DDA Chapter 24

Dawning of the Deception Age
Chapter 24

The door chimed and Raider called it to open. Peeking in Astrotrain took a step in then looked around. “Raider?” he called.

“Yeah, just a sec,” She called from the refresh chamber. She gathered her oil and came out parts of her armor beaded with solvent. “What’s up?”

“I didn’t I mean Hi.” He stammered slightly.

“Don’t worry about it,” she told him.

He calmed a bit, and then stepped to the side allowing the femme behind him to be seen. “This is Syphonic she’s the one I was telling you about.”

Excited about finally meeting the femme that drew Astrotrain’s attention Raider put her hand out her old human gesture of saying hello to use. Syphonic didn’t know what to make of it. “Here,” Raider took her hand and lifted it to meet hers, and held it there raising and lowering it. “I know I have some odd quarks left from my human life but it is what makes me, me.”

“This is what I was talking about,” Astrotrain started to get excited. “Raider is so much different than the others, and all it is, is a little bit of outward ness.” He wasn’t sure if that was the right word for it.

Cocking her head to the side Syphonic noticed the difference easily; she had read up on a few of the things the new femmes had done having them in the command structure it was smart to do so. “I read a report filed by Scrapper, and he states that the best way to describe it is they are non robotic oriented.”

This puzzled Astrotrain slightly, but not Raider. “I think that means even though I am a Transformer and for all purposes a robot, I don’t act like one.”

“Yes.” Syphonic agreed. “It is a behavior that can be learned.

“It can?” the triple changer was surprised.

“You exhibit many of these non robotic behaviors,” Syphonic told him. ‘That is what drew me to you.”

He felt the heat come to his faceplate. “Umm Thanks.”

“He’s awesome, so what is it you need me to do?” Raider finally asked.

“I just thought you two would like to hang out a bit.” He answered.

“I think you have that handled ‘Train, she’s going to be good for you.” Raider smiled resting her hand on his shoulder. “If you need something just ask.”

Just as the two were leaving Prizm came in. “Is that his new thing?”

“Yeah, she’s not to bad, she’ll be good for him.” Raider said smiling. “So how did the Warlord take the news?” having been left in the command center for a bit Raider had got bored and just came back to her rooms.

“He took it, and then still told me the reports were late.” Prizm came in and sat down in a near chair. “But it wouldn’t be him if he didn’t.”

Both laughed for a moment then Prizm smiled, “There is something else.”

“I don’t like the sound of that,” Raider’s optic ridge rose.

“I don’t think your going to like it. In fact I know Juci won’t like it.” Prizm shook her head.

“Just tell me I’ll deal with it,” She figured she’d have to go out on a mission not sure what sort of one due to the fact that they didn’t need energon though.

“Fine fine, Megatron wants you and Juci to go to Earth with him and Starscream and deal with the humans.” Prizm pretty much said it how Megatron had word for word.

“What? Are you serious? Me and Juci to go with him and Starscream to deal with the humans? Does he want to kill them all?” Raider was not happy about this.

“No no no, he said that being from Earth we’ll know how to relate to them and deal with them on a level they will understand. The idea is to get them to do what we want without killing them.” Prizm explained.

“Might as well as kill them,” Juci stood in the door way listening. “They are only going to kill themselves sooner or later anyway.”

“Now you know you can get more out of them if you keep them happy.” Prizm protested.

“You know, it is worth a try.” Raider agreed. “I don’t know what exactly I can do but I’ll try.”

“He said he’ll be waiting at the space bridge in about an hour.”

“Not the space bridge too!” Raider really didn’t want to go now. “That thing throws off your gyros something awful.”

“You’ll get used to it, I did.” Juci smiled. “Besides you’re pretty smart I bet you’ll be able to talk the idiots into some sort of arrangement. Benefiting us of course.”

It was boring; in fact it was very boring. Prizm was pretty much just going over some of the placement logs for the active seeker army and yes it was an entire army now. No pressure at all, she could certainly see that back in the day Starscream really had a lot of work placed in his lap. Realistically it had only been about a week since Megatron and her wing mates had gone to Earth to deal with the Human governments. Inspection of the Decepticon city was also on the lists of things to do. She knew though that Raider would try talking to the governments instead of allowing Megatron to try handling it and causing an uprising. She laughed at the thought uprising! That was funny it would be more like a planetary war, but what did the humans have to fight them? Nuclear weapons HA Simple directional navigations like that Soundwave could handle on his own, and any ballistics weren’t strong enough to do much damage to Transformer armor. She shook her head at the thought of it all. Humans really were weak and she had been one. It sort of disgusted her, they way those men thought they had been on top of everything, the stupid wars that they had with each other over petty indifference. Having been sitting on the outside of that looking down in on the Humans as a whole race she could plainly see why Decepticons disliked them.

