Bonus snippet:

Dust Devils, Speed Demons, and Saturdays

Modified weapons, loud music, and vehicons who have no clue what they're doing. The Twins have a good day. (TFPverse)

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Saturdays were one of the best days of the week. It meant freedom to do whatever you wanted with no time constraints and adventurous plans to fill the time from lazy morning to late evening. With the windows rolled down and a hot wind tugging at her bandana, Shay Carpenter was greatly enjoying the day.

Even though they were being chased across the desert by nearly twenty vehicons.

"Persistent glitches, aren't they?" Sideswipe snicked through the speaker. At nearly two-hundred miles an hour, the landscape was whizzing by in a blur. The human in his driver's seat checked the mirror again and noted with some satisfaction that the Decepticons were having trouble catching up to the Twin's faster engines.

"I could say the same thing about you." She muttered, much to the red warriors chagrin. An offended 'Hey!' replied. Gunning forward a bit, Sunstreaker nearly jostled his brother's bumper.

Not the least concerned about their pursuers, the lamborghini snarked through his twin's radio, "It's true and you know it."

Sideswipe sputtered,"Why do you always take her side against me?"

"I do not."

"Alright boys, focus on the issue." The woman tapped his dashboard, "Any plans or is it just: drive until we get bored and then turn around to fight?"

"I want to know how all of them tracked our location." Sunstreaker grumbled, not the least bit happy about all the dust clinging to his finish. Swerving around a large plateau, the sports cars skidded into a dry gulch. The human bounced in her seat as they raced over uneven ground. Gritting her teeth, she growled.

"Oh I don't know. Maybe it was the fact that you blew up an energon mine! Anyone with working sensors on the planet would have noticed."

Her ride huffed and blasted her with the air conditioner. Indignant, the woman slapped at his steering wheel for the rudeness, inadvertently setting off a brief shrill of his car alarm. Sideswipe tried to plead less guilty to her scathing look, "We didn't blow it up. Some stupid con with a lousy shot hit the energon. We just... helped it along."

"With grenades." Shay crossed her arms, not taking any of his crap. They shot out the other end of the gulch. "Honestly, I'm surprised more people haven't shown... up..."

A small group of vehicons stood, blasters aimed and ready, in front of them.

While the Autobots slowed to a halt, the pursuers behind also stopped and waited. Sunstreaker pulled up to his brother's left side and revved his engines in a challenge before hissing at Shay. "You had to say it."

"Alright, that was completely my fault. I'm sorry." The woman sighed and moved her head closer to the open window to get a better look at the stand off. "Are you going to give them a warning?"

"I am not giving them a warning. If they're stupid enough to chase us, that's their fault." Sunny growled.

Sideswipe rumbled at his passenger, ignoring the Decepticons who were growing fidgety as the Twins didn't move, "Why are we giving a warning?"

"Because you are Autobot warriors who are nice enough to warn the Decepticons of their impending demise."

"I love it when you say things like that. 'Impending demise'. Sounds like a villain thing." He replied cheerily.

Rolling her eyes, Shay unbuckled and leaned out the window so the Cons could see her, "Hey! This is your only warning. Leave now and maybe you'll live." Glancing at one another, the purple and black mechs shrugged. As expected, they started to chortle and snicker to themselves. And why would they be worried? They outnumbered the Autobots twenty-five to two. The golden lambo snorted in derision. Sighing, the woman snapped, "Alright. I warned you."

With that she settled in the seat and grabbed a strange gun from the back seats. It looked like a cross between a sniper rifle and a Cybertronian's blaster but someone had gone a little nuts in the process of mashing them together. Although not pleasant looking, the clunky item worked just fine. Shay set the gun in her lap and aimed the barrel towards the side window.

"So, now that we're done being 'nice' and all..." Sideswipe purred. Rolling her eyes, she lightly flicked his steering wheel.

"Shut up and drive."

Apparently growing bored of their sassing, Sunstreaker roared forward to crash head-on with the enemy. Sideswipe hit the gas with a gleeful holler and started ramming the cons who were unfortunate enough to be standing. At least the ones still in altmode could pull out of the way quicker. What had started as a chase was now a dirt battle of running each other over.

Shouts, screeches, and blaster fire was all overshadowed by a song blasting out of the red hellion's radio, 'Now shut up and drive (drive drive drive), shut up and drive (drive drive drive)!'

"No! Change the song you idiot!" Shay lifted a boot-clad foot to slam a kick into his dashboard which left the bot cackling in glee and amusement. Flipping to another beat, new lyrics rang from the speakers accompanied by guitar and heavy drums.

'Give me the wheel

So we can move a little faster

I'll make it real

I'm not a glorious disaster

What part of living says you gotta die?

I plan on burning through another nine lives

One more for measure, that's ten for the soul

That never sleeps so are you ready to gooooooo?!'

