Chapter Text
The sky turned purple as the sun set behind the mountains of the lonely isolated dry-landscape, almost like a pure desert, the military base of operations growing ever small as you turn your bikes' gear to 6, letting go of the handle and sitting straight, enjoying the fresh wind around you and the adrenaline of steering the fast motorcycle with only your hips and balance
Some people would call you crazy to accept working at a job from 2 hours of distance from your apartment, in the middle of nowhere, from morning to evening, but you weren't some people and it was a one life time opportunity, after all, how many people can say they work directly in fixing military tanks and jets
Exhausting as the journey to work and back was, you enjoyed your job immensely. Working with machines was your passion since small, from the radios you fiddled with to the second-hand car you first bought, to this bike you saved so much money to have, and finally to all the machinery you could fiddle with at work, some are even experimental builds, those always gave you a headache, the manuals were always so shitty, to build a machine is not the same as to fix it and the engineer seems to always forget this, but also a sense of pride, you were the first to work on them after test release, and you were the first to write a good manual for them, a pioneer even
It's not like your superiors would allow an idiot to use said experiments out of training camp- a trail of smoke catches your eyes out of the main road, blending with the night sky, if you weren't so used to watching for signals of a broken engine you wouldn't have notice the fine line twirling with the wind
Now, it's in the middle of the desert, far away from any civilization, anyone with a brain would just call a tow truck... if they had a signal... which is very unlikely, you would know, and there is a possibility to be a work colleague... ah fuck it, you grab your bikes handle with purpose and drive out of the road, ready to lend a hand, or a ride, to the poor idiot that didn't check their car before coming to the middle of nowhere
It was, in fact, not a car
It is worse, it's like you asked the universe when you thought about it earlier actually, like a curse and a goddamed blessing
It was a tank, silver and black, with hints of purple, beaten all around like someone ran it over mud or a very small tunnel, so small it made scratches and dents all over, imposing, really big, one of the biggest tanks you have seem... still not the biggest tho, with an exasperated sigh you get out of your motorbike and immediately pull your entry card out
"Alright, get out there, rookie who let you get out of camp in the middle of the night," you say loudly as you use the small flashlight in your keys to light the war-machine "with this unfinished beauty right here eh?!"
The top lid does not move an inch, you get closer and knock the vehicle "anyone in there?"
"I'm a mechanic buddy not an officer, if you don't show me whats wrong I can't help you" you circle around the silver tank, looking for sighs of humans foot steps, maybe the dumb-ass tried to walk back to camp and left this here-
A high pinched sound startles you, looking around frenetically only to not nothing except you and the machine in this endless road... so it must have came from it, and indeed it did for the commander's hatch is now open
"Oh thank fuck I though you went back to camp by foot do you know how far we are from civilization right now?!" You shout to the open lid, waiting for someone to get out...
No-one does
You look around awkwardly, noticing how alone you truly are in the middle of the night, only you, your bike and the silver tank...
"What the hell..." You whisper and start climbing the machine, noticing how it doesn't have ladders, one thing to put in its reports when you get back to work, one maneuver after another you get to the lift finally looking inside it's hull... no-one was there "what?"
You drop in, looking around, it is the inside of a tank alright, down bellow the drive seat, around valves and pistons and... oh wow, this tank did not have a gun handle, which means it's probably automated linked to a computer, the drivers seat or remotely, you have heard of tests being made for those
"Remote controlled..." You breath out, reaching for the drives seat, looking around for a radio
"And they decided to take you for a ride this hour of the night big guy?" You tap the metal wall gently and chuckles "whose idea was this..."
Finding exactly what you hoped for, you get the radio off the handle and press the signal button, a red lamp lights up, you wait for the signal to pick something... static comes through and you state your name and ID as a greeting, repeating until someone answers
"I hear you loud and clear mechanic..." a gruff voice answers, not your superiors voice, probably the night shift guard "what is your... problem... and how did you found this line?"
The voice seems to think over his words carefully, you sigh softly, a new recruit then "reporting from inside a test tank for the new automatic build, it seems to be busted, awaiting orders"
"Ah..." the voice answer amused "I see the problem, due to an... incident, we are not able to send a retrieve crew immediately, would you be able to repair... it... enough to move?"
You roll your eyes, taking the radio far from you briefly, and groaning annoyed at having to work past your hours because you though someone needed help, bringing it back you answer politely and professionally before ending the transmission "I'll do my best"
You sigh again, this is going to be a long night "better start then"
You look around the hull for a tool box, and found out it doesn't exists, another thing to add to the ever growing list of notes of this model, you huff and take out your back pack "fine I'll make do with what I have"
First, the outside, lucky the road wheels and track were in good conditions, if slightly damaged, but nothing that a smooth road would break, the motor tho, off that looked nasty, how did it get that bad in the first place, all dented and tubes twisted, with your hammer you did your best to put it in working function again, sometimes you hit it so hard it felt like the whole tank trembled
Untwisting wires and mending tubes, you spend an hour only on the outside and finally go back to the hull, and there goes another hour checking the other side of the machines engines, and there you find it, along the way a piece of metal broke and is dangerously close to a fuel tube, that was already pierced and dripping a large amount of blue fuel, whatever were the tests they were performing in this thing it looked brutal
"Shit..." You crawl closer, tentatively poking the blue fuel "and even experimental fuel too... well, you didn't explode till now"
First you hammer the pointy dislocated piece back into place and away from your face and the tube, then you can finally crawl all the way in and sit properly, assessing the damage, you grab the piece of metal that pierced the pipe, breathing deeply you ready yourself and with one powerful pull you get the thing out, you hear what sounds like compression pipes working and in a panic you rapidly evolve the leaking pipe in duct tape and scrambles out back to the crew hull
The lights around you start working properly, giving a faint purple hue to the place, you feel the tank moving, and quickly, you pick up the radio forsaking formality for the sake of your message "wait! Wait! I have my own bike! I can follow you back to base, stop the tank!"
