Ep. 1 - The Mojave - Beating Boredom - (Closed)

[Deleted]

Boy, did it feel good to be on patrol again.

Full tanks, energon flowing through his lines like liquid energy. The wind rang in his audials, sang over his wings and lofted him high up into the Mojave sky. Clouds, big towering cumulus clouds, swelled into the atmosphere like white nebula, buoyed on surging updrafts. He tore through them, dragging streamers of vapour from his wingtips when he burst out the other side. Moisture beaded his sleek white and red paint before drying swiftly in the sinking desert sunlight.

The Autobot jet sucked air through his intakes, breathed it in deep. Held it, cycled it through his frame and savoured every cool draught as it rushed over his hot-running systems. Aw yeah. Felt so good.

At ten thousand feet Air Raid soared over the desert, his F-35 alternate mode carving through the sky at an easy pace. Far below him raced his shadow, just a dot on the dusty earth. He had throttled back after reaching his cruise altitude, sacrificing speed for a chance to extend his endurance and thus lengthen his patrol. The longer he could stay out here stretching his wings, the better. It was already early evening, perhaps an hour or so before sunset. Already the sky was a deep blue, darkening into violet to the east. Soon the stars would come out, just like the stars over Cybertron did, and he would be here to greet them. He would stay out all night if he could.

He did a lazy roll, just for the hell of it.

After a long wait, after security checks and data uploads and protocol briefings, he had finally been cleared for patrol duty. Nothing big, nothing far-ranging - just over Nevada, where it was reasoned a rookie to Earth could not get into too much trouble. Mostly he had been assigned to fly over a whole lot of dust and rocks and big red-banded ridges, where he was to keep a sharp eye out for Decepticons. So far he had found scrub trees and yucca and prickly cactus things. Coyotes and jackrabbits. Long highways that wound off into the horizon- but no humans. Damn. He really wanted to see a human. Find out for himself if they were worth all the fuss the Autobots made over them.

Light duty, really. Still, Air Raid had eagerly leapt at the chance to go flying. It sure beat sitting around at the base staring at computer monitors all evening. And it was a hell of a lot better than how he had spent the last few hundred years, being nothing more than an over-glorified bodyguard for boring paper-pushers as they went about their business doing... boring things. Like... stuff. That stuff they did. Uh. Yeah.

Air Raid inwardly moaned. Oh great. It had been so dull his neural net had completely blocked it out of his memory. That was just fantastic.

But this...!

Patrolling! Yeah! Now this was proper work for a combat flier. No guard duty. No standing around watching dull people do tedious things. This was dirtying his hands with rough and tumble fighter's work. This was something to take pride in. This was...

This was...

This was pretty damn boring, actually.

Oh my god. He was bored to tears.

A little desperate now, the young Aerialbot widened his scan and fanned his radar in all directions. He peered down through a thin wispy layer of cloud with his optical sensors. Focused magnification. Saw a cactus.

Threw a proper robot temper tantrum.

Arggghhh!

Decepticons! Air Raid wordlessly shouted into the sky as he blasted to full throttle and shot vertical in a fit of pique. Rolled, then cut power and let himself drop into a raging tailslide. Flipped over backwards as he fell. Where are you! You were all over us during the Exodus! So where are you hiding now? Mother scrag bucket!

[Deleted]

ROAD Wonderful, glorious, Primus blessed, empty stretches of ROAD, asphalt under his wheels and nothing to do but pour on the speed. Oh Primus, it had been days - days of being cooped up on the Nemesis, endless duty rotations fixing scrap and more scrap, one patch job after another (including on himself) and Downforce had thought he was going to go insane if he didn't get a cycle of fresh air.

Patrol. Sweetest word in the history of ever, and if Downforce always tried to nab the routes - out of the limited ground scout patrols that the Nemesis ran - with the longest stretches of empty roads, well, none of the Eradicons complained so long as he paid his barter debts for the pick. Speaking of which, there was a new Pokemon game coming out which Downforce needed to grab an advanced copy of; THAT was worth more than a few choice patrol routes on the Nemesis blackmarket.

