Oh my Lord in Heaven! Fanfiction . net has serious issues! I got this done in the afternoon and I couldn't post it because I couldn't sign it! It kept saying the connection was timed out. *Lets out a big sigh* That was ridiculous! All day with no fanfiction. *Sniff!*

*starts talking to herself* But hey, it's up, it's up, just keep cool. Let go. *Big calming breath* Ahem, right then, so thank you to my reviewers littledhampir13, annebellelennox, and Vivian Hale (Jazz's orders, ya gotta be last this time. Can't go against the Jazz-man now can I? ;3) Your reviews just made my day! Hugs and platonic kisses! XP

Much luv goes out to everybody out there. Hope you enjoy the 'con torturing to come. He he he...

...

Attack of the Valentines!

(aka: Valentine's Revenge)

~^..^~

Why Decepticons Do Not Get Valentines

~^..^~

The two Decepticons Dead End and Swindle were not strictly a part of Megatron's brightest and best. Or his good and his great. They weren't even a part of his okay and alright. They were just sort of there, usually either running patrols or causing havoc (on base and off). Sometimes it was both.

Now was about to become one of those times.

They had tried to tell the others that they never caused havoc intentionally. Havoc found them. And on a pretty regular basis too. But of course no one believed them. At that point they usually started blaming the other for all their problems, which usually led to a brawl, which in turn usually led to them sharing brig space, which, to cut the story short, never ended well for anyone involved.

At that moment they weren't on base (which everyone else was incredibly thankful for). Instead they were making their through the burnt out remains of one city or another. They didn't know which one because they had never bothered learning its name. Both moons were up, shedding a harsh light on the broken scene around them that made the shadows appear even darker and inkier then they really were. It was quiet all around them, just like one would expect from this late in the lunar cycle.

Dead End hated quiet.

"Hey Swindle," Dead End hollered as quietly as he was capable of at the starkly shadowed figure ahead of him, "what the Pit are we doin' this for again?"

"Because dumb aft," Swindle muttered back in his usual sour way, "we were ordered too. Do we need a better reason?"

Dead End looked around again at the ruined bones of what had once been a small city set out in the middle of nowhere and thought that the only thing that hadn't changed was that vorns later this place was still smack dab in the middle of nowhere.

"But just look at this place," Dead End spoke up again a few cycles later, "it's gutted. No one's been hear in stellar cycles. Let's go back. Find some place to park it until we've got to report in. We'll get just as much done as we would patrolling this empty shell but without all the hassle. What'dya say?"

Dead End sensed as much as heard Swindle's intake of air as he tried to retain his feeble grip on his patience. Swindle hated Dead End, plain and simple, although Dead End had never found out why. Not that it mattered. Swindle wasn't exactly all that likable himself.

"I say you can do what you want, as long as you leave me out of it when you get caught. Just what do you think Megatron will do to you if he catches you recharging somewhere when you're supposed to be making sure that none of those slaggin' Autobots are around here somewhere?" He threw the question out behind him.

It was impossible for Dead End to hunch his shoulders as he followed Swindle in his alt mode, so he settled for falling back even farther to sulk. "Oh come one," he exclaimed, plodding after Swindle, "they're not here. No one's here! We might as well be on the fraggin' moon!"

"At least it's quiet on the moon…" Swindle muttered darkly.

Dead End sunk deeper into his sulk, looking over to glare at Swindle every once in a while as they rolled through the decimated town.

They rolled down another few streets in silence, Swindle watching keenly for any signs of their enemy with Dead End throwing a few disinterested glances at his surroundings when he felt like it. The second mech had just decided to ask Swindle if his creator knew the kind of Pit spawned glitch he'd turned into – just to get a rise out of him – when Swindle just stopped in the street ahead of him.

Dead End nearly reared ended Swindle before he realized what was going on. "Fraggit!" Watch what yer doin'!" Dead End yelled at him.

"Mute it!" Swindle hissed. Dead End did, but under serious internal protest.

"Ya hear that?" Swindle finally whispered.

"No," Dead End answered sullenly, but then he actually stopped to listen. He could hear something, now that Swindle mentioned it. He had noticed it for a while now, but he had thought it was just the wind whispering through the crags and crannies of this haunted place.

