For Lonegamer7

The Lamborghini Extermination Squad

“Something’s not right.”

That was the first thing that popped out of Red Alert’s mouth as he stared at the multitude of monitors that made up Teletraan-1. It was also exactly what he was thinking.

Somewhere nearby, he heard the quiet – almost too quiet – shift of servos and pistons as well as the shuffling sound of metal on metal. “What’s not right?”

Red Alert noticed a matte-black figure moving towards him from out of the corner of his optics, and when he looked he saw Shadowrunner approaching, a curious look on her face. She was in the Command Center to input a report on a successful raid she and her sister, Nightraid, had conducted three days ago – a raid that had depleted the Decepticons’ stock of important and difficult-to-obtain supplies from Cybertron, and augmented their own.

In response to her question, though, Red Alert gestured to the monitors in front of him. “I am getting an unusual seismic reading from the desert around the Ark.”

Shadowrunner tilted her head slightly. “Well, you just checked the sensors yesterday. Maybe you might have increased their sensitivity a little bit above what you usually do?”

Red Alert shook his head emphatically. “I did not. I was careful to make sure that I did not set their sensitivity above what I normally do, because that would mean picking up false readings.” He gestured to the screen then. “No, this is something else entirely.”

Shadowrunner glanced at the door then, and Red Alert knew what she was thinking: now might be a good time to call someone from the higher command staff – in this case, Prowl, because Optimus Prime and Ironhide had snuck through the Decepticon Space Bridge to Cybertron, and Ratchet had gone along with them to get some supplies. Red Alert was thinking the same thing too, but then Shadowrunner shook her head, and instead, turned to Blaster. “Blaster, could you get ‘Raid on the line?”

Blaster, who had been listening to some Terran rock song or other, sat up immediately, grinning at the Murcielago. “Sure thing Princess,” he replied flickering one optic on and off in the Cybertronian version of the human wink, and started pushing buttons even as Shadowrunner shook her head in disapproval of Blaster’s antics.

Red Alert would have normally found the whole exchange amusing, but not this time. He was far too focused on the readings that he was getting, which, as far as he was concerned, were too unusual to be considered an earthquake. The readings would get weaker, then stronger, then weaker again. Sometimes they disappeared entirely, but that was only for a few seconds, because they would start up again a few moments later. If he did not know any better, he would say that something was tunneling under the desert sand – but judging from the strength that the sensors were registering, it could not have been any Terran animal that he was aware of. He briefly toyed with the idea that these were Decepticons, but an engine had a particular vibration, and he was certain the sensors would have picked that up by now – that was what they were supposed to do, after all. But nothing resembling engine vibrations showed up on his screen.

If it was not natural seismic activity, a Terran animal, or even Decepticons, then what in the name of Primus was causing these readings?

There was a soft crackling sound just then as Teletraan-1’s comm. link hooked up with another one, and Nightraid’s cheerful voice filled the Command Center. -+-Nightraid here! Anything come up?-+-

“’Raid, this is ‘Runner,” Shadowrunner spoke up then. “Is there anything unusual happening out there?”

-+-Um, no, nothing, really. Everything is as it should be: sun’s shining, temperature’s rising, dust’s flying, and ‘Streaker’s whining. Why?-+- Here Nightraid’s voice took on a more serious note. -+-Is there something we ought to be aware of out here?-+-

Shadowrunner glanced at Red Alert, who started speaking: “Nightraid, this is Red Alert. My seismic sensors are picking up some unusual readings out in the desert, and as far as I can tell, whatever is causing these readings is moving underground, and at speed. Did you see anything unusual on patrol?”

-+-Nope, not a thing, Red. It’s all been- Eeaagh!-+-

The scream made Shadowrunner lean forward on the console. “’Raid? ‘Raid?!”

No response.

“Slag it!” Red Alert flickered his optics; he had never heard Shadowrunner swear so viciously before. He watched as she turned to look at Blaster. “Can you get her or my brothers on the line?”

“Trying Princess,” Blaster replied, flicking buttons and typing in commands as fast as he could, before he, too, swore. “Can’t get ‘em on the line. Something’s interfering with the-”

-+-Red! ‘Runner! Come in!-+-

That was Sideswipe. Red Alert answered him before Shadowrunner could do so. “What’s going on out there?”