Wind rushing over his plating, ground flying by under his wheels, engine running hot - there wasn't anything better, and it chased away the lingering ache of the still healing dents and the gnawing new feeling of his replaced windshield or the itchy and irritating feel of the still misaligned portions of his hood. None of that mattered a bit, not so long as he was rolling, and that was excuse enough in Downforce's opinion. Doctor's orders, or could be, and cheaper on their supplies than giving him more painkillers. And hey, it was a patrol! He was totally patrolling. Keeping sensors open for energon and Autobots. Absolutely. At a leisurely cruising speed of 110mph.

Something crossed his path.

Not, thankfully, an organic - Primus, he hated that, picking organic bits of filth out of his undercarriage and a new set of dents he didn't need. But something - a shadow, a patch of shadow from a cloudless sky - rippled over his plating and shot out ahead of him across the open road. Downforce shifted into gear and shot after it before he even realized what it was or where it came from.

A plane. A plane - human design, not an Eradicon - pulling stunts that, last time Downforce checked, the humans frowned on their pilots performing unless they were doing it in orchestrated groups for practice. This one was alone, and rolling itself through the air overhead like a bored Seeker on....

Like a bored Seeker on patrol. Huh. Downforce checked his position, and yes, he was within the radius they had marked out for the most confirmed Autobot contacts. Suspicious, and worse by far if the suspicion was correct - the 'Bots hadn't had a flier presence in a long while.

Downforce poured on the speed, chasing after that elusive shadow, engine stops thrown open and wheels practically flying across the pavement. The sun was low on the horizon, and he angled his mirrors, catching the light and bouncing it back up to the flier overhead in a glyph pulse of challenge. A human pilot probably wouldn't even see it, certainly wouldn't know what it was, but a Cybertronian flyer... that might be a different matter entirely.

[Deleted]

As Air Raid's nose swung downwards and he began to pick up airspeed, a bright glint of light on the highway below caught his attention. Because his optical sensors were still zoomed in, it made an immediate impression.

OW! Frag it! What the-

Squintily, he stared down at the light as it flickered at him. His annoyance changed to incredulity when he realised that the pattern was not random, but visually conformed to an old code of glyphs that was as foreign to this planet as his own spark.

Cybertronian glyphs. Holy crap.

Startled, the Aerialbot pulled out of his dive and flew level. Now that he was at a lower altitude and beneath the scattered layer of mid-level clouds he saw that the light came from a car, a sleek looking blue vehicle that chased in pursuit along the highway below. A blue car flashing glyphs at him, using nothing more than its mirrors and the desert sun.

Two voices began to speak in Air Raid's head.

The first voice, the voice of common sense that he liked to call 'Silverbolt', said in a firm tone, get a radar identification, and if the target is a Decepticon, engage and neutralize it. A logical plan of attack, one that would result in one less enemy soldier to threaten the Autobot ranks. Good stuff.

Air Raid pulled into an evasive circle, his wingtips carving through the air. As he turned he slewed his air-to-ground radar over the car and painted glowing target data across his neural net. It was a Decepticon.

And yet, his threat warning systems were silent. No missile lock. No indication that it was about to transform and fire at him. It was simply racing the open road in plain sight, making no attempt to hide itself, its tires humming as it dragged a tail of dust behind it. Huh. That was- huh. Maybe it was trying to- huh.

It was driving pretty fast. Had to be doing more than one hundred miles an hour. Maybe- hm.

The other voice whispered to him. It said, get radar identification. And if the target is a Decepticon-

RACE IT.

Air Raid rolled over.

The wind screamed in his audials. He hit a fluffy cumulus and shredded it as he dove through its base. His altimeter wound down, numbers whirring, until he finally levelled out at fifty feet over the ground, at which point his radar altimeter began screaming at him, terrain, terrain, terrain! He took care not to line himself up directly behind the car - no point in looking as if he was lining up to attack. Instead he remained warily to the car's left, ready to peel off and go vertical if it so much as twitched a gun in his direction.

Two miles behind it now, his engine blasting red dust behind him as he tore up the desert. He flew over a cactus and pretty much evaporated it.

