Chapter 9: A Scouting Mission
It was fresh and early in the morning. The sun rises up and a brand new day. Flashdrive was sitting in Ratchet's med bay, excited for the news that she could finally let go of her energon tank. Her deep cut was weld shut, and she could finally do anything she wanted to without Optimus and Ratchet the hatchet worrying about her health. "Well, you're ready to go and in good condition."Ratchet informed her. Flashdrive grinned, "Thanks grandpa Ratchet. I'm surprised you hadn't forgot about my, problem. You know, the humans call it, um, what's it called. Oh yeah! Alzheimer's." Ratchet usually didn't hit femmes with his wrench, but in Flashdrive's case, he would hit her on the top of her helm, leaving a small dent. Clang! "Ouch! What the frag Ratchet!"
Ratchet smirked then laughed. "That's what you get for being smart with me youngster!" Flashdrive rubbed the dent on her helm and frowned. "Anyway, before the rude comment, I was going to inform you about your wound." Flashdrive looked up at Ratchet and glared, "I thought you said my wound was gone and I'm in perfect condition!" Ratchet shooked his helm, "The outter wound is gone, yes, but your wiring there is still sensitive, still trying to recover. If you so happen to be stabbed in that area again or shot then you'd be in much more critical condition than before." Ratchet paused and put a servo on Flashdrive's shoulder. "Look, Flashdrive. You're young and you want to have fun, yes I know. But be careful, we have enough dead autobots on our servos." Flashdrive nodded and Ratchet did a small smile.
"Now get out of my med bay! I have work to do!" Ratchet kicked the young femme out of the bay and shut the door. "Jeez, sorry old man! I guess you suffer from crankiness too!" She sighed and heard a voice from behind her, "You never noticed that?" She turned around to face Sideswipe with a smirk on his face. "Hi Sideswipe." The shy femme started to walk away and head to her quarters. She didn't want to talk to him, he was handsome, and she couldn't bear to look at him. "Hey, where ya going femme!" Flashdrive acted impatient and only looked at him with a sideways glance, "Somewhere away from you! Besides, hanging out with you is enough trouble." Sideswipe laughed then looked at her, "Hey, you and Bumblebee are young, immature, you know, I was trying to save you're afts from getting in trouble." Flashdrive glared at the red and silver mech, "And how is that?"
Sideswipe thought about it and smirked, "Oh! Did I say your afts! I mean my aft. Man I'm so fragging smart!" Flashdrive rolled her optics and entered her quarters. She sat down on her berth and sighed. "Hey, so anyway, since I have better things to do than talk with you, Optimus set us both up with a scouting mission." Sideswipe impatiently said.
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"Optimus! Please sir, I can go with Bee instead!" Sideswipe snorted, "Optimus! You know me. I can fight better than her and Bumblebee combined, and remember last time when the two mischievous bots snuck out without your permission. If you send those two out on the scouting mission by themselves, they'll end up doing something they're not supposed to do!" Flashdrive frowned. Flashdrive could do this mission by herself, what was the big deal. "Sideswipe, you are one to talk. You are a cadet too, you've made mistakes in your life, just like any young autobot." Sideswipe rolled his optics and stopped talking immediately. Flashdrive was on the edge of laughing at Mr.-just-because-I'm-a-police-force-cadet-means-I-can-do-anything-I-want. "Sideswipe, you and Flashdrive will go energon scouting together. No complaining. Wheeljack and Jazz will be nearby, so if you encounter any Decepticons you can call for help." Sideswipe and Flashdrive grimly replied, "Yes sir."
Optimus nodded, "Good, Prowl, can you open the base doors." Prowl nodded and the two young bots followed the police bot out of base. "Okay guys, make sure to call for back up when you need it." Sideswipe and Flashdrive nodded. As the two headed out Prowl winked at Sideswipe and then chuckled. "That femme looks like she could make Sideswipe happy." Prowl mumbled.
