Title: Tough Luck
Author: ShadowDemon-Gengar
Character Pairings: Megatron/Maggie; Barricade/Mikaela; Sam/Bumblebee
Genre: Romance/Drama/Humor
Rating: T
Warnings: Profanity; SDG's Bad Humor
Disclaimers: I only own this story and my own characters; nothing Transformers.
Summary: Days were beginning to go back to normal for Sam after he had participated in and, more or less, ended the alien-based war in Mission City. Now he's back in school, dealing with every-day things again: a new girlfriend, a disgruntled best friend, said girlfriend's ex-boyfriend, and having to keep huge secrets (giant alien robot huge).

Yes, everything was back to normal again.

That is . . . until he started experiencing migraines . . .

Recommendation(s):
Page Width: Keep story's width at "3/4"; adjustment settings are at the top-right corner of the site, where the different font styles and sizes are located. "3/4" is the original width that this story was written in.

Light/Dark: This chapter is best read on the light background setting.

Author's Note: A section of this chapter was inspired by payaso25us's fan-made trailer for the second Transformers movie. (If you want to see it, just go into my profile and search for it in the links. It's really cool!)

Also . . . I'm absolutely crying a river on the inside. I can't, for the freaking life of me, write this chapter correctly. I lost inspiration halfway through so I had to force the rest out, and while I hope the future chapters will fair much better, I can't toss this one out because it's more of a Prologue than a chapter, being important because it's telling everyone what's going on and where/when the story is taking place.

Edit: Thank you, soaringphoenix86, for catching my mistakes! I really appreciate it when they're caught 'cause no matter how many times I proofread, there're always those select few . . . (grumbles)

Chapter One: Complicated

He couldn't have been more grateful, being back at Tranquility High School; back to the normality of things: homework, sweaty gym class, monster-in-his-closet Trent DeMarco, being geek-o-rific, sarcastic-social-studies-teacher-who-had-actually-started-the-chain-of-events-that-ended-with-him-basically-saving-the-world Mr. Hosney, failing French class, having a super-hot girlfriend and . . . a disgruntled Miles Lancaster.

"C'mon, bro', it's not that bad!" he implored, trying to convince his blonde, shaggy-haired friend to hear him out . . . or to at least look at him.

They were outside, sitting at a table in the warm sun during their lunch period, but he was ignoring his lunch and his growling stomach, willing to starve the rest of the day if it meant getting his friend to acknowledge him.

Miles shot him a glare, his ham sandwich pausing at his open mouth.

He smiled weakly in response.

"Dude," his hippie-like friend growled, slapping his half-eaten sandwich down on the brown paper bag, and then turned slightly to give him the brunt of his glare, "you ditched me . . . for a hoe."

He frowned, the 'protective boyfriend' in him rising to the defense in spite of his futile attempts to plead for forgiveness. "Miles, Mikaela is my girlfriend and I'd kinda like it if you didn't call her names, especially when I'm right in front of you . . ."

For a second, he thought Miles was going to knock him clean off the bench, what with his eyes narrowing and his jaw visibly clenching.

"Do the words 'best friend' mean anything to you, bro'?" Miles demanded, angrily.

He heaved an impatient sigh, frantically trying to plead his case as he gestured wildly with his hands. "Miles, come on! I mean, seriously! You and I have been friends since the day we were able to take off our diapers and put 'em on each other's head! Why would I abandon you now? I mean, sure . . . I supposed I've been a little unfair to you . . . not returning your calls or coming over . . . or completely ignoring you in class . . . but Mikaela and I have been through a lot this past week! And -"

"Dude, what?" Miles suddenly shouted, forcing him into silence. His friend stared at him in indignant disbelief. "You just started talking to her, like, last Friday! Just how much can you guys know about each other to 'go through' anything?"

He glanced around nervously, noticing that people were starting to look at them curiously. He looked back at Miles, whispering fretfully, "C'mon, man, keep your voice down. People are looking at us."

Miles glared coldly at him, snarling, "Man, don't tell me what to do! You're the one who went an-"

"Um . . . hey, guys."

Startled, he looked up to the see person of their argument staring down at them. Mikaela, tanned and beautiful as ever, looked back and forth between them.

"Uh . . . hey," he murmured, glancing apprehensively at his suddenly quiet friend. If Miles said anything nasty to Mikaela, he would have no choice but to rise to her defense . . . and he prayed to every god out there that it didn't come to that . . .

"So . . . ," Mikaela drew out quietly, and he knew how uncomfortable she was, the tense silence being so awkward. She smiled kindly at Miles who was not looking at her, but was picking at his sandwich. "Mind if I join you two?"

