Victor Drath sipped at his coffee idly, smirking as he read the paper. The brat had made front-page news: AMBASSADOR'S SON RETURNED HOME SAFELY. He glances at the picture-window, where his new female assistant is standing in the sunlight, smiling, waiting for orders.

"Says here the child was kidnapped and smuggled into slavery," he says, smirking at her. "And was returned home safely, making a full recovery at the hospital. I do love happy endings, don't you?"

She folds her hands, widening her smile. "I think it's wonderful!"

Drath frowned. She missed the point completely. "Ophelia, this is the child I told you about." Another blank look. There were times he did miss Michelle. "The son of our... guest."

"Oh!" Ophelia nods. "Mister Witwicky's son. Yes, there is a likeness, isn't there?" She looks over at the paper again, her eyes widening. "Hey! Mister Witwicky is in the photo, too!" She giggles a bit. The photo is of Spike, Carly and Daniel leaving the hospital, trying to avoid the press. The kid still looked rather sickly, but seemed able to walk all right on with his parents' aid. "That does explain a lot, doesn't it?"

Drath sighs. "I have an extra copy of today's paper, Ophelia." He hands her the rolled-up paper. "Take this to him with his breakfast."

Ophelia accepts the paper, nodding, and giving a little curtsey. "I will, Mister Dra-- I mean, Mister Gibley."

After she leaves, Drath looks back down at his paper. "The general public questions his recklessness as both a parent and ambassador..." he reads aloud, "for allowing his son to be kidnapped, and then shirking his duties irresponsibly. The Ambassador responded to these--" he stops at that, smirking. "Of course he responded. Of course..." He chuckled.

((Hold up, guys -- Ophelia's going to reply real quick.))

Damn it, damn it, damn it!

Drath grips the armrest of the car tightly. "How many of them are out there?"

"We're surrounded, boss," The chauffeur mutters, "I... I think maybe if we turn ourselves over, maybe they'll--"

"Shut up and drive. Lose them."

Michelle scowls, looking over at him. "This was a bad idea from the start. I told you, right from the beginning. The Ambassador wouldn't--"

Victor smacks her across the face before she can finish. "It's too late for that. Be quiet, we'll be fine." He looks back to the driver. "Keep going. We can--"

"Stop the car!" Michelle interjects.

"Be quiet, Michelle! Get to the eastern tunnel entrance, from there we can--"

"Let me out!" The woman snarls, "I refuse to be a part of your insanity any more, Drath! Stop the car!

Drath's scowl turns to the rearview mirror, where he meets his minion's eyes. "Snively, don't you dare--"

But the car already jerks to a stop, thrusting its three passengers forward, straining their seatbelts and threatening to snap their neck in two. The tires squeal and the car swerves, and the world outside the windows is nothing more than a blur. When the chaos subsides the driver steps out, arms raised, and Michelle follows suit.

Drath feels a sharp pain in his chest as he realizes there is no way out.

((Yeah, feel free to catch him now. The tapes are in the trunk.))

Drath sighs in relief, leaning against a nearby wall. The distraction seems to have worked -- the invisible Decepticon seems to have nabbed the bait and followed Galvatron. "Wonderful. Now, all the rest of the human prisoners -- all them, including and especially Daniel..." He turns to one of his men. "Did you find the boy?"

"Yeah, he was hidin' in the ceiling. Saw him layin' on the ground with a bunch of broken pieces o' de ceiling, looked like he fell."

Drath frowns. "Was he injured?"

"Dun think so. Just a bump on the head. Out like a light."

"Good. All of the human prisoners, get them up to the hangar, onto a shuttle, and off to somewhere they'll make me richer. Understood?"

"Yeah, boss."

---

As Drath watches the last slave-shuttle leave, containing Daniel, Soundwave, Cardoom, Rumble, and Frenzy, he is just making some final emergency security commands. "Michelle, come on. We're getting out of here." He finally says, standing up and wrapping his coat around his shoulders. "Take ground transportation for now. We can get to an airport from there and head wherever. Right now, we just need to get out of here."

"Are we taking the Decepticon animals with us?"

