TF/James Bond crossover - Mirage

Usually stolen cars were a mixed bag. You were never quite sure what you'd get.

This one, however, was a practically holy and sanctified mix of speed and smooth handling that made it almost feel like it was driving itself.

He only had a few miles to enjoy it, however, before his pursuers caught up with him.

Then things got a bit strange.

"All right, then," the car said. "I was willing to be a good sport and play along, but now they are shooting at me. How annoying."

The seatbelt pulled James back tight against the seat.

"Sit back and relax," the car said, as James watched the speedometer peg and the scenery KEEP ACCELERATING. "And if they chip my paint, I AM sending your government the bill."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Optimus Prime - glitched

Optimus Prime had long ago come to the conclusion that he was irreparably glitched. Every maintenance checkup, he expected Ratchet to look at him suspiciously or confront him about some abnormality.

Optimus knew it was there. How could it not be? How could it be anything but a glitch, the fact that he still could not hate Megatron, after vorn upon vorn of war, after atrocities that haunted his dreams with their sheer, ruthless brutality and cruelty? How could it be anything but a code conflict that even after all that, even knowing the ocean of energon that stained Megatron's hands, that Optimus still hoped, every time he saw Megatron, that this time would be the one where Megatron would come to his senses? Still hoped that his friend would return. Still saw in him Megatronus, who had roused his mind and spark and was the very BASIS of the passion for a better world that had become Optimus Prime.

But no. Ratchet's machines detected nothing. And Optimus was left with the constant fear that he was going insane.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ironhide and Mikaela - Bayverse - ew.

"No offense to your species, but your planet," Ironhide said, "is DISGUSTING. Rain. Mud. Small suicidal mammals running onto your highways. DISGUSTING."

"Uh huh," Mikaela said distractedly, wrench clenched in her teeth as she fished around under his shoulder plating and, by the look on her face, failed to reach whatever she was trying to reach. She stood back up with a sigh. "I can't see or feel anything, but that probably just means it's stuck in there too far. Can you give me any more room, or am I gonna have to take the plating off?"

Ironhide grumbled to himself for a few moments before partially transforming and flaring the plating in question. "Organic. Idiotic glitch-for-processor Decepticon had to crashland on an ORGANIC world."

"Uh huh." Mikaela waited until he braced the arm before switching out the wrench for a maglite and stepping partially INTO the joint she was examining. The way she shouted and scrambled out again nearly made him jump.

"What? What is it?" He scanned the environment for threats but found nothing. "Did you harm yourself?"

Mikaela just leaned against his forearm plating, face gone pale. "No. No, I'm fine. I just...when you said...it's head is... EW. I wasn't expecting it to be LOOKING AT ME when I found it." She swallowed. "Ew."

"As I observed," Ironhide said, sounding vindicated.

"Disgusting. Yeah. Ew."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Soundwave - Bayverse (early RotF) - observant

There were times that Soundwave had had doubts. Small, well-concealed doubts. But doubts nonetheless. About their purpose, their vision, their goals, and most of all about his Lord's state of mind, on which all of these things rested.

Lord Megatron had changed. He was no longer the mech that Soundwave had joined on Cybertron. All his years captured and tortured by the fleshling humans had...distracted him. Soundwave had blamed his irrational rage, his single-minded obsessions, on the humans. He surely had dared not correlate them with Megatron's proximity to the Fallen.

Surely. Soundwave was much too intelligent to do that.

After the Fallen's destruction, however, Soundwave had a new (or, perhaps, old) set of behaviors to analyze. Patience returned. Irrationality faded. Multithreaded long-term planning resumed.

Below him on the Namibian veldt, Lord Megatron laid in the African sun, a dozen tiny hatchlings feeding from his own energon lines. Lord and hatchlings looked content. When they were sated, some of the little ones moved to perch on their Lord and protector's chest, apparently listening intently as Lord Megatron spoke to them. A story, perhaps, by the length and amount of gesturing involved.

Yes, Soundwave thought.

He drew his attention back to his planning, confident that all was once more proceeding as expected.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Shockwave - Bayverse, early DotM - waiting

Shockwave waited.

All around him, fitted to his frame like a lover or a second skin, his Driller waited with him. Her sensor reports were a slow background murmur of pressure, soil composition, radioactivity, seismic activity, and the constant scan for energon signatures.

Every now and then, she would become restless, a shiver of intent shuddering through her frame. She desired to move, to seek out the mechs that her master was waiting for. Shockwave would still her by the simple expedient of cutting her motor responses. His will would then fall upon her systems like the firm press of the earth around them, his authority iron-clad.

Not yet. Soon.

Eventually she would submit, releasing the tension and settling under his command.

Cocooned in stone and darkness under the radioactive city, they waited.