Work Text:
Allegra had parked her small fiat at a nearby wheat field, about an hour’s drive from Naples.
It was late afternoon, turning into twilight as she stepped out of the car and zipped up her leather jacket, the wind whipping at her face and long blonde tresses as the car door slammed shut.
You’ll need to ensure that you can get a sample of the meteor. We want to avoid anything that might instigate a creation of another arrow.
Giorno had chosen her for this solo mission to avoid suspicion; one person snooping around in the field was better than two. And now that it was getting late, it was the perfect time to strike.
The news of the comet had spread across the small village, but its initial excitement only lasted a day or two. What was left was probably just a hunk of rock in a small crater.
“Why he wants me out of all people on a stealth mission, I have no idea,” Allegra muttered to herself, as she ducked into the field. The months were getting shorter, the weather colder, and right now all she wanted was to be curled up on the couch with a mug of hot chocolate, a blanket, a good movie, and Mista cuddling her in his arms.
Might as well get this over and done with quickly so she could get home before it got too late.
The coarse wheat brushed up against her face and caught in her hair as she trudged her way through the field. It didn’t take her long before she arrived at a large clearing. Wheat had been trampled by people wanting to get a closer look at the wreckage in a circle around the gouged earth. The earth was charred at the impact, and a crater that was about five meters deep, and twelve in diameter.
But whatever landed there was now empty.
Allegra didn’t like that. Rocks didn’t grow legs and walk around, and one that big should have already drawn attention.
She reasoned someone had probably come before her and taken the comet to study (and fast too), but there was an undeniable eeriness about the place. It was probably wise to act quickly and get out of there as fast as possible.
Allegra pulled out some tweezers, a small glass vial, and some gloves. She slipped them on, and quickly extracted some of the rock in the crater, and also that lay in the thick glassy crust surrounding the crater and deposited it in the vial with a small delicate tinkle, Steam Machine helping her from inside the crater.
Something moved in the field.
Allegra immediately turned to look at the direction the noise came from, her heart pounding in her chest. She had been with Passione for over a decade; Allegra was convinced that she had seen it all, death, dismemberment, bodies exploding, stands with all sorts of abilities – but the visceral unease that filled her was something she couldn’t get used to.
Allegra squinted in the gloom in the direction of where the noise came from. The rustling intensified, and she took a few steps back as she realised just how wide of a space the thing took up in the wheat field as it made a rapid approach.
Alarmed, she took several hurried steps back as a car zipped through the field. With a TSCHE-CHU-CHU-CHU-TSCHE noise, metal folded, twisted, unwound and reshaped itself into a humanoid that landed with an earth shuddering stomp, before standing up tall.
She gasped, staring at this creature; all sharp angles, patches of rust on it, as a jagged grin derisively smirked at her in the darkening twilight.
Allegra quickly and correctly added two and two together. The empty crater, and the otherworldly being standing in front of her made her come to the most outlandish assumption almost immediately.
"T-tu sei alieno!" Allegra says, her voice reedy and distant as she stared in complete shock and awe at the creature standing in front of her. It was ugly, it looked like it could take a bite out of her - and only later did the thought arise; was it a stand? Where was the stand user that wielded it?
It wasn't really a mystery that she had any intention of wanting to solve anytime soon.
Her words seemed to scramble his mind, as the alien stopped and scrunched his face in confusion; seemingly processing a thought for far too long.
Maybe he had a head injury? Allegra thought to herself, before understanding dawned on him, and he let out an unkind laugh.
"Did you just call me an 'alieno'? The correct word would be extraterrestrial, because I'm not a foreign resident of Earth. I think that would have been most obvious," he said in the most grating and obnoxious tone, and in English.
He inspected his nails, scraping off a bit of rust from them.
“Gatecrash is the name,” he said, sneering down at her.