One mile back. Air Raid slowed down, letting his airspeed peg at two hundred miles an hour. He gave a terse inward grin. Could a Decepticon car match two hundred miles? Time to find out.

[Deleted]

The plane dove - Cybertronian, no doubt about it, and not reponding to any of the Decepticon comm frequencies which meant his aft was toast, wide open spaces with no cover, frag frag FRAG... but there was no weapon heat signature and the jet came in screaming through a nosedive descent to level off on a parallel course just to his left...

...and SLOWED DOWN, the unmitigated superior ego-ridden winged FRAGGER. Oh, IT WAS ON.

There were limitations built into the local native vehicles that only partially had to do with the upper limits of mechanical function and had far more to do with the limitations of the actual organic natives and their pathetic reflex response time. Downforce had long since simply discarded whatever didn't suit him from his Earth alt-mode, until what was under his hood and in his undercarriage was 100% pure built-for-speed Cybertronian with a thin exterior shell veneer of human sports car. There was authenticity, after all, and then there was stupidity, and throttling his speeds to human limitations was just STUPID.

The only real limitation was asphalt surfaces versus the tractionless smooth thoroughfares Cybertron had boasted. Still, the humans - or at least the worthwhile ones - had managed to boost even their frail frames and ungainly mechanical conveyances to a land speed of over 400mph wheel driven, and clocking over mach 1 with some turbine assistance. Downforce, with a Cybertronian drivetrain and engine, had copied those style of reinforced wheels after one too many times of shredding rubber all over the flats he was racing on and Knock Out's resultant temper. He was set, and he was ready, and no Primus slotted Autobot flier was going to leave him in the dust.

With a whoop that could be heard for miles, Downforce leaned into the road and shot off like the fury of Unicron himself was on his heels.

[Deleted]

To Air Raid's astonishment, the blue car seemed to hunker low over its rear tires before its engine roared open. It lurched- and it was off, accelerating madly down the highway and leaving nothing but dust and an echoing war-whoop in its wake.

He gaped. Whoa. Had he just seen that?

Already the car was beginning to shrink into the distance. Soon it was just a big cloud of dust on the horizon. Air Raid snapped out of his daze. Oh, hell no! There was no way a frickin' car was going to beat a jet in a race. That just went against nature.

Not to mention the fact he could imagine what the other Aerialbots would have to say if they ever learned he had not been able to keep pace with a Decepticon grounder. Slingshot would laugh hysterically, and Air Raid would be forced to kill him. Then there would be epic lectures from Silverbolt. Holy hell, no.

Air Raid opened his throttle and blasted after the Decepticon, his engine hazing the air behind him. He tilted his wings to avoid a scrubby Juniper tree, then veered a little closer to the highway, until he was flying a mere fifty feet off the gravel shoulder. As his airspeed wound up the back end of the blue car came back into view. His targeting radar automatically tried to lock onto its bumper, and Air Raid quickly turned it off. No shooting. At least, not until he had whipped this guy into the tar. Then, maybe there would be shooting on the part of both racers. He wasn't really thinking that far ahead yet.

All howling noise and speed, the white jet pulled up to the car and settled into formation alongside it. He gleefully waggled his wings at it and then, for added obnoxiousness, rolled over onto his back until he was flying inverted.

Aw yeah, chortled Air Raid to himself. Style points, sucker! Shit. I really hope I don't hit a cactus.

[Deleted]

Downforce chortled in glee as he left the 'Bot in his dust, blasting down the road at what felt - FINALLY - like an actually decent clip. His speedometer - the internal one, not the one purely for show on his dash which was holding steady at 90 - tripped over 250 and kept climbing. His GPS was already patched in, calculating the length of the straightaway and how long he could maintain speed - how much faster he could go - before he would have to start dumping velocity to make the curve at the end of the stretch, and....

Oh. OH. Oh, that would be... if he could... If the fragging jet wasn't all flash and no substance, if....