-+-Dunno!” There was a loud hiss of static, accompanied by the sound of someone swearing – Sunstreaker, as far as Red Alert could guess from the voice. “We were just driving along out here and next thing we- Fraggit!-+-

The last thing they heard, before the link was cut, was the sound of blaster fire.

The entire Command Center went silent then, and no one moved a servo for what felt like a long time.

But then, Shadowrunner’s optics narrowed, and then she turned around abruptly, startling Red Alert with the movement. “Shadowrunner? Where are you going?”

“I’m going to find out what happened.” The femme’s voice was low, edged with something dangerous, something that Red Alert had always known existed somewhere deep down in her spark, but that he had never thought he would see – mostly because he didn’t want to see. “I’m going out there and I’m going to find out for myself what the Pit is going on.”

Red Alert opened his mouth, started to remind her of something very important: “But you don’t have-”

The doors hissed open and shut, and Shadowrunner did not hear his last word: “…clearance.”

That left Red Alert in something of a bind. Shadowrunner had just dashed off to the rescue of her siblings, and he had yet to inform the other officers about the situation. Such a thing was bound to get him in trouble – not to mention, of course, the fact that Jazz would be very upset that he had let Shadowrunner just go like that without trying to stop her somehow. And then there was the matter of Prowl…

As Red Alert’s processors quickly ran through all possible options to solve this increasingly complicated dilemma, he hit on what appeared to be the most ideal one: he’d go after Shadowrunner himself, and help the others out. Sure, it put him in a situation that he was not equipped to handle just yet, but at least no one could accuse him of irresponsibility and negligence of his duties.

With his course of action clear, Red Alert stood up, and Blaster, who had been checking on his audios, stared at him, stunned. “Don’t tell me you’re going after her!”

“I have to,” Red Alert answered. “I let her walk out of here, and she’s going to get in trouble, and then I’m going to get in trouble for not doing my job.” He glanced at Blaster. “Get the officers in here, and tell them what’s going on.”

+---+---+

“I hate Earth. I hate Earth. I really, really hate Earth…”

Nightraid glared. “Less talking, more shooting ‘Streaker.”

Sunstreaker didn’t even look at her, and instead kept on shooting down the…flying things that were currently trying to home on in on them and gnaw on their chassis. But he did mutter: “How can I shoot them if the little fraggers just keep on dodging?”

Nightraid had never seen anything quite like the things that were dive-bombing her and her brothers at this moment. They were odd-looking things, with heads that looked more beak than anything else, with no sign of eyes or any similar sort of organ that would permit them to see. The things could not get airborne on their own, either, since they had to blast themselves up into the air using an explosion from their rear ends: some sort of biochemical reaction that she knew nothing of. Once they were up in the air, the things spread what looked like wings, which they did not flap, but glided around on, riding air currents to gain altitude before dropping down on her and her brothers.

Whatever they were, though, they were smart. She was a pretty good shot, and so were Sideswipe and Sunstreaker, but after they had taken out a good two dozen of the things they seemed to learn that they actually had to avoid the blaster fire sent their way. Whereas earlier on it wasn’t any problem to shoot them down, now it was actually getting harder to take them out.

Sideswipe growled in frustration as yet another one of the flying creatures swerved in the air to avoid his shot. “The little glitches learn fast.”

“Unfortunately. Even the ‘Cons don’t learn this fast.”

Sideswipe burst out laughing then, for which Sunstreaker kicked him on the back of his shins.

“Less laughing, more shooting,” the golden-yellow Countach muttered, seemingly emphasizing his statement by blasting one of the creatures out of the air just as it was about to swoop down on Sideswipe’s head, causing it to explode in a massive burst of noxious flammable chemicals and orange goop.

-+-‘Raid! ‘Swipe! ‘Streaker! Come in!-+-

All three of them received the rather panicked-sounding message over their comm. links, and they recognized the voice: Shadowrunner.