“My handle on X is…”
Any sort of awe and wonder at meeting a creature from another planet, and the exciting possibility that Earth truly wasn't alone in the galaxy disappeared in a puff of smoke. Allegra could have been meeting the progenitor of the human race for all she knew. But a space alien wasn't going to impress her if he was an unbearable asshole.
This thing was about two times the size of Allegra, and it was clearly trying to intimidate her.
"Siamo in Italia?" She said, stating the obvious, ignoring his rudeness.
She was feeling charitable, and decided to translate.
“You’re in Italy – why would I great you in English?” She asked.
Having switched languages, and bringing to attention where he actually landed on Earth made the sneer disappear as the blank look momentarily washed over him. Embarrassment took its place a little bit after, and Allegra felt a little pity for him. That was some serious head injury he had.
Until he started speaking.
"Wrong. English is one of, if not the most popular language on planet Earth; I would at least expect you to be able to understand what I'm saying. Obviously, you shouldn't presume that everyone would speak in your own language; it's narrow minded and you should know better. If you can even understand me."
Allegra almost laughed at him, but suddenly, a serious sense of déjà vu descended over Allegra; where had she seen this kind of behaviour before?
"What are you." She said, demanding an answer rather than asking for one, and he smirked at her, grinning ear to ear. Allegra regretted asking.
"Didn't anyone teach you any manners?"
He then said something incomprehensible to the human ear, almost like a fax machine that had fallen into a garbage disposal.
"For your information, that, in human terms is; I am a Cybertronian. Obviously, you can’t understand what I'm saying, because humans lack the ability to hear the subtle nuances of our sophisticated language. My language has three layers of..."
He waffled on, and the realisation hit Allegra suddenly. She knew why he sounded so familiar.
Allegra recalled a night when she had been on a dinner date with Mista at a small family-owned trattoria. She was waiting for him to return from the restroom, when she had unintentionally eavesdropped on a conversation a man had with his unfortunate date a table over.
He asked her where she worked, then when she answered him, he tried explaining her job to her. Then he kept interrupting her throughout the entire night, and getting flustered and angry whenever she proved him wrong on a myriad of topics.
Mista’s attempt at conversation when he had returned had fallen flat, and quickly wizened up to the situation.
“You can’t just do that, Allegra!” he had lightly chided her bad manners with a laugh, but then three seconds later they were both eavesdropping in on the conversation to hear how cringe inducing the guy was.
It was this type of person that Allegra had the misfortune of meeting. Something hurt deep inside knowing that there were guys just like this in outer space.
“Right, and why is it that you think slow every time I change topics,”
“Because I’m using my super high functioning and incredibly intelligent brain module, to mine cryptocurrencies. I couldn’t even begin explaining the complexities of DOGE or MUSK-”
Ahhh yes. What the kids were calling ‘cringissimo’ these days.
Allegra had suddenly fallen into a vivid daydream where she was pulling him apart at her workbench to see how he worked and… realised that there was nothing really stopping her from doing so.
He wasn’t technically human so she wouldn’t get in trouble with the authorities… well. The local ones anyway. Who knew; she could be doing a service to the rest of the world, and probably to his own race as well.
But… where the hell would she keep the body parts?
“-because he’s the greatest genius ever to exist! Watch this.”
Gatecrash transformed – his head folding into somewhere in his chassis as his wings fitted into the frame his body was making. It was astounding, and slightly horrifying that a thing could manoeuvre its body in such a way.
Allegra felt like the breath had been knocked out of her as she watched this delicate dance, slightly hampered by rust being scraped off the chassis. How was he doing that? Could she build something similar?
Now there was no question – she had to know how he was doing that.
Allegra watched the flurry of metal with bated breath to see in the dim twilight… a cybertruck.
The magic evaporated immediately.
“What,” Allegra said breathlessly; she stared at it, before her mind started to slowly piece together what she had seen. The alien transformed into a car. But not just any car; the ugliest piece of garbage in the entire world.