"Of course we are," he snaps, "I'll find a use for them. Now hurry up. In a few hours, there's going to be an... 'accidental' fuel leak, resulting in a very tragic explosion." He smiles. "There will be nothing left. Now come on."

Drath, though he may not know the proper terminology for it, is well aware that he is in deep, deep slag.

His surveillance -- now extremely limited, due to the fact that they were on to him and took many, many precautions -- shows they already figured out both the human-thing and the slave trade thing. Already. He had vaguely wondered if they would find a clue he'd lost, but never expected it this soon.

Now he had to think on the spot. And soon, because one of the Decepticons was (impossibly!) missed by the synthoid technology, and of course it had to be the one that could walk though walls and turn invisible. Things do not bode well four our villian.

In the confusion, he grabs a random henchman by the collar and yanks the poor soul into his office. "We need a distraction," he says simply. "Something to get that thing out of my warehouse."

"W-well, maybe we can find someone dat knows 'bout excorcizin ghosts, and--"

"It's not a ghost, you fool!" Drath spits, "it's a Decepticon. And I want it gone." He frowns a moment, finalizing the plan that is forming in his mind. "Split the troops. He's a Decepticon, and Galvatron's their leader. He'd go for Galvatron first." Damn it, which one was Galvatron again? "All the humans with horns, put on a shuttle. Tie them up, and put it on autopilot." He smiles. "Aim it for some asteroid. They'll scramble to rescue it."

"Only da horned ones, boss?"

Drath nods. "Those, I believe, are the higher-ranking ones. That will draw their attention away long enough. Do it."

"They's really creepin' me out."

A group of men are carting the humanised Decepticons down a hallway.

"I know whatcha' mean. They look like demons or somethin. Just get em in the cell and let's get out of here."

They all nod in agreement. The only one without a load punches a code on the keypad and a door slides open, revealing a large prison cell with a tiny boy shivering in the corner.

The warehouse sits as inconspicuously as it did before -- except the damages taken from the Autobots' attack still haven't been fixed. There are still telltale signs of their passage through: broken doors, banged-up walls, scorch marks from lasers and such. It would be easy to follow in their footsteps should anyone, say... a Decepticon warlord, want to track them down.

And the end of the trail, in a cell, lies the bodies for five Autobots, cold and lifeless.

((I gotta go to class, you can have them run though and pass/kill some guards and things if you want.))

The car speeds quietly down the road. It is very early in the morning. Central City is just on the horizon, but hours will pass before the sun's first rays will touch that city.

Inside the sleek, black car there is only a handful of people -- some simply nameless yes-men to Victor Drath, one of them the Earth Ambassador to Cybertron. Spike is bound at the wrists and ankles, unconscious.

As the car enters city limits it simply cruises for a while, combing the city to make sure no witnesses will be around. Finally, when it decides it's reached a safe spot, it slows to a stop. Spike is carried out quickly, roughly dumped at the corner of some unimportant building, still bound. The car drives away, not caring what happens to him at this point.

Time passes, no one will ever know for sure how much, but the sun still hasn't risen yet when a police car spots the man from a distance. Stopping at the side of the road, two officers quickly step out to check him over. One kneels beside him, then turns to his partner. "Can you get me a DNA check?"

The other nods, holding up a tiny scanner and placing it over Spike's neck for a moment. He pulls it back and inspects the readout. "Damn," he mumbles, "Spike Witwicky. That Autobot guy."

"The Ambassador?" The other questions, "What the hell's he doin' out here?"

"Hang on, you might get to ask him." He shines his flashlight on Spike's face. "I think he's wakin' up."


((Yarr, gotta go to work now. Ravyn, consider the policemen NPCs. I bestow upon ye control, do what you want with them to get Spike from point A to point B. Will be back at 9ish.))

The loud booming of the shuttle's takeoff is muffled by the thick layers of metal and insulation surrounding their new cell. Through it, the sound is little more than a soft rumble, and may even lull them into a deeper sleep instead of waking them.

They are bound to the wall the old-fachioned way: chains and manacles. They are chained around the cell, spaced so if they stretch and reach as far as they can, one may be able to blow air on another if they have strong enough lungs. The room is almost pitch-black, but there is the soft glow of some machinery around them.

