Dancing Shadows
By: Vierge
A Transformers Fan Fiction Piece
DISCLAIMERS: I don't own the Transformers; they belong to Hasbro and Takara. The OCs, however, do belong to me, so please don't use them without my permission; I'm particularly fond of them.
NOTES: Just something fun I wanted to write for the OCs I had in my head.
CONTINUITY: Sometime after "The Search for Alpha Trion."
RATING: PG-13/T
TEASER: Someone has snuck into the Ark, and the Autobots are blissfully unaware of that fact…
The woods around the Ark were alive with the noise of local wildlife. Owls hooted to one another as they flew on silent wings, swooping quietly upon their prey like deadly shadows. Bats, too, sailed the evening breezes, using their natural sonar to hunt down insects, which they consumed on the wing. On the ground and in the trees, tiny mammals and even tinier insects skittered and scratched, leading lives as predator and prey.
A few moments later, the woods went deadly silent, save for the swish of tree branches in the wind – except there was no wind.
Two strange figures, surprisingly lithe and nimble despite their size, flitted from shadow to shadow cast by the trees around them. They stayed close to the ground, the better to make their shapes more unnoticeable and less threatening to any possible observer. They stepped lightly, taking great care not to make any loud noises. Stealth was more than just being able to blend in with the shadows: it required that they be as shadows, and that meant silence.
They crept closer to the entrance of the Ark, noting that the lights had been powered down, leaving only a few handful still turned on, the darkness thickening between intervals of illumination. This was advantageous: fewer lights meant more shadows for them to hide in.
They crouched behind a boulder hard by the Ark's entrance, and one of them spoke, using vocal units as opposed to the quieter radio signals, mostly because radio transmissions were easily intercepted, and could alert the Ark's residents to their presence. "Are you sure we're doing the right thing?" The speaker's voice was clear and a little high: young, one might say.
"We were ordered to do it this way," replied the other figure, and this one's voice had the lower, richer tones of maturity. "You wouldn't disobey a direct order, would you?"
Optics flashed in irritation behind special visors that were tinted to reduce their glare in the darkness. Had the two figures not been so close to one another, the telltale glow would have been virtually invisible. "Don't tell me you actually think this is a decent way to go about our mission. Why not just walk in there and blow them all away?"
The other figure shook its head. "We do as we are told. Our mission has a two-fold purpose, and we cannot accomplish both goals if we merely strolled in there."
The other sighed. "Oh, all right. But if we get in trouble, don't say I didn't tell you so."
And with that, the two figures rounded the boulder, and ducked into the half-light of the Ark.
"-tomorrow everyone!"
Bluestreak sighed happily as he left the rec room, the laughter of his comrades muted by the shutting of the door behind him. He had just finished a few shots of high-grade, and he was feeling pleasantly light-headed, as well as comfortably warm in his tanks. It was high time to head back to his quarters and get some recharge.
As he rounded a corner on his way to his quarters, he thought he noticed something moving in the shadows out of the corner of his optics. He automatically turned to look, but saw nothing. He off-lined and on-lined his optics quickly, just to make sure, and confirmed that, indeed, there was nothing there.
He chuckled, and shook his head. "High-grade must be going straight to my processors," he muttered as he continued walking. "Can't let the others talk me into drinking that much ever again…"
What happened next happened too swiftly for him to react. In the brief space between a few nanokliks, he felt two arms grab him – one around the waist, the other around his neck – and yank him to the side. Before he could even protest, the arm around his neck relaxed slightly, slid under the armor behind his neck, and followed that with a few snip, snip, snip sounds that rendered him completely paralyzed and unable to communicate, whether through his vocalizer or through his internal radio. When he did an internal systems check, he found out that the important wires controlling his movement and communications functions had all be severed.
Panic welled up fast and hot inside him as he was lifted up by his attacker, who was helped by another one, and he was half-carried, half-dragged to a dark corner, and carefully set down on his aft with a soft clank. This was wrong. What had happened to the Ark's security? How come Red Alert hadn't sent out the alarm yet? Perhaps they had gotten to Red Alert already? No, that was impossible; the Command Center was deeper inside the Ark; they couldn't have gotten there…or could they?