But…how? Did all space creatures look like this? Was Elon Musk a knowledge holder of the universe and knew what an alien looked like?
She refused to entertain the notion and was glad to look back on this moment that she hadn’t had a lapse in judgement when she found out the reason.
“See? The epitome of style, strength – it wasn’t easy to find one, but I was able to scan a version of the Cybertruck for myself so I can use this as my alternate mode. It’s a fairly complex process, and I doubt you’d be able to understand completely-,” he said, evidently pleased as punch.
Oh thank god.
“So, you chose your car to model your disguise after?”
“Did you not hear me the first time? I can’t believe I have to explain this all when you’re seeing it with both your human eyes. Hah, I know why you’d be checking me out with this,” the thing said, as its attempt to wriggle its side mirrors came out too stiff to be even noticed in the first place.
Allegra let out a shriek of laughter as his comment, pointing at him derisively, the gloating dying immediately from the alien.
“That,” she said, “is the ugliest thing I have ever seen in my life. How dare you crash land in Italy and declare you know beauty when you chose,” she said, pointing again harder at him, “this- this- this garbage dump on wheels!”
The Decepticon tried to say something, but Allegra didn’t even let him a moment to defend himself.
“Not only aesthetically, but the stupid thing is faulty from the inside out! The front and back passenger doors don’t align, shattering “bullet proof” windows if you so much as sneeze, faulty autopilot, charging port failure, and susceptible to water damage! I mean, look at you! You’re rusting! You’re not going to survive a week on Earth at this current rate!”
Allegra knew she hit a sore spot, because he retaliated immediately.
“No I’m not! I’m not rusting!” Came the shrill angry whine from the alien.
“I-I’ve just been off-roading; something that you couldn’t even, you couldn’t-,” he seemed to stutter, embarrassed, unable to come up with a comeback, and Allegra let out a tired sigh.
“Whatever, this is a waste of my time. I’m leaving before I catch some disease from you,” she said, turning her back on the car as she made her way back to her own.
“Y-you stupid bitch! That’s right! Walk away from this fight that you knew you couldn’t win!”
Allegra ignored him, not wanting to waste any more energy. A younger Allegra may have just started punching him right then and there, but she couldn’t be bothered dealing with this right now. She was cold, hungry, and wanted to see Mista. She was just wondering where to go to eat, when the roar of engines and the flash of lights behind her made her whip her head around.
The Decepticon’s tires span rapidly while in park about twenty meters away. She knew what that meant. A threat display; a challenge. She had pissed him off and dishonoured his idol, and he wasn’t going to stand for it.
Allegra couldn’t help but smirk at him as she stood to face him completely.
“Ooooh, scary. What are you going to do, honk at me?” Allegra mocked.
That did it. That was the last straw.
Allegra stood there with her arms crossed as Gatecrash spun his wheels and floored it, aiming to hit her dead centre.
Allegra did reconsider her options momentarily when the searing light and giant wall of metal was rushing at her at top speed. Truth was, this was a fight she could lose. But now things were in motion, she couldn’t just call for time out.
“Steam Machine!” Allegra called out just as the car started to make traction. The stand in its blue brushed metal chrome rose above her. He had a domed head, and round pauldrons, and his little glass beady eyes focusing on the speeding car.
It was two meters in height, rising slowly from a thick cloud of steam, and looked at the oncoming vehicle. Gatecrash was picking up speed, Allegra coming into closer and closer view. Before he had the pleasure of feeling and hearing Allegra bouncing off the front bumper, the large humanoid brought its fists down right at the last second and smashed the front chassis of the car as hard as possible.
Allegra had completely failed to take into consideration that this wasn’t actually a cybertruck; it only looked like one. Cybertruck or not, it made a horrific crunching noise with slight debris, paint and rust flying off at the impact.
Heavy and thick steam poured from Steam Machine as it chugged through water through its canister on its back.
