Since not everyone has an engineering, physics, chemistry, or electrical background, "continuity" in the context used below mean electrical flow. Its a way of checking if there's an open electrical connection between two points.
Since I wasn't up for the usual fun and games I used to blow off steam I headed to one of the local lakes I occasionally visit instead. By "lake" I mean one of the glorified puddles surrounded by sparse woods, and by "local" I mean a remote location that I can get to in a handful of breems while doing 170 mph on back roads. No 'bot on some soulful walk or whatever would stumble across me – Primus knows we have enough of those.
Normally I'm not one to wallow but the rift Sunstreaker and I had with Red seemed too deep to repair and after my latest fumble, my frustration with the solution finally outgrew my ability to just shake it off. No one tried to make it deep, it just somehow became deep enough and wide enough that by the time my twin and I saw it, we weren't sure how to cross it. In only a few orns Red had changed more than anyone expected and it's what broke our team. Well, maybe. I don't really know anymore how our "Lamborghini trine" stopped being a trine. Perhaps the first snap in the trine was caused by Sunstreaker and me being so incredibly different than Red. All I know is that the last snap occurred on Earth when Red became overwhelmed by being stuck and outnumbered on an alien planet while Sunny and I tried out our new tricks.
Speaking of Sunstreaker, I heard a faint crack from behind, accompanied by angry muttering about scratches and I knew instantly who had followed me. I could've poked at the bond to see what he was doing here, but I rarely initiate any conversation over the bond if Soundwave, Prowl, or some other obstacle with audios isn't nearby. The problem with letting Sunstreaker into my head enough to hold a conversation is that I get more than just his words. Sometimes I get the rage that comes from the scars the war has given him. I have enough problems suppressing my own scars; I don't need to add suppressing his scars to the pile.
Sunstreaker appeared around the corner of my vision and looked at me. I ignored him and sat down on a sturdy looking log. The log caved in some but it didn't give away. "You better not sit your sunny-side aft on this."
"Pit no. I don't want ants up my tailpipe. They're all yours," he retorted. I merely grunted and looked away towards the lake since I wasn't really interested in talking.
A couple of breems went by before Sunstreaker commented on the situation in his usual manner. "I can't believe you got dumped by Red, especially before your first date."
"Shut up!" I tore off a piece of the log's rotten roots and threw it at his chassis. He twisted his torso enough for it to fly by without as much as rubbing dirt on him. "You know Red Alert. As the humans say, 'shit happens,' and that's only too true with Red. Even Spike's laser pen set him off once. What was I to expect when I used my pile drivers on a rock heap holding one of his precious toys his ties his sanity to?" I didn't even bother to hide the frustration and anger in my voice.
Sunstreaker didn't say anything at first. Finally, I turned to look at him and I could see the thoughtful look on his face. "What?" I blurted out after almost a full breem of silence.
"Nothing… well, it's just what you said about his sanity is tied to objects. Plenty of the mechs here don't consider me completely sane – Pit, they've been describing me as a sociopath pretty much the entire time we've been a part of the Autobot army. I bet none of them would believe I was anything different before the war."
"No, they probably wouldn't," I mused, curious where Sunstreaker was going with this train of thought.
"Do you remember when we had everything we needed back in Kaon, before the war? We didn't have much when you compare us to Mirage but neither of us needed much. Then the orn came when Kaon fell to Megatron and we were left with nothing," Sunstreaker growled, recalling our time as captives of what was once our home. "We changed a lot then, didn't we? Even before our treatment in Kaon became 'health hazardous,'" Sunstreaker darkly asked, quoting Iacon's advisory to all neutrals and Autobots to stay out of Kaon because of the "health hazards" that Megatron's presence was imposing. To be fair, Iacon's intelligence sucked back then and Megatron hadn't shown his true character quite yet.
"Yeah, I remember those times, when we were stuck in hiding with our friends."
"You remember what our friends were starting to say about me?" Sunstreaker looked very seriously at me.
