Red Alert's First Shift

Author's Foreword:

I will need to stop updating this series for a little while until I sort some things out but do believe you me, they are not dead! I got plenty of ideas trickling through my processor!

People, do NOT stay awake for 3 days straight, feeding on just energy drinks, it will slowly murder the crap out of you. How do I know? Personal experience. Felt like doing something really stupid last Sunday and so I did what I just suggested all of you not to. The results ... I don't even remember anything ...

Months upon months of tortuous training at the hands of Iron Hide and other veteran Autobots has finally ended and it was time for "graduating".

"Yer fellers had eh good time?" the red mech lined up all the recruits and one by one, looked deep into each of their optics, "well, if yeh did, I'm gonna hafta disappoint yeh kids, fun time's over."

"No more drills?" Red Alert, spark filling up with hope, turned to his instructor.

"Yeh, I know, I'm sad too but hey! Yeh kids 're gonna be assigned posts!"

"Wh-wh-what?"

"Pardon me?"

"What?"

"Are you for real?"

"Are you serious?"

"Ain't it too soon?"

"Scared, traitors?"

"Active duty already?"

"Well, what c'n I tell yeh fellers, I know yeh guys gonna miss me 'n' I'm gonna mis yeh too."

"Really?"

"No, now get ye rafts atta mai training grounds!"

"Active duty?"

"They must be joking!"

"We are not even done with our training!"

"Will yer traitors just shut up?"

"This frag ain't cool, man!"

"They have got to be joking!"

"This is an outrage!"

"We won't last a second on a battlefield!"

"Attention!" a voice easily overpowered everybody else's as its owner, a white and black mech, walked into the room with a datapad in his servos, "My name is Prowl, I am the Security Officer and I will be assigning all of you to your guard posts."

"Guard duty?"

"Weak dude!"

"Yeah! What that guy said!"

"Want a battlefield instead?"

"No!"

"Slag no!"

"Are you crazy?"

"Then I advise all of you to keep quiet and let me go through this," the SO lift his hand up, showing the datapad to everyone, "now, Sunstreaker and Sideswipe?"

"Yes!"

"Here!"

"Warehouse 231 C, go."

"… but …"

"… but …"

"No buts, go."

"He doesn't like buts!"

"Hehehe …"

"Neither do I like putting recruits into the same brig with Decepticons."

"Yeah! That'll teach those traitors!"

"Grapple, Windcharger and Cliffjumper, you are stationed at the armories."

"Got it."

"Sir, yes, sir!"

"There ain't gonna be a single one o' you getting' past me …"

As Prowl kept naming and sending his new comrades off to their posts, Red Alert couldn't help but get a really, really bad feeling about all of this. Even though the assignments didn't sound all that dangerous, just look around and report suspicious activity, he couldn't get rid of the nagging, unsettling thought that he would be assigned to a real warzone.

"… Red Alert …"

"Huh? Yes! P-present!"

"You will be entering combat!" a slithering whisper came from behind.

"WHAAAA!" the car jumped up and yet again smashed his head on the ceiling, making another hole.

"PFHAHAHA!"

"AHAHAHA!"

"Oh, wow, you were right! It was totally worth it!"

"That never gets old!"

"Red Alert, come with me, the rest of you, off to the brig!"

"What?"

"Why?"

"Because I said so. Come on," Prowl helped up the slightly wobbling mech, "you will be guarding the science labs."

"Oh, that doesn't sound too bad! Um, mean, too, um, vital."

"Uhuh. Well, you will be ensuring security in Wheeljack's lab."

"Wh-Wheeljack?"

"Yes, Wheeljack."

"Oh, that, doesn't sound scary!"

"Um," the security officer looked at the new recruit, opened his mouth to say something but in the last minute changed his mind, "no, he is absolutely not scary at all …"

"… is he being sarcastic?"

"And the best quality about him, he is sane unlike the many scientists you hear about."

"What?"

"Eh, never mind, we are here," Prowl swiped his card on the identifier mechanism and both walked in, "Wheeljack!"

"Jus' eh sec!"

Red Alert looked around as his imagination began going haywire from the sight. Tables filled with the most random junk of the weirdest shapes and sizes that strongly reminded the car of his childhood nightmares, "well, I am not sleeping tonight."

