Autobot Interim: Who Moved My Cheese?

[Mirage]

Two days...two days plus of rolling over this seemingly endless expanse of blackness. He is still heading in roughly the same direction, making a few adjustments as he receives updates on Rattrap’s location. He’s tired, and filthy, and his systems are protesting that last emergency charge-up. Perhaps if he were confident that when he returned to base there would be appropriate cleansing facilities and quality fuel, he’s be in a better mood.

This place….it baffles me. It has cycles of light and dark, and this section…during the light cycle it’s heat taxes my coolant systems. During the dark, it chills my circuits. This particulate matter that makes up the ground has worked it’s way into my undercarriage and I can feel it settling in my joints; as if I didn’t have enough trouble with them already! And that windstorm I drove through yesterday certainly did a number on my paint job. At this rate, I’ll be mistaken for a derelict.

At any rate, he should hopefully be happening upon Rattrap soon. According to Synapse's maps anyway. And that looks some sparse green on the horizon.

Mirage has no idea how much ground the other can cover in a day, but certainly he can’t be that slow.

[Rattrap]

A five-feet-tall Maximal, running on two legs or on four, doesn't cover as much ground as he'd like. Especially not when he has to slog through grass taller than he is – and you know, he can do without any more critters like that big ugly scaly thing – and then a swamp. He'd have been fine in the swamp if he hadn't stumbled into the patch that came up to his neck.

For the record, swamp muck? Doesn't taste all that great.

So there Rattrap is, trudging across scrubland, caked in dried mud and griping over the radio when he isn't griping at whatever catches his eye. He should have shiny copper and silver bits, but it's all black muck. Except the top of his head, annoyingly enough.

"Maybe if I up an' pass out, I'll wake back up onna ship and Rhinox'll tell me I just ate some bad food. Yeah, dat's it." He reaches up to wave some bothersome little bugs away from his face, glances at the Predacon emblem emblazoned on his forearm, and grimaces. "…Oh, yeah. Dat. So much fer wakin' up at home." He stops mid-stride to put on his proper colours with a wave of one hand, then throws a glare toward the purplish sky. "Slag it, dis is not what I signed up for!"

Say… that looks like a dust plume in the distance.

[Mirage]

Is that movement up ahead? Looks like. And the light is glinting off something shiny. A very small something, looks like.

Despite his protesting transmission, Mirage puts on speed, quickly closing the distance between himself and the sparkly. Of course, this brings him within optics range of Rattrap.

“What in Primus’ name are you? Nevermind. You could be some Chaos-spawned creation of Shockwave and Ratbat, so long as you’re who I was sent to fetch.”

Mirage brakes hard, sliding to a stop just short of the rat, and sending sand flying everywhere.

Yes, Mirage is just a wee bit ticky at the moment.

[Rattrap]

Yes, that was a dust plume. That was a dust plume being kicked up by a blue and white car with an attitude and a half. It is, however, no longer a dust plume. It is now a cloud of sand dousing the gape-mouthed and supremely displeased Rattrap from head to toe. As if the mud wasn't bad enough.

"Heeey! Hey! Watch where ya kick yer dirt, ya rotten slaggah!" he screeches, spitting out grit and a couple of pebbles and shaking a fist. "Da sand doesn't taste any bettah than da mud back inna swamp, I'll have you know!" But maybe the car knows that already; it's – he's – covered in enough of it.

Oh well, it needed saying anyway.

"Lemme guess. Mirage." Figures it'd be a jerk giving Rattrap a lift.

[Mirage]

“Right in one.”

Mirage doesn’t bother transforming; instead, he does a quick turnaround, “And you should be Rattrap. No one told me you were a Mini.” There’s a sound very much like a sniff, quickly followed by a choking cough, “What the frag have you been crawling through? You smell worse than the sewers of Kaon!”

Mirage’s passenger compartment pops open. “I refuse to spend the next several cycles inching along. Get in.” There’s another cough, “Oh for…. I will never get that smell out of my upholstery!”

[Rattrap]

"Maximal," Rattrap corrects with the faintest of sneers in his voice. "Not 'mini'." It's always gonna be about his height, isn't it?

Well, no. This time, it's his stench. Who knew Autobots could smell things when they were busy being cars? Rattrap, for one, didn't. Learn something new every day.

"I've been crawlin' through a swamp," he mutters, hooking a thumb over his shoulder in said lousy territory's direction. Mirage doesn't pay attention to the radio, does he? "Try it sometime, why don'tcha, an' see how sweet-smellin' you come out." No, Mirage, that isn't really a suggestion. Honestly, Rattrap can't recommend it to anyone. Except the 'Cons. They can go get stuck in the muck any old time.

Jerk or not, Mirage is his ticket back to… where-ever the Autobots are keeping house. It's better than trying to get there on foot, Rattrap decides. He clambers into the open passenger compartment – man, not much about comfort back in the day, were they? – and tries to settle himself in as cozily as he can. That done, he picks a panel to stare at and levels a look on it, one brow ridge significantly higher than the other.

"…Why d'you even got upholstery?"

[Mirage]

“And what, pray, is a Maximal? Or a swamp, for that matter?”

Mirages waits, albeit impatiently, while Rattrap settles himself. Oooo, that is decidedly uncomfortable! He’s had occasion to carry objects before but never something…squirmy. As soon as the rat settles, Mirage takes off, his course actually paralleling the scrubland for a bit.

“Why do I….well, I don’t rightly know, to be honest. I just do. Now hold on; I’ll be traveling faster heading back, since I’m not looking for you. Plus, according to the maps, there’s a road; it was too far out of line with your coordinates, but I’m willing to sacrifice a bit of time for a smoother ride.”

Mirage radios in to Kup: //I’ve finally located Rattrap. He’s a tiny thing. And smelly. Bringing him in. ETA 2.5 days.//

//I need a cleaning, a systems flush, and one hell of a defrag.//

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OOC: And it can be assumed that the spy and the rat make it back to base without incident, snarking and sniping all the way. Somewhere along the way, they swap histories, timestamps, etc.

Per both Mirage and Rattrap's player, natch!