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Flashdrive was angrily muttering under her breath while scouting for energon. "Look, Fast Drive, Flashdrive, sorry I completely forgot your name, complaining isn't going to get you anywhere so cut it out." Flashdrive snorted, "Why'd you want to be my partner on energon scouting, huh?" Sideswipe rolled his optics, "Optimus set us as partners, ask him not me." The mech and femme was still in the forest roaming around looking for as much energon as they could get. "So, you're a cadet, forgive me if I'm not correct?" Sideswipe nodded, "Yes, well, I used to be one. I was a police force cadet on Cybertron. But ever since the war broke out, I guess they needed warriors instead of the police force, it's understandable, war means kill and later on in life make peace..." Sideswipe quickly stopped talking and looked around frantically.
"Shhh! Do you hear that!" Sideswipe shouted while whispering. Flashdrive stayed silent and tried to make out the sound he was hearing. Her audio receptor caught something rustling under a bush. "Something's under that bush." Sideswipe took out his thermal sword and Flashdrive took out her two pistols. Sideswipe got into a fighting position with Flashdrive behind his lead. Suddenly a bunny jumped out and started nibbling on grass. "That little vermin scared the scrap out of me!" Sideswipe shouted. Flashdrive laughed. Sideswipe couldn't help but look at the femme laughing. Look at that smile, Sideswipe suddenly thought. He smiled and she stopped laughing, looking towards him and blushing, smiling back at him.
This went on for a few seconds, until Sideswipe heard something through his comm link. "Sideswipe, Flashdrive, come in, come in. This is Ironhide callin' ya!" The two bots stopped looking at each other and Sideswipe answered the call. "What's the matter Ironhide?" Ironhide paused for a second and then proceeded to talk. "Jazz and I have found some energawn! Yeah, you two bettr' get here pronto!" Flashdrive looked up at Sideswipe who looked back down at her. "We're coming, hang on you two! Sideswipe out!"
He tracked the two mechs coordinates and the two young bots transformed and headed out to find Jazz and Ironhide. "Energon! Well, that's a miracle!" Flashdrive shouted towards the mech while they were speeding. Sideswipe grumbled back, "Well, let's hope that the decepticons didn't track it down. Decepticons, are sneaky like that, you know." Flashdrive giggled to herself in her processor, 'Isn't that what started this war in the first place?' While the two were speeding a decepticon was watching them through some trees as they passed by. Little did they know, the decepticon was a femme, with a troubled past and a hate for autobots...
The young mech and femme saw Ironhide and Jazz, parked in their car form, just in case some humans (and hopefully not) decepticons happened to catch them in their real form. The two pulled up in front of them and Jazz flickered his headlights, letting the two know where they found the energon. "Took you guys long enough." Ironhide joked. Sideswipe rolled his optics and Flashdrive smirked. "So where's our food essential to our life?" Sideswipe asked. Jazz pointed to some blocks that had a glowing purple color. "They look so delicious." Flashdrive's mouth started to water, she didn't want to stare real hard afraid that she might eat up all the energon before they ate it.
"Don't they! I'm going to put most of them in Ironhide's pickup." The bots started gathering the energon and putting it into Ironhide's pickup. "Alrighty! Ready to go Ironhide!" Jazz patted Ironhide's roof. Jazz transformed and followed Ironhide down the road back to base. Flash Drive was about to transform when Sideswipe stopped her, "Hey, I was thinkin, maybe we could get to hang out you know. Know each other better. They got some pretty good sights here on Earth you know." Flash Drive had to think about it. What exactly was this mech planning? "Fine, where do you want to go?" Sideswipe thought about the nearest sight. "It's this huge cliff I found not to long ago. The sun looks amazing from there. If we get real deep in conversation, maybe we'll get to see the moon."
Flashdrive nodded, "Sure, why not. I'm probably going to be stuck on this organic planet for the rest of my lifetime, the way the war is going and all." Sideswipe chuckled and the two transformed and headed to their destination.
"Pretty nice view." Flashdrive looked toward the horizon admiring the planet's view of the sun and how beautiful it looked. For some reason Cybertron had the moon and the planet Jupiter they could only see. There was no sun on their planet unfortunately. "Told you you would like it." Sideswipe said with a cute smirk. Flashdrive smiled, "Honestly, this amazing big star is what really gives this planet it's beauty. I mean look at the sky, this old hot ball of flame gives the sky so much color." Sideswipe nodded, "The sun's not the only beautiful thing on this planet. I mean, there's so much more here." Flashdrive chuckled. Sideswipe looked over to her, "What?"
