BARRICADE WHY ARE YOU SO CUTE, YOU HATEFUL CUTIE?!

This was adorable! The game was fun, Barricade getting into it was amusing and Soundwave actually starting off and trying to be all smart about it was good! Awesome work, my friend!  

 

.......thank you!!!      

 

Drabble 12: Inevitable Change

A/N: Warning: This is not going to make sense. I wrote this after coming up with an idea where Hound, subject to Shockwave's experimentation, is propelled into a virtual reality future where his subconscious worst fears are realized, but he doesn't know what's happened/happening. Thereby, he's stuck in an alternate future conjured out of his own insecurities where he's died since the time he had been propelled there. After coincidentally meeting up with an older and very different-looking Bumblebee (who is now leading the small surviving Autobot resistance), he needs to face the realities of the world that he's stuck in and sort it all out in his head while he tries to help out the team (what's left of it, rather) in their latest scheme to strengthen the resistance against Megatron's ruling over Cybertron.

Aaaannd, as I was thinking about it, this was a scene that came about. Since it's super out of canon, I wasn't going to post it here, but I decided to more or less to bump the thread. If you can get past the initial weirdness, then I hope you enjoy.

Meta also revealed that Hound wears this binocular visor thing on his head when he published the character design; shortly after, I decided to use it as a short character plot device, in case anybody was wondering. I was just assuming that it's removable, but I dunno. The reason it's used here is because it had, in one way or another, fallen or had been removed from Hound in a battle before he was subdued by Shockwave's forces.

Kay, done.

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A bitter, rigid breeze rocked the atmosphere at the elevation that Hound stood, the ever-present dust and airborne debris wafting about the atmospheric currents. The night was dark and the temperature was heated with moisture, sticking faithfully to the armor of any Cybertronian that subjected himself to the elements at this time of night, when there was no natural illumination to be had. Any of the brightness that provided the dim visibility was from the yellow, white, and red lights dotting architectural structures and the headlights of travelling alt. modes in the distance and down below on the ground. The night sky was mostly black, but was broken in wisps by the slowly travelling feathers of polluted brown stratus clouds. The hot, humid air smelled of must, oil, and water content upon inhaling, the rustic scents accompanied by the sound of revving and acceleration of travelling vehicles, muffled by distance.

The mood matched the atmosphere in dankness, though, Hound thought; it always seemed to in this place. Shrouded in pollution and smoke, wracked by sounds of echoing canon fires and the soaring of travelling seekers overhead. The roof on which he stood on was among the highest structures within the urban vicinity, the wind and atmospheric crispness picked up here, the fog trickling around and about with less density. The concrete surface was coated in a bed of small pebbles that crunched under his peds if ever he shifted.

A short while ago, he had been alone up here, left to contemplate...everything; which was difficult at best and left him as confused and frustrated as ever. His thoughts had been momentarily broken in previous moments when he heard the crunch of the pebbles under a tread that by no means could have been caused by him; quick, light, and consistent, the crush and snap of small rocks approaching him could only be made under the rolling of graced wheels.

Since then, the presence had been standing wordlessly next to him, looking forward just as Hound had been doing the entire time. It wasn't a surprise; before the entity had arrived, he had told the lieutenant that he would join him, for which Hound was appreciative. Being alone to think by himself was bittersweet at best; confusing and mentally and physically exhausting; although, the silence was nice. Even though talking to the others here was just as confusing as his inner musings, it gave him a chance to retaliate and respond and communicate; to assure himself that he wasn't truly insane.

His company had remained silent longer than Hound had expected. The jeep's processor whirred vigorously whether or not he was supposed to say something first...or if the other presence was simply granting him more silence in his favor.

"So."

Hound's inquiries were answered sooner than he could act on them. Looking towards the sudden vocalization, the entity beside him continued: "How do you like your Cybertron now?" A twang of sardonic sarcasm resonated off the weak voice. The speaker hadn't looked at Hound as he spoke, narrowing his optics instead at the extensive sight before him.

Hound looked back out in the same direction, flexing his jaw, his arms crossed over his chasis. "It's...certainly...not what it was." The lieutenant knew that the response was silly and painfully obvious; but he couldn't think of anything else to say. His efforts to remain stoic underneath all of the overwhelming circumstances choked his typical strength and wisdom.

"Not that I would know," the other responded tartly after a moment. He moved his head slightly left and right to fully observe the environment.

A heavy, dank silence vibrated between the two. As if only to be rid of the painfully cold patch of wordlessness, Hound sucked in some stained air and blew it back out again, feeling his chasis rise and fall with the intake. His optics fell in sober concentration, his processor hating to have to face all of these realities, his spark conveying the inevitable messages that his acquaintance was implementing in sheer tone. The revelation could only be accompanied by the overbearing knowledge that he had to face when he entered this dreadful place by no will of his own.

The jeep shifted a little but before standing still again in comfort, the pebbles crunching underneath his peds with the movement. Weakly, quietly, knowingly, he murmured, "You're upset."

Dread filled Hound's spark when a bitter snicker was the first response. "I'm upset," the other bot coldly repeated. As he continued, his voice grew stronger and louder with every word. "I'm upset. Years and years of departure and deaths and hardships and tribulations...ya know, war. Hard, cold, mind-fragging war that ripped apart my spark and sucked it out through the sockets of my optics until I could savage the remnants and stitch it together again when nobody else would because we all suffered. We were all broken. We suffered until we died. And we're still fighting this fragging war, and where were you, Hound?" The enraged bot turned on the jeep and edged toward him, his optics wide and seething with war-brought brokenness. "Where were you?!"

Hound shook his helm, lost, and frustrated more now. Why couldn't he understand? "I wasn't--I wasn't--I wasn't...anywhere, I--"

The other suddenly reeled and with a throw of his arms, facing forward again, then twisting back toward Hound. "Oh! Yeah, yeah, ya know--it's not that simple! We thought you were dead, Hound!"

"I'm trying to tell you!"

"I had no idea what was going on, you left without telling me anything! Then we get to where we had traced you after hours of wondering and waiting, and when we get there, you're nowhere, and it was months and months of more waiting and hoping. I was the only one who believed you were alive. And then more time passes...and I had to accept that you were dead, that you had left, that everybody was right, that I would never see you again and that you would never be by my side when I was still young and stupid and knew nothing; that wasn't exactly easy!" His words had come out loud, fast, and flowing with enraged emotion.

Hound calmed his spirits when a sponge of regret, confusion, and unjustified guilt soaked up his anger. "Bumblebee," he murmured, looking away from the entity and down at his peds. "I would never just leave the Autobots. You know that."

Out of the corner of his optic, Hound saw his company shake his helm and face forward again. "I don't know that," he said. "I don't know anything any more. I used to believe you and everybody before I learned a thing or two." Against the backdrop of urban lights that radiated off of the busied buildings in the distance, Bumblebee's sharp silhouette stood with ramrod straight posture, the spikes of his helm adopting a white halo in contrast to the blackness of the rest of him. The low blue glow of his optics illuminated his face plates with minimal slight.

Hound looked forward again and continued to flex his jaw, lost yet again. Any reasoning he would try to offer, it would be countered. He clearly had the weaker sense of argument whenever the two conversed...and it was easy to see why. Even Hound didn't always believe his story.

Another long silence canopied the environment. The moment passed in bitterness until it was Bumblebee who yet again was the one to shatter the quietness with a vocalization that was, in contrast to his earlier jibes, weak and timid. With his newly adopted softer, but still deadpanning tone, the yellow and black bot reached up to the sides of his head and encapsulated two circular silver disks that were attached to either sides of his helm. Twisting the disk forward somewhat with a jab of his hands and adjusting his fingers, the disks suddenly broke apart along a precision line with a short blast of pent up air. The attachment to his helm thereby loosened, and he removed a grey fixation from his head. Looking at it for a moment in his hands, he said, "These are yours."

Hound looked over and found Bumblebee weakly offering an object to him, an object that Hound immediately recognized, but was befuddled to see. Unbelieving, he reached up with his hand to feel his helm, as if to confirm to both Bumblebee and himself that his visor was already there, but his face fell and his posture became more rigid when he felt that, indeed, there was no visor to be found. Confused, he looked at it again in Bumblebee's outstretched hand, reminding himself that he was sure that he had never taken it off...but, sitting there in the younger scout's servo, it sure did look like his visor.

His hand hesitating at first, he eventually accepted the grey mechanism with gentleness and held it out in front of him, staring at it with his mouth slightly slack. He angled it and turned it over in his hands for a moment, examining it as though he still couldn't believe that somehow it was his and at one point he had removed it form his helm in this jumbled mess of time. Yes, he eventually decided, it mysteriously was his visor.

"It was all that was left of you when we got to Shockwave's lab."

Looking at it for just a moment longer after reaching the inner consensus, he cocked one side of his lip in modest submission and held it out next to him in offering. The gesture caught Bumblebee's attention, whom adjusted his line of vision to observe it.

"They're yours now," Hound said; there was no point that he could deduce in accepting them back.

The younger scout's optics turned on Hound fully and shifted for all of a few seconds before he accepted and reclaimed the visor, facing forward again with the mechanism held in both hands down by his abdomen. He observed it with a flexing jaw until he was satisfied, and with an unreadable expression looked back up out towards the city.

After a few moments, Bumblebee looked back down at them meekly. The first time he had seen them since Hound's "death," he subconsciously feared them being the last he would ever see of his friend. But now that they were reunited, he couldn't shake the malice that wracked his processor ever since he had first helped Hound in that crossfire.

Hound looked at Bumblebee as the latter examined the visor, infinitely perturbed by his seemingly perpetually sullen expression. For all Bumblebee used to be—fun-loving, happy, good-natured, loud, affectionate, dependant, sensitive—how did it ever escalate to this? What, in all the years that had apparently passed Hound by, could have sapped his former apprentice of all the light that had endeared everybody he had ever come across? And, how much was Hound to be blamed for it?

"I'm going in."

Hound snapped out of his reverie to find Bumblebee, with his chin tilted down, looking at him out of the corner of his optics. The yellow and black mech hadn't further prolonged the silence in waiting for a response before he turned on his wheels and skated toward the exit, putting the visor back on his helm as he went.

Hound looked back out to the cityscape ahead of him; taking in, once again, the sour industrial air. He wanted to run behind Bumblebee, stop him from leaving, and apologize to him; he would do anything to get the old Bumblebee back...he might have tried, if he knew what to apologize for. Before he could even finish the notation, he heard the door open and close behind him.

So much has changed in no time to him. Though no amount of change would amount to the frightening capacity of that to his own comrades. Curse the war for what it had done; to everything and everyone.

Evolution cast a shadow on this world, and now nothing was as it ever was...and it probably never would be. After all, Hound thought, evolution doesn't look to the future as one human had said long ago.

 

This is very interesting, unique, dark; an intriguing idea of an AU Metaverse, yet without even changing the core Metaverse, so to speak! I like this idea, though; a world where the Decepticons won, and now Hound is caught up in it with no idea of how it came to be and how the other Autobots, who that survived, have changed.

Bumblebee is quite disturbing, in a sense; the happy lil' rookie we loved is now a cynical and rather dejected individual that the War has all but sucked the life from. It's brutal, bit what more can be expected in a world ruled by Megatron?

Very nice musing on this darker side of the Metaverse in which the Decepticons are the rulers. It's amazing!  

 

Drabble 13: Dysania

A/N: Because something about this was mentioned in Medical Memoirs and BECAUSE I DENY SLEEP HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

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In everything he had to deal with ever since the war started, from difficult subordinates, to haunting memories, to scary commanders, to the loss of loved ones, it grew progressively harder to find things that he could truly appreciate. While he employed optimism as often as he could when it seemed warranted, looking at the bright side just wasn't as breezy and lighthearted as it was before it was utilized to counter thoughts of death and guns and fear. However, in the darkest times of his life, through the worst possible ebbs, there was one thing Jazz swore he would always appreciate no matter what.

Sleep.
Sleep was a nice, peaceful medium between life and death and hey, he could use it practically whenever he felt like it and had the free time. And when he did used it, he felt great afterward; it was like some kind of intoxication method except the only reason you don't remember everything shortly after you're done is because nothing actually happened, and he was perfectly fine with that. If recharging, whether in short spurts by day or long periods by night was his drug, then it couldn't possibly hurt all that much. He only implemented the dormancy on the occasion, he certainly wasn't a lazy bum. But Primus, it sure did feel good when he got his servos on some genuine recharge.

And certain days, he just needed it; especially around now with all the chaos in commanding his team. The composition of his squad occurred in finality relatively recently and they were all preparing vigilantly to evacuate Cybertron in search of resources on another planet, but in the meantime, the inter-team chemistry was still developing. Sometimes it was humorous, other times, not so much, but Jazz was pretty much content with the little group of Autobots that he accumulated. It was, admittedly, slightly more than he had planned when two of his more elite members had the responsibility of rookies. But, the squad's mission wasn't particularly extenuating and besides, both Hound and Ratchet insisted that their students were coming along nicely. They were fine company, anyhow. Both cheery fellows from what Jazz had gathered from his first impression. Except, one was a little more buzzy and the other was a little more...scatterbrained?

But for now, he would forget about all that. And what a relief it was to lie down and just forget about everything; about his friends, about his enemies, about his joys, his problems...just to let it all go and clear out his processor for half an hour was a blessing. Just a quick recharge, that was all he needed to feel resolved and peaceful by the time he woke up so that all the jumbled stresses in his processor didn't stress him out to the point that he flipped when the energon cubes weren't perfectly stacked in the corner of that one storage unit.

Just a quick recharge. Sometimes he dreamt, sometimes not, most of the time he didn't really remember whatever it was that he dreamt if anything. But now, everything in his vision was at rest, his optics closed loosely behind his visor, his appendages slack, his mouth slightly agape to allow the inhale and exhale of his subtly working ventilation systems. In this state, his shell was light, motionless...

Except for a light pressure on his chasis. Like tiny feet perched on his chest.

Jazz shifted instinctively in his sleep. The obstruction still didn't seem to go away, and now...now something was tickling at the surface of his face plates, right near his mouth. Some light, subtle, close touch that made his mouth reflexively twitch at its flicking tickle.

The odd sensations could only continue for a few more moments before the nerves underneath Jazz's armor triggered and his optics began to flutter open, his visor flickering light with the arising activity underneath. Everything was normal when his vision focused at first, the slow ascend into consciousness starting out as a blur before Jazz could get over the initial feeling of grogginess. There was nothing that he could tell, from looking at the ceiling in his position, that accounted for that odd feeling on his chasis...

His mouth suddenly bunched to the side and his optics narrowed and widened. His mind was coming back to him now, and quickly. Reluctantly, hesitantly, questioningly, he angled his head upward to look directly at his chasis, where something had been interrupting his recharge--

Not sure whether or not to be surprised, he found himself looking, for a full moment until he could register the image, into the black optics of an animal.

"What the--?!"

The little bugger hopped away off his chasis and onto the floor, the Lieutenant jerking upward in utter shock--the last time he checked, he was in his private quarters alone, and he hadn't invited any creatures--

"Oh, Jazz!"

His helm jerked in the direction of a voice he wasn't expecting. A youthful, squeaky, very distinct voice that he would recognize anywhere despite having just gotten used to it.

But there wasn't just another mech and a varmint in his room, oh no, there was another mech and several varmints hopping all around his quarters.

Maybe he wasn't fully awake and his processor was playing tricks on him.

