Chapter 8: Death's Toll

After the flirtatious incident with Sideswipe, Flashdrive started to develop something for the mech, who was a complete jerk in a way. Flashdrive sat in her quarters doing yoga, a human exercise that was supposed to be soothing to the body and mind. Unfortunately for Flashdrive, this was a stupid waste of time, she had a need for speed. She did the downward duck, her aft sticking out in front of the doorway. To add a little more fun she literally started shaking her rear. She giggled and said amusingly to herself, "Check this aft Sideswipe!"

"You and your weird fetishes." Flashdrive turned around to see Bumblebee standing there, servos crossed on his chassis and optic ridge raised up. He walked over to her and laughed. "What exactly are you doing?" Flashdrive stood up straight and brushed herself off. "I'm doing yoga Bee. It's a very good exercise. You should try it sometime!" Bumblebee shook his head, "No thanks." Suddenly Bumblebee frowned. Flashdrive tilted her helm. "What's wrong Bee?" Bumblebee sat down on her berth and sighed, "Um, Flashdrive, since you're a femme and all, you know what femmes like, right?"

"What do you mean, like what type of mechs are femmes into?" Bumblebee nodded and looked her in the optics. "Well, some femmes like gentlemechs, some like science geeks, some like the tough type. All femmes aren't the same when it comes up to what mech they like." Flashdrive then paused and smirked at Bumblebee. "Bee. What is this all about?" Bumblebee fidgeted with his digits and shrugged his shoulders. "Um, it's just a certain femme I like that's all." Flashdrive gawked. Bee has a crush on a femme? Bumblebee hasn't liked a femme since he lived on Cybertron. Who could he possibly like? It definitely wasn't her because Bumblebee knew they were just friends.

And then there was Arcee, she was the other femme on base that, wait, he likes. "You like Arcee don't you!" Bumblebee put servos on her mouth and shushed her. "Are you crazy! Don't shout like that she might hear you!" Flashdrive's optics widened and her huge grin broadened, "Awwww! Bee and 'Cee! If you have any sparklings they need to call me Aunty! Understand!" Bumblebee frowned but blushed brightly, "I should've never told you Flashdrive! Now you won't shut up about it! Worst, you're probably gonna tell Arcee I like her!" Flashdrive smiled down at her friend and hugged him, "It's okay, I won't tell. But if you don't ask her out on a date in a week I'm doing it for you!"

Bumblebee rolled his optics, "I can't ask her out the feelings not mutual!" Flashdrive crossed her servos, "Bee, I think you should talk to her more! Start hanging out with her. I'm sure she would feel the same for you! What in the hell happened to the Bee I knew! You know, the one who wasn't afraid to talk to femmes?" Bumblebee frowned and shook his helm, "Just forget it Flash. I'm shorter than Arcee, she's a warrior, and I'm just a stupid aft scout. I'm pretty sure she wouldn't like someone like me. I gotta go, just get back to your yoga." Bumblebee walked out of Flashdrive's quarters slowly. Flashdrive's smile turned into a frown, she then sighed and continued her yoga.

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Sideswipe went into the control room and looked around at the computers. "Hey Ironhide, Jazz. What's going on?" Jazz took off his autobot sized headphones and smiled up at Sideswipe, "Nothin' much!" Ironhide smirked and looked up at the red, shining bot, "Everything's mighty fine! What's with you, pardner?" Sideswipe smirked and joked, "Oh, nothing much, just, you know, breaking protocol rules, selling illegal energon, something a police force cadet would do." Jazz snickered while Ironhide chuckled. Sideswipe laughed and a familiar voice came from behind him, "Oh really Sideswipe? I thought I raised you better than that." Sideswipe turned around to face none other than Prowl.

