Author's note : And since today is my birthday, here's chapter two. Enjoy!
Drag Strip came to a stop, transformed and looked around. "This place is pretty boring."
"You're telling me," Wildrider said. "I was trying to figure out where to go."
"Well, that's what we're here for." Even in the near-darkness, Drag Strip's grin was visible. "How about we have a race, and the winner gets to decide what we'll all do?"
"Fine by me," Breakdown said. Dead End had transformed too, but he just sat down on the grass, produced a polishing cloth and began to work on his fender panels.
"I can't." Wildrider would have liked to race, but even if Geri was perfectly safe where she was, she couldn't stay inside a tree all night. And he was half afraid that after the race was done, he wouldn't remember where he'd left her. He could easily recognize landmarks on the road, but all trees looked the same to him.
"What do you mean, you can't?" Breakdown asked.
"Well, you don't need to decide," Drag Strip said. "Once I win, I'll find something really fun for us to do." His voice lowered to a purr. "We could interface."
"Uh, maybe later." Wildrider had never been less in the mood, and he had a feeling that Geri really wouldn't enjoy having to listen to two—or more—Stunticons getting it on.
"You want some downtime?" Breakdown said. "There's a drive-in theater showing your favorite film."
"What, Kill Bill?" Wildrider said, perking up. He'd only seen that on their eighty-inch TV, which wasn't big by Cybertronian standards. It would be great to watch the movie on a much larger screen.
And he would have liked the rest of his team to see it too, because it reminded him of them. The Bride was Drag Strip—not just the bright yellow, but the plan to leave the team and strike out alone. Elle Driver, the big nasty one, was Motormaster as a blonde, right down to the devotion to Bill or Megatron. Budd, the fatalist who was still a dangerous enemy, was Dead End, and Vernita Green, the blue and white one with the lethal sneak attack, was a dead ringer for Breakdown.
As for himself, like O-Ren Ishii, he was the Bride's favorite teammate, he was happiest in the company of his friends, and he had a teenage sidekick. Though unlike Gogo, Geri had far better taste than to ever consider Ferraris "Italian trash".
Geri, he thought, remembering abruptly that she was still inside the tree. He couldn't just abandon her.
"I can't leave," he said again.
"Why not?" Drag Strip asked.
Increasingly desperate, Wildrider racked his mind for some answer, any answer. Three sets of glowing purple optics were now fixed on him, which made him a little sympathetic to what Breakdown normally felt under such circumstances—it didn't help his thought processes at all. Why, why, why had he ever imagined bringing Geri out here to choose a birthday present was a good idea?
"I got you a present," he heard himself blurt out. "For your birthday."
"Really?" Drag Strip said happily.
Breakdown's optics narrowed a little as the ridges above them drew together. "Our birthday isn't till March. Next year."
"Play along, will you?" Wildrider told him over the Stunticon channel. "No harm in being prepared, right?" he said to Drag Strip.
"Course not." Drag Strip looked around again, with much more interest than he'd shown the first time. "So, where is it?"
"Where's what?" Wildrider asked.
"My present!"
Wildrider went blank again. "I can't remember."
"Did you get presents for Breakdown and me as well?" Dead End asked.
Wildrider switched to the radio channel again, directing this transmission at Dead End alone. "No, because there aren't any slagging presents for anyone! So can you all just go?"
"Are you having another episode?" Dead End replied.
"Is my present somewhere around here?" Drag Strip asked.
Wildrider nodded. "Why don't you go back home and I'll look for it?"
"Or we could search for it," Drag Strip said. "Bet I find it first." He nudged Dead End with his elbow. "C'mon, don't just stand there. Help me look."
Dead End's visor flashed a blink. "Why should I bother looking for a nonexistent present?"
"What do you mean, nonexistent? Wildrider got me a gift!"
"No, Wildrider said he got you a gift. Wildrider has also said, on various occasions, that triangles change shape when no one's looking, the interior of Soundwave's chest leads to Narnia, and his stuffed kangaroo once talked to him."
Drag Strip's enthusiasm had visibly drained away during that little speech, and by the end of it he looked ready to kick something. "I should have known."
"What exactly is going on, Wildrider?" Breakdown said over the radio.
"I can't tell you."
"I'll bet I won't get a present next year either!" Drag Strip said.