-+-‘Runner, this is Sunstreaker.-+- As was policy for the three of them, Sunstreaker had tapped into their shared, private frequency, one that only the four of them used. -+-We’re fine, just pinned down by enemy attacks here.-+-

-+-What in the name of Primus happened back there?-+-

Sideswipe responded this time as Sunstreaker went back to shooting down more of the creatures. -+-We were dive-bombed by these… Primus, I don’t even know what to call ‘em!-+-

-+-They’re these weird flying things,-+- Nightraid answered, pausing only momentarily to take another shot. -+-I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like them before, ‘Runner. They don’t have eyes, but it’s almost as if they can see us somehow. And they’re smart; they’ve learned to dodge the blaster fire and scatter when we aim at them.-+-

-+-Did you see anything from underground, though? Red said that there was something disturbing his seismic sensors, but he can’t get a good fix on it.-+-

Nightraid was about to respond in the negative, but then there was a hiss of static, and she winced as Red Alert’s voice started yelling right into her audios. And, judging from the way that her brothers flinched a little, they were getting an audio-full too.

-+-Get out of there!-+- Red Alert all but shrieked. -+-Get moving right now!-+-

Sunstreaker growled softly. -+-In case you didn’t notice Red, we’re kind of pinned down here right now.-+-

-+-I don’t care! Just get your afts moving or else--+-

In the heat and rush of battle, it was easy to take things for granted. As such, it was only now that Nightraid felt it: the trembling of the ground underneath her feet, strong enough to feel but not strong enough to topple her over – probably the only time she would have noticed it anyway. But before she could make any sense of it, the ground erupted, and she fell over backwards, her rifle flying from her hands. And then, right before her horrified optics, she watched as Sunstreaker was yanked underground, without so much as a single fleck of yellow left above-ground.

“No!”

+---+---+

“Blaster, is there any way you can slow that down? I want to see what it was that attacked Sunstreaker.”

“Gimme a moment here Prowl.”

Prowl nodded, almost curtly, as Blaster started fiddling with Teletraan-1’s controls. He kept his optics fixed on what was happening on Teletraan-1’s main screen, which showed Sideswipe and Nightraid running away from something that seemed to be moving underground, while Shadowrunner and Red Alert covered for them, taking out some strange flying creatures that were trying to dive at them from above.

His optics narrowed. Whatever was going on, it was not normal.

“Aha!” Blaster crowed in triumph. “I got it!”

Prowl focused his attention on the nearby secondary screen, which was playing a slow-motion version of the earlier footage they’d managed to get of Sunstreaker suddenly disappearing. What it showed, however, was disturbing: a large head attached to a worm-like body suddenly appearing out of the sand, with what looked like a three-headed living tongue, which grabbed onto Sunstreaker and hauled him under within the space of a few frames – less than a few seconds, by Prowl’s estimate.

“What in the name of Primus was that?”

Prowl glanced at Jazz, who was also staring at the secondary screen. The Autobot military tactician shook his head. “I don’t know.” He turned to the screen again. “Whatever they are, they are nothing like any Terran animal I have ever seen before.”

Suddenly, the radio crackled to life, and Shadowrunner’s voice filled the Command Center. -+--in! Can anyone hear me?!-+-

Before Prowl could make a move for the radio, Jazz was already there. “Here ya loud n’ clear, ‘Runner. What the frag is going on out there, huh?”

-+-Don’t know! There’s these flying things, and then there’s whatever grabbed ‘Streaker, which we didn’t see. Red says his sensors are picking up two more just like it in the area, so there’s three of those, and then this whole bunch- Primus!-+-

The line was cut off to the sound of static, blaster fire, and a strange, high-pitched shrieking sound that no one had ever heard before.

“What was that?” Prowl demanded. “Blaster, get me a visual.”

“Got it,” the Communications expert replied, and the screen flickered briefly before showing several two-legged creatures chasing after the remaining Lamborghinis. These creatures bore a resemblance to the ones that were currently flying above them, which meant that they were probably related in some way. Even as they watched, one of the creatures seemed to lift a flap in its head, and uttered that audio-piercing shriek that they heard just before Shadowrunner was forced to cut the line.

Jazz turned to look at Prowl, and only vorns of friendship with the saboteur told the black-and-white Datsun exactly what was going on in the Porsche’s processors: he had to get out there now, because he did not like the idea of Shadowrunner in danger. The only thing that was keeping Jazz where he was – indeed, the only thing that was keeping Prowl where he was – was that they both knew charging out there wouldn’t do anyone a bit of good. In fact, Prowl was surprised that Red Alert was even out there at all, given the Security Director’s overly-cautious nature.

