Transformers © HASBRO
The Pagani was gone.
With him gone, they had moved across the country.
The Ferrari did not understand why the humans cared so much about the Pagani leaving.
He had been asleep, as he always was when parked in the garage, when she had appeared in the garage with two small bags of supplies that she shoved in the tiny space behind his seats. The other human had arrived moments after in a frazzled state that continued as they departed their home in Georgia. Neither explained to the Ferrari the immediate need for their departure, but he understood their urgency as he drove the two thousand miles to Los Angeles in under a day.
The only time they had him stop was to refuel the Ferrari and for the humans to grab a quick bite to eat and relieve themselves. The gasoline they fueled him with left a nasty taste long after he'd had his tank filled. The Ferrari knew the pattern well, for they had done the same upon leaving Pennsylvania a month ago — though with much less urgency than now, and with the Pagani driving the man instead of both sharing the long drive with the Ferrari.
Their new home was large and surrounded by trees, in the foothills along Hanley Avenue. "Stay in the garage" had been his only order since they had arrived, and one the Ferrari followed without complaint. The female human came to him when she needed to drive him when they had lived in Georgia, but now she never did. Instead, she and her brother bicycled to work with bicycles that had been stored in the garage where he parked.
The man had told him that they couldn't drive him because of wanting to blend into their new neighborhood, but the Ferrari missed driving. Missed the wind as it cut over his hood and the roar of his engine. Though the desire to leave the garage nudged at him, he dared not disobey.
He was programmed for obedience, not insubordination.
"The Autobots got a postponement to next Monday?" The woman's snarl announced her approach from the house entrance to the garage moments before she slammed the door open. She was on the phone, eyes narrowed as she barked at whoever she was speaking to.
The Ferrari almost felt bad for whoever had acquired her wrath. She had kicked his tire once when she'd been on the phone before, as if the quiet Ferrari was the easiest outlet for her anger. Afterwards, he had ensured strict compliance to her rigorous rules and structures.
Don't talk.
Don't transform.
Trust no one but for her and her brother (and the Pagani, but he was gone now, so he couldn't trust the Pagani).
Stress and anger radiated off the human as she stormed to the Ferrari, throwing open his door in a way that made him wince, but he said nothing.
Don't talk.
The garage door opened behind him as she continued to snarl at the person on the phone (now she was complaining about improperly disposed of parts and other things he didn't understand fully), though she stopped long enough to back him out of the garage, then ordered him to drive to the middle of Los Angeles.
She continued to talk on the phone until they reached the destination she had given him, where she ordered him to park in an underground parking garage. The Ferrari did as directed, pulling into a spot at the lowest level of the parking garage. There they waited for almost an hour, with the woman pacing behind the Ferrari's bumper, until a black car pulled up and parked away from the Ferrari and the woman.
An older male human with gray hair and a stern look stepped out of the nondescript black car's back seat. He stepped towards them, stopping at the rear of the Ferrari's bumper.
"You left Decepticon remains where they could be found, Croft?" The man shoved a finger against her shoulder, forcing her backwards against the Ferrari's bumper. "Megatron and Swindle found your disposal facility and gave the evidence to the judge. That's how the Autobots got the extended postponement. I can't go against her postponement anymore than I already have tried, or they will realize our connection."
Croft swallowed, her cool demeanor keeping her restrained as the older man backed off from her. She stood up straight and brushed herself off, until she looked her usual professional self. "I had ordered the smelting of all Decepticon parts when we were made to extricate our unit from Pennsylvania. I was assured the job had been completed thoroughly, and I did not check if it had. This is on me—"
"Of course it is!" The man bellowed. "There's no way we can fix this, because there was G.H.O.S.T labeling all over the facility. The best we can do is pray they find no other evidence linking the destruction of Philadelphia to your unit. The Stunticons and Autobots may now have evidence that G.H.O.S.T exists, but they can't link us to the Stunticons with what they found. Pray that doesn't change."
"No, sir," Croft sighed.
The man scowled, then jerked a thumb at the Ferrari. "And keep that thing hidden. We don't need him to be found like how you let the Pagani be."