"Oh, yeah…" I remembered the old memories easily enough. "You were becoming irrational from your anger and they would comment about how one would think your sanity was left in our destroyed home."
"Yeah," Sunstreaker's face twitched just slightly. "Remember how Red was one of the few Autobots there for the Kaon survivors? He wasn't nearly as bad back then because his paranoia wasn't anything like it is now. Maybe what his problem now is kinda like our problem back then, only instead of losing everything he values in an instant, he's been losing it piece by piece over the vorns. Red's losing ground with his demons and he's has less support now than we ever did back then."
"Oh." I pondered over the prospect Sunstreaker was suggesting. "When did you get so insightful?"
"When you made it too easy to eavesdrop in your conversations with him. You'd be amazed by what you can catch when you're the observing party in someone else's conversation."
"Haha." Sunstreaker can't pass a jab if it keeps him from looking too nice. I could just as easily eavesdrop in his conversations but I didn't. My brother's mind was too twisted of a place to hang out for fun. What Cliffjumper and the others thought of him was wrong but it wasn't exactly inaccurate either. If they only knew the demons Sunstreaker kept at bay outside of battle, they'd be a lot less vocal of their opinions of him. In a way, it was the same thing with Red but with a little less spilled energon and a little more fried nerves.
"Well, there's no way to fix what's broken out here on a dead log." I announced as I pushed myself up. An unusual, almost mechanical, creak came from the log as I stood up. I looked at Sunstreaker and saw his equally surprised expression before it was quickly replaced by a grime look. He pushed me to the side and ripped off the upward-facing side of the log to reveal one of Soundwave's listening devices.
"Frag!" We both cursed in unison. Sunstreaker punched the device so it couldn't be used against us anymore.
/What now?/ I asked him, not giving the Decepticons another to chance to listen in on us. Soundwave enjoyed a certain amount of redundancy in his work.
The answer I sought came from the skies in the form of roaring jet engines. Nevertheless, Sunstreaker gave me his answer. /Hopefully you're still irritated enough that you'll take it out on a Decepticon or two./
I snickered just as three multi-colored jets roared by before turning upward to double back. The Seeker trine transformed and stopped just above the tree line. Good thing I have my jetpack – er, frag. I left that with Red after he kept panicking about the idea of me up high on a volcano with a jetpack, surrounded by his buried treasures. 'Primus, you really are a stupid glitch!' I cursed my decision to go along with his demand rather than listen to his constant wild rants. Why does instant gratification always seem to hurt later down the line?
Meanwhile, Starscream sneered at us while Skywarp grinned deviously and Thundercracker had a half smile plastered on his face. The red-painted buffoon gloated, "Looks like Soundwave's idea of surrounding the outside of the Autobots' security perimeter with listening devices worked. What a pity – there's a certain level of annoyance I get when I drag an Autobot carcass back to Megatron and it just proves Soundwave right."
Sunstreaker and I looked at each other while keeping the trine in the corner of our optics. For all of Starscream's boasts of his intelligence and grandeur, he never caught on that we knew this small gesture of indifference infuriated him. "Did you hear 'blah blah blah I suck compared to Soundwave blah blah blah?'"
"Well that and the part about him returning to Megatron like an obedient pet." Sunstreaker said in his usual smug voice.
Suddenly the Seeker snarled and shouted, "Decepticons, attack!" as he dove towards me. Caught by surprise, I barely twisted fast enough to move out of his path, save for his left wing. His left wing clipped me but I ignored the pain as I reached for his nullray to pull his arm backwards. Immediately Starscream flew upward to shake me off but my arm was caught by his wing and gun. My shoulder and elbow servos strained from supporting all of my weight so I wrapped myself around his wing and locked my arm on his nullray. Either I'd damage his wing or he'll find away to pull out, allowing me to rip off his gun so I can shoot him with his own gun. Either choice is a win-win for me, even with the inevitable fall.
