On This Untraveled Road

[Deleted]

Characters: @arcee / @smokescreen / @anyone
Location: Earth - Varying locations.
Content Warnings: n/a
Plot Summary: Ratchet is in need of a few more supplies for the Synth-en, so Arcee volenters for the job since it's a good way to get out of base, shake the rust from her wheels and get some needed alone--- Nevermind about the alone time. Smokescreen tags along for the ride. Now he'd better behave himself...

[Deleted]

When we scream, our lips don't make a sound.
We march with feet on solid ground.
We walk where no one wants to go
On this Untraveled Road

     Arcee had just wanted to get out of the base. There were far too many bots there now and it was just... too much. Stretching her legs and shaking the dirt from her tires was what she wanted to do but there just was no chance for it. One reason or another kept her at base, be it through order by Optimus or someone needing her for some silly task. It was tiring, stressful...

     So when Ratchet had mentioned needing more supplies? Well, Arcee had been all too eager to offer her assistance. It was a perfect opportunity and not one that she was about to miss out on. More than one location? That was even better! It meant that she wouldn't be stuck on one type of terrain. The fact that some of the locations that Ratchet provided were almost completely devoid of human settlement would allow her to actually bipedal around instead of hiding off in her alt mode.

     Perfect. Too perfect. And nothing ever really worked out that way. This was no exception.

     The first location was a desolate location just outside of Las Vegas, a little more than an hour north in a location called the Valley of Fire. It wasn't much exciting there for locals since it was only peaks and valleys as far as the eye could see. The place was entirely desolate. Even dragracers who attempted to keep just under the radar of officials that would ticket them for such reckless behavior such as those she saw in Jasper wouldn't dare come out here. It would have not only killed their tires and probably caused more damage than they wanted inflicted on their poor cars, but it was also close to high noon. Those sort of activities were left for the nighttime, when the cloak of darkness shielded their misdoings. This time drove off possible tourists since out here where there was no shade for miles? Exposure would have been deadly, especially in the temperatures currently being read. Arcee would be able to travel on foot to look for what she needed instead of attempting to scan for the supplies while in alt mode. Now, she could have easily just ground bridged to the location but the point of being out of base was to move. So she had asked for Ratchet it set up several miles outside of the designated spot and drove the rest of the way.

     This should have been exactly what she wanted. SHOULD have been. That was before she had been inflicted with a horrible thing called a tag-along. Even worse? It was Smokescreen.

     The entire time she was less than mindful of the young bot who was trailing her. He could drive faster but she was much better at maneuvering, so he would have done best to stay far enough back so he could watch for any sudden move that he wasn't expecting and may flip himself over trying to mirror. For now it was just her with Saddie on her seat, decked out in her black leather gear with the fully shadowed helmet. Arcee looked rather normal. What would have been the sore thumb in this situation would be a certain flashy sport car bringing up the rear. Nothing suspicious about that at all. He certainly hadn't taken note of the 'hiding in plain sight' to mean don't get a flashy vehicle mode.

     He was too much like Cliff sometimes. FAR too much. She could only handle ONE of those stubborn bulls. At least Cliff was older and had some sense about him. Smokescreen on the other hand? He was a little... more reckless, and not in the way that Cliff was. No- sometimes that little guardsman needed a sparkling sitter, and Arcee was in no mood for that.

     'Primus, I wish I could have just gone alone. It would have been so much easier...'

     A beep on her HUD alerted her that they were nearing the location. Arcee jerked to the left, leaving the solid tar for the open road. Right, they had a job to do.

     "Alright, Smokescreen. We're coming up to the location now." With that she stopped her drive and transformed, bringing herself to a stand just at the base of one of the canyons. This would be the point when they wouldn't be able to drive anymore and would have to foot it. She looked at the handheld device in her servo and then looked up to see what direction they were in. "We'll have to do some walking, but the scanner says that the source of the red energon is than a mile due east of here. Lets go, and pay attention to the area around you. We're still exposed out here and you never know when a con may decide to drop in on us unexpectedly."

     No, she didn't wait. She just started walking and never once did she look back at Smokescreen. 

@smokescreen

[Deleted]

Sorry, Arcee. You weren't getting out of this one so easily.