Croft hung her head as the man turned his back on her and returned to his car, the black vehicle peeling away from the garage as she returned to the Ferrari's driver seat. "Drive home," she ordered, her tone sharp with frustration that bordered on exhaustion.
Don't talk.
So he didn't.
The Ferrari pulled out of the underground parking lot, his restraint on his powerful engine purposeful as they traveled out of the city and into the Crestwood Hills where they had moved. The drive was over far too quickly for the Ferrari's tastes. He was parked in the garage with Croft leaving him there with a reminder to stay before he knew it, the burn of his tires not enough for him.
An instinct, ancient and powerful, urged the Ferrari to set his wheels onto the road and drive. To drive until he could no longer. That was why he had been made. That much the Ferrari remembered about himself, was that he had been created to drive and fight until his spark gave out on him.
His name was lost to the void that was his memories.
His hobbies, if he had any, were lost as well.
An injury in a battle decades ago had been the cause for the loss of his personhood. That was what Croft had explained to him when he had finally dared to break her rules by speaking directly to her on a drive from Atlanta back to their Georgia home. How he missed that Georgia home. The Pagani's company was quiet but always there. The Ferrari could leave the house to drive however long he wished as long as he remembered the rules and did not interact with any vehicle or human, and had his suppressors activated.
Now he was restricted to sitting and hiding in a garage, and oh how he loathed it.
A vent stirred his fans, before the Ferrari fell into recharge.
A heavy pede slammed to the ground in front of him.
White plating stretched beyond his vision, into a towering form whose frame was covered by shadows, but for a menacing glint of fire from two red optics. The right pede slammed closer to him as the giant lowered its frame down until it was within servo distance of the Ferrari. Black fog licked off the giant, covering the white plated right leg until all the Ferrari could see was two red optics staring into his spark.
The Ferrari tried to step back, but his legs refused to move. Instead, his helm turned of its own accord to his right, where the giant's left leg was—
Gone?
The giant's right leg was a sturdy build, even shrouded as it was by the mist that swirled around the giant's frame, steady and strong. Right where it belonged.
The giant's left leg and pede was gone. Entirely absent. No mist covered where its leg should have been, up until the Ferrari's vision tracked up to the giant's thigh — which was a different, more muted metallic gray color, the Ferrari could just barely tell, from the white plating of the right pede.
It was wrong.
"Come with me." The rumble of the giant's voice was like thunder, a boom that rattled against his chassis with enough force that the Ferrari wondered if some of his internal hardware could be damaged.
The giant stood up, his single pede shifting all of his weight carefully as he began to walk away from the Ferrari.
A shiver passed through the Ferrari's backstrut as he watched the giant's retreating back. Shadows quickly obscured the massive machine as the Ferrari lingered back, unsure on whether to follow or not. An electric thrum raced through his fuel lines, pulsing more strongly the further the giant got from his location. Following the giant machine felt wrong, but felt right all in the same thought.
More of the Ferrari screamed for him to turn and flee, to not trust the giant. Only a small part of him, one that was shrouded with a similar mist as that which cloaked the giant, urged him to follow.
"I don't know you!" The Ferrari yelled after the giant, his pedes moving without his conscious thought after the giant, but only just.
The giant reappeared before him with a suddenness the Ferrari would have thought impossible with only one lower leg. Apparently, it seemed the giant was unfazed as he kneeled down in front of the Ferrari, shrouded arms moving to rest on either side of the red and gray Ferrari. Those fire red optics drilled into his lanky root mode's frame, freezing him in place as if he had been thrown into stasis by the giant's gaze.
"You are me," the giant explained, though his statement did nothing to lift the Ferrari's complete state of confusion.
He stared, bewildered, at the giant. He was most definitely not a giant, towering machine. He was average sized for his species.
"No," the giant reiterated patiently, "you are me. I am incomplete without you."
The Ferrari raised an optic ridge doubtfully at the giant's statement. He cast an investigative look over the hulking frame towering over him. There was little to distinguish through the swirling black mist but for faint, vague shapes of the giant's torso, arms and the white right leg. Only the missing lower left leg and pede stood out to him
A sudden, chassis deep itch ripped through the Ferrari's plating as he stared at the giant's missing limb. Energy surged through his core as the giant reached for him—
The Ferrari startled out of recharge. His fans were running at high speed, pumping cool air through his alternate mode's lithe frame. He was shaking.
