(Disclaimer: Egregious usage of the word "fuck" ahead. Hide your children.)

Collision XXIII

Enlightenment

By: The Feesh

"…Bullshit."

Speedtrap opened is arms, gigantic clawed hands spreading. "I swear!"

Mike shook his head. "Nuh. No way, no how."

The scene, to anyone looking on from a distance, must have been comical. Mike Romano had relented at least partially and opted to find out more about the supposed alien from Detroit, following the goose blue Charger out to the edge of town. Romano couldn't deny the bolt of fear that ebbed like a tide into a gut churning nervousness when the Dodge – whose name was Speedtrap, as Mike later found out – stood up at his full height. Speedtrap was seventeen feet tall and, by his own admission, weighed in at an impressive nine-thousand pounds.

"Dere's no way. That six liter under ya hood ain't ever movin' no three fuckin' tons. No way."

The blue, black and gunmetal gray mech swept his hands out plaintively – Mike noted that his left hand was much larger and heavier than his right one. "Dude, I swear to yeh on th' Red Wings good fortune. My engine looks like d' normal one but it ain't. I promise you Barricade's ain't the usual four-point-six liter you gonna find inna Extreme neither."

"I been in his engine bay, man," rumbled Mike disapprovingly. "It was pretty legit."

"It looked legit, man, I'm tellin' ya."

Mike stared at Speedtrap. Speedtrap stared at Mike.

"Okay, dat ain't fair. Ya ain't got any eyelids."

The Goose flashed a grin; the gesture itself was as grotesque was it was sincere. The greasemonkey fought not to recoil at the grim display of razor sharp teeth. "Nup. C'n stare atcheh all day long and not miss nuttin'."

The New Yorker crossed his arms, sitting on a downed pine tree with nothing to light his way other than the small, sort of sad little campfire they had managed to light after clearing a spot in the snow. Mike was even less outdoorsy than Speedtrap seemed to be – the wilds were not their friend, and it had taken them a fair hour to get the pitiful pile of semi-dry wood to light. Speedtrap crouched across the small clearing, alien features thrown into stark contrast by the flickering of the fire. Romano allowed the silence to fall on the clearing like a blanket after the Goose's last statement, thinking. The similarities between his unpleasant black friend and this new bright blue mech were not lost on the high strung but still remarkably sharp mechanic; Speedtrap's entire head was structured similarly to Barricade, they both had talons instead of fingers and both of their primary features were sharp and fearsome in comparable ways. The Charger was taller and built heavier, like a tank on legs and about as smart. Romano didn't buy the stupid act hook, line and sinker. He left his assumptions open on the creature's supposed intelligence; perhaps Speedtrap was dumb as a brick, perhaps not. The human didn't think he was as stupid as he tried to seem.

Then again, after listening to Barricade speak on nearly any subject, terrible voice aside, Michael had issues imagining any of these creatures as less than genius-level.

The human drew his coat around him a little tighter, listening to the utter silence that surrounded them. The crackle of the pitiful little fire provided the only background noise in the otherwise dead seeming Santa Fe forest.

"So," Mike began once more, and Speedtrap looked his way. "Yer onna the Autobots. Yeah?"

The mech bobbed his homely head. "Yep."

"And you…think ya doin' me a favor by wantin' ta take me back ta N'york."

"Yeah. S'what I'm tellin' yeh. I been toe t' toe with 'im more 'n once and it's been my thick skin a time 'r two that got me outta hot water with 'im." Speedtrap exhaled through the various external vents in his body, sounding curiously similar to a sigh. "I don't spose he's chatted much on d' war."

Mike shook his head and scowled. "Dere were two sides, he's one side and you're d'other. That's all I know."

"Yeah, I thought as much," replied the Goose. "We're here chasin' somethin' that was important ta us. It was a relic that creates life out of machines, inna nutshell. He's on d' side that wanted to get the relic and use it ta make a new army outta Earth's machines, and snuff out everything livin' in tha process."