"Oomfh!" Pain erupted from my mid-back from being struck from behind. My unseen assailant grabbed me and began twisting my torso away from Starscream. Turning my attacker's move against Starscream, I let my body swing off his side while tightening my grip.
The unexpected weight shift threw Starscream off and he shouted insults as Skywarp spoke, "Stupid Autodumb. Do you really think you can attack two Decepticons in the air while you're out numbered and without even basic flight capabilities?" He chuckled evilly and moved in to rip my hand off of Starscream's wing by my wrist.
"I'm stupid? Who's forgetting his basic physics?" I swung my lower body upwards and using my momentum I delivered a hard kick to Skywarp's face. Even better, I heard Starscream's servos in his captured arm tear. Now off-centered and damaged, Starscream and I spiraled downward as both of us fought to gain control. I wonder why he's not pulling up…
CRUNCH!
Slamming head first into a sturdy tree and hip first into an even sturdier root, my vision exploded at the same time my hand on Starscream's nullray became pinched between him and the tree. Starscream must have noticed because the pain in my hand rapidly increased and I realized he was grinding it into the tree with his nullray. Within seconds my smallest digit was ripped clean off.
"Ack! Stop using nature to fight for you, you weak bitch!" I started blindly punching in the direction I could hear his cackling with my uninjured hand.
"Argh!" Starscream furiously hissed as my hand smashed into metal. Instantly the pain he caused subsided and the pain from the landing came rushing back once I was no longer distracted by the Seeker. My right hip strut had been jarred but it was somewhat usable despite the horrible pinch it caused every time it moved.
My vision cleared somewhat and I finally got a look at him. I was hoping to see some damage from my punch – and there was, but it was mostly cosmetic. Skywarp materialized next to him and sneered at me before looking at Starscream.
"What did he call you? A 'bitch?' Why the Pit is that?" Skywarp said, twisting his face as if the word was too strange of a taste. I guess he's never bothered paying attention to human insults.
"He's calling you weak femme!" Thundercracker's voice suddenly crackled over their comlinks. Immediately Starscream's expression contorted into rage and he began screaming at me in his usual shrilled way.
"You fool! How dare you refer to me with human terms. I will show you who's the weak one as I slowly rip each cable and wire out from your body, leaving you as a barely functional piece of wreckage, wracked with the pain of being killed from the inside out!"
Ignoring his girlish hysteria, I carefully positioned myself for the fight at hand so as to not give it away that I had a nearly-useless leg. My head-first landing must have done something to my optic circuits. As I turned to him I caught the end of his rant over Skywarp's comment about Thundercracker's TV habit. "I will end you and parade you dead carcass around the Decepticon's headquarters! I'll mount your head in my lab so I can laugh at it as I worked throughout the orns, finding ways to crush the rest of your comrades so that their heads may join you. All of the Decepticons who walk into my lab will see your head, frozen in pain, and they will know the fearsome wrath of Starscream!"
He flew and collided into me and tried to slam me into the tree again, but I had locked my weakened leg under a root to prevent him from doing that again. I resumed punching him in the head, this time making sure to strike the optic. I kept striking his optic as he tried slamming my head into the tree, all the while bearing through the pain my leg was emitting.
Then, just as his optic cracked, I felt Skywarp's ped slam into mine and I lost my anchor. Even though he was partly blinded, Starscream shoved me into the tree before firing up his engines and driving me into a bolder about 15 meters away. Static burst across my vision before it turned black. I began to kick and punch him in hopes of getting through his dense cranial unit and causing enough damage to keep him down for good.
Unfortunately, Skywarp decided he was done being amused by Starscream's frantic antics and began striking my damaged side. My injured leg quickly fell down, now completely useless as the server was moved too far out of place to be operational. "Damn it!" I snarled before realizing I'd spoken aloud. My pain was met with a hysterical cry of glee from Starscream and a malicious laugh from Skywarp.