What had that dream been?
Why was his chassis thrumming with the energy he'd felt around that giant from his dream?
That had just been a dream, right?
A strange flux of his processor.
The Ferrari had to drive.
Don't leave.
The Ferrari growled.
He needed to drive.
The garage door opened behind him quietly. Before he could stop himself, the Ferrari backed out of the garage, then drove away as quietly as he could. Only when he was far from Croft did he speed up, blitzing through the sharp corners and turns of the road as he tried to run from his dream. From the strange feeling prickling under his plating. From the restlessness that made his tires scream as he roared to his alt's limit.
He drove until a warning of low power flashed across his inner displays, forcing the Ferrari to slow, hook a u-turn and head quickly home. The sun was beginning to rise as he drove into the garage, the door shutting behind him minutes before he heard Croft moving around in the house. She opened the door to the garage from the house to check on him with a passing glance that the Ferrari was glad for. He'd double backed before getting to Croft's home so that the Ferrari could drive under sprinklings that were watering a business' lawn before arriving, to wash away the dirt and grime thrown up by the road.
Her rules weren't broken if she didn't know they had been, after all.
Schloder and Croft passed through the garage a few times that day, to do laundry or to rant on the phone with someone the Ferrari suspected was the man Croft had met the day prior when she hung up and glared at him for no reason.
The Ferrari smartly kept his vocalizer turned off.
Eventually Croft left the garage, and silence descended over the house.
Croft and her brother had gone to work.
The Ferrari wiggled his tires, settled low to the ground and fell back into recharge.
The giant appeared in his dream again.
The Ferrari stepped towards the giant where he sat with his back turned towards the small Ferrari. His late night drive had helped little with the strange energy he felt in his core after the giant had first spoken to him, but it had allowed him a clearer processor and train of thought.
Not enough to know what the giant meant by his determination that the Ferrari was part of him.
"Giant!" He called as he stopped at the side of the mist shrouded left thigh of the machine.
A growl met his call as the giant turned his massive helm in his direction, two shrouded helm horns visible where the Ferrari could not see them in his last dream. Was the mist not as thick around the giant as it had been before?
The giant's optics widened as he recognized the Ferrari — yes, the giant knew the Ferrari — then crouched down so that his faceplate was mere inches from the Ferrari. Shock rippled through the Ferrari as he took an instinctive step back from the giant, his own red optics warily watching the sharp helm horns.
"Who are you?" The Ferrari asked. "You said I am part of you, but I don't know you."
"Component Wildrider," the giant answered, his words surprisingly soft compared to the thunder from the last time. Almost… thankful? Glad? "You are missed. My spark consists of your spark, and four others. I am incomplete without you."
"Wildrider?"
The name rolled off his glossa slowly. The Ferrari blinked, his gaze turning to stare at his servos before he looked up at the giant once again. "Am I Wildrider?"
"Yes," the giant nodded.
Wildrider.
The sound of the name felt… familiar.
Saying the name out loud waded through the Ferrari, dispelling some of the mist that followed him and his memories every time he attempted to access them. Wildrider.
"How do you know my name?" Wildrider asked.
Yes. Wildrider.
It felt right.
The giant's optics softened, though with sadness or some other emotion he could not place, before the digits of the right servo — yellow flared briefly through the swirling mists around the giant's arm — of the giant brushed against his helm. "You are part of me. I know all my components' names. You are Wildrider."
"And you are?" Wildrider asked, slowly.
If the giant thought he was part of him, and knew his name, the least he could do was call the giant by a name besides 'giant'. Something chided himself for his callous term for the… well… giant.
"I am Menasor."
Menasor.
Anger.
Pessimism.
Exuberance.
Tenacity.
Anxiety.
Five components that… formed Menasor.
Wildrider was… one of them?
Menasor's optics suddenly widened, a protective growl rumbling with a hurricane's thunder as he shifted his entire frame over Wildrider. "You are in danger. Wake up."