On the other end of the room were some strange mechanisms, light bulbs and buttons, some flashing with red, some cracking static, electrical discharges and at times building up sound charges that made it look like they were about to violently explode, "I want my mommy."

In the center was probably the thing that scared the new guard the most, a whole mountain of whatever the frag those things were. He could have sworn that some of them moved, "so this is how it ends."

"WOW! WATCH OUT!" suddenly the mountain dangerously wobbled and quickly began tilting towards the two security personnel. Before they could do anything both were drowning in the sea of scrap-metal and half-dead electronic, "Sorry 'bout that, lost my balance there fer eh moment."

"AAAAHHHH!" Red Alert emerged from the piles of junk like a mermech but with legs and screaming like a little fembot. As the trajectory took him to fall on Wheeljack, he instinctively caught him, the new security guard ended up being held in his arms, "I AM TOO SCARED TO DIE!"

"Um," the engineer looked at the recruit with a lot of irritation, "lil' girl, I don' have any enehgon lollipops …"

"I AM SORRY!" he jumped off the senior Autobot and fell back into the junk piles, "AAAH! THEY ARE KILLING MEEEEE!"

Bloting his way out of it especially when he felt something in the garbage move and bite him, the dicolor, almost crying, ran into the farthest corner of the room, grabbed his knees and dug his helm into his servos:

"… iamgonnadieimmagonnadie …"

"Where deh frag do yeh find guys like this?" the head engineer helped Prowl to get back on his feet, "the guy's a …"

"… iwannagohomeiwannagohome …"

"I apologize, it is his first day."

"Yeh, I can see that!"

"All right, Red Alert, let's go …"

"NO NO NO NO NO NO …" the car quickly crawled under one of the tables, took out a bag and put it over his head, "I AM NOT GOING ANYWHERE!"

"What deh slag is his problem?"

"Red Alert, this is an order …"

"I WANT MY MOMMY!"

"Fragging great," Wheeljack facepalmed, "yet another nutcase on the loose …"

"I WANT MY BLANKY!"

"You are the one to talk …"

"Hey! Wuzzat supposed teh mean, huh, Misteh I-Got-Extreme-Obsessive-Compulsive-Disordeh …"

"I assure you I do not!"

"BWAAAAHAAA!"

"It's so easy teh mess with ya, it ain't funny!"

"Try me."

"Hey, Prowl."

"I AM GONNA DIE!"

"Yes?"

"I folded one ef the pages in one ef yer books."

For a few astroseconds, a dead silence only interrupted by the freaking out security guard, befell the room.

"DAMN YOU!" the Security Officer ran out of the room as fast as he could, transformed and leaving a trail of skid marks, rapidly drove to his quarters.

"Moron," Wheeljack turned to Red Alert, "he doesn' even have any books. There really ain't no sane people otheh than me on this base. Holy Cybertron!"

"I DON'T WANT TO DIE!"

"Urgh, now I am stuck with this clown. LEAVE!"

"LEAVE ME ALONE!" Red Alert flipped over the table and with his bag still on the head, panicked, running into one of the bigger working machines.

"NO! THAT'S THE CLONING POD!"

"Smokescreen, who is next on the list?"

Optimus sometimes accompanied the shrink on his check-ups, few things rose the morale as much as a personal appearance of their seemingly all-mighty leader who wouldn't think twice before sacrificing his life for their well-being.

"I believe next is …" the psychologist was interrupted by one of the science lab doors breaking down and dozens of Red Alerts burst out like an ocean wave, screaming off the top of their lungs from the sheer terror as they kept piling on top of one another.

"AAAAAAAHHHHHH!"

"I'LL BE GOOD!"

"AAAAHHH!"

"I DON'T WANT TO BE EATEN BY WHEELJACK!"

"AAAAAAAAHHHHHH!"

"DON'T KILL ME!"

"HEEEEELP MEEE!"

"Hey," the Autobot leader turned to Smokescreen who was still recovering fro shock and pointed in the general direction of Red Alerts, "how about this guy?"

"We don't have any normal people, do we …"

Author's Notes:

Hope you enjoyed it! I will begin posting more as soon as I can, please be patient!

The other day I realized I need to get a life after looking through like a hundred forum threads where they discussed "Unicron vs Galactus" ... we all know Optimus Prime would win ... come on ...

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Thanks to C.M.D. for editing and reviewing!