Been awhile, huh?

Ironically I got inspiration to write by watching Transformers Cybertron instead of Animated. Go figure.

Wounded Gazelle Gambit

Chromia stretched on the couch, Sparkplug in sleep mode on her chassis. She was enjoying these earth programs called 'Soap Operas' and 'Telenovellas', and she swore Ratchet was enjoying them as well.

"Victor, how could you!" The girl on screen tearfully demanded. "Does my love mean so little?!"

"Carmelita, we could never be!" Declared 'Victor'.

"That's not what you said to Rita yesterday. Carmelita, you can do so much better than this guy." Chromia informed the screen as it cut to commercial.

"He also said he'd break up with this female so Rita wouldn't ruin Carmelita's reputation." Ratchet reminded her.

"Still! The guy went from 'nothing will part us' to 'I'm ditching you' faster than Bumblebee." Chromia huffed.

"What are you two watching?" Elita came in surprising them.

"Love and Heartbreak, it's a Telenovella. Shh!" Chromia shushed the Prime as it came back on.

"... So, he picks the evil female over the good one without telling the good one why." Elita summed up the show they had just watched. "And given the way it ended, something horrible is going to happen to the good one."

"Actually, her praying to Santa Murete could be a good thing. I think. I'm not sure, but a few shows ago Carlos was praying to that skeleton statue and Miguel saved him after ignoring him for a while, so ..." Chromia shrugged.

"I'm thinking there might be a cultural translation we're missing, given the odd fear of sandals that keeps coming up." Ratchet added. "From what I understand, this isn't the only country on this planet."

"Don't remind me. I've spent a lot of time assuring that I will speak to the United Nations council and that we aren't going to solely help this one country." Elita groaned. "Sumdac's surprisingly okay with sharing the adapted ground bridge plans to said UN, but apparently the last war finished up recently."

"Yikes. Well, you're welcome to join us anytime you're free. We got a few other shows we watch."

"I'll think about it." Elita tilted her head. "Why are there two people who look alike arguing?"

"Oh, Miguel has an evil twin named Manuel who tried to kill Carlos- hence why Miguel had to save him." Chromia explained. "Manuel is really obsessed with ruining his brother's life for some reason."

"Right. Well, Chromia, you're joining me and Prowl on patrol. Ratchet, can you go with Bumblebee and Bulkhead? Sari keeps sidetracking them."

"I don't believe this! Where'd this autodolt come from?!" Flamewar hissed.

"Oh, I recognize the ship. He's a decepticon hunter." Tarantulas chuckled. "We should really catch him, he'd be a fascinating study."

"Or we just kill him now!" Flamewar started firing back.

"Oh, good, I have a landing spot." Tarantulas ignored her.

A lucky shot sent the other ship on a crash landing.

Their ship landed hard. One of the occupants left the ship even less gracefully.

"You'll see, I'll find the Allspark before you!" Flamewar took off in a newly scanned vehicle, a human sports car.

"Nemesis, we will move the ship and begin to build our lab where there won't be any distractions." Tarantulas hissed, already planning Flamewar's disassembly.

Flamewar was fuming as pulled over in an abandoned section just out of sight of the main road. She was not going to be a spider's lackey.

"Bumblebee! Slow down!"

"C'mon Ratchet, the sooner we're done the sooner I can leave you alone!"

"Yeah, Sari wants us to come play a game with her!"

"That's not how you patrol!"

Ratchet. Flamewar knew that name. This was the autobot who had disgracefully ended her autobot counterpart's career.

If Flamewar couldn't kill Arcee, she would get the medic who ruined her chances for revenge.

With a soft shimmer, her decepticon symbol turned into an autobot symbol.

Next step … well, that was easy. She just had to pull a line.

"You're autobots! Real autobots!" She pulled up to them. "Please help, something is wrong-" she transformed, and got quite a bit of pleasure out of the brief look of Horror on the medic's face before she collapsed into him.

"Doc bot?"

"Don't just stand there, help me get her back to base!"

Perfect. She turned on her signal jammer.

Ratchet was trying to stay in the present as he patched up the unknown femme.

Maybe it was a good thing he had Bumblebee and Bulkhead nearby, the two were grounding him in the present by annoying him with their commentary.

A line pulled loose was a simple fix. Most likely she had pulled it during a crash.

"I still can't get through to Boss Bot." Bumblebee reported.

"Ow…" the femme groaned as she came back online. "Oh! Sorry."

"It's fine, you're at our base on this mud ball planet."

"Base? Don't you have ship?"

"It's not functional at the moment." Bumblebee piped up, coming closer to her. "I'm Bumblebee, that's Bulkhead, and the grumpy Doc Bot is Ratchet! What's your name?"

"I'm Flamewar." She smiled as she sat up. "Where's the Allspark?"

"What?!" Ratchet was not expecting to be jabbed with something that sent him to the ground. Bumblebee also went down and Bulkhead hesitated, unable to swing without hitting them before she lunged at him.

"That was too easy." She smiled at them as her symbol changed to that of a decepticon. She pulled Ratchet to be back to back with Bulkhead and wrapped some cable around them, before putting Bumblebee onto the table. "Don't worry, it wears off, but I want the location of the Allspark."

"Why exactly should we be telling you?" Bumblebee piped up.

"Bumblebee, stay quiet!" Ratchet felt his spark falter as Flamewar picked up a drill.

"Don't worry, I know you're big brave autobots… but I broke my fair share in the war."

"A crashed ship?" Elita cautiously approached. "Hello? This is Elita Prime, whoa!" She dodged the shot that followed.

"You're not tricking me that easily!" The bot inside shouted, poking his head out.

