Abducted by aliens (sans medical experiments)
Disclaimer: I do not own Transformers and all I get out of this is good mood.
Mars had possessed an absolutely horrible atmosphere and as irritating as Earth was, a mudball full of crawling organics, at least the winds were bearable. Initially Barricade had enjoyed the wide, open ground tinted rusty to soothe his mind, but it had soon begun to lose its attraction. It was off-liningly boring; there had been no one to kill and brawls between Brawl and the Constructicons and the cassettes climbing the walls and swinging from the rafters barely counted as anything more than annoyance. He had wanted to just siege the blue planet and ravage it till they found what they wanted: the reason of their perseverance, their hope beyond the horizon.
When he had seen the All Spark lauched into space, Barricade had realized that Cybertron would soon die. Bonecrusher had basically said good riddance and he could join it. He had not brought up the discussion again. It was about time they got to do something about the situation.
Starscream had been more than happy to take his sweet time, of course. The longer he delayed their attack, the longer he could hold the remote, with the utterly ridiculous loss of Megatron making the treacherous second-in-command leader by default, much to his enjoyment. Starscream couldn't seize power for himself if only because Soundwave and Blackout would have had his spark casing for it as long as there was a chance of their leader being retrievable. Research, he called his stalling technique. Barricade called it plain stalling, but he didn't really care. Long vorns of devastating war had pretty much rendered his original political ambitions trivial: as long as somebody got the All Spark and revived Cybertron he was all right with it.
And now a black and white police vehicle was parked in front of convenience store near the Tranquility precinct in bright sunlight. The Decepticon pilot was seemingly alone, but due to highly advanced communication technology physical presence had little relevance among Cybertronians when interacting and the one Barricade was conversing with was as hi-tech as they came.
Isn't sending whole Devastator overkill? We have already got Bonecrusher. We go in, get glasses, kill the squishy and get out. The Wreckers are in Austin for whatever reason. Barricade was more worried than he would have cared to let their chief communications officer know, but Soundwave cared little about his preferences and breaks of privacy always made him a contrary spark of a gun.
Information: outdated. New location of the Wreckers: Tranquility. Need of firepower increased. Even Soundwave's transmission was numb, efficiently impersonal.
Barricade didn't transmit the string of curses he knew Soundwave heard all the same. He wasn't a minicon by any means, but having to fight alongside the huge, even by their standards, gestalt that was mentally less than the sum of his parts against the crazy-aft Wreckers made death by being stepped on or some other embarrassing accident too likely.
Requesting permission to go out alone, before the Wreckers arrive. Remember, Frenzy's with me and if I get crashed to or stepped on… Maybe the spastic little fragger that had taken residence inside him could be of some use after all.
Onboard Nemesis, in solar orbit, in the dim light of the communications section the blue mech hesitated; an act very out of character from him. Soundwave was the personification of efficiency; consistently loyal to Megatron, one of the reasons Starscream had continued the search of their leader in fact, effortlessly ruthless and he usually had all the personality and personal preferences of a palm computer. But every rule had the exception and for Soundwave that was his cassettes. Enemy, Frenzy and Rumble, Buzzsaw, Garboil and Laserbeak, Howlback and Ravage all resided within him, performing spy and recon missions for him and he in turn cared for the little drones crawling around and making nuisance of themselves. For this mission he'd had to give the hacker to Barricade's care.
He reconsidered the odds. Shockwave was a massive triple-changer, transforming from his robot mode to either an artillery cannon or an assault helicopter. Scorponok's meaning of life seemed to be hunting and destroying all that moved and nobody knew whether he really was barely sentient at all, actually a cunning opponent getting his allies and enemies alike to underestimate him or simply mute and sociopath. Except Blackout and Soundwave, of course. They knew very well. Brawl had been Megatron's pet weapon of mass destruction for a reason and Blackout could keep their errant temporary command pointed to the right direction; the Wreckers. Bonecrusher was a loose cannon enough to worry about even without his more or less certifiable gestalt mates. He hated everyone and everything, Autobots, Decepticons, organics, even himself. Autobots hadn't found the human in possession of the map yet. Barricade knew where the human lived.
Mission: retrieve the glasses. Back-up: Brawl and Bonecrusher. Shockwave, Blackout and Scorponok en route. Starscream would do what Starscream did, as always.
