CHAP 20

"What took you so long?" Shadowstar demanded, turning her seat around in Warp's ship. She glared at the blue skinned man. "I said I was in a hurry."

Darkmatter made a face. "Well I had to take a detour first," he replied, putting his hand behind his back. "You wanted us to bring somebody along so I had to get him." he pulled out the Grub she'd dubbed Nimrod. "Is this the add on passenger?"

"Nimrod!" she said, getting up and walking toward the man to retrieve the creature. "I'm happy to see you."

"Nimrod?" the Grub asked, looking confused.

"Yes," she said, taking him away from Warp and heading back to her seat. "I named you Nimrod." when she saw the look on his face she demanded. "What? Do you want me calling you insect?"

"No," he replied, sounding offended. "But Nimrod?!"

"It suits you," she replied, looking away. "Don't question it."

The Grub didn't think it suited him at all. "Nimrod?!"

She ignored him and sat back in her seat. "Who cares what your name is?" she muttered. "Just be happy I'm keeping my promise."

He stared at her in surprise. "Huh?"

"You heard me," she growled. "I'm keeping my promise now shut up, blue boy is coming."

The Grub fell silent as Warp joined them at the controls. He sat down in his chair and fired up the engine. "Okay, hold onto your servos, Shadowstar," he said, looking at her and grinning. "Here we go."

"Just lift off already," she said impatiently.

He gave her a mock salute. "Will do!" then turned the ship toward the sky and and took off, piercing the atmosphere in a matter of seconds and leaving planet Z far behind.

She did save your life, you realize. She could have let you both blow up. How would you like that? You seem to have a thing for exploding.

It was her fault it happened in the first place! She shouldn't have run!

She had a good reason to run, you know. You were going to kill her. I would have run too.

I wasn't going to kill her.

Then what were you going to do?

Nos-4-a2 shook his head, scattering his thoughts. Why was he thinking about this anyway? It was stupid. He didn't have time to think about this especially now.

He pushed himself off the lid and hovered beside it, rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand. His hangover was worse, no thanks to her. He shouldn't have fed so early after being overloaded. But he hadn't had a choice. If he didn't she would have killed him. But he wondered what had caused such a reaction. Surely it wasn't because of what he did. After all. He'd been aiming at the thing she was holding, not the girl herself. He hadn't expected that power to go coursing into Sari's body. But it had and caused that weird little episode.

Stupid girl, he thought, glancing at the coffin. Stupid little brat. Maybe he should have hurt her after draining her energy enough to stop the overload. It might have taught her a lesson. Yes, he should have done just that!

So why hadn't he? He couldn't think of a good answer. So he decided the reason he hadn't done that was because if he had he might have killed her and he didn't want to kill her, not yet. Her energy was still at a high level and he wanted it all for himself... even if it was bad for him.

He looked back at the coffin. He could practically smell that energy. It was so other worldly and tempting..

"Ugh not right now.." he said to himself as another stab of pain hit his hardrive. "First you have to get over the first wave. You can't just keep on biting her, even if her energy tastes lovely."

The energy vampire activated his wings and flew toward the exit. He had to put more distance between himself and her before he lost all restraint and bit her again.

But..

He paused. I can't leave her here without making sure she can't get away. he hovered, his gaze pointed down at the coffin where she lay. He couldn't chance her escaping while he was gone. That wouldn't be good. He would have to do something about that before he left. Surely he could control himself until then?

Yes.

With that decision in mind he dived back toward the coffin. I can't take any chances.

But before he opened it again he flew over to some robot shells that were more or less intact and opened up their chest compartments, reaching inside and yanking out their wires. They were dead anyway so they wouldn't be needing them anyone. Once he was done he turned back to the coffin.

That little ordeal with Prowl's link with Sari had made the cyber ninja's balance way off and thus he became clumsy. Unable to stay standing he tripped over his own feet and fell, slamming into XR whom he knocked over as well.

"Whoa!" the robot explained, trying to keep his balance.

Too late. Prowl was heavier than him so he couldn't prevent it. He hit the pavement with Prowl landing on top of him. "Hey!" XR shouted, turning his head to glare at the Autobot. "Would you mind getting off of me?"

"Oh, I'm sorry," the Autobot said, getting up. He stood and rested his forehead against his hand. The processor ache he'd gotten after the incident was getting worse and his head would not stop pounding. "I didn't mean to do that. I just don't feel very well at the moment."

"What's the matter now?" XR asked, getting up and wiping himself off. He'd landed in a puddle and his front chassis was stained with stale oil that had leaked from a hot dog card that had been pushed past them a few minutes ago. "Ick! How am I going to get this off?"

"I'm sorry." Prowl shook his head. "It's nothing," he replied. "Don't worry about it."

"Oh sure." XR rolled his eyes. The robot space ranger had begun to realize that Prowl always seemed to have a problem and never liked to admit it to anyone, which, to be honest, was kind of annoying. "Stop acting like you're a macho-bot or something!"

