Every day

It was a horrible storm. It was worse than any storm the robots stranded on Earth had experienced so far. Water was dripping on Megatron’s head while he was sitting on his throne and he was finally forced to pay attention to the number of holes in his ship and send his troops to fix them. The Maximal base was rocking horribly, accompanied by shouts of “We’re all gonna die!” and “Shuddap, Rattrap!”. Both Maximals and Predacons were distressed enough that they wouldn’t have noticed the falling pod even if their radars had picked it up. Which they didn’t. They were malfunctioning because of the storm.

And so unnoticed by anyone the stasis pod crashed in a small forest amid pouring rain, howling wind and branches gone wild. It scanned for life forms and quickly found one.

The small red fox had poked its head under the root of the large tree out of curiosity but it had gotten stuck and was unable to get free. The more it pulled the more swollen its neck became and the harder it was to breath, let alone escape this self-inflicted entrapment. The poor creature had finally exhausted itself and stopped any attempts. That’s how the storm had found it and now it was freezing, terrified and nearly drowned in the muddy stream that was running under the tree.

It was oblivious to the stasis pod, which scanned it and processed its DNA for the benefit of the protoform inside. And that might well have been the last purpose the unfortunate fox fulfilled.

She quickly dived back inside and closed the lid. Then reopened it just slightly to examine the surrounding world filled with darkness, thunder and lightning. Something caught her optics. Something small and furry was struggling half-heartedly to get out from beneath a tree root. She squinted to see better which was hard with all the rain and the fading light. The animal was practically unrecognizable, all soaked and covered in mud but the one thing that was clear was that it wasn’t going to last much longer. The femme watched it for a little while then got out of the pod and ran to the tree. On her way she almost slipped on the slurry the forest floor had turned into. She quickly pulled at the root half breaking it, seized the frightened animal and ran back to her small shelter. Fitting back in was no easy matter. The space was just big enough for her to be comfortable but only if she arranged her body in a certain position. Once inside she gently laid the shuddering creature across her knees and examined it. It wasn’t seriously hurt, just very, very frightened. Small patches of ginger fur were visible where the mud wasn’t thick enough to cover them. The femme looked curiously down at her own body.

“Well, it must have been you who gave me my beast mode.” She concluded. “I guess I owe you one then.”

The round black eyes stared back at her with terror but the animal didn’t move.

She transformed to her beast mode actually scaring the creature further and hitting her head on the ceiling in the process. Now there were two almost identical foxes in the pod, although one was a lot larger.

“I hope you don’t die of shock now.” She said curling around the small animal and covering it with her fluffy tail. “It would be very tragic because you were doomed out there and the chances of someone finding you and freeing you were close to zero. But I did free you. So, you see, it would be a waste of a miracle if you didn’t survive. By the way, it’s Ginger at your service. Hmm, I don’t think that’s a very typical name for a transformer but I like the sound of it. I think I read the word somewhere. And since I don’t know my real name… And I want to call you something. I know I probably shouldn’t before I’m sure that you’ll live because if you die after I’ve given you a name I would be even more sad. But I can’t help it. You were so silly to stick your head in there. I bet you’re a very unruly little fox. I’ll call you Caper. Goodnight, Caper. ”

“Well?” Optimus asked tiredly, leaning over the mechanic’s shoulder. It had been a long night. Rattrap and Cheetor in particular had made it even longer with their scared whining. He had to remind himself how brave they both could be when he wasn’t around to listen to their complaints.

Dinobot had been a blessing for once. The raptor had barely paid any attention to the storm, which had eventually led to some bots getting ashamed of themselves for making all the fuss and shutting up to the enormous relief of their leader.

“Could have been worse all things considered,” Rhinox stated finally. “But it will be some time before I get our sensors to function properly.”

“What are ya sayin’ Big Green? The Preds can pop in for oil and cookies any time and we won’t even know they’re comin’?”

“I wouldn’t be worried about the Predacons, Rattrap,” Optimus reassured him. “Something tells me they’ve got troubles of their own.”

“So, the spider has finally reappeared.” Megatron commented merrily. “How did your secret lair hold against the storm?”

In his bad mood the spider actually managed to punctuate his insane laugh with a full stop. His lair was nearly flooded. He had had to crawl out of it in the middle of the storm and spend the rest of it in a higher cave.

“Well, since you’re here, take a look at our communication system,” Megatron commanded.

Tarantulas did so simply because he was unable to come up with something more treacherous to do at the moment.

The scientist mumbled something that, by the sound of it, followed the Predacon leader’s lineage right back to a kitchen mixer but got to work anyway. It was no good arguing about repairing something they all needed.

“Wazzpinator zzick of repairing! Waspinator thinkzz Predacon ship hazz more holezz in it than cyber-cheezzze!”

