Many thanks to Nova for helping me get past my writer's block on this chapter! And now, back to the show!
Most everybody had their new security codes later that evening. Nobody was happy with Red Alert, except Sideswipe, who wasted no time boasting over the fact that he and Sunstreaker didn't have to fill out the questionnaire. To retaliate against the obnoxious frontliner, whenever the mech was within viewing distance the 'bots would turn on the nearest monitor and on it start playing back Jazz's GIF of Sideswipe's sticky note run in with the cellophane the other day.
Sideswipe marched out of the rec room; the laughter of his peers followed him out as they watched the now popular GIF on the television monitor. He wasn't humiliated by the viral video, but he was frustrated by the fact that his little victory over Prowl and Jazz was being overshadowed by the latter's prank. Nobody cared that Sideswipe had locked Prowl out of his own office; instead they were all busy laughing at him. After all the effort he and Sunstreaker had put in to defeating Prowl, that tactician had brought in Jazz. And when Sideswipe had brought in Red Alert, it had just peeved everyone off, and hadn't even made a dent in what was beginning to be something of a war of pranks between him and Prowl.
The afternoon shift was just starting, and Sideswipe was late for monitor duty. When he finally reached Teletraan 1, the room was all but empty except for Bumblebee, who was seated at the far right of the room. The red frontliner stalked in and flopped down in a chair at his own station, staring sullenly at the screens in front of him.
"Hey Sides," Bumblebee greeted.
Sideswipe just grunted in response, having hardly heard the yellow mech nearby. He drummed his fingers against Teletraan 1, his mind anywhere else except on his duties. There were much more important things to think about than his job right now.
About ten minutes of complete silence passed as the minibot patiently watched his screens and the frontliner fidgeted. Finally Sideswipe couldn't stand just sitting there anymore and he pulled out a small data pad. He kicked his feet back on the console and turned the pad on. This was his personal device and he used it to doodle, play games, and jot down random ideas he had before he could forget them.
Sideswipe was well into his device when he could feel himself start to grow tired from sitting still for so long. He set the data pad down next to him to stretch, and a moment later when he went to grab it again, it wasn't there anymore. Startled, the mech looked around. He could have sworn he had put it right next to him just a minute ago. After some searching, Sideswipe finally located it... sitting up on top of the viewing screen in front of him. For a minute he just stared at it, wondering how in the Pit it had gotten up there. He certainly hadn't put it there. After a moment of contemplation he was unable to find a reasonable answer, so he gave up and grabbed the device, choosing to ignore the odd phenomenon.
Another strange incident took place about half an hour later when he stood up for another stretch. He walked to the end of the room, presumably to check a security feed, but when he turned around he stopped dead in his tracks. The chair he had been sitting in had somehow been turned upside down and was now sitting on top of the computer console. Sideswipe stood stock still and gave the chair a 'what in the heck' kind of look. He looked around the room suspiciously; there was nobody else around except Bumblebee, seemingly oblivious to the events at hand as he leaned back in his own chair with his hands behind his helm, optics strictly on his own monitors.
The red frontliner slowly walked up to the chair and gave it an experimental tug. It seemed perfectly fine, except for the fact that it was upside down on the computer console. And once again he had no idea how it had gotten there. Finally he took down the chair and set it back on the floor. He then lowered himself into the chair cautiously, as if afraid the chair was about to spring to life underneath his skidplates. After another curious glance around the room, Sideswipe got back to doodling on his data pad.
An hour and a half passed before their shift was finally over. As soon as his internal chronometer marked the end of the shift Sideswipe was so out of there. He got up and turned to leave, only to receive his third surprise of the night. Every single chair in the room had somehow been set up behind him so that they surrounded him, every single one facing his direction as if invisible mechs were seated in them and staring at him. Sideswipe practically jumped up on top of the computer console behind him. "What the frack?!" he shouted in shock.
"Huh, that's really weird, how did that happen?" Bumblebee said from the doorway. "Well, see you around," he finished abruptly and left with a friendly wave without even letting Sideswipe respond to the question.
Sideswipe gaped at the yellow minibot until he was out of sight.
Down in the storage room, Sunstreaker was about to have an experience similar to his brother's. He, Hoist, Grapple, and Mirage had all been scheduled to sort and inventory a rather large shipment of supplies they'd received from Cybertron this morning. Hoist and Grapple were happily chatting away as they worked, Mirage preferred to keep silent, and Sunstreaker was doing everything he could to ignore the presence of the other three mechs in the room.