"You know Starscream, if I had known that all it takes to defeat Sideswipe was a big rock, I would be the one with his head mounted on my wa – ahhh!" Skywarp cried out as a blast struck him. The shot came out from my right and I hear Skywarp spin around, his wing clipping the bolder.
Without another warning, the calm air turned into a shower of energy blasts. A few caught the Seekers, causing both to hiss in pain and Starscream suddenly let me go. No longer supported, I sunk to the ground. I laid there stunned, trying to pull myself together for the fight, but the lack of vision, cranial damage, a dead leg, and hand with four fingers really made it hard.
I don't know how much time had passed before I hear the tale-tell sign of retreating jets followed by running peds. "Holy frag, Sideswipe, way to try and beat a couple of pathetic Seekers with your face," Sunstreaker whistled in mockery.
Before I could say something to offend him, I heard an odd sound. It sounded as if someone had huffed in indignation? "Sunstreaker, if you want to run your mouth, then I suggest you radio the base. Otherwise I'll take you back to my office after we return and have you arrested for obstructing medical care of an injured Autobot!"
I froze. If the words didn't give it away, the voice sure did. That was Red Alert. I felt someone kneel down next me. "Red?" I blurted out as I turned towards the invisible presence.
He grunted, "Yes, I'm here, Sideswipe. Don't move until I'm done with this scanner." I could hear the beeps emitting from the scanner.
Meanwhile as I waited for the scan to finish, albeit uncomfortably, Sunstreaker muttered something about running his mouth wherever and however he so wanted before stalking off. After a few moments the beeps from Red's scanner stopped, followed by complete silence. I couldn't even detect the angry rant I knew Sunstreaker was having with the bare forest.
Red spoke first. "The scan says you're well enough that we don't need medical personnel to come out here, save for the fact your optical and structural damage will prevent you from safely transforming and I don't want to carry you back. Unfortunately this is just a basic medical scanner, so I can only determine that you aren't bleeding out, you have damaged servos, and there are no signs of continuity between your CPU and optics. It's also giving me a readout about damage to your cranial circuitry, but I suspect it's a pre-existing condition."
"I'm blind from landing head-first into pieces of Earth!" I groaned before stopping. "Wait, did you insult me or tease me?"
"I'm not sure," Red pondered aloud, but I could tell what he really was thinking. It had been a long time since I heard it, but I remember that tone. He used that tone a few times back when our trine first formed.
I groaned again and feigned as much hurt in my voice and posture as possible. "Don't tease a blind and crippled mech."
"Why? You do it all the time." Red pointed out.
"Yeah, but you're an officer. It's unseemly for you. I mean, you can't just go pretending to be me just because you wish it."
I could feel Red Alert pause or a second, as if he wanted to say something back. However, the brief moment of our old friendship passed when he finally spoke. "I'm radioing Ratchet to meet us here for a non-emergency medical transportation."
Immediately our humor dissolved and I sighed, my efforts beaten. I waited quietly until Red Alert confirmed Ratchet's ETA. "Something I said?"
"Something a lot of what you said," Red huffed. "Still, you're right; fraternizing with the troops as if I'm one of them in not seemly for an … officer."
I fought to stifle a groan. I could tell from his beat of silence that he was thinking of his officer duties which left him in his security room all orn, an image that reminded him of our earlier fight. I sat back against the bolder, feel defeated. Between getting my face pounded in by that jackass to the point of being blinded, my leg broken by Skywarp, and Red's somber behavior, I was done. I only felt further drained when I realized that I had absolutely no idea what to say to him and I didn't care.
I've finally had it, between Red's problems, Sunstreaker's crap, Ratchet's dirty game, feeling like an officer's chew toy, and getting beaten by one of the biggest morons in the Decepticon army because I went for drive after feeling bad for not being nice enough. I'm tired of being the one who had to swallow his pride and attempt being the bridge over the gully everyone else is so willing to keep up. For once I chose to wait in gloomy silence for Ratchet to show, not giving a damn what else my orn had in store for me.