. Like it or not, we need to help each other."
"If it means killing a few Autobots instead of running from them, I'm in." Barricade grudgingly agreed. "Look, about Shockwave: You'd be sick of working for Starscream after a few thousand vorns too."
A fountain of sand from the symbiotes' latest round showered Nightbird's feet. "I'm sick of him already, but he is the better mech for the job. I know that you can see that too; you're not stupid. And I know why you're really working for the lens-headed freak."
"You read my reports?"
"I'm a spy! Of course I read them! I know what you want Shockwave to do for you in return for your 'loyal service'. What I don't understand is why you'd trust him for an astrosecond."
"What choice do I have? She's on Cybertron; he knows that much. Shockwave said he'd find her for me …" Barricade slammed his hand into the rock face in frustration, causing a spew of mumbled, half-Sparked swearing from Frenzy as the movement jolted him out of near-recharge. The interface must have taken more out of the little mech than Barricade had originally thought.
Nightbird gently took Frenzy off Barricade's shoulder and cradled him like a sparkling in her lap, one hand absently stroking the back of his head. "If Shockwave finds Flamewar, he'll do to her what he's probably planning to do with all femmes now that the Allspark has been destroyed. Shockwave always thought it was illogical to include femmes in the Decepticon ranks. There never were very many of us to begin with and most joined the Autobots when the war began."
Barricade raised an optic ridge at Nightbird's concern for Frenzy, but wisely decided against saying anything about that. Instead he asked, "Hasn't Prime's Bonded's forces been a huge pain in Shockwave's aft too?"
"Yes, they have, and despite his precious logic, that has something to do with his current opinion on femmes," she said bitterly.
Barricade nodded. "So you're saying that Shockwave wants to lock all femmes away somewhere and have you pumping out New Sparks like a factory? Sounds like somebody flunked basic mechanics. It doesn't work that way."
"Even if it did, we are Decepticons first, femmes second. Megatron always realized that. It would be an insult to his memory, to all that it means to be a Decepticon, to allow Shockwave to enslave us."
"You sound like Flamewar. She never puts up with any sludge either."
"If we did, we'd be Autobots."
Frenzy chose at that moment to let out what seemed to Barricade to be a pathetically cute yawn, before snuggling up closer against Nightbird's chassis.
"Yeah," Barricade tried not to groan at his partner's theatrics. Getting back to the subject at hand, he asked "but what if Shockwave has her already?"
"I doubt that. I only met Flamewar a few times, but those times were enough to illustrate her resourcefulness and intelligence. I'm sure I don't need to tell you that."
Nightbird was right. Flamewar could take care of herself; he knew that. Pit, it was one of the reasons he had fallen for her in the first place. Worrying about her would not help either of them, especially when he knew in his Spark that she was just fine. "How do you know Starscream won't pull the same stunt?" he asked instead.
"Don't worry about Starscream. I can …deal with him." She did not need to elaborate.
Getting away from that particular tangent, Barricade asked, "So won't Shockwave be suspicious if I just stop transmitting all of a sudden?"
"He won't be because you won't stop sending your reports. You'll just have to do some … creative editing, and, of course, report to us what you're telling him."
"In other words, I'll be a double agent. Primus only knows how you spies keep it all straight," Barricade complained, but he had to admit, the thought of fragging Shockwave over had a certain appeal to it. "So what did you want me to do with the bug?" he changed the subject, before he was dragged deeper into the murky depths of Decepticon politics.
"I was beginning to think you had forgotten about that." Being careful not to wake Frenzy, Nightbird pulled something out of her subspace pocket. "Here," she tossed Barricade a visor, a match to the one she wore.
"What do I do with this?"
"What do you think? Put it on!"
"Your visor isn't exactly my style," he complained, but placed the visor over his optics anyway. It was too big for him; she must have originally designed it for someone else, probably Blackout. It was easy enough to adjust the size. Once properly fitted, he saw that the right side of the screen showed a "picture in picture" view of somewhere outside his field of vision. Seeing Scorponok burst out of the sand in that field confirmed his suspicions. With this visor he could see Waspinator's point of view.
"How is it?" Nightbird had extended her own visor.
"It will take some getting used to," Barricade grumbled. "What do the bars at the bottom of Waspinator's screen mean?"
"Concentrate on one of them; you'll find out."
Barricade stared at a bar just to the left of the middle. Sure enough, Waspinator's side of the screen changed. Now, he could see a blurry outline of Scorponok while he was under the sand, with colours concentrated at the arachnoid's weapons systems and Spark. He changed the view to just right of the default middle setting. A desert flower in Waspinator's view that had been plain white before was now crisscrossed with colourful lines.
"Waspinator can see in infrared and ultraviolet wavelengths, as well as normal visual light," Barricade realized.
Nightbird confirmed his suspicions. "He can see in all electromagnetic wavelengths. X-rays, microwaves, radio frequencies, if it gives off or reflects any wavelength, Waspinator can see it."
Through his side of the visor, Barricade looked closer at Waspinator's head and noticed for the first time that what he thought were two oversized optics were actually two clusters of optics, made of hundreds of individual lenses. As he selected wavelengths, some of those optics turned off, and others turned on automatically. "How's this going to help me spy on the Autobots?" he asked.
"Think about it. How do you avoid attracting attention as a driverless car?"
"I use my holoavatar …" Barricade began. "Waspinator can see through holograms, can't he?"
Nightbird smiled. "Not only will you be able to easily track fellow driverless cars, even from a distance, but you'll be able to discover where the Autobots have hidden their base from the humans."
"Guess Waspinator's more useful than I thought."
"Remember, just spy on them for now. Find out what they've been doing, and more importantly, if they have any idea what we're doing. The longer they keep out of our business, the better."
"Yeah, I know. No smashing Autobot heads in just yet." Barricade agreed as he took off the visor. Apparently knowing what was going on, Waspinator buzzed over to Barricade and happily perched his shoulder.
"We'll meet back here in three orns. We'll figure out where to go from there then." Nightbird gently placed Frenzy down on the ground, next to the obediently waiting Scorponok. Frenzy seemed to awaken for about an astrosecond, then promptly flopped over, sprawled out on Scorponok's back.
"Good hunting," Barricade told Nightbird as he transformed. Waspinator flew through his back door and settled down on the seat.
"You too. Take care of Waspinator." Nightbird transformed as well, and Scorponok carried the sleeping Frenzy into her bomb bay.
Barricade watched the stealth fighter take off. Nightbird never did say just why she wanted to find their dead comrades. No matter. Barricade and Frenzy were not alone on this Primus-forsaken rock, the Decepticon cause had not died with Megatron, and with Nightbird's help, maybe, just maybe, he would see his Bonded again soon. He inwardly smiled at the thought of having Flamewar in his arms again after thousands of vorns apart. That was what was really important.
He listened to Waspinator softly buzz in his sleep as he drove back down the dirt road. At the very least, he would have a few orns of peace and quiet.