Mike's pokerface was superb. "Uh huh," he said after a moment. Speedtrap had to admire the fleshling's level-headedness. The question brought forward next was one worthy of contemplation. "So, if he's here ta murder n' pillage n' all that good shit, why's he still here? Why'd he save my ass when I got shot back home?"

"That's…what Prime kinda wants ta know." The Charger studied the scuffed claws of his larger left hand. "We dunno why you're still around. 'Cade's a killer, an' I mean a stone cold one. Ain't shown much of a regard for life in what we've seen of him thus far. He's breakin' his patterns, goin' outside his norm and that's got us mighty worried. When a mech like Barricade goes on a wildly unpredictable path, there's always a dozen possible places that path might take him and everyone around him. Problem is, we never know which way he's going to go."

Mike grunted. "He went south-fuckin'-west from N'york to N'Mexico."

"I ain't talkin' direction, dipshit. He's got somethin' up his gorram sleeve and we wanna know what it is."

"Look, as far as I can tell – gorram? Really, Captain Mal? – far as I can tell, he's just running fuck all over hell's half acre from YOU people. Thinks yer gonna fuckin' off 'im. What I seen so far doesn't tell me that ain't true. Is it?" Romano dug his pack of cigarettes out of his pocket and lit one.

Speedtrap shrugged, rustling something nondescript for a metallic rattling sound that struck the air with startling clarity in comparison to the woodsy silence. "Man, I couldn' tell ya what d' Prime wants. I'mma grunt. I don't get clued inta datshit."

"Okay," Mike held up a hand. "Who dis 'Prime' dude you keep talkin' 'bout? Ya make 'im sound like God."

"Uhh, not exactly. But close, I guess," reasoned the blue Goose. "D'Prime is our kind's one true leader, or he's supposed ta be. Before Optimus Prime ascended our kind was led by Sentinel Prime, and only him. I remember when I wazza kid, hearin' about Optimus's ascension – it wazza big fuckin' deal because the old guy, Sentinel, had been Prime for for-fuckin'-ever and there were new policies comin' inta play when Optimus took over. They tried sommat new and split up the governing parties and created a military leader called the Lord Protector. Extremely long story short, the Lord Protector – Barricade's boss – created one mother of a civil war which took us d'fuck out as a species and now Optimus Prime only leads half of us. D' Autobots. D'other ones're called Decepticons an' … I don't even know who d'fuck leads them now. Starscream, I figger."

"Huh," said the mechanic again. "Gotcha. I think."

"Yeah, it was a huge cluster. The Lord Protector, Megatron, basically stood up one day and went 'fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, you're cool, fuck you, I'm out' and took over."

Romano had to laugh at that description. Then again it made him think of some super scary Decepticon leader dressed in a tiara and a tutu for some reason. Pink ruffles and warfare were so fashionable. "A'ight. And what are YOU fightin' fer?"

"Me as in personally or me as in those I fight with?"

"Yes."

Speedtrap considered that. "We as the Autobots fight for freedom and peace. I fight because it's d' right thing ta do. Can't let Megatron conquer the universe n' shit, can we?"

"And that's what Barricade wants to do. Help him conquer d' universe?" asked Mike tentatively. He wasn't sure he wanted to know the answer.

"Last we checked, man, his motives ain't changed a bit."

"What if they have?"

Speedtrap could not help the sharp guffaw that escaped his vocalizer. "Ya, uh huh. And I'm d' Queen of England."

Mike scowled, brow furrowing as he flicked the butt of his cigarette into the snow. "Ya think people can't change, man?"

"I'mma firm believer that people can change, pit, lookit me." The Goose pounded his left fist against his own chassis. "I was built by the same psychopath that built yer pug fugly buddy. He's m'brother. I chose ta be somethin' different."

"Mary mother a' God," Romano moaned, rubbing his temple. "I'm stuck inna eternal episode a' alien robot Family Feud. Dere's fuckin' two a' ya."

