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“Skywarp, you’ve gotta come see this. It’s so cool. I didn’t know the squishies could fly with anything actually approaching skill.”
“Squishy flying skills? Get real, Thundercracker!”
“They look like a trine.”
A loud vwoop, and a purple and black shadow suddenly appeared at Thundercracker’s side, elbowing his cockpit. “Lemme see, lemme see! Ooh!”
The flying blue-and-yellow jets weren’t a trine. They were a quartet. Four jets synced together in a tight diamond formation, wings intimately overlapped as they arced across the sky at high speed. Skywarp could practically feel the g-force surging through his own struts. He shuddered. Old memories surfaced of his own trining. When was the last time they’d flown like true Vosians?
“You sure they’re not drones?” he asked.
“I’m sure,” Thundercracker said. “I was sunbathing on this skyscraper when I heard all the commotion. It’s an airshow.”
Skywarp snickered. “And of course to watch it you picked the only building in Chicago that has a roof shaped like a–”
"How are they not crashing into each other?” Thundercracker interrupted, shoving Skywarp out of his way. “Have they developed some kind of new telemetry? They’re so fond of their ‘tech.’” He spat the word derisively. No Earth technology could compare to Cybertronian.
“Dunno. I’ll go find out.”
Thundercracker tasted energy building in the air around him. “Skywarp, wait!”
Too late. With a vwoop, Skywarp teleported away.
He reappeared near the acrobatic blue and yellow jets. Not too near. He’d been reluctantly impressed with their flying skills and didn’t want to mess them up. A crash at this distance would be just as likely to mess up his plating as theirs.
The team was flying in a dense flock of six. Skywarp tuned into their radio frequency.
“Delta formation strong, Boss. Two, tighten aft–woah! What was that?”
Several pairs of human eyes took turns glancing out of their cockpits alarmingly at Skywarp, who effortlessly matched their speed and slotted in under the jet sextet between the lead and rear planes.
“Heya, Angels!” Skywarp chirped back at them, reading their designations brightly scripted across their blue plating. And ew, each individual squishy’s name was spelled out, too. “I’m Skywarp. You’ve probably heard of me. I’m only the best flier on this planet.” Screamer had claimed the same, but he could get fragged.
A shaky but authoritative voice sounded over the comms. “Break maneuver alpha alpha. Bogey under belly! Break maneuver alpha alpha. On three!”
Skywarp let out affronted static. “I look good here!”
But at the count of three, the six jets dispersed. Ah well, time for a solo then. This was an airshow, Thundercracker had said.
Skywarp let out a trail of smoke to ensure everyone was paying attention to him and barreled upwards, twisting and careening above the clouds. Then, he doubled back, swooping down and down and down towards the water at breakneck speed. He rushed at it nose-first. At the last second, just before he hit the water, he teleported back up to his starting altitude – only to dive again.
He could hear the crowd roaring with excitement.
Amped up and wanting to really show off, on his third dive, he let himself actually hit the water with a splash. As he transformed into root mode under the waterline, he delighted in the chaos he heard over the comms. Don’t worry, squishies, it takes more than a water landing to take me out!
He teleported to shoreline near a big round structure that had lots of humans in tiny boxes going in a circle. Then he transformed into a jet again and took off across the main viewing area of the airshow, showing everyone that the water stunt was just a fakeout. The crowd went wild as he streaked across the sky. He revved his engines extra loud, and the decibels of admiration rose even higher.
Skywarp could get used to this kind of admiration. It was a far cry from the usual reaction he got when running missions for Megatron. Of course, during those, the humans were usually running for their lives. Here and now, they were cheering him on. It was kind of awesome.
With a final twirling flourish, he teleported back to Thundercracker. The navy jet was livid.
“Skywarp! You can’t just…aargh!”
Thundercracker thwacked Skywarp’s helm. When he went to do it again, Skywarp grabbed his servo and tackled him. They wrestled a bit. Skywarp couldn’t help but laugh breathlessly as they tumbled down the angled slope of the roof, breaking things as they went.