The jet in question came roaring up his dust trail like the proverbial organic bat out of hell (whatever THAT was, though cross reference internet searches kept correlating images that looked a lot like Ratbat flying out of a smelting pit, which, fair enough, might involve a good burst of speed). No weapons, no targeting, nothing hot, just the world flashing by and the roar of their engines as the jet paced him side by side so low to the ground Downforce could see the scratches on the slagger's paint.

And then, because there wasn't a seeker alive in either faction that could resist showing the frag off, the slip geared glitch flipped upside down with a taunting little wing waggle. Downforce grit the dente he didn't actually have in alt mode, hugged the road harder, and poured on more speed, flashing signals to the jet to keep up if he could as the scout pulled ahead again. It'd serve the fragger right if he slapped into something at that altitude.

And it'd be beyond awesome if he could just get the jet to follow along, because just up ahead was a rise in the straight away and hitting it at the speed Downforce was going - oh, they'd see who flew then. It was going to be GLORIOUS.

[Deleted]

The signals flickered at the corner of his optical sensors. Red light flashed off the car's side mirrors again. The white jet squinted at them.

'Keep... up.'

Keep up?

Keep up?!

Air Raid crowed aloud, the sound instantly lost in the roar of his engines. He quickly rolled back over. Keep up! He could do more than just keep up! This was gonna be great.

Already the blue car was accelerating, lunging forward in a burst of speed. Although he did not particularly want to, Air Raid had to admit - this guy was fast. Like, really fast. He'd seen a number of tuned-up ground racers back on Cybertron, and this Decepticon would have fit in among their numbers with ease. Over two hundred fifty miles now, and he was still picking up speed. This dude was flying. If this were a normal Earth car, this kind of speed would like, strip paint or something. Rip off side mirrors. Air Raid did not know a lot about Earth cars.

Only that he sure as hell wasn't going to lose to one. He nudged his throttle and sped through the cloud of dust swirling in the Decepticon's wake. After coughing dust out of his intakes he shot ahead of the car, then carefully adjusted his throttle to match it's speed. Flying was much easier now that they were closing in on the three hundred mark; his control surfaces felt brisk and responsive, his wings full of lift again. Aw yeah, much better!

There seemed to be some kind of curve and rise in the road ahead. Air Raid knew he would have to pull up then to avoid it - but how would this blue guy fare? Grinning internally, he gave a taunting waggle of his wings and eased into the lead. Running outta straight road, pal! Gotta catch me soon or I win! Ha! Win! Ha! Finger guns!

[Deleted]

The thrill of speed, the rush of wind and the world streaming by in a blur, and the effortless tight narrow focus of a goal - it all clicked into place like human dominos in a chain, one after the other, circuit breakers tripping in a string that shot sheer joy through Downforce's spark. He backed off one slight precious click, just enough to let the jet take the lead as they roared up to the ridge, enough to make sure his trajectory was right, angle and plane and thrust and...

He hit the top of the rise going just shy of three hundred and seventy miles per hour...

...LIFT.

For one glorious, fabulous, priceless instant there was nothing but UP, the world falling away, empty wind beneath his wheels, the whistle of it through his plates. He let it last, reveling in it, for one sparkpulse, another, then another, before the carefully calculated alert burst across his HUD.

The wind howled through him as his frame split apart at the seams, plates whirling in a wild tesselation of mass and shape, and it was Downforce's hands that made contact with the jet's hull plating first, latching on with desperation against gravity and the sudden merciless tear of wind shear that threatened to tear him away. The impact knocked him strutless but he clung on with dogged determination, magclamps locking in place as he flattened himself against the other's plates, the wind whipping away his triumphant shout.

"YES!"

[Deleted]

For a split second, Air Raid gaped.

The Decepticon was gone.

Gone!

Like, whoosh- there one instant, surrounded by the dust kicked up from his spinning tires. And then the blue car had veered, hit the rise like a rocket on its final countdown into the stratosphere, and-

Vanished, into the sky. Leaving nothing but a vaguely car-shaped cloud of dust behind him.

There was one of those awful little moments of silence as the Aerialbot tried to process the stunning turn the race had taken.

And then-

WHAM.