"I'm so sorry, I can totally explain everything! You see, what had happened was, was I was outside and I had this little weed thing in my hand that I found growing out of a crack in the parkway and I didn't mean for this to happen, but after I--"

Nope, this was real. "Bumblebee!"

The young soldier shrunk and wheeled slightly backwards with a squeak at Jazz's indignant interjection; he was holding one of the critters in his arms, another was perched calmly on his head, and multiple more were hopping around at his feet and all around the room.

"What is--what--what is going on?!" Jazz asked frantically, and when he had gestured by outstretching one of his hands, one of the creatures that was sitting on his berth had hopped away to dodge it. He flinched away when he looked to his left and found another one on the head of his bunk.

"Please don't kick me off the team, Jazz, I really didn't mean to wake you, I knew that this was a bad idea, but I just had this idea and then it kind of went all wrong and I'm really sorry--"

"Bumblebee!"

Bumblebee shrunk even more and squeaked a perturbed murmur.

"I'm not gonna kick you off the team, just--" he took another look at the environment, and they were everywhere, hopping around, like it was no problem, like they expected for hardworking commanders who just wanted a little bit of sleep to wake up to their pestering presence. "--What are you doing?! Petro-rabbits?! I can't deal with petro-rabbits right now, I'm trying to recharge!"

"I just--well, it seemed--"

"Go bother Rathet or Hound or...or better, Grimlock with these things!" he exclaimed, picking one up by the crook of its neck and plopping it on the floor, watching it frantically scatter away at Bumblebee's feet.

"But, Jazz, sir--"

With a shove, the Lieutentant shot upward and walked up to Bumblebee, promptly beginning to lightly push the youngun by his back, herding him toward the exit. "I don't even want to know how or why or when you got all these little hoppers in my room. I don't care what you do with them, just get them out of here!" By the time he had finished venting, he had goaded Bumblebee to the doorway and thankfully, all of his little pets had followed the rookie.

"Are you gonna be mad at me forever?"

"Hold on, let me recharge on that ."

Jazz took hold of the door and swung it shut, leaving Bumblebee feeling slightly uninformed out in the corridor. He looked at the couple of petro-rabbits that were sitting in his arms inquisitively, the little critters cocking their heads somewhat at their master's big, questioning optics. The execution of his plan didn't go quite as he wanted, and he wasn't sure what he was going to do with all these petro-rabbits now, but at least he was able to learn a lesson from this miserably failed endeavor: never bother Jazz out of his recharge.

 

"Tell Grimlock about petro-rabbits again."

 

Absolutely wonderful! Fantastic! Poor Jazz, just wants to snooze and this silly Bee be buzzing around with petro-rabbits. Awesome  

My turn!


Drabble 14: Of all the Cons.

"Is everything perfect? Please tell me everything is perfect, because Lord Megatron did not chose myself to lead this mission only to learn something wasn't perfect!"

Starscream was feeling a bit pressed for time. The Darksyde was supposed to have left for the stars a megacycle ago, but alas, a series of unfortunate events had delayed take-off, starting with the fact his fourth soldier hadn't even arrived yet, then dealing with some minor virus in the main console, then the engines needed repairing after one of them spontaneously set on fire and now he had only just remembered to check the supply depots were stock.

"We've run through the ship's systems three times, sir." The Seeker replied, checking over a data-pad in its long claws. "Everything is functioning as expected. We are ready for take-off at your request."

"Thank Primus!" Starscream snapped, flexing his arms and flicking his wings in slight frustration, before turning around to the other Decepticons meandering around and shouting: "Soundwave! Nighttrace! Slipstream! Get over here!"

The only one to respond was the hovering reconnaissance agent, who obediently hovered over; he'd seen her a few times before, but this was the first time he'd be on a mission with the unique Decepticon. The enclosed rotors on her back continually span, keeping her airborne even in a robot mode, and the long tail flexed consistently. Starscream could appreciate the devotion to the sky, but he often wondered if it was always convenient for her to always be floating.

She tilted her head at him curiously, perhaps asking him if they were leaving yet, but he shook his head and folded his arms impatiently. Slipstream, the medic he had chosen for this mission given her combination of aerial manoeuvrability and an Energon ray implemented into her left arm, didn't even so much as glance at him, too busy talking with that stupid friend of hers, Airachnid. And Soundwave was nowhere to be seen.

Oh, it made him mad.

So, he turned and addressed the other flyer: "I'm so curious as to wonder why kind of irrevelent gossip the medic is having that she'd ignore my direct command! Bah! And where is Soundwave?! He was here just a few cycles ago! Pit, never mind him actually, where the frag is Tankor?! He was supposed to be here a few MEGACYCLES AGO!"

"I believe you sent Soundwave to specifically investigate the lack of Tankor." A Seeker pointed out.

"Oh..... Still, why is Slipstream so ignorant?! SLIPSTREAM! PAY ATTENTION WHEN YOUR COMMANDER IS SPEAKING!"

This time, the jet did hear him, turning around with a curious look in her green optics, as if honestly wondering why on Cybertron he'd call her, Airachnid shooting him a filthy glare, and asked: "What is it, sir?"

"Get over here already! We'll be leaving as soon as Soundwave and Tankor arrive!"

"Oh, okay! Just let me finish my conversation real quick."

She turned back to the other flyer and resumed chattering.

Starscream gave a shriek of frustration, spun around and slammed his head into the nearby landing strut of ship with a resounding clang. Even as he groaned, stepped back and rubbed his head, the strut gave a rather ominous whine and started to retract, causing the ship to dangerously teeter as one of its supports became compromised.

Thankfully, one of the Seekers inside the ship must have deduced why the ship had suddenly started to tip over and tapped a button on the main console, causing the leg to halt and move back down, securing the ship once more.

Starscream had stared at all this, before he clasped his face in his hands and moaned: "Oooh, this is the second worst day of my life! An off-world energy-gathering mission chosen for me specifically by Lord Megatron, and I can't even get a ship into space! Frag me! And Primus, is that damn medic still talking to the fragging wretch?! Are they spark-bonded or something, why can't they just say goodbye like normal Decepticons?!"

Nighttrace just shrugged.

Thankfully, it was at this point in time Soundwave returned, the jet swooping down from the sky and transforming in mid-air, landing before them in the robot form of the Communications officer, wings jutting from his back, panels snapping into his place, and his yellow visor came to life in a bright glow.

The commander got back to his feet and groaned in relief: "Oh, finally! Soundwave, you're back! Please tell me you know what's going on with Tankor!"

The smaller jet fiddled with his fingers in an uncomfortable fashion, before replying: "Well, I do know, Starscream, but, the thing is, I have some bad news."

".... Just tell me and get it over with."

"Tankor has been assigned to a new unit, courtesy of Commander Motormaster's orders. He won't be joining us on our mission."

Starscream twitched slightly, optics flickering dangerously, before he revved, long and deep, flared heat out of his thrusters and stated, surprisingly calm: "Very well. Okay then. I'm calm. Do we at least get an adequate replacement?"

"We do, yes, but-"

"Excellent! When do they get here?"

"Well, he was following me on the way here, but he's a grounded vehicle, so maybe a few cycles. I think you should know, though-"

"At least we're getting somewhere now! Nighttrace, can you go tell Slipstream to get her thrusters on board? She's not even listening to me."

The hovering Decepticon nodded and buzzed over to the medic, as any Seekers still outside promptly walked up the ramp projecting from the open side hatch into the ship. Starscream watched them go in, as Nighttrace futilely tried to earn Slipstream's attention, hampered by her habit of not talking that much, before Soundwave suddenly noted: "Ah, he's faster than I thought; here he comes now."

The larger Decepticon turned to look, and sure enough, a Cybertronian vehicle was speeding across the landing pads towards them, deep black in colour, decorated with crimson streaks and sharp silver spikes. Even from this distance, Starscream could hear the thrum of a powerful engine. He quirked an optic, slightly impressed by the implication of such speed and power from this rather small soldier, but he nevertheless smiled. A fast and strong warrior may prove more useful than the bulky Tankor!

"Well, this seems to be an adequate replacement!" Starscream stated cheerfully, as he stepped forward to welcome the newcomer, unaware of Soundwave nervously trying to point out something to him. "Speedy for a ground-bound, and nice vehicle mode- ARGH!"

Without any regard for the larger Decepticon, the car sped right under him, almost taking out the jet's legs, and squealed to a halt before Slipstream and Airachnid, who turned to stare at this new interruption to their rather persistent talk, Nighttrace having evidently given up on convincing the medic to abandon her chat. The newcomer promptly transformed, shifting into a rather stocky Decepticon with double-jointed legs, prominently spiked shoulders and a crude grin on his cruel face.

He spoke up, voice all but dripping with arrogance as he placed his hands on his hips in a rather swaggering manner: "Hello, ladies. Going somewhere fun? Mind if I join you?"

They did not justify this rudeness with any vocal response. Airachnid shifted her leg up slightly, before flinging it out in a thrust kick that knocked the impudence back a fair few metres, scraping along the ground as he yelped in pain, before the two flyers returned to their conversation.

"Ow ow ow, fragging jerks! So damn rude!" He hollered angrily, jumping back onto his feet and shaking a fist at the larger Decepticons, who ignored him flawlessly. "Whatever happened to respect, you fragging little pieces of scrap?!"

As he ranted on and on, Starscream stared at him, utterly horrified and disturbed, optics twitching ever so slightly, before he slowly turned and fixed a lethal glare upon Soundwave, who had been attempting to slowly move up the ramp without being noticed. Upon noting the jet glaring at him, Soundwave froze, debating whether to just run for it or face the gunfire-

"When I asked if we were getting an adequate replacement, you said yes. Why would you say yes? This is not adequate. Not at all. THIS IS FRAGGING STUPID!"

Starscream was really in a bad mood now, all the annoyances of the day culminating in a vicious tantrum, and he lashed out at Soundwave, who had to dodge the wild swipe with a jump off of the ramp, as the jet howled: "OF ALL THE DECEPTICONS WE COULD HAVE GOTTEN- excluding Shockwave, of course- WE GET FRAGGING BARRICADE?! WHAT KIND OF PIT-FUELLED SLAG IS THIS?!"

"Hey, you got a problem with me, thruster-face?!" Barricade snarled, having heard the discredit (who didn't? Even the medic and the scientist were paying attention now), and reacting accordingly with aggression. "I'm the best your worthless bumper could have gotten!"

Starscream was not at all pleased to having his temper challenged: "You dare mock me, you arrogant little piece of slag?! I know your record; a crude and vulgar being not fit to ingest acid from Polyhex's melting facilities!"

"You call that an insult, you bloated waste of metal?! I've heard better insults from the Spark Well that spat your worthless light out!"

"YOU IMPUDENT TROGLODYTE!"

"YOU PATHETIC EGOTISTICAL SCRAPLET!"

Starscream and Barricade lunged for each other, colliding in a frenzied clash of metal and sparks, furiously wrestling and clawing at each other, screaming out insults at the top of their vocal processors.

Soundwave shook his head and went inside the ship, followed by Nighttrace, figuring that this wasn't his problem, and noting this mission was probably going to be awful. Airachnid finally bade Slipstream farewell, wishing her a good trip and a whole lot of good luck, the medic replying she'd probably need it. As the other flyer took her leave, Slipstream revved slightly, before adjusting her ray arm and aiming it at the fighting pair.

Really, burning other Decepticons with controlled beams of plasma wasn't how she liked to start off a trip, but you gotta do what you gotta do.

"Ow, she's burning us! Ow ow ow ow ow-"

"Into the ship, quickly, she's not allowed to shoot us on the ship!"

"Frag, run for it! Crazy plasma fragger on the loose! FRAG!"

"I'll tell Lord Megatron about this- OUCH!"

 

Drabble 15: Total Domination

A/N: Sorry Meta, I would have reviewed your drabble directly in the thread, but I feared accidentally double-posting.

Anyways, I was contemplating the idea of shipping Barricade and Slipstream romantically and then I decided to put Barricade in an uncomfortable position, enjoy.

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Friends do favors for friends.

Slipstream hadn't really known Soundwave before she and him were united with the rest of the team on Starscream's squad; but from how far she's come to be acquainted with him, he seemed to be fine company. A good listener. Certainly not resembling a blatantly disrespectful and hateful entity such as Barricade, though just a little distant if anything with his work and diligence. Notwithstanding, the two had grown reasonably close over time, either one appreciative of the other's compatibly collected demeanors.

So, when Soundwave had asked a simple favor of her, Slipstream wasn't hesitant to refuse; that was, not completely hesitant. The favor, in all frankness, wasn't all that simple--simple enough, but not outstandingly easy. Not to be mistaken, it wasn't outstandingly difficult in any event, it just required some strategies that weren't necessarily in Slipstream's immediate comfort zone. She might have been quicker to disagree on the proposal given the nature of the deed, but it was at Barricade's expense. And that made it easier.

She just had to play it carefully. After all, for all the hot gas that occupied Barricade's psyche, he wasn't completely stupid. Stupid enough. But he had some wit and some observation skills that needed to be overcome. The whole thing came about when something or another had occurred between Barricade and Soundwave that Slipstream didn't bother to analyze; just another bout of painless malevolence between the two, as per usual. But Soundwave had a plan to get back, and all he needed was something that he insisted Slipstream could get. Once the acquisition had been achieved, Soundwave would be able to, how he said, "hack" Barricade's "RPG account" on something or another called "Total Domination."

Whatever. As long as it made Barricade unhappy.

She stood before his door and knocked, a supreme amount of confidence in herself. If she did it right, knowing Barricade, this wouldn't be too hard.

"What?" Barricade's deadpanning snarl resonated through the door.

"I need to talk to you about something. Can I come in?"

No response that Slipstream could hear. She took it as Barricade's unique conveyance at verifying her potential arrival and looked herself over one last time. Running her hands down her sides, adjusting her position, and straightening her back, she exhaled shortly and decided once and for all that everything was prepared and she was ready to make the endeavor. Looking at her distorted reflection one last time in the wavy metal surface of Barricade's door, she gave a final nod of verification, placed her hand, and pushed it open.

There was Barricade with his back turned toward the far side of the room, sitting on the edge of his berth and hunched over something that the jet couldn't see from where she was standing. If Barricade heard or sensed her entrance, he hadn't made any sign of response. Slipstream moved in.

"What are you doing?" she asked casually, trying to look over Barricade's shoulder and finding that he was bent over a data pad that appeared to be connected to the internet. He seemed to be playing some kind of game.

"Shooting bunnies at things," he mumbled. "What are you doing?" The question was in no way made out of genuine curiosity; more so out of annoyance.

Slipstream twisted from left to right subtly with her hands entwined behind her back. "Oh, nothing. Just checking up on you."

"Okay. Now go away."

Slipstream paused to think. How was she to progress from this? She should have expected that gaining his attention would be this difficult. She hadn't worried long, though, having a trick or two up her servo's plating. She leaned over to reach him comfortably; he was rather short compared to her when they were standing, let alone sitting. She was in a flat-back position to make her move with satisfaction.

Eyeing him momentarily, Slipstream contemplated her potential strategies. Believing in success, she slowly, silently, and carefully elevated her hands and with the graceful motion of her long fingers flexing smoothly, laid them carefully on Barricade's shoulders.