“What’re we gonna do, Prowl?” Jazz asked quietly, and, not for the first time, Prowl felt the weight and responsibility of leadership settle on his shoulders. With Optimus, Ironhide and Ratchet on Cybertron, the responsibility of commanding the Autobots fell on him. And that was a responsibility far greater than the painful flare in his spark at the knowledge that Nightraid was in danger.

“Hey everyone, heard there was an emer- Hey, aren’t those shriekers?”

Prowl jerked out of his reverie, and turned to face the door, and flickered his optics when he saw who was standing there. “Bluestreak?”

“Ya know what those things are?” In a few moments, Jazz had grabbed Bluestreak by the arm, and dragged him over to Teletraan-1’s console. “Can you tell us what those are?”

Bluestreak’s optics flickered in confusion, but he nodded. “Sure. Those two-legged things on the ground are shriekers, and those things up in the air are called ass-blasters. Don’t ask me why they’re named that way, I only read about them on the Internet recently, and you know how humans are when it comes to naming things, they have the weirdest sense of-”

“And what about this?” Prowl interrupted then, knowing Bluestreak would ramble on and on if he didn’t do something. He gestured to the secondary screen, which was showing a still image of that precise moment when Sunstreaker was grabbed and pulled under.

Bluestreak nodded. “Yep, that’s called a graboid. They’re all of the same species, actually: they start out as graboids, then after a while, the baby shriekers bust out of the graboids body, and then they start to multiply by regurgitating copies of themselves, which is why a few of them can turn into such a large pack, see? And then after twenty-four hours they molt, and what comes out of that is an ass-blaster, which, after a while-”

“What else do you know? What makes them tick? And how come they are after the Lamborghinis?”

“Well, um, it depends on which one you’re talking about. They don’t have eyes, so they use other means to see. The graboids hunt their prey by following vibrations on the ground; when they’re close enough they rise up and pull them under and eat them. The shriekers and the ass-blasters all hunt using infrared, so they’ll attack anything that’s warm enough. I guess that’s why they’re after the Lambos: our engines vibrate and give off heat at the same time, so they’re really very appealing to them. Though I wonder why ‘Runner and ‘Raid haven’t used their dampening systems; that ought to distract at least the shriekers and ass-blasters from them, but it won’t keep the graboids away, so that’s kind of useless. They’re all really nasty, though: the scientists on the website I visited said they’re strong enough to chew through sheet metal-”

“How do we kill ‘em?” Jazz asked, and Bluestreak fell silent, taken aback by the serious tone in Jazz’s voice – no surprise there, since even Prowl rarely ever heard Jazz use that tone of voice with anyone.

“Um…” The gray-and-black Datsun seemed to pause a moment to think, and then replied: “They’re organic, so our rifle fire ought to work, and then there’s explosives, like that guy named Burt Gummer – he’s a graboid hunter – uses to kill them…”

While Bluestreak continued to talk, Prowl was already formulating a plan of action in his processors. If it was indeed as Bluestreak said, then the graboids were sensitive to vibrations but not to heat, while the shriekers and ass-blasters used infrared, then perhaps there was a way of using those weaknesses against them…

“…and they learn really, really fast.”

Prowl looked up at Bluestreak. That was an important variable he would have to consider. “How fast?”

“Pretty fast. As soon as they figure out what’s hurting them or what their prey is trying to do to escape from them, they learn ways and means of dealing with it in their own way. There’ve been reports that if you shoot them once they learn to avoid your fire, and they can pass on that information to the others with them, and-”

“Jazz, can you come up with some way to deal with them?”

For a moment, Jazz’s face was blank, but as the shreds of a plan started to coalesce in his processors, a smile emerged: a dangerous, deadly smile that Prowl recognized as Jazz’s “I have a plan, and it’s fun and dangerous” smile. “Well, like you said once ‘pon a time: I have a plan, if you’ve got the cast-iron manifolds for it.” He flicked his optics at Bluestreak. “We’ll need to take Blue with us for this one to work.”

Prowl nodded, while Bluestreak stared at Jazz. “Very well then. Tell me about it while we prepare whatever we might need to deal with this problem.”