He'd overheard that Ratchet had needed some supplies in order to make further progress on that Synthetic Energon stuff. He honestly didn't know the first thing about what sorta work went into making something of that importance, but there was one thing that the young mech knew. Arcee couldn't go out there alone. Sure, she was a tough cookie on her own right, but that didn't make Smokescreen feel any better about it. What if there were Cons wherever she was going? Vehicons she could possibly handle on her own, but what if it were someone like Starscream or Megatron?

And that's when he forced himself into her quest to aid their chief medical officer.

It'd been quite tempting to speed his way towards their destination, but at the very same time he had multiple reasons for not doing so. Firstly, the two-wheeler was in charge of leading the both of them towards their destination. If he went faster than her, he sure as frag didn't know where to go. Secondly.. there could be humans watching them, and last thing they needed was local law enforcement tailing after them. Besides, Strongarm would kill him if she ever found out he'd been so reckless.

Maybe she was rubbing off on him a bit. Ah well. He'd just have to prove otherwise on the battlefield next time they encountered a Decepticon or three.

"Thank Primus. I was starting to wonder if we'd ever get there." As Arcee came to a halt, transforming to her root form, the Elite Guardsman followed suit. He stretched a little, his doorwings going up for a moment as he pulled at his servos above his helm. "Red Energon..? Geez, Ratch is getting desperate if he wants us to bring him back Red Energon, huh? That stuff's kinda dangerous in the wrong hands though, so I guess it's just as well. But don't you worry 'bout me, Arcee. I can handle myself."

Only then did he notice that she'd already started walking away, not even stopping to wait for him. The mech ran after her, refusing to let her out of his sight that easily. "Hey, wait up!"

@arcee

[Deleted]

     Handle himself? A lot of mechs had said that to her before but very few were able to actually live out those words. Arcee scoffed slightly at that.

     Smokescreen was talking but Arcee wasn't listening. Her optics were focused between on the scanner in her grasp and the terrain she was currently attempting to navigate. There was a shorter route to get to the source of the signal but she had to stop walking because... well... there was a giant rock formation in her way. Sure, if they were fliers they could have gone up and over it, but they were limited to the ground below so they would have to travel the ten or eleven Earth miles off course, circle around, then meet up back to this spot again on the other side.

     If she was irritated, at least she didn't show signs of it. Probably a good thing for Smokescreen.

     Arcee turned to the left and pressed on, lifting her gaze from the scanner to watch what was happening around her. She was searching for gaps in the formations that would let them slide their way through without having to wander all the way around, all the while making sure that she walked just fast enough to keep Smokescreen a few steps behind. It didn't matter to her if he was running his mouth or not- to her, there was only silence. Did she turn off her audials? No, she was just ignoring the young mech. In her lifetime of working with the Enforcers she had learned how to select what she wanted to listen for just so she wouldn't miss key information spoken by a target while in a large crowd. 

     "Detour. We have to go all the way around to get to the path we need to stay on course. Make sure you keep up." Arcee was usually straight forward and to the point with her statements. This time there seemed to be more of a bite to her words than usual, indicating that there must have been something on her processor. "And try to stay focused."


@smokescreen

[Deleted]

Was she..

Was Arcee ignoring him?  Call Smokescreen almost offended.

Regardless of the social situation, the young mech followed after the smaller two-wheeler.  She was the one in charge of this mission anyway, and without her there was no way he was going to be able to find the Red Energon that they were seeking.  He'd heard some rumors about Arcee, being a lone wolf due to something involving a former partner of hers, but what did that matter now?  It wasn't like he was going to up and get himself offlined or something.  Not so easily.  Smokescreen might've been young and naive, but he could be a creative little mech when he put his mind to it.

Naturally, this crazy planet was going to have to make them take the long way around in order to get to their destination.  As much of an annoyance as it could have been to the Elite Guardsmech, Smokescreen felt he could take advantage of the situation.

That was to say.. if he could get the femme to listen to him.

"Stay focused?"  Smokescreen made a feigned sound of hurt, optics trained directly on Arcee as he followed after her.  "I think you're a little too focused if you ask me.  In fact.. you haven't answered me this whole trip, 'Cee.  We can't exactly do this teamwork thing if only half of us wants to do the work."