Tranquility was well worth its name; the original small American town, one high school and endless rows of houses with white picket fence and pool, offices where fathers and more modern mothers worked at, a golf course and a parking lot and theatre where the young gathered. There were no minorities big enough to notice, no bar where everybody didn't know your parents and their dog and no good band would bother to play in the small football stadium. It was probably very healthy place to live if only because it was too boring to be anything but.
Judy was humming under her breath, leaning against a tree. Much too slowly; it really wasn't a good song for humming.
"No poisonous snakes can swim in my tub
Only friendly dinosaurs can read my books
I should have guessed that a woman like you
Would be impressed with a guy like that." A sigh.
Judy had never decided if Ron was secretly a protestant, as he seemed to have the belief about idle hands being the devil's tools, or if he was just a little attention-deficit. Ron was apparently unable to just sit quietly. His hands had to have something to do, playing with his cassette player, playing with a pen or just fidgeting something with quick, restless tugs. It always drove Judy slightly crazy and now it took all the control she could muster to not hold them still for a second and demand he just talk. It was a hot summer day, the sort where the air seemed to be full of dust and it was too hot to be inside, but even hotter outside and they were sitting under a tree in her front yard. She didn't quite have the nerve to propose they go to buy ice cream. In hindsight the licking had probably been a bit much.
"It's so hot I can't even think," she complained without any real heat, the pun very much intended. She hoped it would already be evening, nice and cool and they could get inside a dark theatre where they could conveniently stare a screen. Movies gave a much distorted image of love, she decided. It was impatient, clumsy and deaf and stupid in addition of blind and changes were you didn't get to save each other or the world in the side, which was why she preferred horror. Maybe you wouldn't get to meet a werewolf either, but at least it wasn't false advertising.
"Love comes in with baby steps and much too big shoes," she thought out loud.
Ron was playing with a coin, flipping it in his fingers again and again until that made him drop it.
"Are you hot too?" she finally asked.
"It is 32 degrees Celsius and no wind at all," said Ron staring the coin. "I'm about to melt."
"Don't you like me?" was what she blurted out the next, to her mortification, but at least it got Ron to look at her. He had the panicked look of a rabbit in headlights in his eyes.
"No, I like you a lot and you might be, you know, kind of, well, but I never noticed before and what if I don't…" He was obviously trying his damnest to be nice without saying anything discriminating. His face wasn't anything out of ordinary, but he had those expressive eyes that remind Judy of a hundred and one things, like new leaves, her favourite shirt or lime marmalade candies.
"Let's go to the park. I want to swing," she said.
Ron agreed feeling a little stupid. He wasn't a chauvinist by any stretch of imagination, the fact that he was friends with Judy and still alive was proof enough of that. But still, he had always somehow expected that he would be the one to chase after a girl, not vice versa. If not for the incident that dare not speak its name he would have said that lusting after Judy would be purple and yellow mutant lizards level of wrong. Sadly the incident had happened and now one stupid part of him was taking notice that she was definitely a girl and a pretty one too. More than pretty, with curly red hair and beautiful hands. Ron had always liked beautiful hands, though his always was about a year and half long.
"I, uh, have something to you. You asked me to bring something from my great-grandfather, remember? Grandmother gave me these." He took the glasses from his pocket and handed them to Judy as they walked down the street. Judy turned them around in her hands appreciatively.
"They are kind of cool. These cracks are like purposefully made," she said.
"I think they are. And I found out about our family motto too, though it probably isn't much of a motto since is the first time I heard about it: No sacrifice, no victory." He felt blood rushing to his face when Judy said:
"You Witwickys are odd, but I like it." Though Judy really wasn't one to talk and he let her know.
"Nice weather this side of the yellow brick road," he said mildly and Judy snorted, stifling further laughter.
"Point taken." And they were silent and Ron was pretty sure Judy kept looking him from the corner of her eye. Their steps suddenly sounded very loud.
He had once read about the new women. He hadn't previously been aware there were old women in the meaning the magazine had used the words, but Judy was definitely brand new, practically born yesterday.
