Smugglers 3: The Beginning Is The End
Chapter 1: Arguments
All was quiet at the Autobot Prison Facility on Cybertron, the place where all the traitors and murderers such as Wasp resided. The small green mech sat in his cell, as still and silent as a rock. The guards eyed him nervously; it wasn't like Wasp to be this quiet. Normally the green minibot spent his time pacing back and forth in the cell, muttering to himself about how he was going to get revenge on the bot responsible for sending him there. So it was no wonder that the guards eyed him even more warily than usual; but it was already too late. They had no way of knowing that in less than an hour that cell would be empty and that one of them would be dead while Wasp would be on his way to requisition a ship before leaving the planet.
Meanwhile, two galaxies away, nearing the planet Ambrosia, was a ship called, of all things, The Smuggler. It belonged to a smuggler named Bumblebee who, once upon a time, had been a well-known assassin until he had been the victim of an unfortunate accident which resulted in his processor being scrambled beyond repair. Ever since then the yellow minibot, along with his partner and longtime friend Bulkhead, had taken up smuggling as a hobby and it had eventually blossomed into a booming business. Bulkhead hadn't always been a smuggler either but had originally started out as a spacebridge technician until Bumblebee's accident. The two friends had been partners for years until recently when three new partners had joined their ranks. In fact the new bots had once been members of the Elite Guard. The leader or that little group was Optimus Prime, a tall bot who had the words 'Elite Guard' practically tattooed on his spark. Ratchet was a medibot; a relic from the Great War with the attitude of one who had seen too much. Last, but certainly not least, was Prowl. Prowl had been a spy-bot for several years before joining the Elite Guard where they had put his ninja skills to good use. Now instead of repairing space bridges, killing other bots, or hunting down smugglers these five, very different bots, were good friends and smugglers.
Currently they were drawing closer and closer to the planet Ambrosia; however Optimus had his doubts that they would ever arrive. He, along with Prowl and Ratchet, was sitting in the rec room valiantly attempting to ignore the yelling that was going on across the room; it wasn't working.
"You always act like a sparkling!" Bulkhead yelled.
Optimus didn't look up from the datanovel he was pretending to read but merely raised an optic ridge in shock. In all of their time together he had never, never heard Bulkhead speak like that to Bumblebee. In fact the last time someone had said something like to Bumblebee, they had had their vocal processor crushed by a green wrecking ball.
"Well you treat me like one!" Bumblebee shouted back.
Prowl said nothing but the nervous glances he cast towards the two friends when he thought no one was looking told Optimus that the black-and-gold bot was worried too. Ratchet didn't bother trying to hide the fact that he was worried but stared openly.
"Well I wouldn't have too if you would just act like a grown-up bot!"
"I can't! The Accident scrambled my processor! You know that!" Bumblebee cried.
"You weren't even supposed to be there," Bulkhead argued.
"That's right; I wasn't," Bumblebee finally lost it. "That accident was meant for you; I was supposed to be on my merry way to the Bassan Galaxy."
"What?" Optimus gave up on all pretense of reading as he dropped the datanovel with a clang and stared in shock at the two as did Prowl and Ratchet.
"Now ya did it," Bulkhead growled.
"You started it," Bumblebee snarled. With that the yellow minibot turned and flounced towards the door. Once there he stopped and said, "You want me to be grown-up? Then I'll be grown-up." He held his head up high and left the room.
"Oh, great," Bulkhead groaned. "Just great."
Optimus waited until the green mech had sat down at the table with them then he spoke. "If you don't mind my asking, what was that all about?"
Bulkhead looked confused then suddenly grinned, comprehension appearing on his faceplate. "Oh. Sorry about that, I forgot that you guys hadn't been here for very long." When he saw their confused looks he sighed and began trying to explain, "Sometimes, and I really hate to say this, I get a little fed up with Bumblebee, you know?" he looked helplessly at them and Optimus nodded.
"I understand exactly how you feel," the red-and-blue bot assured him. "We all like Bumblebee but sometimes he does get on our nerves. Just a little though."
"I know exactly what you mean," Bulkhead said. "So every now and then we have an argument and he tries to act grown-up for a few days and by then I've realized just how much I miss the crazy Bumblebee and then everything goes back to normal. Well, what's normal for us anyway," he amended, causing the others to smile.
Optimus had a sudden vision of a grown-up Bumblebee and he shuddered. "Just how often does this happen?" he asked, dreading the answer.
Bulkhead looked thoughtful for a minute then said, "At least once a year, twice at the most."
Optimus nodded then hesitantly voiced something that had been bothering him ever since Bumblebee had stormed out. "What did Bumblebee mean when he said the accident was your fault?"
Bulkhead's smile disappeared instantly. "I should of known you'd pick up on that."
"If you don't want to answer…" Optimus began but Bulkhead shook his head.
"I don't mind," he said. "Unfortunately I don't know very much about what happened," he admitted. "But I do know that I was supposed to meet someone in a deserted location. Bee thought it was a trap of some sort and he didn't want me to go. In fact he made sure I didn't."
"How?" Prowl inquired.
A ghost of a smile appeared on Bulkhead's faceplate then disappeared. "He drugged me. By the time I woke up he was already gone and when I finally got there all I found was Bumblebee. He was lying on the ground, unconscious. When he woke up, well guys know the rest of the story."
They pondered the green mech's words for a few minutes then Ratchet broke the silence with, "Do ya know who's responsible?"
Bulkhead shook his head again. "Only Bumblebee knows and he's doing good to remember our names let alone some strange bot's he probably only met once."
"Why would someone want to do that to you?" Optimus inquired, genuinely puzzled. He could understand someone wanting to kill Bumblebee; the little bot would probably have bots lined up for three galaxies just to try and kill him. But Bulkhead? The guy had been a space bridge technician for crying out loud. What kind of enemies could you make repairing space bridges? Of course, knowing Bulkhead, it was possible that he had seen something that he wasn't supposed to or, and this was the most likely of the two, he had tripped one too many times on the wrong bot.
Bulkhead shrugged. "I don't know," he said. "I just don't know."
A/N: 5 reviews of this chapter before I post the next one. I'm sorry if this one didn't have enough Bumblebee in it for you and I'm really not sure if he's going to be in the next one or not but I will do my absolute best to include him.
A/N/N: I would really like to get at least 300 reviews for this story so bring 'em on!
Thanks for reading my other smugglers and I really hope that you guys like this one. This story will be the last story in the Smugglers Universe then I will start 'Mixed-Up'. (I can't guarantee that it'll be posted as fast as this one but I will do my best.)