The femme shook her head, "When I was on the ship traveling here with the rest of my friends, we all happened to see the sun. Our optics were all wide and I thought it was the most amazing thing I ever saw." She started to get sadder thinking about it. "I think that was the final happy part of my life. Well, you know, besides the not ending up dead part." Flashdrive giggled and started to rub her arm. Sideswipe wasn't good at comforting other bots but he could understand where she was coming from. She lost bots who were close to her, and Sideswipe lost a bot who was close to him. He touched her servos. Surprisingly he got no reaction from the stubborn femme. "It really doesn't have to be the last happy part of your life though." Sideswipe comfortingly assured her. Flashdrive looked at him and smiled, Sideswipe smiled back, not only because he was being nice but because he felt the positive aura from her, something he hadn't felt since his brother disappeared.
"Um, anyway, what would you like to talk about. I could use a good conversation." Flashdrive reached her servo back and blushed profusely. Sideswipe blushed and thought of something they could talk about. "Well, you can start about telling me about your friends who were on that ship. I mean if it's personal and you don't wanna talk about it it's fine." Flashdrive shrugged, "Well, my team consisted mostly of cadets trained under Kup. Kup got a distress call from Optimus saying that he needed more autobots on Earth. You know, our kind is dying off fast." Sideswipe felt his spark jump thinking of his brother. But he knew Sunstreaker was too strong to be killed off by a bunch of decepti-freaks. "Kup wanted to send the cadets he thought were trained enough to be part of Optimus crew. I was overwhelmed that I was picked, kind of surprised also because I tended to get on Kup's last nerve every chance I got." Flashdrive smiled at the thought.
"I met all the bots that were picked to come with, and one of those bots was Bumblebee. From there we formed a very amazing friendship, he was a little like," Flashdrive paused and had to think about what she was going to say. "Um, he reminded me of a mech I used to know, until he became different." Sideswipe saw Flashdrive's clenched fist. "So this mystery mech happened to grind your gears over somethin?" Sideswipe asked. Flashdrive continued looking down at the ground, "Old Rod. Him and I were the best of friends. We did everything together, prank each other, race together, party together. You name it. He was like me in a way, we both were in a society where you had to fit in. But we both wanted to fit out. The only reason Rod fitted out was because of his flames on his chest and his outrageous attitude. I only fitted out because I was just different. Rod was the life of the party, and the femmes went wild when he was around them. Yeah he had his good qualities, but he also had his bad ones too."
Flashdrive huffed and continued, "He was stubborn and kind of an aft hole at times. But the thing about Rod and I was that we talked to each other when we were going through things. If Rod was unhappy, I was unhappy. Until one day, the day after I was announced to join Optimus on Earth, he became serious." Sideswipe snorted, "Is that really why you were mad at him? Because he became more serious?" Flashdrive shook her helm, "No, his whole personality changed. He started not racing anymore, he started listening to Kup more. His party days were over and he even started commanding some of the other cadets around. Before I left he didn't even see me, or give me a hug. When I sat in the ship and looked out the window I happened to see him there, and for some reason he looked so much more different. He was taller, larger, and he looked, just reformatted or something."
Flashdrive wanted to ball up and cry, but just couldn't get her emotions out of her. She just stared out into the sky looking out at the sun that was appearing to go down a little. "Police force cadet, you mind telling me your story?" Sideswipe smiled and began with his story, "Well, since you talked about an important bot in your life I might as well talk about a bot that I cared for-"
"Prowl?" Flashdrive suddenly asked. Sideswipe rolled his optics and answered,"No, I mean, Prowl is another bot that's important to me but this bot is even more important to me. Anyway, this bot was the exact opposite of me. First he was older, he was outgoing, and he wasn't a police force cadet. Okay don't laugh ... but he wanted to be a metal model." Flashdrive giggled, "Like, the most handsome mechs on Cybertron magazine. Your friend must've been wickedly handsome." Sideswipe smirked, "Yeah he was okay. Now back to the story. My friend was just like your little Rod friend except he wasn't much of an aft hole and he was pretty naive. He was naive to the whole concept of the war. He was trained of course and was sent to Earth but he had a choice, to stay on Cybertron with Prowl and I, or risk losing his life. His ship was sent to Earth, his whereabouts are unknown, all because of a poor mistake."
