The Diego Diaries: Newbies 16 (339) (Late added note: Hound looks like he's in TF4 and there is evidence that perhaps sunstreaker is joining Sideswipe.)
-0-Ops Center
Bluestreak walked in and paused beside Prowl who was sitting at the center table studying a flat map of the mission as data. Blue looked at it as he set the twins on the top. Kaon who was walking behind with his favorite dollie looked back and smiled. Dawg had been trudging along behind them, bouncing on his tiny legs as he ambled after his family. "How's it going?" he asked.
Prowl paused kissing his granddaughters a moment, glancing at the others on the floor. "They have the entrance for their underground disappearance and are organizing to go find them."
Bluestreak pulled up a chair and sat as the girls walked to him across all manner of important things with their arms out. He hugged them to himself, then looked at the map. "Which ones are the twins?"
"Red and yellow," Prowl said with a slight smirk. As he spoke, Ratchet walked in, Prowler in his arms. Pausing by the table, he grinned. "Nothing like the Decepticons to frag up the weekend. And I was just getting used to having them."
"You and me both," Prowl said nodding. "The game is in two orns and half the forward line of Kaon is on a mission."
"As if that mattered to you, 'officer of the muster'," Ratchet replied as he sat Prowler on the table. The little baby wobbled but gamely stayed up. Both smiled at him.
"If you think I did that on purpose, Ratchet, then I'm deeply disappointed in you," Prowl said primly meeting Ratchet's optics directly. They stared at each other a moment, then both snorted.
"I thought so," Ratchet said. He glanced at Blue who was looking at Prowl with a stern look of his own. "Don't frag them when they come back. They will need their strength."
"Count on it," Blue said shooting a withering optic at his atar. Prowl just smirked back.
"So ... why did you frag up my weekend by calling me here when I was doing all manner of house wipery?" Ratchet asked settling back to look at Prowl with a mixture of high regard and molten contempt.
Prowl grinned and looked at Ratchet with the usual mixture of 'heh-heh-heh' and 'loser' on his face. "You need to speak to Sentinel and ask him if these 'Cons are his and what he might know about this."
Ratchet nodded. "Alright," he said rising. He picked up Prowler and settled him in his arms.
Prowl frowned slightly. "You can leave him."
Ratchet grinned. "I know. Ha-ha, whiner."
Prowl snorted, then grinned. "Loser."
Ratchet chuckled all the way out the door.
With Prowler.
-0-At the Prison shortly afterward
He walked back out of the Control Center for the Autobot City Military Prison heading for the main gate and the barracks where Sentinel Prime and the rest of the high caste rabble resided. They paused as the Officer of the Orn keyed the frequency that had to be matched by the Officer Guard of the Orn. When they synced, the gate dropped and Ratchet stepped through, two armed mechs going with him. The gate went back up as the two officers waited to let him out again.
Ratchet paused a moment, then looked at the two mechs with him, Home Guard newbies doing their once every six decaorn duty. "I will be talking to the bad guys. You will be standing by the gate armed to the teeth as the humans say. What you need to do is stand there all handsome and try to look like you mean to shoot them if they bat their lashes at me the wrong way. If I look at you and say shoot, do it. Aim for the helm. At the settings you use here they will drop but they won't die. Remember that, they won't be harmed permanently. I will say 'shoot'. Okay?"
The two youngsters glanced at each other, then looked at Ratchet sternly. "We will, Doctor. Do you want us to hold your little boy?" They looked at him with a grin. "He looks like Subcommander Prowl."
"You noticed that too did you?" Ratchet asked with a grin. "I get that a lot. Right now, I want them to see him. Might mean something to them to see a sparkling up close. But I may bring him over to you at some point or I might not. Just take him and keep him. Call Ops Center and Blue will come if you don't know how to handle one of these."
"I have one of my own," the taller of the two said with great pride. "He's my whole world."
"They get to you don't they," Ratchet said with a grin.
The youngsters nodded then input the codes together that would drop the gate to Cell Block C. Ratchet stepped through when it fell and watched as it went back up. Nodding with a grin, he turned and walked across the courtyard to the chair that was sitting beside the bars on the far side of the enclosure. Sentinel Prime's throne he thought with a snicker. Sitting, he arranged Prowler and waited, his sensors scanning far and wide around him as he set up a grid internally that would locate anything and everything around him. It did that on automatic when he was on duty or in a dangerous situation and now was no different.
