== RECONCILIATION ==

Chapter 1. Earth: Day 1

Disclaimer: I do not own Transformers or any of the characters or concepts within. I make no money from this story or any other about Transformers.

This is right at the start of the first ever G1 episode

Warning: Implied slash, adult themes, course language

Author: Designation Skywarp.

Elite Aerial Combat Unit.

Position: Second in Command

(and – I didn't know it then, but these other notes said – "Seeker; of exceptional ability, but is impulsive and lacks initiative. May possibly assume leadership of the EAC prior to departure from Earth, but probable replacement with B Squadron second Ramjet. Operations to be closely monitored")

It began on Earth with the weirdest cycle of my whole life.

First, there was waking up in the Ark and seeing all those smashed up cons and bots and bits and pieces and body parts everywhere in the half light, and the Ark all cold and silent and musty like. After all the situations I've gotten into in my life – and I've seen some sights, I can tell ya - that would have to be one of the worst. You can't imagine how scary it was! Like landing up in Kell. And I couldn't remember at first what had happened and I thought I was gonna be the only one awake, and that I wouldn't be able to get out , and now I'd have to put up with - that sight - for ever and ever. I remember thinking "why me?" Surely I hadn't done stuff that was that bad as to deserve this.

But then I calmed myself and I thought it through, even though I'm not the best at doing that. And I realised what had gone down, and what I had to do, and even though I still had to really control myself to not just completely freak out and to get Megatron under Teletran's beam, I managed it. Then he was online, and then they were all online, and it was all right. 'Specially for me. I was real in favour. Cos it was me that had gotten Megatron online.

Not that the praise was exactly rained on me for very long over that. Cos straight away it started between Screamer and Megatron.

"Let's just blow the scrap out of them ..."

"We will not "blow the scrap out of them", Starscream!"

"And might I ask, why not, Leader?"

"Because I say we will not!"

"An insufficiently compelling justification, Megatron" at which point he raised his weapon and was about to fire, but Megatron slapped it down.

"I will give the orders here, Starscream" he roared, and his voice echoed around the silent Ark with a metallic ring which was kinda chilling to the core. "It would be a waste of energy to do so! Besides ..." he cast around "...let the Autobots lie here in their grisly tomb, disabled, destroyed as a reminder to all who may think otherwise not to challenge the might of the Decepticons!"

Personally, at the time, I agreed with Screamer. I thought we should. I mean, it stood to reason, didn't it? What Megatron said was scrap, really. I mean, who was gonna see them? It was just Megatron wanting to show who was boss right from the start. And it was pretty obvious that was how it was gonna be and I guess that should have been the first thing that told me things weren't exactly gonna go smoothly in this place.

"Skywarp!" I jumped "er – yeah, Megatron. I could address him like that, see. A lot of the others wouldn't have got away with it, but I could.

"Are all the Autobots who were present when we left Cybertron accounted for in their – chamber of doom?"

How the frag was I supposed to know? There were bits and parts all over the shop. But it wouldn't do to fall out with Megatron at this early stage in the proceedings, and so I said "Er – yeah! All present and accounted for, Megatron!"

"Splendid!" He flashed a smile in my direction. I guessed I was still the star. "Then we shall proceed upon our mission to conquer this planet, and ... the Universe!"

There was a sort of muttering. I have to say, it was not exactly the sort of roar that used to go up when he made one of his speeches in the early days of the Cause, but it seemed to please him enough. He turned and started to move out of the Ark past the ghostly scene towards the glow which I guessed was the entrance.

"Very astute powers of observation, Warp" I heard TC mutter beside me as we made our way into the outside world.

"Shut up!" I sniped at him. I'd just been to Kell and back and I was still trying to recover and I really didn't have time for smart remarks, from him or anyone else. I decided right there and then that whatever else happened here, I wasn't gonna take any pit off him or anybody.

.............

