Strange neighbours
Chapter Thirteen: Free movements
Rachel watched Megatron test his new mobility in a wide space a good few hundred meters from the couch where she lounged with a glass of water in her hand.
She intently observed the mech, she reminded herself the difference between a robot and a mech or femme yet again remembering Megatron crossly explaining the difference between him, an Autonomous Robotic Organism and a lifeless clueless robotic drone. He then explained the difference between a mech and a femme, a subject Rachel found incredibly interesting, she never thought there could be such a difference between robotic genders and how similar they were to human genders. She of course wanted to ask Megatron more about it but he was in a bad mood that day so she left her questions for some other time.
Megatron moved through a fighting sequence, throwing punches and kicks fluently then rolling backwards and brought his leg out in a low sweeping kick so smoothly he made it look like a dance but Rachel could still see the force behind his movements. The sequence continued and as Megatron moved he kicked up dust and left indents in the dirt where his hands and feet were landing. He jumped performing a kick that twisted his whole body around so perfectly it looked like he defied gravity. But the dance like motions suddenly ended when he landed on his right foot and yelped in pain. His knee caved and his other leg came down to the ground for support. Megatron held his bad ankle with both hands and he stumbled and hopped backwards on his good leg before staggering to the ground and landing on his back grunting in pain bringing up a fresh cloud of dust.
Rachel put her glass down and ran over to him,
"Shit! Are you alright?" She stopped a good distance from Megatron as she'd learnt that when Megatron was angry it was best to stay out of the way. He lay still for a moment as the dust settled then sat up growling and inspecting his ankle.
"Damn these weak materials to the pit." He growled and Rachel glared at him, she and Timsy had emptied their wallets at his request to buy top grade metal and materials to fix him but of course it still wasn't good enough.
Rachel sighed absently tracing the scar tissue on her now un-bandaged arm then walked back to the couch knowing he was fine and his ankle repairs were still in place. He'd most likely landed badly and something pushed against some of his sensitive wirings.
Despite Timsy trying to explain to him that rushed repairs would only work temporarily Megatron still worked solidly with no rest through the nights and days since his arm had been fixed until he was completely mobile.
When he'd first stood up it had been one hell of a laugh for the couple as Megatron resembled an oversized angry toddler that kept falling over after every few steps it took and he had to recalibrate his balance coordinator before he could successfully walk a decent distance. All the same Rachel was astonished at the progress he'd made in the last three days.
They'd completely emptied his cooling system's supply of water, which was muddy and smelt like the bottom of the dam they'd pulled him from and refilled the system with fresh clear water and they'd cleaned up his hydraulics system which weren't all that bad.
But the couple were quite confused when Megatron told them to collect as much high quality gas as possible for him and when they'd filled every empty jerry can they owned, he didn't touch it but told them to supply him with more. They had to spend even more money to buy a tank to contain such an amount of gas. The tank sat half full, a few hundred meters away from where Megatron had just fallen.
Megatron got up and limped on his foot heading towards the tree that the couch was under, he sat down and placed his injured ankle on his opposite thigh.
"You okay Mega-dude?" Rachel saw his optics flash at her nickname for him,
"Must you call me that human?"
Megatron's biggest give away for when his was unhappy was the way he addressed people. He'd use their names when he was in a good mood but otherwise he'd use titles that would put emotional distance between him and who he was talking to and make it appear like he had no kinship with them. He was very good at placing barriers of hierarchy between himself and others, always placing himself on top. Rachel usually ignored his subtle attempts at placing himself above her and went through her day as if she was clueless to it.
"Unless you have a better one, and you didn't answer my question." She heard Megatron sigh before replying,
"I am weak, I need fuel."
"We got you the highest quality gas available to us-"
"I mean energon." Megatron cut over her words and looked across to Rachel
"Well tell us where to get it and we'll find it for you, we've told you this already."
"The form of energon I need is not on Earth. You must get me more gas, that tank needs to be full."
"We can't afford to get that much, why do you need all this gas anyway?" Rachel didn't understand why Megatron was just collecting gas and not using it.
"Here, I believe this will pay for the gas. And possibly everything else you've spent your money on."
Rachel heard a small clink then Megatron leant over and opened his hand up into front of her, on one of the metal plates of his palm sat a diamond, rich blue and glinting in the sun, it was cut to perfection. Rachel felt her mouth drop open as she leant forward on his thumb digit.
"Oh my…where did you get this?" She'd never seen a real diamond in her life and never expected that Megatron would just have one on him ready to give away at a moment's notice.
"I've had it for some time now. Take it I have no use for such a thing."
Rachel gently lifted the golf ball sized diamond up to the sun. She was amazed at how many edges it had.
"What kind of diamond is it?"
