Title: In Search of a Cause

Author: Dragon of Dispair (dragonofdispair)

Continuity: Bayverse (crossover with Guardians of the Galaxy)

Rating: T

Characters/Pairing: (currently unrequited) Bluestreak / Prowl, Sixshot, Irani Rael

Warnings: Cannon-typical violence in this chapter. Plug'n'play and/or spark interfacing may come up in later chapters.

Summary: In which Prowl and Bluestreak save the galaxy from both Decepticons and Unicron. You'd think the galaxy would be grateful, but instead Nova Corps keeps trying to arrest them for war crimes. Go figure.

OR: A buddy-comedy version of Indiana Jones IN SPAAACE! but with two giant alien robot war criminals instead of a gainfully employed archaeologist-looter. Because Decepticons are totally the same as Nazis and Bluestreak is still a morality pet.

Notes: All I can say is I've got serious writers block when it comes to this story… a couple words a week if I'm lucky…

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CHAPTER FIVE

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STAG. Single Transformer Assault Group. One-mech army.

Hyperbole? I wished.

Sixshot is a six-former. A transformer with six forms, not counting the universal cometary form he rarely used. I don't have names to go with all of his forms given that he, like Bluestreak and I, changes them constantly, but I am familiar with his preferences. His primary form was the most versatile, with the most varied armament, good hand-to-hand capabilities, good mobility, good armor. His interstellar form was the most specialized and his only non-combat form. From the battle up in orbit, I knew his current jet-mode was a Nova Corp Starblaster. Beyond that, I'd have to run the analysis in-combat, but I knew he preferred to keep at least one tank-mode for long-range combat and a beast-mode for specializing in close-combat.

He was an opponent that required Bluestreak and I to adjust our tactics some. I couldn't get in as close to him as I usually did. I'd squish myself trying to ram him and that beast-form (or whatever his current close-combat specialist form was right now) would literally tear me apart. Yet I couldn't back off and just rely on distance to protect myself and Bluestreak, because that tank-form (or whatever) would just blast us to pieces. The only good news about confronting him was that, while he was not an unintelligent opponent, he had none of the advanced tactical processors or training that either Bluestreak or I possessed.

And that wasn't even counting the complication that was going head-to-head with him in the middle of a swarm of Nova Corps Starblasters and other squishy law enforcement trying to pick off all three of us. Unfortunately, Sixshot was better equipped to handle the swarm of opponents than we were.

The terrain was, further, not one favorable to Bluestreak and my favored tactics. The buildings of the city were too high for him to set up someplace safely away and still reliably have the line of sight he needed to hit Sixshot, but not tall enough to provide the level of cover a sniper needed. The squishies' city and Sixshot's beast form would force us into a dangerous middle distance that favored our enemy.

We were still speeding towards the city, however. Suicidal? Probably. Already my processor had thrown up the statistic that this plan had a ninty-eight percent chance getting us killed, while simply waiting until Sixshot finished killing off all squishies and confronting him when he was (hopefully) weakened gave us an extra fifteen percent chance of making it out alive. But no… rushing suicidally to our doom to save other species was something good little Autobots did, and while I personally didn't care even a little bit about this world, Bluestreak did.

It was our compromise. These planets were valuable to the Autobot Cause (or whatever's left of it) but not as valuable as the lives of the soldiers who fight for that Cause. When I order him pull out and let the natives fend for themselves, he does so so without question. That's his sacrifice. Mine is that we at least try, no matter how my calculations insisted otherwise. So it was for Bluestreak's interpretation of Prime's commands that we flew to the city Sixshot was currently rendering to rubble, with only a two percent chance of surviving the encounter and it was for mine that we'd pull out before the chances of dying reached one-hundred percent.

Besides. We had a score to settle and neither of us was going to take the chance that a Starblaster pilot would get in a lucky shot and kill Sixshot while we stood on the sidelines.

Alright fine. That was the situation. Now to see about changing it.

