Chapter 2 : Swindle's Involvement
Things went downhill from there. Fast.
Drag Strip didn't really like any of his teammates, but if he had to choose one of them to work with, it would have been Wildrider. The grey Ferrari always made a great distraction while Drag Strip did the real work of smashing into some facility or grabbing some weapon component, and Drag Strip's reflexes were quick enough to get him out of the way when his teammate swerved and spun and launched himself off the surface of the road entirely. Wildrider had his faults, sure, but at least he didn't constantly moan about how they were going to die. Or freeze up at the thought that someone might be looking at him.
Except now Drag Strip had no one to drive with or even spend time with off-duty. Wildrider behaved just the same, as if the impending race made no difference at all to him. And it probably didn't, but it made a lot of difference to Drag Strip. The way Drag Strip saw it, competitors were meant to be crushed, humiliated, left in the dust. Even if they were other Stunticons.
So he could hardly hang out with Wildrider as he had done before, and as for Dead End and Breakdown, he wanted to run them over. Why didn't they remember all the fights he had won? Why didn't they talk about him the way they had talked about Wildrider? He stewed over it, alternately resentful and miserable (not that he would ever have admitted that), and kept to himself as much as he could.
The next thing that happened was that all the other Decepticons found out about the race.
Drag Strip had been more or less forced to tell Motormaster about it. After leaving his teammates in the common room, he had gone down to one of the lower levels of the ship and glowered at the fish outside the windows, but that hadn't lasted long. He didn't enjoy being on his own too much. So he had stalked back to the common room, only to find that his teammates had decided that he had the honor of delivering the news of the race to Motormaster.
At that point, Drag Strip decided he had a lot in common with Megatron. Now he too knew what it was like to be stabbed in the back by some trusted inferior. If only he had had a fusion cannon as well.
"Why should I do it?" he said. "Wildrider can go. He's the mech of the moment, after all."
"Oh, well," Dead End drawled, "if you're afraid…"
And that was how Drag Strip found himself trudging along the corridor that led to Motormaster's quarters – which were close enough to the other Stunticons' rooms that he could keep an eye on them, but far enough that Motormaster's position of leadership was obvious to everyone. He hated Dead End more every step of the way, but he knew they didn't have a choice; Motormaster would have found out sooner or later. There were no secrets in a gestalt bond.
Motormaster listened, a smile that was mostly sneer spreading across his face slowly. "Send me a map of your route," was all he said. "I'll be waiting at the finish line, 'cause you'll need someone to judge this race."
Great, Drag Strip thought as he left, the first finish line I won't be entirely happy to speed past. It was a relief to get that over with, though, and he felt almost better until the next day, when Swindle hailed him with a question about which highway they had picked for the race.
Drag Strip stared at the Combaticon in silence, trying to control the sudden urge to transform and smash into him. He knew better than to ask how Swindle had found out – either Soundwave's many listening devices or Drag Strip's own treacherous teammates. Apparently there were no secrets in the Decepticon base either.
Swindle seemed to take the lack of a reply as caution, and his voice lowered to a just-you-and-me confiding tone. "Hey, you could do very well for yourself out of this. So far everyone's just bet on who they think the winner'll be, but I could offer odds on other outcomes. Say, you leaving Wildrider in no shape to continue by the halfway point. Then, if you did it, we'd split the--"
"Why don't you go sell your teammates again, Swindle?"
If he had hoped that would have any effect, it didn't. "Cause this is more profitable," Swindle replied. It was impossible to see his optics behind the purple visor, but his tone was as cheerful as ever. "Everyone in the base is wagering on the race."
"Wagering on me?" Drag Strip said before he could stop himself.
Swindle's smile looked like a ripple passing over a pool of thick, molten metal. "Why don't you go ask your teammates, Drag Strip?" he said, and walked away. He already knows the answer to that, Drag Strip thought bitterly.
Under any other circumstances, Drag Strip would have loved the idea of the other Decepticons betting on him, might even have entered into Swindle's schemes, confident in his ability to deliver when it came to battle and speed on the open road. Now, though, he found himself dreading the thought of the race. Even if I win – no, shut up, there's no "if" about it – will it make any difference?
He went about his daily duties quietly, trying not to be noticed. That was another change, since Drag Strip's normal demeanor was as designed-to-attract-attention as his paintjob, and Rumble, catching him in a cargo hold, made the mistake of taunting him about it.
Drag Strip hit him. He knew that was a mistake too but he didn't care; he needed the relief of a fight and he had been avoiding his teammates for too long. Rumble hadn't been expecting the punch and it pitched him hard into a wall, but he was up again in the next moment, shaking his head as if to clear it. His piledrivers slid out of his arms.
Drag Strip's forcefield was up as well, deflecting the first blow. He transformed, revved his engine and prepared to flatten Rumble… or at least that was the plan before Frenzy's sonic attack slammed into him from behind. The forcefield flickered and went down. Drag Strip swerved out of the way before two pairs of piledrivers could hit him and hurtled out of the cargo hold.
Not that that saved him later, of course. Soundwave would never have passed over an attack on one of his precious midgets, and Drag Strip found himself on punishment duty for the next three days. He had to guard the space bridge (first day), clean the hangar (second day) and check the hull and maintenance systems at a hundred different places (third day). All boring makework duties, intended to keep him as far from other Decepticons as possible in case another fight broke out.
Not that Drag Strip wanted one by then. His paintjob was dulled by the third day, scuffed and smeared with the residues of both battle and punishment, and he felt as dispirited as he looked. Making sure that the manual readouts of the hull integrity and maintenance systems tallied with the automatic scans was solitary, mind-numbing work, and there was nothing to look forward to once it was done.
He cleaned himself off as best he could and trailed back to the Stunticons' common room anyway, having nowhere else to go. The door had been left ajar and he heard voices inside, though it was the sound of his own name that made him stop.
"…worst that will happen is that if Drag Strip wins, he'll be even more insufferable than he already is."
It was Dead End's voice. Drag Strip flattened himself as best he could beside the door, feeling something inside him turn harder and colder than the wall against which he leaned.
"That's why we should keep an eye on things," Breakdown said.
"And do what? Drag Strip will fight dirty whether we're watching or not. So will Wildrider, for that matter."
"Drag Strip's planning something, though. Something undercover – I mean, underhanded." Breakdown's voice took on a familiar note of tense suspicion. "He's been too quiet lately."
"Breakdown, he's quiet because he's sulking. Now, did you get that paint?"
The door to Motormaster's quarters slammed. Drag Strip jumped away from the wall, trying to look as though he had just arrived at the common room, but the footsteps coming closer were not Motormaster's heavy tread. Swindle stepped out of the shadows.
"Do excuse me," he said. "I've got some business with the Stunticons."
The memory of three days' punishment duty for picking a fight was still fresh, so despite the insult Drag Strip stepped out of the jeep's way. Still, he couldn't stop himself from asking, "What were you doing with Motormaster?"
"He wanted to place a bet," Swindle said, pushing the door to the common room open. "On Wildrider." The door closed in Drag Strip's face.