When they got to the end of the roofline, Thundercracker tried to use his pedes to stop them from falling off the edge. But their momentum was too great.
“Skywarp!”
Vwoop!
They landed in a tangle on a grassy mound. Skywarp had teleported them at the last minute. He was laughing loudly.
Thundercracker grumbled as he unwound himself from his trinemate and got to his pedes. He looked around and saw a lot of humans with their phones aimed at him. He grimaced. Wonderful. Megatron will know for sure I was taking a break – a well-deserved break! – from reconnaissance.
“Thundercracker, you smudged my paint!”
Skywarp was ogling himself in a curved mirror that stood in the middle of the park. It was a strange oblong shape. What was the thing’s purpose? Humans were so weird.
“I don’t want my new adoring fans to see me like this!” Skywarp continued to moan at his state.
If Thundercracker squinted, he could see the tiniest scuffs on Skywarp’s frame. Thundercracker rolled his optics. And Skywarp called Starscream vain.
“Good, then let’s get back to base.”
“You’re just jealous that I got all the attention.” Skywarp sighed happily. “It was like Eros Day in Vos.” He trailed off then pinned Thundercracker with a mischievous look. “You could have joined me out there.”
“Ha.”
“I’m serious.” Skywarp sauntered up to him and nudged his wings. “The only thing more impressive than one Seeker dancing in the skies is two. Imagine how wild the crowd would go if we went out there together.”
“I imagine Starscream would shoot us with his null ray.”
“You’re no fun. Besides, I bet Screamer would be game for it, too. He appreciates being appreciated.”
“Whatever, Warp.”
Although Skywarp seemed to relent, the glint in his eyes was mildly concerning. Once Skywarp got an idea into his head, it was hard to get it out until he got his way.
They flew back to the Nemesis.
Luckily, the only bot who seemed to notice Skywarp’s escapade was Soundwave, who displayed a video clip of Skywarp’s acrobatic performance on his visor to a sheepish Thundercracker.
“I didn’t let him do that,” Thundercracker said in response to the silent judgment. “He did it on his own.”
“Query: purpose?” Soundwave asked using a recording of Thundercracker’s own voice.
“Purpose?” Thundercracker shrugged with his wings. “Uh, you know Skywarp. I’m not sure he had a purpose for his actions. He just did it.”
“Query: purpose?” Soundwave repeated.
Thundercracker took the hint. “I’ll sort it out.”
Sorting it out proved to be more difficult than Thundercracker anticipated. He found Skywarp scrolling through news and social media posts lauding his performance. They offered a much stronger motivator than any implied threat from Soundwave.
“Soundwave can’t understand because he’s not a seeker. Look at these posts. They love me!” Skywarp preened, wings twitching. “Look at this camera angle! And this angle! I look so good! And listen to the woe in their voices when it looked like I ate it!”
Thundercracker sighed.
“I have so many ideas for the next airshow.”
“The next one?” Thundercracker straightened his back strut. “What next one?”
“The Blue Angels’ schedule is public.”
“So you’re stalking them.”
Skywarp’s wings bristled.
“You do realize they’re squishy military, right?”
“I didn’t see any nose cannons. They’re practically disarmed.” Skywarp’s dismissive tone was concerning. “But…I suppose I could use some backup just in case.” Skywarp blinked at him.
“No. No, no, no. I’m not getting in trouble with you.”
“I’m not in any trouble. Do you see any trouble?” Skywarp gestured around the hangar of the Nemesis, which was empty except for some Vehicons.
“I’m sure the humans will take heightened security measures at the next show. If you really want to show off, just do it over some other populated city.”
“Don’t you know anything about stardom? The Blue Angels are my pre-show.”
Thundercracker was starting to get a processor ache.
“Besides, I’ve been doing research,” Skywarp continued. He flipped the screen towards Thundercracker. “They call this Yankee. It’s the closest they can fly to one another. Twelve inches. Pshaw! We can top that!”