He hummed to himself for a moment.  Maybe he could try another approach.

"You got something on your processor you wanna talk about?"

@arcee

[Deleted]

All it took was one call from the Decepticon command central, and Sv19 was notified of Autobot presence, and assigned to ‘hinder the targets’. Whatever other vehicons would be on their way was sketchy, but to Sev, it only meant he was gratified with relief from endless patrols. At last, the war machine would have a taste of battle that his systems had so patiently been muted for. The sable black experimental aerojet car blared his silver lights online, before his engine purred.

The sports car hummed its way from a temporary parking place to the open road, where he took an alley way veering to the left. It lead him out of town.

Perhaps if I’m lucky, they’ll have assigned Pyro in on this one to. Maybe they already have Decepticons there, hence, they only need one vehicon. Sev speculated as he never wavered his alternate mode’s break neck pace. There was one last light at the end of the road he was taking. It counted down from six seconds. Sev charged on. The city limits was exactly where HQ would portal him directly to the Autobots. Sev saw little point in making himself hidden to humans. On the other hand, it was better they didn’t have any nuisances like the American government trying to intervene. ‘Five’ the numbers shown. Sev gave a grunt, before he intensified his velocity by another 10 mph, now his speedometer gestured towards the sixty. Four. Sev wasn’t about to let his mission be prolonged by a sixty second wait. He powered on to seventy Three. The light’s numbers were growing at a rapid pace, everything beside him was merely a blur on the unoccupied road. But he required more velocity still. The vehicon roadster shone his brights defiantly. 2.

Then out of the nothingness, a warp was spun itself into existence. The Decepticons had decided to warp their unit earlier than they had originally. Sev could only rush through at his pace---
--
--They were teleporting him right to the Autobots. That’s what they’d said. In the instant that he was in between one wormhole’s opening and the next, he triggered his transformation. He’d seen in training simulations that they were often times warped directly in front of the Autobot, with only about ten meters to spare. At 70 mph, the vehicon pulled his break, screeching his way into the burning hot climate of his hot-land destination. But the instant he exited his portal, not a spec of dirt touched his spinning wheels. He was in the airborn, and as his hood tipped downward thanks to gravity, he spotted the ground(and the Autobots) about forty feet diagonal of his position. Sev’s transformation cog was slower than most, a second rated t-cog if put in positive perspective. Panels and parts shifted jerkily from his alternate form, as he plummeted towards the earth, his boost of over eighty miles an hour sending him closer and closer towards the ground.(more notably the Autobots)

Sev’s mind raced as he forced his jolty cog to transform him faster, maybe even unfold and trigger his built in jet-pack’s thrusters in reverse to reduce his speed. The vehicon’s hybrid inbetween form produced an almost fully develop arm and it’s servo, reaching out with some desperation before a leg scrunched into form afterward. He barely missed the harsher rock formations, he grinded and tumbled into the narrow pathway the Autobots previously taken, skidding along it. His leg and arm dug into the ground, nullifying his speed substantially until at last, he came to a halt. Steadying himself, the rest of his robot form squirmed into a finished product, presenting a (slightly battered, quite dusty) commando-like vehicon, clearly a new mold among his brethren. Sev’s left arm had been badly loosened from the strength he’d demanded from it on short notice. The vehicon’s red visor flickered online as he assessed the area.

Immediately, Sev decided he wasn’t sure if he appreciated this picture in it’s entirety. It was blisteringly hot, something his systems detested. The sun shone mercilessly upon him. His left arm felt a little out of wack, and the fact that he was colorblind left the scenery a hazy white for a few seconds as his optic sensors adjusted. The Autobots were approximately twenty to thirty meters away, thanks to his skidding. He was behind them(assuming they hadn’t turned around). And by the Allsparks rays, I’m the only Decepoticon here. The pain from his fall was beginning to becoming more and more noticeable by the moment, as if his pain receptors had to pause before computing what level off agony he was about to experience. Sev's vents harshly hissed as his systems found a way to output the feeling they were getting after the battering landing. It was Sev's training as a soldier and a Deception that gave him the resilience to hold his ground as if almost nothing had happened. Any small parts of his that had been shaking seconds before now ceased, as he steadied himself...

Needless to say, the Decepticon groundbridge closed.