Judy tried the glasses on and the world bended in her eyes, turning dim and twisted around the edges and Ron began to feel ill at ease somehow. His hands twitched and he had to grab the hem of his tee shirt to keep from snagging the glasses back, suddenly irrationally and absolutely sure that he hadn't made his friend a favour. He had the irritating feeling he got when he dreamed of something nice and remembered it in the morning, but later the day could only recall glimpses and echoes, a place or quality of light or a single sentence with no context. He tried but the feeling slipped away leaving only a vague (clash of metal/haste/far away/ice) in its wake. He tried to follow the conversation, but couldn't recall how they had gotten from the funeral to everything being closed on Sundays.
Judy hoped that there was somewhere they could go to other than just loitering around before the movie began, but they really didn't need third or fourth wheels then and since Ron was just as embarrassed by his father's total ignorance about pop culture and conviction that the Beulah show was the best it had to offer as she was by her mother's eccentric worldview their respective houses were a no-go too. It went with the territory, of course. When the children were sixteen the nature of parents was to embarrass them by merely existing and the nature of children to switch the side of the street if their parents attempted to speak to them in public. Still, it was inconvenient. Luckily she wasn't one to turn tail and run easily.
"Today is supposed to be perfect and life altering to me," she exclaimed. Ron smirked up at her.
"Why? Have you consulted a foreteller about it?" He asked amused, shedding the odd sense of foreboding. Judy gave a brief chuckle and put a hand on her hip.
"No quite," she answered, "my horoscope told as much."
"Horoscope?" Ron asked, remembering the magazine he had seen once on her desk that her mother subscribed to, named New Aquarian Age. He had been under the impression that his friend hadn't believed in the articles preaching about Atlantis, UFOs and how nuclear energy was the tool of the ultimate evil, but maybe zodiac was a different thing.
"You actually believe in those?" he asked half disbelievingly.
"Believe in it? Horoscopes are the only trustworthy compass in this horrible teenage maze full of lies and hormones." Her eyes were laughing, her voice was serious like an open grave and Ron was definitely suffering from mixed signals.
"I am Aries and my best love match is Libra; a gentleman who is sometimes polite to a fault, but he reveals a surprising inner strength. The chemistry is strong between you two," she recited out loud with a smile.
"Might you be a Libra?" He knew that she knew his birthday.
"Judy," said Ron, "look over here." Judy turned and found Ron's face mere inches away from her own. It would have been counterproductive to object when her best-friend-come-love-interest closed the distance.
Ron was more than little scared, but he had to do it, no matter what. Because he might not be the primary mover in the whatever it was, but he was going to at least initiate the first kiss, dammit. Eventually they got to the swings.
This was not the kind of mission Wreckers were usually given, leaning more towards reconnaissance than good old-fashioned destruction, but what was riding on it was enormous enough to make the strike force withhold any and all complaints. The team had left Xantium to the moon's dark side where she was ready for a quick rescue and getaway should it come down to it; Wreckers didn't retreat gracefully or preferably at all, but this was no time to take unnecessary risks. Their mission was a covert operation with their back-up waiting behind the red gas planet, switching into local alt modes and interacting among the dominant species as subtly as possible and fighting Starscream's troops as covertly as possible as they attempted to find their goal: lifebringer All Spark.
Their lifebringer made warbringer and Megatron needed to be shoved into a trash compactor CPU first.
In the incomplete cover of the nightfall, seven vehicles that, with the exception of Sandstorm and Scoop, looked only a little like they were built on earth came to a halt on a hill near a tiny neighbourhood full of tiny, exotic contructions. They used some definitely non-earthly equipment to scan the house and the DNA structural data of the organics inside.
"The two squishies are mature members of the species, but they have the right coding. Their sparkling was given the glasses as a memento or something," Scoop, as an orange front payloader, said.
"I hope it really was that one. The last time didn't go well," Springer commented. He had chosen to use his car form rather than the helicopter, not that it looked that much less suspicious up close. The payloader responded with an irritated screech.
"Not like anyone's going to believe that one. No one sane believes in sentient life from outer space here," he defended himself. Though for people who didn't they surely came up with lots of neat, funny fantasies, the one named The Day the Earth Stood Still had been his favourite.
