28 Meme - On Vacation Red Alert - (G1) PG13
Title: Through Fire and Flame (28 Red Alerts)
Chapter: On Vacation Red Alert
Rating: PG -13
Pairings: None this time around
Summary: Inferno conspires to make Red Alert relax, even if it means dragging him out of the Ark by force. Crossover with AVP, because my friend dared me to.
“This is a bad idea,” Red Alert grumbled.
“Aw, it’ll be fun, Red!” Inferno said cheerfully. “A bit of fresh air will do you wonders.”
“I have work I could be doing. Every minute I’m out here is another thing that’s not getting done. Not to mention everything that goes wrong or breaks while I’m gone,” Red Alert continued. “I’m going to have to spend days making up for this little outing of yours.”
“It’s not that bad,” Inferno protested. “And they’ll radio if anything goes wrong.”
Red Alert snorted. “Maybe. If they don’t’ decide to fix it themselves, and mess it up more. Or worse, ignore it until the problem escalates.” He twitched, imagining a veritable cascade of system failures. “… I think I’m going to radio headquarters, just to check.”
“Oh, no you don’t,” Inferno said firmly. “This is a vacation. Red; that means relax, have fun, and no security checks.”
“This is going to end badly,” Red Alert muttered.
“Just relax, Red, and stop fretting. You’ll have fun, I promise.”
Red Alert subsided into grumbling.
x-x-x
“Ain’t this pretty, Red?” Inferno sighed happily, leaning back on his elbows to look up at the stars.
Red Alert shifted, tugging a clump of dead grass out of a joint in his armor. “Oh, just lovely,” he muttered sarcastically.
“Hound’s right, you’ve got to get out here to really appreciate this world’s beauty. The sounds, the smells…”
“The mud…”
“Aw, come on, it wasn’t that bad,” Inferno protested.
Red Alert stopped scraping mud off his legs long enough to glare at his friend. “Not that bad? I almost ripped out my undercarriage getting up here!” He worked a twig out of his knee joint. “Primus knows what it’s going to be like trying to get off this matrix-forsaken mountainside.”
Inferno chuckled. “It’ll be fine, Red -” He broke off, frowning up at the stars. A bright light traced its way across the sky, growing brighter as it came closer. Inferno bounded to his feet. “Hey! Meteor!”
“Or an enemy spacecraft,” Red Alert muttered, mostly just to spite Inferno.
They watched in burn a line in the sky overhead, falling in a deceptively graceful arc. It hit a few miles away with a resounding whump.
“Come on, let’s go check it out!”
Red Alert shot Inferno a look. “And why would I want to go traipsing through the wilderness after a hunk of space rock?”
“Well, like you just said, it could be an enemy spacecraft.” Inferno grinned, starting towards the crash site.
Trapped by his own pessimism, Red Alert could only grumble and follow.
x-x-x
I can’t believe it! It really was a ship! Inferno stared down at the crash site in disbelief. It wasn’t a large ship by any measure; it would have easily fit in one of the Ark’s holding bays. The spacecraft had landed badly, the hull tearing away form the frame in places and leaving gaping holes. The intact portions were smooth and curving, almost organic-looking, but with the familiar comforting sheen of metal.
“There’s something alive inside,” Red Alert muttered, trying to peer though the gaps without getting any closer. Belatedly, Inferno realized that Red Alert had his weapon out, and that it might be a good idea for him to do the same.
He motioned Red Alert to stay put and clambered down to the ship, stepping carefully up to the largest of the openings. He had to duck and twist sideways to fit through, scraping his paint on the broken metal.
The inside of the spacecraft was as trashed as the outside. A sparking console lit the interior in a fitful glow, and something luminescent and green was splattered across the floor and up the bulkhead.
Something moved in the shadows. Inferno eased closer, gun up, his headlights falling on a crumpled form, half-propped against a console.
The creature was in no condition to fight a petro-rabbit, much less an armed warrior. Green blood oozed out of a ragged wound in its abdomen. The creature had one fist pressed tightly against the wound in a futile attempt to stop the bleeding.
Lowering his weapon, Inferno stepped closer and knelt down by the injured creature. It’s not afraid of me, Inferno realized with surprise as it reached out with a shaky hand, dripping blood.
It said something, hissing and clicking in a language that Inferno didn’t recognize.
“Just stay there,” Inferno said soothingly, knowing that the creature probably didn’t understand a word he was saying. “Everything’s goin’ to be alright…”
“Inferno! Behind you!”
Inferno spun around at Red Alert’s shout, bringing his gun back up.
The dark shape that had been silently uncoiling from the shadows on the ceiling jerked around at the sound of Red Alert’s voice, hissing. Both Autobots fired as it sprung for the Security Director. Red Alert winged it, tearing off one of the long curved claws. Inferno’s shot caught it dead in the back.
The corpse hit the wall next to Red Alert, splattering alien blood over his side and leg.
“You okay, Red?” Inferno called.
