//------------------------------// // New Recruits // Story: Cybertron Girls // by SonicSpeedster97 //------------------------------// “Soundwave. What a coincidence; we were just talking about you.” Sideswipe smirked, leveling his blaster. Soundwave simply ignored him and focused on Deadlock. “Objective: Deadlock. Stand aside or be terminated.” “You can have him if you want.” That statement from Arcee scared the defector, but the smirk put him back at ease. “But if you want him, you’re gonna have to go through us.” “Terms accepted. Prepare for termination.” Soundwave scowled, the large rotary cannon on his shoulder spinning and firing bolts of red plasma at the Autobots, who were quickly forced to roll to cover and return fire as the girls retreated to cover. “I can help; just release me.” Deadlock offered, struggling against his cuffs. “You really wanna help? You can still shoot with cuffs on, can’t you?” Cliffjumper smirked, sliding him his sniper rifle. Deadlock scowled but shrugged. “Good enough, I guess.” Quickly, he dashed out toward Soundwave, holding his rifle almost like a club. “What the frag are you doing?!” Bumblebee was right to ask; he seemed suicidal. “Ravage, eject.” Soundwave quickly deployed a black data drive which suddenly transformed into a large robotic panther. “Operation: Eradication.” Ravage quickly charged and pounced at Deadlock, who swiftly used his cuffs to block the Mini-Con’s attack, which in turn shattered them. “Thanks.” Deadlock smirked before he punched Ravage away and dropped his gun, quickly charging Soundwave again to deliver a hand-to-hand combo, only for each blow to be parried. “I gave you the gun for a reason, dude!” Cliffjumper reminded as he swiftly moved to support Deadlock. “I never liked guns anyway.” Deadlock shrugged, bashing Soundwave in the face. “After Vos, I swore never to use one again, except to keep up appearances.” “You sure you wanna defect?” Sideswipe smirked as he kicked Ravage away from his foot. “You sure seem like a Decepticon.” “Don’t even joke like that.” Deadlock scowled… only to end up shot in the back by a large round blaster Soundwave now held in his right hand, swiftly blasting all the other Autobots as well, knocking them down in pain. The girls were terrified to see their bots go down, especially when they saw Soundwave produce a large boxy unit which he placed between them and activated, starting a low beeping as Ravage transformed and returned to his chest cavity. “Termination successful,” Soundwave said darkly before a GroundBridge opened behind him. He calmly walked through before it disappeared. Rainbow easily recognized the device near the other bots without even needing to understand Cybertronian tech. “Bomb!” Quickly she dashed over and smacked Cliffjumper in the face over and over until he roused from his forced slumber. “Cliff, bomb!” Cliffjumper quickly glanced to the side and his optics popped at the sight of the bomb on the street. “I got it.” Quickly he rolled over to the bomb and tossed it into the air with a single powerful throw where it promptly exploded, the blast waking all the others in shock. “Everyone okay?” “Yeah. Yeah, we’re good.” Bumblebee groaned as they stood. “Man, I hate those concussion blasters,” Arcee grumbled. “You’re telling me.” Deadlock groaned, suddenly doubling over as he grasped his midsection. Fluttershy looked and saw something that seriously concerned her; liquid Energon bleeding from his metallic flesh. “You’re hurt.” The others looked and were fairly surprised when they saw several parallel slash-marks on his midsection. “Guess Ravage got in a lucky hit.” Cliffjumper rationalized. “Well, I guess we should take him to the Ark. And get him locked up,” Sideswipe growled, cuffing the ex-Con again. “Lifeline can treat him in his cell.” Fluttershy seemed to ignore him as she stepped forward and examined the wound. “I think I can fix it here.” Rainbow seemed surprised. “Since when can you fix bots?” “Since I saw her talking to Ratchet in Sick Bay recently,” Sunset smirked as Fluttershy pulled a small kit out of her backpack. “He’s teaching you to be a medic, isn’t he?” Fluttershy blushed as she remembered when she approached the Autobots’ medic. “Ratchet? That crotchety old bucket?” Sideswipe smirked. “Why would he agree to teach you anything?” “It doesn’t matter if someone’s an enemy or not. Everyone deserves a little kindness.” It was that statement that prompted Fluttershy to Pony-Up, her low wings spreading behind her back before her Geode glowed brighter, just like Applejack’s. “Wha- What’s going on?!” Fluttershy whimpered in abject terror. “We’re getting another fragment of the