Tales of the Intermezzo - PsyOp A Transformers Universe Story copyright 2007 by Dave Van Domelen based on properties owned by Hasbro =========================================================================== "intermezzo - n. A brief entertainment between two acts of a play." - American Heritage Dictionary "SKYWARP!" Cliffjumper shouted as he pulled out his backup pistol and fired a laser barrage into the setting Sun. There was a sharp crack as his beams struck home. "That no Decepticon, that rock shape!" Grimlock chided tha smaller Autobot. "See?" Adjusting his optics to better compensate for the glare, Cliffjumper looked more closely. There was no Decepticon threat, merely a jumble of stone atop the mesa. "Slag," he sighed. "And Autobot City is safe from another geological feature," Mirage chuckled. "Come a little closer to my *fist* and say that!" Cliffjumper tossed his pistol aside and moved towards the Autobot saboteur. "Calm down, everyone," Ultra Magnus ordered as he stepped out onto the section of wall where the little drama was unfolding. "We're all a little jumpy, there's no need to take it out on Mirage." "Besides, it *could've* been Skywarp," Cliffjumper retorted defensively, lowering his fists a little. "They say he's gotten upgraded, and can teleport now. For real. Maybe he ported out just as I fired!" "No one has that ability," Mirage snorted. "Skywarp's just an ace at misdirection. He puts the deception in Decepticon. Even with the edge my electro-disruptor gives me, I'm only a little better than he is in that department," he admitted, with about as much modesty as he ever displayed. "Skywarp good at making Autobots jump at shadows," Grimlock snorted. "Jump at shadow easier than fight Decepticons, too. Ugly Monkeypuss need to let Autobots out and fight Decepticons before Autobots go bonkers!" Ultra Magnus sighed. "Do we need to have another sparring match, Grimlock?" "Hh. Me Grimlock know Altered Mugmess know HOW fight. Just not WHEN fight." "Fine. Fine. Whatever. Just try to avoid killing each other for the next few clicks, all right? I have to go make my report to Optimus Prime, and I'd rather not tell him we have casualties that the Decepticons had nothing to do with." As he turned to leave, Ultra Magnus thought he could hear Cliffjumper whisper something about "Knockoffiums Prime", but he ignored it. He didn't have time to deal with that right now. * * * * "I'm afraid that the siege mentality is setting in, Prime. My men are snapping at each other, shooting at shadows...and I'm sure some of those shadows were put there by the Decepticons. Just today, Cliffjumper wasted energy shooting at a rock formation that looked vaguely like Skywarp, but scanlogs show that the formation wasn't even there yesterday. Back when the Decepticons were launching regular overt attacks, at least they got to take out their anxiety on live targets, but now...." "Easy, old friend," Prime's face on the viewscreen said. "We knew this would happen going in. The whole point of building Autobot City was to give the Decepticons a focus for their aggressions that's far from any human habitation, while also giving you the force multiplier of fixed defenses to let you tie down a large portion of *their* resources. But a siege is an inevitable part of that process." "I just don't think I'm the Autobot for the job, Prime. I don't inspire the men like you do. Oh, I expect backtalk from Grimlock, he'd mouth off to a black hole. But I'm not just hearing *about* things going on behind my back, they're starting to mutter about me like I'm not there while I'm still in audio range." "Magnus, I picked you because you're level-headed and clear-thinking. And you're a better leader than you give yourself credit for. Trust me, by this point in a siege operation, the men would be sniping at me too." "Not as much, though, I'd wager. And I'm still sore from that demonstration several days ago where I showed Grimlock I could whup his tail in unarmed combat. Things quieted down for a little after that, but it's all back. Damn, I wish Megatron had sent someone else to handle the investment of Earth. Starscream would be too busy scheming to be a real problem, and Soundwave would just be cold and methodical about it. I miss the old 'dumb as a box of impact wrenches' Skywarp...this new side he's showing is a royal pain in my rectifiers." Prime chuckled. "Unfortunately, he's never been that stupid, he just wanted us to think so, so we'd underestimate him. Remember when he used to do that weird aerial backflip and claim he was teleporting?" Ultra Magnus smirked. "I suppose you're right. He schemes just as much as Starscream, he's just better at it. But now he's putting that fiendish mind of his to the job of making our lives miserable, and he's doing a damned good job of it." "Well, you could try beating him at his own game," Prime suggested. "He has you attacking shadows, try casting some of your own. You may not be as twisted in your thinking as he is..." "I'll take that as a compliment, I think." "Indeed. But, as I was saying, you're just as clever as he is, in your way. When you stop beating yourself up over how you should have been twice as smart and three times as inspiring, you come through." Ultra Magnus pondered this. Praise from Optimus Prime wasn't exactly rare, in his case. Half the time, he was sure Prime was just trying to save his feelings, given all the trouble Ultra Magnus got for being seen as a poor copy of Prime himself. But this one was sincere, he could tell. "I do think I have an idea, actually. And it'll let me make use of one of my troublemakers. Thank you, Optimus Prime...signing off now, I have some arrangements to make." "Good to hear," Prime replied, a smile in his tone. "I'll talk to you later, let me know how it goes." "Will do," Ultra Magnus closed the channel to Cybertron, and turned to the local comm. "Cliffjumper, could you report to the medbay? I have an assignment for you." * * * * "We got Autobots incoming," Hightower reported from his position at the monitoring station. The Decepticon's main siege base was just over the horizon from Autobot City, straddling the main section of human-built roadway in the area and choking off