For a while their work went smoothly. It started when a tool that Sunstreaker set down on his left somehow wound up on his right side when he went to grab it again. He hardly registered the event, simply thinking he misremembered where he had put the tool, and got back to work. However, when this happened several more times, the new locations of the objects becoming more elaborate each time, he began to get suspicious. When finally a piece of equipment he had been categorizing wound up on a shelf three tiers above his head, Sunstreaker had had enough and he slammed his palms against the table. "Who the frag has been moving my stuff?!" he shouted into the room.
Hoist and Grapple stared at the golden frontliner with wide optics. "Uh, we've been over here the entire time," Grapple said.
Sunstreaker glared at the two mechs until Mirage intervened. "Get over yourself Sunstreaker."
Now the golden 'bot turned a smoldering stare on the saboteur. "So you moved my stuff!" he accused.
"Did you see me touch your things," Mirage asked nonchalantly. When Sunstreaker didn't reply, Mirage continued. "If you didn't see me, then I didn't do it."
Sunstreaker snorted and turned back to his work. If he couldn't win an argument then he was going to ignore the fact that there was ever an argument in the first place. But when several minutes later another of his items wound up underneath his chair, that was the last straw. Sunstreaker stood up fast, violently flinging his chair back behind him, glared at Mirage, and then promptly left the room. He missed the mischievous smile that played on Mirage's lips once he was gone.
Sideswipe and Sunstreaker weren't the only Lamborghinis having a bad day. Red Alert was busy trying to perform an inspection on all of his cameras that were set up in the Ark because somehow every single one had been moved so that its position was just barely off its mark, even the cameras he was sure no one else knew about. The fact that all of his cameras had been tampered with already had Red Alert set on edge, but it didn't help that every time he tried set a camera's position, it would reset itself as soon as he turned his back on it. He was growing increasingly paranoid by the minute, but couldn't for the life of him discover why this was happening or who would be doing it. In fact he was practically alone in the hallways, as most mechs were either on duty, enjoying some peace and quiet in their personal quarters, or hanging out in the rec room. Twice Red Alert had commed Prowl, insisting that either the Decepticons had hacked their security grid or that one of Soundwave's cassettes had surely invaded their base again. Both times Prowl had reassured the mech in an infuriatingly calm voice that there were no security threats at the time and that he should just be more thorough in his task.
Red Alert's fingers jerked and twitched as he tried to adjust another camera and he constantly looked over both his shoulders as if he would catch the perpetrator sneaking up on him at any moment. In a minute the device had been set to its correct position and Red Alert was ready to move on to the next. He got off his stool and slowly backed away, never taking his optics off of his precious device. He made it all the way to a corner in the hallway, and when nothing peculiar happened that he could see, he rounded it. He stopped for a moment, suspicious of the silence that surrounded him, and then suddenly popped his head back around the corner to look back down the hallway. The orange passageway was still empty as he had left it, but alas the camera had again been somehow moved back to an incorrect position. Red Alert practically sparked around the sensory horns as he raged over the fact that once again he had been caught off guard.
Safely out of sight around the last corner Red Alert had taken stood Jazz, silently laughing his head off as he listened to the spazzing director of security just down the hallway.
o~o~o
The next morning found Sideswipe and Sunstreaker sitting together at a table in the rec room. Each nursed a cube of Energon as they sulked over the latest trick that had been played on them by the special operations unit. Sunstreaker glowered at anything within sight while Sideswipe pouted and ranted to him. "This is getting ridiculous," he said. "And it's not fair! Are Prowl and Jazz building a freaking army against us? Bumblebee I can see helping them, but how did they get Mirage of all mechs to get involved?! We need to up our game Sunny, we need to do something that's really gonna get them good. They can't beat us; we're the kings of pranks!"
Sunstreaker didn't respond, so Sideswipe glared at his Energon cube instead. "We can take on Prowl any day, but how are we supposed to compete with him, Jazz and his special ops team?"
"Hey Sideswipe, Sunstreaker!" a mech suddenly called out just as Sideswipe was finishing his thoughts. The red mech looked up and was surprised to see Air Raid approaching the table, flanked by Slingshot and Blades. Sunstreaker glowered at the three fliers, but Sideswipe leaned back in his chair and greeted them: "What's up guys?"
"Check out this video, it's pretty sweet," Air Raid said without preamble and he shoved a video pad towards the twins. "It's kind of hard to hear though, so you might want to turn up the volume."