Dead End's alt mode tilted slightly as he tried to listen better to whatever-it-was that was making the noise. It sounded almost like a whipping or a rattling sound, but softer, like a banner snapping in the wind.

"What is it?" Dead End asked quietly.

"I don't know."

"You think it's the Autobots?"

"I said I don't know!" Swindle hissed at his partner.

They sat there, silent and still, a cycle more.

"Let's go check it out." Dead End finally whispered.

Swindle gave a grunt of an affirmative before rolling in the direction of the soft noise. They had passed a handful of half toppled buildings when Swindle silently gestured Dead End to circle around the noise while Swindle kept going. Dead End gave him confirmation he understood before leaving Swindle to set up the ambush.

The noise grew louder as Dead End approached what had used to be a town square. The buildings around the center square were blackened, but somehow still standing for the most part, keeping the Decepticon out of the line of sight of whatever was waiting for him on the other side of the ring of buildings. He stopped when he reached the far side of the square, and hunkered down behind one of the sturdier looking structures. Carefully, he leaned around just far enough to catch a glimpse of the square, but he didn't see anything that looked like Autobots. Just a strange flickering thing.

He sent a pulse wave to Swindle when he was in position, but the other Decepticon didn't answer right away. Dead End was just beginning to wonder if something had happened to the other mech when Swindle's confused voice appeared over his comm.

"Is that…paper?"

Taking Swindle's question as a sign that he could talk again, Dead End answered, "I dunno."

Dead End caught sight of movement beyond the square, but relaxed when he realized it was just Swindle as he transformed into his bipedal mode and moved in for a closer look. "It is!" He exclaimed crossly a moment later. "It's fraggin' paper!"

"How archaic," Dead End said as he left his hiding spot and entered the deserted square as well. There was a crumbled up fountain in the middle of the open space. Swindle was standing in front of it, staring at the mass of brightly colored papers that had been tacked onto its surface except for a large gap in the dead center. As Dead End transformed out of his alt mode, he saw that the flapping sounds were coming from them as they rustled in the slight wind.

"What the heck is it?" Dead End asked as he bent down to peer at what the papers had written on them.

"How am I supposed to know?" Swindle exploded, throwing his arms up as he whirled on his partner. "It's a bunch of slaggin' paper!"

"But why?" Dead End asked, unfazed by Swindle's mood swing.

It was a decent question, but neither of them had an answer.

"Hey, what's this say?" Dead End asked a cycle later as he stood up and inspected the center of the fountain where whoever had done this had left a blank space, free of the mysterious red and white papers.

"I don't care," Swindle grumbled as he walked away to inspect the perimeter of the square, "if it's not an Autobot, then I don't fraggin' care!"

Dead End ignored him and squinted at the muddled up writing someone had scratched into the broken up fountain. "'Vvvvaaiahdaie is here'?" He hazarded a guess.

"What?" Swindle demanded, turning back to look at the other mech.

"Vuhdae?" Dead End tried again, stumbling out the unfamiliar word. "'Vuhdae is here.' That's what it says." He shrugged.

"What?" Swindle barked again in exasperation as he came over and shoved the mech he was currently stuck with. "Stupid, that's not a word."

"But that's what it says." Dead End defended himself. "See?" He pointed at the flat surface in front of them.

The other leaned in close. "Stupid," Swindle said again when he leaned back and smacked the first again. "It doesn't say vuhdae. It says Veeday. Tch, idiot."

"Well fine then," Dead End snapped, "then who is Veeday and why was he here?" He demanded petulantly.

The other rolled his optics again. "It doesn't say he was here. It says he is here, stupid."

The implication of this hit them both a nanoklik later.

The Decepticons whirled, weapons appearing as they got back to back so no one could sneak up on them.

"Where d'ya think the slagger is?" Dead End asked as he wildly searched their surroundings for any sign of an ambush.

"I don't know," Swindle said angrily as he searched the roofs for any sign of movement

"We know you're there Veeday!" Swindle shouted a klik later when nothing happened.

"Yeah!" Dead End copied him. "So come on out and fight like a mech you Pit-spawned coward!" He hollered.

Nothing moved, nobody appeared. The only sound was the rustling of the papers stuck to the fountain.

"Frag it all GET OUT HERE!" Swindle yelled.