"Red Alert!"

"Who?!" Chromia asked. A question echoed by Prowl.

"Red Alert! Firestar said he was searching- long story!" Elita waved it off. "He's okay!"

She was not expecting to turn around and get scanned by the now too close bot.

"Hmm, your scans are convincing. How do you know Firestar?"

"I met her at her bar. My old crew mates were trying to flirt with her and once I set them straight she and I talked." Elita managed. "Did Inferno really get stuck in a swamp?"

"That was not my fault. You have talked to her!"

"Uh, Prime? Who's this guy?"

"A member of Firestar's trine. Red Alert. He's a Decepticon Hunter… oh." Elita paused. "You were fighting decepticons. Did they crash here?!"

"More decepticons?! Starscream's not enough!"

"Starscream's here?!" Red Alert demanded. "I was hunting Tarantulas and scans showed two to three others on his ship."

"Ratchet, this is prime, we've got more decepticons!" Elita paused. There was no response. "Ratchet. This is Prime! Respond!" All that greeted her was static. "Bumblebee, Bulkhead? We're rolling back to base. Prowl, Chromia, head to our ship, get it secure." Elita transformed and started driving. She was surprised when Red Alert followed her. "Do you have a guess as to which decepticons were with Tarantulas?"

"Scanner took a hit, but he's got a brute with him these days called Nemesis Prime, former Autobot, you can see the damaged symbol. Does the heavy lifting for him and all. Rumored to work for Megatron recently and I suspect one life sign might be Flamewar, she was also working for Megatron recently but there's a few others it could be. Starscream's here? Why?"

"How good are you at keeping secrets?"

"I'll die before anyone gets anything out of me."

"My team found the Allspark. Megatron found us. We crashed here, we were in stasis for a while and no one's responded to our calls. No sign of Megatron, but Starscream says he's dead."

"Starscream once tried to take over the decepticons because Megatron's voice box shorted out. You should consider Megatron alive until you have a body." Red Alert informed her.

"I was afraid you'd say that." Elita sped up.

The base came into view and Elita felt something inside her drop. It was too dark.

"My scanners pick up four life signs."

"Hey Elita! Who's that?" Sari piped up.

"Sari! What are you doing here?" Elita scooped her up to keep her from heading to the door.

"Uh, bringing a game? What's wrong?"

"Possible Decepticons."

"What is that?" Red Alert asked.

"Sari, she's a local."

"Why do you keep apologizing?"

"My name sounds like an apology. Hi!"

"Sari, I need you to go home, it's dangerous."

"No! You'll need my key!"

"… Then stay quiet and hidden." Elita put her down.

"Okay." Sari had gotten good at keeping close without getting underfoot.

"Red Alert, follow me." Elita pulled a hatchet.

"Scanning, Prime." He followed her in.

She was sure they were making too much noise, her steps sounded so loud in her audials.

"Now, where do I start first?" The Decepticon asked, holding a drill over Bumblebee.

"You're not!" Elita immediately wrapped her in a grapple, yanking her away from Bumblebee.

"Boss Bot!"

The decepticon was out of the grapple line quicker than Elita liked. Red Alert met her before she was able to lunge at Elita.

"This isn't over, Ratchet!"

A flash bang didn't muffle Red Alert's scream of agony, but the Decepticon escaped as a result.

Sari healed them all with taps from her key.

"What is that?" Red Alert did not look happy by this.

"Prowl, Chromia, come in." Elita didn't answer right away.

"We're here Prime, Everything's clear."

"Decepticon was in the base, we need to fix security for both. Somehow." Elita looked at Ratchet who was silent.

"I can help with that, if you'll help with my ship." Red Alert offered.

"… We could use the help." Elita admitted.

Ratchet headed to Omega Supreme. He needed to see his friend as Prime had Red Alert help improve security.

He had been so distracted by memories of Arcee, he had put Bumblebee and Bulkhead in danger.

The two young bots had bounced back, but Ratchet was unable to put the memory out of his processor.

He relaxed a bit once he was inside.

"Hey, you're going to miss the telenovella!" Chromia called him.

"I need some time alone."

"Because of the evil twin?"

"What?" Ratchet paused.

"I talked to Bulk and Bee, they said you reacted like you knew her. But you wouldn't help someone like that, sho she had to be the evil twin of someone you knew, right?" Chromia explained.

"…" Ratchet paused.

"I'm right, aren't I? No one blames you, you know. If I saw a look alike of my sister, I'd help them too." Chromia paused. "I'll record the episode, we'll watch it when you get back. Don't hide from us forever, okay?"

"You wouldn't last without a medic." Ratchet scoffed. "That Key doesn't count."

"We know. Red Alert's complaining that it turned his scanners sensitivities down."

"Don't let that idiot operate on himself, I'll be back tomorrow to help him." Ratchet cut the call as he reached Omega's spark chamber. "You're not going to believe what happened, old friend."

Nemesis watched the screens showing the locals as Tarantulas gathered information. There were Autobots here, one who looked familiar to him.

Nemesis glared at the familiar one as they smiled, he wanted to break that expression into pieces.

At the same time, there was a foreign emotion in his spark that forced him to keep staring at the familiar one no matter how much he wanted to tear them apart.

End Note: In G1, the autobots are seen watching soap operas. I thought that was funny.

Also G1, the autobots were based in America, but it was mentioned that they were talking to other countries in order to live and operate on the planet.

Red Alert only goes completely paranoid in one episode because of an injury, the rest of G1, he's cautious compared to run into burning buildings Inferno. I am bringing in bits of his Armada/Energon/Cybertron self for this.

Next Up: Along Came a Spider