As Thundercracker watched the video, he found himself distracted by the graceful lines of the jets and the compelling synchronicity and closeness of their flightpath. He had to shake his helm to remind himself that the jets weren’t seekers but mere machines flown by humans.
“It’d be better with Screamer though,” Skywarp muttered.
“We’re definitely not telling–”
“Everything's better with me! I’m your Air Commander! But what specifically, dear Skywarp?’
Both Skywarp and Thundercracker groaned.
“Hey, Starscream.”
“What are you two knuckleheads up to? And did I hear Skywarp say he was doing research? Primus help us.”
Skywarp scraped a talon across Starscream’s cockpit glass. “Fragger.”
Starscream just brushed Skywarp’s servo away and snatched the tablet. He started flipping through videos of Skywarp’s airshow performance, optics going increasingly wide. “Skywarp, this is positively unseemly! You’re a seeker, not a showboat!”
Thundercracker snorted.
“But people love me! Who loves you on this rock?” Skywarp tried to take the tablet back.
“What’s this?” Starscream murmured. “Go fund me? Go fund who? Hmmm.”
“Give me my tablet back.”
Starscream clucked at Skywarp, holding the tablet out of Skywarp’s servos and focusing on whatever he was reading on the screen. “Hm. Maybe your performance wasn’t so useless after all.” He held the screen up.
“I made $1200 dollars?” Skywarp asked. “Where is the money? Can I have it? I’ve been wanting this doohickey I saw online but can’t figure out where to steal it from. It’s some kind of scope magnifier.”
“Apparently, someone at the airshow created a crowdfunding page for you,” Starscream said. “All we have to do is contact the human who made it and get the account creds.”
“Why would anyone give Skywarp money for prancing around?” Thundercracker asked.
Skywarp thwacked him. “Because they want to support me, dummy!”
“Skywarp appears to be correct,” Starscream said. “Look at the comment section.”
‘This guy was the coolest and wasn’t even on the official roster. Let’s make sure he gets what he deserves for his skillz!’
‘Skywarp is my new favorite jet! I love seeing him teleport! $$$!’
‘All hail the black and purple jet! The best plane in the show! I’m donating so he can dye his smoke trail purple.’
‘Purple with glitter!’
‘Make Skywarp an honorary Blue Angel!’
‘Repaint the Blue Angels black and purple for the next show!’
‘Skywarp’s flying is pure artistry! Donating!’
‘Yo, isn’t he a Decepticon? Are we funding art or war?’
“Skywarp, you’re a genius!” Starscream declared.
“I am?”
“You got humans to pay for the Decepticon war effort!” Starscream cackled. “Wait til I show Megatron.”
Thundercracker thought about Soundwave’s demanding query. Purpose found: fundraising.
Skywarp was frowning, wings tucked low behind him. “I dunno, Screamer. Is $1200 a lot? It’s not energon. Maybe we should wait to tell him until I raise more.”
“You’re absolutely right,” Starscream said. “We will raise more. A lot more. And then we will shove it in Megatron’s face.”
“We?” Thundercracker pressed.
“Yes, we,” Starscream sneered, pointing a sharpened talon at Thundercracker’s chest plate. “When these humans see a real trine fly, they’ll cough up thousands. Millions.”
Thundercracker had his doubts, but he didn’t voice them.
“Can I still get that thing I wanted online?” Skywarp asked.
“Of course, Skywarp,” Starscream said with excessive graciousness. “We’ll be swimming in resources. That money is as good as ours. I mean, ahem, it’s not for us. It’s for the Decepticon cause.”
“Of course.”
“Yep.”
“Awesome.”
“The page organizer doesn’t give an email. Just a phone number.” Starscream’s brow furrowed. “Who’s got a phone?”
Something suddenly vibrated from inside Skywarp’s frame. He retrieved a phone from his subspace and held it out with a contrite expression. “Ah, um, I needed a phone to be able to verify some of my online accounts. Don’t tell Soundwave. He’ll flip. Good news though is I have a phone… and,” with a dramatic swish, he pulled out two more phones. “It has a family plan!”