"Kay," Sideswipe said as he took the device. Sunstreaker pretended to not look as his brother started the video, but when it began his optics were clearly on the screen. The video portrayed a winding path in the middle of some woods with a human riding a bicycle down it. The twins watched the video for some time, but within that time nothing exceptionally extraordinary happened. Sideswipe leaned down towards the video pad so that he can hear it better; Air Raid had said that it would be hard to hear. But the only sound he could identify was that of rushing wind and chirping birds that were coming from the woods in the video. Meanwhile the three fliers watched them in anticipation.
Finally Sideswipe spoke up. "What the heck is so special abo..."
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
"YEEAAAHHH!" Suddenly a grotesque, zombified human face popped up in the video and shrieked at them at the loudest possible volume. Sideswipe practically threw the video pad across the room, screamed, and was clinging to Sunstreaker's arm by the time the pad clattered to the floor. Air Raid, Slingshot, and Blades were cracking up as the other occupants of the room stared at them in bewilderment.
Sunstreaker didn't move for a moment, clearly shocked by the surprise as well, but then he looked at his brother, shook him off his arm, stood up and stormed off. Sideswipe was left with his arms curled up against his chest and three mechs laughing at him from across the table.
"Dude, you should have seen your face!" Slingshot said once he was able to control his fits of laughter. "It was priceless!"
"Shut up you guys!" Sideswipe protested.
"No way, we got you good," Blades said.
Sideswipe glared at the three mechs. But then a metaphorical light bulb lit itself above his head, and he grinned mischievously. This was perfect. "Hey guys, you know who'd really like this video?"
o~o~o
Inside his security hub was where Red Alert could be found that morning. Hunched in his chair, he watched his many glowing monitors with strained optics. Each monitor contained live feeds from several of his cameras that were placed around the Ark, so that all cameras were displayed across all the monitors in the room. Unlike Teletraan 1, which in the security department was used to monitor the perimeter of the Ark in addition to several key locations around base, as well as keep track of possible Decepticon activity around the world, the security room was used to monitor and record everything that happened around and inside the Autobot's base. In other words, it was Red Alert's haven.
And yet his haven had been compromised when somebody had tampered with every single one of his cameras yesterday. Although Red was now pretty sure who had done it, that didn't keep him from staying up all night to make sure it didn't happen again. By now his optics were strained and tired from the effort of trying to catch even the slightest hint of suspicious activity around the Ark. In fact all of Red's attention was being put into the task, which was why he jumped and spun around when somebody suddenly barged into the room. But when he saw it was only Sideswipe and Sunstreaker, he grunted dismissively and turned back to his monitors. Normally the director of security would have thrown a hissy fit over the fact that the twins of all mechs had barged into his security hub, but ever since Sideswipe had offered Red Alert the opportunity to get back at Prowl, a strange truce had formed between the three Lamborghinis.
"Hey Red, can you find Jazz, Bumblebee, and Mirage on your cameras?" Sideswipe asked as he and his brother sat down in chairs on either side of the mech.
Red Alert gave him a suspicious glance. "May I ask why?"
"Oh you'll see," Sideswipe said in a conspiring tone. "So can you do it or what?"
"Of course I can," Red Alert grumbled and he began to type at a computer monitor nearby. He brought up camera feeds on the main screen so that they were easier to see. One by one he checked the feeds, searching for the mechs in question, until Sunstreaker stopped him. "There's Jazz," he said.
Sure enough the Porsche could be seen near the right side of the screen. He was sitting in the rec room, feet put casually up on the table in front of him, as he worked on one of the computers that were set up near the edge of the room. Red Alert put that camera feed to the side and continued to search until they found Bumblebee, who was in the training area shooting some rounds at targets. With that screen put to the side as well, the three Lambos finally found Mirage on monitor duty with Ironhide in the communications room.
"Now what," Red asked.
"Now we wait," Sideswipe informed the mech.
After several minutes of watching, Sideswipe sat up straight and pointed excitedly at the leftmost screen. "Ooh, looks like Jazz just got it!"
"Got what?" Red Alert asked, confused.
"Hold on," Sideswipe waved off the question as he watched the screen in anticipation.
Down in the rec room, Jazz had been killing some time by casually surfing the internet with his audios plugged into his music. He'd been doing this for about the last half an hour when he suddenly noticed that he had an unread message in his email account. He couldn't let that be, and when he saw that it was from Spike, he opened it eagerly. He read the message: "This is funny, but you need to turn up the volume, it's a little hard to hear." and saw that below the text there was a link to a video. Jazz willingly turned up the volume and clicked the video so it could play.