"Sorry man! We were just jokin' around!" Jazz exclaimed. Prowl smirked, "It's fine. I need to talk to this trouble making cadet anyway. He and I have a lot to catch up on." Sideswipe smiled and followed Prowl to the training room. Prowl's optics flicked to Sideswipe through his visor. "I, noticed, that we haven't had the time to talk privately in a while." Sideswipe looked over to Prowl, "I haven't really talked to anyone, you know, since the incident." Prowl looked down and Sideswipe looked up to the ceiling, painful memories flooding into his processor. "You know Sideswipe, when I first came here to Earth, I felt alone. Mostly because I didn't have any young bots around me." Prowl chuckled then continued, "But mostly because I didn't have my favorite cadet around me." He smiled towards Sideswipe.

Sideswipe slowly formed a smile and nodded. The two stayed quiet for a moment. Sideswipe wasn't the type to let out his feelings to someone. "For some reason, I always wanted to know, why I was your favorite cadet?" Sideswipe exclaimed, fidgeting with his digits. "Never really wanted to answer that question. You have to find out for yourself." The two mechs entered the training room and turned on the control panel. "Well, cadet. This training session is going to be hard. Think the Sideswipe I know can handle it?" Prowl asked looking at the holographic decepticons. Prowl was always good with servo-to-servo combat, he only need his guns for emergencies. Sideswipe took out his thermal sword. Sideswipe smirked.

"I think I can handle the challenge."

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Flashdrive got up and brushed herself off after yoga. She grabbed th energon that was on the desk and gulped it all down. "I, hope this stuff gets you fit, not just relaxed." She muttered to herself. She sighed then heard a knock on her door. "Come in!" She shouted. The door opened with a femme standing there smiling. "Um, hi, Flashdrive." The femme said nicely. Flashdrive waved, "Hi, Arcee, is everything alright." Arcee nodded and sat down on Flasndrive's berth, "Everything's fine. I just wanted to meet you, since, you know, your another femme I could relate to." Flashdrive sat down next to her and sighed, "Well sure! I mostly hand around a lot of mechs, but I have only a few femme friends. I can add you to my femme friend list!" Arcee chuckled and Flashdrive giggled. "We can even become best friends, maybe." Arcee said.

For a moment Flashdrive frowned, thinking about Hot Rod, but chose to let that out of her processor, but came back to her perky self. "Yeah, maybe we can." The pink and white femme smiled at Flashdrive. "So, tell me something about yourself." Flashdrive thought about it and listed all the things she liked to do, "Well, I like to drag race on my free time. Go drink some energon and think about life, talk to different bots, and just anything that might keep me interested and active. I also like to train and use my guns." Arcee smiled relating to some things that Flashdrive liked to do, "Well, I like to train of course. On my free time I'd watch human tv and read Cybertronian books. That's about it."

Flashdrive looked at the femme and grinned, she was beautiful. Check. She was calm. Check. She was a good fighter. Check. No wonder Bumblebee liked her so much. Arcee thought about what she could ask her new femme friend, "What did you do before the war?" Flashdrive chuckled a bit and she remembered the memory in her processor. "Well, I was a sales clerk." Arcee's optics widened and she laughed, "You, a sales clerk! You've got to be kidding me! Bullshit!" Flashdrive chuckled, "No, I'm so serious. I worked at this small detailing store. Basically, I worked at the front desk, took calls, fitted bots, help bots pick out something that would look good on them. All that type of fashion stuff."

Flashdrive snorted, "I wasn't rich or anything. I lived in Kaon. I lived in a neighborhood where there were small shops and cafes. That was the good life. Until a special someone changed it of course." Flashdrive again frowned and thought about Hot Rod. Arcee looked at Flasndrive for a moment and put her hand on top of Flashdrive's hand, "I understand. I guess I had almost the same life. I was a secretary at Ultra Magnus office in Crystal City. I lived in a small village on Cybertron. Life was going good, until I went home to my village, and found out it was bombed. Before I could head back to Crystal City I forgot that somebody I cared about was left behind. I don't know if he's dead, or alive. All I know is I haven't seen him ever since."

