Dysfunctional Team: Pilot

Swindle was flying to the other side of the city, now. He was currently flying over the city and, thanks to the city's building heights, the ship was almost in space. "How the heck do cities get this high?" he asked himself out loud.

"I don't know,' replied the voice behind him. Swindle looked at Thundercracker momentarily and then went back to look back out the windows of the cockpit. "How much longer till we reached the center of the city?"

"In about a cycle. The city is tall, but it's not very big compared to other cities like Iacon." Swindle answered.

"Good, I really need to shoot something," Skywarp said behind Thundercracker, offering his educated opinion.

"Skywarp, I asked that you not shoot them if you see them unless they shoot at you. When you see them, stay hidden and asked for back-up over our internal comm. channel and we'll be there as quick as possible." Thundercracker ordered him. He was not in a mood for Skywarp's antics today. He just wanted to take care of this problem as soon as possible and then get Shockwave to Dabola for some proper medical care.

"We're coming up on the center of the city," Swindle interrupted them. "I recommend you guys get to the door and fly out. Skywarp will lead you to the door Thundercracker." The two seekers look at each other before heading out to the door with Skywarp humming a little tune and Thundercracker following silently, leaving Swindle by himself.

Swindle slowed down the ship. They were at the center of the ship now. Swindle laid back in his seat, waiting for confirmation from Thundercracker that they were out of the ship. Knowing Skywarp, it might take a while to lead Thundercracker to the door.

Swindle turned on the computer in between the two seats. This computer, along with several others in the bridge, holds non-sensible information to Swindle. He went to a file that said 'cities of Cybertron' and opened it. He went through the list until he found the file on Telos. He clicked it and opened it, looking for information about the city.

First, the population. It once hold over 200,000 Cybertronians. About 50% were middle class, 30% upper class, and 20% lower class. A bit unusual, considering there's usually a lot less upper class and a lot more lower class in other cities.

The architecture was interesting. It shape itself like it was a living being creating what it wanted instead of other cities. Apparently, a bunch of scientist have hypothesize that it is actually living.

At least, it would be, if the core of Cybertron wasn't completely dead now.

The government inside it was interesting. There was a lot of corruption going on. A lot of the middle class were bribe by the upper-class politicians to do what they want, and the lower class really couldn't do much. The upper class had a bunch of feuds with each other, leading to a really high assassination rates. Politicians prefer to have someone else do the dirty work instead of them.

The internal comm. system in Swindle buzzed. "We're outside of the ship Swindle," Thundercracker said over the comm. "I'm heading northeast while Skywarp is head northwest. Best to head outside the perimeter Swindle."

"Alright. Tell me when you're ready to go. Try not to get killed out there." All was silent on the other end.

Swindle went backed to looking at the data on Telos. Nothing of real importance to look at except for information about the Freerunners and a list of assassinations. A really long list of assassinations. Swindle closed the screen and headed for the perimeter.

Hopefully, they can get out of here soon. Swindle was getting real tire of things interrupting what was supposed to be a simple deal. Just give the chemical to Shockwave, get the money, get out, and continue on to the next deal. Instead, he finds Shockwave injure and two seekers who want answers. Now, they were at a city in which the enemy is capable of slightly jamming there signal and having them waste time Swindle could be using by getting rich. Honestly, was it that hard to get a nice, simple deal to go right?

He was going to rage later on his log. Honestly, no one should have to put up with these. Yeah, the life of an arms dealer was exciting and offers a whole lot of perks, but it also has a lot of stress to it and a lot of variables when striking a deal. There were a lot of variables, most important being 'how much money can you make?' follow by 'are they going to try and screw you over?'

Swindle really couldn't remember much about how he started arms dealing. He knows what he did previously. He was a bureaucrat at Iacon design to make peoples life the pits. He check to make sure that all the little mechs and femmes were paying the taxes they were paying. If they weren't, one called to the police and they were taken care of.

It was fun, helping to decide people's fate. And he guessed he's was helping to decide people fate now by giving them much needed equipment to take out someone else. Guessed he was a giver and taker of life. Didn't matter.

All that matter was the profit.

XXX

Skywarp was flying around the decaying city. He was currently having fun. The obstacles were fun to fly around and filled with a sense of joy.

Seekers naturally loved flying. It was in them to fly. They really hated being on the ground for too long. There was a illness for it called flight deprivation. When seekers don't fly for a extended amount of time, they start getting headaches and don't fill well in general. They looked for anything to simulate the experience of flying. It also wasn't unusual to see some of them hallucinate.

There has been more than one case in which a seeker who couldn't fly jumped off a building thinking he could.

Skywarp didn't really care at the moment where he was. He was just looking for that stupid ship and having fun too. Thundercracker may complain later about the need for Skywarp to indulge himself, but he didn't care. He just wanted to have fun.

That, and kick any Autobot aft while they were at it.

You can call Skywarp many insulting things if you want to, but one thing that everybody agreed on that was not true was that Skywarp was not loyal. Unlike a certain other Seeker that began with star, he was completely loyal to the Decepticon cause. He was definitely one of the biggest supporters of the Decepticon caused. He was also one of the saner Decpticons. Childish and a bit trigger-happy? Sure. Insane? Definitely not. Although, when compared to Thundercracker, you probably said he has a few screws loose in his helm.