Dead End sighed. "I'm not sure what's more unrealistic, your expectation that he would remember our birthday or your hope of survival until next year."
"Well, I'm not leaving until I find out," Breakdown said.
Wildrider nearly groaned. When Breakdown was determined to figure something out, he never stopped working at it. Dead End would give up if something was too difficult—or mildly difficult, or inconvenient, or likely to cut into his primping time—and Drag Strip could be distracted by racing or a challenge or compliments. But Breakdown was too smart to fall for anything like that, and Wildrider didn't feel like making up another story, especially after the last one had landed him in so much trouble. For someone with a faction name that was all about lying, he really wasn't living up to it.
"Fine," he said, giving in. "I've got a human hiding in the hole in that tree."
"What?" Breakdown took three strides to the tree before Wildrider could stop him. He bent down and peered into the hollow.
Then he let out a strangled yell, leaped back and pulled his rifle from subspace. Dead End started up from the ground and Drag Strip drew his gun too, on sheer reflex. Wildrider made sure his forcefield was on at full strength, and sidled close to the tree.
"It looked at me!" Breakdown sputtered, still backing away. "It looked straight at me!"
"She can't see you!" Wildrider said, exasperated. "And did you have to tell everyone?"
"So that's what this is all about!" Drag Strip snapped. "You didn't want to go anywhere with us because you'd rather hang out with that disgusting little piece of slag! And you were lying about my present."
Dead End lowered himself back to the ground, propping his arms on his drawn-up knees. "I knew there wasn't any present." He rested his chin on his forearms. "There never is."
"Can you two stop going on about slagging presents?" Wildrider said.
"You started it!" Drag Strip told him.
Breakdown spoke in a whisper. "Why is it hiding in a hole? Is it spying on us?"
"Oh, fragging Primus." Wildrider could tell Drag Strip was trying to aim around him, so he moved in front of the hollow. "She hid so you wouldn't get freaked out when you saw her. She's not spying on us."
Drag Strip subspaced his gun. "Of course she's not spying on us. She seems like a nice human."
"What?" For a moment Wildrider thought he was hallucinating, because he couldn't have heard right. Drag Strip hated Geri, for the simple reason that he hated sharing anything he considered his, including his teammates, especially with an organic creature who was nowhere near as powerful or fast as he was.
"A very nice human." Drag Strip went to a knee and spoke in what he clearly intended to be a soft, encouraging coo—which, given his deep gravelly voice, was likely to scare off anything short of Motormaster. "Come out, little human. No one's going to hurt you. Come on out."
"She's blind, not stupid," Wildrider told him.
Drag Strip sneered. "You're both."
Those were fighting words. Wildrider started towards him and Drag Strip straightened up at once, fists clenched, but Breakdown stepped between them. "Are you two really planning to fight over a human?" he asked.
"No, that's what Wildrider wants to fight about," Drag Strip said, looking very put-upon. "I want us all to enjoy our night off, but he'd rather waste his time with some slimy little glitch. Maybe he's hung out with a human so long that he doesn't like to do anything together with his team."
"Oh, that's rich," Wildrider said. "You, playing the team card."
Dead End nodded. "He has a point," he said to Drag Strip. "If you were guaranteed victory in any race you ran in the future, provided you left your gestalt, you'd answer, 'Left who?' Then you'd drive off so fast it would make a Seeker's head spin."
Drag Strip rounded on him. "So you're fine with him playing with humans and lying to us about it?"
Dead End shrugged. "I couldn't care less either way."
"Then you don't have a leg to stand on when it comes to loyalty, so don't talk to me about the team." He turned back to Wildrider. "And I'll tell you something else about that human you're so fond of—it's a coward."
"Come again?" Wildrider said. Geri had an annoying habit of refusing to go along with some of the fun things he wanted to do, but that didn't make her a coward.
Drag Strip's lip curled. "Anyone worth defending wouldn't hide behind you."
Before Wildrider could say anything, a voice came from inside the tree. "Anyone with common sense would keep out of sight." He glanced down, stunned, as Geri put her hands on the edge of the hollow and pulled herself out, first one leg and then the other.
She landed on the ground outside and straightened up. "But I'd rather not stay in there all night waiting for the argument to stop," she said, and picked a splinter of wood from her hair.