“I’m fine,” Red Alert answered distractedly, scanning the interior. “I - Ah!” He staggered, stumbling back through the hole in the ship. “Acid! The slagging thing bleeds acid!”
Inferno ducked through the opening and hesitated, staring in consternation as the blood splattered up Red Alert’s side began eating through his armor. He recovered quickly, catching Red Alert and guiding him to the ground.
“I don’t got anything to neutralize this, so I’m going to have to cut the affected parts out of your armor before it eats through anything important,” Inferno said quietly. Red Alert just nodded, one hand finding and clinging to Inferno’s leg.
Inferno worked as quickly as he could, trying to ignore the grimaces and pained noises that Red Alert couldn’t quite hold back. Most important systems first. Concentrate. Getting’ upset ain’t gonna help Red…
“We need to call base,” he said after a while. “Your leg’s bad enough I don’t want you trying to walk.” Red Alert nodded in acknowledgement as Inferno tossed the last bit of damaged wiring aside. “You radio them, and I’ll take a gander around, check on our injured friend and see if there’s any more of them around,” Inferno said, standing. “Are you gettin’ anything on your scanners?”
“No, but I didn’t detect the first one until it moved, either.” Red Alert grunted, pulling himself into a sitting position. “Watch your back, Inferno.”
It was a bit harder getting back into the ship, with having to dodge the pooled blood in the entranceway that was bubbling its way through the deck plating. Inferno managed to step around it and make his way over to the injured alien.
Make that dead alien. Inferno sighed. Sorry, friend.
Red Alert was waiting for him when he exited. “They’re calling Skyfire back, but it’s going to be a while. He was off whale-watching or some nonsense like that,” Red Alert grumbled. “Pull that thing out here so I can get a better look at it.”
Inferno complied, grabbing the clawed creature by an unbloodied portion and hauling it out. “The other died,” he said quietly, frowning as Red Alert hobbled over. “Didn’t I just tell you not to walk on that leg?”
Red Alert ignored the rebuke, turning the creature’s head up and examining it. “No obvious visual organs, but that could indicate it seeing by anything from echolocation to somehow detecting our spark energy.”
“And there’s more acid damage to the inside of the ship, beyond what this guy just bled on,” Inferno told him grimly. “I don’t see any other wounds on him, either.”
Red Alert set the head back down. “So there’s more of these things. Wonderful,” he muttered sarcastically.
“The rest of the ship is clear of them,” Inferno added, watching the surrounding trees. “So his buddy has got to be runnin’ around loose.”
“You’re just overflowing with good news, aren’t you?”
“Red, if that thing gets down to the human settlements…”
“The losses would be immense.” Red Alert sighed. “And my leg’s going to slow you down too much to catch it.” He hesitated. “Be careful, alright?”
Inferno smiled, resting his hand briefly on his friend’s shoulder. “Don’t worry about me, Red. Just watch your own tail, and I’ll be back before you know it.”
Red Alert snorted. “I always worry about you,” he murmured after Inferno left, circling around the crash in hopes of picking up the creature’s trail.
He slumped against the side of the furrow dug by the fallen spacecraft, watching the woods closely. Time seemed to crawl by with unbearable slowness.
There’s another reason to hate this mountainside, Red Alert grouched to himself. Everything moves, rendering my motion sensors useless. Why would anyone in their right mind want to come here? Oh, right, it’s Inferno. He’s never been in his right mind…
Something scraped against a rock. Red Alert froze, listening. For a moment, there was nothing except the sound of wind through the trees and a far-off jet engine.
Red Alert lunged to his feet just as the creature leapt for him with a hiss. It hit the spot he had been laying, sending up a cloud of dust. Red Alert scrambled back and fired, missing as it dodged.
It jumped of him again, claws slashing at his face. His injured leg giving out, Red Alert tumbled to the ground, the alien creature ripping at his armor.
If I shoot him like this, the acid from his wounds will probably kill me, Red Alert realized. He cried out as a claw caught under his armor and ripped through wiring. But if I don’t, I die anyway! Red Alert shoved the barrel of his gun against the creature’s chest, finger tightening on the trigger…
There was a blur of something white, and the creature went flying. Red Alert stared dazedly up at Skyfire as he took aim at where the creature was scrambling back to its feet and fired.
“Are you alright?” the scientist asked, concerned. He knelt down by Red Alert.
“Red!” Inferno skidded up. “Red, are you alright?”
“I’m just peachy,” Red Alert grumbled, allowing them to help him up.
“I got the other one, but it didn’t even occur to me that there might be three,” Inferno said sheepishly.
“Let’s get you both out of here. The others will be here soon to make sure that was the last of them and collect samples,” Skyfire told them, transforming and opening his cargo hatch. “Perceptor’s already expressed an interest in the remains Oh, and Ratchet said to tell you that you’re both, and I quote, ‘slagging idiots.’”
Red Alert paused before ducking in. “I told you it was a bad idea.”
Inferno looked chagrined. “Alright, alright… next time we’ll just go to the beach.”
The Master List of Doom!!!