wheeljack-boom

[wheeljack-boom]

I’m sorry, I still cannot recover from the cuteness of his little stretchy.

[wheeljack-boom]

Lol

his last words were "thats not how pronouns work"

dialogue from @jestlingnest

[wheeljack-boom]

Look at him

Bumblebee playing possum to catch Breakdown off guard is so goddam funny.

[wheeljack-boom]

TFP Optimus Prime literally has the dad face.. please hear me out

HE GOT THE EYEBROWS AND CHIN AND EVERYTHING. BROOOO HES SO DAD AND DADDY

Seriously, He's LITERALLY A DAD, MAN. ITS NOT FUNNY HES SO GRGDJFHSJDMGNFMM I LOVE HIM FOR THAT

i am not normal.

[wheeljack-boom]

Continuation of pt. 3 posted some time ago. A fresh rescuer comes to save the day, but it gets worse from there.

Full work (just updated) can be found here!

Mild warning for violence, human getting thrown around, Cybertronian teeth marks, etc. Word count: 5,188

Non specific AU, mostly inspired by G1. Human is an OC.

“Hey Rumble! Why don’t you hang out with me instead?!” Recognition cut through Allison’s stunned and disoriented mental state as she managed to roll over, surprised through her fearful haze to see the darkened form of Bumblebee standing over her—he was cracking jokes?! The Autobot had the Decepticon he called Rumble pinned against the ruined wall of her building, arm locked at a distance so that his quarry thrashed around uselessly in his grip; just hanging there…

The action of Allison stumbling to her feet, made Bumblebee finally glance at her, his expression indecipherable. “H-hey… you should probably run—” Whatever motion Bumblebee was doing with his free arm went unnoticed, as Allison caught sight of something massive moving towards him fast. It was clearly angry. Maybe her sudden, horrified expression gave it away, but she pointed behind him, screaming. 

“Look out!”

Perhaps Bumblebee had actually sensed it before Allison’s organic brain could process what she was seeing, because the second the words left her lips the Autobot reacted. His expression widened in alarm, then half a second later he swung around in the opposite direction, bodily throwing the Decepticon in his grip at the oncoming monstrosity that exploded from the ground to tower above him. Whatever it was, it was immediately obvious it wasn’t friendly, barely flinching as it caught the living projectile that was thrown at it. Bumblebee stepped in front of her to take a defensive position, making it incredibly obvious that his earlier statement was not so much a suggestion, but a necessity. 

Before she turned to run, Allison only had the faintest impression of Rumble disengaging from the new arrival who bore a striking resemblance to the smaller Decepticon she was already familiar with. She could barely make out the flashes of blue and silver in the lights of the streetlamps, the very obvious red visor over its eyes glaring with a searing hatred directed squarely on Bumblebee. She was terrified for him, but knew she could do nothing to help against this assailant who was nearly double his size. 

Something ejected from the larger Decepticon’s chest that Allison couldn’t see as she turned to flee, but she heard Bumblebee yell what sounded like run over the explosion of commotion. She didn’t have time to think about what she saw, realizing that exact moment that she’d lost track of where Rumble had gone, but there wasn’t time to care. She was running deeper into the alley, where it opened up into a construction site behind her building. There was a lot of confusing, violent noise happening behind her, and in a blind panic she threw her body behind a stack of wooden pallets to catch her breath. She couldn’t run forever…

To her dismay, Allison realized that the clashing brawl had nearly matched her pace, entering the space of the construction site right behind her. It was clear that Bumblebee’s size gave him a number of advantages over the massive Decepticon, because he was fast, effortlessly using the larger size of his opponent against them. Allison still had not really adjusted to the sheer scale of these beings, even with her exposure to them in a safe environment back at the Autobots’ home. Seeing them fight now was otherworldly. The way their arms swept through the air and smashed into each other, the frightening size of their gait as their feet moved over the limited terrain while Bumblebee tried to hold the larger robot back. And this was just two of them. All it did was bring to focus just how terrifyingly out of place they were, and Allison feared for how much destruction more of them could wreak on Earth.

Bumblebee was clearly taking more of a defensive stance, though Allison couldn’t really understand why. It was almost like he was stalling for time, dodging the Decepticon’s blows and maneuvering around him with a quickness that should have been improbable for something of his size. The Decepticon in turn was eerily devoid of expression, having a similar mask-like covering on their face that Wheeljack did. Their chest where she’d earlier seen unusual movement was square-like and rimmed in yellow, the same symbol in the center that she stupidly hadn’t recognized earlier for what it was; how could she have known?

If Allison stayed any longer, she was going to get crushed, but now she feared if she revealed her position she would draw the Decepticon’s attention. Luckily they seemed more focused on attacking Bumblebee, who was doing an impressive job landing quick hits and dodging the return swings. She watched in frozen horror, too fearful to move and invite death. They’d seemed so kind and unthreatening, but now watching the skilled, practiced movements of the yellow Autobot confirmed what she should have already known: they were warriors.

Somehow the Decepticon managed to finally land a sharp, brutal kick on Bumblebee’s leg, causing him to buckle with a sharp yell. This gave them the needed opening to swing around him, trapping him in a chokehold with a massive arm. Allison feared she was about to watch Bumblebee lose his head, his eyes quickly glancing in her direction instantly as if to check where she was—at some point his face had become mostly obscured by what was clearly his own protective mask, but his eyes were clear and frightened. She had to do something that was monumentally stupid, because she loathed the fact that he was more worried about her than his own life. 

Her eyes darted around, eventually landing on a large dolly covered in what looked like metal piping across the pathway. Instinctively, she looked them over quickly to see if she could use them to her advantage. The details of how weren’t there, just this blur of an idea, but it was all she had in that moment as she ran towards it. Bumblebee was fighting with the Decepticon to break free, a brief moment of confusion on his face as he saw Allison rush out from hiding, passing behind the two larger bodies with an immense sense of urgency. She reached for the dolly handle and pulled it with all of her weight, her grip nearly failing as her hand slipped on the wet metal. She was dismayed to find that it didn’t want to budge as fast as she needed it to. It was much heavier than she anticipated, and she knew time was not on her side as she tried to position it in the right place, shoes gripping into the wet concrete with each backward step. She kept glancing sideways at the massive towering form above her, uncomfortably close enough that she could feel the radiating heat. She could almost reach out and touch them…

Somehow, it must have been obvious what she was doing, because as soon as she was clear of the Decepticon’s path Bumblebee snapped his wing panels upwards violently. With legs more powerful than she could comprehend, he kicked off the ground forcing both bodies backwards. The rendering shriek of metal slicing through metal preceded the startled release of the much larger robot letting go. They emitted a strangely electronic garbled roar that sounded full of static, gripping a torn space on their front that looked like it was now leaking. Energon… Allison thought through a dim haze of panic, realizing she was watching this robot bleed. Stumbling backwards with heavy, thudding steps, they knocked over the dolly, pipes spilling around their feet with a deafening clatter that echoed across the construction site. They lost their footing and began to fall, Allison's gambit somehow paying off. Bumblebee used the opportunity to break further away and whip around, and in one shockingly fast motion raised a transformed arm and shot at the Decepticon with a sudden burst of focused light. The overwhelming crack of the weapon caused Allison to collapse in a shocked heap behind the pallet, covering her ears far too late as her eardrums wailed in agony. A lingering burn of electrically charged air stung her skin from the close proximity; like a stinger, Allison thought stupidly in her battle-shocked brain, and she could have laughed if not for the fact that it possibly could have killed her if she were any closer. Water was an excellent conductor of electricity. 

These were their weapons?? Planet Earth was screwed.

The tremendously powerful crunch that followed signaled the fall of something massive hitting the ground next to her. Now was probably the most opportune time to run. The ringing in her ears was painful. She had barely a second’s breath to come to terms with the idea that Bumblebee had shot someone with his arm, and that she had somehow felt some sort of rebound effect even some distance away. 

Unfortunately as she stumbled out from behind her hiding spot, she noticed the Decepticon was staring directly at her from their prone position on the ground. The feeling of being marked was immediate, and if she had frozen any longer she would have been caught by their hand as they lashed out to pluck her off the ground. The rush of air passed over her as she ducked out of reach and further into the construction site, nearly slipping on a muddy puddle as she tried to gain purchase off the ground.  She didn’t want to look behind her to see Bumblebee die, so she ran, blindly, hearing what sounded like the returning shots of a powerful weapon behind her.