Dead End didn't know what happened next, only that suddenly there was a strong gust of wind, the sharp sound of a thousand things ripping, and then he was surrounded by a menacing cloud of pink and white that obscured his optics and made it impossible to see.

"AHH!" He started yelling, panicking blindly as he flailed to get the cloud off of him. "GET 'EM OFF! GET 'EM OFF ME!" He screamed as he started shooting into the cloud. Dimly he heard the sound of Swindle shouting and cursing somewhere behind him, but Dead End wasn't really paying attention to him.

"Watch where you're shooting you idiot!"

"GET ME OUTTA HERE!"

~^..^~

Up above them, from behind the safety of a cluster of rubble that sat on one of the rooftops, a different set of troublemakers watched the two panicking Decepticons as they tried to find their way out of the mess of Valentines that were flying around them like a flock of angry birds.

"I told you that glue wasn't strong enough for this wind." Sideswipe casually told his brother next to him.

Sunstreaker grunted in a, "yeah, yeah, I heard you," kind of way. They watched the Decepticons fire at the shreds of flying paper some more. One of them started to scream pathetically.

"Ten credits says one of them shoots the other in the foot." Sunstreaker whispered to Sideswipe crouching next to him.

The silver twin held out a hand to seal the bet. "You're on."

~^..^~

By the time dawn broke the next orbit, Dead End and Swindle found themselves standing before Megatron himself to report on what had happened.

"So tell me again," the big mech asked slowly, his red optics never leaving the frozen forms of Swindle and Dead End, "how many were there?"

It took Dead End a moment to find his voice, he was so petrified. "T-too many, my lord. They just appeared out of nowhere."

Megatron slowly nodded. "Uh-huh, and during the melee, one of them shot your comrade here, correct?" He asked, waving a hand at Swindle.

Dead End shrank back slightly from the baleful glare Swindle shot at him. He had limped in here, too proud to go straight to the med bay to have his injury seen to. His foot was still smoking too.

"Yes," Dead End said simply, managing to keep his voice steady this time.

"And does this all sound familiar to you Swindle?" Megatron asked, his level gaze flicking over to the surly mech.

Swindle hesitated only a nanoklik before standing up straighter. "Yes, Lord Megatron." He answered stiffly.

Megatron looked over at his second standing next to him. Starscream's maliciously gleeful smile did nothing to make Dead End feel better.

"So let me see if I have this straight," Megatron said as he pushed himself off of his throne-like chair. "You were patrolling the area west of the Sonic Canyon, like you were supposed to-"

"Yes, Lord Megatron," Swindle and Dead End said when it was clear he was waiting for their confirmation.

"-when you were ambushed by the Autobots, a whole squad of them even-"

Dead End nodded slightly, "Yes."

"-they shot Swindle-"

"Yes."

"-but not you-"

Dead End answered somewhat hesitantly now, wondering where this was all going. "Yes…"

"-and then the two of you managed to escape and make it back to base in one piece," he looked over at the still smoking Swindle, "relatively."

Dead End nodded firmly. Swindle remained silent. "Yes sir."

"So it all happened just like you said then?" He asked, taking a calculated step forward.

Dead End swiftly glanced away before looking back at his leader. "Yes." He didn't sound as sure as he should.

Megatron grinned slightly, an action that did not comfort either Dead End or Swindle. The Decepticon leader took another careful step forward. He was right in front of them now. Dead End went even stiller then his name might imply as the Decepticon lord stared him down, red optics pinning him in place. It was all the mech could do not to shake into a pile of parts right there as Megatron grinned at them outright, as if he could smell their lie.

"So tell me then, if it all happened exactly as you say," he said, reaching out with exaggerated care to pull something off of Dead End's armor, "then what is this?"

Dead End locked optics on the scrap of pink paper that had gotten stuck to him. An uncomfortable sinking sensation started to drag him down.

"Uh…" was all he could think to say.

Ahahaha! That's what they get for being evil! *laughs manically* Uh...small admission here, I've only seen snapshots of Dead End and Swindle, and it seemed to me like they were evil versions of Sideswipe and Sunstreaker, but it I was wrong well, uh, oops...

Next up, Ratchet, Wheeljack, Moonracer, and Bluestreak join in on the fun!