Flashdrive didn't know what to say but let him continue. "Before he left I meant to give him this little trinket thing." Sideswipe held a blue glowing orb in his servo. Flashdrive gasped, "What is it?" Sideswipe smirked and threw the little glowing orb on the ground. It fell and a huge screen hologram came out of it. "Woah..." Flashdrive exclaimed. Sideswipe shrugged, "Built by Wheeljack himself. I have the other one. It's a message transmitter. From anywhere in the universe I could communicate with him, send him voice clips and everything." The mech then frowned and sat down on the ground. "Shut down." The orb stopped glowing the hologram and shut off. Flashdrive sat down beside Sideswipe and looked at him. "I'm sorry. That's really all I can say. Sometimes, I ask myself, what's the point of this war. I wish life was like it was, calm, fun." Flashdrive looked at Sideswipe's servo and grasped it. "Let's get back to base partner." Sideswipe smirked, a devious look in his eye. "Not til' I beat you there first."
He then transformed and zoomed off. For a second Flashdrive looked baffled and then laughed. "Don't think because I can be soft I can't be fast." She then transformed speeding after him.
A loud beeping came from the computer screen that was set up in the autobot base. "Prime sir, we have an incoming call from an unknown location. Should we answer?" Jazz asked. Optimus Prime nodded, "It looks like an autobot signal. Answer." Jazz pressed a button and a loud static noise came from the audio. "Hello, hello, is anyone there!" Jazz talked into the intercom, "Yes, this is the autobot base! Can you hear me!" The static then started to get quiet and then the unknown voice answered again, "Oh, thank Primus! The autobot base! I'm elite guard, Smokescreen!" Ironhide and Jazz's optics widened while Optimus held a serious expression. "Smokescreen, I am Optimus Prime. Where are you?" The static went blank and then started again, "Prime, sir, by my landing coordinates I'm on a planet called Earth. I am in a place on this planet called Texas." Ironhide looked to Optimus and gave him the look. Optimus nodded, "We're coming to meet you now. Jazz you will assist me."
The space bridge portal then opened. Optimus Prime transformed into his semi truck alt mode while Jazz transformed into his red and white sports car. As they went through the portal they were surrounded by trees in a forest. Optimus and Jazz then transformed and looked around. "Jazz, take caution. It is eerily quiet here." The two bots took out their guns and looked around for another autobot. "Optimus, here." Jazz motioned for Optimus to follow him in a cave. It was dark and drips of water was the only sound. "Smokescreen!" A blue, yellow, and red bot was laying on the cave wall, his leg severely wounded. "What happened to ya!" Jazz shouted. The mech dimly looked up at Jazz and the Prime. "Jazz, it seems as if he is injured badly. We should carry him back to the bridge and take extra caution not to drop him. I will send a comm-link to Ratchet." Optimus then spoke into his comm link saying, "Ratchet, we have a severely injured autobot. Prepare your things, he is losing a lot of energon." Ratchet then replied back quickly as possible, "Okay Optimus! Carry him safely and don't drop him." Jazz and Optimus picked the hurt mech up and carried him out of the cave.
"Aaah!" Shouted Jazz. A blood curdling laugh came from up in the sky, a red and black seeker in the sky smirked. "You stupid little autobots! Thought you could get away from the decepticons hmm? This place has energon something special we are looking for … something very special." It was no bot other than Starscream with his screechy voice and loud engine. Optimus and Jazz transformed and sped off while Optimus held Smokescreen atop of his trailer. Starscream flew towards them at a fast rate shooting lasers toward them. A laser hit Jazz's tire. "Aah!" Jazz transformed and tumbled over rolling down a hill. "Prime! Where's the damn space bridge!" Optimus wasn't about to leave his friend alone, he decided to fight back. He transformed and took out his battle axe. Starscream transformed and came towards the fearful leader, both of them wrestled. Optimus main goal was to knock the loud seeker out but unofrtunately decepticons were very strong, stronger than the average autobot, depending on which decepticon you pick a fight with. Optimus knew for sure he was stronger. Starscream kicked him off and reached for his laser gun. Just as Starscream was about to shoot a weak Smokescreen came behind him and hit him hard on his head. Starscream fell on the ground out cold and wings twitching. "That was close sir." Somekescreen drowsily remarked. The mech fell on the ground himself, Optimus just sighed. He looked over to Jazz to see the mech tending to his tire. "I'm alright Prime! Just need this fixed back at base. I guess I'll just walk." Jazz got up and walked towards the space bridge that was finally opened.