It was rapid paced chaos. Shay had been correct in the fact that anyone with sensors had picked up the spike in energy and would be coming to investigate. When the Autobots stepped out of the ground bridge, they were faced with howling and roaring engines, dust clouds stirred up too many wheels on dry dirt, and what may have been rock music that added to the din and noise. They could see a red mech spinning donuts around the unfortunate Cons, and a golden twin of the other knocking people down before running them over. He fishtailed, clipped one vehicon and sent the mech spinning out of control to smash into a rock wall. Hanging out of the red lambo's window, a human shot at any Decepticon that was in sight.

'Bloodshot against the clear blue sky

Tick tock I think the well is runnin' dry

My my, I can't lie

I need that shot again, that sweet adrenaline

Dead scared 'cause I'm fearless in the head

Bang bang 'cause the needle's in the red

My my, I can't lie

I need that shot again, that sweet adrenaline'

"Should we help?" Arcee questioned, as Optimus looked on the tumult.

The leader shook his helm, "They seem to be doing fine on their own." He still kept his blaster out and at the ready as the smarter vehicons took off while they could and the fight wound down. A few fell to the human's modified sniper rifle and eventually it grew quiet. Engines purring, the now scratched, dented, and dirt covered bots pulled up to the others. The human hopped out, still carrying the gun, while red and yellow transformed.

"Hiya OP! We picked up a human by the way. She's with us." Sideswipe saluted with a grin. His brother nodded at the Prime in greeting. The woman at their feet studied the bots up and down with hard eyes but made no greeting.

Ratchet groaned and put his servos on his hips, "You two. Just what we need."

"Aww, aren't you happy to see us Doc?" Pulled the startled medic into a hug, the red mech was shoved off with a growl while Arcee and Bulkhead stared in confusion.

"No. You're are the bane of my existence! I swear to Primus that if you mess with the limited amount of tools I have on this planet-" The rant was cut off as Sunstreaker leaned an elbow on the shorter bot and soothed with a charming smile. Everyone always forgot that he could be just as persuasive as his brother.

"We won't mess with your tools. Who else will patch us up?"

A solemn 'ahem!' drew everyone's attention to the woman on the ground, "On that note, they need repairs. You are a medic I believe, they mentioned you quite a lot. It is Hatchet, isn't it?"

Optimus coughed to hide a laugh while the other Autobots stared in horror. Puffing up in rage, the orange and white ambulance's expression froze. One optic twitched. In a low and dangerous tone, he asked, "What did you just call me?"

"Did I get your name wrong?" Shay tightened her grip on the weapon and shifted closer to Sideswipe. "I was told it was Hatchet."

"It is Ratchet. My name is Ratchet. Do not call me HATCHET!" The medic snarled, "You two are dead mechs. I am reformatting you both into toaster ovens!" Unfortunately for him, the lambos were not well versed in all of earth's culture quiet yet, so the threat didn't have quiet the impact he was hoping for.

The Twins glanced at each other before the one grinning like a madman stage whispered to the human, "What's a toaster oven?"

"A small metal box that cooks food." At their horrified look she continued, "And you two are both in trouble. You told me the wrong name on purpose! I do apologize Ratchet. It was not my intent to insult or mock you." Shay nodded gravely at the irate medic. Ratchet stared back with a wary look and narrowed his optics at the Twins.

"I'm surprised. You have a polite human."

Offended at being talked about like she wasn't there, Shay drew herself up proper and kept a polite affable tone while openly glaring. "But if you reformat them, then I will remove your medical tools and hide them. The Twins are mine. Who else is going to play Need for Speed with me?"

Glowering, the medic sighed, "Of course you two have a human like that."

Bulkhead could see the brewing argument and not so subtly jumped in, "Uh, that was a Pit of a fight. Those cons didn't stand a chance."

"We gave them a warning." Sunstreaker rumbled, thinking that the green ex-wrecker was poking at their brutality in battle. Much to the surprise of the others Sideswipe fell to the ground howling in laughter while the woman scowled at the golden frontliner, eyes trying to melt him where he stood. Optimus sighed.

"Let us return to base. It is good to have you here. Bumblebee will be quite excited."

As the ground bridge opened, Sideswipe picked up Shay and subspaced the gun. He cheered, "Yay! Bee's here! This is gonna be awesome!"

"This is going to be interesting." Arcee muttered quietly.

"Indeed." Agreed the human, sitting in the lambo's servos. They all stepped through the bridge. "I'm warning you now, things are going to be different. Nothing stays peaceful when these two are about."

Sunstreaker, one of the last to go through, glanced back at the torn up ground, rising plateaus and cerulean sky before heading into the vortex. It closed in a swirl of blue and greens, leaving silence in the wake of the dust devil Twins. Life for the Autobots and Decepticons had just turned exciting.