map.” Bumblebee was right; Fluttershy’s Spark-Shift Armor unit hovered from her pocket and locked onto her geode, which started pulsing with energy. The Armor gave a loud ring and a massive swarm of small energy butterflies shot from the geode, surrounding Fluttershy’s body and hovering her into the air before they suddenly became solid, taking on the exact colors of her body and clothes; her arms and face turned pale yellow while white shoulder-rings formed below the joint as her torso and thighs turned bright blue to emulate her dress with a bright pink butterfly-button appearing on her collarbone. Her waist turned bright pink with another butterfly appearing on the front as her shins and feet turned pale pink and yellow. Her head was surrounded by a blue helmet-style construct with pink trim and pale pink steel-cable hair flowing from it with a white butterfly-barrette as her bright blue optics opened, revealing a deeper blue in the centers from her natural eyes. But then something surprising happened; four large pale yellow helicopter-blades protruded from her back, flipping out small feather-like pieces of metal before energy fields were emitted from each of them, making them appear to be some sort of blend between Fluttershy’s Pegasus wings and butterfly wings. (Cut it) The others were in awe of this new form, especially the blades from her back. “Whoa. Looks like we’ve got a copter-bot, guys.” Bumblebee smirked as Fluttershy carefully helped Deadlock to his feet. He turned on his coms and tuned them to the Ark. “Wheeljack, send the GroundBridge and tell everyone else to meet us at the ship. Get Teletraan ready and tell Ratchet to prep a CR Chamber; we’re bringing more of the map and a patient.” “Ratchet’s not gonna be happy about this.” Sideswipe reminded. “Is he ever happy about anything these days?” Sunstreaker countered. “Eh, touché.” his brother shrugged. It didn’t take long for the GroundBridge to open as the team made their way through to find Wheeljack and Red Alert waiting… both of whom appeared shocked when they saw Deadlock. “What in the name of the Fallen is he doing here?” Red Alert growled. “He’s Ratchet’s patient.” Bumblebee replied with a strong look on his face. “Sideswipe, get Deadlock to sickbay. Wheeljack, Teletraan, map-data.” “Got it.” Sideswipe nodded as he took Deadlock from Fluttershy and started walking him down the hall and turned to the right. “I said sickbay, Sideswipe; not the brig!” Bumblebee yelled down the hallway after him. “Alright-alright, I heard you! Sheesh.” Sideswipe groaned as he went down the left hallway. Bumblebee just groaned as he looked at Sunstreaker, the others arriving in the hangar right then. “How the hell do you put up with him?” “It’s actually easier than you might think.” the gold bot shrugged. “Easy or not, the silver lining is we’ve got another part of the map, and another bot.” Wheeljack smiled as he plugged a cable into the data drive on Fluttershy’s wrist, pulling the data and overlaying it with the data from Applejack’s drive, bringing up a more complete globe on the computer. “Two down, five to go Optimus.” “Excellent news, Wheeljack.” Optimus nodded. “Tell that to whatever genius brought a Decepticon war criminal aboard this ship and sent him to my sickbay!” Ratchet yelled as he marched out angrily. “That would be me.” Bumblebee brought up. “And exactly why did you do that?” asked Red Alert. “Because he wants to defect.” Sunset explained quickly. “Deadlock? An Autobot? He was responsible for the murder of 200 innocent Cybertronian civilians in the Vos Massacre.” Red Alert reminded. “Turmoil was responsible for those murders.” Arcee corrected, stunning everyone. “Deadlock thought he was attacking Autobots, not civilians.” Optimus appeared deeply disturbed by this news. “If Deadlock was truly unaware of this fact, then it would stand to reason that his defection was an act of providence,” he assured. “With such an honorable spark, I have no doubt that he would make an excellent Autobot.” “Nice work, Fluttershy. Looks like we’ve got two new bots now.” Rainbow smiled at her friend as she dropped back down to human-form. “You and Deadlock.” “About that… maybe we should recommend he change his name,” Sunset suggested. “I mean… ‘Deadlock’ doesn’t exactly sound like an Autobot name.” “She’s got a point.” Wheeljack shrugged. “That will be his decision to make,” Optimus assured. “But I am first to admit; one spark across the line in the sand is hardly a difference in this war. We must prepare for future clashes, and complete the map to the AllSpark as soon as possible.” Those orders would be followed soon, tipping the scale in the war.