"What next?"
"We leave him here. He can't come after us, after all, or warn anyone about us, not in the state he is in."
"You sure?"
"Yes. Remember, we don't have much time to dawdle. We have to find Optimus Prime as quickly as we can."
"Right."
Bluestreak's audios picked up the faint sound of feet – Cybertronian feet, he was sure – moving away from him, and though he could not turn his head to see where they were going, he did manage to briefly catch sight of two slender figures – one matte black, the other a very dark blue – disappearing around the corner, melting into the shadows as if they were made of the stuff. Not a moment later, they disappeared, making hardly a single sound to indicate their presence.
He focused his optics on the wall in front of him, hoping to Primus that someone – anyone – would find him, or find those two intruders before they found the Autobot Commander.
Clank!
Hound paused in mid-step, frowning slightly. Was it just him, or had he just heard something fall? It was a soft sound, though, as of someone setting something down quietly, but not quiet enough that the contact of metal on metal would not be heard. Or at least, others would not have heard it; Hound, whose sensors had been made ultra-sensitive because of his function as a tracker and scout, had managed to pick it up.
Curious, he moved forward, wanting to find out what it was. The hallway was quite dark, since many of the lights had been powered down to conserve energy, but this did not trouble him in the least. He was more than familiar with these hallways, traversing them as he did on a regular basis, and besides, he doubted that anything could get past the security net of cameras and sensors that Red Alert had set up everywhere.
His motion sensors detected something in the shadows, but before he could turn around to get a fix on it with his optics, something grabbed him from behind, and disabled his motion and communication functions with a quiet snipping sound as of something cutting through wires – which was probably what had happened.
But that had not affected his sensors in the least, and he turned a few them up to full capacity to get a better idea of what or who had just attacked him – only to get rather confused readings. His infrared sensors measured something no larger than a dog on either side of him, but the arms that grasped him and steadied him were definitely larger than dogs. His olfactory sensors picked up traces of energon and coolant, but they were severely muted, negligible really, again if it were not for the fact that they emanated from either side of him. And when he cranked up his audio sensors, he realized that the normal sounds associated with the regular movement of Cybertronians were dampened down, too. For a normal Cybertronian, they would be near-silent.
It did not take him long to realize that the two Cybertronians – for they could only be Cybertronians – flanking him were the ultimate examples of stealth technology. They did not turn invisible, but then again, they did not seem to need to, because they could turn themselves invisible to more than one set of sensors – and when one could do that, then one could easily escape optic identification.
Primus, he thought, this was bad.
"Over here," one of them murmured, and Hound realized that they were facing one of the storage rooms. They intended to leave him in there, unable to move and ask for help in any way, shape or form.
The idea chilled him to his spark.
He did not know how they had managed to get the door open; most of the storage rooms were locked and could only be accessed given a particular code that only the Ark's residents knew. Maybe these two were good at hacking as well, because they were able to open the door without any problems, and were about to step inside, but halted sharply. They shoved Hound into the room, and he landed on the floor with a painful clang.
"Primus! Hound!"
Hound's optics widened. That sounded like Sideswipe. He focused his motion sensors again, and realized that there were two of them in the storage room – probably Sunstreaker, if the scent of polish was anything to go by.
"Who were those slaggers?" Sunstreaker growled, his voice low and dangerous; obviously, the yellow Lamborghini was spoiling for a fight.
Hound really, really wanted to tell them what they were up against, but he could not say anything, not even move his head to look up at them.
He felt Sideswipe doing a scan over him, and he muttered: "Can't answer us, Sunny. His motion and communications wires have been cut."
"But you saw those two figures that threw him in here, right?" Sunstreaker asked. "Those didn't look like any 'Bots I know of."
"Wanna find out what they're made of?"
"Definitely."
Hound wanted to warn them, wanted to tell them to be on their guard, that they weren't facing any ordinary opponents. But he could do nothing at all.