Speedtrap turned that terrible razor sharp grin on the human once more. "Buddy, there's a lot of us. Mebbe not many of us still alive, but I did say d'guy who built us was a psychopath."

Mike stared at the seventeen foot monstrosity with a certain dubious air to him. He had to admit that the goose blue interceptor was far easier to hang out with than the grumbly, snarly Saleen he had gotten used to but something just smelled off. In the very same breath, it felt genuine and true. Romano tended to be at least halfway decent at reading people but if any word Speedtrap spoke turned out to be true than his people reading skills fucked him hard in this case. Barricade was a supposed sociopathic serial killer war machine and the ones he had been running from were trying to protect the mechanic and all the rest of Earth by …

By destroying people like Barricade.

"Still, Halcyon days of peace," Mike murmured to himself. Speedtrap tilted his head.

"Bwuh?" In truth, the Goose had heard precisely what he said, but there was no harm in letting the fleshling pretend he had some privacy.

The described human looked up, brushing his scraggy brown hair out of his face. "It's written on the seals on Barricade's doors in Latin. I hadda send it in to a university professor I used ta know so he could ask the Latin professor there what it meant. Mebbe not alla 'dem want what dat Lord Protector wanted."

Speedtrap sighed. "Pay attention ta his rear quarter panels and what's written on 'em."

Romano thought about it, brow furrowing as it dawned on him. " … 'ta punish 'n enslave.'" He hadn't ever thought about it. "He's got a message of tyranny fuckin' written on one end and a message a' peace written on d' other."

The Goose nodded. "Y'see? Izzall psychological warfare, man," purred Speedtrap gently, as if he sympathized with the sudden quandary Michael Romano suddenly found himself in. "It's what 'e does."

Mike was severely frustrated. "I dunno what the fuck t'think. He still saved my ass. Got me out of real hot water, yannow? I wouldn't be here if it wasn't fer 'im."

"An' he repaid yeh by kidnappin' yeh and draggin' yeh all the way 'cross th' country."

"'E needs somethin' from me. Repairs, mebbe."

"I doubt it, man. He's got a supercharged repair system dat's way more advanced than most a' us have."

"Yeah well d'last time I saw him he was so bad off he was walkin' inta trees."

Speedtrap arched an ugly brow, all four optics brightening. "Yeh sure it wasn't a lie?"

Mike threw his hands into the air and stood up. "No, I don't know if it was a fuckin' lie or not! A'ight? All I know is I fuckin' owe the guy, yannow what I'm sayin'? That's the reason I'm even here in d' first fuckin' place. Jesus. I dunno what he wants or where e's headed from here but don'tcha think a serial killer woulda killed me by now if dat was what he wanted? Christ. I dunno. I'll think about it, a'ight? Gimme a couple days and I'll track you down in town someplace and let you know."

It took Speedtrap several seconds to figure out that the fleshbag was referring to his offer: to take Mike home and keep an eye on him. "Yeah, man. I'll stick around."

Romano stuffed his hands in his coat pockets and walked around the blue mech, finding the Caliber had parked some short ways off of the road (the little hatchback held its own pretty well going off the pavement) and headed home.

Speedtrap looked over the arch of one massive shoulder, watching the fleshy until the headlights vanished in the slowly falling snow and the lingering sound of the Dodge Caliber's engine could no longer be heard. Left in the entombing silence of the forest in winter, he leaned forward and dug the colossal, heavy armored talons of his left hand deep into the frozen soil and heaped it onto the small fire, snuffing it completely with hardly a trace.

That man was up to his eyeballs in whatever game Barricade was playing and Speedtrap prayed for Mike's sake that he woke the fuck up, pronto.

And the plot thickens.

To reiterate, Speedtrap belongs to Samma, steal him and I will murder your whole family infront of you. Also, apparently it needs saying more than once, Speedtrap is NOT PROWL or anyone else. He is Speedtrap, an OC.

Cheers.