Brought on by my endless love of the troopers. In Shattered Glass, Eradicons are individuals who can hold rank and specialize beyond their alt mode.
"I'm not leaving the Seekers ," Avi said for the fourth time.
The other two remained unconvinced. "The doc's been complaining to Megatron about having no medical staff," Six pointed out stubbornly. "What're we supposed to think when he starts training you up?"
"You know who he should train up?" the third Seeker put in.
"No one asked you, Helix," Six muttered.
"The ground troopers," Helix continued anyway. He sounded confident, but Avi had just watched him check the corridor for anyone who could overhear him. "The Autobots are all over the ground. Even the tankers can't keep up with 'em. What they don't have is the air."
Six's wings twitched irritably. "So?"
"So we need all the Seekers we can keep!"
Avi waved a hand between them. "I'm not leaving the Seekers," he reminded them. "I can do both."
"That's what you think now," Six retorted, "'til Knockout has you reassigned."
Six was right often enough that Avi paused, wavering. "Can he do that?"
"Officers are in charge," Helix pointed out.
"What about Commander Starscream?" Avi rallied. "Doesn't he outrank Knockout?"
That shut them up. The thing about being a Seeker was that you weren't just one of the Decepticons; you were one of Starscream's Decepticons. And if Avi didn't want to be a medic, Starscream wasn't going to let any bot drag him off into medic duty.
But if he did want to be a medic... well, the commander would be pretty mad. He would probably understand, though. Probably.
Six and Helix exchanged a glance. "Still think he should use the grounders," Helix said.
As if on cue, the floor shook.
All three Seekers leaned over to check out the source of the vibrations. At the far end of the corridor, two tank Eradicons ambled along. There was barely enough room for them to walk side by side.
"Tankers inbound," Six prompted.
Helix picked up the joke immediately. "ETA?"
"Couple of teracycles."
"Watch out, they might catch up to us."
"No, we're standing still," Avi affirmed. "They couldn't catch up to us unless we were going backwards."
They snickered. Helix held up a hand ponderously as the tankers drew closer. "Whoa, I think I'm starting to rust though here."
Avi's laughter trailed off as he got a better look at the targets of their jokes. He couldn't see the other, but the tanker closer to them was Lieutenant Salvo, the commander of all tanker squadrons. Six was quick on the uptake, but Helix was still trying to stifle his laughter when the tankers came even with them.
"Hmm," Salvo said, looking them over. "What are you three up to?"
Avi pointed. "Helix was just saying that Knockout should conscript the tankers into medic positions."
"Traitor!" Helix called out as Salvo's arm landed atop his head.
"That so?" Salvo playfully allowed his full armor-plated weight to lean on the Seeker, who buckled and bent at the waist in an attempt to get the tanker's arm off him. "I think we'll leave that to you agile types."
"Traitor to the cause!" Helix yelled, swatting at the lieutenant's arm. Salvo let him up.
Salvo took one step forward and paused. "Speaking of," he started up, looking straight at Avi, "I heard you Seekers don't make bad medics. Tril here was telling me."
The other tanker leaned around, and this time Avi recognized him. The first time Avi had been called in to help with an actual emergency had been after a full-out Autobot attack on a mine, and there had been a lot of wounded. Tril's injuries had been minor, so Avi had been the one to patch him up.
Avi wasn't sure what the protocol was with a former patient. He waved hesitantly. That was enough for Tril, who waved back. Salvo nodded and moved on, Tril trailing along beside him.
When Avi looked back to his fellow Seekers, they were both staring at him. "I'm not," he protested before they could say anything, "leaving the Seekers!"