He heard them getting up, moving towards the door, their frames vibrating in anticipation of a good fight. But when they opened the door, they stopped, apparently in confusion. And then there was a clang, as of metal colliding with metal, and a curse that was cut off midway through as the speaker received the same treatment that Hound had. In no time at all, the Twins were dragged into the storage room, and propped up against the wall by the two mysterious Cybertronians.
"We leave them?" asked one of them.
"Yes," replied the other. "We're wasting time, taking them out like this. We have to find Optimus Prime soon."
As the door hissed closed, Hound felt his spark ache with frustration and anger at his situation. He could not see the Twins, but he could tell, from the sudden increase of heat that emanated from them, that they, too, were angry at being unable to do anything about their current situation. They could only hope someone stopped them before it was too late.
Prowl exited the Command Center, feeling quite good about the day in general. There was no Decepticon activity, and the rest of the world had continued to move at a normal pace. The only thing that was out of the ordinary was Cosmos' report of something entering Earth's atmosphere and landing in the woods not too far away from the Ark. Prowl had sent out Hound to go and see what it was, but he doubted it would amount to anything. As long as it was not sending out a Decepticon signal, he figured that it would be all right.
Nevertheless, he knew that protocol demanded he report this to his commander, and so here he was, on his way to see Optimus Prime to tell him about Cosmos' report. He was sure that Hound would report back to him in a moment, and they would be able to tell Prime exactly what it was.
Just as he was walking the final stretch of corridor that led to Prime's quarters, his optics picked up movement in the shadows. Such movement was illogical, since there should not be anyone here – or if there was, then they shouldn't have any need to hide. He stopped, pulling his weapon out of subspace, looking around warily, trying to find out where the intruder would come from.
He did not anticipate the attack from above. He had been distracted by movement in the shadows, but the minute he turned his sensors alerted him to another presence above and behind him. By then, however, it was too late: the wires that allowed him to move and communicate were cut. He went slack, and hoped to Primus that the racket of his fall would at least alert Prime, but it was not meant to be: a figure seemed to resolve itself from the shadows, and it caught his rifle before it could fall to the floor, while the one above him held him steady until the other one could set aside the rifle and prop him up.
"Smooth," muttered the one who had emerged from the shadows.
The one from above dropped to the floor with hardly a sound – something that Prowl found a bit unnerving, since such a landing was supposed to make some sort of noise, at least. "That was a good save, catching his rifle like that."
"Where are we going to dump him?"
Dump? Prowl would have frowned in indignation at the term, but he could not move at all.
The other speaker helped hold him up, keeping him steady. "We'll put him over there, in that alcove."
The first speaker chuckled softly as they moved him. "Impressive though. You took down the famous Prowl, second-in-command after Optimus Prime, in no time flat."
"If they had had a warning it would have been a completely different story." He was put down in the aforementioned alcove, and he managed to catch a glimpse of sleek matte black and dark, gunmetal blue shapes standing in front him.
"You know…he's quite a handsome looker." This was uttered in such a matter-of-fact tone that Prowl was thrown there for a moment.
"You can think about such things later. Phase One is complete. Now we move to Phase Two."
As Prowl tried to make sense of what they meant by "Phase One" and "Phase Two," he watched the movement of their shadows against the wall, and realized, to his horror, that they were going straight for Prime's quarters. Every single particle of his spark willed himself to move, to shout, to do something, anything, but it was all for naught, because he did not move an inch, nor did he make so much as a squeak.
And the horror of the situation began to sink in on him: these two – whoever they are – were going to attack Prime, and he could do absolutely nothing.
The door of Prime's quarters slid open and shut and Prowl knew that Optimus Prime was as good as dead.
Optimus Prime did not look up immediately when his door opened and closed. He was too busy reading a message he had just received from Elita-One, who was still on Cybertron, still leading the revolt against the Decepticons along with the other femmes under her command. Now that the femmes had a safer base from which to work, Elita could now send messages to him with complete confidence that they would not be intercepted – and he had to admit, it made him very happy to be in contact with her again, even if it was from a distance.
But her latest message rather puzzled him. She mentioned that she would be sending him a surprise, and that it would be of great advantage to the Autobot cause on Earth. He began to wonder what it was. Maybe a supply of energon? That would certainly be advantageous for them…
"Excuse me sir."
