Surprise!

[niyazi-a.livejournal.com]

G
Bayverse
Grindor, Barricade, Starscream, Blackout, Skywarp
crack
for tf_speedwriting prompt 'celebrate'

 

“I,” Barricade grinned, “have something to show you, copter.” 

“Me?”  Grindor followed gamely behind the grounder, puzzled. Barricade had shown up at his quarters in the middle of recharge cycle, insisting on some sort of emergency, that could not possibly wait. And could be solved by no one other than him.

At the time, his cortex still cold from recharge, it had sounded plausible, but as he trailed after Barricade, he was beginning to wonder.  He was the new guy on the ship; there were probably dozens of mech capable of handling any emergency way better than he was.  

But he was drawing a complete blank about what it could be.

“Yeah,” Barricade said, mouth curling wider. 

Maybe it was a height thing? Grindor was one of the taller mechs.  Huh.  His rotors narrowed, worried.  He’d heard some bad things about initiation rituals for mechs on big warships.  Barricade’s glee would fit in pretty well for that.

Right, Grindor thought, following the grounder around a corner and up to one of the dayrooms, I can take it.  Copters were tough.  Just…not the rotors.  He really hoped they wouldn’t tear off his rotors.  He could feel panic beginning to skirl up his tanks at the very thought.  He knew it was an indigenous form alt, but…he’d come to really like his rotors.  They were neat, not just the way they bit into the air, but the way they moved, shifted with his moods. 

Did that make him vain? 

Probably. But right now he didn’t have time to think about that, because Barricade had stopped in front of one of the dayrooms.  The grounder tilted his head, making a gracious gesture with his head. “After you.”

Grindor stopped.  Right. This was it. He could take it. And it would only happen once, and then it would be over.  Once.  He looked down at Barricade, optics narrowing.  “Just want you to know, I know what this is about.” 

“Really?” Barricade’s surprise was genuine. Honestly?  The ruse was pretty weak.  If Grindor hadn’t been half-asleep he’d never had fallen for it.  He couldn’t believe he was the only one to have seen through Barricade’s little scheme. Bring the newbiemech to the beatdown under false pretenses.  Right.  Huh.  There was a reason, Grindor thought, why he had such top notch scores in Strategy and Tactics. 

“Yeah. I know.  And I can take it.”  Grindor flared his rotors, proudly.

A strange sound, like a snicker, escaped the grounder’s vocalizer.  “You can, can you?”

Grindor slitted his optics as his finger jabbed the keypanel. “Bring. It. On.” 

The door whooshed open into darkness. A moving darkness, completely confirming Grindor’s theory. Someone was in here—many someones—out to take him by surprise. 

The best strategy in this case, he knew, was to blow the element of surprise.  He stopped, just over the threshold, hands on his hipframe.  “I’m not afraid of you.” 

A shadow moved behind him, Barricade stepping in and coding the door shut.  “Hear that? He’s not afraid of us.”  Barricade giggled. 

The laugh was answered by someone across the room.  Despite himself, Grindor dropped into a combat crouch, reaching over his forearm for his tail rotor.  He was allowed to defend himself, right? No Decepticon just stood there and took it. 

A voice, pitched low, but the diction was obviously Starscream’s.  “Perhaps he should be.” 

“I know who you are, Starscream,” Grindor said, whirling toward the noise.  His lowlight vision was picking lumpy shapes out of the darkness.

“Starscream?” the voice said. “That is not my designation.” 

Right.  And Grindor believed that about as much as he believed grounders could fly.

“He says he can take it,” Barricade parroted.  A ripple of laughter from around the room.  The fact that they found it funny disturbed Grindor. No. They were supposed to find his calm bravado in the face of certain beatdown to be impressive.  Macho.  Not…funny.

“Can he?” Another voice, Blackout. He was in on it too?!  Grindor felt a surge of outrage. So much for copters looking out for other copters! 

“Yeah, BLACKOUT,” he retorted. “I can take it.” 

“You know,” Starscream said, “that sounds deliciously close to consent to me.” 

“Consent? You bet!” Grindor said. “I’ll take you all on!”  That, he thought, was undeniably impressive.  A true warrior. 

“All of us?” Blackout seemed to be choking on something. Regret, Grindor hoped.

“All of you at once!” Grindor snapped. 

A sudden bursting wheeze from Starscream’s corner, followed by a very un-warrior-like honking sound.

“Sounds like you ruptured something, jet,” Barricade smirked. 

“Oh dear,” the jet gasped, between gales of laughter. “I simply cannot take any more. He is just too precious.” 

“Yeah,” Blackout said. “Hit the lights, Barricade.” 

The lights blossomed on overhead.  Grindor spotted Blackout, and Starscream in a pile of bronze limbs on the floor, pointed at by a dual series of long gouges down the wall, and then Skywarp in one corner, leaning on a table piled high with energon cubes, and Bonecrusher rolling his optics from the side.  He wheeled around, hand still closed over his tail rotor.  “Right,” he demanded, “what is this all about?” 

Blackout blinked. He was holding a package in his hand, wrapped in some cascade of colorful ribbons that streamed toward the floor. “It’s our sparkday?”

“Our…it is?” Grindor blinked back. 

“You never set your chrono to local measurements, did you?”

Stepping up beside him, Barricade nodded. “I told you so.” 

Grindor looked around again, feeling stupid and flatfooted, his rotors slicking in mortification.  Energon, other mechs, and a ribbon-wrapped package that the other copter was holding out to him. His sparkday.  Oh. 

From the floor, where Starscream had apparently slid down the wall in his paroxysm of laughter, the jet managed to choke out, “You must apologize for your misjudgment!”

Skywarp snickered, holding up a cube of high grade in a mock salute.  “Sounds good to me.”

“I…I’m sorry?”

Skywarp tilted his head, as if thinking. “Nope. Not enough.”

“I…well, what do you want then?”  Curiosity was getting the better of him—what was in that package?  That Blackout had gotten just for him, while he’d gotten…nothing for Blackout? He’d find a way to make it up to him. He had to. 

Barricade snickered, reaching out one hand to brush against a rotor.  Grindor quivered. “You did say something about taking all of us on?” 

 

Comments

[ithilgwath.livejournal.com]

rolling on the floor laughing right along with Starscream. That was just amazingly cute and funny. I giggled. Win!