Flashdrive gasped and Arcee continued, "When the war began I joined Elita One's unit of femme's. But eventually I was captured by Shockwave. You see, I had important information of some kind of code stored in my processor. Basically Shockwave mind raped me. After he got the codes from my processor he ripped wires out of my helm and left me dying on the floor. Fragger. Optimus and the others, found me. That's all I can remember." Flashdrive felt coolant in her optics, "Well at least you remember what you did before the war." Arcee too felt coolant in her optics, "I only remember war based memories. I remember the unit of femme's, I remember the mind rape, I remember being a war secretary, I remember the bombing of my village. B-but, I don't remember the loving and kind relationships I had with my friends. I only remember the negative stuff."

Arcee let the coolant drip out her optics. Flashdrive could relate to Arcee, she lost close people in her life, she lost her home, she lost everything. A happy life turned into a gruesome nightmare. Except Flashdrive couldn't relate to the mind rape part, that was just sick and undeniably insane. Flashdrive smiled with coolant glimmering in her optics, "Um, Arcee, I'm not the type of bot to give emotional speeches, but you're actually the strongest femme I ever met. You've been through a lot, I'm surprised your spark hasn't gave up on you from so much, things." Arcee wiped the coolant from her faceplates and giggled, "Well this getting-to-know-each-other conversation got extremely emotional. Flashdrive chuckled and wiped away her coolant. "Well, I best be going. I need to report to Optimus for energon scouting. We should hang out sometimes." Arcee made her way out the door and Flashdrive called her. "Arcee. Just to let you know, I enjoyed the conversation even though it was completely emotional. And we should definitely hang out." Arcee smiled and went out he door.

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"One more left!" Sideswipe shouted. The red mech hid behind a cover area and Prowl hid next to him. "Prowl! Let's get this fragger!" Sideswipe dodged the holograms punch, distracted the hologram, and then Prowl knocked the imaginary mech out from behind. The training session ended, the score being 100. Sideswipe and Prowl gave each other a loud hi five and Sideswipe whooped. "Hey, you're not so rusty as I thought you would be. You know, for an old mech like yourself." Prowl smirked at the joking comment and informed him, "Hey, watch it SPARKLING! I'm not too old to kick your aft. I'm literally the one who taught you everything you know."

Sideswipe smirked and rolled his optics, "SPARKLING! Ha ha you're hilarious!" Prowl chuckled and Sideswipe put away his thermal sword. "You know, after all these years of pain I thought your spark would be extinguished." Prowl said out of the blue. Sideswipe stopped what he was doing and looked at Prowl, "What do you mean?" One look from Prowl Sideswipe knew what he was talking about. "Look, Sideswipe. It's not your fault about what happened between you and your brother. It was just, complicated." Sideswipe frowned. "Prowl, you don't even know what Sunstreaker and I were fighting about."

Prowl shrugged, "I don't even need to know. You guys always did that, you guys always tended to argue over, petty things." Sideswipe didn't have time to talk about this. He didn't want to bring up his brother, missing him already was enough to deal with. "Look. Prowl. I don't want to talk about it." Prowl lifts and optic ridge, "Look, Sideswipe, I know you don't want to talk about it but we have tSo."

"Prowl I,"

"Why is it that he doesn't answer his comm link?"

"Prowl.

"What did you guys argue about so badly that you had to,"

"PROWL!"

Prowl stopped talking and looked at Sideswipe through his visor. Sideswipe covered his hand over his optic and sighed. "Prowl, it wasn't petty, it was over something serious. He doesn't answer anyone's comm link. Nobody knows what happened to him, I don't know what happened to him. I don't know if he's dead or alive. But you can't stay in the past, right?" Prowl looked down and nodded. "Right." Sideswipe confirmed as he left out the training room.

The problem was, Sideswipe was still in the past.