Earth was rich with natural resources, but despite that human technology was surprisingly primitive which probably had to do with their ridiculously short lifespan. Their vehicles, cars, helicopters and such, were suitable for transformation, but very crude, potentially dangerous and energy inefficient. Even then the type of car was apparently seen as a status symbol among humans, the larger and faster the car the greater status achieved, especially among males. Some humans, mostly women and psychologists, claimed that those with large cars were compensating for size deficiency. As far as the Wreckers were concerned they needed it. And their weapons were a joke if anything.
They all stood there considering the situation.
"Assessment?" Springer asked a little dryly. Broadside hummed deep in his cooling system.
"Since the Decepticons have been on the planet for several cycles and on Mars at least three deca-cycles they most likely have at least rudimentary knowledge of the terrain and the civilisation. They tend to not be too bright, though. Wouldn't put it past them to have sent half of their troops to a wrong continent." Snickering followed the comment.
An engine revved impatiently.
"Are we going to go in or not? We have already been beating around the formations enough, the subtle way takes far too much time, it's useless," Sandstorm complained. "Don't tell me we are going to waste more time coddling this human?" Less than a half hour's driving and one measly wall were all that was between them and the glasses now. Well, and the fact the human wasn't home and neither were the glasses.
"We are trying to not alarm the whole settlement," Springer said one gently, reminding his team about the need of secrecy in their situation. His team responded with blank looks.
"I do agree with you, though, " he admitted then, "the roundabout way gained us nothing in Austin, if anything it made us loose our head start and besides, there really isn't a subtle way to do what we have to do. Thus a more direct approach is in order." This time all engines revved with anticipation.
"So let's go stalking. Extra cube to the one that gets to him first!" Whirl issued a challenge he knew would be irresistible, letting his rotors spin only to have the cubish vehicle next to him bump into him reprovingly.
Topspin gave an impatient shift of tires and how he thought his air skiff alt form was supposed to camouflage him Sandstorm didn't know.
"Just don't hurt him, you guys, software installations aside I don't have the hardware to treat organics," he reminded them. The rest of them looked as surprised as beings without faces could look.
"Hurt him? It's not like he has pledged himself to the decepticreeps, is it?" Twin Twist, also a master of no disguise as twin-drill tank, asked sounding actually a little wistful.
"Just remember that the organics are fragile. Picking them up with too much force could kill them." The Wreckers made a variety of voices that displayed disgust. Bone and flesh were obviously products of poor planning.
"Prime's orders were clear in this regard, med. No harming the natives so no damage will come to the human at our hands," Springer explained patiently. Not that he was outright happy with their plan B, but time was ticking away breem by breem and…
"And it's either us or the Decepticons, they cannot be far behind us now," Roadbuster, armed to the teeth that he lacked in his jeep mode, beat him to it.
"And remember Vertiga. Let's keep the collateral damage to minimum or they'll give us more vacation," Topspin's voice rumbled when he said the hated v-word and there was a silence as each processed this statement. Springer snorted mentally. Whatever had Prime thought, ordering them to be subtle? There wasn't an alt mode available on the planet that could suit Twin Twist and the map in the glasses was in too crowded area for them to stay hidden if chips went down and they had to start fighting. These beings had just enough long range communication capabilities to start a mass panic.
May the Primus bless them, because nothing less was going to suffice.
Cybertronians knew music too, but it was different from human music. It conveyed mathematic formulas and multi-dimensional puzzles and its purpose was to stimulate the logic functions. It wasn't composed to be aesthetically pleasing and it certainly couldn't tell tales.
The All Spark knew how to make use of local resources.
Walter Simmons froze between one step and the other as his cell phone began to play music it shouldn't have been capable of playing, mere seconds ago it had lacked the necessary components. Clear, joyous children's voices sang:
The lion and the unicorn were fighting for the crown
The lion beat the unicorn all around the town.
Some gave them white bread, and some gave them brown;
Some gave them plum cake and drummed them out of town.
Simmons grabbed the phone from his pocket and threw it across the room. It hit the wall with a loud clank and lower ranking agents flinched when he drew his gun and shot the offending piece of equipment. All transformations had been violent and surely technology that originated from the N.B.A.s would be doubly more susceptible.