About thirty seconds into the video and Jazz was still struggling to see what was so great about it. And then he found out. When the face popped up and screamed at him in an audio shattering pitch, Jazz jumped nearly twenty feet out of his chair. A second later when everybody turned to see what the commotion was all about, they saw a knife sticking out of the shattered computer screen, the chair clattering to the floor, and a very startled looking Jazz standing a few meters away. He looked around at the gawking crowd. "Everythin's cool," he quickly said in a very uncool voice. "Nothin' ta see here, go back ta your business."
When finally everybody had turned away again, Jazz took a moment to collect himself. And then he examined the mess with the computer he had made. He guessed that email hadn't been from Spike.
Back in the security hub, Sideswipe and Sunstreaker were laughing themselves silly. Although Red Alert had found the whole scene amusing, he was still unsure about what had caused Jazz to react so violently, since there had been no audio and it was hard to see what had happened on Jazz's computer screen. When Sideswipe explained that he had gotten Air Raid to send the screaming video to the entire special ops team, disguised as an email from Spike, the director of security grinned nastily.
"Oh oh!" Sideswipe suddenly exclaimed. "Bee's checking his email!"
Sure enough, over in the training room, Bumblebee had stopped firing at his targets to pull out his personal data pad. Normally he wouldn't have stopped his exercising just to check his email, but when he noticed it was from Spike he opened the message with curiosity. He was always interested to see what his human friend had to say to him.
Just like Jazz, Bumblebee easily fell into the trap. When his data pad screamed at him, Bumblebee had been caught so unprepared that he threw the pad away from him and ran screaming out of the room.
The Lamborghinis couldn't get enough of it. Sideswipe actually slapped Red Alert on the shoulder in his mirth. And yet there was still one more part of the plan to be executed. After several minutes of mocking the two special ops agents, Sunstreaker indicated the third and final screen on the monitor, where it looked like something had caught Mirage's attention on Teletraan 1.
By now Mirage had endured about an hour and a half of boring monitor duty. He usually spent most of his time during monitor duty reading novels or checking up on the latest Earth news. Today had been no different, and so while he and Ironhide had shared very little words between them, he had quietly read from his data pad. But now something had caught his optic on the monitors in front of him. A new screen had popped up from Teletraan 1, indicating that there was a new and unread email waiting to be opened.
"An email? From Spike?" Mirage wondered. Since when did Teletraan 1 get email? "Hey Ironhide, come check this out," he said.
Ironhide grunted and walked over to where Mirage was sitting.
"Decepticons?" Mirage ventured. "We could get Red Alert to check it out."
After examining the screen and mulling over the situation for a moment, Ironhide shrugged. "If it was some'n s'picious Teletraan would'a picked up on it. Maybe Spahke has somethin' interetin' fer us. Mahght as well give it a go," he said.
Without another word Mirage opened the email, and then clicked the link for the attached video. When the unexpected scream came, Mirage did a relatively good job at maintaining his composure by gripping the arms of his chair to keep himself from jumping too far. Ironhide hadn't done such a great job himself, as he promptly opened fire on the shrieking screen and shattered it to pieces.
"What in tarnation?!" the old mech shouted as broken glass fell to the floor.
Mirage's optics narrowed in suspicion. He had an idea about who was behind this.
Back in the security hub, the three Lamborghinis had lost their mirth. "Oh Primus, Prowl's going to get us for that!" Sideswipe said nervously.
"Not if they can't trace the video back to us," Sunstreaker reassured as he leaned back in his chair.
"Seriously? They're going to know we were behind this!" Sideswipe retorted.
Sunstreaker looked over at his brother with an 'are you stupid?' look. "You had Air Raid send the email, didn't you?"
A look of understanding passed over Sideswipe's face as he realized what his brother was driving at. He grinned and relaxed in his chair, observing the aftermath of their latest prank on the screens in ease. Red Alert's face, however, was far from relaxed. The little damage Jazz had caused to the computer in the rec room had been no big deal, but Teletraan 1? This had certainly gotten out of hand. "Why did you send that to Teletraan 1?" he asked tensely.
"We knew Mirage had monitor duty this morning, and we figured that was the best way to get him," Sideswipe shrugged.
"Do you have any idea how irresponsible that was?!" Red Alert burst at the red frontliner angrily.
"Relax Red, we..."
"No! I don't want to hear it, and I refuse to be part of this! Get out, both of you!" Red Alert jumped out of his chair and practically dragged the two brothers towards the door. Realizing they had overstayed their welcome, and since there was really no reason to stay here any longer anyway, Sideswipe and Sunstreaker willingly left the room.