The impact was so abrupt that Air Raid nearly dropped his nose and ploughed belly-first into the desert, as several tons worth of Decepticon tires and limbs and plating slammed neatly onto his back. A shredded cactus flew into the air, spattered into mulch by his jetwash. The white jet let out a screech and staggered for lift, straining to keep himself from crashing into the earth and rolling them both up into a messy ball of steel. His engine roared, blasting heat as he aimed upwards and screamed into the sky, dust and shocked profanities swirling in his wake.

Hands! Hands on him! The Decepticon was clinging to his back!

"Holy Primus uppa tree!" he gibbered. "You crazy- you're crazy! You are nuts! Get- get offa me, you slagging psycho! Take this!"

With a wrench of his wings Air Raid frantically threw himself into a snap-roll, still blasting madly upwards into the sunset.

[Deleted]

The world dipped and spun before Downforce's optics at a speed he couldn't, even on his best day, reach on wheels. Impossibly fast, dizzying, the sudden rush of G-force alone keeping him plastered to the other's plating even as the wind tried to rip him off. Downforce clung tighter, gripping at seams, and whooped in sheer exuberant joy. "YESSSS!"

It was perfect. It was better then perfect, it was THE BEST. 'Bot, 'Con - right that moment, Downforce didn't care and couldn't spare a rusted lugnut to worry about it. There was just THIS - wind and speed and the world from too high up, something settling calm in his spark even as he yelled for excitement.

Dimly, he realized the flier was panicking. Not helpful. Panicking was rarely helpful, and the spinning was fun and all but.... speed. Downforce pressed himself into the other's plates, comms bypassing the need for decryption codes when passed plate to plate by frames. ::FASTER! GO FASTER!::

[Deleted]

Faster? Faster?!

Air Raid dizzily stopped rolling. The delighted shouts echoed in his head this time, rather than in his audials. With a jolt of astonishment he realised that the Decepticon had switched to his internal comm and was hailing him over the radio through contact. And boy, did he sound like he was having a fun time.

A fun time!

Air Raid gawped. This guy was insane!

An insane mech who had just thrown down the gauntlet.

"You're nuts!" he yelled, his own voice torn away by the wind. "You are- certifiable! They should lock you up! Holy crap! I will totally show you faster!"

At the top of his climb the Aerialbot went arrow-straight, pointed at the evening stars that glittered at the very peak of the sky. He slowed, stood upright on his tail- and for an instant the rushing wind against Downforce's plating went still and quiet. The forces exerted against him relaxed. All there was to be heard was the bellow of the white jet's engines, loud against the peaceful sky.

And then, Air Raid kicked his rudder.

All at once the jet pivoted in mid-air, swinging violently around until his nose pointed to the ground. His engine roared and he accelerated downwards like a comet, picking up speed in the descent. A vicious wind blasted over the Decepticon; airflow and centrifugal force alike would flatten him down fast as the Aerialbot pulled up and into a graceful loop, sending the ground and the sky whirling together into a mad pinwheel of colour.

[Deleted]

The humans had a phrase, usually used in conjunction with the frozen edible they called 'icecream', in terms of rating its desirability. Better than sex, the phrase went. It was a nonsensical thing as the there was nothing remotely similar about organic digestion and reproduction, but that was par for the course with the organic languages - insensible and riddled with unintelligible comparisons.

It had been a long time... a really long... really REALLY long and he wasn't even going to peek at his archive stamps to actually track down a date because it had been longer than long and then some since the last time Downforce had even considered any type of interfacing, it wasn't something he did, it just wasn't his thing, no thanks, not tonight, not tomorrow, not ever, but oh Primus, sweet Primus, he could finally see the analogy because THIS? This was better than interfacing or any story ever told about interfacing, ever, ever, EVER.

Plastered to the other's plates - and yeah, sure, there were more than a few ribald jokes to be made about that - while the flier pulled mad crazy Gs up and up and up and up, nearly to the Nemesis' cruising speed, up up UP, and then WHOOSH, wow, bam, down again, and Downforce was shrieking with pure delight the whole way, excited sparkling gibberish of ::more faster more go wheeeeee!!!:: babbling through their contact comms. And the loop, oh, the LOOP, everything spinning, fast and flawless, and Downforce couldn't pop his plates for anything or any reason, not voluntarily, but right that instant, right then, if the Aerialbot had asked him for a quick fling he would have tried because anything was worth this. Anything at all.