“Waspinator better stop thinking because he’s not good at it, noo,” Megatron cut him off.

“And what have YOU been doing, Megatron?” Terrosaur demanded. “From what I’ve seen, you’re so attached to this throne that you didn’t move your… self… from it even when the ceiling started leaking.”

“I was merely preventing someone else from getting even more attached to it while we were all busy with the storm. Because, you see, my dear Terrosaur, while it’s not a bad thing to be attached to your possessions (he absently stroked Squeaky who was sitting on the armrest), it’s quite unhealthy to develop the same attachment towards things that AREN’T YOURS. Not healthy at all, noo. Now back to work both of you!”

Megatron’s ancestors were once again commented upon while the wasp and the pterodactyl were leaving the room. This time a garden mower was mentioned among them.

Megatron smirked. He had paired his troops carefully. Terrosaur would have some trouble devising a plan to overthrow him with no one but Waspinator around to help and Blackarachnia would also find it difficult to plot behind his back while accompanied by Skorponok. Well, that depended on how dumb the scorpion really was but anyway. Tarantulas was in sight for once and his secret lab was most probably damaged so he shouldn’t cause trouble for a while. It was somewhat annoying not to have working scanners but he was betting the Maximals had the same problem so even if a stasis pod fell, they probably wouldn’t know about it either.

The T-Rex leaned back in his throne, watching Tarantulas sulkily tap keys and mutter under his breath. The sight brought another smirk to his face. His crew could be quite amusing sometimes, especially in the rare moments when they weren’t threatening his authority.

Ginger woke to a warmer air and a pair of glossy black eyes staring up at her. A cold wet nose was curiously sniffing her.

“Well, what do you know! Caper, you’ve made it!” she attempted to jump up happily.

“OW!” She said as she hit the lid of the pod. “I keep forgetting how cramped it is in here. Well, it seems the storm is over. Let’s let the sunshine in, what do you say?”

The small fox didn’t object so the pod opened to a brightly-lit forest, sparkling with drops of water. After several seconds Caper jumped out, looked around, shook some dried mud from his fur and quickly scurried away in the nearest bushes.

“Well, off you go then.” Ginger shrugged. “A metal container is no place for you anyway. But be careful where you stick that nose of yours!” she shouted the last words to the tip of his tail, disappearing some distance away.

The femme sat on the edge of the pod and considered her situation absently listening to the chirping in the trees above. Ginger always solved immediate problems first. The storm and her small furry friend had been the immediate problems last night. But now that they were both solved she let the next task come to the front of her mind. Finding fellow transformers. And getting something to eat on the way. She stood up, gave her pod one last look and set off in a random direction.

It wasn’t a terribly serious battle. It mainly consisted of Cheetor and Optimus firing at Terrosaur and Waspinator from behind some rocks and the two Predacons firing back. Both parties had been out in search of energon to fill their bases’ decreasing stock. They had accidentally stumbled upon each other and in honour of the good old tradition of their races, they had opened fire, each pair thinking that if they didn’t attack, the others would. And being right about it, of course. Ginger watched the fight from the cover of the trees at the end of the forest. Well, she had found her fellow transformers. Since that problem was solved, she could move on to the next one. What was going on here?

Fortunately, the participants in the battle were focusing their attention more on outtalking not outgunning each other. And they were being particularly loud and passionate about it. So by the end of the battle (which had ended with the traditional ritual of blowing up Waspinator) she had managed to gather most of the information she needed plus some she didn’t need. The second was provided by the members of both factions and concerned the incompetence and sheer stupidity of their opponents.

Her optics followed them thoughtfully as they (minus Waspinator) retreated in two opposite directions. So there was a war going on here between two small groups of Maximals and Predacons. And there were no other robots around.

“Oh, joy. I’m stuck here with a bunch of males exchanging macho dialogue.” She murmured to herself. “They might call it a war but it looks more like grumpy neighbours bickering from where I stand.”

Well, it didn’t really. But she preferred to look at it this way for now. Sometimes serious things tended to get tragic when taken too seriously.

“I suppose I should join my crew then.” She sighed taking a few steps in the direction where the two Maximals had disappeared. Then she stopped. “On the other hand… Since they don’t seem to know I’ve landed (their scanners must be out of commission or they would have come to look for me), it wouldn’t hurt to get to know them a bit better before I introduce myself, now would it? ALL of them. It’s nice to be prepared.”

For which reason she decided to wait for night to fall before she paid her visit to the Maximal base. Which meant that she got to see Skorponok when he came to pick up what was left of Waspinator. Then it was dark and she headed off in the general direction of her faction’s headquarters feeling confident that she wouldn’t be detected or noticed.