Earth. We soon had first hand experience of it. A lot of canyons and gravel and stones and rock outcrops. They stood out in the light of the single sun which was just showing itself over the horizon, making long shadows as we crunched across the surface. In some ways it reminded me of the lower ramparts of the Iron Mountains back on Cybertron, that range behind where Iacon used to be that seemed to go on forever. But the Iron Mountains weren't covered with sqidgy vegetation and didn't have heaps of organic critters crawling all over them. And the bigger creatures running around; and the birds. A bit of Cyberfauna, maybe, but not the amount of live things that my sensors could detect.

I remember thinking how could there be so many, and that there couldn't be anything intelligent out there, or it would have got rid of a lot of it like we did on Cybertron. Then I remembered that I had an alt mode and that although it was primitive by our standards - my adaptation sequencers were right then in the process of converting it to Cybertronian technology - obviously, something with intelligence had pieced it together. And even though I hadn't tried it out yet I knew that it had a really good power to weight ratio and would be fast and very powerful, and that there would be like a compartment on top as though it were meant for something to travel in. It was kind of a creepy feeling, that. But I didn't think about it too much right then. I thought instead that it seemed all right. Sleek and good looking and Just the way I liked to be. So I tried to concentrate on what we were supposed to be doing because, after all, hopefully I wouldn't be around here long enough to find out too much more.

That day went on forever. We spent most of it trudging in search of we didn't know what and not finding it. In the meantime, sand and bugs got into everywhere and all we wanted to do was stop and have a good hose down, but there was nowhere to do that. No water. Nothing, in fact. Except the desert and the critters. And that infernal sun rose high in the sky and it was beating down and for a yellow star it was fraggin' hot and I could feel little cracks forming on my exoskin.

Oh, it was a real happy crew! Megatron was striding out ahead so as how we could hardly keep up with him, and Screamer was stomping along behind. Then just in front of me there was Soundwave lumbering along and saying nothing and TC trudging along next to me and saying nothing, and then behind us came the triplets and they did nothing but whinge about absolutely everything – the heat, the sand, how tired they were, their aches and pains - as if we didn't already know and weren't suffering ourselves!. About the only positive was the cassettes being inside Soundwave so we didn't have to put up with them, but then I was kind of jealous that they were in there getting a ride and not having to put up with what we were having to put up with.

Megatron and Screamer weren't talking, on account of the fact that Screamer had gone back and blown something up back where the Ark was. Megatron was mighty pissed about it, not because he actually did it, I thought, but because Megatron had said not to do it. I was pretty much starting to get the picture as to what things were like between those two now. They'd been bad for a long time, but had got a lot worse and I gathered TC was somehow bound up in it as well, cos he was a real misery. I hadn't seen them for a while before we left, see, cos Megatron had decided that I should have a break from Mordac and I'd been in the provinces on surveillance - not that it was much better than Mordac but at least it was different – and so whatever had been happening had been happening without me in the picture.

We just kept trudging, crunching along, and then TC started; grumbling about how we should be allowed to go into alt mode and what were we gonna do if some species showed up and we hadn't even tested it out and I mean, hey – I agreed – but what in Kell was I supposed to do about it? Megatron had said we were to go on foot. Besides that, it kinda pissed me off: his attitude. I mean, I hadn't seen him in what – how long? And I'd been kind of hoping he'd be a bit more – well, easy to get along with than this.

So I said: "well you get up front there TC and say that to him then!" and he said: "why can't you?" and I said: "why should I?" and he said: "cos he listens to you, Warp, he don't listen to me" and that was true but I still didn't see why I should have to do it and I said: "well I wouldn't know, would I cos you won't get off yer fraggin' aft and find out ... nothing's changed has it?" and he turned to me then and snarled: "Just fraggin' forget it!" and then – yeah, well, I was tempted to go and ask but I still didn't see why I should so I didn't. But I remember thinking oh yeah, this is gonna be just great ...

Then from behind us Viewfinder yelled out "Why should you ..."

Then Spyglass " ... get to do that when we have to..."

