A/N: HELLO EVERYONE
It may have come to your attention that I've been a bit dead lately, and I have been. Thankfully, I got better; and can continue to bring Transformers-flavoured joy to you at irregular intervals.
So! First things first. I had so much fun with this, mainly because I get to pick music (and if you want to pitch in, go right ahead) for the Combaticons. And additionally, can you spot the GEEWUN, Star Trek, Green Lantern, and Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy references I very sneakily snuck in here? Cookies if you get all four.
Secondly! If anyone's got ideas for ships that haven't been done before and you'd like me to make a magical reality (for example, Prowl/Red Alert? I think I invented that. (correct me if I'm wrong.)) then please do tell me.
Disclaimer (for once): I do not own or claim to own any of the characters owned by Hasbro. I do own a G1 Prowl figure who stares at me from my desk, though.
Please read, review, and enjoy!
Arrival and Arcee
Katie lay on her front with her arms crossed and sulked.
She was aware that she was acting like a thirteen-year-old teenage girl who'd just been refused something, and that since she was nearly twenty-two this was not quite the done thing; but it was completely appropriate to the situation.
Onslaught looked up from the "datapad" (i.e. giant iPad - Apple were so owned by aliens or something) that he was reading, his yellow optics looking concerned. "You look...in pain. I think." he said.
"I'm annoyed." Katie replied.
"Why are you annoyed?" Onslaught asked.
"Because I don't get to subtly manipulate you into choosing a theme song."
This was, of course, the source of the trouble. Thundercracker was on monitor duty, and predictably Thunderstruck was echoing around the base. Katie had learned that Onslaught was scheduled to be on monitor duty after Thundercracker – and here came the horrible, crushing part – and both Onslaught and Vortex already had favourite Earth music.
"Huh? Oh, yeah. It's all in this lil' bit of the DECEPTICON SOLDIER'S GUIDE TO THE OUTER PLANETS. It says somethin' like: The planet in sector 2814 of the universe, known locally as Earth, has one of the most vibrant musical cultures available, inferior only to Golden Age Cybertron, Dewa III, and possibly Qo'nos (There is some debate on this subject. Please refer to Chapter 14). It is advisable to familiarise yourself with the musical compositions of Planet Earth if you are to be stationed there for some time." Vortex had rattled off when Katie asked about it.
So. Both Vortex and Onslaught had already done just that and had favourites without Katie's input. Which was just great.
Katie cheered herself up a bit by taking random guesses as to what the two Combaticons' music would be. For Onslaught, her brain was stuck between ABBA and Swedish House Mafia; for Vortex, Katie was thinking something flying-related but also quite, uh, bouncy, much like the femme's personality.
Naturally she was entirely wrong in both cases. When Thundercracker ended his shift and the giant blueness that was Onslaught stepped up to the screens, Katie waited with baited breath until Onslaught read Thundercracker's little note (PLAY WHATEVER MUSIC YOU LIKE, NO-ONE MINDS EXCEPT STARSCREAM), raised an optic ridge, then sat down in the chair.
Katie could literally feel a bit of Under Attack or S.O.S coming on; and then Onslaught just had to be different and Katie's Aunt Mary's second favourite song ever written blared out of the speakers.
Oh yes. Onslaught, that's 60 tonnes of badass field commander artillery truck, sat in the monitor chair, and played Diana Ross' Chain Reaction louder than it had a right to ever have been played before.
Knock Out walked past with his hips going left-and-right to the beat like crazy (Breakdown had to take him away before he hurt someone); Skywarp poked his head around the door with a confused frown on his face, his jaw hanging (Barricade appeared just below him, snapping his digits and nodding his head); Thundercracker legitimately laughed and got a strange sort-of 1970s-esque dance on with Vortex, which was terrifying enough in itself; Starscream pretended not to hear it and went to hide in the hangar bay; Shockwave put one foot in the room then span on his tank-tracked heel and left the room again; Megatron crossed his arms and considered the lyrics with growing leaderly amusement, then went to find Thunderblast; Slipstream pretended not to hear the music and avoided Megatron going to get Thunderblast, because in the opinion of literally everyone that was like walking in on your parents, and went to find Starscream; Dirge and Thrust listened to the song with increasingly violated-looking faces; Sunstorm thanked Onslaught profusely; so did Ramjet; and then, finally, finally, it was over, and it was Vortex's shift.
And then everything got so much worse. Because Vortex was much more crazy than Onslaught, and because Vortex probably had a thing for Thundercracker, and because, you know, Vortex had a pair of giant rotating blades attached to her back; Vortex played Spinning Around by Kylie Minogue. Again, extremely loudly. So this had Knock Out and Skywarp spinning round the monitor room on their heels; Thundercracker rapidly rethinking his relationship choices; Megatron and Thunderblast reappearing and attempting to keep Dirge, Thrust and Sunstorm from being killed by a spinning comrade; Breakdown fixing Ramjet's head after he was clotheslined by Skywarp while Barricade tutted chidingly; Starscream and Slipstream continuing to hide in the hangar; and Shockwave being far too smart to even enter the room this time.
The music (if Katie was even going to call it that) continued until a ship (a spaceship, obviously) appeared on the radar and hailed the Decepticon base.
Vortex answered the call and a very Southern accented voice (Katie resigned herself to the fact that this was probably not actually a Southern accent at all) yelled "Nice groove, kid sister!"
"Heya, Brawl!" Vortex replied. "You landin'?"
"You betcha we're landin'. D'ya mind sendin' us a lil' co-ordinate for where ta stable this pony, sis?"