+---+---+

“Okay, who ordered the giant-aft worms that are chasing us with the little annoying buggers that keep wanting to chew on our engines and the dive-bombing flying glitches?!”

It was the question that weighed the most on Sideswipe’s mind, and when he found out who was at fault, Primus help the poor slagger, because he was not only going to rip the unfortunate spark a couple of new ones, but he was going strip said unfortunate down to the last nut and bolt.

And if it happened to be a squishie, well… There were some questions that he always had about the strength and endurance of the human body in response to various levels of pressure and impact, and he would be more than happy to have a live specimen to experiment on.

“No one has the answer to that right now,” Shadowrunner snarled quietly, and Sideswipe flickered his optics at how familiar it sounded. If he didn’t know any better, he’d say that she’d been taking snarling lessons from Sunstreaker…

Which led to another question: where was the great yellow Chrysanthemum of Chaos that passed for his twin? He knew that Sunstreaker wasn’t deactivated yet – he would know if that came to pass because of the nature of their sparks – but he didn’t know where he was, either. The link that came with being Spark-Twins couldn’t exactly measure distance.

But he couldn’t go out there and find out what was going on – no, not when he, his sisters, and Red Alert were stuck on top of a rock outcrop after Red Alert figured out that the worms could not tunnel through solid rock. How they found out was a bit funny: Red Alert was running away from the worm chasing him, and believing (correctly) that the thing wouldn’t be able to climb, he jumped up onto the outcrop they were currently on. The worm that had been chasing him rammed right into the side of the cliff underneath the sand with such force that it actually killed itself, showering Red Alert in bits of sand-covered organic matter and orange-colored goop. It didn’t take long for Red Alert to radio him and his sisters that he had found a more-or-less safe place for them all.

And so here they were, stuck on top of an outcrop that usually served as a lookout for two mechs on patrol, unable to go down because of the other two worms circling around underneath the sand, waiting for them to come down, not to mention the suddenly-numerous ground-bound versions of the flying glitches that seemed to be thinking of a way to climb up to get them. On top of that, there were the flying glitches themselves, who were still dive-bombing them, and had gotten even more clever: attacking them in tight-clustered groups that scattered whenever they sensed incoming blaster fire.

It was turning out to be not a very good day at all.

-+-‘Swipe? Red? Ladies? Ya hear me?-+-

Sideswipe looked up, half-expecting Jazz to be just behind him, but then he remembered where he was, and sighed. -+-About time you got your afts moving. We’re stuck up on the lookout overlooking the southeastern quadrant.-+-

-+-Yep, we see ya.-+-

-+-Who’s ‘we’?-+-

-+-Me, Blue an’ Prowl. Look, I ain’t got much time, so listen up. You an’ Red press up as close to the rock face behind you as possibly can. ‘Runner, ‘Raid, turn on your heat dampeners to full capacity; those shriekers and ass-blasters hunt usin’ infrared, so if ya turn on your dampeners that’ll make you two invisible to ‘em, or at least not worth bothering with. Try to shield ‘Swipe and Red as much has you can.-+-

Nightraid’s optics flickered as she looked first at Sideswipe, then at Red Alert. -+-You mean press up against them while they huddle up against the wall?-+-  

-+-If you say it like that, Nightraid, I may assume that you actually relish the idea.-+- That was Prowl, and Sideswipe had to control a snicker at the wave of heat that ran off his baby sister – a wave of heat that only attracted renewed attention from the flying things. The cluster that came flying down at them was made up of around a dozen individuals, and it was only thanks to their combined shooting skills that only five of the things managed to land on the outcrop – easily taken care of by a couple of good kicks that sent them tumbling down onto the sand below.