The construction site merged with the backside of an urban mall—Allison was familiar with it, because she’d visited it many times, but was aware that it was currently closed for large-scale renovations. She wasn’t really conscious of where her feet were taking her, but an impulse pulled her towards the back end of the building. It was open to the elements, blocked off from intruders with only locked gates and tarp. It seemed wildly unprotected, but Allison didn’t care. She needed to get lost somewhere and catch her breath. After nearly being strangled, thrown around, and chased, she was losing energy fast so hiding seemed like the reasonable option. 

Unless, they could sense her, making her ability to hide moot anyway. That posed a number of problems, but what she needed was time to hopefully recover. She had doubts she was going to make it out alive anyway. 

Cutting through the first row of barriers, Allison ducked under the tarp and considered her methods for getting around the locked wire gate. There was no way she was going to get the padlock open, so she decided climbing was the best option. There was enough of a gap between the top of the wire fence and the concrete ceiling that she would be able to slip through. There wasn’t really time to think about security cameras or getting caught. Getting up was easy enough, but hoisting her body over to the other side was another matter considering how much her body hurt. She barely managed to dangle her feet over the other side when her strength finally gave out, her arms turning to putty as she lost her grip and plunged to the ground like a weighted sack. As she lay there on her side in a tragic heap, she briefly considered sobbing. She was worn out, soaking wet, terrified and bruised and she just wanted it to end. 

It was maybe only moments Allison laid there, listening to the thumping of her heart in her chest while her legs burned. She half-wondered if she was going to be able to stand again, because she almost couldn’t feel her feet. The skin on her neck prickled with a sharp pain from where Rumble had his hand around her, and her whole body was chilled straight through to the bone. Eventually Allison’s heart rate slowed to an anxious throb, pulse an overbearing presence on her awareness as she silently wished for losing consciousness. That way, she could be unaware of her death when the time came. 

Reluctantly she pushed her body into an upright position, her arms trembling like jello as she used the gate to try and pull herself to her feet. Her ears had stopped ringing, so that was a plus, but she could no longer hear the sounds of the fight outside. It was eerily quiet underneath the hammering sound of the rain, and remembering what it felt like just before she’d been attacked, Allison was struck with the urgent compulsion to move.

It was slightly warmer the further she got into the darkened mall, making Allison shudder against the searing cold of her soaked clothing. Her jacket felt heavy with water, and it was seeping into her shirt underneath, causing it to stick to her skin. Wiping wet hair out of her eyes, she looked around, searching for any signs of movement, human or otherwise. She would have almost welcomed human hostility, because that was at least predictable at this point. 

The innards of the mall were locked down tight, more secure than the outside entrance. Each storefront was like a mini Fort Knox, completely shuttered and padlocked, with merchandise completely pulled from visible lines of sight. There weren’t any signs of human activity at all, save for more construction supplies and equipment strewn about in piles. The vague sense of post-apocalyptic abandonment was still omnipresent and it made Allison feel very alone.  Looking behind her, the wide promenade was empty, meaning nothing had followed her from that way. 

It was too much to hope that she hadn’t been seen, and Allison knew that vain optimism would not be on her side that night. Her only plan was to leave through the front, potentially putting a large building between her and the dangerous fighting back the way she’d come . Maybe she could get lost in the confusing grid of streets and tall buildings to make her way home, but that assumed home was even safe. Trying for something like a police station seemed out of the question. What the hell were they going to do against large robotic attackers? Would they even believe her? She barely believed any of this was happening herself.

As soon as Allison turned back to travel deeper into the mall towards the front doors, something above her exploded in a sharp cascade, and what she initially thought was rain falling around her was quickly revealed to be shards of glass. She fell forward onto her knees, immediately bringing her arms up to protect her head from the cutting assault, hearing the tremendously heavy smash of something landing behind her. She didn’t need to look to know what it was, as she could recall the oppressive energy of her intimately acquainted assailant from earlier. Rumble had found her. 

“Stop running,” Rumble muttered. His voice sounded strangely detached, like he was not quite in control of himself. With the way he’d seemed overcome with the need to pummel her earlier, the depersonalization of his nature was a special kind of horror. Like a desperate need for violence was overriding any other critical functioning. Allison had no intention of heeding such a request of course, so she forced herself to her feet and practically threw her body into the large double-doors of an employee accessway. She didn’t want to think what he was going to do to her if he got his hands on her again.

The Decepticon watched her coolly, unmoving save for what looked like a steady rise and fall of his shoulders. Allison wasn’t sure what to make of his behavior now, almost like he was waiting for something she wasn’t aware of but she didn’t want to stick around and find out. The employee doors weren’t locked, so she yanked one open to throw herself inside—

—Only to be met with what was one of the most viscerally unfortunate things she had ever seen. There was another one, almost identical to the one that had been chasing her, but this time he was red and black, moving quickly down the hallway with an even more wildly predatory grin on his face. 

“No!” Allison wailed audibly, forcing the door closed almost as quickly as she’d opened it. In that brief space of time Rumble had moved to nearly be on top of her. Yelping, Allison tried to duck past him, cringing as she brushed against solid, hot metal in her bid for freedom. She was not equipped for this. They were flanking her; a strategic move fit for a battlefield, a place she had no business being in. She was outclassed and outmatched in every way. 

That wasn’t going to stop her from trying to stay alive, even if she knew in her gut she was doomed. Allison got lucky before, because Rumble was hindered by the cramped accommodations. Not to mention the fact that her timely rescue by Bumblebee was too much of a coincidence to be pure luck. She hadn’t really had a second to give it much thought outside of the obvious answer that he’d been watching her, but for how long?

As she ran, she only had the faintest memory of Wheeljack edge its way into her brain. Where was he at that moment, and was he aware of what was going on? Was he aware that he and Ratchet had been wrong about the energon? It didn’t really matter anymore.

A crash somewhere behind her caused Allison to risk a glance over her shoulder as she ran. The fact that she suddenly couldn’t see Rumble anymore was alarming. He had disappeared somewhere through the mangled security shutters of a store, which explained the crash. Even worse, the newcomer red twin had emerged from the employee corridor, only to launch off the ground in a single bound, attaching himself to the higher margins of the wall like some kind of freak insect. Something had impaled the wall—his arm, now some kind of long, cone-like appendage like a massive drill. Allison thought that things couldn’t have been any worse, but she’d obviously been wrong about that. 

She was so focused on watching the Decepticon somehow attached to the wall, that she’d lost complete track of where Rumble had gone. She was concentrating on not getting completely impaled when the red one launched off his perch, propelled by what was clearly a massive amount of strength as he sailed towards her. Now, Allison could hear the terrifying whirr of the drill as he brought it down into the ground, tearing through tile and concrete just mere inches from her feet as she stumbled sideways to get out of the way. 

Allison still had no earthly idea why they were after her. She didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things, so why so much effort for one stupid human? Whatever was going on with the energon in her body clearly being back couldn’t have been that important to them, surely.

Throwing her off balance had clearly been the goal, as she was starting to get the unsettling idea that they wanted her alive. That didn’t mean they weren’t going to do a lot of damage in the process, possibly not even really aware of how fragile she comparatively was. When Allison lost her footing, she was barely able to regain her balance before Rumble once again burst out of the metal shutter of the store behind her. Before she could straighten to pivot out of the way, he swooped forward, scooping her off the ground by fisting the back of her clothing.

Not being hung by her throat was a small blessing, but Allison didn’t find it all that more comfortable being yanked off her feet like a misbehaving kitten. Her clothing was cutting into her armpits, and she couldn’t really lift her arms to try and relieve some of the pressure. She was past the point of exhaustion with no strength to fight back. If she disassociated and just let it happen, maybe it would hurt less and be over soon…

“Reeks of Autobot…” Barely noticing that the red one had stepped into her space to haunt her sensory range, she tried not to make eye contact as the words bit at her understanding. The voice was different from Rumble’s despite their visual similarities; more reedy with a barely perceptible crackle around the edges, almost like the threads of sanity were fraying. She didn’t understand what he said, but it dawned on her that maybe just simple retribution was why they were so intent on chasing her. Did she really somehow smell like them? That was a disquieting thought… “Let me gut it.” Having the sharp end of a drill hovering precariously close to her stomach was less than ideal.

“Soundwave wants the ape alive, Frenzy,” Rumble groused from behind her, almost like an older sibling talking to an unruly younger child. Were they… related somehow?  “Can’t figure out why…” Were they referring to the larger Decepticon that attacked Bumblebee?

Allison had almost successfully depersonalized her way into a foggy haze of acceptance of her fate, until she was brutally dropped back into the present when she suddenly found herself airborne. The oxygen was forced from her lungs in a strangled yelp as she was tossed like a sandbag, rolling in a disjointed heap several feet away. She came to a stop in the middle of the main plaza where the mall branched, facing directly in front of the double doors that would lead outside. They were taunting her. It was getting harder to pick herself back up every time she fell, the weight of her body becoming too much. She only managed to partially lift herself on her forearms, peering outside the doors looking for something she wasn’t sure of.  