Then, the weirdest shit happened
"Oh I know human" came the gruff voice, but not from the radio
"But you see, I have other plans for you, little medic" it came from all around you
Like the tank itself was alive... you scream "no, no! NO! ABSOLUTELY NOT!"
Trying to climb up you twist the valve to open the lid, but it doesn't bulge "this is not happening"
You slam your fist in the metal "let me out!"
"I suggest you take a seat and rest" the voice says "we still have 3 arcs until our arrival"
"Were are you taking me? what the fuck is this? Who are you?" you glare at the radio
"You will see" and he cackle in amusement of your despair "as for me, human, call me Megatron, and soon your Lord and superior"
You buff and tremble, as much of fear as anger, you were trapped, kidnapped even, all because you wanted to help someone else, what a great way to end the night... AND A FRIDAY NIGHT AT THAT TOO, shit... how long would it take for anyone to notice you are gone... two business days maybe? Hopefully? After all you don't have anyone waiting for you, and it's not like you have actual friends in the city or even in your neighborhood... oh you are fucked... fucked
As the time passes and realization sinks in you coil in yourself, trying to keep your panic at minimum, you still had yet to meet your kidnapper and you didn't knew what was worse, if this is a matter of war or just a very good hacker
Megatron was livid, absolutely fuming with anger, at the Autobots first and foremost from destroying yet another potential energon extraction mission, at himself from not calling retreat sooner, at Starscream for... every Primus-forsaken thing, honestly
This all boils down to the seekers attempt at killing him in the middle of the battle, one good shot and the warlord could feel the crack it made inside his frame, and yet he stubbornly chose to keep fighting, if only to show his second in command he would never fall down so easily, but his pride has yet again show its consequences in the worst way possible
Now stuck all alone in his transformation mode, energon leaking from Primus knows where, without energy to make a COMM signal nor move, the leader of the Decepticons can only wait for anyone to find him, and he knows someone will, if not Lazerbeak then Autobots, either way he knows death is not waiting for him, he still has a mission, a war, to win, he will get out of this as he did many other, worse, times
And find him someone does, a human, stupid little squishy thing, but oh so convenient it even gives him perfect covers, a rookie in the middle of the night, he waits and the thing persists it's attempts at coaching "whoever" was inside him to come out, that's when realization hits the silver mech, of course, mechanics... human mechanics are how fixers were called by your race, you, to him, were a glimmer of hope, a medic
He had to be careful, this was his chance, if only he convinces you to work him out his worse damage he could crush you after and go back to his makeshift central tower that Soundwave and his surviving soldiers were working on not that far from here
He opens his lid, ignores the weird feeling of a moving thing climbing and walking inside of him, and holds a booming laugh as you, yet again, creates the perfect cover for the tyrant, to redirect his voice to only the small radio device in your hands was rookies play for him
And so he waits and watches you work your magic, holding screams of pain from your indelicate work, all in prowl of him being able to move again, all a means to an end, and when you finally get out the part that had him critically stuck? Oh, the relief, he couldn't hold back the sigh, which startle the little medic, but your dedication pleased the warlord, you bandaged his energon tube directly connected to his transformation cog, he was finally able to move and transform
He though about it, transforming right now, crushing the little human inside, destroying their backwaters vehicle, and going back to his Decepticons like nothing had changed... however... the more he thought about it, your work, your adaptability, your words
Experimental tank, you had called him, you worked with new human technology then, and was versatile enough to work in this mix of human looking but actually Cybertronian engines, with a basic understanding you would probably be able to work wonders in his cybertronian mode or even outside the vehicle modes
The truth is... it's been two months since his awakening in this strange planet, resources were limited, his soldiers were not even close to top shape, no doctor was in his crew when they crashed into this Primus-forsaken planet, but the Autobots, oh they had their ship, every fight they could be beaten to almost scrap and would be back in perfect condition for another round, it may be not a working ship but it still had Cybertronian parts and halls, and also, they have a doctor
His Decepticons need a doctor, he needs a doctor, there is just so much vague memories and basic instruction can get you by, not one of his surviving soldiers were trained in the arts of surgery or medicine, they were no were near in finishing this second attempt of a base and building a teleportation bridge was out of question while the base was not finished, he had engineers and a spy crew, not healers
But you... you were an opportunity, a better chance of survival, a first contact with the potential that humans had for servitude, the Silver warlord locked his lid, taking amusement in your despair, oh this would be his worse and yet most brilliant plan yet, if he didn't know better he would think it was proposed by his own second in command by it's insanity... however, for more that he hates it... beggars can't be choosers