The impact was so strong that Gatecrash flipped up at a 45-degree angle before bouncing harshly back onto its tires, rocking the entire body of the car, rattling his brain.
It was only a second, but the car had taken a moment to change its gear into reverse; but Steam Machine was faster.
“I AM STEAM MACHINE – AND YOU ARE T O O S L O W “ It said in a robotic, sonorous voice. Steam Machine grabbed the front bumper and started pulling. There was a groan of metal, steam pouring thickly out of Steam Machine’s seams and crevices as Allegra stood safely behind Steam Machine, and slowly, Steam Machine started to lift the car.
Beads of condensation dripped down its chassis as the stand utilised its power. It only took a few seconds before the inertia picked Gatecrash up off the ground and started picking up speed.
“What are you doing! Let me go!” Shrieked Gatecrash, the world spinning around as he tried to do anything. Wheels span, wind wiper whipping across the glass, side mirrors creaked, completely helpless in the air.
Steam Machine made a noise… was it chuckling?
Wait a second; if Gatecrash could transform itself back into its base mode; it could attack this thing! Steam Machine was holding him up by his bumper which made part of his chest; his arms would be free to attack him and the human. Now he’d show them what he was made of!
It was too bad he thought about it a few seconds too slow.
Gatecrash sailed through the air as majestically as a giant brick with wheels. It’s only now that he’s ripped from his train of thought that he sees impeding dirt, as he makes another landing on earth.
He hit the ground, hard.
His tires that have kept spinning forward this entire time slingshot him forward, tearing a new path through the wheat.
Allegra is brought up onto Steam Machine’s shoulder as she watches Gatecrash erratically drive out of the field. He floors it, completely unaware that there’s a drainage ditch that separates the filed from the road, and its only then when the headlights beam up wards, a second of silence following with another crunch, she figures that he’s on the road. He offshoots it, and goes into the drainage ditch opposite, and she can hear the distant sound of rocks and dirt spitting underneath tires trying to gain friction, and metal scraping on gravel.
The headlights flash upward again, this time in her direction.
“He’s… he’s doing a U-turn? Oh shit, WAIT!”
There’s an audible swerve before smashing glass, and Allegra is overcome with a blinding rage. She runs through the path that Gatecrash had made through the field with Steam Machine floating dutifully behind her. By the time she made it to the drainage ditch, Gatecrash had been speeding down the dirt road in an effort to make as much space between them.
She ran to her Fiat in the dark, already feeling broken glass under her shoes. Taking her phone out and shining a light on her little Fiat, she was able to survey the damage. Miraculously, the rest of her car stood intact. It seemed that Gatecrash had smashed her front right light out with the rear of the car in his hurried attempt to get away.
“I’m going to fucking skin that thing alive”
The fact that she had escaped unscathed and her car in actual good standing was still not enough to placate Allegra’s anger, and she stood there, gripping her car keys fuming.
No… driving angry on a revenge mission was not a good idea. No matter how well deserved the beatdown and how satisfying it would feel when she finally got her hands on that fucking thing.
Seriously contemplating following Gatecrash was tempting, but there were too many variables on a safe trip.
Allegra exhaled, annoyed that she got bested. She pulled out her phone as she got into the car, Steam Machine disappearing into the aether, as she put it up to her ear.
“Allegra. What’s your status?”
“I retrieved some samples… and I had a slight altercation.”
“The owner? Civilian?”
“No,”
“Stand user?”
“Maybe”
“Maybe?”
“It’s… it’s a little hard to explain,”
“Hmmm…,” Giorno’s pleasant voice came through the speaker.
“I look forward to hearing more about it. Drive safe, Allegra, it looks like it’s going to rain hard tonight. Ciao”
“Thanks Giorno, Ciao,” said Allegra.
Allegra hung up, her mouth twisting into a satisfied smirk.
Rain, huh?
Well. She wasn’t going to be too upset about a little water.
She was sure that they’d cross paths once again – and this time, she’d know what ticked under the hood.