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They screamed.

They screamed so fucking loud.

They screamed loud enough to make the towering metal giants step back, their great visages flinching and wincing with the ear-splitting cacophony of shrieks. Screams that seemed to get louder with the panicked arrival of three children.

“What happened!”, the tallest boy asked.

“Kuso Jigoku”, the pink-haired girl laughed.

“Language!” Rey’s cry of alarm seemed to put a halt on the symphony of screams, and, though they still shook, the group managed to unwrap themselves from each other.

And then, just as fast, logic and reason seemed to kick in.

“Why the fuck are there kids here! Shit. There are little ears… FUCK!”, Lauren, making a point of blatantly ignoring the five giants around her, darted forward, straight towards the three children who seemed unsettlingly comfortable in the repurposed missile silo. “Who are you kids? Where are your parents? Do they know you're here? Are you ok?-“

“We’re fine, miss. But why are you here? Who are you guys?”, the littlest, a young boy with wild brown hair and glasses, asked.

Before Lauren could answer, the taller boy stepped forward. “Is this about the two kids that went missing?”

“How do you know about Camille and Alex?”, Nikk had stepped up beside Lauren, fingers intertwined in his hair.

“We’re trying to find out why the deceptions took them. But so far we haven’t gotten far”

“The what”

“Oh right. They haven’t gotten OP’s induction speech yet”

“The what!”

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“So…What do you think they’ll do to us this time?”

“Hell if I know. How long do you think we’ve been here?”

“A week? Maybe”, Alex laughed, wheezing through the bruised ribs and pain. After each failed escape attempt, they were handled rougher and rougher, leaving them bruised and exhausted. Not once had they been given something to eat or drink, and when sleep did force them down, it was painful and brought no relief or blissful nothingness. And to wake up was even worse.

“We’re going to die here, huh?”

That truly was the golden question. But whatever their punishment would be arriving soon, with the marching of metal feet.

“Well, it's been nice knowing you”, Camille said solemnly as the door rushed open.

“Likewise. Want to do this again in another life?”, Alex smiled as those war-drum footsteps came closer.

“Fuck yes”, the roof to their prison opened to reveal Lord Megatron, along with his second, third and medic.

“You humans are much harder to contain than I have the patience for”, the great grey warlord growled. The two knew then and there, that whatever their punishment would be, it would not be nice. “This, I have come to the decision to leave you in the care of those who can contain you”

Wait for what?

“My lord?”, The one named Starscream turned to the warlord, wings lowering in time with their ruby eyes widening. “You can’t mean…”

“Yes, I do”

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“Ok, so… you guys are alien robots in an intergalactic war? And your fighting the Deceptions, who are the bad guys, while you, the Autobots, are the good guys?”, Indiana had started pacing some time during the Primes speech.

“And this war has been going on for years. And your planet is no longer habitable, so you came to earth to continue. And you keep roping teens and adults in to help you fight?”, Jayda had moved over to the stairs, where she perched herself on the railing.

“And right now, the war is about who has access to the most Energon, the thing that keeps you guys working? But it used to be about a caste system, and the deceptions wanted to abolish the caste system because it exploited the working class?”, Sarah had hopped up onto the roof of the SUV they had taken, playing a calm game of UNO with Jack, Lauren and Nikk.

“And your friend, Megatronus, now known as ‘Lord’ Megatron, got pissed because you were essentially given a blessing from a god when he was the one who started this whole shebang? And that really got old man Megatron mad”, Nova had made her way to the couch, sitting with Rey and Miko.

“And now Megatron, going big-brain mode, got Soundwave, slender mans fucked up alien cousin, to kidnap our friends, possibly because he’s pissed that you guys have been winning this war with human help? And he might want to do the same thing?”, Lara said, from where she was sitting on the groundbridge’s controls with Raf, both pouring over their laptops.

“Your all taking this surprisingly well”, the blue one, Arcee, said from her spot beside the SUV, watching the game from over Jacks's shoulders with a vested interest.

“Thanks. Just wait though, the screaming will happen”, Lara replied, eying Bumblebee with equal parts intrigue and caution.

“You guys are assholes”, Nikk shot, causing all heads, human and cybertronian, to turn on him. “Seriously. Think about it, the deceptions wanted to get rid of the exploitation of workers, a 100% good-guy thing to do, and they ended up the evil ones.”