“He didn’t specify what condition though…” The snickering voice behind her bounced around the empty center court of the mall, almost like the violence inherent in the words alone weren’t enough for maximum damage. It had to consume her. “Let’s play with it…” Allison couldn’t tell which of them were speaking anymore, but it hardly mattered. She was hallucinating light coming towards the doors fast, thinking it was death coming for her at a blistering pace until she realized what she was seeing were headlights. It was a car, and it wasn’t going to stop.

The doors exploded as the car barreled through, moving impossibly too fast to be driven by a human. Allison barely had time to try and drag her body out of its path, but seemingly with perfect awareness of its surroundings it skidded around her, sliding on its back wheels in a cherry red blur as it sideswiped the two stunned Decepticons who had no chance to move out of the way. Simultaneously, the car began to change shape, unfolding and increasing in size in a way that had become familiar to her because she’d seen it in the opposite direction. The momentum and speed carried the transforming shape some distance away where they finally stopped in a partial crouch, the two Decepticons being knocked clear through the other side of the building.

Allison had a moment of hesitation when she locked eyes with this unfamiliar savior, trying in vain to scoot in the opposite direction with the little strength she had left. Their eyes were blue which made her hesitate due to the recognition of a pattern. The outward astonishment on this newcomer’s face when they saw her meant they had not expected to see her, but there was something else; it was almost like they looked amazed.

“You’re… her!” They exclaimed with a lit up smile, the tone of excitement wildly off putting in the circumstances, but Allison immediately recognized that he shared the same Autobot symbol just at the cuff of his neck, or rather, the upper edge of the large plating on his chest on a black panel. “I KNEW IT—”

Before he could clarify what the hell he meant, the two Decepticons he had literally swatted away leapt up from behind him, one of them grappling with his black-plated head and the other latching onto his armored white arm. The sudden change in expression was startling, the open, almost achingly pleasant nature from before replaced with fierce revulsion. She didn’t want to stick around to see what would happen next, fearing she would get caught in the middle of yet another robotic battle. There was no point in squandering the opportunity born from her timely save, so mustering up the dregs of strength she had left she picked herself off the ground and limped to the mangled front entrance.

Allison’s hope for safety hung as loosely as the vestiges of the door. The Autobot that saved her stood between her and her assailants, but she couldn’t spare him a thought. Her entire focus was on putting one foot before the other, the gaping wound in the side of the building looming larger and larger as she grew closer. Light from an outside lamp, flickering as it too struggled to stay alive, cast shadows over the steps. She kept her gaze on the light, as if it were an anchor, her ultimate goal. She reached the steps that led up, and she struggled to find the energy to climb them, but she had no choice. Behind her, the sounds of fighting were a faint buzzing in her ear. She raised her knee, took another step, followed by another. And then, when she was midway, almost close enough to reach out and touch the doors, her stomach gave way as a new shape filled the hole, large enough to block out the dying light, and casting shadows on her already grim hope for survival. “Ravage. Eject.”

Whatever drive for survival Allison had left was short-lived. It was like she was stuck in some kind of nightmare; no matter how far she ran, they were always right behind her traveling at an identical pace. She heard the voice, almost auto-tuned and mechanical, then saw the red and instantly she knew that it was the one that had been fighting Bumblebee; the one they had called Soundwave. 

Fearing that this meant Bumblebee was dead somewhere, Allison felt the true weight of impending doom as she knew defeat was imminent. She was out of places to run. The mechanical whirring and noise from above preceded movement, then in a sudden blast the large figure of Soundwave suddenly lunged through what remained of the mall’s front entryway. She almost missed the flash of yellow latched onto his back as his body literally sailed over her, and that’s when Allison realized he’d actually been shoved with strength she couldn’t comprehend. 

Glass crunched to her right, and Allison snapped out of her daze long enough to see a large quadrupedal shadow slip through the shadows towards her. Turning to see Bumblebee—alive —kneeling on the collapsed form of Soundwave and trying to pin him down gave her a sudden surge of adrenaline that she didn’t know was possible. She would have continued out the doors, until she saw the previously glimpsed shadow suddenly blocking her escape. It was… a goddamned panther?!

Nothing was making any sense anymore. With a static-ridden snarl, the robot beast lunged. Allison was able to duck under the railing before leaping off the steps in a single bound. She didn’t know how she managed to stay upright, or where she got the sudden energy to leap over the counter of a coffee shop to flee through the back room. The rapid, thumping steps behind her were different than when she was being chased by the others. This one was fast, and catching up quickly as she ran through the back service hallways blindly. This was pure auto-pilot now; no thought or planning for where she was going, just away.

For a second Allison was convinced the Exit she was quickly approaching was going to give her trouble; instinct gripping her through the fear, but thankfully it flew open embarrassingly easy as her entire weight crashed against it. She stumbled out into a loading dock, the cold hitting her like a blast for the second time that night as she was finally outside. She passed through a security gate just before hitting the concrete of the dock. Shoving it closed behind her, it took barely a second for the heavy form of the robotic creature to stand on its back legs and knock both her, and the gate back with graceful ease. Allison’s body twisted as she fell, landing hard on her stomach with a crack as her elbow took the brunt of the fall. Immediately the attacking feline—whatever it was—was pinning her down. There was no evil mockery or waxing poetic about her downfall. Whatever this Decepticon was, it was brutal and efficient, and driven by a singular purpose. No sooner did Allison feel its weight on her, did she feel massive, powerful jaws clamp over her shoulder, sharp metal teeth piercing through clothing and skin.

The pain didn’t come immediately. Perhaps Allison was too stunned with what was happening to register the fact that it had bit her. Her body was cold as ice, almost numbing the sensation at first, until the pain became sudden and real, and that’s when she screamed. Her haggard cry almost drowned out the voice that shouted “Ravage!” before the heat of an energy blast zipped impossibly close to her skin. 

Suddenly the weight was gone, The closed jaws around her shoulder let go as the body they were attached to was knocked clean off and back through the way she’d come. Allison collapsed momentarily, disoriented enough that she couldn’t quite see the yellow shape crouched in front of her in the rain. At first she thought it was Bumblebee, but it couldn’t have been. They were larger, their face barely in view underneath the overhang of the loading bay, blue eyes pale and watching her. Weakly hanging onto consciousness, Allison could see that they looked frightened as they regarded the state of her, arm still holding up what looked like a weapon that was cooling in wisps as raindrops evaporated into steam.

They stared at each other for maybe seconds, the figure’s mouth opened and words came out, but Allison couldn’t understand them. All she heard was noise against noise, but it was faint, as if it were slipping away from her. The robot—they were obviously an Autobot— stood upright suddenly, and with a bound they were gone. Allison was left with nothing but the numb sensation of the last remnants of her energy leaving her body. She could barely lift her head off the ground now, but she could feel something warm and wet pooling under her cheek. Without being able to really look she knew she was bleeding. There was a moment of dislocation as the world started to spin before she was pulled into darkness.

[wheeljack-boom]

[wheeljack-boom]

Entropy pt. 3

Full writing can be found here.

A brief snippet of an unexpected Decepticon attack against an unsuspecting human. Mild warning for violence and creepy behavior.

Non- specific Transformers AU with human OC.

Maybe Allison should have been grateful that the most eventful thing to happen in days was the chaos at work when no one could figure out who had checked in the gigantic stereo in the back room. Allison had never seen such a thing, so it had to have been some sort of commercial brand; maybe for DJ or some sort of large dance club. It took up almost the entire back wall in the store room. Allison hadn’t worked the evening before it simply appeared in the workshop, so as far as she was concerned it was everyone else’s problem to figure out who hadn’t done the paperwork properly.

Since no one could figure out where it had come from, no one could start work on it until the boss came in the next morning, so it sat there while Allison closed the shop for the night. Before she did her usual routine checks she sat in the office rifling through customer contacts to see if any company names stood out that would be missing a giant stereo. There was a weird energy in the air that night and Allison couldn’t quite explain it. Something just felt off, and the whole time she was in the office she had this eerie sense that she was being watched. It was so quiet she was starting to get annoyed with the sound of her own breathing. Then the music started playing.

It was so sudden, and so loud Allison almost thought something had exploded. Instinctively she dropped what she was holding and clamped her hands over her ears, the thudding pulse of the bass threatening to make her burst from within. It took several seconds to realize she was hearing rock music and that it was coming through the mystery stereo. She recognized the song, an old early 80’s tune that her dad used to listen to, but it was infinitely less appealing when played at full volume. Stumbling out of the office, she fumbled with several buttons through sheer disoriented confusion before finally managing to turn it off. The silence was oppressive.