Optimus looked up, and frowned at what – or rather, who – he saw standing on front of him. There were two femmes standing by his door: Autobots, judging from the insignia that was prominently displayed on their armor. One was matte black; the other a dark, somewhat metallic blue. Their optics were obscured by visors that drowned out the glow usually associated with them, but not a moment later the two lifted the visors, and Optimus found himself gazing at two pairs of blue optics.
"Who are you?" he asked, keeping his voice mild despite his surprise. "I don't think I have ever met you before."
The black one smiled. "That's because you haven't, sir. We were not able to speak with you or with any of your companions when you were last on Cybertron."
"Yeah," the blue one chimed. "We were so busy running around and taking out those 'Cons: make it easier for you and our commander to get away."
Optimus tilted his head in curiosity, though he began to have the sneaking feeling that he knew who their commander was. "Do you mean Elita-One?"
"Yes, sir," the black one replied, and she bowed to him. "I'm Shadowrunner, and this is my sister, Nightraid. We were sent here to join your group, by request of Elita-One."
So this was the surprise that Elita mentioned in her message. "I just received her message," he said, gesturing the data pad on his table. "She mentioned that you would be helpful to our cause?"
"Of course," Nightraid replied. Her voice was a bit high in comparison to her sister's, which in combination with her exuberance marked her out as the younger of the two. "'Runner and I are acquisitions experts: you need anything, we get it for you as fast as we can – preferably snatching it away from underneath a 'Con's aft. And we're assassins too, but 'Runner over here's better at it than I am. She takes them out close-range; I like to snipe."
Optimus nodded, realizing the value of these two femmes' skills, and why Elita had sent them. "And how did you get in here? How come no one managed to see you?"
"That's our job: to get in without being seen, and if we are, to take out any witnesses without attracting attention," Shadowrunner answered.
Optimus was about to ask another question, when the door opened and Jazz, Ironhide, and Mirage burst in, armed to the teeth. In the space of a nanoklik, they all had their guns trained on Shadowrunner and Nightraid, the former looking rather impassively down the barrel of Jazz's rifle, while the latter frowned and took a more defensive stance.
"I told you so," Nightraid muttered.
Shadowrunner shrugged in a rather elegant manner. "We were obeying orders."
Ironhide spared a momentary glance at Prime. "You alrigh' Prahme?"
"Yes, I'm just fine, Ironhide," Optimus replied, standing up to show that he was uninjured. "Stand down, everyone. I think you are overreacting a little bit."
Jazz gave him a stunned look. "Overreacting? Prime, these two took out Blue, Hound, the Twins, and Prowl!"
Optimus frowned. "Took them out?"
"Yes," Mirage replied, his rifle trained on a spot directly in the middle of Shadowrunner's chest plate. "We found Bluestreak first, propped up in a corner just outside the rec room. The wires that connected his motion and communications circuits to his main processors had been cut, rendering him mute and paralyzed. We found Hound and the Twins in a storage room, and then Prowl in an alcove just outside your quarters. They were in the same condition as Bluestreak."
Optimus glanced at the sisters, silently requesting an explanation, and Shadowrunner replied: "We were ordered to sneak in here instead of announcing ourselves in order to prove our capabilities to you. Elita-One said that your Security Director was a very paranoid mech, and that you had some of the best warriors in our faction here with you. She said we were to consider it an accomplishment if we could get past all of them and reach you without being captured first."
"She also told us to tell you that you would be a fool not to take us on if we did get past everything and reached you without getting caught," Nightraid blurted out, and then hastily added, "sir" when she realized that she had just called Optimus a fool. Well, Elita had called him that, but Nightraid must have known that it was not her place to say that.
"How did you take them down?" Optimus asked, knowing that by doing so he would get an explanation regarding their capabilities.
"We were designed specifically for stealth," Shadowrunner answered. "'Raid and I have sound and heat dampeners built into our frames to make us quieter, as well as to reduce our heat signatures on infrared sensors. Our paint, on the other hand, absorbs and deflects light, which allows us to appear nondescript on cameras and on radar, as well as deflect sonar to a certain degree."