“Ratchet, he took the bait! Skywarp texted me using a real phone number and everything!”
“By the AllSpark, Miko!” Ratchet peered down at her phone and whistled. “As long as he doesn’t teleport into the Autobot base…”
“Nah, he’s not that dumb! …is he?” She looked around frantically.
“If that’s really Skywarp, then I can track his phone’s general location when it pings the cell towers,” Raf said excitedly, fingers flying over his laptop’s keyboard.
Ratchet’s optics rotated interestedly. “Which means we can track the Nemesis!”
Miko fist-pumped the air. “Alright! Go us!”
“I’ll tell Optimus.”
“Dude, no need to bother the big guy until we’re sure it actually works.”
“Fair enough. Carry on, children.”
“You got it, Doc! Raf, help me get Skywarp set up with a linked online bank account so we can give him his bait money then close the go-fund-me page.”
“How come my go-fund-me page is down?” Skywarp asked.
Thundercracker raised and lowered his wings. “You got your money, didn’t you? Just make another one.”
“I don’t know how. You do it.”
Skywarp tossed his phone, and Thundercracker’s quick reflexes let him catch the device before it dropped to the warship’s deck. “Ugh. Fine. But people probably won’t donate until you actually do something again.”
Skywarp perked up. “Yeah. So let’s go! The Blue Angels are going to be in some place called Oh-Hi-Oh.”
“I think Screamer and I are supposed to be heading out on an energon mine run.”
Skywarp bounced on his pedes. “This is just like an ergon run. Human money can be exchanged for goods and services. Boom! Lots of energon!”
“I suppose,” Thundercracker admitted. He tapped the small screen with his talons to create a new go-fund-me page. It needed a header for the image. “Say cheese, Skywarp!”
Click!
“Did you get my best angle?”
“You’ve told me again and again that all your angles are good angles.”
Skywarp’s wings twitched in good-natured annoyance. “Oh, quit it, you. Just make sure I do look good. I’m the headliner of this operation.”
“Tell that to Starscream.”
“Shh, you’ll summon him just by saying his name. He’s always lurking around.”
“We’ll hear the clack of his heels first as a warning. And we need to summon him if we’re going to fly together.”
Skywarp made a face. “You know, it occurs to me that maybe we should practice first. It’s been vorns since we tried flying the way I have in mind.”
“Afraid you lost your touch?” Thundercracer teased.
“Afraid you’ve lost yours!”
“Oh, it’s on!”
Thundercracker promptly shoved Skywarp out of the open hangar into open sky. Skywrap transformed into jet mode with a yelp. Thundercracker transformed and chased after him. He commed Starscream to catch up on the way to Ohio.
“Elegance. Grace. Poise. This is the art of Vosian flight. Unity. Synchronicity. Oneness. This is the meaning of Vosian trining–”
“Stuff it, Screamer,” Skywarp cut him off. “Get your aft closer. You’re like a million blips away from my wing.”
“I am not!” Starscream denied hotly. “Anyway, you should get closer to my wing. I’m the flight leader!”
“This whole thing is my idea,” Skywarp said. “Why can’t I be flight leader?”
“Because I’m your air commander and your trine leader, and I always have been and always will be!”
“Lucky me,” Skywarp grumbled.
“Yes, lucky indeed to have me, Vos’s greatest flier of all time and greatest general of—”
“Hey!” Thundercracker snapped as Starscream almost clipped him. “Less talking! More not-killing-each-other-by-accident!”
Thankfully, that did shut up his trinemates, at least for a few kliks.
With renewed concentration, they finally approached something like the ‘grace’ and ‘unity’ Starscream had been blathering on about. As their formation tightened, Thundercracker felt a visceral change in his trinemates’ demeanors. The acerbic nagging had been overlaid by a sobering, almost soothing EM field that enveloped them, buoying them. They were made for this, down to their very struts. Thundercracker’s spark sang in a way he hadn’t felt in a vorn.