It took several more seconds for Allison to realize she was hearing her own heartbeat as she stood there staring perplexed at the stereo for entirely too long. She guessed it was obvious why it needed repair. Looking around, she found several dials that looked like they pertained to volume, so she cranked them all the way to the left in the zero position. It would be incredibly unlucky if the thing were to turn on in the middle of the night when no one was there. If it stayed on any longer she was afraid it would bring the whole building down. 

Now that she was rattled, Allison decided that she wanted to get through her closing tasks as soon as possible and get home. It was getting dark out, and she could hear rain finally starting to cut into the evening’s silence as it began pattering against the windows. She was in the midst of collecting trash when the music started again. At full volume. 

This time she froze, something telling her that this was not quite right as a cold fear rippled down her body. Someone had to be playing a prank with some kind of Bluetooth remote, or wireless activation, there was no other explanation. She ran back to the stereo and slapped at the buttons in a panic to turn it off again. 

Several more minutes went by as she stared at it. The face of the stereo was nondescript. It was an attractive navy blue offset with silver and black accents, with just about everything one would expect on a stereo. It had two unusually large antennae affixed to the back edges, which was sort of odd by modern standards. There was no branding or writing of any kind, just a sleek looking emblem on an edge that looked like it represented some sort of street brand, or maybe some DJ or club’s logo. It was angular and smooth, sort of like a face. 

Reflexively, it made Allison think of Wheeljack again, and that made her annoyed enough to turn her back to the stereo once again to finish up her closing duties. She hadn’t been thinking about him all day, which pissed her off more than it should have. Allison actually thought she was starting to feel close to normal until—

Stopping in the doorway to the office, something suddenly struck her that she hadn’t immediately noticed. It was a delayed reaction to something that hit her peripheral and something was nagging at her that she couldn’t quite shake. When it reached the forefront of her logical thinking she stilled, her breath catching as she realized the anomaly that didn’t make sense.

The stereo wasn’t plugged in.

xXx

By the time it started to rain, Bumblebee’s joints were getting cramped from the fixed position he’d been in for hours. He found himself in a parking lot beneath the highway that cut through the city, just one of many. Allison hadn’t told him specifically where she worked, but Bumblebee knew what to do with details. It only took a little creative digging into public records to figure out specifically which repair shop she worked at, because there were only so many in the city where someone named Allison would be found. 

Bumblebee kept his distance, several blocks away, but on the path he knew Allison took, because he’d watched her walk along the road hours prior. Tucked away in the row of cars, she wouldn’t have been able to see him unless she really looked. He had to be careful about his movements, because Allison had been incredibly observant about the coloring of his armor panels considering her fixation with his name. He wouldn’t have been surprised if she recognized him immediately, and he didn’t want to inadvertently cause any problems. 

So he kept watch, monitoring local emergency feeds and radio signals for any odd activity. Either the Decepticons weren’t around, or they’d gotten incredibly clever at hiding their traces. That made it even more critical that he be in this very spot, especially considering he was dismayed to learn when Allison walked to work this morning that the energon signature on her had returned. So Ratchet and Wheeljack had been wrong, and Allison probably had no idea she was practically a beacon to any Cybertronian who happened to come by, friendly or otherwise. That alone made his inner circuits churn with anxiety, because he didn’t like being able to sense her in that way without her knowing. 

It was almost starting to get boring as Bumblebee rested back on his wheels, so while the rain began to pick up he observed the humans around him. He noted that not a lot of them used the thing they called umbrellas, which was odd, considering how often it rained in this region. It was a busy area where humans shopped for various luxuries and other goods, sometimes popping in and out of places they called cafes. Part of him wondered what it was like to consume such a broadly diverse range of different kinds of substances, but he certainly didn’t envy how their small organic bodies had to process them. There were mostly adults that walked these streets, and many of them spent a lot of time looking at their small cellular phone devices barely paying attention to where they were going. It was their more immediate form of communication, as they didn’t have the ability to speak to one another through internal com channels. 

By the time the streets cleared out, Bumblebee was starting to wonder if Allison had slipped past him somehow in the later hours of the evening. Humans were creatures of habit, so that seemed unlikely. Surely she would come back the same way she traveled before. He was so focused on sorting through any and all resounding radio chatter looking for something he missed, so he almost didn’t notice the sudden click in his own internal com as someone entered his periphery. 

“I’m bored. What are we waiting for?”

“Sideswipe?!”

“What, you think I’m not going to follow you when you leave the base with one of the ugliest mugs I’ve ever seen? Especially when you’ve been hiding something from me?” Unfortunately Bumblebee noticed far too late the bright red luxury sports car that had made itself comfortable several rows behind him. He was never that careless, so how Sideswipe slipped past him was an infuriating mystery.

“From us.” The additional voice that entered the conversation confirmed exactly what Bumblebee assumed would happen, and that would be Sideswipe roping his brother into this. The near-identical yellow car was several spaces to Sideswipe’s left. 

“I should have known. Sunstreaker you should know better. This doesn’t concern you. Go. Home.” Two very rare, flashy sports cars were going to draw far more attention than Bumblebee liked… though admittedly he was starting to have doubts. If things did in fact go south, having two of the strongest Autobot fighters with him was not a bad idea. He’d just been hoping things didn’t get messy. The twins weren’t exactly known for being delicate about their surroundings when it came to battle, and this was not a Cybertronian city. 

“I don’t know, I think this concerns us a lot actually. What are you out here waiting for in the middle of this… city?” Sunstreaker did little to hide his disdain. “And in the rain, no less.”

“I’m looking for Decepticons.” It was a half-truth, but it was enough.

“That’s it?” Sideswipe confirmed, though the lilt of his tone made it obvious he didn’t believe him. 

“That’s it.” Bumblebee lied.

“Well why didn’t you say so? What’s the point of being secretive about that? I love killing ‘Cons.” Sideswipe’s reply could have indicated he bought it, but the scout knew that was a vain hope.

Bumblebee was trying to multi-task, simultaneously keeping his sensors open while entertaining this conversation and trying to think of how to respond. There was no point in hiding anything now. The twins weren’t going anywhere, because they certainly didn’t take any of Bumblebee’s attempts at authority seriously. 

“Fine. Just don’t break anything.” Bumblebee could still keep an optic on Allison easy enough without telling them anything. They could be there as back-up should any Decepticons actually arrive. It was a win-win. He could figure out what to do if Allison got caught in the middle of it once it came to that. If it came to that. “And don’t draw…” Something flared at the edge of Bumblebee’s more heightened sensor range, and he immediately lost his train of thought. He poked at it, throwing out another pulse to try and catch it again. “—Wait…” There it was again, this time strong, and unmistakable. It was a full blown Decepticon presence, active. And it was close. “ON ME.”

Without waiting, Bumblebee peeled out of the parking lot and into the street towards the source. There was a briefly startled flutter of confusion on their com link before it went dark, meaning both Sideswipe and Sunstreaker had switched their focus to the more serious hunt at hand. They would be full of plenty of witty, poorly-timed jokes later, but now they knew what was at stake for all their complaining and bluster. Bumblebee knew the signal had come from the direction Allison traveled in, meaning they could be staring down the barrel of a full-blown announcement of their presence on this planet. He just hoped they weren’t too late. 

xXx

The face. 

Allison wasn’t sure how she knew, but something told her she was in danger, and it was time to go. She tried to relax her shoulders as much as possible, evening out her breathing as she walked back into the office at a reasonable pace. She didn’t want to give away the fact that she was fearful. Maybe if she didn’t provoke it, it wouldn’t move. 

There was no way for her to be fully certain, but somehow she knew it was Decepticon. No wonder it had felt like something was watching her all evening. She wondered how the hell they had found her, and why, unless…

Slowly, and with as little urgency as possible Allison gathered her things, realizing that she hadn’t done her usual checks around the workshop. Why she was concerned about work at a time like this was beyond her comprehension. Her gut instinct and animal brain were telling her to run, because she was being hunted. Where was she going to go? Was she even safe at home? Was there something even worse waiting for her outside? She still had to get home, and it was late so there wouldn’t be any foot traffic at this hour. She was alone. 

One thing at a time, and first, she needed to get out of the building. Trying to appear as casual as possible was difficult, considering her heart was about to pound its way out of her ears.

The problem was, she had to pass by the offending stereo again in order to get out of the building. The back door was still jammed and she didn’t want to risk it. Things probably couldn’t have gotten worse as she stood there for a tick considering the best course of action. That was until the power went out and she was plunged into darkness.