“No more smart ideas from you,” Shadowrunner growled at Nightraid, and then switched to radio. -+-Fine, we’ll do it. How long is this going to take? You know that we can’t keep our dampeners running at full capacity for very long.-+-

-+-It will not take us very long. We just need some time and a lot of room in order to do this.-+-

Red Alert spoke up then. -+-What exactly are you planning to do?-+-

There was silence for a while, and then Jazz came back on. -+-Ah well, you’ll see. But I just got one suggestion for you: now would be a good idea to turn off your audios, ‘cause I refuse to be held accountable for ruining ‘em.-+-

Sideswipe exchanged a look with his fellow Lamborghinis, all three of whom looked back at him, just as puzzled by Jazz’s statement. Nevertheless, they did as he told them to, and Sideswipe leaned back against the rock even as Red Alert did the same. As he did so, he sensed all the heat drain from Nightraid and Shadowrunner as their heat-dampeners went into gear, and he let Nightraid sit between his legs, the cool metal of her chassis pressing against his chest plate and absorbing the heat from that area. Out of the corner of his optics, he saw Shadowrunner do the same for Red Alert, but he was quick to note how they moved a bit more stiffly. No surprise there, since Red Alert was obviously keeping in mind that Shadowrunner and Jazz were technically what the humans called “an item.”

-+-Hey, it’s working!-+-

Sideswipe looked up beyond Nightraid’s head, and noticed how the flying creatures seemed suddenly to be confused, flying around in random circles, but not really heading towards them anymore. And then, there was an explosion, accompanied by a shriek, and all the flying creatures seemed to turn tail, and head in the opposite direction. Before any of them could speak, however, they felt the deep thrumming of what was probably…the bass line of a rock song?

Nightraid glanced at Sideswipe, confused. -+-What’s going on?-+-

-+-Dunno.-+- He knew that the music was coming from Jazz, but why he was playing a rock song at what sounded like his stereo’s fullest capacity didn’t make a lot of sense to any of them. Whatever the case, though, Sideswipe was glad that Jazz had told them to offline their audios. If they were still turned on at this moment, he was sure that they’d be damaged beyond anything their self-repair protocols could handle.

-+-Look!-+-

Sideswipe focused again, and this time, he watched with ever-widening optics as Prowl, in his alt-mode, drove all around the flat expanse of desert, attracting the attention of the worms away from the outcrop. When he got them close enough to where Jazz was, they watched as the Datsun police cruiser swerved away just in time to avoid what felt like an auditory blast from Jazz’s speakers, which seemed to be pointed at the ground. The sound caused the worms to rear up from out of the sand, whereupon Bluestreak – wielding Prowl’s rifle – shot at them, a round pellet emerging from it and striking the worms. However, where Sideswipe was expecting an acid burn (since Prowl usually loaded acid pellets into that particular rifle of his), the worms instead burst into a mass of apple-green flame. That flame attracted the attention of both the ground and airborne critters, and as soon as they were in range Bluestreak fired at them, too, with the flying ones bumping into others and setting them alight, while their falling carcasses fell on top of the ground-based critters, who, in their final death throes, collided with others and in their turn set them alight.

It was like watching a freakish sort of domino effect, and the four of them remained where they were, speechless and staring, as they watched the desert light up in little bright green fires.

At last, when it became apparent that there were no more of the things, Sideswipe heard a crackle on his comm. link, and Jazz said: -+-Okay you four, it’s safe to come down and turn on your audios. We’re pretty sure we got ‘em all.-+-

Sideswipe turned on his audios in time to hear his sisters utter sighs of relief as they turned off their dampeners. He smiled at Nightraid, and gave her a hug, and then reached over to do the same to Shadowrunner. He knew how taxing it was on their systems to keep up the dampeners at the level that they did. “You two did good.”

Nightraid grinned brightly at him, and Shadowrunner gave him a small, tired smile, but she immediately turned her focus on the desert that stretched out below them – a desert now littered with smoldering carcasses. “Where do you think ‘Streaker is?”

Sideswipe’s thoughts immediately turned serious. He stood up, and scanned the surrounding area. “I don’t know,” he answered quietly. “He’s okay, at least. That much I know.”

Shadowrunner glanced at him, and offered him a small smile before reaching out to squeeze his hand gently with hers in reassurance. “I’m sure he’ll be okay. This is Sunstreaker, after all.”

“Hey!” Sideswipe looked down, and saw Jazz waving up at them, grinning all the way to the sides of his helm. “You four gonna stay up there all night or what?”

+---+---+

“Triethylborane (1)?”