Prowl looked at him, startled. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me," XR said, giving him a long, hard look. "You have a million different problems and you're always keeping them to yourself. When people want to help you're all like "I'm fine. It's none of you're business. I'm going to openly show that I have a problem to get attention then act like I don't want it." Enough already! Just tell me what's wrong or I'll give you something to be in pain about." as he said this he pulled out his mallet and threatened the Autobot with it. "Don't make me use this on you! I haven't had a chance to try it out and you're starting to become the perfect specimin to try it on."

Prowl stared at him, his mouth hanging open in disbelief. This robot was serious! "Don't do that," the cyber ninja ordered, stepping out of range of that mallet.

"Then you tell me right now what your problem is!" Xr ordered, wheeling toward him and shaking the weapon under Prowl's nose. "Stop being such a crater head and just be honest!"

"Okay fine!" Prowl said, dodging back when XR swung the mallet at his head. "I'll tell you, just put that thing away before you hurt someone!"

"That's better." XR put the mallet away then folded his arms and said impatiently. "Now get talking."

Prowl sighed then said. "Okay fine here it is. That last attack didn't do well on my systems."

"I can see that." XR commented.

"Well yes." he shook his head. "Forget it."

That mallet came out again and he whacked at Prowl's hand which was rested on the lid of a dumpster. The black and gold Autobot yelped and pulled his hand away. "I said cut that out!"

"Sorry, but you gave me no choice."

"You didn't have to do that!"

"I did to! Not explain yourself before I hit something else!" he grinned, waving the mallet around. "I know you don't want that."

For a moment there was a silence then Prowl said. "To be completely honest. I don't feel well. Whatever happened to Sari was so bad the link between us made it happen to me too." he sat down on the ground, resting his head in his hands. "I think I might need to run a systems diagnostic." he glanced over at XR. "If it's something seriously wrong I will need somebody to repair me as I can't do internal repairs myself."

"Why not?"

"I'm not a medic," the cyber ninja responded. "That's Ratchet's job.

"Who is Ratchet?"

"A medical Autobot trained to repair damaged Cybertronians."

"Oh so he's like a doctor."

"Something like that, if doctors know how to reattach heads to decapitated bodies." the cyber ninjas leaned against the wall and began to run the system diagnostics. "Just give me a few minutes."

XR sighed and leaned against the wall with his arms folded. Like he had a choice. This is going to take awhile.

So he decided to take a short nap while the Autobot tried to repair his errors. Powering down his optics he fell into sleep mode rather quickly. But he had only been sleeping for maybe two minutes when the sound of voices brought him back to full wakefulness. His optics flared to full brilliance and he turned his head toward the sound. There were two of them. Both male. They sounded like they were having some sort of conversations about... robots?

"I'm telling you if we don't bring in some quality parts soon he's gonna have our heads," the first speaker, one with a rather low voice, said. "I know that energy vampire is good for business but can't he drain some machines with better parts?"

Vampire? Are they talking about Nos-4-a2?

"Hey it's not like we can tell him what to feed on or not," the other speaker, this one with a much higher voice, responded. "Do you know where he lives? We can't just go there and talk to him about it, you know."

"You're right," the first agreed. "He's not even aware that he's helping us with- hello what's this?"

They had stopped close by maybe even behind him.

XR looked toward Prowl. He saw two aliens with pointy ears and yellow skin peeking into the alley, their large multi-colored eyes locked onto Prowl who was still in the middle of system diagnostics and therefore unaware of everything in the real world.

"Whoa! Is that a robot?" one, the taller of the two, asked the other. XR was surprised to hear the high voice coming out of his mouth.

"Sure looks like it," his short partner, who owned the much deeper voice, replied. "But that's the strangest robot I've ever seen."

"Yeah," the first one commented, stepping into the alley. He knelt over the Autobot and looked at it's face. "Sure is weird looking." he noticed the Autobot symbol on his chest. "Whoa. What's that thing there?" he pointed at it.

"I don't know," the short one responded also getting a look at the symbol. "It looks like some kind of face."

"A strange face." the tall one waved his hand in front of Prowl's face. "Hello! Anybody home?"

The cyber ninja didn't respond. He just kept on staring straight ahead with a blank expression.

"Maybe it's broken," deep voiced shorty suggested.

"Or maybe he was bitten by that energy vampire and lost all his energy." the tall one leaded sideways and got a good look at Prowl's neck. "I don't see any bite marks, though."

"So this one wasn't vampire boy's snack," the short one concluded, nodding his head. "So then.... what's wrong with it?"

"I dunno maybe it's just broken," his comrade responded. He grinned. "If it is broken then I guess nobody will care if we take it."

Uh oh! This was bad. XR was going to have to do something before those two aliens decided to take Prowl away to use for spare parts. "Come on, Prowl," he pleaded. "Finish your scan already!"