He vocalized some kind of surprised noise and Slipstream felt him tense up drastically underneath her touch, his head shooting upwards so that he was no longer paying attention to his data-pad. That much was good. She needed his full, undivided attention. It was apparent that the shock trooper was about to protest, or at least question, Slipstream's direct physical contact, but paused rigidly when he felt her hands begin to move gingerly over his shoulders. Scrupulously, she massaged him with the gentle fluctuations of her palms.

Barricade froze, unsure of what to make of the gesture; he wanted to snarl at her, but for some unidentifiable reason, his words had gotten caught elusively in his throat. With one optic ridge cocked incredulously and his face held up into an outraged expression of surprise, he waited for words without knowing what else to do. Why was Slipstream touching—but wow, that felt nice.

"Just relax," he heard Slipstream coach, and...oh, Primus her voice. He had never heard it quite like that before; all smooth and deep and sleek like her...

"What are--what are--what-what are you doing?"

"Who, me? I'm just trying to make you less tense—you're always so stressed out, Barricade. I think you should...rest," she all but exhaled the last word and put extra pressure into her massage, bemused by a faint interjection of released stress from Barricade, almost like a groan. Underneath her grip, slowly but surely, she felt him begin to relax until his shoulders were no longer shrugged.

Slipstream marveled inside. So far, so good.

"Let me know if this starts to hurt," she breathed as she continued applying other techniques to her massage of sorts.

Barricade's optics suddenly narrowed and his face tightened with realization. "Eugh, stop," he said, shrugging out from under Slipstream's grip and twisting around to face her with a strict grimace. "Get outta here, will ya? I was perfectly content using woodland creatures as canon fire before you charged in here," he snarled, bending down to recover his data-bad off the floor, which had fallen out of his lap. Whatever manipulative antics Slipstream was engaging, after coming to know what a glitch she was, Barricade wasn't having any of it. He hated Slipstream just as he hated everybody else. No matter how hypnotic the deep stare into those expansive green depths of optics could be--

"But Barricade!" Slipstream said, leaning in so that her face was dangerously close to Barricade, making it hard for the latter to maintain his vulgar over stress. Those green orbs were staring right at him. If he were a human, a sweat drop or two might have fallen down the side of his face by now. "I don't think you understand," Slipstream continued. "I'm just trying to be a good friend."

Her head tilted and Barricade acquired a good look at her slightly tinted lips, noting her falling optic lids that put a deeply tranquil and soothed-looking expression over her smooth unwaveringly cool face plates. Barricade wanted nothing more than to stare her down with his habitual scowl into oblivion, and managed to do so at first, but he found himself being choked by that feeling in his throat again. He never let anybody close in on him this physically close; he would usually beat them up by now. But Slipstream's expression, her tone, that glazed look in her face, intrigued Barricade to a point that he felt deeply uncomfortable. Without his knowing, the grimace he tried to maintain shamefully fell into a furrowed expression of genuine disconcert.

"Now chill out," Slipstream droned on with the quiet, exhaling intonation on her feminine tone. She drew in even closer to Barricade, her mouth notably slack as she talked, her optic lids fluttering to different depths of relaxation as they stared into his.

To Barricade's oblivious awareness, the data pad that he had been holding slipped right out of his hands when his appendages went completely slack in spite of his wishes; he couldn't help it, he was lost in Slipstream's...in her everything. Her face, her voice, her optics, her gestures...inwardly, Barricade's custom malevolence was beginning to melt in favor of endorsing the perverse behavior. Was Slipstream really—as the humans would say--flirting with him?

A small smile perked up Slipstream's face plates. She had him right where she wanted him. His utterly perturbed and bewildered facial expression infinitely bemused her.

"You know what I think of you Barricade?"

The shock trooper wanted to speak back. He had in mind a lot of perfectly sarcastic and/or macho things to say that would endearingly counter the situation...but his words were caught in his throat. Inside, he knew that this had to be some kind of trick, because Slipstream certainly wouldn't act like this normally. His processor numbed trying to figure her out...

Slipstream made the car's thoughts draw a blank when she once again placed her hands on his shoulder plates, drawing ever so slightly nearer. "I always thought that you were...pretty cute."

Barricade's face fell into an unreadable blank expression by now. He cleared his vocals with a small, weak cough and barely managed to choke out, "Cute?" unsure whether or not to be endeared. In any other situation, he would have certainly taken the compliment offensively and pummel the person that bestowed it upon him. But now...all he could focus on were those green optics...

"Mm-hm," Slipstream confirmed, beginning to rub Barricade's shoulders in small circles again. She felt his shell slowly relax underneath her ginger hands.

Leaning in to the stunned shock trooper, Slipstream drew her lips near his audio processor to the side of his helm and, with all of the lust that she could accumulate from beneath the façade, all but whispered: "Barricade?"

"Mmm?" Barricade groaned, submitted despite his wildest inward arguments bursting forth from his conscience.

"I just need you to tell me...once thing."

"Okay?"

"I just need to know something very simple...what's your..." she squeezed Barricade's shoulders and leaned in so close that her lips were barely brushing the side of his helm. The contact made Barricade's systems shutter. "...Total Domination password?"
The question came like a small breeze at Barricade, who was so lost in his confused and elated state of mind that he hadn't contemplated the nature of the inquiry. "It's 'slagstorm100,'" he muttered back, his optics falling half-shut as though the entire interaction was exhausting him...and it kind of was.

Slipstream marveled; her face twisted into an evilly victorious grin as she was bent over, out of Barricade's peripheral vision.

Mission accomplished.

Drawing back to bring her face directly in Barricade's line of vision, she smiled smoothly and maintained, for another moment, the mask of lust. "Thank you, cutie."

She leaned in and did something that wasn't, she figured, entirely necessary, but it would at least keep him stunned for a moment longer so that she could make a less conspicuous hasty departure. And stunned he was after she gave him a quick peck on the cheek before drawing away and turning her back. "As Starscream would say," she began as she exited the room, being sure to add some hip in her step, "'Ta-ta!'"

With that, she jogged out, leaving Barricade sitting on his berth and looking blankly at the doorway where she had left, his face still drawn out into a look of utter awe: extremely wide optics, a slightly agape mouth, sagging shoulders. His processor buzzed as he tried to make sense of it all...the shock trooper never suspected that Slipstream possess such a smooth side underneath all of the tense and annoyingly professional medic armor. The whole episode was more elaborate than he knew she was capable of conveying, and all she seemed to want was his Total Domination account password...

Barricade suddenly tensed. All she wanted was his Total Domination password?

Barricade, with comical speed, snapped back to his senses, his entire form leaping to distressed attention. Jumping to his peds, finally reacquiring his enraged demeanor, he charged out his room. Oh, when he got his hands on Slipstream...and immediately afterward when he got his hands on Soundwave...those two sure were in for it.

"Slipstream!" he hollered, skidding around the corner.

No matter how fondly he would remember the way Slipstream made him feel that day, he should have known all along that it was just a manipulation contrived of her inevitably glitchy nature. As soon as he got to her, he would show her to mess with him.

And he would certainly be sure to show her that he was not, in any way shape or form, at any time of day, for any reason, ever cute.

 

Excellent one, Jamocha! That was both twistedly heated and damningly funny  

And now, for a moment of visceral horror, featuring an upcoming enemy in Transformers Meta....

Drabble 16: Ran

They were eating him.

Tailgate can only look on in horror. His frame trembles. His optics are bright and wide. His hands are unsteady, and the gun they hold shakes because it. There is no longer any sense of safety in this dark abode. Only fear.

Three Insecticons, designated Stalkers, encircle Rollbar, their mandiles coated with blue Energon as they slowly eat their way into him. The first one came out of nowhere; they were scouting these old tunnels, to verify a reported sighting of green monsters, and then there was a sudden humming sound, and then it burst from the ground, and then it bit into his leg.

There must have been some kind of cyber-venom in its jaws, because Rollbar was paralysed, collapsing to the floor, his scream of pain freezing midway, and the creature was already starting to bite into his hips.

He was a coward. He had fled, abandoned his comrade to the monster, and now more had emerged to join the feast. Even now, two more Stalkers were breaking through the corroded metal and were moving for their share of the feast.

From the outcrop he had hidden himself on, scope trainined on the creatures, Tailgate had seen the full extent of the Insecticon's horrors.

Rollbar was still alive.

He could see it, in the unlucky Autobot's flickering optics, the light of life and awareness in the bright blue circles. Rollbar was still alive, paralysed and helpless, and he could surely feel the Stalkers ripping him apart piece by piece, comprehend the fact they were eating him before his spark had even dissipated, and Tailgate had never felt more afraid in his life then he did now.

He should have stayed. He should have killed the first Stalker, crushed its head into the floor, and dragged Rollbar to safety. He should have summoned reinforcements, summoned a bomb strong enough to bring this whole area down, summoned a medic to remove the venom from his friend. He should have shot the Insecticons, shot each one as they emerged to eat Rollbar.

But he did none of these things. He simply stayed there, on the outcrop, staring at these alien monsters that held no compassion nor care for their victim's suffering, staring at the pain and the fear and the damnation and the pleading in Rollbar's optics.

They were eating him alive. They were slowly killing him right before his optics.

And he didn't do any of the things he could have done to prevent this. He didn't shoot them. He didn't call for reinforcements. He didn't pull his friend to safety.

He was scared. He was scared of these Insecticons, the monsters that burst from the ground, rendered their prey helpless and ate them alive.

Too scared. Much too scared.

One of the Stalkers arched upwards, Energon dripping from its jaws, and tilted its head. The venomous green optics stared right at him.

Tailgate didn't do any of the things he could have done to save Rollbar.

He turned away from his friend's death, and he ran away.

He ran as fast as he could, and he did not look back.

 

^Oh lord.

A/N: Seeker has efficiently put terrible images into my head. So, this is all Seeker's fault. I get all upset over an idea, so what do I do to cope? I WRITE ABOUT IT. >:/

THIS IS AU, I SURE HOPE IT DOESN'T ENCOURAGE ANYTHING.

Also, keep in mind, this is in the future, so Bumblebee is a little older and grittier. But he's still Bumblebee. Oh, and be forewarned: as you can see, this is another pretty long one. A lot of it is just description and transitioning. XP

_____________________________________________________________________

Drabble 17: Bottle Cap

The Seeker looked around frantically among the sea of smoke and dust, blatantly kicked up by his enemy in attempt to obscure his otherwise keen vision; and for a few moments it worked brilliantly, making the objects remote to him entirely unidentifiable behind a bed of brown and grey residue. The aerial con coughed a few times, endeavoring to regulate the ventilation that had been thrown off by the inhalation of the dense debris, but regaining composition of himself came quickly and easily, his shell tensed and readied for another attack. Or, if he managed to spot his speedy opponent, a good offensive move.

His optics adjusted to the other end of his peripheral vision and he was briefly satisfied by a yellowish image that he had caught out of the corner of his optic. Twisting a few degrees left to face it fully, the Seeker readied his weaponry and awaited the dust to settle just a bit more before he could take a safe aim. The image of his adversary, a small yellow target, was still somewhat obscured by the disturbed environment's cloudiness, but it was definitely him.

The aerial con paused suddenly, relaxing his tautly held canon, optics widened and furrowed in brief confusion; the yellow figure in the near distance, now clear as the dust settled in finality...flickered. Maybe it wasn't him.

"Scrap."

The Decepticon twisted and revved furiously at the vocalization, which had been perhaps louder than the owner of its vociferation had intended. Another crisp flash of yellow germinated quickly in his line of vision, disappearing as fast as he had spotted it behind a boulder a few yards away.

Behind it, out of the Seeker's view, a certain scout was furiously beating at the holographic projector on his wrist in a failed attempt to get it to function properly.

The Seeker narrowed his optics keenly and moved in quickly to claim the head of his prey, unleashing his canons and prepping them for fire. He ran in a curve to scale the side of the rock and take aim, but was disappointed to find that his adversary must have been expecting it...the yellow car popped out from his hiding spot abruptly and opened fire on the Seeker.

The aerial con went back with a powerful blast of a paralyzing electricity, a white ball of firepower that struck him in the torso. He landed on the ground some paces away, skidding for a short distance before finally coming to a stop, struggling to recompose himself as his systems refused to cooperate with the overwhelming induction of electricity. The yellow Autobot had a habit of doing that on rare occasion; rare because it took energy, among other tactics that he used. Otherwise, his stingers as they were called, were generally powerless against an enemy that size.

Bumblebee revved in satisfaction with a snide grin and moved in swiftly towards the Seeker, who was twitching and struggling to get up off the ground. A few stray bolts of lingering electricity crackled over his metallic frame. The scout was momentarily satisfied by the successful hit, but his performance was still deterred and he had to sort of...limp on his way over to his befallen adversary. Earlier in the scrimmage, the flyer managed a good shot at his leg. A really good shot. And now it was torn up and leaking energon, making it extenuatingly painful to apply pressure to it. He had to pathetically drag his wheel behind him and skip every so often with his other one to keep some sort of momentum.

He still had to go, though. He tried less direct tactics, like confusion and manipulation. It never went the way it was supposed to, though.

By the time he had gotten within a few feet's range of the Seeker, the latter had struggled enough to get to his peds and raised his canon back up at Bumblebee to take a shot...a feeble shot that the scout saw coming and ducked under easily enough. He raised his own stingers and aimed them at one of the Seeker's knees, but the blasts still had virtually no effect unless Bumblebee got up close. And he should really be more mobile if he intended to do that.

This meant he had to be resourceful. That's what it always come down to, calling upon the tactics suggested by his elders before he could ever deliver anything good offensively, courtesy of his lacking firepower and skills. Inasmuch, he dodged a charge from the Seeker unsteadily and blasted more at the ground to kick up some more dust. Giving himself some more distance to gain time, he tried once again to make an effective simulation, which the Seeker thankfully spotted quickly since the kicked-up dirt this time wasn't quite so dense. This time, Bumblebee focused harder, tried to make the simulation crisper and more realistic. At least he kept it from flickering, but he could only keep it up for so long before he felt his energy begin to completely wane.

Despite the oncoming fatigue that had been staring at him for the past half an hour of battle, the hologram led the Seeker at about where he had intended. Good enough. Bumblebee dropped the arm that produced the simulation and let the holographic image flicker off, thus proceeding to unleash his stingers and bring them together for one last potent charge. He aimed well enough at a mercifully wide-ranged target, and before the Seeker had gained the time and cognizance to retaliate, a forceful firing toward the edge of the canyon above him loosened a great deal of rocks and boulders...which in turn came tumbling down on the poor flyer. The aerial con attempted escape last-minute, but found himself unsuccessfully crushed under the weight of the befell canyon remnants.

He squirmed relentlessly and felt himself slowly wriggling free of the rocks' powerful grasp, but the attempt would be helpless to save him. Looking up meekly at the presence of an approaching shadow, he witnessed two wheels eventually arrive within merely a foot's distance from his face plates. Their image taking up the width of his vision was replaced with his adversary's smug face once he had gotten on his knees to kneel down and look at the Seeker in the optics; a sly grin marking his face plates and an arrogant narrowed brow there to accompany it.

After a mere moment of wordless gloating, the yellow scout peeled back his fist and intensified the deadly expression on his face, marred with dust stains and battle-brought tarnish. The last words that the Seeker would hear, courtesy of his adversary, would be a quiet and ominous, "Lights out."

Bumblebee punched and felt his knuckle pinch at his neural systems with the force. The hit was just hard enough to do the job; shot out the Seeker's optics, their fluids leaking, his face plates gravely dented and distorted once the offending fist was taken away. The scout looked at his work and gave a tired, though satisfied expression. The Seeker lied there, motionless, covered in a bed of settled dust and grime.