"Thanks to that, we're able to sneak up on others without them being the wiser," Nightraid continued. "'Runner and I have got knives and needles built into our fingers and forearms, and we used those to sever the wires on your friends. We didn't want to deactivate them though, so that's as far as we went. But I don't like doing that much; I like to take them down from afar."
Optimus nodded, and would have smiled, if he could, in amusement. As it was, though, the only indication of such was a slight brightening of his optics. "That certainly explains a lot. And your skills could indeed be useful to us."
"Now just hold on there," Jazz cut in. "Prime, are you saying these two are on our side?"
Shadowrunner nodded. "Yes, we are. We trained our replacements for Elita-One, and when we finished that she sent us here, saying that your group could use acquisitions experts."
"Tha's jus' a nice fancy way o' sayin' that yer thieves," Ironhide muttered.
Nightraid grinned. "Sure we are – to the 'Cons, anyway." Her optics suddenly brightened in what was probably recognition. "You're Ironhide, aren't you? Chromia says hello, and that she'll kick your aft into the Pit and back if you didn't watch out for us."
Shadowrunner smiled. "Chromia was the one who took care of us when we were younger, though Elita also had a hand in raising and training us."
Ironhide narrowed his optics at them. "Yer sayin' Chromia treated you two like her own sparklin's?"
"You could say that, sir," Shadowrunner answered, optics shining with amusement. "And she spoke very highly of you to us."
Optimus chuckled when he heard Ironhide mutter something that sounded like an "Aw shucks" under his breath, and then looked at Jazz and Mirage. "Stand down, you two."
The Special Ops Commander and the sharpshooter relaxed then, and then the former turned to Shadowrunner with an appreciative smile. "It'd be great having you girls around here for a change; thought I was beginning to forget what a femme looked like."
Shadowrunner raised an optic ridge. "Really?"
Jazz grinned. "Really."
Nightraid giggled. "Don't push your luck; the Pit would freeze over first before she took any interest in a mech." She paused thoughtfully. "Then again, the only mechs we saw around on Cybertron were 'Cons, and who'd be interested in one of those?"
Jazz laughed, slinging an arm in camaraderie over Nightraid's shoulders. "Now I think you and I could get along jus' fine, li'l lady!"
Mirage glanced at Optimus. "What about Bluestreak, sir? And Hound, the Twins, and Prowl?"
Optimus thought for a moment, and then replied: "Shadowrunner, Nightraid, I think it would be best for you to go to the medical bay and talk to Ratchet, our CMO. If you can tell him precisely what it is you did, he should be able to complete the repairs on the ones you, ah, attacked." He nodded at the others. "And I think it might be best for you to go along with them. When the Twins are fully repaired there's no telling what they might do."
Shadowrunner tilted her head. "Twins? Would they happen to be spark-twins?"
"Yes: Sideswipe and Sunstreaker. Why do you ask?"
Shadowrunner and Nightraid glanced at one another, and Nightraid replied: "Well, you see sir… One of the reasons why Elita sent us here was so that we could meet our brothers. She said that our maker apparently made a pair of spark-twinned warrior-mechs way back in the day, and she said that you had them under your command."
Optimus' optics widened slightly at the idea. "So you are Sideswipe and Sunstreaker's younger sisters?"
"Uh-huh, 'cause we have the same maker – he was destroyed though, not too long after 'Runner and I went online, so we're the last ones."
Optimus nodded, quietly mourning the loss of a great mech who had created some of the best warriors he had – though he couldn't quite say anything about their personalities. He looked at Shadowrunner and Nightraid, noting that while there was evidence to tell him that they were nothing like the Twins, he could never be sure. Nightraid seemed mischievous enough, and Shadowrunner…well, she was quiet, and that meant she was hard to gauge.
All the same, though, he could not deny that they would be useful to the Autobot cause on Earth, so he nodded at them, spreading his arms slightly in a gesture of welcome. "At any rate, I am happy to have you here, working with us. Welcome to Earth."