Red Alert slammed the door behind the retreating Lamborghini backs. He hustled back to his monitors and quickly reset the position of the screens. With a whole new layer of paranoia settling over him, he sat down to continue monitoring his cameras.
o~o~o
Sideswipe had been right to be worried about the damage they had caused to Teletraan 1; their punishment (or rather, the retaliation) came in an unexpected and rather unpleasant way. Just as Sunstreaker had said, once Jazz traced the origin of the email, it had been Air Raid who came up as the perpetrator. However, Air Raid was quick to point his finger at Sideswipe and Sunstreaker, confessing that it had been their idea to send the email as if it had been from Spike. After some deliberation, Jazz and Prowl came up with the perfect "punishment" for the crime.
o~o~o
"ALRIGHT YA MAMBIES RISE AND SHINE! GET YER AFTS OUTA BED, NAP TIME'S OVER!"
Sideswipe and Sunstreaker both started out of recharge in battle ready mode. Forgetting he was on the top of a bunk bed, Sideswipe rolled off and slammed onto the floor. "What the frack?!" he yelled. He looked up to see Ironhide boldly standing in the middle of the room. "Ironhide?! It's two in the morning, what the Pit?"
"Did ah ask for the time, soldier!?" Ironhide yelled, making the twins cringe as their audios protested against the loud noise at such an early hour. "I wanna see the both of ya outside of the Ark, now!"
Sideswipe and Sunstreaker shared equal looks of disbelief. "Um, no," Sunstreaker deadpanned.
"That wasn't a suggestion!" Ironhide yelled. "You just earned the both of ya a lap around the Ark!"
Sideswipe turned and glared at his brother.
"Anythin' else ya have ta say to me?" Ironhide growled. When neither twin said anything for a few seconds, the mech continued. "Good! Now get yer shiny metal afts out the door, DOUBLE TIME! Move move move move move move move!"
Sideswipe and Sunstreaker had no choice but to drag themselves out of bed and run out the door as their drill sergeant yelled in their audios. Ironhide followed his two victims into the hallway with a smug grin on his face.
The unfortunate frontliners met up with a very grumpy looking Air Raid outside the Ark. He had his arms crossed as rain drizzled from the sky and glared at the two new arrivals. "I blame the both of you for this," he growled.
o~o~o
"Prowl my friend, you are brilliant. Bringin' back Ironhide's drill sergeant days? Best idea ever."
"It's my job to be brilliant, although it wasn't hard to convince Ironhide to go along with it."
"Yeah, he was pretty peeved abou' th' whole Teletraan 1 thing wasn't he?"
Jazz and Prowl were standing just outside of the Ark watching Ironhide run Sideswipe, Sunstreaker, and Air Raid through grueling boot camp exercises.
"Ya think it was a little harsh ta throw Air Raid in there?" Jazz ventured as he leaned against the hull of the Ark.
"Nope," was Prowl's stark reply. Jazz snickered.
For several minutes the two black and whites just stood by and watched the entertainment. "Oh look 'Sides sees us!" Jazz eventually said. Sure enough, two hundred feet away, the frontliner was giving the two officers a dirty look. Jazz grinned and gave Sideswipe a cute little wave. Sideswipe responded with a rude gesture.
"Aw, did ya see tha'?" Jazz mock whined to Prowl. "Do ya think tha's 'nough ta earn 'em an extra day in boot camp?"
"Absolutely," said Prowl.
Although Jazz and Prowl could enjoy their little victory for today, they both knew that this feud was far from being over.
o~o~o
Over the next few days the battle between Sideswipe and Sunstreaker and Jazz and Prowl only grew in intensity. Only now Jazz and Prowl had Bumblebee, Mirage, and Ironhide on their side, while Sideswipe and Sunstreaker had Red Alert, Air Raid, and consequently Slingshot and Blades, on theirs. However, the rest of the Ark's inhabitants were not unaware of the growing war that was taking place right under their noses. Ever since Prowl had rigged the wash racks to prank the twins, the other 'bots had been eagerly keeping track of the feud. In fact Smokescreen had even placed a few bets over who would come out the winner.
As the pranks grew more elaborate and began to take over the Ark, more and more mechs became involved in the battle. Nobody actually chose a side on their own, but rather they joined the opposing side to the one that decided to get them involved in a prank.
By the end of the week the inhabitants of the Ark had descended into full out war. Most had either sided with Sideswipe's or Prowl's team. There were others who refused to get involved in such ridiculous shenanigans, and still there was just one that had yet to learn of the war that was quickly consuming his base.
And now it really begins!