The afternoon had started out as a simple investigative patrol mission...apparently, it had started out that way for the Seeker as well and it was only via inconvenient fate that the two would cross paths. The battle to succeed was obligatory between two members of rivaling factions and had gone on for far too long to suit Bumblebee's taste. At least, when he was on the losing side, and he usually was. It was a combative style that ended up with him usually coming back and ending up on top in the end, but it always looked bleak for him when he so desperately needed to hone his skills. And usually he had help. This time it was solo. He could have called for back-up, but for just one Seeker? He had needed practice, anyway. Especially with that hologramming business. Most of what he was learning now was from self-teaching...which slowed the process down.

He thought about it as he got up and started to walk away. He walked a good distance, lost in his thought, trekking up the side paths of the canyon so that he could get to the top; the pathways were narrow underneath his wheels and where especially difficult to conquer with this stupid limp that he acquired after that Seeker substantially messed up his leg...but for once, he didn't feel like transforming and rolling away to feel the wind on his chasis and the dirt road under his wheels. In this idle evening, he would rather take everything slow. There was no point in going back to base right now. He would either get bored or have to listen to Jazz and Grimlock argue with each other.

He knew exactly where he wanted to go, and got there in a matter of minutes on foot; it was merely a cliff at the edge of a gap in one section of the desert canyon, a place where he liked to sit and think every so often. It was somewhat soothing to be there, the high altitude helping to pick up the breeze a little bit, whereas in the canyon, the walls acted as a wind block. Small waves of dust would fly by sometimes and soar off to the distance where the sun set and turned the sky a medley of pastel colors.

Bumblebee sat down on the edge of the cliff and sighed, looking down to behold the landscape before him. This was where they always used to come to train. Where they first went to train, the first time ever. He sometimes conjured the images of that day in his head vividly and he could swear he saw the images of four bots down there in the canon, buzzing around, trying to hone their skills. Then getting attacked by Seekers...and then...nah, he wouldn't think about that, he decided. That was a rough day for sure. But, it was a long time ago.

He sighed and let his ventilation systems take in the cool, crispy air. Things have definitely changed since then. People have come, people have gone. The Autobot squad went in and out of good auras, sometimes a bitter tension escalating depending on any number of things, like how annoyed Warpath got at Hot Shot, how annoyed Jazz and Grimlock got with each other, how much Arcee hated everybody, etc, etc, etc. All those things were pretty normal.

But, still. They weren't quite as normal. Nothing was really quite as normal. It was still hard to adjust. The base, while crowded with the other bots, still felt a little empty. And while the insulation never altered, it still felt a little colder. And while Bumblebee still had his friends, and Grimlock, his best friend in the whole wide world...he still felt a little lonely.

And a little lost sometimes.

But it was alright, in the end. He had his friends and his bestie there to snap him out of it whenever the thought plagued him and made him uncharacteristically sad. Other than those occasions, he was still pretty much himself. He had learned a few things, came across an upgrade here and there, grew up just a little bit...but he was still Bumblebee. He wished for something he knew he couldn't have every so often, but he knew it was normal in this situation. He managed to keep his attitude up to par.

Besides, it had been way worse in the past. After all, nobody was really expected to just get over it right away, and everybody's behavior had somehow changed for a while. Eventually, though, the team pulled itself back together. They had to. After all, it is war. People come. People go.

Still, though. Even Grimlock was sad. It was too soon. Too many times, Bumblebee had a question and realized that the bot he would ask couldn't give him the answer anymore.

He could ask Jazz, Ratchet, Wheeljack, Kup, Grimlock, even Warpath or his fellow younguns. But he didn't; it wasn't the same. It felt like betrayal. So, a lot of questions went unanswered. But, Bumblebee decided...that was alright. Questions were never discreet, answers sometimes are. That's what Hound always said. When Bumblebee naively asked him to elaborate at the time, his mentor explained that the answer is always there...but sometimes it took searching to find it.

Hound told him that a long time ago, but the memory was still crisp in his processor.

Bumblebee sagged, wishing to hear the explanation again. To hear anything again in that voice, outside of his own head. He was beginning to forget what it sounded like. So many good things were associated with that voice...so much wisdom, kindness, and comfort.

"It's kinda lonely out here, isn't it?"

Bumblebee jumped, but then settled quickly when he spotted the owner of the vocalization. He hadn't even heard Hound approach. Just like him to be discreet, Bumblebee guessed. The yellow scout smiled softly and looked back out of the canyon edge at all the mountains and the setting sun. "I like being alone sometimes."

"That's new," his company replied, sitting down next to the smaller yellow mech.

Bumblebee cocked his head comprehendingly. He had always been what the humans would call, "a people person," hating to be by himself. He found comfort in the presence of other people, loathed the moments that he had to be without his team...those moments were scary to say the least, at least at first. A lot of times, the moments spent without the company of his comrades were in some sort of captivity. Bad memories were associated with lonesome. But now he welcomed it from time to time...it was nice to get away when he had to think about his empty desires.

"I guess I changed a little bit," Bumblebee eventually replied, after thinking about it.

Hound nodded. "We all change as time goes on. Life doesn't stop for anybody."

Bumblebee smiled and looked down. He had heard that one before. Hound never skipped an opportunity to unfold a word of wisdom to execute a conversation, no matter what the context was. It was habitual of him, but it never grew annoying...if anything, it was endearing. His company was at least happy that the knowledgeable archetype of Hound's persona wasn't accompanied by the habitual tendency to speak in riddles or make heroic speeches all the time. He was always pretty social...the guy you look up to, felt comforted by, even when he didn't mean for you to feel that way.

"How's the hologramming coming?"

Bumblebee smiled, embarrassed. "I suck at it," he admitted.

"What do you mean, 'you suck at it'?"

"It's harder than I thought it would be. The images never stay. They always flicker or get snowy or faded or something. And that's when they're still, forget about moving them. I haven't even tried to look in to the environmental or cloaking holograms yet."

Hound giggled. "You need to focus, buddy."

"You make it look so easy."

"I didn't make it look easy at first. It's like everything, Bee. You have to keep doing it and get better at it. With hard work--"

"--Comes reward."

Hound smiled proudly. "Yep."

A short silence proceeded, either figures looking out into the distance, the sky getting progressively darker as the large semi-circular celestial body sunk passively into the horizon. The breeze picked up somewhat and batted at the few small weeds that darted out of the dusty, barren landscape.

"I wish you would come back, " Bumblebee said weakly, forsaking the topic that the two had engaged just shortly ago. "The base is lonely without you."

"You know that if I could, I would."

Bumblebee felt his throat contract at the reality. It was so hard to admit to himself sometimes. "Why can't you?" he desperately asked, knowing that the question was ridiculous and had been answered countless times before. He wasn't sure why he asked it...denial, or just having the comfort of hearing Hound speak to him.

The older scout chuckled softly and the two exchanged a meaningful glance...Bumblebee's optics wide and furrowed, dancing with flickering sadness, Hound's optics calm, investigative, understanding, sympathetic...just like they always used to be. The elite scout cocked a small smile as if trying to reassure his former student and good-naturedly tilted his head. "You know why."

"I hate it."

"Me too."

"I miss you! ...We all miss you."

"I miss you guys too. I was a little worried about what was going to happen. But, everything's okay here. And everything's okay with you. It's just that sometimes we have to deal with change."

Bumblebee buried his face in his hands. "I know."

Hound's face fell and he placed his hand on Bumblebee's back, a gesture that wasn't unfamiliar between the two, even if Cybertronians didn't make as much direct physical contact as organics did. The touch felt cold. Unnaturally cold. "Hey, don't feel so down. That's not Bumblebee. Not the Bumblebee that I know."

"Sorry. I try to be optimistic," the younger scout sincerely replied, taking his face out of his hands. "but it's harder than it used to be."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, you know. I just feel...lost...sometimes...without you. It was too soon, I wasn't ready."

"I know, I know. But, Bumblebee, you're a smart bot, and I have a lot of confidence in you...besides, everything looks great from here."

"Doesn't look as great from here."

"Sure it does. There's always a bright side."

"Inaccurate."

Hound cocked a lip, deflating a little bit in stature. While he had experienced his bouts with comforting Bumblebee in the past, he had never witnessed his scout being quite so inconsolable. "I sure wish there was more I could do for you, scout," the green mech said softly. "It's true that we don't really get to see each other any more. But there might be other meetings after this, you never know, it could happen."

Bumblebee snorted apathetically.

"Hmm...well...here, how about this?"

Bumblebee looked over and found Hound removing something out of a compartment on his forearm. The younger scout followed it with his optics until Hound folded the compartment shut and set down the object on the ground in between the two. Laying in the dirt between the comparatively massive entities, catching a glint from the setting sun, was an old and dented bottle cap.

"What?" Bumblebee inquired, as confused as he ever was when conversing with his former educator. "A bottle cap? That some human probably had on his Coke? Really, Hound?"

"Well, it works like this: it may be a seemingly worthless object, but you can try looking at it, and then thinking about all the good times. All the things that you make you happy. Then you won't feel so sad. It's like a reminder...sometimes you need to take an object and associate some good memories with it. That way you can take your good memories wherever life takes you."

Bumblebee looked up from the bottle cap into Hound's optics. "Does...that work?" he asked, skeptically.

"I think it does. It's a trick I've had up my servo plating for a while now."

"Hm. Um, thanks, Hound. Sounds nice, but...it's still a little lonely sometimes."

"I know, it's sad. I wish I could see you every day like old times. But, look at the cap and remember: even if it may not see like it sometimes, you're never alone. I'm always there for you...even if you can't see me."

Bumblebee looked down at his lap and nodded, fighting that terrible contracted feeling in his throat.

"Bumblebee," Hound continued, suddenly growing serious. "it's all okay from here. I'm always there."

"Please don't--"

"I have to."

"Already?"

"Yep."

Bumblebee sighed, defeated. He would have to relive it. Relive the saying goodbye. Saying goodbye was never this painful with anyone else.

Hound stood up and let his posture rise to the stoic, erect stance that it always used to be. "Listen, Bee," he said, his tone once again adopting that agile seriousness. "Keep your chin up, got that? This isn't the end of the road. At the center of your being, you have the answer; you know who you are."

"Hm?" Bumblebee asked, turning his head to look up at Hound, unsure of what exactly he was talking about.

"Understand the problem, for the answer and the problem are not separate. One more thing: make sure you get that leg checked out," he added, gesturing to the mangled wound on the younger scout's lower appendage, now encrusted with dried energon. "Well, it's time for me to come in."

Bumblebee buried his face in his hands once again. "You just have to go, don't you."

"I said it's time for me to come in."

Bumblebee looked up from his palms, somewhat perplexed by the perverse arrangement of words. But, before his very optics, he looked up to absolutely nothing before him but the soulless environment. Hound was gone. Completely gone.

Again.

"Come in. Bumblebee, come in."

The scout jumped and stupidly had to take a second to register the disembodied voice before he could deduce that it was his comm. link that was germinating it. Pressing the inlet mechanism, he meekly responded over the circuits; "Go for Bumblebee."

"Everything okay? You should have been back here a while ago, we got worried." Jazz's smooth voice rang over the line.

"Oh...um, y-yeah. I'm...I'm on my way back now," and with that, he disabled his comm. link. He didn't feel like talking to anybody. Not right now.

It was just a dream. Of course it was just a dream. What else could it have been? Just another one of the many visions that had plagued him in what would otherwise be a peaceful dormancy ever since Hound's death. Just another damnable dream, the only place in which the graced impossible could ever occur. Bumblebee bowed his head before standing up and stroked his optics over with his fingers. He sourly wish he had never woken up. The image of Hound's peaceful face was burnt painfully into his processor, still fresh, still so bitterly close and far away at the same time.

He knew that he had little desire to return to base, but he would hate to have to face Jazz and Grimlock if he got their circuits heated over being late again, especially when he turned off the only practical means of communication. Besides, it was getting dark anyway. The last slice of the yellow sun, distorted in waves by its own heat, were melting away into the straight line of environment underneath it. Another day gone. It had been two hundred-something days, almost an Earth year, since there was one less soul to take residence in the Autobots' quarters.

Bumblebee bid farewell to the canyon, looked down into the drop-off one last time to think of the memories, and turned around to prep for transformation.

But, he paused. He had just barely begun to transform before something caught his eye and a little alert popped into his processor that goaded him to look back at where he had been sitting. Something caught his optics. It was a little fantastic that he might even be trying to actually spot it, but what if--

The yellow mech backtracked and paused rigidly once he beheld the telling image before him. There on the ground, right next to the spot where he had been sitting, was a lonely bottle cap that idly captured the glint of the sun's remains. The discovery made the whimsical scout too happy to actually smile, too sad to actually frown, too confused to furrow his brow...he just stared at it blankly for a moment before bending down to pick it up. The thing was so tiny in his comparatively massive hands...it would get lost easily. He would make sure that that wouldn't happen.

But, he briefly reasoned, it couldn't be...maybe if this had been a few years ago, when he was a little more naive, he would have believed it, but...If he had brought it up to Wheeljack or Ratchet or Kup, or anybody, they would all say that he must have seen the small object before he had sat down and it thus embedded itself into Bumblebee's subconscious vision. That was the only thing that made sense.

Or, was it really...?

Bumblebee cocked a small smile rolled the cap around in his metallic palm, feeling its soothing aura radiate onto his body and create some much needed warmth in his system. He looked at the bottle cap...just a small, silly, worthless obejct...and heard Hound's voice in it. Saw his face in it.

Questions are never discreet. Answers sometimes are.

Bumblebee smiled, and it was genuine. "You always had the answers right away, Hound," he murmured, "even if it did mean slowing down to look for them every once and a while."

He flipped the cap in his hand and turned around to roll off, throwing up the memento and transforming around it so that it landed somewhere in his cab. He felt the pain in his mangled leg radiate with the jerky movement of transformation, and he knew he would regret going into his alt. mode with it later, but it was nothing that Ratchet or Evac couldn't fix.

Revving his engine softly, he picked up the speed and with a few turn of his tires, got rolling over the desert floor, the dust kicking up in a cascade behind him. Racing at mach speed, the yellow scout traveled home in search of the answers.

 

Drabble 18: No title. :I

A/N: Warning, this is another thing that's not going to make sense. I habitually think of really vivid ideas and concepts, continuously developing them until I get bored with them, and...this was one of those ideas. This drabble takes place at a time when everybody but Evac's and Bumblebee's memories get completely erased, and the two rookies have to...ehem, deal with it.

It puts them in a very awkward position.   Interestingly, it was inspired by this one Spongebob episode where Spongebob and Patrick have to take care of a mentally de-aged Squidward. I thought the situation was really amusing and decided to put the rookies in a similar one.   It's more lighthearted than the stuff I've been writing recently.

This is just a short scene in the rising action.

Enjoy~

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"This is weird."

In his life, short though as it was, Bumblebee credited himself with having seen a lot of weird things. The oddity of these commodities varied considerably, but there were plenty of anomalies he had the pleasure of becoming acquainted with in his lifetime that he easily considered to be weird. Like some bugs or animals or other Earthly life forms. Or even Earthly habits. Heck, some Cybertronian customs were quite questionable and he rarely ever restrained voicing his inquiries whenever his curiosity was intrigued by these things.