"A rare Sapphire. I cut it myself"
"Wow." She heard Megatron laugh at her expression but she couldn't drag her eyes from the glinting beauty of the blue diamond.
…
Timsy woke with a start as the crash made his whole room shake. He groaned and let his head hit the pillow again trying to get back to sleep. Megatron had fallen again, he knew it. Timsy was grateful that silence followed the crash instead of aggressive yelling. He hoped that Megatron wasn't in an irritated mood again. He didn't understand the mech, Timsy internally scowled at the title. The more he and Rachel worked the easier he became irritated. Timsy had spent almost all his money and worked himself into exhaustion for that damn mech and all he got was a simple nod of the head and a quick thankyou.
And dare he say or do one thing that Megatron wasn't okay with, Timsy would have his ear chewed off about it and be constantly reminded of his slip up's in the repair work he'd done on the mech days after it'd happened.
The more about Megatron Timsy found out the more he became uncomfortable and cautions around the metal giant. Timsy was beginning to think that he was hiding something. Something huge. Something dangerous.
…
The slick red car smoothly pulled off the highway into a small town as its passengers inside began to stir from their sleep. Sam and Samantha had dozed off as the sun came up and slept at least two thirds of the trip away but were now rubbing their eyes as Perceptor parked outside a café for them to eat something and stretch their legs.
Samantha went straight into the ladies room to freshen up and wash her face. She splashed cold water over her skin and looked at her reflection in the mirror. Water droplets formed on her wet face and ran down her neck then soaked into her murky green shirt. She looked tired and had dark rings under her eyes even after the sleep she'd gotten, her hair was getting oily and knotted so she pulled it back into a low bun not bothering to care how awful she looked then walked outside to find Sam sitting at a table outside the café. He was a lot more tired than her and looked like the weight of the world was set on his shoulders but still smiled at Samantha as she walked over to him.
It's almost like he'd still try to bring a smile to face and make me happy even though nothing could bring a smile to his. She quickly pushed the farfetched thought aside as she sat down. They bought some food and began discussing possible cover stories about why they'd been gone for nearly three days which they could tell their parents.
"I texted my parents that we had decided to go on a road trip the morning after the dinner party trip so you could see more of the states."
"Okay, but why did we leave so early? I mean my parents would have woken up to find my bed empty."
"Um…we wanted an early start so we could cover as many miles as possible during the day."
"Well that makes sense. Where did we go exactly then? My parents are going to be asking. Oh! What about photos?" Sam was silent as he thought through the questions.
"We didn't take any photos because…Bumblebee was taking photos for us but because he had to go help the Autobots we don't have any to show. Just tell your parents I've got all the photos and they're getting printed if they ask. We just travelled around the state to different places that I said you should see."
"You've got all the photos and they're getting printed and we just travelled around the state sightseeing. Got it. But what about you leaving with a yellow car and coming back with a red one?" Samantha asked looking over at the Alfa Romeo 4C knowing there was more to it than the smooth shiny red panels and tinted windows. She liked Perceptor, he gave off such a humble vibe.
"I'll tell my parents that Bumblebee," he choked up a little saying the name but cleared his throat and continued
"had to go help the other Autobots with a special mission and Perceptor is taking his place as guardian until he gets back."
Samantha put a hand over Sam trying to comfort him and he placed his other hand over hers then looked up at her and smiled.
"Honestly, I'm glad that you've been here with me during all of this."
"Me too, I'm glad that I've been able to help you Sam even though all of this has been so crazy to me, I never once thought giant metal robots existed or that I'd be meeting them."
"I had the same thoughts once. According to Ratchet, Optimus Prime isn't even that big they have had planet sized beings amongst their species."
"No way! That's crazy." Samantha said trying to imagine a planet sized robot.
They shared a silent moment before a thought hit Samantha.
"What are we going to say when our parents being to hint and stuff about us being, well you know. A thing?" Samantha felt her cheeks go red and looked away bringing her hand away from Sam's and placing it in her lap.
Sam coughed and scratched the back of his head.
"Um well, I know my parents are going to be really embarrassing and I apologise for anything that they might do or say to you. I'm just going to tell them to stay out of my business and that I'll tell them of any 'important news' when I have some." Sam rambled on for a moment before quieting down and Samantha just shrugged.
"I think I'm just going to tease my parents with it. I mean they're going to ask all sorts of questions and I'm going to give them empty answers. I'll do the same if your parents ask me stuff too if you want." Sam laughed,
"Yes, do that. They enjoy making conversations awkward way too much."
There was a trill of noises and Sam pulled his phone out of his pocket and looked at the screen for a moment,
"Perceptor says we need to get back on the road now if we want to get home on time, you ready to go?" Samantha chugged the rest of her drink then stood up,
"Yep I'm ready." She walked over to the car and slid into the passenger seat then leant back into the seat comfortably. Sam got into the driver's seat and the car smoothly pulled out into traffic and they were off again only an hour or so from Sam's hometown.