But Prowl wasn't likely to finish that for a few more minutes and by then it would be too late. Which meant.. "Oh craters." he reached into his drawer and pulled out one of the gun from his grand arsenal. "I guess this will work." he wheeled around the dumpster. "Freeze you robo thieving scumbags!"

Startled, the aliens turned their heads toward the speaker. When they spotted XR, hefting a gun almost as big as himself, they freaked, falling into each other to put space between themselves and the white and green robot. "Hey! What's this all about!?"

"You were going to try to steal that machine right there!" XR responded, gesturing toward Prowl, without moving his gun. "That robot is property of Star Command!"

"Star Command?!" the aliens looked at each other then back at the robot space ranger. "That robot is-"

"That's right," XR confirmed, nodding his head. "Now if you don't want to face arrest for stealing of private property you will just step back the way you came and forget you ever laid you multi-colored eyes on it."

"Hey we didn't mean no harm or anything," the short one said, stepping back, his hands up in surrender. "We were just looking at it. We never intended to take it or anything."

"Oh really?" the robot demanded, raising an eyebrow. "I distinctly heard you say that you were going to take it somewhere. That doesn't sound like you were just looking at it to see how it worked."

"Well uh... we were just uh.. it was a joke!" the tall one exclaimed getting to his feet and moving away. His friend followed his example. "We weren't serious."

Xr started charging up the gun. "Really?"

The aliens took off.

"Yeah that's right run from XR Robot Ranger," the robot said, grinning and putting the gun back into his drawer. "I love doing that. gets them every time." he looked over at Prowl. The Autobot was still out of it. "Hey!" he shouted, tapping on Prowl's forehead then snapping his fingers. "Are you done yet? We don't have all day you know!"

Prowl's optics flickered then brightened. He stared at XR. "What?" he said, sounding groggy. "What happened?"

"You almost became spare parts of a black market guru that's what happened," XR told him. "Luckily I was able to chase those part nabbing hooligans away."

"Huh?"

"Oh nevermind," XR said, turning away. "Let's just get going." Prowl got to his feet and followed. "By the way," he added. "What did you find?"

The cyber ninja's expression said more than his answer. "More than I thought I would."

Uh oh. This doesn't sound good.

"Sexy vampire,

I'm falling in love

So just bite me baby

And drink all my blood."

"Will you shut up!?" Shadowstar shouted, turning her head to glare at Warp Darkmatter who had been the one singing.

Darkmatter was sitting back in his chair with his feet propped up on the control panel and his hands intertwined behind his head. "Why?" he asked, looking over at her. "Don't you like it?"

"No!" she snapped, her optics flaring. "I don't like it." she kicked his leg. "What did I say about calling me sexy, and get your feet off the controls!"

"Why do you care?" he asked her, grimacing as he rubbed his sore leg. "How do you even know I was talking about you?"

"Because I'm the only vampire in the ship!" she shouted.

"That still doesn't mean I was talking about you." he looked away and grinned. "You sure are vain. Not every song is about you."

"Speak for yourself." she folded her arms and turned away from him, focusing her attention on the black void of space. It looks the same no matter what universe you're in. she sighed. No that's not true.. nothing about those stars has the feeling of the universe I was created in. They're strangers, strange stars.

"Hey," Warp said, bringing her out of her thoughts. She looked back at him. "Now that we're no longer on planet Z why don't you tell me a bit about yourself?"

"Why do you want to know about me?" she demanded.

He shrugged. "Just call it curiosity." He really did want to get to know her. There was something about this female robot that he found attractive.

She looked away. "It's none of your business."

"Oh, don't be like that," he said. "You can tell me. I won't tell Zurg. I promise."

She laughed. "Your words mean nothing to me, flesh bag. Don't bother pressing your luck I might just get angry and punish you."

His response was a little unsettling. "I'm not sure I wouldn't mind that."

She glared at him. "Don't be too sure."

He smirked. "I am sure."

She bared her fangs and hissed.

He frowned. "Okay fine, I'm sorry." his eyes fell on the Grub in her lap who had fallen asleep awhile ago. "So why did you name him Nimrod?"

"Because it fits," she said shortly.

"Riiight. Why did you want to bring that Grub anyway? You make friends with him or something?"

"That doesn't concern you either."

He looked away again. "You're sure snappy," he commented. "Can you at least try to be polite?"

"I'll be polite when you stop bothering me, flesh bag." she retorted, making an annoyed face and folding her arms.

"Ugh fine." he looked away again, his expression telling her he was ticked off. "Sheesh. No wonder you don't have any friends."

"Oh I have friends," she told him, smiling wickedly. "and compared to them I'm the happiest person in the universe."

"Somehow I doubt that."

"I don't care what you doubt." was her answer. "You have never met them so you wouldn't know."