Her wing mates had called up last night to check on her and let her know that they should be back some time today. Earth time as it were. Her second offspring was turning out to sap more of her energy that she had been prepared for and while it was not dangerous within the base it could be fatal to both of them if they got caught with out a supply for too long. Megatron had seen that she had been relieved of active duties before he had left then had assigned Skywarp to keep an optic on her incase she had needed anything.

Oh yeah that went well the first time he came to check on her he popped in using his teleport and scared her out of her armor… or well nearly. Naturally Skywarp got a kick out of that. Prizm though had thoughts of revenge on her processor, for that she called Lenear, who brought Audioslave and after a long talk with them brought in Rumble and Frenzy. Sure she had a plan to get the teleporter. That set in motion things got boring again.

[Insert would be Chronicles of the Sparklings: Helping Prizm 1 & 2.]

Finally the door opened and Megatron strode though coming to her side standing over her. “Is everything alright?” he sort of demanded but yet was trying to ask.

“I am fine,” she smiled it was nice to know he cared even if he didn’t show it all that much. “Skywarp won’t be but I am fine.”

“What did he do?” Megatron instantly became concerned.

“He came to check as you asked,” She started. Megatron’s optics narrowed at her answer he knew there was more. Seeing he wasn’t in a mood. “to do it he teleported in and scared the crap out of me.”

At that Megatron’s optics returned to normal. “Is it being dealt with?”

“OH yeah, the kids and I planned something good, I just hope Soundwave doesn’t get mad for me encouraging Rumble and Frenzy to behave like that.”

Shaking his head Megatron dismissed the thought. “Your wing mates are on their way here next, I need to catch up I’ll be in the office.” Megatron turned and left the door opening for him then staying open for Raider and Juci to enter.

“It’s about time you two showed up,” Prizm sat teasing them.

“Oh yeah like we wanted to watch you and Megatron make out.” Juci smiled as the door closed.

“Oh yeah, is that what you think we do the instant we return from something?” Prizm laughed.

“It used to be,” Raider walked over and sat on corner of Megatron’s desk near Prizm. “Every time we’d come back from a successful mission you’d run off and go find him and I knew what you were doing. Don’t act like you didn’t.” Raider smiled.

“We both knew what she was doing, because we were doing the same thing!” Juci stood next to Raider.

“Shut up,” Prizm couldn’t help it. “I know, I know.”

“What has it changed? Then have you two become the old married couple that only does it after a fight?” Juci asked.

“No, in fact we don’t fight as much as I used to think we would. I mean sure we have out little spats but it’s not like we used to talk about.” Prizm thought about it for a moment. “No we’re not like some married couple he’s too damn hot for me to even try to ignore him.”

“I think it was a little obvious when you two were trying for this new sparkling that it would never end up like that.” Raider sort of rolled her optics teasing.

“Hey now not fair for you two to gang up on me,” Prizm looked at them both. “I wasn’t the first one that had a sparkling, and I wasn’t the first one to ask where my mech is either.” She looked at Raider then to Juci. “To top it off, Megatron had to be here as well it takes two you know.”

“Yeah but you didn’t get in trouble when things were late because he knew where you were but didn’t bother to give me access to sign the damn reports. IF it happens again I want the ability to sign.” Raider said.

“IF yeah right, I doubt Megatron will want any more he’ll have a femme and a Mech,” Prizm placed a hand on her midsection.

“No more huh?” Juci didn’t really ask but more stated. “You know the technology has been updated in some of the other femmes I bet sooner or later we start seeing sparklings starting to pop up from everywhere.”

“You think so?” Prizm asked.

“Starscream has one already I got news reports from Earth.” Raider said. “And Astrotrain has his new femme.”

“Well even in stasis there were bond mates, and now with the updates I don’t see why not. Shockie says it is only logical. And really I have to agree, if they hadn’t had issues with the corrupted programming to start there would have been sparklings all this time.”

“So,” Raider was thinking.

“So what?” Prizm asked.

“So, that is why he built the Academy. Once he found out we could do it Shockwave got the programming from Soundwave who I bet is the one that designed the new one, and then he over road the old programs in the femmes as they were reactivated.”

“Yup, Shockie was more than happy to do it too!” Juci’s mood brightened talking about her Shockie.

“I didn’t think we’d be the only ones that could do it. I bet that Lenear has the proper program too. Not that she needs to go off having a sparkling now.” Raider began to think again.