But this was a whole other level of weird, and for once, he did not like it. Neither did Evac, who, although being perhaps slightly less naive than Bumblebee when it came to the realm of enigmatic elements, was safely unnerved by the situation at hand. And, unfortunately, was at just as much a loss for what to do about it as his comrade was.

"Yeah," the medic trainee agreed, unsurely scratching at the back of his helm. As he and Bumblebee were the only two left with all of their sanity it seemed, he felt like he should be the more responsible one and yearned to come up with a solution that would get the two out of their predicament. But the more he thought about it, the more he was at a loss for what to do. He wished he were as good with coming up with plans as Jazz was...at least, before—

"What're we gonna do? They can't help at all! It's like they have the minds of sparklings!" Bumblebee said frantically, but still in a whisper. The two had stepped into a separate room—a closet, in fact—to be safely enclosed from the audio receptors of the other bots, but were still in a close enough vicinity for them to hear if they got too loud.

Evac was kneeled down and bent over to be closer to Bumblebee's level, an extra precaution to keep their volume down. He looked into his friend's wide optics and felt all the more helpless. "I know, I know," he said, somewhat apathetically.

"I hate having to try and teach them everything, it goes in one audio receptor, and out the other! I know it's not their faults, but what can we do? We can't go on like this for much longer, my processor will explode!" Shortly thereafter, he gave a short gasp and added, "I hope we're not this annoying."

"We're not in much of a position to be their teachers, anyway," Evac ruefully admitted, knowing his place. "This obviously isn't just a fun little game any more. It's getting serious..." he saw the gradually more worried look in Bumblebee's face and hated having to be frank. But if either of the two were going to be painfully sensible about the perverse situation, it was going to have to be him. "It's only a matter of time before the Decepticons are going to take advantage of our vulnerability because of this."

Bumblebee's optics furrowed and widened, making Evac regret what he said. "So...what are you—"

"Um..."

The two snapped their helms over and saw that Wheeljack had approached the doorway and now stood there before them, holding the door ajar. His form was dark against the light that was filtering out from the other room behind him, but all the expression that they needed to see was easy to perceive in his luminous optics.

"Sorry to interrupt," he innocently said in an apologetic tone that made Evac and Bumblebee exchange perturbed glances. "...but we were all talking, and we really do want to apologize for all this trouble—"

"Oh, don't worry about it, Wheeljack!" Bumblebee hurriedly exclaimed with a big, sweet smile for added assurance. Though, the insistence was more to expel the bot's presence in favor of his vital exchange with Evac than anything else.

"Yeah, it's...a-a-all alright! Heh-heh," Evac nervously followed up, but the blatant lie earned a telling glance from Bumblebee. "Don't worry about it, Bumblebee and I are..." the two looked at each other yet again, but the younger rookie's expression was just as at a loss for a tactile solution as Evac's. "...are getting everything, um, under control!"

To top if off, both rookies put on a sickeningly sweet face to add to the affirmation.

"Um, alright..." Wheeljack eventually said, though his optics were angled unsurely. "well, if...there's anything that we can do, just--"

"Oh, don't worry about it! Bumblebee and I...uh, we got this," Evac asserted, accompanying the remark with a stiff fist offered to Bumblebee who in turn pounded it with his own, but with an expression that was clearly unnerved.

Wheeljack, at least to some extent of suspicion, took the charade and stepped out from the doorway, closing the door behind him. As soon as the light from the other room closed out and the click of the latch bolt indicated that the door was completely closed, Bumblebee dropped the facade and let his helm fall. At first this was fun...but now even the yellow car was having a hard time keeping up the optimism. "I miss the real Wheeljack," he said ruefully.

Evac furrowed his optics, but quickly shook off his own despondency. He put his hand up against Bumblebee's shoulder and pushed him up a little, encouraging his comrade to look at him in the optics. "Look, here's what I'm thinking," he said, grabbing the other rookie's attention. "Their memory can't just be completely gone. It's got to be somewhere..."

"So? What'd you mean?"

"The Decepticons have it, and we need to get it back."

Bumblebee quickly stiffened, optics widened in fright and disbelief. "You mean...go on the Darksyde? But we can't take them with us," he said, gesturing toward the door with his hand. "They don't know the difference between bits and bytes!"

"I know. We'll have to do it ourselves."

Bumblebee squeaked a gasp. "By ourselves? Invade the Decepticons' ship on our own?" He shivered at the thought. Very bad memories were associated with that place. He had confidence in his combative ability, but...for once, perhaps not that much confidence. While he thought he could probably square up against two, maybe three Decepticons, depending, on his own, but...to get on the ship and face them all, with no chance of having help from his elders?

"Look, it's not going to be like a combat mission," Evac reassured, "it's just going to be get-in-get-out. Chances are, their memories have been downloaded to a separate disc or chip or, if not, on a file somewhere. In that case, we can just download it to a chip of our own and then I can transfer it all back into their processors. We just need to do a little spying, get some information, steal the data, and get the frag back."

Bumblebee had been listening, intrigued, the entire time. Although the thought of invading Decepticon territory sure did sound intimidating, he really wanted his old team back. If the mission went the way Evac had been describing, it couldn't possibly be too difficult to get back what was rightfully theirs...besides, he was a scout who did learn from the best. Gathering information was his job. Sneaking around shouldn't be too hard for him, as fast and small as he was...maybe this situation wasn't quite as hopeless as it seemed. He rubbed his chin plate in thought for a moment before looking back at the eager optics of his teammate. "Okay. Maybe you're right...maybe we can do this."

Evac's optics lit up in hope. "We can."

"I think the plan might need a little tweaking, though."

"What do you mean?"

"Well this is supposed to be an espionage mission," Bumblebee sensitively implicated, jokingly giving Evac a once-over. "And I don't think stealth is quite your thing."

"Uh, right," Evac said, rubbing the back of his helm. "Right, well...here, let's get out of this closet and then we can talk about it some more. And we need to hurry. Those bots need to get their memory back ASAP."

Bumblebee gave a short nod of affirmation, and waited as Evac pushed open the door to exit the cramped space. The yellow car followed him out shortly thereafter, trying to disguise his anxiety with his normal enthusiasm in the face of the other oblivious Autobots. He had never been in a kind of position before, not even close...but it sure was an optic-opener.

Evac on the other hand, while nervous as well, made sure to balance some confidence on his shoulders. Him and Bumblebee needed their normal teammates back, and slag if he was going to let the Decepticons keep the upper hand with something that surely wasn't theirs.

 

Drabble 19: Real Reason for the hate? Part one

I made this because I enjoy the banter between Screamer and Rachind and thought that there maybe a true reason they hate eachother 

Hope you enjoy  
__________________________________________________

A furious jet was raging through the halls of his ship. Not at all happy with the arrival of the wench of Shockwave.

"THAT FRAGGING GLITCH ON MY SHIP!!!!" Starscream was furious that Airachinid was on his ship. He hadn't seen her sense the academy and that didn't leave them on a good note.

"............Primus help me get through this." Starscream sighed and started thinking about the real reason he hated her. You see it all started in the academy. He was the top flier and then she showed up. He was impressed by her skill and couldn't help the odd feeling's in his spark.

"Hmmm.....she did look......okay back then....I suppose."

Though he knew he was lying to himself. Starscream thought she looked....what was the human word...umm....ravdashing. No umm....RAVISHING...there we go!!! Anyway he decided to be bold and ask her out. Though he was prepared for the rejection....he was suprised by that one single word that left her lips. "Yes.....yes I will."

*To be continued  *

 

Oh my gosh, I love this, it's so funny.   The idea of Starscream hating Airachind, possibly because of...a love affair. :O Ha ha, can't wait for the next parts.  

 

Excellent drabbles, Jamocha and Roadrage. I am profusely entertained!

Now it's my turn, with a drabble based off a twisted video my evil mother showed me!  

Drabble 20: Decepti-souls!

Slipstream was a tad perplexed when she noted Soundwave staring intently at one of the console monitors with an intensity beyond his normal work ethic. Soundwave had always been one of impressive focus when working, but his unmoving stare at the screen indicated something requiring his complete and utter attention. Further adding to the perplexing scene was the occasional and very fast double-tap of his finger on a button. What was he up to?

Naturally, Slipstream strutted right over to the smaller Decepticon and asked: "Hey Soundwave, what are you doing?"

"I'm searching this Earth video for a supposed ghost." He replied, and, given said tab on the screen was paused, leaned back so she could peer down for a closer look. The video showed a larger grassy hill kind of area, with a long road snaking through the road, a single silver car driving along said road. A description noted that if one closely when the car reached one of the bends, they could see what might have been a ghost.

Ghosts were one of those dumb Earth concepts. Any self-respecting Cybertronian knew spirits from beyond the Allspark couldn't return to mortal realms. Humanity's obsession with such a phenomenon was absurd. Still, her curiosity as piqued; if even humans could apparently stop a spectral being, then surely she could as well!

"Oh, that makes sense." She mused. "No wonder you're so intense."

"I intend to full analyse every possible frame of this video in search of the ghost." Soundwave replied, yellow visor flickering through multiple optical patterns. "I am curious to see if there is an actual ghost in this video."

"Did someone say ghost?"

They turned to see Barricade sauntering over, curiosity sparkling in his otherwise hateful and judgemental optics. He stopped next to Soundwave, scanned the video and its description, and added: "I know ghosts. I've watched tons of human horror films. Ghosts are terrible creatures bent on eating souls and stuff! I bet you the car crashes because the ghost ate their souls!"

"What's a soul?"

"Shut up, Slipstream, I'm trying to talk here! Anyway, the only thing that can stop ghosts, apparently, is plasma beams and fragging magnet boxes or something. I watched Ghostbusters, they put a lot of science into this slag, so I know what I'm talking about."

Slipstream rolled her optics, and the Communications officer sneered: "Whatever. I'm going to resume searching for the ghost on this video. You're welcome to help me."

"We will." Slipstream assured him. "But don't keep playing and pausing it. Play it normally first, then you can get back to your frame-by-frame stuff."

Soundwave seemed annoyed at that, but he nevertheless relented and pressed play. The video restarted, and the car continued its idle drive. The three Decepticons leaned in closely, optics wide and intent in their search for the ghost.

The car went around the first bend, but there was no sign of any spectre, and all three were a tad disappointed. Still, they continued to watch, wondering if the next bend would yield results. The car was approaching said next bend now, going past a bush-

AAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH

"OH MY FRAGGING PRIMUS!" Soundwave shrieked in horror, when a grisly, ugly, hideous face burst onto the screen, screaming a terrible high-pitched squeal that buzzed their audio sensors, the Lamborghini falling back off of his chair and crashing to the floor. "WHAT THE FRAG-"

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Barricade screamed, falling backwards in terror and scrabbling to his feet like a deranged insect. "GET IT AWAY FROM ME! IT'S GONNA EAT MY SOUL! FRAG FRAG FRAG! GET AWAY, GET AWAY, LET ME OUT OF HERE! EAT THEIR SOULS, NOT MINE, DON'T KILL ME, I'M NOT EVEN TASTY! KILL THEM, NOT ME, NOT MEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"

Contininuing to scream, he tripped and staggered and crawled and scrabbled his way to the door, opened it, and continued his freaked out screaming retreat.

"KILL IT, KILL IT!" Slipstream squealed, staggering backwards as she brought up her ray arm, orange plasma flaring at the barrel, Soundwave yelping as he flung himself away from the console, and she rapidly fired, utterly obliterating the monitor in a series of shots and a whole lot of sparks and melted metal.

When the chaos was over, when the demonic face and its horrible scream were vanquished, Slipstream and Soundwave revved heavily, the former sinking to her knees in relief, the latter clutching his spark-chamber.

"Unicron up my thrusters." Slipstream wheezed, ray arm smoking from the amount of plasma she had launched, tail fins shaking rapidly. "What was that? What the utter frag was that?!"

"I think that was the ghost." Soundwave whimpered, shakily getting back to his feet and inspecting the ruined console. "What an awful trap! The ghost must lure in humans with its videos, and when they least expect it, it jumps out and eats their souls! Thank Primus you managed to kill it, Slipstream."

"I know." The jet murmured, recovering quickly and sounding a tad happier now. "I actually killed a ghost! I saved our souls! I wonder if I could get a promotion for this!"

As she and Soundwave considered that, the door opened, and in swaggered Starscream.

"Hey everyone, what's going on-WHAT THE FRAG DID YOU DO TO MY SHIP'S CONSOLE?!"

"Oh, um..... we.....BARRICADE DID IT."

 

.........BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!  

OH MA GAD.......this made my night...... !!!

 

Drabble 21--The Future

Science never solves a problem without creating ten more.

He gently turned the coarse adjustment knob so that the distance between the objective and the stage was shortened, hoping to focus the image he struggled to perfect as he squinted through the ocular lens with one optic. In, out. In, out. The blurry picture before him adjusted in its state of blurriness, becoming more and less out of focus for another moment before he decided to switch objectives. Adjusting the light source instinctively, he resumed turning the coarse adjustment with as much care as he could muster, unsatisfied to find the specimen still out of focus beyond his observation panes.

He leaned back a little, gripped the body tube as if it would help, and switched objectives again, this time to the weakest one. He hummed a bit of unsatisfied derailment as he resumed adjusting the objective's distance, scolding himself for not starting with the weakest one. For some reason he had just assumed that the high-power objective lens was right for the job, despite using it rather rarely. He rationed that it was a low-power microscope, meant for studying biological specimen that wasn't necessarily microscopic. Still didn't excuse his silly doltishness, nonetheless.

A smile suddenly met his otherwise concentrated face plates and he finally removed his hand from the body tube. One fine tune of the coarse adjustment, and the image of a creature--small, but not justifiably microscopic--finally came into perfect focus. It appeared to be some kind of bug, a long abdominal figure with a small head, six long legs, fine hair, and several antenna. He hummed again as he looked at it, moving away from the eye piece momentarily to jot a few observations down.

"Insectoid, metallic exoskeleton, probably made of a monocircuitry system from the looks of it," he murmured to mostly himself, scribbling away at a data-pad adjacent to the microscope.

"It's just another water bug," a disinterested voice interjected having heard Hound's muse. "Nothin' special." Yards away in the other corner of the room, Hubcap sat in a chair, his peds propped on the edge of a counter and pushing backwards so that the forefront of the chair's legs were hoisted upwards. He idly rocked back and forth in the position, peering up at the ceiling having completed today's work and not wishing to engage more. He loved science like most others that occupied the lab, but had only stayed behind in Hound's favor. His optics were too tired by now to be looking through eye pieces at specimen half the size of a fourth of one of his neurals.

Hound rolled his eyes at the haphazard remark, getting the implication, but returning to his observation nonetheless. "Probably not," he agreed, scrupulously beginning to shift the slide. "All I know is that I've never seen it in person before. Therefore, it is special enough to me." His voice had progressed into a candid mutter by the time he had finished the retort.

"Hope it's not a deadly Insecticon larva," another loud baritone voice chimed in, the unmistakable twang belonging indefinitely to Outback, whom was loitering at another counter a few paces away. "Watch it grow in two seconds flat and take down the whole lab right after it eats us all."