Then Starscream opened his big mouth.
“Alright, I’m going to try a few maneuvers. Keep up.”
Starscream banked hard.
Thundercracker and Skywarp followed his lead barely an astrosecond behind him.
He was so close to Starscream’s left wing that he could see fresh talon marks on the underside. It made Thundercracker angry, but he wasn’t sure if he was more mad at Megatron for punishing Starscream or at Starscream for doing whatever he did to earn that punishment. Thundercracker pushed the thought aside and steadily got nearer until the talon marks were too close to be in focus.
“Yes” Skywarp screeched from Starscream’s other side. “We beat Yankee style! We’re ready for Oh Hi Yo!”
“We’re ready when I say we’re ready,” Starscream said.
“Well?”
“Fine. We’re ready, I suppose. It’s not like it will take much to impress the squishies anyway.”
“Let’s go! Let’s go! Let’s go!”
And so they went.
Optimus Prime got a comm from Agent Fowler.
“Uh-huh. Yes. I see. Uh-huh. Hm. Very well.”
The line clicked off.
Optimus walked over to where Ratchet and the children were hovering over the mainframe computer, talking animatedly.
As his shadow loomed over them, Miko looked up with wide eyes and her mouth shaped into an ‘o.’ Without saying a word, she held out her phone, which depicted live video footage of what could only be described as a Decepticon seeker airshow. And the many vulnerable humans in the field below were cheering. Loudly.
Down at his pedes, Miko was shuffling her feet, and even Ratchet was looking around shiftily, not meeting his optics.
“Would someone please clue me in?” Optimus requested calmly.
“This is exhilarating!” Starscream shouted over the din of their engines.
“Told you so!” Skywarp crowed.
“The crowd loves me!”
“They love us!”
“We’re going to be rich! I mean, the Decepticon army will have the resources it needs to survive on this barren planet, and Megatron isn’t going to slag me!”
“He’s not gonna slag anyone, Screamer. He’s gonna reward us! Cuz we’re awesome!”
“Get your noses out of your afts,” Thundercracker warned. “If you smash my cockpit glass I’ll slag you myself!”
“Spoilsport.”
The airshow was, so far, a roaring success. The Blue Angel pilots had terror in their eyes when the three seekers joined their delta formation towards the end of their run, and Thundercracker was smugly amused.
“Relax, Angels!” Skywarp had sent over comms. “We come in peace! Just giving you a royal sendoff before we show the crowd some real flying.”
“Yeah, get lost, losers!” Starscream added, his canons visibly heating up, which was less than helpful to Skywarp’s declaration of peace.
“Starscream, be nice. They’re pretty.”
“Should have guessed your optics could be turned by inanimate optics.”
Thundercracker chuckled, as Skywarp revved his engines in an angry retort.
Starscream wasn’t deterred. He was in as good a mood as Thundercracker had ever seen him since before the war.
“Seekers of Vos! My trine! Follow meeee!”
“Miko’s right,” Ratchet said, though his voice held hesitation. “They’re not hurting anyone, Optimus. They’re just…flying.” He peered closer. “Although, that kind of flying is practically indecent. Where do they think they are? Vos?”
“They’re raising goodwill and funds for a terrorist alien army,” Jack muttered.
Miko buried her head in her hands and moaned. “I didn’t think that Skywarp would do it again, or that he’d get his trinemates in on it! It was just a little bait money so Raf could track him. You know how he teleports everywhere, surprising us out of thin air, like wham, bam, thank-you ma’am. Skywarp needs a bell on his collar, like a cat. On his go-fund-me page, I wrote the first five comments myself. I didn’t think thousands more people would actually chime in – figuratively or financially! Ah! I’m sorry!” She squealed and shook her again.
“It is alright, Miko,” Optimus said. “We will get the situation under control.” He rubbed his chin plate. “I am surprised Megatron permitted this. It is not, shall we say, his style.”
Ratchet harrumphed. “Style. This flamboyance has Starscream written all over it. Maybe Megatron doesn’t know.”
