A Very Unintelligent Choice (Shear/Twister)

[Madeline Flynn-Morgan]

((Date: January 18th, 2025 // Time: 11:45 am
Starting: Maddie's School, then travelling))

Maddie twitched a little as more jabs were made at her by those older, yet falling behind in her intellect. If Maddie could, she would turn off her brain for a day, just so she could be a normal person. She clung tighter to her bag, even as they laughed and shoved. She stumbled back with each push, biting her lip to keep from crying, holding in the tears till she felt her heart would burst into a thousand little pieces.

She had to take a placement test, despite the fact it was on record she was in the second grade. It didn't help that, here, the curriculum was 'behind' for her.

She had already learned the things her classmates were learning now.

Her seven year old classmates to her small, tiny, six year old self.

With a sharp turn, she tore off across the playground, their jeering laughs echoing in her brain. She ran to the fence and ducked through the small hole, once she threw her bag through, and ducked out.

This was probably her crowning moment of stupidity, but she didn't care. Instead, she hauled her bag over her green clad shoulder and took off running for the nearby remote area. As she ran, she ignored the fact tears were running down her face. She ran up the nearby hill, which was more like a slight incline that hid a valley.

A valley that held an abandoned, probably private, airport thing that was there. She sat down at the top, under a tree that was there, and curled up, beginning to sob her heart out.

"Dad's gonna kill me," she sobbed out, but didn't bother hiking her way back down.

She was tired, her breathing was getting more like a pathetic kitten's mewl, and she was scared to go back. She didn't want to face them again.

[Windshear]

Windshear had been napping.

He was usually a very energetic drone, always looking to find something new to test his mettle against, but he hadn’t properly refueled that morning, eager, as always, to be out in the open air. Finding a safe place to set down was not easy with both Autobots and M.E.C.H. to worry about, but when he’d spotted the abandoned airfield below, he knew he’d hit jackpot. There was an old hangar, the front of it open to the elements, and it was an easy feet for him to swoop down and taxi himself, backwards, underneath. In the shadows and shelter of the hangar, the sleek, angular form of the alien jet relaxed, and Windshear dropped off into light recharge until the sun climbed higher in the sky--it had been shortly after dawn then.

He was woken, a few hours later, by a very weird sound.

Immediately he was on the alert. He focused his sensors outside, restlessly scanning… and spotted the tiniest human he had ever seen. That thing was small. Were humans really that ridiculously tiny as children? And what the Pit kind of noise was she making?

Poor Maddie would not be able to ignore the sight of the Cybertronian jet wheeling out of the abandoned hangar, its angled body reflected shades of purple back up to the sky. It hesitated once it was fully free, and then began to change, the plates whirling to rearrange themselves with mechanical precision into a hulking twenty-six-foot-tall robot... which then marched over to her as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Windshear knelt, seemingly unaware that looming over her could be so intimidating, and peered at her with a silvery, expressionless mask slashed by a single optic band. He had a pair of angular wings arranged on his back, and these were piqued high in curiosity at the sight before him.

“Hey,” he boomed in a low, gruff voice, “what’re you doin’? What kinda noise is that, anyway?”

[Twister & Blackfire]

Out in the upper levels of Earth's atmosphere, a Decepticon signal emerged. The first rotary Decepticon was inbound for Earth. She was dealing with some struggles and needed to get away from Cybertron. Away from certain Decepticons. She wasn't necessarily DONE with the Decepticons, but she was being pushed closer to the edge every day.

It also wasn't entirely their fault either, she was just having weird memory flashes that haunted her daily.

So her armored pod moved through the atmosphere and took some damage as it tried to maintain its integrity against the intense friction. The pod's trajectory was headed for the US West Coast, or somewhere close to it.

With an alarming bang a safe distance from Windshear and Maddie, the femme landed with minimal damage done to herself.

[Madeline Flynn-Morgan]

If Maddie hadn't noticed the weird jet taxing out, which she did, she was pretty sure that she would have noticed it when it transformed into a giant robot!

Now, most children, when faced with such a thing, would run screaming in terror, especially when they decided that it was a good idea to loom over her and boom out in a loud voice.

Maddie, however, was made of sterner things in that she didn't run away screaming back to school to face them, though she was pretty sure that was because she was more scared of them then of the giant, talking robot!

She had covered her ears at the loud voice, however, and that didn't stop the tears. "What noise? And I'm crying," she answered.

She probably would have continued explaining, when Twister crashed into the ground. Maddie let out a scream-ish squeal and jerked away, trying to yank away from the sound, only to push herself more into the tree.