Hound had looked up to eye Outback as the latter had talked, but rolled his optics again at the outrageous hypothesis; which weren't unexpected out of the mouth of the imaginative Outback. Subsequently, Hound looked back down into the eye piece skeptically but couldn't help but be perturbed by the mentioning of Insecticons...not that what Outback had said could be remotely correct, of course. Besides, this specimen was dead--

Hound leaped back with a gasp, a chill wracking his frame up and down. The six-legged, multi-antenna, fuzzy little bug had twitched. Looking at it as close as he had, the sudden jerk of its eerie frame suddenly made Hound feel as though it were crawling all over his face. He looked around to ensure that none of his company had noted his jump and then hastily proceeded to remove the slide from the stage muttering, "nerves, it was just nerves," as he did.

Hubcap noticed and removed his legs from the counter, letting the chair fall down on all fours. "You're done?" he excitedly inquired.

"Yeah," Hound said, placing the slide in its respective spot in a small filer nearby. "Let me just get some cleaning done. Then we'll leave."

As the gold-clad mech began to move about the tabletop to swipe away stray fluids and put equipment away in their respective cabinets, Smokescreen had leaned forward and away from the wall that he been supported on moments ago in the back of the room. The atmosphere had fallen into silence as Hound was wrapping it all up, though this was the only time he had taken interest. Like Hubcap and Outback, he had completed his own work and was staying behind simply to await his friends but had, the whole time, been lost in his own reverie of various thoughts. In the sudden interest of breaking the inherent silence, he idly brought up what had been on his mind; "Have you guys been watching the grid, lately?" he quietly asked, walking nearer to where Outback was, perpendicular to Hound's station.

"Hum," Hubcap murmured back, having his legs back on the table. "All that stuff they're saying about that gladiator guy?"

Hound paused for a moment, looking unsurely at the trio out of the corner of his optics. After a moment, he resumed putting his equipment away, but with an unnerved feeling suddenly put on his shoulders.

"I'm so sick of the coverage on that," Hubcap continued. "They've been spewing the same nonsense for ages now."

"I don't know," Smokescreen quietly interjected, "seems like it's escalating--"

"Always 'seems like it's escalating,' because that's how the media tries to make it sound" Outback quickly interrupted. "All those political people and those figureheads, they always say the same slag. We're always hearing, 'down with the caste system,' and 'we're running out of energy, frag us,' etc, etc, etc."

"Do you...really think it's going to happen?" Hound had turned around and was walking back to the group by now, wiping his servos clean in finality with a loose rag. He voice had been uncharacteristically timid when he voiced the question, but he couldn't withhold exposure of his anxiety. Inasmuch, it showed brightly in his furrowed optics.

"Think that what's going to happen, kid?" Outback had probed, but his voice had grown more sympathetic.

Hound tossed the rag aside and closed the distance between himself and the other three bots. "A war."

The gold mech couldn't help but notice Hubcap and Smokescreen exchange unsure glances, hesitant to be the spokesperson to the big question; both had their definite theories on the subject, but neither wanted to be frank about it, knowing Hound's hesitance to approach the subject. In any event, the possibility of a war breaking out was rarely discussed, especially in public areas or at occupations...it had grown to become a violation of basic etiquette.

Outback on the other hand, wasn't quite as sensitive. "Pfft, war? No. That's what they keep saying, but c'mone. There's not going to be a war. If there was, it would have fraggin' happened by now."

He looked at Hubcap and Smokescreen for reassurance, but neither had relinquished their own inquisitive expressions. "I don't know, Outback," Smokescreen had voiced shortly thereafter, "I've been wreaking havoc on this planet for a while, and I don't recall ever seeing anything quite like this. The two parties are in huge disagreement. This Orion guy, there are all these conspiracies about him and Megatr—D-16--"

"I've been wreaking havoc on this planet for longer than you have, and I tells ya that there's not going to be war," Outback sharply retorted. "Politics. You know politics. Fake smiles and frowns all the time. Everybody thinks they get the insides, but they know as much as we do."

"Primus," Hound suddenly breathed right before Hubcap was to retort. The former twisted around and began to fiddle with a dial on one of the microscopes sitting idly at the nearest station. "Outback's got to be right. There can't be a war. Not here. Imagine what it would do."

"Whatcha mean?" Hubcap asked, leaning forward. It was rare to find Hound in a state like this; he was usually sure of everything.

"I mean...can you imagine...all the destruction? All this life...it's our passion. War would ruin it all."

Smokescreen approached Hound and idly put a hand on the latter's shoulder. "War doesn't mean the end of everything, ya know," he said. "It all depends. Say there is one in the future; might not last long. Say it does last long. Say it causes as much destruction as you fear. Doesn't mean you have to stop studying."

"There might be nothing to study."

"There's always science," Hubcap interjected, replacing his legs on the counter and resuming to push back the chair. "Rest assured that."

"If a mech's processor be wandering, let him study," Outback added.

Hound sighed and shook his head. "I study life. Life is a contingency of peace. War is the opposite of peace. You do the math."

Outback joined Smokescreen next to Hound as well and authoritatively put his hands on his hips. "Young mech, you've got it in your head that war is the end of everything. It's just a bunch of soldiers beating each other up for a while until we can start fresh...that is, if it happens, and it's not going to. Besides, just because our society's peace is temporarily interrupted, doesn't mean you have to stop doing incredible things."

Hound's lip twitched upward into a smile for all of a moment before his face immediately sunk back into a sullen expression of apathy. "I don't want to stop doing incredible things. War comes? We'll enlist. We have to. It's our duty."

Hubcap regained the group's attention when he replied with a smug snort. "No offense, professor, can't really imagine you fighting."

Hound narrowed his eyes at the outspoken colleague. "I'll do what I have to do," he proclaimed, turning away from the microscope and beginning to trek toward the exit, though stopping halfway there and leaning against the counter in the front of the room. His face now bore a childish pout. "What I have to do. Not necessarily what I want to do."

"Now what are you speaking?" Hubcap asked, growing impatient.

"Forget it."

"No really, Hound," Smokescreen said, "We're in no rush, might as well spill your circuits. You've already been to places unknown, discovered new specimen and been where--" he paused to strike a dramatic pose and changed his tone into a humorously dramatic intonation, "no Cybertronian has been before. Just out of curiosity, what else do you want to do?"

Hound sighed and let his helm sag. He hesitated for a moment, but decided there was no point in not complying. "I've been hopping from base to base, studying biology independently for cycles and cycles now. I've reached far and wide...and there's nothing I love to do more than share my knowledge. I always found it fitting to...well, I always wanted to teach people. I think it's time for that."

"Oh yeah, yeah, you're ready," Hubcap candidly agreed, leaping out of the chair and heading towards Hound to goad an exit. "Look, quit worrying about it. Fear of the future is irrational."

Smokescreen began to head towards the other two as well, followed behind by Outback. "As much as I hate to say it, Hubcap is right. We don't know what's going to happen in terms of the war, so there's no point in worrying about it. I think it's great that you want to start educating others. Don't wait in fear of the war. Just go for it."

Hound smiled at his friend's consoling and leaned up from the counter, starting toward the door with the others. "Thanks, Smokscreen," he said fondly. "But war or no war...I can only hope to be prepared for whatever's coming in the future."

Outback trailed the trio as the last on the way out, being sure to hit the lights and close the door behind him as they retreated. For a final time on the subject, he scoffed indifferently and confidently uttered, "Ah, please with the war. There isn't going to be a war."

 

Oh my goodness, Jamocha, that was so good! Very nice interpretation of a pre-war science group; very nice!  

My only complaint? I'm not using the caste system/Orion Pax/D-16 origin  

And now, for typical silly school-based humanised AU. I found this one loitering around and decided to finish it before the next one. ENJOY.

Drabble 22: Highschool of the Bee.

She really was pretty.

Bumblebee, clad in his typical attire of the yellow hoodie, the black shirt and the navy-blue jeans, gave a small sigh of contentment, elbows propped on the desk, head propped on his elbows, blue eyes gazing in unrestrained admiration as he stared across the mess hall and its equally potent mess of students at the most gorgeous girl in the world, sat at the other side of the expansive room.

Long flowing black hair, sleek and shiny as if made from strands of pure obsidian, a lean and tall frame practically oozing with both feminine curves and subtle muscle brought on by extensive work in the gym, smooth pale skin akin to marble and bright green eyes that conveyed both a gentle kindness and a keen mind.

Ah yes. There was no girl quite like Slipstream.

There was no end of praise for her from the student body and the teachers! She was smart, knowledgeable, logical, rational, an intelligent and capable student. She was quite nice, pleasant to others and willing to be helpful, and with an appreciation of jokes, though, admittedly, not very good at telling them. And of course, she was stunningly beautiful.

Bumblebee offered a quick thanks to Primus for his creative skills in forging such a beauty.

There was just one rather atypical feature with Slipstream, and that-

"Hey, Bee!"

The blonde-haired boy was startled out of his fond musings by the sudden shout and quickly worked on making himself look 'cool' with a trying-way-too-hard casual pose of leaning back in his seat with arms folded and a bored expression. But of course, Evac was no fool to his friend's habits, and, as he sat down, asked: "What were you so busy ogling at?"

To say Evac was big was an understatement; he was huge! Definitely six foot or so, and with crazy bulk to accompany his insane height, and he looked a bit silly fitting his mass on the small chair. Bumblebee was practically miniscule compared to Evac, but don't be fooled by his sheer size; Evac was a kind and friendly boy, in fact a bit shy and unsure at times, and he was the son of a well-respected local doctor and a former astronaut.

The smaller boy rolled his eyes: "Nothing, ogling nothing. Why would you say I'm ogling when I'm not ogling? I mean, I'm just sitting here, waiting for the bell to ring before we head off to Biology and stuff, you know?"

"I'm not stupid, Bee."

"No, of course not, I never said-"

"You're implying I'm stupid by insinuating I can't tell when you're ogling at something or other. Now, remember, Bee, I'm a lot bigger than you, and I can give you a super wedgie right on top of this table for everyone to see, unless you stop implying I'm stupid and tell me what you were ogling at."

Bumblebee paused. Evac rarely ever referenced his size as an intimidating factor, hence why the smaller student was understandably wary about maintaining his denial of staring. A super wedgie in front of everyone gathered in the mess hall was not how he'd like to end lunchtime, and he knew better than to push his luck with the larger boy, so, he relented.

"Okay, fine, I'll tell you what I was looking at. But, don't tell anyone, okay?"

"Okay, I promise."

Evac drew his finger over his chest in the shape of a cross, right over his heart, and smiled reassuringly. He never broke his promises, and that's one of the many reasons he was Bumblebee's best friend in this school.

So, he leaned in towards the larger boy, who also leaned in, and muttered: "I was looking at Slipstream."

Evac raised an eyebrow in curiosity, before glancing in the direction Bumblebee tilted his head towards and noted the gorgeous girl at her table, before stating: "You're always looking at her. Has the little bee found his favourite flower now?"

He laughed at his own joke and Bumblebee punched his arm, muttering: "Bad pun is bad, Evac."

"Doesn't answer the question."

"I admit, I like her. Well, I really like her. She's nice, she's pretty, she's smart, she's helpful. She's, like, got all the best things you'd ever want in a girl! I hear she even plays video games! Do you think she likes Pokémon? I really hope so, because, gosh, that'd be something we'd have in common!"

Evac just shook his head, chuckling now: "You're smitten, Bee. Personally, I don't really see all the fuss about her. Sure, she's nice and smart and all, but lots of girls are. Besides, I've always found her.... you know... her arm kinda weird."

And across the hall, as if on cue, Slipstream raised said arm, her left arm, to wave at someone. The upper arm was the same smooth skin as the rest of her, but at the elbow and beyond, it became silver metal, wires and clamps locking the prosthetic robotic onto the flesh section, the rounded hand bearing four spindly fingers, one arranged as a thumb and the other three facing forward.

Bumblebee had heard many rumours of how she had received such an addition; a horrible accident, an attack from a criminal or even an experiment for more extreme cybernetic enhancements! But personally, he believed it was merely a replacement after a bad accident, and personally, he found it a quite intriguing addition to Slipstream

Thus, he huffed: "I don't think it's weird. I think it's cool. Robot arms are cool."

"If you say so. Are you going to keep staring at her then, or are you actually going to go talk to her or something?"

Argh, Evac, always asking the bluntly honest and awkward questions. It was probably a trait inherited by his father, since Bee was well aware of old man Ratchet's equally infuriating yet accurate remarks. Still, it was a question he himself really needed to answer, never mind tell Evac, so he just shrugged and stayed silent.

Thankfully, Evac didn't press with his curiosity, and settled on pulling a sandwich out of his bag and chowing down, giving Bumblebee some time to think, a rare action from the normally exuberant and motor-mouthed chap.

Was he going to go talk to her? Now? Later? That was the awkward bit, the initial conversation. Staring from afar was safe but unproductive, while an actual chat started by him would be risky yet perhaps rewarding. It made him a bit uneasy, the idea she'd reject him, maybe even never want to have anything to do with him, but there was the reassurance that she was at least nice enough to not totally crush him. Right? Right.

Still, it was intimidating. She wasn't as physically terrifying as, say, Flamewar, but she was still a good deal taller than him, easily one of the tallest students in the school, well-exercised and equipped with a metal arm that could probably squash his face. The idea of somehow, accidentally or not, angering her and earning a brutal retribution was a distinct risk in this whole talk-to-girls process.

But, as aforementioned, she was nice! That was practically her defining trait, the reason she was studying Medical Care, the reason she was so endearing to all but the most pessimistic and mean of the student body, such as that utter jerk Barricade. So he really shouldn't be too fearful of mockery, suffering, all that jazz!

Still, he was a bit unsure. He bit his lip, contemplating possible ways of successfully talking to the most awesome girl in the school, maybe even the world, before his eyes fell upon a poster attached to the doors of the mess hall.

A split second of comprehension.

"I got it!" Bumblebee declared, loud enough to earn a few bewildered stares from nearby students and causing Evac to jump in his seat in shock, almost choking on his sandwich. "I know what I can do!"

"W-Wha-" A loud cough, a second cough, then Evac could properly speak: "Bah, what?! What can you do?"

"I'll ask Slipstream to the end-of-term School Dance!" Bumblebee hollered excitedly, all but buzzing in his seat as he imagined his glorious new mission. "It'll be the perfect way to spend time with her, get to know her, and maybe, if I'm super duper lucky, maybe she'll think I'm really cool, and we can be girlfriend and boyfriend!"

Evac was flabbergasted: "How the Pit do you go from dejected nervous guy to freaking win-heart-at-the-dance confident so fast?"

"It's a great idea! Assuming she says yes, of course, but still! Great idea!"

"Probably not."

"Why not?! Why would you say that?! It's perfect! Like I said, great opportunity to get to know each other, good way to impress her, good way to-"

"You do realise that pretty much everyone has that same plan?"

A pause.

"What."

The larger boy rolled his eyes, again flabbergasted at his rather odd friend: "Dude, you understand Slipstream is super popular, right? Practically every guy in this school drools over her, and I bet you practically every guy in this school is planning on taking her to the dance too. You're gonna have so much competition, Bee, you'll feel like a fish shoved into a net full of.... full of fish!"

Bumblebee considered this for a moment, before he gave a melodramatic wail of utter melodramatic pain and slumped face-first onto the table.

Evac finished his sandwich and added: "Plus, you forgot the real threat about asking Slipstream out to a dance. Or so much as talking to her."

The muffled reply from the dejected blonde: "What?"

Evac hefted up the smaller boy by the hood of his hoodie so he could actually look up, and pointed.

Oh, oh yeah.