Skywarp duck under a long pole than rolled left away from a sign. Skywarp was really enjoying this at the moment. He should try convincing Starscream to come here sometime and practice their flying.

As Skywarp was flying, he noticed something odd. A light in a building was on. Sure, seeing lights on in most places was a constant reminder that there were people there, but this was Cybertron. Everybody here is gone and probably won't be coming back. The light made have been left on, but they should have died by now. Lights don't last that long. Sooner or later, they had to be replaced.

Which mean one of two things: 1) someone was there right now or 2) he was there and left, but forgot to turn the lights on. Either way, Skywarp was definitely checking this out. He decided to comm. Thundercracker about this just to make sure he'd stay happy. "Hey, TC. I think I found something interesting." He waited for a response.

"What?" he asked.

"There is a light on in a building. I'm going to go check it out."

"Wait a second. Let me help you."

"Relax, TC. I can take care of myself. Besides, I don't see the ship around, which means that they're probably not here." Skywarp was being strangely smarter than usual with that sentence.

"Alright," Thundercracker agreed. "Just make sure to buzz me if you need help."

"You got it." With that taken care of, Skywarp headed to the window with the light on. From what he could see, the glass was already broken, which didn't surprise him at all. Most windows were broken thanks to constant warfare. Skywarp slowed down a little and as he approached the window and then switch to his bipedal form as he enter.

He looked around the room. Looked like an office room of some sort. Pretty bland and without personality, char marks and debris notwithstanding. Near where he came in the window a computer that was on and still working.

That was unusual.

Skywarp approach the computer, making sure there was no 'special surprise' for him. Looked like there was still a chair there. He sat in the chair and started accessing the computer.

He immediately noticed a problem. The whole hard drive was wiped clean. That was going to make things a little harder to figure out what the heck going on around here.

"Hey Swindle," Skywarp comm. him.

"What?" Swindle replied.

"Can you tell me what building I'm in?" Skywarp asked.

"Sure. Just give me a second to look at the map." Skywarp waited, tapping his talon on the desk. "Alright, I'm back. Apparently, you're in a research building. Why did you wanted to know?"

"I found a working computer with the hard drive wiped clean and I want to know what kind of information would be on it."

"Well, more than likely, you would find schematics or information for various things." Swindle answered.

"Do you know what?"

"Maybe. Hold on. Let me see. Ah, Found it. According to the blueprints, you're in the research area for explosives."

"So, what? They were planning on bombs."

"Probably. What type, I don't know."

"Okay." Skywarp sigh and leaned back in his seat. Well, this was not good. More bombs for anybody besides Decepticons was not a good thing. He looked around the room in thought until he noticed something.

The security cameras were still working.

"Hey Swindle. Can you lead me to the security rooms?" Skywarp asked.

"Yeah, why?"

"The security cameras are still working somehow. We might be able to figure out who was here."

"It's still working? Wow, they must have gone and fixed the generator to the whole building. The computer probably wasn't working when they got here. Hold on." Skywarp got up and walked around, waiting for Swindle to give him instructions. "I'm back. You're on the 34th floor right now. The security room is all the way at the top, about 30 floors up. Just fly up there and enter through a window on the west side."

Skywarp happily obliged, immediately leaving through the window and switching to his jet form in mid-air. He flew up quickly and was there in seconds. He entered through the window and transformed back to his regular mode. The room was just like the last, sans all the computers working.

He went up to one of the computer screens and see if it was working. It was and Skywarp quickly access the security footage. "Hey, Swindle, which room was I in before?"

"You were in room 3487," Swindle answered almost immediately.

"Okay," Skywarp replied, trying to figure out how to work the stupid things. After about five minutes, he finally managed to get to what he wanted and looked at the footage. He rewind it, trying to find out when they were here. He rewind it pass his entrance and looked at nothing for a little while until he found what he wanted.

The footage showed a seeker, to be correct, a black and red one. He was about the same size as Dreadwing, looking a little smaller. One unusual thing Skywarp noticed was the lack of a Decepticon symbol on him, which was unusual for seekers considering most of them aligned with the Decepticons during the war.

Skywarp downloaded the footage and started heading out, contacting Thundercracker along the way. "Hey TC. I think I found out who was here." He waited, expecting to hear Thundercracker voice. He waited a cycle, before asking again. "Hey, Thundercracker, talk why don't you." Full name now. He was being serious and yet he still receive no answer. "Come on man, this isn't funny unless I'm the one doing it." Nothing once again. Skywarp was getting nervous.

"Hey Swindle, you're there," Skywarp asked. Maybe there was something wrong with his own internal comm. link.

"Yeah." Frag.

"Hey, Swindle. Can you find Thundercracker? He's not answering me and it's really ticking me off." Skywarp asked with a hint of anxiety in his voice.

"Yeah, hold on." He waited. "He's outside the city's perimeter for some odd reason. Near the northwest corner." Double frag. "He's not moving, either." Triple frag.

"I'm heading there right now,"Skywarp said, jumping out of the window.

"Yeah, okay. I'm sending Killshot over there to help you," Skywarp wasn't listening at that point. He was just trying to getting there as fast as possible.

Thundercracker had better be okay.