Wildrider snapped awake before he could register what Menasor had said. His fans were blaring as heat index warnings screeched in his audials. The door to the garage slapped open, Croft's eyes narrowed as she stomped towards him.
::. You are in danger. .::
Wildrider floored it into reverse, destroying the closed roll up garage door before he spun around, tires screeching smoke before he shot away from Croft. The last thing he heard was her screaming his name.
Menasor hadn't lied.
He was Wildrider.
Whatever that meant, Croft had known his name.
She'd lied.
::. You are in danger. .::
Wildrider shot through traffic as he raced towards the only way he knew to escape Croft. Whether she was the danger Menasor had sensed or not, he would not pause to find out.
::. You are in danger. .::
Wildrider shot onto the shoulder, blazing past cars with such speed they could not even honk at him.
::. You are in danger. .::
Energy surged through Wildrider as Menasor's voice echoed from a place inside Wildrider he couldn't describe. It was warm, but cold, filled with a depth of emotions and energy. It felt like Menasor in his dream.
It was familiar.
Reassuring.
Why?
::. YOU ARE IN DANGER! .::
The ground vanished from underneath Wildrider's tires.
A brown arm locked around his chest plate, restricting his arms before he could claw at whoever had grabbed him. A second servo locked over his helm, pinning his helm until his chin was pressed uncomfortably tightly to his collar plating. Heat rippled around him as the ground continued to vanish, with a rapidness that made him kick and thrash wildly.
"Thrash again, Wildrider, and I will drop you," the cold, snobbish voice came from all around him, stilling Wildrider before he could consciously think of the choice.
Clouds raced past them, until they too vanished and all that was left was the brown chassis around Wildrider and the Earth's atmosphere.
"Where is Swindle?"
Wildrider double took. He fought the servo that continued to press down on his helm, though his efforts only earned the ire of whoever held him. Sharp digits dug into his helm, drawing energon from where metal tore under the claws of his captor.
"Where is Swindle?" The snobbish voice snarled, the repeated question leaving Wildrider confused.
"Who?"
The sensation of falling was sudden.
Wildrider spun in the air as he fell rapidly, his optics catching sight of a large brown and purple mech watching him fall. Heat began to build across his frame as he plummeted into atmosphere—
The brown mech caught him, his powerful engine slowing them to a standstill. Wildrider couldn't help himself but to grab onto the brown and purple mech's frame as he shivered in terror. He did not like this.
"Do you not remember who Swindle is?" The brown mech asked, an optic ridge raised suspiciously as he peered down at Wildrider — with noted disgust at how Wildrider was clinging to his frame.
"No," Wildrider shook his helm in emphasis, then ducked his faceplate against the larger mech's chest plate. He did not want to look down. Not at this height. "I don't even know who you are."
A derisive scoff escaped from the large — jet? Was he a jet? He looked like a MiG-31 jet, even as he hovered in his non-jet mode. That would explain the height. And speed. And why he was scary — mech before the mech went silent. For a very long time.
"You are serious."
Wildrider nodded against the jet's chest plate.
"Unbelievable. Useless Stunticon."
Embarrassment flushed through Wildrider's systems — until the jet tightened an arm around Wildrider, told him a cold "hold on", then dove straight back to Earth.
Wildrider wasn't sure if he had blacked out or not by the time the jet slowed outside a large cave entrance, but he was more than awake when the jet threw Wildrider off of him. The jet yelled something in a language Wildrider did not understand, then turned and pointed a menacing digit at him.
"Move and I will drop you from the atmosphere again."
"No, sir, I wouldn't dream of it," Wildrider gasped as he put up his servos in surrender.
The jet rolled his optics, muttered something in that same foreign language, then stomped into the cave. Moments later, the jet returned with another large mech, this one dark blue and olive drab with a very menacing looking double barreled turret on his back.
The turreted mech stared at Wildrider, then turned to the jet. "We will use him as a bargaining chip to learn where the Autobots have Swindle. He may not remember anything but Wildrider can still be useful to us. Call Vortex and Brawl. We must arrive at full strength to the Ark."