attempts by the fleshy allies of the Autobots to send any supplies. Granted, with the capabilities of the enemy, it wasn't a true choking-off, as they could sneak in and out pretty much at will, but it made things uncomfortable. "Identities?" Skywarp asked from the command chair. "Ultra Magnus in the lead, with Grimlock, a blur I'm pretty sure is Mirage, that punk Rodimus, Knockdown, Terrorsaur, Strongarm, Firebot and... Bumblebee. Almost all of their combat effectives. Must only be a skeleton crew still in the city to man the defenses." "It's unusual to have both Mirage and Bumblebee participate in a frontal assault on our position. Keep a very close eye on both of them, I expect at least one if not both will peel off in the chaos of the battle and attempt to infiltrate our command center. The actual assault is almost definitely a diversion, unless my psychological warfare has driven them so mad that Ultra Magnus has been forced to launch this solely as a means to avoid mutiny." "Right, sir. Bonecrusher, Long Haul, Scavenger, come on," Hightower ordered. "We have some Autobots to smash." Scavenger made as if to protest the usurpation of his leadership role, then sighed and followed. Skywarp concealed a scowl...Devastator was the most potent single weapon in his arsenal, but it was rotten at its core. Scavenger either needed to learn to assert himself, or he needed to be replaced. Skywarp already had a short list of possible candidates in mind, but he was giving the Constructicon leader one more chance to prove himself before asking Megatron to send one of those replacements...and a cleanup crew for what would be left of Scavenger. "Ramjet," Skywarp turned to his dimwitted second. "You are to make sure that Bumblebee doesn't use that jetpack of his to escape the fight. You are free to select any other targets you like, but make sure you watch Bumblebee. If you see anything yellow in the air, hit it with your head VERY HARD." "I can do that," Ramjet smiled. Know the strengths of even your weakest tool and it will serve you well, Skywarp reflected. He was pretty sure that Ramjet wasn't emulating his own early career, Ramjet really was fairly dense. But sometimes a blunt instrument was the right tool for the job. A hammer was just fine if you just wanted to nail something. * * * * The moment Ramjet had been watching for finally happened. That puny little yellow Autobot was trying to take off using his stupid jetpack. He disengaged from his strafing run, pausing mentally to take a moment to appreciate the beauty of the explosions he'd sown like crimson flowers in the desert. And people called him crude and unartistic! Jerks. "Where you goin', bug?" Ramjet sneered as he arrowed towards Bumblebee. The little twerp was nimble, had to give 'im that, and the first pass ended in a distinct lack of a satisfying crunch on Ramjet's nosecone. "None of your business!" Bumblebee retorted, firing a small laser pistol that barely singed Ramjet's wingtip. "Go bother someone else!" Something was nagging at the back of Ramjet's processor as he wheeled around for another pass, but he couldn't quite make the connection. Mentally, he shrugged and tried again. WHUMP! Not right, Ramjet realized in sudden horror. The impact had been on his wing, not his nose. And the damn Autobot was hanging onto him, not spiraling to the ground like he should've been! "Get off!" Ramjet shouted. "Not until I get my complimentary beverage!" Bumblebee shouted, driving a fist into Ramjet's fuselage. Armor dented. "OW!" Ramjet cried out. What was going on? This was totally wrong... he finally realized what had been nagging at him. Bumblebee was never this aggressive. Not a coward, not really, but more of a sneaky guy than a scrapper. "What's wrong with you, anyway?" he asked, rolling sharply in an unsuccessful attempt to shake the small yellow Autobot. "DECEPTICONS, WITHDRAW TO BASE!" came an urgent order over Ramjet's comm. Skywarp seemed both really angry and kinda scared. That's when he noticed the huge plume of smoke and fire rising from the Decepticon base. "What's that?" Ramjet asked aloud, momentarily forgetting about his passenger. "As the humans say, the real Bumblebee's in ur base, killin ur doodz!" the fake Bumblebee laughed, before kicking Ramjet in the left intake and leaping off. * * * * Cliffjumper finished applying the last of the silver flames and set the airbrush down. "That'll do," he nodded. "Not gonna get your old body back?" Bumblebee asked as he walked into the room. "Nah. Body swaps hurt like hell. Maybe I'll get the helmet tweaked, but I think I'll just wait until I need major repairs or Magnus wants me to go undercover as someone else," he smirked. "Good job in there. I especially liked the bit with the exploding recharger. And the look on Skywarp's face? Priceless." "Too bad Ramjet's face wasn't visible when he figured out why 'wimpy little Bumblebee' was kicking the glitch outta him," Bumblebee smirked. "So, you don't mind looking like me?" "Dude, the difference between you and me is I make this look GOOD," Cliffjumper preened. ============================================================================== Author's Note: There's a lot of influences on this one. David Willis's comment on the Skywarp Classic toy, Fulcrum's Cybertronian Enquirer installment, my own bio notes for Skywarp and Ultra Magnus (see my review of the Battle for Autobot City at http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Classic/VoyagerAC - might not be complete yet if you're reading this story the day it first goes up), the "does anyone write fanfic anymore?" thread on the AllSpark and probably others I'm forgetting. Oh, and Men in Black for that last line. :) Strictly speaking, this isn't a "true" Intermezzo in that there's no canon Classic fiction to bridge the gaps in or before/after, but then again, the entire Classics *line* is an intermezzo between Cybertron and the movie. :) If the title confuses you, a "PsyOp" is short for psychological operation, something where the goal is to mess with the enemy's head. This can be anything from propaganda to blasting "Ride of the Valkyries" out of your gunship to setting up Skywarp-shaped rocks outside Autobot City.