Sitting next to Slipstream was arguably perhaps the scariest girl Bumblebee had ever seen in his life; Airachnid. She was pretty, sure, and had a wicked sense of style, but make no mistake, she was vicious. She'd cut down student and teacher alike with a brutal wit and a lethal condescending demeanour, her nails were probably sharp enough to cut through a tank, and she was an ace at Chemistry, meaning she knew exactly what horrifying concoctions were needed to create the most potent stink-bombs you'd ever smelt in your life.

One guy, an arrogant egotist called Starscream, had insulted her once. After his locker exploded into his face with a terrifying mix of gelatinous gunk and brutal odours, he never so much as implied anything negative about her again.

Slipstream was the only one who could keep Airachnid under control, and Slipstream was the only person Airachnid was actually nice to. But this just meant she was terrifyingly defensive of her friend; no-one got to so much as come near Slipstream without her approval, and Bumblebee doubted he had any kind of approval from her.

Why was Evac always so brutal in undermining his dreams?!

Bumblebee huffed, before straightening, tall and proud (well, not very tall) and declared: "Well, regardless of the odds, regardless of the difficulties, I will ask Slipstream to the dance, even if it's the last thing I do! Which I hope it isn't because the actual dance comes after asking her to the dance and I don't wanna miss that."

"Well said. Let's go to Biology, the bell rang like two seconds ago."

---

"Bumblebee, wait a moment."

As the other students filed out of the room, glad to be free for the rest of the day, eager to rejoin the sunlight, but alas, poor Bumblebee was halted by the request of his teacher, Mr Boulder, who had a look on his face that seemed like an odd cross between amusement and resignation.

Bumblebee darted over to the desk and stood before it, curious and impatient: "Yes sir?"

“Well, as much you’d love to run free for the rest of today, I’m afraid that you, my lad, owe me an afterschool detention.”

Now that certainly shocked the blonde. He stared at Mr Boulder slack-jawed and wide-eyed in horror, the teacher adopting a sort of bemused smile at the student’s reaction, before he protested: “But sir, why?! I didn’t do anything-“

“You were the one who put pins on Barricade’s seat. Much as I appreciate the concept of humiliating such an awful character, I am nevertheless obligated to punish students for such transactions.”

Aw, leave it to Mr Boulder to both pat him on the back for a job well done, so to speak, and adhere to the school’s strict sense of punishing even minor faults. But then, it would be foolish not to expect such intense rules in a school ran by Mr Megatron, the terrifying and physically massive Headmaster.

Bumblebee sighed in dejection, before perking up and stating: “But sir, my father doesn’t know that-“

“I rang him earlier and arranged this with him. He says you are to take the bus home.” Mr Boulder interjected, grinning wider now, having easily predicted the student’s strategy. “Hound and I were old friends in school after all, and I learned the best pranks from him; you’re your father’s son with the tricks you pull, Bumblebee.”

He wasn’t sure whether to be proud at the compliment or surprised at the idea of his father being as eager a prankster as he was during his own school days. You learn something new every day.

Regarldess, he sat back down and sighed dejectedly; his punishment was writing lines (specifically, “I must not pin other students.”), over and over again for half an hour. Oh, this wasn’t how he wanted to end his day! Who would have thought pranking dumb Barricade would turn against him like this?

But then again, hearing the jerk’s cry of pain and shock and ensuing rant had been hilarious; the whole class had been in uproar over the mean bully’s humiliation. He grinned to himself, and got down to writing some lines.

I must not pin other students. I must not pin other students. I must not pin other students. I must not pin other students. I must not pin other students-

The door opened, and both student and teacher glanced up to see who had arrived. Mr Boulder had a sort of expectant smile on his face, having apparently been expecting the visitor’s arrival. Bumblebee, on the other hand, simply stared in surprise.

It was Slipstream, rucksack slung around her back, looking a tad flushed, as if she had run all the way over to the Science Block, clutching a thick pile of papers in her hands, and Bumblebee was totally surprised at her appearance; what was she doing here after school? He didn’t know she took Biology!

But my goodness, even when a tad exerted from a run and laden down with a bunch of notes and stuff, she looked gorgeous.

“Sorry I’m late, sir.” She stated, panting a little bit, holding out the papers to Mr Boulder. “One of the Stalkers got loose and my class had to chase it down.”

“No problem at all, Slipstream. I trust you brought your essay and homework?”

“Eassy, yes, homework, no, I didn’t have much time-“

“Don’t get yourself worked up. You can finish off the homework now, and I’ll start marking your essay. Why don’t you sit over there; don’t worry about Bumblebee here, he doesn’t sting!”

Mr Boulder gave a hearty laugh at his joke, and Bumblebee felt a tad embarrassed that he was the subject of it, averting his eyes slightly when Slipstream glanced at him, a small laugh of her own sounding, before she thanked the teacher and strode over a desk at least two seats away from the other student, slinging her bag down, whipping a pen out of her pocket and settling down.

Before she put pen to paper, she cast a curious glance at him, and for a second he felt enthralled by her bright green eyes, before he managed to regain his senses and give a friendly smile, really not wanting to look stupid in front of her.

And to his astonishment, she gave a smile back, before shifting her attention to her homework and beginning to write.

Bumblebee on the other side was promptly stunned and amazed. She had actually smiled back. A girl far beyond his social standing, older, smarter and more sophisticated than him, had returned his smile. She'd actually smiled back.

Part of his mind exploded with confidence, demanding he leap atop the table and profess his love- I mean, affection, affection for her. The rest of his mind told him to keep his cool and just do his lines, but nevertheless, he grinned widely to himself in rejuvenated cheerfulness. She'd smiled at him, right? So she certainly didn't view him as a louse or anything, which was always good news!

Now his detention wasn't so bad anymore! In fact, it was practically a blessing in disguise! Never had he imagined he'd actually share a classroom with Slipstream, never had he imagined she'd go so far as to smile back at him, and all it had taken for such a surprising delightfulness was for him to stick some pins in Barricade! Fantastic!

He promptly returned his attention to his lines, feeling actually quite happy with Mr Boulder's decision to hold him back. Every so often, he'd cast another glance at the older student, admiring the intense dedication she was putting into her work; her eyes never wavered from either the work itself or the text book next to it, and her hand wrote lightly and with precise and secure grace. Ah, such a talented girl she was.

He turned his eyes back to his paper, but not before noticing Mr Boulder casting a curious glance at him. He looked at the teacher, a tad suspicious, and Mr Boulder looked back, before he winked knowingly and shifting his attention to Slipstream's essay.

Oh boy. Why was he so damn obvious? But then, Mr Boulder was Hound's old friend, and Bumblebee couldn't be surprised that his Biology teacher shared some of the same habits and knowledge of his father.

Ah well. Not like he'd tell anyone.

Time flew quickly with cheerful thoughts of his crush infatuating every thought, and his lines flowed smoothly, as smoothly as her gorgeous hair. I must not pin other students. I must not pin other students. I must not pin other students-

"Times up!" Mr Boulder declared, glancing back at the clock behind his desk. "You two are free to go now. See you both tomorrow!"

"Bye sir!" Bumblebee stated cheerfully, seizing his bag and dashing over to the teacher, depositing the bunch of papers before him, and darting out through the classroom door. "See you later!"

But rather than make his escape now, he promptly stopped by the door that led outside and made a show of dumping his bag down and pretending to rummage through it. This was quite possibly his only chance of possibly securing some kind of interaction with Slipstream, away from other students, away from teachers and most especially away from Arachnid! If he could strike up a conversation, maybe he might be able to ask her to the-

"Are you okay?"

He jumped up in shock, spun round, almost tripping over his feet when he backed up a few steps, looking quite panicked. Slipstream blinked slightly, quite surprised by fast the other student had reacted, before she spoke again: "Sorry. You were struggling with your bag or something."

Oh gosh she was right there talking to him actually talking to him- And wow, her voice was lovely- and he really needed to play it cool otherwise he'd screw this one chance he had at talking to her and stuff and think quickly gotta recover now and act cool-

"Oh, oh yes, the bag!" Bumblebee laughed, jittery and still quite shocked. "The zipper wasn't really zipping like a good zipper should zip and it's crazy really how zippers can be kinda zippy and..... and wow, I really got a shock."

She gave an apologetic sort of chuckle, before replying: "Sorry. Didn't mean to scare you.... Bumblebee, was it?"

Oh wow, she said his name. Gah.

"Yep, that's me, Bumblebee, not stinging at all, nope, just regular old Bumblebee, well not that old-"

Shut up shut up stop chattering it's not cool.

She seemed a tad amused though, tilting her head slightly in the manner of one watching a rather humorous trick, before she stated: "Well, Bumblebee, may I ask what you were doing in there?"

She shifted her legs slightly, intending to move for the door and shift their conversation into a mobile state, and he quickly swept up his bag to follow her, chattering: "Well, truth be told, I had to do a detention. 'Cause, you know, I stuck some pins on old Barricade's chair and teacher caught onto me."

Slipstream suddenly paused and turned to him with an incredulous look on her face, and for a moment he wondered if he had somehow insulted her or something. Was Barricade her friend?! A relative?! Had he-

And then she burst out laughing, an overwhelming kind of laughter that had her doubling over slightly, arms gripping her abdomen tightly as she continued to laugh, and words could not quite describe how relieved Bumblebee was at the sight- and how wonderful her laugh was- and how plain funny it was! So he started laughing too, and that seemed to provoke more laughter and it took them a minute or two to recover.

"Oh, oh Primus!" Slipstream giggled, finally standing up straight, wiping away a humoured tear as she grinned widely at him. "No way! You stuck pins to Barricade?! Ha, that's the best thing I've heard all day!"

"Well, he was being kinda, you know, Barricade-y to some people, and I thought to myself, what's poking him today? So, heck, why not actually confirm what's been poking him!"

Oh wow, this was actually quite great. Not only was he actually managing a conversation with Slipstream, he'd actually brought her to tears with laughter and all thanks to his prank on Barricade! Wow, what a way to end the day.

"Good logic." She said cheerfully, grinning at him in appreciation (oh gosh her smile was so bright!). "Barricade annoys the Pit out of me too sometimes. Nice of you to perk him up a bit."

"A bit, yeah." He replied, winking at her (oh wow did he seriously just wink). "Or more like a riot!"

She laughed at that, but did not reply, and their walk across the courtyard fell into silence. Not a bad or awkward silence though; it was a pleasant silence, one where the conversation had ended on a good note, and Bumblebee was actually still quite shocked he'd managed to get it this far. Who would have thought the best way to chat to Slipstream was with a prank on the local jerk?

But though he was proud to have gotten this far, he still needed to bring up the major issue: Asking her to the dance. Such a concept was brutally unnerving in how badly it could go wrong, and he was a tad unsure if she would appreciate such a dramatic change in subject or the request itself. What if she was already going with someone else? What if she didn't want to go? What if she HATED dances?!

Oh Primus he was working himself up.

But oh my, they were approaching the bus stop, and he could already see the very bus idling along to it, so if he was going to say anything, it would have to be now!

He mustered up his courage and-

"Well, this is where I have to go, Bumblebee." Slipstream stated, stopping just before they reached the bus stop, causing him to jerk to a halt, words dying in his throat. "I have to go the Resources Centre until my dad can pick me up. But thanks for telling me about Barricade; I really needed a laugh like that!"

She smiled sweetly at him, and oh Primus, it exemplified her already potent beauty to the point he wondered how his heart hadn't just fainted yet.

His voice box managed to jolt into life: "Well, um, sure, no problem, happy to help! It was fun, yes, fun fun, glad to have chatted to you and.... and stuff!"

Primus he was an awkward little idiot. Still, he smiled back at her, quite impressed at the fact that even on tip toes she'd still be more than a head taller than him, and delighted to have come this far and really really happy with how nice she was, so he reflexively offered her his hand to shake.

She shifted to respond, but hesitated slightly, just as the bus squeaked to a stop nearby, doors swinging open, and he realised his offered hand corresponded to her mechanical arm. She seemed unsure, even apprehensive, and he considered just offering the other hand, but then she cautiously extended her arm, and when he kept his hand there, promptly clasped it in a handshake.

Her robotic hand was very smooth, a tad cold, like a spoon that had just been in a fridge, and the fingers kind of spindly, but it was nice. It was a part of Slipstream after all; he had no idea how Evac could be weirded out by it. He smiled slightly at the thought, and that made her smile too, almost relieved. Had she been worried he might be uncomfortable with the metallic appendage? Huh.

She withdrew her hand then, bade him goodbye and set off, and he stared after her for a moment, watching her stride quickly and purposefully away, and for a moment, he wondered if that had meant something, letting him shake her robotic arm. The thought made his legs wobble, before the bus driver, a large, muscular and intimidating woman that everyone called Strika, called: "Hey, kid! I'm not gonna wait all day!"

He promptly dashed over to the bus, offered an apology and the money necessary for the ticket home, and as he prepared to secure a seat, Strika stated: "Good luck, by the way. You'll need it with someone like her."

Ah, damn it. Why was he so obvious?

---

It was good to be home! He darted up the pathway to the front door, pulled out his house key, twisted it into the lock, opened the door and jumped in, shutting the door behind him and shouting: "I'm home! Start the celebrations, Bumblebee is back in the hive!"

He heard his mother laugh and affectionately welcome him back from the living room, and he was sure he heard his father chortling from upstairs, but the main event was the rumbling of something big coming down the stairs, and he had barely reached the hallway when an utterly massive dog thundered down the stairs and leapt at him, affectionately knocking him back and licking his face, earning peals of laughter from the boy.

"Ah, stop it, Grimlock! Cut it out, you crazy happy crazy pup, you!"

Grimlock simply gave a bark (which the neighbours likened to a dinosaur roaring) and allowed the cheerful Bumblebee back onto his feet, affectionately hugging the huge dog and rubbing his furry back. They'd bought Grimlock from the pound a few years back, despite his rather disturbing past; bad people had pitted him in illegal dog fights, and thus the poor guy's frame was ransacked with scars, bite marks and missing lumps of hair here and there.

Still, despite the dog's brutal past, intimidating size and aggressive temperament, Bumblebee had taken a liking to him, and it seemed Grimlock took a liking to him as well, and though he still didn't like his mum or dad much, and outright hated the neighbours, strangers and the mailman, Grimlock was easily one of Bumblebee's absolute best friends and not the nasty biting thing he used to be. Apparently the pound had been days away from putting him down.

Regardless, finishing off Grimlock's welcoming ear tickle, Bumblebee was promptly greeted by his father, Hound, who accepted the hug his son gave him, noting that while he had told his mother that he'd be disappointed with Bumblebee's detention, he was actually very proud of his son for pulling off a neat trick on Barricade.

"Primus knows that boy needs a couple of lessons taught to him." Hound stated, affectionately mussing Bumblebee's bright yellow hair. "I've had trouble with that lad before and I'm quite surprised his parents haven't given him a good spanking or ten."

"Well, he won't be happy at all after today." Bumblebee sniggered, rubbing Grimlock's head when the dog nuzzled his side for attention. "Got a few pins in his butt, and then he got sent off to Headmaster Megatron for causing a commotion!"

"Oooh, he got sent to Megatron? In that case, Primus help the poor boy!" Hound joked, the two of them heading to the kitchen, Grimlock sauntering ahead to find his water bowl. "Well, I'll rest well tonight knowing he got an earful from that tyrant."

"Is Megatron really a tyrant?"

"No, but he's scary as heck."

"True, true."

"So, anything exciting at school today?"

"Nah, not much. Same old, same old today."