“You know I hate it when you do that.” Prizm pushed Raider’s arm off the desk to get her attention.

“What?”

“You start to think and while Soundwave can hear you doing that we can’t.” Prizm told her. “You do it all the time.”

“Sorry, I don’t mean to,” She took in a breath and began to explain. “We are full sized adults, and when Audio came out it was quite obvious that what little space there was he took it all up. Lenear is what near half our size? No way could she support that, and the fact that Soundwave did the programming I am willing to bet energon that he’s wrote fail safes in to prevent that.”

“I get it, sort of a lock on it until proper size has been accomplished.” Juci said.

“Kind of yeah, but probably longer than that, Soundwave probably thought way a head of time I mean if Audio had been a femme I doubt he’d want to be a grandpa so soon.” Raider smiled the idea of that was just funny.

“Well right I don’t want to be like grandma either.” Prizm said.

“SO, Anyway,” Raider wanted to change the subject she knew in a round about way Prizm kind of was with Starscream’s new sparking and even so she knew that Audioslave and Lenear were close but damn they were still kids. “Earth is going to co-operate, Starscream is stationed on the new Decepticon base there basically we can come and go as well please ship the energon that is produced from the Nemesis and the City base as much as we want. According to counts that is 67% more than we need, so Megatron isn’t too worried about that.”

“And what were the conditions?” Prizm had to ask what the pesky humans wanted.

“According to the United Nations, which is now the ruling body there now, the number of Decepticons on Earth should relate to how much the communist hostility uprising is.”

“What?”

“Keep the peace.” Juci exhaled sharply.

“It IS more complicated than that but that is the basic idea. If they become too hostile we are to shoot on site.”

“I think I get it,” Prizm thought for a second. “They will do what ever we say or we kill them and say it was to keep the peace, HA! Starscream must have loved that.”

“It was his idea.” Raider laughed. “Those that have no ties to government citizens and such are free to go about their lives as if nothing has happened; which is what I wanted. Besides he doesn’t want hostilities with Starcon around.”

“You still have family there don’t you?” Juci asked.

There was a long pause. “Yeah, they cut ties with me when they found out about the transfer, but still. You know?”

“That sucks,” Prizm commented.

“You know I can’t blame them, we’re basically renegades from their race with things that they can’t possibly dream of, and jealousy is a big thing. I asked Soundwave to set up something for my brother money wise, I kept tabs on it and even to this date he’s never touched it.”

“Ouch.” Juci said.

“That is why I wanted to go have a look at where he lived I wanted to know if it was because he didn’t need it or he just refused to take it.”

After another long silence Prizm spoke again. “So you didn’t offer them technology of any sort?”

“I argued that with Megatron, I know he likes to have a balance but as I pointed out we are not taking anything from them or making them work for anything. If it comes to the point we can use that later on.”

“Good thing you went I don’t think I would have thought of that,” Prizm nodded.

“We really don’t want to give it to them unless we have too as it is, some of them will sooner or later use it against us.” Raider finished.

“I bet they blow themselves up trying.” Juci laughed in low tones.

“Any that try should be. At the City base, Starscream as new sensors so he can monitor energon discharge incase they try.” Raider agreed.

“Alright I am outta here, going to go find Shockie.” Juci popped up and headed to the door. Neither of her wing mates said anything, both sort of just shook their heads as if knowing what she had in mind.

The door hissed closed. “Where are the kids?” Raider asked.

“They are off doing me a favor.” Prizm couldn’t help but smile.

“What did you do?”

“Skywarp teleported in on me, just a little revenge.”

“If some how it comes around to me and I get something done on me I will come to you.” Raider told Prizm.

“I doubt Lenear and Audioslave will let that happen they keep Rumble and Frenzy in line.”

“Rumble and Frenzy too?”

“Yeah but it isn’t anything serious.” Prizm answered.

Raider shook her head again, “Alright you’re the boss.” She paused a moment, “So how you feeling?”

“Everyone that comes through that door asks me that. I know they mean well but it is kind of getting old.” Prizm stretched in the chair a little. “Seriously though bored out of my processor.”

“I remember those days.”

“At least you had someone visiting you.”

“Oh come on, once we found out about you I was either here with you or you with me, couldn’t have been that bad. Still you know how I felt before it happened to you.” Raider thought about it. “What about Lenear? Doesn’t she come in?”

“She’s studies and most of her time is spent in the simulator anymore. When I asked her she told me she was trying to catch up to us.”

“That is her dad talking right there,” Raider said.

“I know it.”

DDA Chapter 23 Dawning of the Decepticon Age