Megatron walked forward. "Brawl. Land at these co-ordinates." he told the stunned mech.
"Sir, yes, sir. Landin' in a couple cycles." Brawl answered. Next, a very airy, ethereal (and posh, if Katie was to describe it) English accent rang out. "Lord Megatron, this is Blast Off. I should like to inform you, sir, since Brawl has momentarily forgotten, that we were followed into orbit by the ICS Acolyte. Repeat. Red Alert and Prowl are making planetfall."
"I am aware, Blast Off. Thank you for bringing this to my attention." Megatron replied calmly. "Combaticons, your ship will be met by Lady Thunderblast, a human representative, and the remainder of your gestalt. Megatron out."
"YES SIR." Brawl bellowed. "Combaticons out."
"So, what's a gestalt?" Katie asked Thunderblast, on their way to the deployment deck (Katie actually wondered how a base could have decks, but of course no one explained anything.)
"A gestalt is a group of five Cybertronians, all of them brothers or sisters, which can combine into a substantially larger-"
"Shit, you mean one of those Voltron things that those plane Autobots turned into?" Katie exclaimed. Thunderblast grinned and nodded.
"Oh yeah. Them. The Autobots have the Aerialbots – they turn into Superion; and they've got the Technobots, who turn into Computron. We have a couple on our side too, Katie. The Combaticons, who turn into Bruticus; and the Constructicons, who turn into Devastator; they were both in range after the Fall, and we ordered them both here when we got set up. Devastator is my favourite." Thunderblast said, winking.
Katie decided that she didn't want to know why Devastator was Thunderblast's favourite, and silently climbed into Onslaught's driver's seat (Not that she didn't trust Thunderblast or Vortex...but she didn't trust Vortex. Or Thunderblast, who drove her vehicle mode of A TANK at about 100 miles an hour everywhere she went.) The small convoy consisting of Thunderblast, Onslaught, and Vortex left the base through what Katie was 80% sure was a giant airlock. When she enquired as to whether this was the case, Vortex responded in the affirmative. "Yeah, and Lord Megatron assigned me to repairing the rest of the ship's systems."
Katie's face went through about four shifts in expression before she settled on utter shock. She twisted around in her seat to look at the fairly average mesa-shaped rock behind them. "That's a ship!?"
"Well, the rock isn't. We had to hide the ship somehow!" Thunderblast replied cheerfully.
"You brought a ship!" Katie repeated vacantly. "I have been inside a flying saucer and I didn't even know it."
"Flying saucer?" Vortex said, confused, then launched into a serious explanation which quickly declined into complete fangirling. "No, it's a Nemesis-class battlecruiser. The Victory has thirty-two particle-combustion cannons and two tetrathermal starfield missile launchers, which is like a godly amount of firepower; she's got six hyperfuel intake accelerators, giving her a top speed of Jump 21 – that's faster than the Sentinel and the Ark put together! And her hull is so strong I bet she'd be fine even if she was at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean here on Earth..."
"Um, Vortex. What are those glyphs written next to the seat by the shields at the front?" Katie asked, effectively cutting off the helicopter's rambling.
"Oh, you mean the pilot's seat? Those shields are EV Guards for re-entry to planets with an atmosphere."
"Yeah, yeah, the pilot's seat."
"That's a joke. It says, "Primus is my co-pilot." Vortex replied, obviously unamused, but she perked up almost instantly. "But, still! I can't believe that I get to work on the Victory! That's like, I dunno, touching Lord Megatron's fusion cannon – um, sorry, Lady Thunderblast."
"Um...That's fine, Vortex." Thunderblast told her. "Don't worry about it. And you're right. Victory's a tough old girl." she said fondly.
"Old?! She's fragging cutting-edge, I tell you, and all due respect, but Lady Thunderblast..." Vortex exploded into a rant which lasted the whole way to the rendezvous point.
On arriving at the rendezvous point, the Combaticons' ship was already there, with the boarding ramp down and the three giant robots lazing about nearby. They all shot to attention when Thunderblast transformed – a dark purple winged one; a green one with two giant cannons on his back; and a smaller khaki/beige one with a gun on his right arm.
Thunderblast opened her mouth to speak as the other two Combaticons transformed (Onslaught letting Katie out first) and went to join their siblings.
And then a red laser blast fired across them – a warning shot.
"Hello, Thunderblast." a femme's voice said.
All Decepticons present instantly snapped into combat stances, with guns warming up and optics narrowed.
Thunderblast looked at the interloper and bashed her fists together.
It was a black-and-pink femme holding a hissing red blaster. She was much thinner than Thunderblast or Vortex, surrounded by bronze and green Autotroopers, and flanked by a police-painted mech. Thunderblast stretched her neck cables. "Hello, Arcee. And is that Goldbug with you?"
The one called Goldbug raised his arms and two twin-barrelled cannons transformed out of his wrists. "CEASE AND DESIST OR BE FIRED UPON, DECEPTICONS. THIS IS YOUR ONLY WARNING." he ordered in a rough, computerised voice.
Arcee smiled a serrated smile. "Red Alert wants to see you. Deal or no deal, Swindle?"
The smaller Combaticon shook his head. "No deal." he said, firing his arm blaster and catching her across the jaw. The femme staggered backwards and spat a glob of blue Energon onto the ground.
Katie just had time to register that "Swindle" sounded just like Fred Williard before Vortex grabbed her in one hand, transformed, and took off into the air.
Arcee cuffed at her mouth. "Kill them all." she growled.
THUNDERVORTEX BEST SHIP EVER 2014
also Swindle is NOT Noel Edmonds. I thought I should reinforce that fact.