Author's note. I know I said the Decepticons would be messing around trying to create food for the kids but that'll have to be next chapter, I'm afraid. Thank you to Mrs Bumblebee and Kaekokat for their suggestions. Wow, can you believe it's 2010, this'll be my first chapter for the new decade.
Happy New Year everyone.
Enjoy and please review.
Alexis's POV.
Alexis stared at Cyclonus's retreating back as Starscream carried her away. She didn't like being separated from her friends when they were in the company of these hostile robots. They had been with the Decepticons for less than a day and already she really wished they were back with the Autobots. Optimus could be stern but he was so kind and caring that it was a good quality. Red Alert was quiet but he loved to teach them mechanics and he loved to learn about Earth. And Hotshot, he was like an older brother who was fun to be with not to mention he was extremely loyal.
The Autobots were like family.
"Ow" she yelped as without warning she was unceremoniously dropped from a fair height onto a hard table top. Starscream sneered down at her then went over to a storage closet as she rubbed her sore behind. He took out some tools and went back to the table and sat himself down.
The Autobots were like family. These Decepticons on the other hand.
"Hey" she exclaimed as he almost hit her as he stretched out an arm to grab some wires from an overflowing box. She was forced to duck again as he brought his hand back. She glared at him but didn't say anything, she knew he was likely to report any outright defiance to Megatron. And she had a feeling that Megatron was just this close to finding an excuse to punish them in order to exert his dominance over them.
So she allowed her annoyance to disappear and instead let her natural curiosity at what he was tinkering with take over. She took a long look around the room she was in, and saw it was full of different pieces of equipment and computer like parts. It reminded her something what of Red Alert's Med Bay though it was more neatly arranged and cleaner. From what little she had seen of this base so far, it was covered with moon dust. She wondered about this base, it looked somewhat decrepit and somehow she didn't think the Decepticons arrived in it.
She knew that the Autobots had used a huge Warp portal from Cybertron to get here to Earth and had set up base in the remains of the Minicon ship that had crashed there. The Warp Portal only existed on Cybertron meaning the Autobots would have to build a ship in order to return to their home Planet. She wondered was this base also the remains of the Minicon ship as well. Had it crashed here, and then part of it continued on its way to Earth.
She started to smile as she pondered this interesting theory, she would tell Rad and Carlos later. She wondered what Optimus and the others would think, she loved solving problems. The thought of the Autobots made her sad for a moment but then she shook herself, they would see then again and soon.
She looked again to her captor who had a look of concentration on his face as he unscrewed something. Now she had a new problem, what was he fixing? She just watched him for a while, he made no other move to swipe at her. Finally, she couldn't contain her curiosity any longer and asked.
"What are you fixing?"
"This is for you kids, actually" he said dryly.
"Really?" she said in surprise as he smirked at her.
"This is a replicator for organic material and will be used to create food for you" Starscream said turning back to the machine he was working on. She watched him for a few minutes as he buried his fingers into the device. Then she said.
"So you guys are going to get us food then duplicate it?"
"Not exactly" was the reply.
She stared at him, frowning in confusion then moved so she could see his face. His optics were focused on what he was doing but with one hand nudged her slightly to the left so he could grab a needle like instrument. She watched as this was stuck into the replicator, and then she looked into his face again.
"What do you mean, not exactly?" she asked slowly. His optics shifted so that now he was looking at her though his face was still turned towards the machine.
"We are going to create food for you" he said in his raspy voice. "Instead of getting lots of different foods, we are going to create one or two filled with all the necessary nutrients and minerals needed for you humans."
"Oh" she said softly, this was very interesting. What would a single food item containing all the essentials look and taste like?
"Wow" she said finally, and Starscream gave her a tight smile. "How are you going to do all that?"
"It's too complex for me to explain" Starscream said offhandedly. "But if you could tell me what humans need it would save me the bother of trying to find out."