…
Sam stared out the window at the passing landscape. Samantha was absentmindedly humming to a song currently playing on the radio but Sam was far away in his thoughts.
He didn't know what to do anymore, he always had a rough idea of what was happening around him and what to do about it but now he felt lost. All he wanted was to have Bumblebee back. He needed to have him back.
Sam felt so stupid that it took him losing Bumblebee to finally realize that he couldn't just go back to being a normal teenage kid with a normal life after meeting the Autobots. His life had been changed forever and he hated himself for realizing that sooner.
Sam pulled his phone out and began trying to form a text message but everything he typed didn't sound right.
Finally he read through his text, 'Bumblebee I'm so sorry for everything, I wish I never tried to send you away. Please come back, I miss you and I need you brother.' He sighed and pressed send, hoping Bumblebee would reply. But the 'fail to send' alert flashing up on the screen made his hope evaporate in seconds. Sam stuffed his phone back into his pocket only just remembering that Bumblebee had turned off all his communication systems and looked back out the window. All his thoughts only on his best friend.
…
Systems stalling, sluggish processing and limbs aching Bumblebee continued his trek through the darkening scrubland. He looked around and found himself stumbling out into an open patch of land. Bumblebee made his way towards a thick of trees for cover that grew on the hill of a small valley. The mech wanted nothing more than to stop and rest but his battle computer was still processing and forcing him to keep going. Just as Bumblebee reached the top of the hill his vision cut out and his systems shut down into a stasis lock.
All his energy reserves drained the yellow scout collapsed and fell down the hill tumbling over and over until his limp frame slammed into a group of old thick tress shaking them violently and causing branches and bark to snap and shower down on and around Bumblebee. Dirt and grass snagged in crevices of his armour, branches and bark covering the scout he lay unconscious and completely energy drained hidden in the shadows of the valley as night began to fall over the land.
…
The mech worked under the light of the moon running a cleaning rag over his weaponry. As he cleaned his thoughts trailed off to the human female, Rachel.
Megatron didn't understand her. She was the first human not to fear him, whether it was because she hadn't a reason to fear him yet or because she was too stupid to realize she should fear him he didn't know but Megatron would soon show Rachel he was her superior.
"Mega-dude. Pah!" Megatron growled to himself,
"Soon she will only address me by my proper title." He continued cleaning with a glower set into his face plates.
Rachel was so young by his species standards but she had shown so much maturity and intuition in the time Megatron had gotten to know her but the girl's childish behaviour overthrew those qualities and almost always got on Megatron's nerves. He needed to stamp that behaviour out of the girl and groom her. He needed Rachel for his plans to succeed.
Megatron finished cleaning his weaponry and threw the rag on the ground as he walked over to the half empty gas tank. He was in desperate need of energon.
Ejecting an empty energon cube from a subspace pocket Megatron got to work filling it to the brim with gas then began compressing the cube until he had a full cube of glowing medium grade energon.
Megatron sipped the energon and felt his frame melt as the energon filled his tanks. He finished the cube slowly savouring the taste then pocketed the empty energon cube.
Megatron centred himself feeling all his systems fire up at the sudden supply of fuel and took off in a run out into the open plains before leaping up, pushing off with all his strength into the air. Transforming into his jet mode and taking off into the sky Megatron enjoyed the simple act of flying after being held so long inside a broken frame.
He half transformed back from his jet mood and fell himself glide using his jet wings to control where he went. The cool night air whistled through the gaps in his frame and Megatron finally felt himself relax, he lowered to just above the tree tops and flew over an open patch of land. Just as he shot over a knot of trees a bright glint of yellow caught Megatron's optic.
A/N: Okay so I am apologising to all my readers in advance as I won't be uploading a new chapter for maybe two weeks or so. The reason for this is because I'm going on a ski trip for a week! Super exited because I've only seen snow and skied once before in my whole life and I cannot WAIT to get back out on the slopes. Hopefully it'll be a good week and I'll have a lot more inspiration for the story.
Anyway, I'm sorry to all my readers for making you wait BUT if you just can't wait that long for a new chapter, please send a personal message to me and I'll send you a snippet of the next chapter or a few chapters ahead of the story. I cannot say how soon I'll reply but I will reply to any personal messages I get.
On a more serious note I am becoming slightly unsure of this story. I'm still going to finish it but there's something nagging at me and I think there is just some tiny thing that isn't right with the story. I hoping my ski week will help me figure it out.
As usual, sorry for typos, thankyou to everyone who favourites and reviews (haven't had many reviews lately which worries me).
And to all my readers, Thankyou! I wouldn't be writing this story if you weren't reading (and hopefully enjoying) it. Prowlingshadow.