Optimus carried Smokescreen towards the portal, everybot waited to see what new autobot was in the base. "Autobots, this is Smokescreen, from the elite guard on Cybertron. He is badly injured and needs a lot of help recovering his strength. I'm sure he would appreciate it if we welcomed him and helped him adjust to living here on Earth." Optimus carried Smokescreen to the medical bay and sat him down on the table. Ratchet got out band aids and medicine to tend to Smokescreen's wounds. Optimus waited patiently for Smokescreen's diagnosis to see if anything hazardous happened to the autobot. Ratchet scanned him and cleared his throat to Optimus. Optimus turned around and answered, "Have you received any diagnosis?" Ratchet nodded and responded, "Half of the kid's spark is missing." Optimus raised an optic ridge, "Do you know how this might have occurred?" Ratchet put his digits over his closed optics, "Well, there's two reasons for how his spark might've broke. He either suffered mental pain and suffered spark break, or, somebody must've shot or stab him in that area. But from the looks of the spark break it doesn't look like anything physical happened to his spark. I put a sleep induced drug in his systems so he can get some rest. After he wakes I think it's smart if we ask him what happened and who or what could've caused his spark to break. But for now, let him recharge." Optimus patted Ratchet's back, "Your service is appreciated Ratchet." Optimus walked out the med bay and checked on Jazz, making sure he was alright. There was only two troubled young bots missing and he couldn't help but to wonder where they were.
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Sideswipe and Flashdrive sped to base knowing that it was nighttime and had to report back to base immediately. "What's wrong Flashy? You seem a little slow." Not to forget that they were literally racing back to base on the quiet streets of Nevada. "Oh, no Sideswipe, just warming up so I can burn out your tail pipe." She sped up as Sideswipe tried to speed up along with her. As the two bots sped through they came to a complete stop when some type of grenade was thrown in front of them. "What the hell?" Sideswipe shouted. Flashdrive and Sideswipe suffered the impact of the grenade falling back over a railway of the street. Sideswipe grabbed Flahdrive's hand before she could fall over. He helped her back up onto the street as the came face to face with the one of the most deadly decepticon fighters. She was silver all over, her yellow cat shaped optics staring at them creepily. Her helm was purple and she had no mouth (it was covered by a purple mouth plate). What was even more deadly was her quietness, the only sound she made was the sheathing of her samurai swords. "Who the hell are you?" Sideswipe asked. The femme then started to make her way slowly to them, samurai blades gleaming in the moonlight as she made her way to them.
"Sideswipe it's time to go!" Flashdrive tried to pull the mech away from the enemy but Sideswipe stubbornly planted his peds in the ground with a fighting stance. "What's the rush? I've been lookin to kick a decepticon's aft all day." The dangerous femme quickly sprinted and to them kicking Sideswipe in his chamber plating. Flashdrive got out two guns until the decepticon femme kicked them out of her servos. Both femmes rough housed each other as Flashdrive tried to reach for her guns. Sideswipe's war cry made the silver femme turn her head giving Flashdrive the opportunity to grab her two guns. Sideswipe kicked the mysterious femme and pursued to stab her with one of his swords. She kicked him off and then tried to get back one of her samurai swords, but was immediately stopped by a, "Freeze and surrender decepticon scum." Flashdrive pointed her pistol straight at her faceplate. The decepticon femme dropped her sword and put up both of her servos.
Sideswipe put stasis cuffs on her and smirked, "Slagging decepticon, thought you were gonna get our energon huh?" Flashdrive's messaging signal beeped and she heard Optimus' voice. "Cadet Flashdrive and Sideswipe, report back to base as soon as possible. This is urgent." Flashdrive looked at Sideswipe and the decpeticon femme who put her helm down in defeat. "Well, let's get to walking."