Part 2

Skydive awoke in his quarters. He climbed out of his restoration chamber excited about something.

"Computer what is today's date?" he asked.

"October 21st 2008" the computer replied

"Perfect." He said to himself.

He walked out of his quarters. He walked down the corridor and into the rec room. A place were Jazz like to refer was to just 'Chill.'

"Yo' Divers C'mere!" It was the suitably irritating voice of Slingshot.

"I wish he wouldn't call me that." Thought Skydive as he ambled over towards the small crowd, which slingshot was a member. Slingshot sat with Airraid, Powerglide, Sunstreaker, Sideswipe and Bluestreak, in a quite serious huddle, jets on one side and cars on the other. Skydive looked around the room. Blaster and Warpath were talking to one another, Shortstop and Windcharger were sitting at another table playing cards, Hoist and Grapple were also in the room.

"We were just discussing the merits of wings over wheels." Powerglide explained. "Care to join our side."

"Yeah, being a jet beats being a ground ridden slow poke any day, right Divers?" Slingshot said obnoxiously.

"You're just blowing out of your afterburners, Slingshot. Being a car is much better than being a jumped up paper dart like you." Sideswipe snapped angrily.

Skydive noticed Slingshot's fists clench, and braced himself; this was about to get ugly. He was familiar with this age-old discussion. It was usually just friendly rivalries, the Autobot equivalent of the "My Dad's stronger than your Dad" game, but today Slingshot seemed tense. Then a haughty voice piped up, clearing the tension and deflecting it toward a new victim.

"I believe it to be better to have the best of both worlds." It was unmistakably Tracks. As usual, Tracks was sitting alone at one of the tables, with a data pad in one hand and a steaming cup of oil in the other.

"Who asked you, Tracks?" spat Sunstreaker, saying Tracks' name with such venom it seemed more like an insult than a name.

"I was just saying that I get the best of both worlds, the freedom of a jet combined with the stylish lines and sheer finesse of my vehicular mode," Tracks had put down his cup and pad and swivelled his chair to face Sunstreaker.

"Finesse? Pfft! Please, a Corvette with finesse?" snickered Sunstreaker mockingly.

The tension was palpable. The formally gung-ho bunch of jets and cars had backed off now, watching with morbid interest as the two Autobot warriors entered their confrontation. Warpath and Blaster had ceased fire, but Windcharger and Shortstop, who could usually only be roused from their regular hexagonal card game by a full scale Decepticon attack, hadn't taken heed of the situation. Skydive had seen the two overly vain Autobots get bitchy before, but this time it looked like the gloves were off.

"Oh, my vehicle form is far more stylish than your bumpy yellow rolling mid-life crisis, you over strung jumped up canary go-cart!"

"I am not canary yellow, you bad sci-fi movie reject! Come over here and I'll rip off your ridiculous wings! Red go-faster stripes? Oh please!"

Tracks leapt up from his chair with a fearsome roar and into a full on fly kick aimed at Sunstreaker's head. Sunstreaker ducked, and as Tracks sailed over his head he struck back with an uppercut, sending Tracks crashing to the ground with a terrible clang. Tracks got up and stared in horror at the brand new Sunstreaker's fist shaped dent in his chest hull. He bombed forward and retaliated with a dragon kick to Sunstreaker's own torso, followed by two swift lighting punches. Tracks had been watching cheesy martial art films with Rahul, and had picked up a few moves. Slingshot sat back in his chair smiling.

While the fight was going on Windcharger and Shortstop was still playing their card game.

"I've got ten on Sunstreaker." Windcharger said without looking up.

"Easy money. You're on." Shortstop replied also without looking up.

Arcee and Firestar were disgusted with the fight and they left the room.

"Men." Arcee said walking out the door.

The cheers from the crowd drowned out Skydive's utterances into his communicator as Tracks bitch-slapped Sunstreaker to the ground. Sunstreaker transformed as Tracks went to put the boot in, speeding quickly behind his opponent and transforming back to robot mode, landing a powerful blow to the left side of Tracks' head with his emerging forearm, buckling Tracks' face plate and bending his missile launcher inwards, much to Sideswipe's whooping delight. Tracks reached for his face in pain, as he did his left wing grated down Sunstreaker's victorious figure, removing a large strip of paint. Practically the entire audience gasped as Sunstreaker's optics narrowed.

They all knew that Sunstreaker was going to go nuts now that his paint job was ruined. Windcharger and Shortstop still hadn't looked up from their card game. Sunstreaker lowered he arms and his grin faded. He got so infuriated, he tackled Tracks and broke a table in the process. The table happened to be the table where Windcharger and Shortstop were playing their card game. They still hadn't looked up.

"Got any twos?" Shortstop asked.

"Go Fish." Windcharger replied.

Without looking away from his hand, Shortstop reached down and picked up a card off the floor.

Sunstreaker took a step towards the cowering Tracks, when a large, booming voice filled the Rec Room like a nuclear powered sonic boom.

"Stop this NOW!"

In the Rec-Room entry hatch stood the imposing figure of Optimus Prime, his face as angry as Jupiter thunder, backed up by a bemused looking Ironhide.

"Man, o'man, Ratchet's gonna have a field day with you two," quipped Ironhide. Prime shot him a look at him that could down a Decepticon jet at 4000 yards, causing the playful Ironhide to back off a step, holding his hands up in mock surrender.

"We are in deep slag now." Sideswipe whispered to Bluestreak.