"Okay" she said eagerly, there was definitely nothing to be gained by resisting. Starscream reached for a nearby shelf and brought a data pad down to write in.
"Calcium is quite important" she started to say. "We get that from dairy products, basically milk. We need iron for our blood and that's found in red meat. Folic acid's another mineral, which comes from leafy vegetables especially spinach, you can actually get iron from spinach too."
"We also need vitamins" she continued as the red Jet wrote what she had said down. "Vitamin A is found in carrots, mangoes, egg yolks and mozzarella cheese. Vitamin B is found in whole-grain cereals, berries and legumes. Vitamin C which is very important can be found in citrus fruits like oranges but also Kiwi fruit and vegetables."
She suddenly frowned and Starscream looked at her.
"What" he said.
"Vitamin D" she suddenly exclaimed causing him to jump slightly. "We need that, it's very important, it helps us absorb calcium which keeps our bones strong."
"And where does vitamin D come from" he said with a raised optic-brow seeing how suddenly serious she was.
"Well normally we get it from sunlight, our skin absorbs it" she explained. "But since we're here..."
She gestured around the room, still filled with moon dust.
"We'll need to get it from a food source like...fish oil" she said.
"Fish oil" he repeated, noting it down on his data pad.
"Starscream" she said, somewhat hesitantly. He looked at her, but didn't answer.
"Could we have something...savoury and something sweet" she asked.
"Savoury and sweet" he said slowly with another raised optic brow.
"That's how we have our meals, something savoury first and then something sweet for after. You could have some of the vitamins like C in the sweet with a little bit of sugar for taste" she said as innocently as possible, she had a feeling Megatron wouldn't approve of sugar but she knew the boys would thank her.
Starscream stared at her for a full minute but then gave a small shrug and wrote it down. Alexis sighed in relief as he looked at her again and asked what else humans needed. And so she told him.
Carlos's POV.
"Come on dude wake up. Come on" Carlos yelled down at the snoring Decepticon. However Cyclonus seemed to be completely out of it and had been for the past half hour. And Carlos was as bored as hell.
He had already been sleeping for most of the day that to overgrown tin-can Megatron and was too wide awake to take another nap. And there was nothing on this high shelf that Cyclonus had put him on so he had nothing to amuse himself with and there was nothing to watch except Cyclonus snore. Which was why for the past five minutes he had been trying to wake the Decepticon up.
He knew once Cyclonus was awake, he would probably be irritated out of his mind by Cyclonus's inane chatter but anything was better than this mind-numbing boredom. So he yelled as loud as he could to attract the attention of the helicopter transformers. But nothing he did seemed to make a difference, Cyclonus carried on snoring. And Carlos's throat was starting to become sore with all the shouting but he had no other way of waking Cyclonus up, it wasn't as though he could throw anything at him.
Carlos sat down in frustration, jumping up and down hadn't done anything either. So what was he going to do now?
A sudden noise made him peer over the edge of the shelf and there he saw what could be his salvation. It was a Minicon which had just walked into the room. Said Minicon had been staring at the sleeping Cyclonus but was now looking up at Carlos. Carlos waved excitedly.
"Hey there, I'm Carlos, what's your name?"
The blue and purple Minicon beeped in a somewhat bemused tone back. But Carlos kept grinning down in a friendly way so the Minicon edged closer. Carlos chatted with it for a few minutes, just to make friends. Eventually Carlos said.
"Hey dude, do you think you could get me down, please" Carlos pleaded. "It's just so boring up here."
The Minicon considered his request while Carlos looked down hopefully, not wanting to push it into a decision. But mercifully it nodded and transformed. With a roar of its engine it reversed backwards then sped straight at the wall and went right up it until it reached the shelf Carlos was on. As Carlos stared, it transformed back into its bipedal form and scooping Carlos into its arms leapt down onto a lower shelf that had been too far for Carlos to reach.