So Allison stood there in the pitch black, frozen in fear, and the thought faintly occurred to her that this would have been a terrible time for Wheeljack to go on a supply run. The absurdity of his possible timing almost made her laugh, if not for the fact that she was now in the dark and possibly in more danger now than she was before. That’s what finally convinced her to make a break for the exit, darting out of the back office room glancing to her right just long enough for a spike of fear to rip through her whole body. The stereo was gone. 

There was no time to think about that now, because the front door suddenly seemed twice as far away as it normally did. Allison was so focused on getting outside, that she didn’t see the hazard before it was too late.  She made it two steps out of the office before something large and massive struck her from the right, effectively throwing her bodily back into the room she’d come from. 

Allison was so stunned from the impact, that for a split-second she couldn’t move. It felt like she’d been hit by a wrecking ball; a solid wall of something that she bounced off of, causing her to slide gracelessly all the way back into the office she’d come from. For a second she was afraid she’d hit her head again, but somehow that had been avoided. The more pressing fear was the sudden comprehension of every instinct in her body telling her that she was now trapped. The move had been intentional; sound strategy to corral your prey into a corner where they can’t escape. That meant, someone knew the back door was a problem. Managing to lift her body enough to look through the doorway she’d just sailed through confirmed as much, and her whole body froze in terror. 

The first thing she saw was the sudden addition of light: harsh, red and angry hovering high above her in the dark like a panel. It floated towards the direction of the doorway from the blackness of the outer room, followed by the thudding mechanized steps of something that sounded heavy and threatening. The bright, glaring—visor?—had Allison transfixed like a deer caught in headlights, and she almost wondered for a panicked second if she was hallucinating some sort of uncanny vision. Whatever was coming towards her was simultaneously smaller than she would have expected, but still large enough to take up the entire span of the wide doorway separating her from it. 

It was almost comical how the massive shape maneuvered through the doorway, and this was the moment Allison realized it was much taller than she previously realized. Even hunched over, the oppressive robotic figure hit the ceiling while never taking its wide gaze off of her. Allison tried to rapidly file through her options, the worst of which was figuring a way to get around it which seemed nearly impossible. The alternative was stalling it long enough to try to force the back door open and she had no idea how she would do that.

Neither option seemed feasible as the—Decepticon—crept closer. She could barely make out the blue and silver coloring that had been the stereo, the two oddly shaped antennae rising off either shoulder. The angular face was now affixed to this body, and her prior assessment of it being kind of cool now felt incredibly stupid and irresponsible. 

Allison knew she needed to move, her eyes darting around for anything she could use as a weapon and coming up short, but at this point she needed to do something or else she was dead. She finally managed to scramble to her feet, stumbling back into the wall, only to find that the Decepticon was staring at her with an eerie, unsettling grin.

“This home of yours gets any smaller and I’ll end up with a permanent cramp in my neck.” The voice was higher pitched, almost mocking. “How ‘bout we open the place up by knocking down a few walls?” The threat was unmistakable as Allison finally decided to bolt. At precisely the same moment something happened to his arm. A clean succession of moving servos and rotating plates preceded the massive crash that enveloped the space she’d just occupied seconds before. She barely had time to throw a panicked glance over her shoulder to see what looked like a massive pilon stuck in the wall, connected to the Decepticon’s arm like some sort of freak appendage. 

Undeterred, she felt the moving air behind her as her assailant launched after her, the crunch of broken wall exploding as he yanked his arm free. In a fast panic Allison pulled a section of wire shelving over as she passed, the action pulling her around in time to see that she was nearly face-to-face with this new monstrosity just as a wide assortment of electronic parts and pieces crashed on top of him. Invulnerable, a massive shoulder took the brunt of the shelf’s impact, carelessly knocking it sideways while swinging his other arm around from below in an arcing motion. Allison didn’t have time to get out of the way before it was too late—he moved so fast—as this other hand clamped around her throat like a vice, carrying her several massive steps backward before hoisting her high into the air. 

As if to punctuate the sudden silence, filled only with the sounds of her desperate gagging as she tried to pry his hand off her, his other long arm jolted down. The massive crunch from the giant crushing mechanism that it extended into was palpable in the air, sending a vibration running down her spine through the hand currently squeezing the breath out of her.

“To be honest, I’ve just been itching to do this. I’ve been waiting for a while now, and I gotta' say, I’m not impressed. The big boss sent me to sniff out the weird signal here, and imagine my surprise to find out it’s one lousy organic.” He squeezed, as if to emphasize his displeasure, and Allison thought her neck was about to break as the flesh of her throat constricted, completely cutting off air. “Now that we’re acquainted, I’m thinkin’ we just pack you nice and tight into an envelope and mail you, express delivery. How does that sound?” Allison’s eyes bulged as a thousand thoughts flooded through her mind in an instant. Did they detect the energon? Was it back? How many of them knew about it? Were they here? Was this how she died? She punched uselessly at his arm, simultaneously trying not to hang from his grip fearing her spine would snap like a twig. He seemed completely unfazed by the myriad of weak smacks against his oversized forearm. After agonizing seconds, his head tilted sideways to study her while the searing visor covering his eyes burned into her teary vision.

“What the Pit is so special about you anyway?” He muttered, the previously high-pitched voice dropping low by several octaves and it made Allison’s insides squirm. “It’s not often I get sent to chase up vermin.” She tried to scream but the action was in vain, kicking hard once she felt the solid form of his face suddenly press against her stomach. Reflexively she tried to jerk away as she was pulled in, her voice dying in her throat as she tried to make her disgust known. The action felt more like a predator appraising their catch, menacing and deadly, and she tried to push at him to get the sickeningly intimate feeling of his face against her to stop. She had no leverage while being held in the air, and could only hang like a flailing doll while the heat of whatever air he was venting burned through her clothing. He was smelling her. “You. Smell. Like. Energon.”   His countenance was already menacing, but something about him now seemed positively aroused, the scent of energon clearly driving a lust for violence that had been previously dampened. Allison knew at that moment she was dead. Static was already starting to creep into her vision from the corners, her face growing sickly hot as she fought for air. With a manic, gleeful giggle, she was suddenly thrown, hard, her back hitting the solid surface of a table against the far wall. Immediately she was wracked with coughing, trying desperately to suck in air while blind to what was happening around her. Allison was weak; too weak to fight him off when he was suddenly on top of her, massive body blocking the view of the ceiling as he crowded her against the table. She lashed out, trying desperately to kick him, in the face, chest, anywhere she could reach but she was simply too small. “I’m nobody!” She cried hoarsely, yelping when he fisted the front of her clothing, cackling. “No, you’re less than nobody. But you got something in you that the boss man wants I guess, and for now that makes you somebody—GAAH.” While her Decepticon attacker was busy monologuing, Allison’s eyes quickly caught sight of something and she took a risk that could very well be her last. Laying there on the table, plugged in and searing of heat, was the damn soldering iron. 

Grabbing it with a free hand just as she was about to get yanked forward, she plunged it into the first thing she laid eyes on. It was the relatively unprotected space of the robot’s neck where there was no plating, but only bundles of cable and other flexible anatomy. The reaction was immediate. The howl of pain was intense, as he let go and reeled backwards, steps crunching hard on the ground as he pawed in blind confusion at the offending intrusion in his neck. His head kept crashing into the ceiling, leaving torn gashes in the fiberglass tiles. Allison could smell burnt wiring and smoke, and she only had a split second to use to her advantage as she rolled awkwardly off the table in a heap and bolted. The relatively soft clatter of the soldering iron being thrown against the room followed seconds later as she darted through a doorway and around another corner. Her only choice was the busted back exit. 

“ALRIGHT, NOW I’M PISSED!”

Where she was going to go exactly, Allison had no idea. She had no clue what was waiting for her outside. The Decepticon kept mentioning a big boss, so there was no guarantee said big boss was not waiting for her to be driven out. People could get hurt, and she didn’t want that on her conscience.

She could hear the cacophony of crashing behind her, followed by the rhythmic stomping of massive footsteps following her escape. She lost track of where he was, as the sounds of destruction seemingly came from everywhere at once, until suddenly the wall behind her shattered as something massive plunged through. It was his arm, or whatever his arm had become. The broken plaster and brick projectiles sailed over Allison’s head as she stumbled forward, just barely catching herself to continue running. It was getting hard to listen for danger with the roar of blood in her ears, and she barely heard the sound of her panicked, gasping breaths as her body hit the solid Exit door that would be her only way out.

