Chapter 134
-0-On the steps of The Fortress of Autobot City, Mars
Sideswipe who was standing with the rest looked at the mood of the crowd and the fact that Starscream was alone. He looked at Kup and Kup looked at him with a nod. Then as one, the two stepped over Gears who was struggling to rise again and walked to Starscream, turning back to join him, one on each side.
They stared at each other, all three of them, then Kup laughed loudly. "Come on ya fraggers! Come and get some if you got the bearings!"
And they did.
-0-Nearby
Ultra Magnus sat in his office going over requisition lists for the new housing. They were building extra units extra quickly for the refugees that were due in communications range in four orns. He was going to be flooded. As he sat working in the quiet of the evening, he heard loud voices and arose to walk to his door to look out.
Beyond him in the spotlights of the outdoor courtyard he could see a brouhaha happening. Staring dumbly for a moment, watching as civilians and other Autobots raced past him to see what the matter was, he tossed his datapad on his desk. Then he hurried out to the fracas in the front yard.
-0-Far away
Bluestreak and Sunstreaker lay together touching each other, kissing softly. They'd left the Med Bay after playing with and holding Orion, himself a remarkably calm and friendly little sparkling. Lying together with their arms around each other, they began to drift into a light recharge. Then it came to them. There was a brouhaha happening at the other end of their triangle and they both sat up at the same time.
-0-Nearby
Mini-cons flew here and there, blows were exchanged by Autobots of the same size and stature. A Seeker with his back to a Wrecker dispatched all comers, his strength and speed overcoming their inebriation and blind rage. Round and round they turned in a tight circle, Kup and Starscream tossing back all comers. Sideswipe who was rotating around them, the wild card to their unity took out the wild hare, the gyrating rogue who charged them in their blind spots.
-0-Far away
They concentrated on the brouhaha, feeling blows and sensing great exhilaration.
Sideswipe was in a brawl.
They could feel his speed, exertion and glee.
Sunstreaker who was instantly pissed at being left out encouraged his brother sending him support, strength and a hissy fit because of his exclusion.
Bluestreak on the other hand was aghast.
-0-Nearby
Ultra Magnus reached the door and waded out into the churning mass. All around him, blows were landed as cries and growls of rage echoed off the stone walls of The Fortress. Civilians lined every corner of the courtyard watching and cheering on their favorites, some with looks of horror on their faces and others that of glee.
An inordinate number were actually cheering on Starscream.
-0-Far away
They paced in their quarters listening to Sideswipe's exertions and his unholy glee. It was still going on but then they caught the impression that Magnus was coming. The tide was turning. In whose favor, they both didn't know.
-0-Nearby
He stood in the middle, gripping mechs then tossing them aside. He shouted but no one listened and as he turned around he was slammed. Gears, tossed by someone landed against his face with a resounding clang. Ultra Magnus stilled for a moment, his face caught in a full body slam by a hard headed, profusely swearing mini-con, then fell backward to land on a pile of Autobots that had turned on each other in their inebriation. He landed with a loud thud halting the melee for a moment. Clearer heads began to step back but the hot heads among them didn't. A whole passel of mini-cons began to caterwaul, daring anyone to take them on one at a time or all at once.
Kup who was tired of the whole thing and feeling it was unseemly that Magnus should be laid out cold on the ground kicked Gears in the chassis sending him flying over the supine figure of their city manager and into a flock of civilians who began to run screaming toward either side. Gears hit the wall and slid to the sandy ground upside down, lying in a heap out cold.
The other mini-bots looking at Kup with astonishment turned to each other, then looked around. All over the courtyard bots lay or sat, injuries were everywhere and all of them were thrashed.
Kup who was standing with Sideswipe, himself teetering with injuries, turned to Starscream. Then he looked back around. "Who else among you fraggin' slaggers wants a piece of us?"
No one spoke up as all of them either sat or swayed. The fracas was over.
Then Ultra Magnus sat up.
That was when the fun really began.
-0-On the tarmac at Diego Garcia
Ratchet who was swearing like a drunken sailor walked toward Cosmos with a field kit and a sparkling. Bluestreak and Sunstreaker caught up with him and took both into their arms, bum rushing Ratchet into the shuttle. The door shut before anyone could raise objections, thus, all four found themselves on their way to Autobot City.
-0-Far away
The walking wounded stood in the courtyard at attention.
More or less.
The more serious cases lay on the steps getting general triage by First Aid and the field medics as they waited for The Hatchet to arrive and make crooked things straight.
Ultra Magnus, his nose structure dented from Gears's chassis landing on it at top speed wiped energon that was leaking from it with a table cloth borrowed from the rec room.
Livid would be a small word.
Aggravation is only a symptom of the malaise that infected his processor.
As he paced the endless rows of bent, broken and leaking soldiers standing as straight and erect as their various injuries allowed, he considered the breach in discipline.
The breach in decorum.
The lack of courtesy and dignity from a professional army.
The idea that the civilians could see such a thing.
The idea that the refugees, themselves no slouches at witnessing and experiencing brutal fracas would have to see it in this place of safety and solicitude fried his ball bearings.
The idea that they would DO THIS #%& THING ON HIS WATCH!
The IDEA THAT A FRAGGIN' SEEKER WOULD SEE THEM BRAWLING LIKE FRAGGIN' GLITCH HEADS! … WEEEELLLLL… he would SEE about that.
