Blind to the Obvious
By: Sapphire
Writer's Note: I never really explained how Kaiya looked, so you can find an image of her here. The fic is rated PG because it contains some mild sexual stuff, nothing shocking. But then, you can't really have a series with Kaiya in it and NOT have anything like that. If Kaiya lacks anything, it's inhibitions. Also, I have left out Silverbolt and Quickstrike in my series, purely because they wouldn't have really worked for it. Rampage is still here, although up until now he's had no mention. This means Megatron is greatly outnumbered.
PG
Rhinox looked at Emerald and noticed that she looked sad. In fact, she had been looking sad for the past few days. She had wanted to tell him something, but had suddenly grown quiet of late. He was getting worried about her. It was not like Emerald to be so silent and gloomy.
The two were alone in the control room. Rhinox was in his usual place, in front of the computer screens and she was sitting next to him, watching the scanners somberly.
"Remind me," Rhinox said, his deep, soft voice clearing away the silence, "Who is on scout duty again? I slept in this morning - which is unusual - and missed the morning task assignments."
Emerald's gaze had turned from the screens to him while he spoke, but now she looked back irritably at the screens.
"Rattrap."
"Oh, that's-"
"And Kaiya," Emerald added flatly.
It didn't take a genius to know that Emerald disliked Kaiya, and while Rhinox didn't like femmes of her...style, he still didn't see it as a reason to be so utterly miserable at the mere mention of her name. She wasn't that unbearable.
"I see..." There was a long pause before Rhinox spoke again.
"Emerald, I can tell something's wrong. Has Kaiya done or said anything to upset you? Because your attitude towards her is, well...I can tell you don't like her."
"I don't like her. At all," Emerald replied immediately. "She's a sneaky little.... I don't trust her." She fell silent abruptly and stared at her feet, as if she'd said something she shouldn't.
"But why, Emerald? Why do you feel so strongly this way?" Rhinox persisted.
Emerald drew in an aggravated breath, letting it out as a quivering sigh. She turned and suddenly looked at her uncle.
"Because she's a spy. A Vok spy. And she's nothing but trouble."
Rhinox was calm, but he couldn't help shaking his head slightly.
"Emerald, I know I wouldn't tell Kaiya any of my secrets - because I don't think she's the type of person that would be suitable to reveal much to. But she has pledged her allegiance to us, and so far has been loyal. We gave Dinobot a chance and he has proved very beneficial to our side. We have to do the same for Kaiya, even if we...you and I...don't like her much." Rhinox was very aware that the others were smitten with her. He noticed how they eyed her, how she flirted with them and how she was particularly seductive towards Rattr...oh. That was it. THAT'S why Emerald was so perturbed. Why didn't he see it earlier?
"Yeah, but I know she is a spy, she even-" Emerald caught herself in mid-sentence, her eyes wide. She closed her jaw slowly, and dropped her gaze once again.
"She even what?" Rhinox asked, a little more gently this time. He had noticed Emerald's change in behavior around Rattrap recently. She was shy and blushing; obvious signs that her feelings had changed towards him. And now that Rattrap and Kaiya were...well, it made sense for her to be this way. Still, he felt there was more to this than a broken heart.
"What, Emerald?" Rhinox repeated. She kept her silence.
"Fine. If you don't want to talk, I understand. But please don't let it eat you up inside. If you want to tell me anything, you know you can go right ahead," Rhinox assured her.
Emerald looked up at him. He felt something stir inside him. That look in her eyes...there was so much pain and unhappiness. Just by the way she stared at him, he was certain there was more going on.
"Emmie..." he said quietly, unaware until a few seconds later that he had used Rattrap's pet name for her.
She got up off her chair, looking crestfallen, and walked out.
As he watched her regretfully, he just made out her voice, saying: "Cheetor, my shift's just about finished. Your turn."
Rhinox sighed and cursed softly under his breath. He tried to be tactful, but he just wasn't cut out for this sort of thing.
A vulture circled above them as they crossed the last stretch of the dry, arid plain. Ahead of them was the start of a little forest, where Rattrap knew there was some water and plenty of shade.
"Vultures always give me a lil shiver," Rattrap said aloud. They were, to him, a symbol of death and decay. He didn't like them.
Kaiya, in beast mode, looked up to see the bird. She blinked in the brilliant sunshine for a bit, before turning back to the forest.
"They're such ugly birds."
Rattrap nodded absently, and continued to roll forward in vehicle mode. Transformers, unless they had an aquatic beast mode, generally weren't fond of water. However, in this case, he wouldn't mind a few harmless splashes to cool his heated metal. He picked up his pace a little.
"No Predacons so far. This trip is seriously lacking in...activity," Kaiya said, her voice on the edge of being husky.
"Heh heh...yeah...you got that right," Rattrap offered in return, wondering if she was hinting at anything.
She looked at him and grinned as best as she could in her maned-wolf form.
"Race ya to the forest."