Will you walk into my parlour?" said the Spider to the Fly,
'Tis the prettiest little parlour that ever you did spy;
The threat in that was obvious. He had not served in the military, but Walter Simmons was regarded as powerful and a rather scary all the same. It was said that he knew where most of the skeletons of the secret sector were buried and how they had ended up as skeletons in the first place. Even then he was apparently incapable of intimidating the cube and its demonic gadgets.
"Take that away and vaporize it," he ordered his men and walked out of the room without sparing All Spark one glance. His men hastened to do his bidding. Their ears were open, but they did not hear.
A song from early childhood was playing again and again in Ron's mind, or what little he could remember of it. It could have been on one of his fairy tale cassettes, but he was almost sure it was his mother's voice singing to him. It probably should have comforted him, but it did nothing but when he tasted the words in his mouth, little unaccustomed.
"'Oh no, no,' said the little Fly, 'to ask me is in vain,
For who goes up your winding stair can ne'er come down again.'"
I Was a Teenage Werewolf was over and Ron cut across the backyards, deep in his thoughts. It wasn't that he didn't like Judy or that he found Judy unattractive, because now that he thought about it she was hot. The problem was that he had agreed to do this kind-of-dating thing without knowing whether they really could make it and he didn't want to loose Judy's friendship if they couldn't. They had known since forever and nobody stayed with their first love and how could he have messed it up like this? He really didn't want to loose Judy. A gentle rushing sound came from behind him, at first unnoticeable, but it persisted until it was like a fly hovering just beside his ear. The sound registered, but when Ron turned there was nothing.
When people are searching for something, or someone, they instinctively look under things and around things, but looking up doesn't come as naturally. The gentle, rhythmic sound drew steadily closer, but Ron couldn't tell which direction it really came from; it seemed to be all around him somehow and curl tighter around him too. His cell phone began to vibrate in his backpack and he wondered if it had somehow made the odd sound, but he didn't even have the time to get the backpack open the whole way before he heard a loud crash behind him.
He almost had the time to turn his head around before a shining white, too big shape materialised out of nowhere and tossed him into a nearby fence.
For the most fleeting moment before fear settled in he was only perplexed. Thoughts like what can be this big and but I'm sure it didn't come from above crashed through his mind and then he drew in air and screamed, so shocked he couldn't see straight.
Then something big and angular was pressed against his lower face, cutting off his breath and something primitive and shivering at the edges of his thinking hijacked his body without warning, making him go very still. Sickening pain was shooting up his arm from his fingers and Ron was pretty sure that he had at least sprained something, maybe even broken. And that was the least of his worries, because what little he could make sense of the thing was that he was staring eye-to-something-bright with some kind of nightmare creature, trapped under a set of large metal shapes that probably made a hand or paw or hell, maybe even tentacles for all he knew. It was hard to say anything about its colour in the vanishing light, but it was definitely massive. The thing said something in series of clicks, nasal sounds and some very high and low screams that teased the limits of his sense of hearing and vibrated through him, hinting that there were some Ron couldn't hear. And thankfully the thing lifted the quasi-finger, letting him breathe.
His phone kept vibrating and Ron gave it a desperate glance. So close and so useless. Then the vibration changed somehow and he felt the tremors against his skin, smelt heavy, bitter smoke and saw blue sparks crackling against his retinas, leaving ghosts after them. He was lost. He did not know where he was, but he knew it didn't feel like the backyard. It didn't feel like ground or the fence he had been thrown against: it didn't feel like anything and he had no idea what he was standing on or even if he was actually falling. He didn't know if it was dark, or white-bright so he couldn't see and his mind was starting to hurt trying to understand. Then he realized he wasn't alone in the nowhere. A cubic shape materialized near him and apparently flew to him.
Rather than alarm him, the vague shadow that approached him calmed him down. It reminded him of his childhood, somehow.
"I know you, don't I?" And then he was back, a small helpless lifeform staring up to a big and hard one with lots of black innards shielded by plates of whiteness. For a second he thought he heard the roaring of an engine and rotors, but there was nothing he could see.
Anyone on the road that evening would have turned their head to stare at the flashy yet hardly identifiable sportscar and the angular air skiff above it. They advanced through traffic within ground speed limits, but relentlessly, like sharing a common goal. What that purpose was, none could guess, and the populace was left to stare after the pair of vehicles in wonder.