Once it reached that shelf it then jumped down to the ground where it then gently put Carlos back on his feet. Grinning, Carlos clapped a hand on its back in a friendly gesture of gratitude. The Minicon smiled but then suddenly started beeping.
"What's that? You have to go? Ah, well it was great meeting you" Carlos said as the Minicon moved to go where ever it was needed.
"Thank you" he called as the Minicon left and he got a happy beep in return. He glanced up at the still sleeping Cyclonus and decided he wasn't going to bother trying to wake him up.
"I'm going to go exploring, maybe I'll run into Alexis."
Rad's POV.
Rad was miserably lying on his front as Megatron continued to run his finger along the length of his back while the two Decepticons talked. When Alexis had woken him up, his aches had for the most part gone, but being continually petted by rough fingers, had brought them back. What was worse, when Megatron had captured them he had grabbed them with cables which had caused burns, and these burns had started to become aggravated with being rubbed.
He winced, trying to ignore the pain being caused by this, and shifted slightly, trying to move so that the same area wasn't being chafed. However there was only so much he could move, because his fidgeting annoyed Megatron who would growl and give him a hard poke until he lay still. He was now just praying for it to be over.
Suddenly Megatron paused in his stroking causing Rad to raise his head from his arms and look towards the door to see Starscream walking in. In his hands were Alexis and Carlos. Rad started to smile at the sight of them but then Megatron started stroking him again.
Seeing Rad's grimacing in pain and seeing how Megatron was stroking him, Carlos yelled.
"Hey, stop that you're hurting Rad."
"Hey, don't you use that tone towards your Master" Demolisher said sternly but the two kids ignored him. As soon as Starscream started lowering his hand towards Megatron, Alexis and Carlos practically leapt from his hand to get to Rad. Megatron eyed Carlos as he said to Starscream.
"Why isn't this one with Cyclonus?"
"He was wandering the base, apparently Cyclonus fell asleep" replied Starscream with a roll of his optics. "I found him as I was bringing the other back so I took him as well."
Turning to Demolisher he said.
"If you could collect these human foods, I could have their meal prepared in no time. I just need to finish with one of the machines and then we can produce their food."
"Very good, Starscream, Demolisher, see to it" Mgatron ordered.
Demolisher bowed but as he was leaving, Megatron called out.
"Oh and Demolisher, don't forget to pick up the items I discussed with you earlier."
The kids looked up at this, curious but Demolisher simply nodded and left. Looking down the Decepticon tyrant saw the two kids fussing over their friend.
"Look what you've done" Alexis said angrily, as she examined the bright red skin under Rad's jumpsuit. "His back's all tender and red because you've been rubbing it."
"I had no idea humans were so delicate" Megatron mused thoughtfully.
"We're not delicate" Rad said indignantly as Carlos glared his agreement. ""But we've all got rope burns on our skin from when you grabbed us with those cables. And you've been rubbing those burns."
"So no more rubbing Rad" Alexis said fiercely causing Megatron to give her a sharp tap on the head.
"I already warned you to mind your manners young lady so watch it" he growled softly before saying. "Well, I'll allow your friend a chance to recover then."
The kids all looked relieved, especially Rad until Megatron took hold of Carlos and started petting him and then Alexis. Rad he scooped onto the arm of the throne leaving Alexis and Carlos on his knee. They of course squirmed back Rad knew too well from experience wouldn't do any good.
In exasperation he said, as he saw his friends bite back cries of pain as they were stroked by rough fingers.
"Can't you do something else with us that doesn't involve stroking us or making us sleep?"
Megatron considered the question thoughtfully as he slid Alexis's hair between two fingers. She really didn't like this.
"I suppose there is" Megatron said finally. The kids looked hopeful, surely anything was better than been chafed raw or made to nap on his knee.
"What tricks do you do?"
Author's note. Next chapter definitely contains the Decepticons making food for the kids. Also the kids end up disobeying, meaning Megatron has to punish them. And what is it that Megatron told Demolisher to get. Find out in the next chapter. Till next time.