Panic. The door didn’t budge, as she pounded on the release bar multiple times in vain. Wailing in defeat, she tried pressing her shoulder against it but she was too exhausted and she couldn’t get leverage on the floor. The sounds of chaos were growing louder behind her and she stepped back, kicking as hard as she could. That same second she fretfully glanced sideways and caught sight of the eerie, Cheshire glow of a red visor hovering in the darkness as it came around the corner with a cackle. The release bar made a mockingly pleasant click as the door finally crashed open. By this point the sing-song taunting felt close enough to brush against the back of her neck. A wall of cold air and rain hit her like a microburst, and she leapt out into the alleyway before forcing the door closed. She knew it was pointless to hope that it would slow him down, so she wasted no time in deciding to run to her left towards the street.  

It was only two steps against the wet pavement before the entire side wall of her building exploded in front of her. What followed was a massive shape that swooped directly into her path to cut off her escape. Without the confines of the building now, she could plainly see how big he was, puffed out like an angry, blue and silver beast about to pounce. He was smaller than even Bumblebee by a fair margin, but still big enough. 

The red visor-like eye was searing, the feral rage on his face unmistakable as remnants of smoke still curled around his head from his neck. In the relative light of the back alleys she could see him for what he was, and it was a nightmare. His massive hands were raised, poised to reach out and snatch her as soon as she tried to move. Rain evaporated into steam as it pelted his body, surrounding him in something like a fog.

“Did nobody teach you monkeys never to run from predators?” The sentence almost came out like a hiss; feral and angry. It was at this moment Allison’s completely illogical animal brain took over and she turned to run. It didn’t matter where, because she was about to die.

Seconds later her head was snapped backwards and she was yanked off her feet as something wrapped around her face: a massive hand, and her knees hit the wet pavement with an excruciatingly painful crack that made her cry out hoarsely. The world spun as she was forced further down onto the ground, the grip on her head squeezing as her cheek bit into the gratingly cold surface of the soaked concrete. Allison went limp as she felt the Decepticon’s weight over her, pinning her down.

“It just makes me wanna chase ya…” the voice was low and almost distant, like he was getting completely lost in a violent instinct that Allison would never understand. She only managed a gasp, waiting with bated breath for some sort of killing blow that never came. What was probably seconds felt like an eternity as Allison lay there gasping for air, hearing only the distant sound of something approaching fast from behind. Maybe the big boss had come after all. 

There was a rushed clattering of motion followed by a confusing burst of movement above her body as the weight of the Decepticon was suddenly gone.

xXx

[wheeljack-boom]

Fully capable of saving myself

But he can save me (please Optimus save me)

[wheeljack-boom]

The Archivist vs the Old Ass Man

(s02e20 / s02e08)

[wheeljack-boom]

I’m a feminist obviously (Oh)

But I wouldn’t really mind him savin’ me

And I know that I’m fine without a man

But I think I would like his protection

[wheeljack-boom]

Hey sorry for being away for a bit. I have been working on the TFP Decepticons humanformer designes lately so that's been taking a while.

Regardless, just to remind everyone that I am still alive, here's this.

original image:

[wheeljack-boom]

I saw a Youtube comment talking about how, in the episode "Crosscross," Silas was able to track Jack's location and personal info via social media, so why didn't the Decepticons just do THAT all this time, so they could track the humans/Autobot base?

Then all the commenters agreed that it's because the CAPTCHA "I am not a robot" thing actually works on Decepticons, because they are, in fact robots.

I love this and it shall now be my crack headcanon.

(In all seriousness, I actually don't think it's a plot hole. I think it's a great example of the Decepticons' characterization.

The real reason Decepticons never tried social media tracking is because they're too proud to use human technology. To them, it's considered "inferior."

I'm fascinated by the idea that, if they hadn't underestimated human technology, they could have found all these Autobot secrets, like the location of their base and humans, EASILY. But they never bothered, because "oh, that's worthless human tech."

Keep in mind, in one episode, Starscream actually did explore the human internet, and almost located Bumblebee that way, but the others made fun of him for it (the tap-dancing monkey incident) so we can see they don't respect it enough to give it their time.

It also kinda shows how MECH, to some extent, has an advantage against the Autobots because they're all humans, and are therefore better aquatinted with Earth. Even Airachnid didn't realize social media would be a useful weapon until Silas explained it to her. The Decepticons are obviously more powerful since they're giant aliens, but MECH uses their humanity and Earth knowledge as their greatest strength. It's kinda neat.

[wheeljack-boom]

Starscream becomes an omen to the navy/airforce.

Around the early 2000s after 9-11 the navy and air force started to notice this lone fighter jet that wold set off there proximity alarms. Every time they sent a squadron after it the plane would fall in formation and just fly with the pilots a while. No one could get close enough to determine the pilot inside and some said the plane had no pilot. The higher ups where worked that it was some kind of new spy tactic but the sailors and pilots began to hold this lone jet as a kind of good luck charm. Especially after it saved a bunch of rookies who accidentally flew into an ambush. They called him ghost and would always talk to him on long flights if he joined them. As more and more people met or heard the stories of this ghost jet it became almost like a mascot to the men. One day some bord kid on a carrier decided to open a radio frequency and see what happened at the same time the ghost jet flew over and the young solider herd what he could only describe as mechanical bird song after that the pilots wold turn on a recorder and open the radio channel whenever the jet flew along with them and they wold play it on long lonely flights or when they where all stuck inside during a bad storm and it would help soothe them. Anywho just running my moth again sorry

[wheeljack-boom]

God I wish this were real.

Optimus prime becomes a western highway ghost story.

If you’re driving in the dead of night along those long stretches of highway in the western US you might just encounter a lone big rig who will drive along side you for miles. The truckers will blow their horns as they recognize his custom paint and trailer the truck will slow its steady speed to match them. Those truckers with cbs say that there’s someone to talk to in there but he seams sad and lonely. No one ever sees him stop. Some say he’s an angel who will lead rescue workers to crashes at the dead of night. Those unfortunate enough to wander the highways at night tell story’s of the truck that stopped and got them somewhere warm and safe for the night only to wake in the morning with large sums of money in there pockets and a small note apologizing for the low sum. Children and parents smile as he always honks his horn when asked. The people of the western highways know when you see big red you’re always taken care of no matter who you are or where you came from.

[wheeljack-boom]

[wheeljack-boom]

EVERYONE SHUT UP KNOCKOUT IS BACK

[wheeljack-boom]

Entropy Pt. 2

Another little snippet from a previous post, in which the child is now all grown up. The entire work can be found here.

No warnings, possibly long read. Character is an OC I've been using for years, in prior works kicking around on fanfiction.net. Fully platonic fluffy Cybertronian x human interactions.

It wasn’t a clear image, so immediately she wondered why she was experiencing such a strong, reflexive emotional response to what really amounted to a cluster of blurry white pixels, until she scanned over a break in the pattern: a splotch of what looked like dark stripes down the front, an obvious decoration on what must have been the hood of the car, and in one blisteringly terrifying, world-shattering second she realized she knew that car.

Allison was a seven year old girl again, staring after the sound of her father’s voice as he arrived in their family sedan to pick her up from the power station she’d inexplicably wandered into. She should have been relieved, but she remembered now being frantic and somehow elated at the same time. She turned back around the way she had been facing, expecting to see something other than the white car quickly backing away from her and feeling confusion. That car hadn’t been there seconds before... The red and green stripe on the hood previously affixed to—

She’d seen this car, or a car like it, many years ago, and she’d worked so long and hard to forget it.

xXx

Work could not have moved any slower that day, hampered by the fact that Allison’s mind was elsewhere. She slid through the work hours in a dissociative haze, manning the front counter and checking in customer products with muscle memory alone. She hid her disinterest well, and no one caught on to the fact that she was thoroughly distracted. Her palms were sweaty, hands itchy to pull out her phone again, if only to give that stupid screenshot another look. She wasn’t sure what she was trying to decipher anymore by looking at it for the 100th time. Maybe she was trying to prove to herself that it wasn’t what she already knew it was.

It wasn’t possible, right? There was no way that… Wheeljack had been real, was there?

At some point in the day Allison used the desk computer to pull up the same video. Maybe a bigger version of the same low definition, grainy screenshot would shed more light on the situation. But it only confirmed her suspicions, that she was indeed looking at a white car. 

The very same white car that had mysteriously replaced a certain fairy that spent time with her on the night she ran away from home. 

A whole host of memories and questions Allison had tried to squirrel away to the back of her mind were being dredged up by this unsavory intrusion into her blissful ignorance. She’d spent a lot of time as a child wondering if the car and her “new friend” had been one and the same. After all, the car had been there where he had been standing not seconds before, so surely they were connected. It had never really occurred to her over the years that he had become the car, but considering the fact that on that evening she’d been talking to a giant, sparkling, fairy alien, realism and physics were irrelevant. The truth of the matter was, he shouldn’t have even existed. He didn’t, for a long time.