Springer was certain he seemed outwardly focused on this mission, refusing to let his guard down even this near the regaining of the senator on the board, the object that both players were trying to reach, but which couldn't protect itself, their all holy All Spark. Inwardly, however, he allowed himself a few moments lost in his thoughts. The war had been costly to the Autobots in both resources and people and things had gone especially sour after the fight of Tyger Pax. They had managed to force Megatron to call retreat, but not before it had been almost too late. The young field scout, Bumblebee, had shown remarkable bravery when faced with the intimidating sight of Megatron himself, and paid for it in voice. The broken shrieks as he'd been retrieved from the hands of the Decepticons still echoed through the Wrecker's memory banks. And all that bravery had been almost for nothing, merely playing time. Megatron had somehow found the All Spark's trajectory anyway and then mystically disappeared.
Anything to report? he sent through a secure channel.
"Energon is mine!" Whirl exclaimed in a triumphant tone, keeping the human pinned to the wooden fence underneath him, careful to not press too hard. He had seen it with the relation of this one, of course, but these organics truly were tiny up close.
Caught the sparklet, he said and sent a set of coordinates to his comrades.
How is he? Topspin demanded to know. Whirl gave a glance to the little thing's hand. It had made a crushy sound, but it seemed still functional.
Just a little banged up, he sent back and then answered to Topspin's accusations: Nothing serious. Just get here, I detected at least two set of con jamming waves in the vicinity and having him will hinder me. Luckily the human didn't try to scream any more. Actually he went curiously still and when Whirl scanned him briefly he notices suddenly slowed down heart rate, dilated pupils and the activity in his brains increasing. For an uncomfortable moment he thought he hadn't been careful enough in his handling after all, but then the limp limbs twitched and the bodily functions returned to normal. Just to be on the safe side he picked the sparklet, Witwicky, up and placed him on his palm. No danger of crushing him or letting him escape there.
The thing's, robot's, attention had turned back to him and Ron flinched as it picked him up. The dark, primitive corner was slowly beginning to loose its hold of him, but the odd calm still somewhat persisted. What it had been, he wondered.
"Are you Ronald Witwicky, great-grandson of Archibald Amundsen Witwicky?" The robot's voice implied it was more like asking for affirmative rather than asking a question and that Ron would better be the one it was searching for or else.
"Yes, I am," Ron managed to whisper, his voice weak and shaky. Then someone else entirely seemed to take over it.
"Do you mind explaining what you are and how is this possible? And I don't know what you know about humans, but breathing is good for staying alive," he babbled tightly in the robot's grasp, for a robot it was, with a growing panic, but unable to silence himself. The robot opened its palm lifting some pressure from his chest so he could breathe more easily, but it also lifted its hand high above the ground.
As fast as the panic had struck him it was replaced by a nice, comforting realization that it couldn't be true. Though he maybe had a reason to worry about being crazy since the hand on his chest felt very real. Panic, peace, denial, he teetered on the edge. He really didn't want to die.
"Are you going to kill me?" he asked, again before thinking. The alien's optics narrowed, and he leaned, towering over him.
"No," it simply said and Ron found his mouth curving to smile, much to his surprise. He was afraid, so afraid he wasted to scream and beg and only the even greater fear of getting his breath restricted again kept him from doing so, but he dared to believe in the thing now. And, he wondered, how could it be?
If he wasn't going to shriek his lungs off due to the risk of being dropped he could as well ask the million questions he had in mind.
"So do you have a name? Where are you from, Japan? And what do you want with me?" His voice quavered more than he would have liked, but he got the last part out too. The robot gave what sounded like an amused snort than a growl, if robot noises meant the same things human noises did. At least his captor hadn't threatened him yet.
"Autobot Whirl, from Wreckers subgroup. We are definitely not from your diminutive island country." But the rest of the robot's answer was lost to him as he heard another loud thump and was suddenly sure there were more of them. The robot's, Whirl's, head immediately snapped to the left, and he followed its gaze almost scared enough to close his eyes tight, like he had as a child when he had been scared of the snake under his bed. Obviously his night was just getting better and better.