The sun was warm on his sensors as he sat staring at his son, the infant looking up at him and the lightly blue sky with interest. His little white hat and white sweater were cute and set off his color format brilliantly. Ratchet scanned the baby and noted that his internal temperature was optimal. All was good so far.
Then the door to the barracks opened.
-0-Alaska
The sun beat down overhead as Prime considered his options. The humans wearing heavy gear and armor roasted as the temperature seemed to climb higher by the second. Staring into the hole, he thought about the limitations that a subterranean pursuit engendered. He looked at Devcon. "I would like you to take point on this mission, Dev and lead Drift, Sunstreaker, Sideswipe and Kup to find them. I don't know how big the hole is. They are walking inside so I have hopes you will too."
"What about us, Optimus?" Lennox asked as he stood with his group at the edge of the hole.
"You won't be going down there. You will stay here along with Springer. I want you to transform and carry them to wherever the battle is met, Springer," Prime said to his head of security.
Springer nodded. "Alright."
"Ironhide and I are too big to go. Springer is almost too big himself. We want you to follow them and be careful. If you don't have to engage them, fine. I would like to take one alive. But I am leaving this to your discretion." He looked at Dev. "Find them and be careful. One of them can dig and deliberate cave-ins are possible. We will track you on your transponders but the Earth eats signals. Let us know as best you can where you are and if you are outnumbered, retreat. That's an order. Intell is more important than battle."
They nodded, then Devcon transformed parts of himself that he kept subbed. A big gun appeared on his arm, one with what seemed to have personal modifications and a laser canon mounted on his helm materialized out of thin air. Turning, gazing at the others, he nodded and turned walking to the lip of the hole. The others unsubbed themselves and moved closer, pausing as if listening. Then Dev nodded and stood up, stepping into the air above the hole to disappear below.
Kup jammed his stogie into his mouth, then looked at the others as he gripped his gun. "Let's go. Can't be late for the dance," he said as he stepped off into the air and disappeared. One by one, they left, the twins with wolfish grins and Drift with a telltale smirk at Springer. It was silent a moment, then Corporal 'Fig' Figeroa stepped closer and looked into the inky darkness below. "Fucking A. Semper fi down there." He turned and looked at the others. "That motherfucker had a gun on his head."
Springer snorted, then chuckled. "That isn't the only place Dev carries guns." He left them to wonder about what that meant themselves.
-0-Prison, Cell Block C-High Value/Political Prisoners
Ratchet saw the door open and Decimus step out pausing on the porch. He looked at Ratchet as if to gauge what new hellish mayhem was to befall them, then stepped off walking toward the medic with measured treads. "Ratchet ... what are you doing here? What do you want?" he asked. Then he looked at the white covered bundle in Ratchet's arms. "Is that a sparkling?"
"It is," Ratchet said with a smirk.
"He looks like Prowl." Glancing at Ratchet, knowing his sense of the absurd, he considered that. "I suppose this is some kind of inside joke."
Ratchet chuckled. "You aren't far off."
"Why are you here?" Decimus asked.
"Pull up a chair and we'll chat. Bring your friends why don't you," Ratchet said amiably.
"What friends? I'm stuck in a void with idiots," Decimus said as he looked around. Walking to the porch, he took hold of a chair. The door opened and others came out. "Ratchet is visiting. Grab a chair and we can see whose pound of solenoids he's here for." Then he turned and walked back planting the chair to sit. He did and looked at Ratchet with a level gaze as others began to join them. All of them did but for Sentinel who stood on the porch to watch. He could hear and see but he was loathe to join in the fun just yet.
"Now this isn't so bad is it?" Ratchet asked as he covered Prowler more with his blanket. The infant was drifting off in the warm sunshine, his inefficient immature solar collection systems lulling him to recharge.
"Why are you here, Ratchet? I doubt that its to chat about trivialities," Proteus asked.
Ratchet nodded, a slight smile on his face. "You have that right. I have something to ask you and it would help you a lot to come clean," he began.
-0-Underground
The lights that were used were from the middle of the pack, running lights to give enough illumination for night vision to work. They followed single file, only partially stooping for the size of the hole that seemed to stretch out forever. The sides of it were polished from the precision scouring given it by the mechanism that was doing most of the carving for their group.