"You're on..." he trailed, as she had already broken into a sprint. He switched to blasters, and sped onwards. Maned wolves were very fast, with their long legs - in fact they were much like a canine version of the cheetah. So although it was a given that Rattrap would be faster than her, it still took him a little while to catch up to her.
"Hey, no fair!" she giggled in between gasps for air. "You're not using beast mode!"
"Like I can run wid' my stocky legs in that mode. Kaiy, I'm built for speed only in dis mode." Which was true enough. His beast mode was far more rigid and slow than his original, more organic one. But his vehicle mode made up for that.
He sped forwards and was at the edge of the forest a few seconds later. He put on his brakes and stopped, grinning smugly. He transformed to robot mode and chuckled. "She didn't stand a chance," he snickered. A moment later, something crashed into him from behind and he toppled over and rolled down a little slope, further into the forest. Something was rolling with him. He landed on his back and Kaiya landed on top of him. She propped her upper body up with her arms, one on each side of him, and looked down at him. They both panted and grinned at each other.
"No one beats me in a race and lives to chuckle about it," Kaiya said breathlessly.
"Oh yeah? An' how are ya plannin' on killin' me?" Rattrap asked.
Kaiya bit her lip with a smile and started lowering herself onto him.
"Slowly, and methodically," she mumbled teasingly. She brushed her nose against his face gently.
"You know, there might be Preds watchin' us..." Rattrap muttered.
"Since when did you care about what Predacons think?" she whispered, and kissed him passionately.
He raised his hands and caressed her sides, closing his eyes and enjoying the sensation. Man, it had been too long since he'd had a girl.
He pushed her away gently. "Not what they think, but what they'll do if they catch us off guard," he said. He was playing hard to get, although he doubted he had the self control to play much longer.
"If they try anything, I'll blow them all to scrap," she breathed, lowering her face again, "I still have a lot of power in my body, you know..."
"Oh, I know, I know..." Rattrap chuckled.
She began kissing him again. When she was sure he was lost in the moment, she stealthily brought up her right arm and reached for her thigh. She flicked a tiny button which opened a compartment. Slowly, carefully, she drew out a long, sharp, thin blade.
"Kaiya," Rattrap gasped, "we have ta come in from patrol soon..."
"So?" she said and smiled naughtily.
Rattrap touched her cheeks tenderly. "I like da way you think, girl."
She clutched the handle of the blade, tightening her grip on it.
"Oh? Do you now? Well, then, tell me how you like this..."
A harsh crackle spoiled the atmosphere, as Cheetor's youthful voice came through Rattrap's commlink.
"Yo, RT, you there?"
Rattrap grumbled.
"Not now, Cheetor."
Kaiya quickly slipped the blade back into her leg compartment and closed it.
"Turn it off, Rattrap," she hissed.
"Rattrap, this can't wait! We need you back at base. And Kaiya," Cheetor urged.
Rattrap sat up with a jerk, sending Kaiya stumbling off him.
"Ok, ok. I'm comin'. Rattrap out."
He stood up, muttering and swearing. "Stupid feline."
Kaiya got to her feet and brushed herself off.
"Oh well. It obviously can't wait," she said with a shrug. Then she added, "But I can."
Rattrap was too irritated to catch her hint and transformed to vehicle mode.
"It better be important, or I'm gonna..." his sentence faded into the distance as he drove away. He was followed a few seconds later by Kaiya, who too was cursing Cheetor.
Tarantulas decided to name the striped hyena-bot "Galena". Her dark body had a strange glow to it, and when it caught the light it shone like silver. She was not beautiful, but had a unique attractiveness to her. And so he named her after the stone "Galena", which has a bright metallic lustre, is lead-grey of colour and often contains traces of dissolved silver.
He had been a bit anxious in reviving her, because he was not certain how she would react when restored to full health and strength. However, she had so far proven loyal and extremely beneficial. When she saw him drag in the remains of her brothers and sisters, she did not weep or grow angry. Instead, she went through all the pieces and, before his eyes, began to repair them with her hands. Her palms emitted a yellow light which pulsed over the piece of metal, ridding it off the scratches and dents and making pipes and circuitry grow from their charred, empty sockets. To an extent, that is. She told him that her peers were now a puzzle. All she could do was fix the pieces, but she needed Tarantulas' help to put them together again.
At first he didn't believe it was possible, but Galena helped him create a machine which, at this very moment, was gradually assembling the pieces. He could make out the vague shape of a transformer so far. The machine had changed the pieces into protoformial state, and the globs of silver-like jelly floated and joined slowly over the days. But it was becoming obvious, now, that they were forming something in that machine, which had a glass door for Galena and himself to see the progress. How she did it he didn't know, but he was very glad that she was restoring the other four. For she assured him that once they were all back again, and because they lacked sparks...they'd be at their command. Tarantulas would have a small army of powerful transformers with which he could wreak havoc on both the Maximals and Predacons and maybe, with their combined knowledge and powers, repair a ship or create a spacecraft and leave this pathetic planet.