But now, with just one chance encounter with a stupid conspiracy theory video on the Internet, it seemed that Wheeljack had been real after all. And by the looks of it, he was responsible for the power issues that had been plaguing the region and had finally gotten caught; sort of, considering Allison was probably the only person that knew what was in the picture. Considering her initial encounter with him had actually been in a similar facility, she was surprised that she hadn’t made the connection sooner. 

At some point Allison decided to do the unthinkable, and that was wade into the comment section of the video. She wanted to see if anyone knew where this security footage had come from. The date was obvious as there was a timestamp on the video: it had been the night before. Maybe the location would be a clue… but to what, Allison wasn’t entirely sure. She didn’t really know what she was thinking, but she had a deep, burning need to find him. 

She had to confirm he had been real, and to do that, she needed to see him with her own eyes. 

Luckily, it only took a little bit of scrolling to wade through the painfully stupid comments to find the one she was looking for: a specific facility. Surprisingly, it wasn’t too far outside of the city limits in the suburbs. If she was a betting woman (which she wasn’t), she would assume that he probably wouldn’t end up in the same place twice. When she was a kid, she’d snuck back out to that spot they originally met, and she never saw him again. All that remained was rubble (that’s right… he’d fallen when he finally noticed her…) and caution tape. Of course that time, there hadn’t really been anything to go back to, but that seemed to fit his pattern. Surely it would have raised suspicions going to the same location more than once. 

That left the obvious question of where the next target would be, and it was a short list. It was a huge guess, but seeing as this was the first morning that Allison had lost power, it would stand to reason that he was getting closer to the city. That narrowed down things even further.

The last piece of the puzzle was timing. The outages seemed to happen on a bi-weekly timetable. Roughly. She was working with a lot of risk, but she could maybe estimate when she would possibly find him. 

That meant, Allison would need to stew in this possibility for two whole weeks, wondering if she was actually going to make the impulsive decision to actually hunt him down. She was probably making a terrible mistake, but the need to know for sure was gnawing at her. The proof was all that she needed, if only to know that she hadn’t been crazy at all. It wasn’t like she was going to approach him. She wasn’t quite the same gutsy child anymore, completely ignorant of the world’s dangers. He hadn’t seemed interested in harming her, but a lot of time had passed. 

For two weeks, she debated with herself internally if she was really going to break into a restricted area, after dark, on the off-chance that she happened to run into a giant, potentially dangerous sentient robot. She could change her mind at any time, but with every day that went by, she found that her conviction only grew. She was definitely doing this. 

Allison had a potential location, and a potential day. The worst that was going to happen was that she was wasting her time. The next power facility wasn’t in the friendliest area, just on the outskirts of the city limits. It was in a more industrialized zone before the boundaries of urban sprawl edged its way into a state park. It was somewhat secluded from heavier traffic, so she reasoned this was probably a more attractive target than some of the other possibilities. It was also closer to where the surveillance photo had been taken than her other options. She would need to take a bus and walk, which she wasn’t entirely looking forward to, but she would have to manage. 

On the day Allison had committed to doing it, she was probably more short with her co-workers than usual.  There were only so many times you could remind someone to unplug the damn soldering iron before it started to feel like willful negligence, but she was tired of mentioning it. She’d simply added it into her closing routine to check. Once she was alone to lock up, all she had to do was take out the trash and then catch the bus. Easier said than done considering the back door into the alleyway where the dumpsters were kept was still not fixed, and she nearly broke her shoulder trying to push it open. 

Mildly annoyed, and nursing a sore arm, Allison was finally sitting on the bus. She didn’t feel like listening to music. She was too focused on what she was potentially walking into. To say she was nervous would be an understatement. If the pulse pounding in her ears and heart threatening to burst its way out of her sternum was any indication, she’d say she was terrified. Tapping her shoe incessantly on the floor of the bus did nothing to take the edge off. The squirming anxiety and nerves in her gut threatened to explode upward and outward more than a few times, but she could spare no further thought to it, because she’d reached her destination.

Allison almost didn’t get off the bus, her hand pausing on the guide rail to steady her as she froze, before steeling her nerve and forcing herself to walk off. She’d come this far, she was going to do it. It was so close.

It was so unnervingly quiet in the area that it felt almost uncanny. There were some distant noises of traffic, but it was sparse. Not even the insects that would usually be chirping away at this time of the evening were stirring. The dome of silence that hovered over the general surroundings almost felt intentional, as if the fauna knew something she didn’t. The sun had long since set, and the only thing to accompany her was the crunch of gravel under her feet. The pathway she’d mapped out was fairly short and hidden in brush, which did make her wary. Admittedly she was more afraid of the possibility of a fellow human deciding to show themselves then what she was seeking out. A sobering thought indeed. 

There were no humans, and so far no sign of anything else as she saw the building she was looking for at the bottom of a small slope. It was surprisingly darker than Allison would have expected it to be, though she did see some kind of source of light hidden amongst the buildings, casting deep shadows in the angular sprawl. Taking a deep breath, she picked her way down the hill. 

There was a short brick wall just at the bottom where the hill met the ground, and her shoes slipped when she used her weight to make the small jump down. Some of the bricks gave way into a crumbling mess, and it was louder than she would have liked. Allison froze for a moment, straining her ears for any sound, just now realizing there was the strong possibility she was going to get caught on camera as well. 

Too late now. 

With a newfound sense of cautious urgency, she moved. The light source was so bright that it was actually making it hard to navigate, so Allison took the risk of turning on her phone’s flashlight. She realized it drew attention to her location, but she couldn’t see, and found the possibility of walking straight into danger blind to be less appealing. She had to climb a wire fence to get into the actual boundaries of the power facility, but that part was fairly easy and also required better lighting. What wasn’t easy was realizing that she was moving towards a light that she was slowly starting to realize wasn’t natural. 

Yes, that’s definitely not natural… she thought as she slowly turned the corner with cautious steps and finally saw the source of light she’d first noted at the top of the hill. It was a cube of some sort, affixed with a number of cables like vines to one of the facility's power conduits near the top. Allison couldn’t help but approach, slightly mesmerized by the churning light from within. It was almost fluid, pulsing with energy in swirling waves—was this what was causing the blackouts?  

Stopping, she switched off her flashlight and placed her phone into her back pocket. She’d scanned the immediate area before turning the corner, and noted that it was completely devoid of life. No one—or no car—was here. Allison was almost a little bit disappointed, her heart falling in an odd mixture of fear and betrayal. She wasn’t entirely sure where that emotion came from, but it was unmistakable. 

Her eyes still scanned the darkness, trying to make sense of the shadows between the cluster of buildings, but the glowing cube above her was deepening the gaps to near impenetrable blackness. If her memory was accurate, there would have been no way her quarry would have been able to hide in the confines of this space. Allison wasn’t sure why she was so crushed by that thought, but perhaps she’d chosen the wrong day. 

If that cube above her, humming with incomprehensible energy, was his handiwork, maybe he intended to come back for it. Either way, Allison didn’t want to leave empty handed. In case she came back tomorrow and it was gone… one little picture wasn’t going to hurt.

Pulling her phone back out, she fiddled with it briefly before a noise caught her attention and she froze: a whisper of air, followed by the crunching of the ground under the weight of something massive. A flurry of motion came next, and there was a sudden chorus of electronic whirring, like complex machinery unfolding and taking shape. Allison realized all at once what she was hearing as the sudden impulse to flee came over her, even before she heard the voice hanging several feet in the air above her.

“Don’t.” The voice was loud; commanding and urgent, and unfortunately all too familiar.

Even from that one word, Allison’s blood flared in her veins. She felt hot, and angry, and scared. She almost didn’t dare to look, but the spoken word somewhere way above her forced her head to snap in the direction of the source at least twenty feet above her. At first she didn’t realize what exactly had drawn her attention other than voice alone, thinking for one fleeting moment of sheer terror that she had made a massive mistake and this wasn’t who, or what, she thought. That was until the remnant of a flash made its burning presence known across her vision that full clarity came to her. Two glowing orbs of blue materialized from the dark as the white form took shape, stepping out into view from behind the luminous cube as it revealed the source of her years of questions and trauma.

Wheeljack had been real this whole time, because he was standing right in front of her—over her to be more precise. Allison didn’t remember him being quite so tall, suddenly realizing that she was not the small, overly excited child anymore with a foggy memory of a large metal friend; a large metal friend who was looking down at her with a very different expression than he had so many years ago. How she could even understand the expression of a large robot was still completely dumbfounding, but it was unmistakable.