Then Spectra: " ...grovel along in the dirt.

Finishing off the sentence for each other in that really annoying way that they do sometimes, even though they don't have to.

Then Screamer turned around and said "because we, Viewfinder, are the Elite Air Command and you would do well to observe your place and demonstrate some respect."

And all the triplets yelled out in unison - which is also what they do sometimes, even though they don't have to do that either - : "You couldn't command a nest full of Turbohawks ..."

And Screamer turned around then and came back round behind Soundwave, who just went lumbering on behind Megatron, and then we all three Seekers stopped and turned and Screamer snapped: "I believe a little lesson in respect might be in order," and TC and me stopped as well, and so did the Triplets.

I said "yeah, I agree .." cos Views was out of order and anyway I felt like taking something out on someone now. Screamer started to move towards them and Viewfinder said "all right, come on then, hot shot..." and pulled out a gun and Spectra looked annoyed and said "oh for frag's sake" and Spyglass just looked worried. I said "you're a regular little hero aren't you ya stupid little cogsucker .." cos by then I really wasn't in a very good mood.

Then TC grabbed my arm and said: "now look, cool it you lot! We ougtta be saving our energy.." and I yelled at him: "oh yeah that's right ain't it TC. Just let yerself get pit put all over ya! Just like y'always do ..."

"S-I-L-E-N-C-E!!" Megatron's voice exploded across the canyon.

He and Soundwave had stopped and come back and Megatron's optics were scanning around, boring into each of us in turn, and Soundwave was just standing there with no expression, like he always did, but you could feel he was sifting through everyone's neural circuits, sussing out the situation. We all froze. The fusion canon was well and truly attached to Megatron's arm and he had that look on his face that you didn't mess with.

"I will not tolerate this inane bickering! Now start looking for raw materials, as I have ordered you to do!" He eyed off every single one of us in turn and there was not anyone there that didn't look nervously at that canon. Including me.

He relaxed, as he generally does when he realises he's generated an OK level of fear.

"We need to remain calm," he said smoothly, "and to remember who we are. "Now...." and his vocaliser cranked up again, "Start acting like Decepticons!"

It was a fairly rote exchange. The trudging started up again with everyone back in their old positions and this time we were all quiet.

Then, finally, as the sun was dipping in the sky - which was colourful, I recall, cos of Earth's atmosphere - Soundwave spotted some metal structure near a cliff which seemed to be deserted, and then we stopped. By then it was almost dark and we didn't have means of generating light and since this Earth only had one sun, we calculated it would be a while before the sky got light again. Megatron decided we should recharge and that the next day we were gonna total the metal structure and use the steel to make a new spacecruiser. Everyone got a bit more cheerful when he said that. Especially me and TC, cos it meant we got to test out our alt modes first thing, and then do the totalling, which was about the most OK prospect out of anything that had happened so far. Everyone was really tired by then, and so there was still a bit of whingeing and stuff going on but on the whole everyone just wanted to forget about the day and the situation we were in and get some recharge.

Then Megatron and Soundwave and Starscream sat down on some rocks and Soundwave drew a datapad out of somewhere and starting intoning stuff and they were all talking, although you could see Megatron was still pissed at Screamer and he snapped at him every time he opened his mouth. TC and I decided to leave them to it and we went and lay down a little way aways from the rest of the camp, around behind this rock outcrop. And then I suddenly felt real tired and like it had been a hard first day and we were here on this planet the other side of the Universe from Cybertron. It was getting cold, and I felt kind of lonely, so I said "TC, I don't suppose you feel like ... you know ..."

He looked at me and it just seemed like he was real sort of cool towards me. "Are you kidding? he said. "Here? In this situation? Get outta your dreams, Warp! Now get some recharge, whilst we got the chance. We got a big day tomorrow."

"Fine!" I said, even though it wasn't, and I felt suddenly really pissed off with everything again.

I lay back. But I didn't recharge for a very long time.