“Oh damn”

“He actually makes a valid point”

“Seriously. The same thing is happening on earth. Different cultures and beliefs are fighting against oppression, and they're getting killed for it, but they are the good guys.”

“Nikk”, Optimus stepped closer, crouching down as Nikk stood, fire in his eyes. “I understand where-“

“Oh don’t ‘I understand you’ me Optimus, I’m a 23-year-old GenZ and I’m 1; Sick and fucking tired of the world and its bullshit. And 2; I'm the son of two lawyers so fuck off with your niceties. You ‘Autobots’ fucked up and you know it”. The tension thickened, to the point where no breaths were taken and the air could be cut with a dull, plastic knife. “None of you Autobots or Decepticons are good, you just need to get over your bullshit and work together”

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“Damn, Soundwave was a bad name for you, pal”, Camille sighed dramatically, lounging lazily in the TIC’s thin hands. She knew that he most likely would have preferred carrying her with his feelers, but due to her bruised body, any significant pressure on her waist caused a sharp, stabbing pain. And the silent, towering monolith of a metal creature seemed to understand that, and carefully held her in the cusp of his hands. It was a gentle embrace, almost tender, if not for the cold metal. Or the risk of falling. She was much too large to sit fully in his hands, and so, while her feet steadied themselves on one flat wrist, her back was pushed into the other hand, arms wrapped around one of the long fingers that served as a sort of wall between her and the rest of the labyrinthian ship and its cloned inhabitants.

“Seriously, who named you. ‘Soundwave’? More like ‘Silentwave’, or…something. You could scare a ninja…”, she gasped, doubling over as a pang of hunger speared through her growling stomach. Just barely, she noted that Soundwave had stopped, and that her feet had slipped from where they were perched, leaving her legs to dangle over the deadly drop.

“-Status-”, It was a clipped recording of Knockout, the S’s cut from both the beginning and end. “-Status-“

“I'm…Shit…I'm fucking hungry”, she breathed heavily, leaning back into the cold metal. While the pain had passed, a pounding headache had stayed. “Humans need to eat and drink to survive. God”, He had started walking again, quicker this time, but still so carefully, if not more. “We can die if we don’t get enough sustenance. Our body will eat itself to keep us alive”, or something like that. She had never really paid attention in class. But it got the robot walking even faster, right into a dark room where she was gently deposited onto an even colder bench.

And then he retreated through another door, one the closed much faster than any of the others, but opened wide enough for her to see the cat inhabiting the room. The carbon black feline looked back at her with eyes burning like a dying sun, its body was sleek and lithe, reminding her of a cheetah. Yet when it walked, its limp was painfully prominent and she could see the strain on its body. There were many more, she could see, laying injured or dying, yet the wounded cat prowled in front of them all, a silent guardian.

And then the door closed and she was left alone with her mind and hunger. Briefly, she wondered how Alex was faring, the Irishman being pared with Starscream of all the robots in attendance.

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“That fucking hurts, you Prick!”

“Silence, Fleshy. My only duty is to ensure you don’t die!”

“Then get me a pint of Guinness or something, just get the fuck off me!”

It had been like this ever since Alex had been deposited into the second's hands, both parties equally unhappy about the situation. And it only seemed to escalate with Alex’s frequent hunger pangs. His only relief seemed to come with distractions. “Hey snatched waist, are you a girl or a boy, cause I can’t fucking tell”

“Why you infuriating pest! I will not be getting you your ‘Guinness’, and you will refer to me as commander Starscream!”

“Star’scream’ eh? Makes sense since all you seem to do is complain”

“That's it!”, switch a less than graceful lunge, Alex found himself clutched tightly in the robot's grasp. For a brief flicker of a moment, no pain came with the movement, but then he doubled over, clutching at the robot's fingers as blackness overcame his vision.

When he came back, he was met with cold, open night air as the robot transformed around him, an event that simultaneously held the human's curiosity far tighter than anything had before it, and made him incredibly queasy.

And then Starscream took off with a powerful push of his engines, spiralling higher and higher into the sky as Alex screamed. Before long, they seemed to reach the barest edges of the stratosphere, the human brain clouding as he struggled to get oxygen into his lungs.

And then the jet plunged in a tight, twisting corkscrew and he lost what little contents had managed to remain in his stomach.

And then there were two voices plunging through the sky, screaming.

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