A black and definitely pointy figure loomed a decreasing distance away, full of sharp edges and glowing red eyes gave its face a demonic tint. All of a sudden his captor looked downright safe and sane.
"That is going to kill me, isn't it?" Because while judging people by their looks might be shallow, there was no way to misjudge that thing.
"I'm going to kill it," the… Whirl promised with a grim tone and his cannon whirred to a life. The black robot shriek-growled to the giant holding him, incomprehensible words punctuated with loud crackling as a bolt of red light shot from its weapon. Ron could hear something explode beyond his range of vision, could feel the heat that sent bits and pieces of something hard and stony raining down and pelting his skin. He heard screaming, but when he turned his head to look it was only, thank God, a hole in the road.
"You are captured now. Or maybe kidnapped or shanghaied; I'm not down with the details of your language yet. I hope you won't mind." Whirl's voice was almost friendly, as friendly as it could be when he was snarling at the attackers. Maybe Ron didn't have any idea what was going on, but he knew that it was a bad idea to argue with a heavily armoured giant robot that had him literally at its hands, especially since it was protecting him from even meaner robot.
"Not at all," he croaked.
Something huge, deformed and literally spiked shrieked overhead and launched and Ron's world spun and dimmed in his eyes as the giant holding him swirled and shot a round at the new threat. The ground shook with footsteps and then another explosion, the crashing steps bringing six, count them, six new huge figures to the now tiny looking backyard and the fight was on with ear-splitting crash of metal upon metal and a jolt rocked the robot's frame, rattling Ron's teeth and sending a flash of pain from his fingers up his arm. Ron's gaze darted from building to building, wondering what the inhabitants thought of this racket and then realizing that if even one of these robots fell on one it could kill dozen's of people. Or if one of the blasts was aimed just a little off. This is war, he thought heart thrumming like it was trying to beat its way off his chest and maybe he screamed.
Slightly sickening metallic noises, squeals and then a scream, awful and pained and Ron really hoped it was one of the badder guys screaming.
The robot, Whirl, made a sound cross between growl and static laugh.
"Well, if this isn't the most fun since we kicked Seeker aft seven ways from Kalis to sun and stole their stash of high-grade," it said. Ron tried to tighten his hold on the flat palm of Whirl as its grip upon him loosened. He had just enough time to think he was going to get sick when Whirl lifted him up to something, maybe a balcony, that was sticking from the wall of a nearby building.
"Don't run or I'll be seriously fragged. I'm transforming and then you hop inside," it demanded nonsensically.
Ron looked at the robots running around, the fight spreading out uncontrolled. Whirl seemed to fall down, turn inside out and compact at the same time, his plating moving and turning and twisting with loud noise until Ron was looking at a helicopter. Just one more bizarre occurrence. Then the helicopter rose to his level and the door opened for him on its own. Maybe it was the safest thing to do, it was hard to think with the pain flashing from his fingers.
Ronald Witwicky jumped in, hoping that after fifty years or so he could say he didn't regret it.
Time measurements. Some of them vary in different continuities. I took Wreckers from IDW and I decided to be consistent with my continuities.
astrosecond 0.498 seconds
breem 8.3 minutes
cycle (IDW continuity) 1 hour 15 minutes (1.25 hours)
mega-cycle (IDW) 93 hours
deca-cycle (IDW) about 3 weeks
stellar cycle (IDW)7.5 months
vorn 83 years
AN: Taser will reappear eventually, but he is not a Wrecker. And what with the Wreckers' less than delicate approach, they are the Wreckers. I imagine that Optimus Prime will be mighty angry when he hears. My Devastator is the Constructicons gestalt and the movie Devastator goes by the name Brawl. Brawl was "Devastator" in the film, but Brawl in the toyline and all other supporting media.
And now, a cell phone related explanation. In this AU the government didn't pay all expenses. Sector 7 had to fund part of its (very high) expenditure by making marketable applications of what they could learn from Megatron's equipments that were found scattered around him (this will be relevant later.) Most of those are way too high tech for them to understand yet, but communication and cryo technology have made leaps.
The song is Places by Scruffy the Cat. I don't own it, either. Yes, I know it isn't really that old. The poems are The Spider and the Fly by Mary Howitt and The Lion and the Unicorn, a nursery rhyme by someone unknown to me. Don't own.