There is no indication that they are in space, unless one of them coughcoughperceptor could recognize the inside of a human-made spacecraft. They may even notice the fake pull and light feeling of the artificial gravity.

Drath watches with mild amusement as two of his men bring Daniel into the room. The boy's fighting spirit had dwindled somewhat -- though how much of it was probaby drugs Drath didn't have to guess. "Comfortable?"

Daniel scowls up at him.

Drath only smirks as one of the minions presses down on Daniel's shoulder and forces him down into a chair. Daniel complies easily, looking too tired to really try and fight that part.

Drath whirls, motioning toward the wall -- which flickers suddenly, and upon it appears a clear television image of Spike, unconscious, on a cot in a cell.

"Dad!" Daniel cries suddenly, struggling to get up against the guards' grip. "Let him go, I'm the one you want, remember?!"

The mobster doesn't reply, strolling out of the room rather cooly and securing the door behind him. Nearby, at his desk, he watches the Ambassador from a wall of security monitors as he begins to arrive back into the waking world.

Somewhere in the depths of the warehouse's corridors, within a cell not unlike that where the trap had been laid, five cots are set up. Unpon each is a human, sprawled upon each bed like they'd simply been dumped there.

In the corner of the cell is a tiny table, upon which five bowls of... some gloopy, possibly edible substance and five cups or water have been placed.

One by one, the humans awaken.

Somewhere in the deserts is a storage facility -- perhaps military-ish to the passer-by, but truly nothing of the sort. It's owned by Victor Drath, but no one could accuse him of such. He has quite a list of fake identities under which he conducts his business, and ownership of this and the lands around it falls under that category.

While it may look like a simple one- or two-story warehouse from the outside, underneath is a... bunker isn't quite the word. A labrynth, perhaps -- twists and turns of hallways extending for stories underground, with living areas and store rooms and prison cells -- one of which contains young Daniel Witwicky, if anyone thinks to look for him there.

In another room -- a well-furnished study, it looks like -- Victor Drath sits patiently at his desk, a wall of security cameras mounted before him. He takes a sip of some alcoholic substance before one of his men comes into the room.

"Y'gave me th' wrong drug," the lacky tells him. "The kid's wakin' up."

Drath turns to him, unamused. "No mistakes have been made, Dutch. It was a sedative. Give him another dosage in a few minutes."

Dutch blinks. "I thought you said you were gonna off th' brat."

"If I were to kill the boy, that would leave me with a body to hide, and short one bargaining chip." He takes another sip of the brandy. "I may still have a use for him yet. And if not, there are still profits to be made in other areas. No, I do believe I'll keep him alive."

"Yes, sir, mist'r Drath."

"And do make sure the area is properly cleaned up," Drath adds as his minion turns to leave. "We have guests coming, after all."

He chuckles.

Michelle grips the tray tightly and frowns as today's henchman -- what was his name, Dutch, Butch, something like that? -- fumbles with the security codes on the doorway.

"Can't you do anything right?" she snaps, balancing the tray of food on one arm and punching in the code with her now free hand. The door slides open with ease and she steps through, the lackey following close behind.

The clicks of her heels echo throughout the corridor. The further in she walks, the more the silver of wires and technological genius give way to the dark, heavy cement-walled prison where Drath kept people he didn't like. It reminded her of prison, she decided long ago, and she did not like it down here one bit.

A light flickers overhead as she comes across the correct room. She turns to Dutch. "Can you get it right this time?" she snaps, and he scowls at her, but punches in the correct code this time. The door slides open and she steps inside. The child is curled up on the bed, his back to her.

"Chow time," she tells him simply.

Drath cuts the line off, turning to face the child, and the two men guarding him. "I do believe I have myself a pawn," he announces proudly, staring down Daniel with a cold, toying glare. Indeed, the Ambassador was a good choice from any angle -- he was not only a politician, but arguably one of the most powerful men on Earth. And yet, how easily he crumbled at the thought of losing his son.

"The gold-hearted, heroic types," Drath muses, cupping his hand under Daniel's chin and idly inspecting the boy's face, "are always suckers for children in peril."