As he paced, looking at them one by one as he passed, he considered what sort of punishment(s) would fit the crime(s). It would have to be adequate to transmit his professional disgust without being so dramatic that it would require two trips to The Hatchet and not the one most of them would need. He then paused before an unrepentant Seeker. In his direct line of sight, he looked at Starscream sitting on a step watching him pace with a smirk on his face. Magnus walked toward him. "I expected better from you, Starscream. You gave your word."
"I did, Magnus. I kept it."
"Brawling in the courtyard is keeping your word?"
"When a fraggin' mini-con pulls hard enough on my wings to tear one I'm obligated to bat their aft into the next dimension." He leaned forward to show his tearing wound which was leaking energon. "Your drunken mini-con there," he said pointing at Gears who was standing as straight as he could considering a faint impression of Magnus's nose graced his chassis, "pulled them. Then he started this whole slag off and frankly, if you want to hang his sorry aft I will personally volunteer to hold the rope." He looked at Magnus with a smirk. "If I wanted to I could have killed him. Be lucky you have him back, Magnus. And I think the likeness of your face on his chassis is rather good, don't you?"
A snicker filtered through the crowd and was ended with a withering stare as Magnus turned around. Beyond them, the sound of Cosmos returning could be heard and after a bit the sound of Ratchet swearing could be heard also. Walking … or rather stomping inside, he paused in astonishment as he looked at row after row of broken and bent Autobots. On the steps grinning like a(n ex)Decepticon Seeker, Starscream watched the show.
"What the FRAG! WHAT THE FRAGGING HELL HAPPENED HERE!?!" Ratchet with servos on hip assemblies walked through the lines staring open mouthed at the Autobots standing there, all of them looking away, all of them afraid to catch Ratchet's optics and thereby draw even more wrathful attention than they knew was coming.
Bluestreak who holding a solemn looking sparkling and Sunstreaker holding his medic bag and his overpowering urge to laugh out loud waited near the gate almost as if afraid to enter.
Ratchet walked to Magnus looking at him with wide optics. "MAGNUS! WHAT THE SLAG HAPPENED TO YOUR NOSE?"
"We had an incident," Magnus began.
Ratchet looked around, then back at Magnus, glancing sideways as he did at a smirking Starscream. "What the FRAG happened here?"
And Ultra Magnus told him.
-0-A little bit later
"I have to tell you this is the stupidest fraggin' stunt I've had to put back together for vorns. Where the frag were the adults?"
Ratchet worked his way through lunkheads passing one after another out the door while taking one after the other in. Sitting in an easy chair, Bluestreak held his recharging infant who finally kicked off about the fifteenth broken Autobot in.
Sunstreaker who was pressed into triage enjoyed himself, jerking up none too gently every mini-con he could reach for Ratchet's ministrations.
Gears who was listing against the wall looked at him with a cracked optic.
Sunstreaker who knew how much Ratchet HATED to repair optics cracked under stupid circumstances waited nearby. He would bring them forward and tell Ratchet what the major injuries were. He waited, biding his time, then Ratchet called out with his dulcet tones: "Who the FRAG IS NEXT?"
Sunstreaker walked to Gears and grabbed him by the scruff of the neck hoisting him fifteen feet off the ground, then brought his carcass to Ratchet. He dumped him on the and began: "He has dents in his chassis from fragging Magnus' nose. He has a cracked optic from walking into Starscream's fist like a dumb aft and he's stupid."
Gears glared at Sunstreaker with his broken optic seeing about twenty-seven Sunstreakers through all the breakage. "At least I'Mnot sparked!"
Sunstreaker punched his face and Gears fell over. "He has a dent in his fragging chassis and TWO broken optics."
Ratchet stared at Sunstreaker for a moment. "You slagger. I'll let this one go but if you do that to another dumb aft I will personally punt your sorry carcass into the eleventh dimension."
Sunstreaker grinned with a nod. Ratchet grinned back and shook his head. Turning to the stuperous lump on the med berth, he glared at Gears who was trying to sit up with two broken optics and a great impression of the city manager's face on his chassis.
"Dumb aft," Ratchet muttered before gripping both of Gears optics to twist them out of their sockets. Ratchet was sure that Gear's scream could be heard all the way to Earth but Sunstreaker was too busy laughing to care.
-0-At the Seeker's Barracks
Starscream wandered in with a great tale of great deeds. The others hearing the fracas but not going for obvious reasons landed on him. "STARSCREAM! WHERE THE FRAG WERE YOU! WE COULDN'T FIND YOU!"
He grinned at them and let them fuss. Sitting down on a comfy couch, showing them his scuffed knuckles and patched wing, he laughed as he described the fun.
They didn't laugh. They were rightly pissed and when it was all said they made sure he knew it.
Thundercracker paced and paced looking at his trine mate with outrage. "You stay away from those barbarians. Especially the little short ones. They need a beating but you're not to do it. Do you hear us, Starscream?"
Starscream smirked as he leaned back folding his arms over his chassis. "No harm, no foul."
"This time," Skywarp said shaking his head. "But next time … you'll lose the hatchlings."
Starscream thought a moment then patted his chassis. "Nothing will happen to them. They are my magnum opus."
The night spun by and the crowds in Med Bay thinned as everyone crawled off to their berths until the ax fell. Ratchet who stretched out on a med berth tucked his sparkling against his side. Lying on another, Sideswipe and Bluestreak cuddled, falling into recharge together. Sitting in a soft chair next to them, Sunstreaker sat in comfort staring at all of them. He looked around himself as he settled in. "What a zoo," he whispered with a smile before falling into recharge. "What a slaggin' zoo."