Plate to plate there was no hiding field contact, his own EM scrambling waves of equal excitement and adulation against the other's surface. ::DO IT AGAIN!::

[Deleted]

That close to one another, there was no disguising the pure exhilaration racing through the Decepticon's field. There was nothing vicious about it, no sense of joy before a kill - this was just some weird Con grounder getting a huge kick out of the flight of a lifetime.

Air Raid couldn't believe it.

He wasn't dead. By all rights he should have been shot in the back now, gored through by a blast from the Decepticon's gun and sent tumbling from the sky. Instead the guy was lying flat against his fuselage and yelling for more.

Wow. I really could have phrased that better. But seriously, is... is this guy getting off on this?

Air Raid had seen countless other Aerialbots torn apart by Cons that had closed in like this, ripped to pieces, unable to fight back while pinned in their jet modes. But even as the mad instinct to transform and grapple back went screaming up his neural net, screaming just as rapidly down it in the other direction was the mad urge to do a motherfucking barrel roll!

"You want some more?!" he bellowed aloud, his voice made hoarse by the wind and the roar of his own engine. "I'll give you some more! I give it to all! That didn't come out the way I intended. Let's see how you like THIS, Con Air!"

Air Raid yanked his nose upwards, blasting vertically like a rocket. This time he deliberately throttled back hard, and when he felt the lift peeling in ragged tatters from his wings he slammed on his left rudder. As the spin hit him he flipped violently over onto his back and began to spiral downwards, faster and faster, the world a frantic pinwheel of colour beneath his nose.

[Deleted]

Downforce's vocalizer was locked up somewhere around his thoracic vents, every ounce of spare power devoted to clamping himself to a solid surface while the world spun dizzyingly, gravity clawing.

He'd never had so much fun in his life.

::moremoremoreMORE keep going faster MORE!:: The pulse of it shivered through his field, translated in wordless bursts of giddy enthusiasm, adoration, and every friendly emotion Downforce could muster past the blanketing spark throb of thrill. The Aerialbot beneath him - what little he could spare to bother worrying about it - seemed equal parts disbelieving and riding on the thrill like Downforce was. The little 'Con spread enthusiasm and sincerity over his field and pressed it right into the Aerialbot's plates, frame all but humming vibrations of sheer joy. ::more-better-faster-higher-GO!::

[Deleted]

Holy slag.

Air Raid gaped all the way down through the spin. This guy was either a serious circuit junkie, or a nutter.

Oh, who was he kidding. Spins were awesome. Anybody who could go through an eight rotation accelerated spin and not hurl all over his plating was okay in Air Raid's book.

This guy was all right.

With the niggling thought in the back of his mind that such a thought was probably treasonous to the Autobot cause or something, Air Raid slammed in enough opposite rudder to halt the spin. Sad faces bobbed through his neural net, but he immediately corrected the cessation of absurd danger by pointing his nose straight down and firing off three snap rolls. Okay, and now he was going to tear off his wings if he tried to pull out of this and sent thousands of pounds of load pressure screaming through his frame. Seriously. Wings. Flying off backwards. Ratchet. Yelling at him.

There was one way to get out of this without ripping himself into shreds. Which meant the free ride was over.

Really hope a passing satellite doesn't take a picture of this.

Air Raid transformed.

Trying desperately to ignore the way the Decepticon was now clinging to his back, he spread his arms and legs against the wind flow to help slow his descent. The buffeting nearly ripped off plating but he grit his teeth against it and screamed back over his shoulder, "THIS IS YOUR CAPTAIN SPEAKING! PLEASE RETURN YOUR SEATS TO THE UPRIGHT POSITION! OXYGEN MASKS WILL NOT DEPLOY FROM YOUR OVERHEAD COMPARTMENT! PREPARE TO DITCH!"