Currently, Tarantulas was thinking about all of this while he stared at his screens, when his computer alerted him of a Maximal transmission. Sure, Rattrap had taken out Megatron's decoder, but with Galena, he had built another. He could hear all the comm-calls.
He turned up his speakers and listened.
"Yo, RT, you there?"
"Not now, Cheetor."
He heard a strange, hardly noticeable voice in the background, saying something he could not decipher.
"Rattrap, this can't wait! We need you back at base. And Kaiya," Cheetor urged.
Tarantulas froze. Kaiya? Who was Kaiya...?
"Ok, ok. I'm comin'. Rattrap out."
The transmission ended and Tarantulas settled into a long, thoughtful silence.
"Did you hear that, Galena?"
Galena spun around in her chair and nodded.
"They have a new comrade, it would seem."
Tarantulas arose from his chair and scratched his chin.
"Yes, it seems so. But where could she have come from? Surely not from a stasis pod, since all of them have been found, or were too wrecked for use...and the last six contained you and your siblings."
"Then...if you're saying what I think you're saying," Galena spoke softly, "The Maximals have done the same as you. Restored one."
Tarantulas nodded.
"I knew there was one missing, when we went through the parts. I thought she might have been completely annihilated, but you said you weren't so sure!" Tarantulas exclaimed, as everything fell into place.
"I said that, because the Vok reinforced our structure, to withstand a good pummeling before we broke down. I was further than the rest from the explosion. There was another with me, even a little more further back than I, if I recall. The Vok didn't give us names, so we identified each other by our beast modes. The one with me was a maned-wolf, I believe."
Tarantulas was relieved that he now knew what had become of the other, but worried that now the Maximals had such a powerful tool as well.
"That poses a problem! If they use her as a weapon, we might be scrapped before we finish putting our army together...and the Maximals will destroy Megatron before us, too."
Galena smiled darkly and shook her head.
"That's where you are wrong."
Tarantulas turned his head sharply towards her and stared at her intensely.
"How so?"
Galena got to her feet and walked casually to the machine, where she began stroking its glass door..
"Because each of us was bestowed with unique abilities. Mine was to heal and to invent, should the mission go wrong, which it did. Only, the Vok influence in me was accidentally terminated as well, leaving shadows of its power to me. The other four between them had the power to muster forces within the earth, to poison all life, to create illusions and the fourth, the Jaguarundi - plain brute strength. But Kaiya, as she now calls herself, was given a particularly special power."
Tarantulas was listening with bated breath and eagerly pressed her to continue.
"Yes? Yes? Go on!"
Galena stopped tracing her fingers across the glass, where the Jaguarundi was reforming. She turned slowly, her eyes darker and yet richer and her body swinging just slightly as she completed the turn.
"To seduce."
Tarantulas tilted his head in curiosity.
"Oh?"
"You see," Galena went on, "Kaiya was weakest out of all of us, when it came to destructive power. She was the one at the back because of this. Like me, she was a back-up plan. If I was destroyed, it was her mission to ally herself with whatever side found her first when we were defeated in battle. Then, she would cast a spell on her new team, of sorts. She was to attract them to her, get them to trust her beyond any doubt...and when the time was right...kill them."
Tarantulas eyed Galena as she circled him, deliberately acting the part of Kaiya as she swaggered and strutted like a slut. She was obviously enjoying telling Tarantulas what she knew and Tarantulas had to admit, he was enthralled.
"Heh heh, yes... Kaiya is a sneaky little devil. That is her gift. Don't get me wrong, she has a multitude of hidden weapons designed for a quick, silent and clean kill. She is very, very deadly as long as her agendas remain hidden. She will also deny it to no end that she has any alien influence within her. It is, of course, a lie. To make sure she would be totally dedicated to her task, and to overpower her spark - which put up a strong fight against their entering her then fragile little body - not one but two Vok were installed. I have doubts that both would have survived such an explosion, but at least one is still lurking within her. Yet, there is still a chance she is free of her influences, in which case she WOULD be dangerous. If her original spark is allowed once more to govern her body, she will be seeking vengeance for what was done to her and she will need to empty out her anger somewhere. No doubt it will be the Predacons and us, if she is now a pure Maximal."
"And how are we to discover if this is true?"
Galena grinned and stood still, pointing to her side of the screens.
"The Predacons are out mining the results of that energon earthquake some time back. The Maximals, as you can see, are moving toward their position. A fight is brewing and we know already that Kaiya is on her way. This will be a good opportunity to watch her movements and see how she behaves in battle."
Tarantulas rubbed his claws together enthusiastically. "My, what a brilliant specimen you ARE!"
Galena was slightly annoyed he still referred to her as a specimen, but she enjoyed Tarantulas' company nonetheless.
"Well, then. Let's make haste."
Tarantulas transformed to his vehicle mode and Galena to her hyena mode. The two of them left his lair and made their way to the impending battle.