Dev looked at the ground detecting with a precision no human eye would ever be able to do without major scientific assistance the presence of seven different ped configurations. He recognized three of them and considered that as he led the team. Pausing, kneeling to check out the tracks once more, he glanced up at the others who were halted as they listened to faint echos of sound far away. :I know three of the ones we're tracking: he said. :One of them is Arachnid. She's doing most of the tunneling but there is at least one other. I believe one of the others is Drill Bit. I don't see anything here to suggest the rest of his team is here. But Tantrum is:
:Oh great. Another Predacon: Drift said with a slight nod. :Rampage would rip him to shreds:
Dev nodded. :Let's continue. Helms up: He rose and continued onward, the rest of them following silently behind.
-0-In the sunshine
Ratchet looked at each of them, then considered his words carefully. "You do understand that this is the end of the line for you. If we fall, you will die too."
"Is that what you came to tell us?" Ratbat said as he lounged insolently in a chair. "You came to tell us doom is coming."
"It will. Megatron will come. He'll bring his pit spawn with him, Galvatron."
They all looked at him for a moment. "I had no idea he reproduced. What lucky mech or femme was the recipient of his benighted CNA?" Ratbat replied sarcastically.
"Why Shockwave of course," Ratchet replied with a grin. It hung in the air for a moment as Ratchet checked Prowler under the blanket. Looking at them again, he smiled. "Don't worry about Shockwave. We have him in the deep freeze. Even Megatron can't triangulate on his signal to find him. Not that he would have to. Megatron knows where we are."
"And the point of this? If there is a point ..." Decimus asked with no small amount of irritation.
"I am checking your processors to see how rooted in reality you are," Ratchet replied. "We have found more Decepticons inside our perimeter. They have been buried on the Earth waiting to institute the protocols and we wanted to know what you know."
It was silent a moment, then Ratbat regarded Ratchet levelly. "What's in it for us if we tell?"
"I will personally intervene when the mob comes to take you apart," Ratchet said giving him a level optic back.
"How comforting," Ratbat hissed.
"Tell me more about the 'Cons on Earth, Ratchet," Proteus asked.
"I was hoping you could tell me," Ratchet replied.
"We were in a ship escaping Cybertron during The Fall and the escapement of the AllSpark. We had our own goals to meet and they didn't include hiding Decepticons on the Earth," Proteus replied. "We never heard about Earth until we came to sentience here. It was always just the 'place we were going'. I didn't know its name."
Ratchet considered that, then nodded. "Tell me what those goals were, Proteus."
Proteus looked at him a moment, then sat back, a thoughtful expression on his handsome face.
-0-TBC June 21, 2013 HAPPY SUMMER (or WINTER!) EVERYONE! edited
NOTES: Check out pictures of Mars on beautifulmars dot tumblr dot com :D
Also, we are at 1121 segments and 2,577,910 words.
Only conjoined twins in Transformers: Rack'n'Ruin. Joined at the shoulder to save them, they share four legs, two heads, two bodies and one arm each. They are a melee bot. They also in some universes had poor health. They were always a Wrecker except once when they were Decepticon twins that helped the Autobots.
"The original Wreckers team consisted of Impactor (as leader), Roadbuster, Whirl, Rack 'n' Ruin, Topspin and Twin Twist. This team was probably together in this form for thousands of years before we first see them in the comics. During Operation: Volcano (where they were to kill about 12 of the worst Decepticons before an invasion) the Autobot Triplechangers, Springer, Broadside and Sandstorm are added to the Wreckers' ranks, then Springer becomes the team leader. This then is the team's lineup (Springer, Broadside, Sandstorm, Roadbuster, Whirl, Rack 'n' Ruin, Topspin and Twin Twist) until their utter destruction in the Time Wars. (obscure TF page, UK comics)
Bots even hosted letter columns in comics sometimes. :D "Hence, this remark by Grimlock about a story: The story that appears in this comic is an accurate representation of the actual events as they happened. So, just this once, you can't really blame the Stubbies (human artists, etc.) involved. That said in issue #102 they got it all wrong. Fancy showing Galvatron actually defeating me in battle! Ridiculous! -Grimlock, answering letter" You can get more of this at tfwiki if you research letters to the editor and the like. :D
:D I love tfwiki dot com :D