"Oh really? Because that's not what I thought."

Bumblebee tilted his head in curiosity as he set his bag down on the kitchen top and pulled his lunch box out of it. "What did you think would happen?"

"Well-" Hound said, his eyes twinkling slightly in mischief, grinning cheekily at his son. "-I heard it from a reliable source that my little Bee has, shall we say, found a flower. Wanna tell me about that?"

Oh Primus no.


Oh Bee, you so obvious  

 

And that's the problem with assuming, isn't it? XP

Anyways, I'll risk the double-post to review in the thread. I love, love, loved this last drabble, it was so funny! There were so many enjoyable things about it, but the symbolism of all the human manifestations were so endearingly humorous and fitting, almost to a thought-provoking extent. Evidently, the two young rookies have been manifested as the two high school students who are best friends. The kindhearted (ish) medic on the bad guys' team has been transformed into the well-rounded and wholesome crush of the innocent, awkward, diminutive, and oh-so obvious Bumblebee. Appropriately, the two students' fathers are none other than their respective mentors (Hound was a trickster?! and "Old man Ratchet." LOL!) Barricade and Starscream are the local school jerks ( one of whom even the teacher is endeared to see tormented), and Megatron is the big scary governer of the school. Just as I was thinking, "where does Grimlock fit into all this?" He's Bumblebee's snarly pet dog with a tragic past that gives him an otherwise aggressive appearance and temparmant, but loves his human. How creative! It's perfect!

It was so much fun. XD The characters were very much themselves, despite being a different species in a different universe. And the situation itself is very sweet and lighthearted...most of us can relate to Bumblebee, right? It's hard for me, a person who reserves solitude, to admit that I've easily found myself in his shoes in the past. I had (have) the biggest crush on a kid in my drum line (who's older than me, just like Slipstream is older than Bumblebee)...unfortunately, my situation hadn't yet turned out as perfectly as Bumblebee's, but there's hope~  

Such a nice story. And nice touch with Bumblebee unwittingly shaking Slipstream's metallic hand at the end (it's also obviously a cool homage to her arm in canon). How so very sweet. XD If you ever write another one in the future, I'd be totally game for it. Haha.

We were missing Jazz, though. Head canon! He's the school's band director. XDDDD

 

I will continue this!!!

Pt.2
----------------------

Starscream still wonder what went wrong. The date went well and Airachinid said that she would like to do it again. So he did and each date they got closer. The war broke out during there time together. Yet they joined the Decepticon's and still saw eachother. Each date still going well...even in combat they had eachothers backs. Till finally one day he asked her the big question.

"Will you be mine's forever?" said the nervous Starscream. He felt that all was right with the world with her answer. "Yes....OH YES SCREAMER!!!" She flung her arm's around him.

They decided to wait for there bonding. That was a fatal mistake sadly. As time went by they both went there separate ways. They stayed in contact and still saw eachother now and then. Yet as time went by Starscream got worried. Airachinid wasn't responding too his letters. Even missing some of there planned dates.

"That's where my light turned to grey I suppose...no...that IS when it all turned grey!!!" Starscream let out a angry vent and his eye's started misting abit as he remembered what happen that day. The day they saw eachother again.

 

Nice one Roadrage! But don't forget to maintain the Drabble title numbers so we don't pop in any wrong ones  

Drabble 24: Barricade goes to find a Mermaid.

"This must be the stupidest idea you've ever had. No, the stupidest idea anyone in the universe ever had."

Currently, the Darksyde was idly hovering above the Atlantic Ocean, the ship's bottom coming quite close to the water's surface, the water swirling around from the propulsion of the undercarriages thrusters. Within the chamber of the underside port, stood Barricade and Soundwave, the former standing directly on the hatch, the latter by the doorway.

"Shut up, Soundwave!" The Mustang snapped, flexing pieces of his frame and making sure his shielding was at full power, a large capsule attached to his back, which contained a reserve of Energon should he require it. "This is a fantastic plan and you're just jealous because you didn't think of it first!"

Soundwave's visor did that rolling-the-optics flicker. "Right. I'm jealous of the gullible idiot who's diving into the ocean to find mermaids. Who would have thought?"

"Not you, because you're dumb." The shock trooper snorted, satisfied with his systems check and declaring: "Right, I'm ready to go. Open the hatch, you ignorant fool, so I may attain my destiny! I'll find the mermaids, and get my wishes, and rule the universe!"

The Lamborghini shook his head as he stood by the button that would open the port and stated: "I'm telling you, Barricade, the Autobot was lying to you. Mermaids don't exist, and neither do magic wishes, and even if they did, I doubt any self-respecting magical sea creature would ever indulge a troglodyte like you."

"Just shut up and drop me! I'll let you know when I need pick-up!"

"Fine, fine. Drown for all I care."

"I don't even bre-"

Soundwave pushed the button, the hatch opened, and Barricade, now weighed down with a hefty capsule, dropped like a rock, screaming in shock as he plunged out of the ship and crashed into the water with a lovely splash.

This done, the Communications officer shut the hatch and muttered: "Primus, I hope he really DOES drown...."

Meanwhile, Barricade thrashed and cursed as he struggled to manoeuvre himself upright, the capsule weighing him down and sinking him fast. His legs attempted to kick out against the water, his arms flailed around, but alas, his metallic composition made this environment a rather awkward one for him.

Still, there was an urgency to his attempts to get his legs under him; if he hit the sea floor hard enough, the capsule might rupture and waste his precious Energon supply, or worse, somehow compress into itself and explode, which would also explode Barricade, which would hurt. Or be fatal. Depends.

Thankfully, though, he managed to tread enough water to start securing his legs beneath him, and just in time, for with a heavy clank, his feet touched the muddy seafloor, knees buckling slightly under the catching of his increased weight, before he stood up straight and glanced around.

The sea was a tad dark down here; the ship had been near the shoreline of the continent known as South America, so enough sunlight was breaching the surface to faintly illuminate his current position. A bunch of fish swam by, and he waved his hand at them, scaring them away.

Ha ha. Stupid fish.

Anyway, time for his true mission; find mermaids! It would be difficult, yes; the ocean was a titanic cesspool of stupid fish and stupid crabs and stupid whales, and it was really fragging big. But the long search would be worth it, once he found those magical hybrids and earned his wishes!

So, greedy in his intentions and confident in his rate of success, Barricade set off along the sea floor, deciding to scout this slightly lighted region first. Mermaids were half human, after all, and while Barricade typically shunned Earth biology as disgusting nonsense, he at least knew a human, or any mammal, required air to breath and thus any sea mammal would stick close to the surface. Mermaids, half human, half mammal, need air. Voila!

But then, they were also half fish, plus had magic powers, so that could account for them living deeper, or permanently underwater. Barricade paused and considered that, before shrugging and keeping to his original plan. No magical creature would waste such intriguing powers on stopping 70% of the planet from being a bit less annoying right? It would take much less effort to just keep to the surface.

A part of him wondered if that Autobot could have actually lied to him about this. The rest of him told that part to shut up, because no-one would be stupid enough to lie about something that granted wishes! Besides, rookies are dumb little twerps, so they were too dumb to concoct such an elaborate deception.

Satisfied, he continued on his trek.

Walking underwater, however, is boring. Especially if you're slow enough as it is being made of metal and carrying a heavy capsule, but there was nothing entertaining! Just dumb fish swimming away from him, maybe a dumb octopus slithering around, and he was fairly sure he could see a sunken ship brimming with golden stuff in the distance, but who cared. Argh, underwater, so boring.

Starscream would be disappointed; he'd had such faith in that singing crab's promise of life being better wherever it was wetter, but now Barricade would have to destroy his hopes by telling him the sea was boring.

Now that cheered him up. Nothing cheered him up quite like contemplating how to destroy Starscream's hopes and dreams. Except mutilating Hound of course. Mutilating Hound was the best thing in the universe. When he got his wishes, maybe he could wish for Hound to be immortal, so he could kill him again and again and again! What an idea!

But until then, he was bored. So he put on his radio. Underwater, the song only came out as garbled bubbly crap, but at least it was something noisy, not that quiet little slurping of water around him. The fish and the octopuses and the turtles and stuff didn't like it, but he didn't care, he had mermaids to find!

A part of him wondered if mermaids were scared of underwater noisy radios. The rest of him told that part to shut up and enjoy the weird noises!

A quest to find wishes left him quite contemplative indeed, as a lobster had to hurry out of the way of his careless feet. What about the other Decepticons? What would he do with them once he had all the magic powers he wanted?

Nighttrace could just go frag herself for all he cared, the boring stupid fluttery thing. Soundwave, probably banish him to some wayward planet as punishment for all the times he annoyed him. Starscream and his stupid wasp and his stupid Seekers would be his..... ah yes, clowns! Stupid clowns who did stupid stuff to entertain him! What fun that would be!

And Slipstream..... hmm. Maybe he could wish for her to be his girlfriend! He'd never had a girlfriend before, and humans liked them, so maybe he could have Slipstream for a girlfriend. Heck, idea, give Nighttrace an actual personality, and she could be a girlfriend too. And Airachnid, why the Pit not, they could all be his girlfriends once he got wishes!

Ah, the possibility of magical dominion over the universe enthralled him. He could hardly wait to find-

"Excuse me, could you please stop making those awful noises?"

What the frag?

He paused, turning off his radio, having just heard a very clear voice sound right next to him, a feminine voice of authority, yet caution. He turned to the left and saw nothing. He turned to the right and saw a, by human standards, gorgeous woman, with bright purple eyes, wavy silvery hair, some kind of intricate sash around the chest and, in place of legs, hips that instead curved into a long lithe tail, steel grey in colour, similar to the tail of those flipper things they called dolphins.

A mermaid. Wow, that had been quick.

Anyway, she was staring at him, with a mixture of annoyance and curiosity in her eyes, arms folded and tail idly waving to keep her in place. She seemed to be studying him, examining this metallic humanoid with a huge thing strapped to his back, sharp claws, plated armour and blood-red eyes, and he studied her; from head to tail, she had to be at least nine feet long, her torso a tad bigger than the average human and most of the length encompassed by the tail.

What a bizarre scenario, a small part of him mused. A metal being encountering a mystic hybrid, both from different worlds and different mediums. The rest of him told that part to shut up, because they found a mermaid already! Now all he had to was get some wishes from her, whether by persuasion or force, and then his reign would begin!

Dramatically, he declared: “Well, weird fish-human thing, I have come in search of your species in order to collect my wishes! Therefore, I demand you give me my wishes so I may have all the magical power needed to take over the universe!”

Well, it would have been a dramatic declaration, were it not for the fact his words came out as a gurgling bunch of bubbles, utterly incomprehensible. Ah, the conundrums of a land-based life-form attempting to speak the language of the sea.

But even as he silently cursed this damn liquid environment, the mermaid scoffed in disgust, having apparently understood him with whatever mermaid powers she has, stating: “Oh, how wonderful; yet another self-obsessed jerk caught up in delusions of tyranny hoping to snag a wish or ten. Well, no thank you, metal face. You can take your ego and shove it up your broken clam.”

With that said, she turned and swam off, and Barricade felt very insulted. Who was she to have such nerve as to accuse him of being self-obsessed?! What a jerk! Who said that to people? All he’d done was ask for a wish, and then she just flew off the handle!

Still, he wasn’t giving up that easily, and he (slowly) trudged after her, shouting: “Hey, hey, this conversation isn’t over! Don’t you know it’s rude to swim off in a middle of a chat?!”

She turned to him, stunned by such ignorance, before snapping: “You’re calling me rude?! You were the one who barged into MY home, harassing MY fellow sea creatures and getting up in MY face over wishes you only want for selfish purposes! What kind of idiot are you to think I’m the rude one on this equation?!”

Barricade stopped before her, revving violently and flexing his doors and claws, retorting: “Less of an idiot then you! You were the one who just ignored my bargain and called me names!”

She sputtered: “What bargain?! You just demanded I give you wishes! That’s not a bargain, that’s pure selfish demanding!”

Barricade wondered just how intelligent this species was supposed to be as he initiated a face palm and snapped: “Same difference. Can I get a wish now or are we gonna waste precious give-me-wishes time arguing?”

She seemed pretty furious now, completely outraged by this impudent individual who had such audacity as to just demand, demand, demand, and, eyes narrowing, teeth bared, hair start to wave violently, she snapped back: “You know what? Fine! I’ll give you a wish if you just go away!”

“Finally! I wish I was the strongest being in the whole universe!” He declared proudly, feeling pretty damn good with himself. At last, this pointless chatter with the rude fish-person had yielded a result! Now his wish would be granted, and he would rule over all!

The mermaid suddenly gave a sweet smile, as magical energies emerged and crackle in her hands, coalescing into a sphere of power, as she said: “No problem. Strongest being of the universe, coming right up.”

A smarter individual would have been perturbed or suspicious of her change in attitude, but Barricade simply grinned. Soon, his reign over all would commence!

--

Nighttrace entered Soundwave’s room, intending to ask him if he had seen Barricade anywhere, because Starscream wanted to send him out on a scouting run, but she was perplexed to see Soundwave giggling to himself, sat on his berth and playing with what seemed to be a glowing white sphere. How odd.

She fluttered over to him, flicking a curious antenna, and he replied: “Ah, Nighttrace. If you’re wondering what I’m holding, then I’ll be happy to tell you! Basically, Barricade went off in search of mermaids in order to get a wish from them, since they can apparently grant wishes or something.”

Nighttrace tilted her head in disbelief, and the Lamborghini noted: “True, I didn’t believe they existed either. But crazy as it sounds, Barricade found one within minutes. I know this because I met her myself when I brought the ship down to pick him up. Crazy, right?”

She nodded.

“Anyway, turns out he was being, you know, Barricade-y, and thus he insulted the mermaid- whose name is Alayla, by the way, she’s very nice- so that when she agreed to grant him a wish, it came out differently to how he expected. Basically, he wished to be the strongest being in the universe, so you know what she did? She created another universe! This tiny little sphere thing is actually an alternate dimension.”

Nighttrace was fascinated, and she leaned in. Sure enough, closer inspection of the glowing white sphere revealed a black spot in the middle, and in that black spot, she saw the tiny struggling form of-

“Yep, that’s Barricade.” Soundwave sniggered. “He’s the sole inhabitant of this tiny little universe ball thing, thus he is the strongest being in it. What a twist; rather than letting him rule this universe, she made a pathetic little copy to dump him in! How wonderful! Look closely, you can see him swearing.”

And indeed the tiny figure was, repeatedly performing many rude gestures and mouth motoring, clearly spouting out a whole load of curses.

Nighttrace actually giggled, and he was quite surprised, because she hardly ever talked, never mind laughed, but nevertheless, she promptly looked at him quizzically, and he admitted: “Well, no, when I got Barricade back, I didn’t get any wishes.”

He paused, before cheerfully adding: “But I think Alayla and I kind of hit it off! We had a good laugh about this, a nice chat as well, she’s got a wonderful wit to her. I’m seeing her again in a week; wanna help me find some waterproof car waxes so I can look decent?”

As Nighttrace nodded cheerfully and exchanged a high-five with the car, inside the tiny little universe sphere, Barricade continued swearing.

Notes: I don’t even know the physics behind sealing a new universe inside a tangible sphere that can be used as a ball by cheerful robots. All I do know is that it’s funny :3

 

  BARRICADE IS THE BEST SELF-ESTEEM MOTIVATOR.....he make s me feel great about my self!!!!