“Soundwave sees just about everything, doesn’t he?” Jack pointed out. “Wouldn’t he tell Megatron?”
“Starscream is where? Doing what?”
Soundwave’s visor switched from a live feed of the seekers’ impromptu airshow to coordinates overlaying a map of the midwest.
Megatron growled. “He’d better have a good explanation for this farce. Or he’ll be groveling by the end of the orn.”
“Purpose: fundraising,” Soundwave played a clip from Thundercracker and displayed the money funneling into Skywarp’s bank account. Soundwave had ensured it was untraceable using a large number of shell accounts.
Megatron’s fury dissipated as the deposits amassed before his optics. “It seems you have been monitoring their antics and keeping things well in servo. Well done, Soundwave.”
“Soundwave: superior.”
“Do you think a sonic boom would burst their eardrums? Cuz I kind of want to do a sonic boom for the final strafe.”
“This is a dancefloor, not a battlefield, Thundercracker,” Starscream said. “No sonic booms. And no teleporting, Skywarp. Take a cue from your trine leader: always leave them wanting more.”
“Oh right, next time,” Skywarp said. “Will there be a next time? That B-52 keeps looking at me funny. I think they’re trying to decide whether to shoot us down.”
“I’m listening to their comms. They’re too worried about bystanders to fire on us. As long as we stick close to our adoring fans, milling around by the thousands like insects beneath our wings, we’ll be fine.”
“Sweet,” Skywarp said, then his tone turned forlorn. “I wish the Blue Angels would come back to fly with us. I bet I could do barrel rotations around their whole squad. It’d look so cool.”
“They must be cowards,” Thundercracker said to cheer him up. “Anyone would be lucky to fly beside you.”
“Aw, thanks, Thunder.”
“You’re welcome, Warp.”
“Just so you know, I’m throwing up in my mouth right now.”
“Love you too, Screamer.”
“...So the DOJ is just gonna keep stomping out Decepticon go-fund-me pages like whack-a-mole?” Miko asked.
“What else can they do?” Fowler asked. “Soundwave used so many shell accounts, they can’t go after them directly.”
“How many? Like…twelve?”
“More like twelve hundred.”
“Ah.”
“Yeah."
“And what about the seekers?” Miko asked. “I mean, seriously, where’s anybot right now? Bulkhead? Optimus? Bee?” She called out around the base and got no responses.
“Turn on the TV and see for yourself.”
“...in the spirit of Cybertronian aptitude and artistry, we welcome the inclusion of Cybertron’s seekers of Vos to the…” Optimus checked the piece of paper that had been thrust into his servos, “the greatest airshow of the east coast. Autob—Cybertronians, roll out!”
The seekers’ engines revved as they took off nearly straight up in a gravity-defying feat.
Optimus ex-vented heavily as the attention of a hundred thousand eyes diverted from his frame up to the sky.
The seekers couldn’t be attacked directly at such densely populated venues. And short of catching them and imprisoning them, which was certainly the long-term goal, in the short-term, Optimus couldn’t think of a way to stop them from showing up in the first place. So his human allies had insisted on him being a Cybertronian chaperone. They seemed to think that a Prime’s presence would ensure the seekers refrained from committing violence. Optimus was fairly sure the seekers’ heads were too swollen with praise from their ravenous fans to even consider turning their airshows to air raids.
“Bweep bweep?”
Optimus turned to the bot on his right. “We’re just here to keep an optic on things, Bumblebee.”
“Bweep bwoop.” Bumblebee’s tone fell.
Optimus felt the same way. With another heavy ex-vent, he turned his optics to the sky. He might as well enjoy the show.
“Woohoo!” Skywarp yelled as he and his trinemates looped around the Blue Angels’ diamond formation. “This is the greatest day of my life!”
Thundercracker purged a large plume of smoke from his thrusters — red from one thruster and blue from the other. Starscream’s colors and not the stupid squishies’ patriotic colors. “You’re such a fanboy, Skywarp.”
“Woohoo!”