Bluestreak found a usable military car that fit our needs first, right as we entered the city limits. Better still, it had a native, onboard weapon system like a small tank would and I rewrote a set of plans for each of us that would keep our most devastating weapons available, rather than folding them away to imitate the squishies' useless pop-toy. I chirped his set back to him. He shifted into it immediately, so as to blend more easily into the swarm of opponents already surrounding Sixshot, while I only saved the specs. There would be a time and a place in this battle for disguise, but right now I needed the flight-grade hover more. We separated, connected only by the fast chirp of a plan and an invisible line of shared targeting data.

I flew over another, different, tank and immediately I was taking fire, as I knew I'd be. No Starblasters diverted from Sixshot to find me, thank Primus, but I had enough issues with tanks and squishy infantry firing at me as I passed. Nothing serious, but their communications lit up with reports of my presence, rippling outward from my flight path. One worried subroutine noted that they used my designation (a close Xandaran equivalent), but the majority of my attention focused on dodging. I turned on my lights and sirens, attracting even more attention and generating even more reports. It took only a second for those reports to alert Sixshot to my presence and the baying of his beast-form was distinctive, if only in the slightly mechanical fuzziness of the alien sound.

In most organic languages the word "prowl" contains the connotations of stealthy movements of a predator on the hunt, searching for an prey or an advantage over prey, but Cybertron was a mechanical ecosystem without predator-prey interactions and so the word "prowl" contains more levels of exactly what it means to move stealthily. Or exactly what sort of advantages could be gained over one's "prey". In this case, I ran.

Sixshot barreled through vehicles and buildings in pursuit, first following the "scent" I'd left in allowing the squishies to report my presence, then following me personally. His beast form was just barely slower but was just as maneuverable as I was. Perhaps he was more so, but Starblasters dragged at his heels, attempting to catch him with enough tractor beams to halt him. He ignored them in favor of the tempting target I was presenting. He shot at me, blaster shots that would have stripped away shields, melted armor and ignited energon in my lines had they connected. His largest guns would be on his tank-form, of course, but all his weapons were formidable.

One small Xandaran tank trundled out into the intersection ahead of us artillery gun languidly lining up its shot, brave or foolhardy. I juked and jinked to prevent either Sixshot or the Xandarans from getting a targeting lock on me and passed over the tank before I could take fire from it.

Unless we're broadcasting an IFF signal and without a close in spark-scan we're nearly impossible to distinguish in our disguise forms, even by each other. Sixshot and I were the only ones broadcasting Cybertronian IFFs and with the olfactory sensor of his beast-mode practically shoved up my exhaust pipe he wasn't sparing the attention or energy on scanning for spark signatures. Sixshot ignored it as well, four mechanical paws scrambling right over the compact combat vehicle. Mistake.

Bluestreak couldn't miss from that range, PPC blowing a hole the size of my head strait through him. Armor melted and circuits sizzled and the beast-mode howled in pain as his hind legs faltered, most of the hip missing.

I transformed as I dropped to the pavement, skidding as I fought my own momentum. Acid pellets pockmarked Sixshot's shields, but he ignored me, intent on Bluestreak who was now backpedalling down the street he'd come from as fast as his unfamiliar treads could carry him. I felt the distinctive signature of Bluestreak's blue TAG beacon and I let a pair of ground-to-air missiles loose in response. They barely armed in time to explode against Sixshot's shields, stripping them away and melting armor, leaving him vulnerable to my acid pellets. With a howl that turned to a roar of defiance he switched forms. I got off a couple more good shots before his armor finished rearranging to cover the damaged areas and his shields reset. He leveled his tank-cannon at Bluestreak.

Not happening. I transformed, buzzed him, dropped back into bipedal, grabbed the cannon and twisted, pulling his shot. His solid tank-armor turned to a treacherous morass of shifting parts beneath my feet and, though I tried to get away, I was caught.

"Prowl!"

Crushed. Snarling, I did the only thing I could do and lit him up with my TAG, green dot painting a target over his chassis, and firing off every weapon I had.

Everything exploded around me and with a roar he threw me. I had no control over my flight path and crashed through one building without losing momentum. My HUD fritzed and the last thing I was aware of was Bluestreak forcibly syncing my systems to his.

Dark.

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(tbc…)

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