Allison couldn’t move. She was almost too stunned to speak. His eyes, two hotly glowing orbs of blue, were less friendly than what had lived in her memory for so long. The panicked thought occurred to her that she had no idea how he would perceive her now. She had been a child the first time they met, harmless and very much not a threat. She had been enamored by the fantasy of the short time in his presence, and he had humored her much like a very large, infinitely smarter being would humor an insect. Maybe he wouldn’t hurt a child. Maybe now it would be different.

It felt like forever had passed by, and in that time Allison had forgotten to breath. She barely even realized she’d finally taken a step backwards, as if the extra distance would save her. Wheeljack had not moved, though the shade of his eyes had softened somewhat to a more deeper blue. She didn’t know how, but she thought that maybe it was some sort of emotional expression. They were less oppressive, no longer glaring down at her like an affronted golem. 

Finally, somehow Allison found her voice, trying to make sense of the moment and only then comprehending what he had said to her. She couldn’t mentally process what he meant, so the first utterance out of her mouth was about as intelligent sounding as primordial sludge.

“...What?” 

The silence seemed to stretch on for ages. Allison knew objectively the smart thing to do would be to run. The smarter thing to do would have been to not even come in the first place, but hindsight was useless. She was afraid that if she turned her back on him now, he would pursue her. She was a witness after all. He had told her once that no one could know she had seen him, so naturally she’d told everyone who would listen. She’d been a kid for fucks sake what did he expect would happen? It wasn’t like anyone believed her anyway, but maybe that didn’t matter to him.

A flicker of resentment was starting to burn, like an igniting ember deep in her gut. 

Wheeljack, for all his height, seemed to somehow ease his posture as he no longer appeared to be standing as stiff and alert as a telephone pole. Maybe he hadn’t expected her to actually speak; expected her to run instead. Or maybe he was so enamored by her clear display of intelligence that it disarmed him. Regardless, she wasn’t dead yet, so that must have counted for something. 

“Don’t do that.” Now it was Allison’s turn to be surprised, because she hadn’t expected him to respond. She was blinded by the flash of the plates on the side of his face, punctuating each word he spoke. That was a particular detail to the memory that she’d initially convinced herself she’d made up, but now she realized that had been what initially got her attention when he first spoke. An adrenaline-fueled shock pulsed through her as the memory of being a mesmerized child reconnected with reality.

Allison stared back, furrowing her brow as she tried to piece together what he meant. Had he understood what she was doing with her phone, and he didn’t want her to take a picture? A picture of the glowing, pulsing cube that clearly belonged to him? Realistically that made sense, because why would he want her walking away with evidence of his presence. The phone suddenly felt very heavy in her grip.

Something nagged at her, and Allison realized it was the way he spoke that was plucking at her nerves in a way that was making her start to sweat with an emotion she couldn’t quite place. So many details about that night that had mostly faded away into obscure impressions were coming back to her in perfect clarity. She remembered having an entire conversation with him about his voice. 

Somehow she was starting to feel less fearful, and a little more stunned that this was even happening, and more surprisingly, that she still wasn’t dead yet. 

“Don’t do whatever it is you’re thinkin’ of doing,” Wheeljack repeated, as if to clarify for her what he actually meant, taking her silence as stupidity. He still spoke with the same, oddly placed east coast accent that she remembered, and that was such a distinct feature that had humanized the encounter in her child brain.  

And then it occurred to Allison, that this was a very weird, overly… familiar conversation they were having. It hadn’t even crossed her mind that she should even question whether he would remember her or not. She obviously had decades of change on her child counterpart. Did Wheeljack know how to account for age, and recognize her? She had no frame of reference to know how his brain or memory worked, so she had no idea if this was just how he would talk to any human that would blunder into him. Why wasn’t he being more… cautious?

Wheeljack had said they were in danger, and he was trying to protect his friends. So why had he so easily revealed himself to her, and was now talking to her so abruptly without any real trace of wariness? The question was so urgent in her mind, with all the pent up baggage and emotion from her childhood and adolescent years pressing down on her. It was like a weight so consuming, she couldn’t squeeze herself out from under it.

Swallowing with hesitation, Allison inhaled, managing to meet Wheeljack’s very alert, pointed gaze with some of the same confidence she’d had as a child.

“Do you… even remember me?” She was surprised her voice sounded as strong and even as it did, even if her stomach was doing backflips. It seemingly had the right effect, because Allison saw Wheeljack wince, the flare of his eyes widening to suggest that it wasn’t a question he was expecting to hear.  

The massive robot shifted, his body whirring and chirping in a consort of electronic noise as it was his turn to take a step, this time sideways as if to give the large, thrumming cube a wide berth. Allison could feel the vibration under the ground when he moved, and the longer it took for him to respond, the more vulnerable and exposed she felt. The blinking didn’t help every time he spoke, even if it wasn’t bright enough to blind her. She wasn’t sure how she knew, but it felt like he was studying her. Finally,

“Of course I remember you, my memory outperforms any excuse for a computer you got on this rock,” he said, rather flippantly, and the whiplash Allison felt from fear to sudden and immediate disbelief was excruciating. 

Then she remembered, he had been kind of snarky with her when she was a kid. Granted, she’d asked equally stupid questions—like, are you a fairy—so it checked out. It was good to see he hadn’t lost his sense of humor all these years later.

Now that he stepped further away from the fluorescent glare of the cube, which had started to hum even louder, she could see him more clearly in the light. He looked the same as she remembered, but now details were obviously filling back in that she’d forgotten. She’d been right about the stripes. They were on his chest, framing a peculiar symbol that sat right in the center, matching the ones that ran down his legs. Clearly, Allison’s instincts had been correct, and somehow he was the car from the photo. He was made up of a series of white and grey metal plates that covered his body in wide panels like armor. The deeper inner sections between the seams were all black, presumably all the complex machinery that made him alive. She thought she saw the tiny, dim impression of lights peeking out from beneath his outer structure–like biomechanical luminescence. There were a number of pieces that clearly resembled components of a car, now that she was actually studying him rather than being distracted by very obvious details; details like the long portions that stuck out from his back, framing him like wings. It was why she had asked him if he had been a fairy when she met him so long ago…

Allison still wasn’t really sure why she’d asked him that, or what it had made him think. He’d seemed comically exasperated at the time, explaining to her what they actually were. Something about rotary fins, and sensory net. He’d also explained what the large panels on the side of his face were, a means of tracking humans. She wasn’t stupid and knew he had been joking at the time, but it had stuck with her.

“Clearly outperforming those ears of yours, seeing as I found you—” Allison blurted, the silence becoming far too stifling with the way he was scrutinizing her beneath glowing eyes that had narrowed between metal lids. She was almost dumbfounded enough to slap her hand over her mouth—graceful—but she opted to freeze instead like an animal caught in headlights. Literally. “—again.” Her voice sounded a lot less confident. 

This time, Wheeljack stepped backwards, one massive hand went to his chest as if he was wounded, and his expression went through a creative procession of shock, maybe amused, then to what was clearly meant to resemble offended as his eyes turned into mere slits of hot white. Even more shocking that he was that expressive considering most of his face was covered by some sort of mask. 

Allison wagered she was dead now for sure, managing to piss him off so thoroughly that any second now he was going to reach out and crush her. If his size was any sort of tell, his armor plates seemed to have expanded somewhat, flaring out from his body giving him the appearance similar to a fluffed out cat that was trying to make itself look bigger. It would have almost been funny, if not for the fact that she was the one who had insulted him.

Wheeljack appeared to inhale, the sign that he was finally about to say something when the peculiar cube hanging aloft next to him made a sudden, loud pop before it hissed with a burst of sparks. Allison watched as it disconnected from the conduit, the strange cables snapping back into it and disappearing as it started to drop. Wheeljack made a sudden noise, his eyes flashing as he reached out to catch it. He missed, the brilliant cube dancing out of his reach as it bounced against his fingers and made its final descent towards the ground. Towards her.  

Allison didn’t react in time. She wasn’t entirely sure how she was supposed to react as the cube—quite a bit larger than it appeared when it was hanging above her—hit the ground in a shower of sparks before bouncing directly towards her with a reverberating metallic boom. The only thing she really had time to do was to raise her hands to protect her face, hearing as well as feeling a loud, thundering “NO” as the large form of Wheeljack lunged towards her. She had the barest impression of small, electrified tendrils reaching out, like tiny little pieces of lightning, before there was an impossibly blinding flash followed by searing pain in her hands. 

Then there was nothing.