“Uh huh!” Bluestreak nodded enthusiastically as he did some quick emergency patch-ups on Red Alert’s chassis. They weren’t really all that serious, but they were pretty ragged where the shriekers and the ass-blasters had gotten to him, and he knew that it’d be better if First Aid saw that they were at least treated a little bit before they all showed up in the Med-Bay. “It was Prowl and Jazz’s idea, actually. Said that we needed to use something that’d do a quick burn, and then we remembered that the Aerialbots sometimes use triethylborane to get their afterburners jumpstarted, so we decided to put some of those in a few of Prowl’s acid pellet shells, and since I was the better shot between the three of them, Prowl decided that I got to shoot those graboids and shriekers and ass-blasters down, while Prowl acted as bait for the graboids, and then Jazz knocked them out with his music, which startled them enough like you saw, and-”

Red Alert stared at Bluestreak, horror creeping onto his features, and Bluestreak stopped, wondering what was wrong. He was about to ask, but Red Alert turned his head to look at Prowl, who was carefully patching up a wound where Nightraid had been gnawed on by a shrieker. “This was your idea?!”

Prowl paused for a moment as he looked at Red Alert, and there was that look in his optics that Bluestreak understood as Prowl’s “If I had my way it wouldn’t have gone down like that, trust me,” look. “Most of it was, yes, but it was Jazz’s idea to use the triethylborane.”

Red Alert looked at Jazz this time, who had just finished tending to Shadowrunner (she only had very minimal injuries, now that Bluestreak could really pay attention to her) so that the femme could look after Sideswipe. “I should have known that it would be your idea to use such a dangerous and volatile chemical for a situation like this.”

Jazz merely grinned, and shrugged. “Hey, it worked, didn’t it? Didn’t think it’d go so well, actually, but I’m glad that it did.” He looked around, then, and frowned. “Blue, didn’t you mention something about the graboids not being able to eat metal?”

Bluestreak nodded. “Yeah. Why?”

“Well, how come Sunstreaker ain’t here?”

Bluestreak’s optics flickered, and when he considered it, that was a very good question. According to the articles he’d stumbled across on the Internet, graboids, shriekers and ass-blasters did not eat anything inorganic, though graboids sometimes pulled cars under, while shriekers and ass-blasters constantly attacked anything warm – and that included anything with an engine. But since it was a graboid that had pulled Sunstreaker down, the worm ought to have spat him out by now.

So: where was he?

As if in response to his question, a patch of ground not too far away from them suddenly exploded, and graboid guts started flying everywhere, raining down upon them a stream of sticky orange blood and chunks of flesh. Bluestreak had shielded his optics on instinct, but when he turned to look, his optics widened as none other than Sunstreaker emerged from the smoking crater, his usually immaculate paintjob now marred with bits of dead graboid and wide streaks of orange slime, while a chunk of what looked like one end of a graboid tongue dangled from his left head vent (2).

There was no denying the wave of animosity that emanated from the yellow Countach, and Bluestreak found himself almost cowering at the sight. He had seen Sunstreaker mad before, but he had never, ever seen him this mad. If they dropped Sunstreaker in the middle of the Decepticon base right now, he was positive that there would be nothing left of the Decepticons except shredded pieces of metal and energon stains on the walls, floor and ceiling.

And the razor-sharp silence was broken by a stifled snort one that emerged from none other than Nightraid. This was followed by another snort, and then another, until Nightraid was rolling on the sand, her laughter echoing against the swiftly-darkening night. Not a few moments later Sideswipe was also rolling on the ground along with her, laughing as hard as she was and pointing a finger at his twin.

The others were faring a bit better. Shadowrunner had a grin so wide it threatened to split her face in two, and the same went for Jazz. Red Alert sighed, but the smile on his face showed that he thought the whole thing rather funny, and even Prowl, for all that he tried to keep a straight face, had a gleam in his optics that indicated he found this far more amusing than he was willing to let on.

Bluestreak turned to Sunstreaker, and opened his mouth to ask what had happened, but the yellow Lamborghini simply raised one finger in warning.

“Don’t,” he growled. “Just. Don’t.”


NOTES:

(1) Triethylborane is a highly-reactive liquid that ignites spontaneously with air, with flames that burn bright apple-green. It was once used to ignite the engines that powered the Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird spy plane, as well as to ignite the same plane’s afterburners.

(2) These events were patterned after a short scene that contiamirian put up on the actual Impossible Crossovers thread over on the Padded Cell.