"What was that?" she exclaimed, shocked out of her tears that were now drying into tear tracts in the cool air.

[Windshear]

“Cryin’.” Windshear knew what crying was, in a detached sort of way. Sparkling Cybertronians were able to cry, but he hadn’t ever been one, or even been around one, since he was a drone created for war in a time of war. “Oh. Well, that's a weird kinda sound to--” He was interrupted by the boom, and immediately he straightened, moving with a speed impressive for something so big. His wings immediately hiked up on his back, raising in alarm.

He was silent for a moment. “I dunno, kiddo,” he replied. He did not adjust the volume of his voice. Windshear simply didn’t realize he was yelling, half the time. “But I’m gonna find out.” He didn’t warn Madeline not to come with him, but instead strode off towards the sound, moving carefully, slowly (for him, anyway; it would have been difficult, but not impossible, for Madeline to keep up with his long strides) towards the source of the disturbance.

[Twister & Blackfire]

Twister wasn't doing very well hiding herself. It was broad daylight and she was almost smack dab in the middle of a city. Oy, what a way to start a day, get unnecessary attention drawn to you. She had to find an alternate mode and fast, preferably something that flew. A Eurocopter flew over head, likely a traffic helicopter or something just passing through? She quickly scanned the thing and transformed to take flight. She hovered well above "out of ground effect" and surveyed the area, people scattering.

She wondered then how each faction was dealing with staying low, or if they were already used to these small creatures.

Well she had to move on somehow, didn't she?

Luckily for her, a Decepticon was in the vicinity. ="You there, can you please tell me where the others are?"= she queried, her fuselage pointing in Windshear's general direction.

[Madeline Flynn-Morgan]

Maddie hunkered down more at his voice, shoving her hands more onto her ears as she tried to block out the sound. He never finished off his words before that...crash happened. She let out a squeak and, upon hearing that Shear was going to look, she got up, stumbling a bit, as she pulled her backpack on. "I want to know too!" she exclaimed as she ran after Shear, stumbling a little as she made her way down after Shear.

"It was a rather large crash! I think it might have been a crash. What was it?" she exclaimed, trying not to face plant into the ground as she ran, the odd sound still in her breathing.

She ignored it, even if that was not the best choice she could have ever made. Today just seemed to be full of those not very intelligent choices.

[Windshear]

Windshear glanced down as Madeline puffed after him. He didn’t reach down and grab her, or otherwise help her along, but he was quite mindful of where he stepped while she was scurrying about his feet. He approached the smoking crater, only to find that there was a helicopter hovering above it. That, in Windshear’s admittedly simple view of the way things worked, could only mean one thing.

Cybertronian. He immediately scanned her, and was relieved to see tat she was not an Autobot. Moreover, he actually knew who this femme was. He’d never met her, but he had heard of her. The Eradicon immediately stood at attention. “Twister. Uhh, they’re on the Nemesis,” he replied helpfully. There was a pause. “It ain’t real far from here. Windshear at your service.”

He remembered that he had a new companion, and, likely to his commander’s confusion (and maybe her amusement, as well) he turned, kneeling once again to peer down at Madeline. “That’s Twister. She’s a superior officer,” he informed the six-year-old girl, as if it were the most natural thing for him to be doing in the world.

[Twister & Blackfire]

Twister hovered lower and transformed so she wouldn't risk blowing the small child away with her rotorwash. "Thankyou, Windshear. I'm in no particular rush, but I would appreciate receipt of the coordinates so I can leave after I familiarize myself with some of this continent and its aerial protocols. Who is the tiny being you have with you?" Twister's dark frame and red eyes flicker towards Maddie. She saw some humans flee, but not ones as small as this one. Was this a good idea to have such a tiny being around? Wasn't she scared of them?

[Madeline Flynn-Morgan]

Maddie threw up her arms as she got closer to the transformed helicopter, feeling as if it was going to blow her away when it suddenly stopped. She lowered her arms, only to clap them harshly over her ears as Shear began talking to her. They were asking a lot of questions, and such, so she looked up at Shear. "Excuse me, Mr. Shear, sir, could you please tone down your voice? It's not like you're yelling or anything, but you're loud," she called up, loudly, before she looked at Twister.

She still had her hands clapped over her ears. She then really looked at Twister, especially after Shear's explanation of who she was. Now surrounded by two giant robots, most would be panicking and frightened out of their minds.

Maddie was just fascinated.

And she was pretty sure her self-preservation instinct was broken.

She slowly lowered her hands and smiled up at Twister. "Hello Miss Superior Twister! I'm Maddie," she introduced cheerfully and began to look between them.

"Where are you from?" she asked as she looked between them.

Her curosity had just gone into overdrive and her eyes widened. "And how do you go from vehicle to giant bot form? Does everyone have aerial, I think that's the word meaning flight based vehicles, or are they a bunch of different things? Can you transform into other things? What's the Nemesis?" she asked, quickly forgetting herself, eager to learn.

She could always have looked it up, but she didn't think she would find it in any books anywhere, and her questions were aimed for both, her head looking between them, a bright smile on her face.

She had not felt this excited since before her mother's death and the thought alone caused the smile to die from her face. She bit her lip and then looked at the ground, trying not to cry again.

At least her breathing was less like a kitten's mewl and more just being difficult.

[Windshear]

Windshear nodded dutifully to Twister. He didn’t bow and scrape as much as some of the other drones did, but he knew to show respect where it was due. He submitted the last know coordinates to Twister, as well as the Nemesis’s current bearing, so she would be able to determine where it was currently drifting. “I don’t hafta be back until later this afternoon, but if you want a guide, I’ll take you there.”

It was about this time that Maddie requested a bit of mercy for her poor eardrums, and Windshear nodded, making an effort to be quieter. “O’ course,” his deep voice was much smoother when he spoke softly, and decidedly more pleasant to listen to. He could have made a living narrating movie trailers. He returned his attention to Twister. “I dunno, it’s a little human, I guess. I found it.” A pause. “Her. She was makin’ a weird noise.” This seemed like enough of an explanation for Twister, at least in his mind.

He was then peppered with questions by Madeline, and he gave a low, rumbling chuckle. “You talk a lot, little’un. The Nemesis is where we live. I ain’t gonna tell you too much about it. Kind of a secret.”

[Twister & Blackfire]

she had to admit, she was a bit flattered by being called 'superior', but she decided to leave it be. "That would be nice, Windshear. I'll hold you to that..." she paused and focused her attention on Maddie again. "How interesting...Earth has some very unique species, I heard. Nice to meet you too, Maddie." Twister asked, kneeling down. She was genuinely curious and had a lot of time to herself, so she wasn't set on leaving just yet now that these two were around. They held her attention pretty quickly. Her rotor blades twitched as they settled behind her back like fan blades, sort of like how a bird ruffled its wings after preening itself.

What noise could she have been making that made Windshear curious enough to find her?

[Madeline Flynn-Morgan]

Maddie visibly relaxed when his voice lowered and she seemed to almost be very happy with the fact that Shear was no longer bellowing at her. She rubbed her ears one last time and then smiled again. "Mama said I was more curious then a kitten! However, she then used to warn me about 'curiosity killed the cat', which is this saying, and you only answered one of my questions," she responded, though not as cheerfully as before.

She looked at Twister and smiled. "It is nice to meet you too, Miss Superior Twister," she answered politely and scuffed her foot against the ground slightly.

"And I'm not really sure what weird sound Mr. Shear is talking about. 'Cause, earlier, I was crying, but I also have asthma, which is the inflammation of the lungs, and that was acting up, so I kind-of sound like a kitten mewling when attacks come. Of course, other times, it just hurts to breathe," she explained, eyes flicking between the two.

[Windshear]

“Kittens,” Windshear rumbled. “Uh, I think I know what that is. They live in the ocean, right?” Earth life was not his strong suit, obviously. He wasn't particularly interested in Earth, either. When an oddity presented itself to Windshear, he would often investigate, but he did not possess the same intellectually hungry minds as some of his comrades. Earth, to Windshear, was just their current stop; after all, he had lived for quite a long time, especially compared to other drones, and he had only spent a tiny fraction of his life on Earth. He then listened patiently to Madeline attempt to explain asthma to him. Lungs. That was a human bit, he knew, but he wasn’t sure which, though it was probably important. Oh, wait, breathe? “So like, your vents, then. It’s like your vents are clogged.”

The enormous drone tilted his head. “So… you’re sick? You should go see a medic. Get your ve--get your lungs cleaned out.” A pause. “Can they do that? Humans, I mean.” Clearly, there was a lot about human anatomy that escaped Windshear.

[Twister & Blackfire]

Twister didn't know much more than Windshear. "I've never seen any of the animals here. Obviously. Kittens..." Twister pauses to look what they are up online by hacking into a local network and projects a holographic animation of one. "That's a kitten. A land animal. Apparently they hate water. They look rather...cute." Twister thought Maddie looked cute as well, for an itty bity human.

"So are lungs kind of like vents? Or is that a bad analogy?" Twister asked Maddie.