In response, Miles shot a cold look in his direction before quickly gathering up his lunch and getting up from the table, blatantly ignoring Mikaela as he brushed past her and walked back inside the school building.

Feeling a mixture of relief and frustration, he sighed and braced his elbows on the table, burying his face in his hands. He felt Mikaela rub a hand over his back soothingly before taking Miles' vacated seat next to him.

"Sam, this isn't your fault," she said quietly.

He rubbed his face tiredly, his voice muffled in his hands, "Yeah? Well . . . it sure feels like it is."

He then felt small, warm hands wrap around his and gently tug them from his face. He glanced up to stare into his girlfriend's sweet, powder-blue eyes. For a moment, he got caught up in how beautiful Mikaela really was . . .

And then . . . doubt snuck in. Would he still be in this position, with her, if there hadn't been any Autobots or Decepticons?

The thought made his heart drop. Probably not,he thought, grimly.

He gently pried his hands from hers and, gathering up his neglected lunch, got up and quietly walked back inside the school, needing to be alone.

The black, monstrous-sized aircraft carrier waded silently in the middle of the cold, sloshing water of the Laurentian Abyss. Dark clouds smothered the sky above, bringing with it a light, dreary rain and harsh winds, dousing and blowing across the enormous, barren deck.

Standing patiently and broodingly at the edge of Tidalwave's deck, ignoring the cold rain, was the bi-pedal form of the Decepticons' white-on-black Scout. Next to him sat a silent, robotic imitation of a scorpion.

The transformed police cruiser's coal-burning quadoptics peered intensely into the restless sea that was becoming increasingly disgruntled by the approaching force of the storm.

"Deepdive approaches," suddenly thundered the massive ship, the voice so deep that the thick air seemed to quiver with it.

Barricade knelt down, his steel body soaked from the rain as his crimson gaze attempted to penetrate the dark depths to locate the comrade in question.

Suddenly, the water exploded upward, catching the morphed Saleen Mustang by surprise and knocking him backward, drenching him in the cold eruption of water. The small, scorpion-like Decepticon screeched as he, too, was soaked, and he immediately let out a string of angry curses in the form of shrieks and clicks.

"Quiet!" barked Barricade as he tried to right himself, his feet slipping and sliding over the slicked deck.

Grasping the railing, he peered over it and spotted Deepdive, who, like Tidalwave, was wading leisurely and unperturbed in the escalating waves. The blackened storm overhead growled, white-hot lightning striking water and rain coming down in heavy, cold sheets.

The elongated deck of the black submarine split and twisted; gears whirred and shrieked; panels and sheet metal sliced through air and water as they flipped and turned.

And then everything slammed into place once more, this time revealing a different form.

"Open up, ye great, reekin' pile of space barnacles!" Deepdive snarled, his throaty voice penetrating the howling wind as he pounded a fist on the armored warship's side, his non-patched optic glaring ferociously up at Barricade and Scorponok.

There was a metal-scraping-metal shrieking when the lower section of Tidalwave's side split and shifted, creating an opening large enough for the steel watercraft to climb into.

When Barricade spotted the battle-damaged body of his leader as it hefted into the opening, he immediately turned from the edge of the deck and charged for the portal opening that led down into the main deck area, dimly aware of Scorponok following closely behind.

When he made it into the main hanger, he found Deepdive struggling to haul their immobilized leader through the transformed opening, slipping on the floor and cursing avidly.

"Oi!" the submarine Decepticon angrily shouted, spotting him. "Get o'er here an' assist me, ye slaggin' landlubber!"

Barricade scowled, but heeded the order, shouldering the underwater war-tank out of the way and slipping his talon-sharp hands under a massive, chrome-armored arm. Deepdive mimicked him by grasping the opposite arm.

"Heave!"

Unbalanced by the rocking ship and the drenched floor as the growing waves splashed in through the opening, they managed to drag the lifeless form of their leader through the makeshift portal, steel screeching over steel, until they completely pulled him in.

Silence took hold of the room as both Decepticons backed away from the body. While Tidalwave closed the opening, preventing any further water from entering, Deepdive took that moment to speak.

"Now what, ye glitched blackguard?" he growled, his intakes slightly irregular from exertion. "Mind tellin' me wha' ye be plannin' for our glorious, dead leader?"

Barricade scowled, his crimson quadoptics narrowing in agitation and fought the violent urge to smash his fist in his strange-speaking comrade's face. "You fool; we're going to resurrect our 'dead leader'. What'd you think we were going to do? Enact the humans' burial ritual?"

Deepdive blinked his visible optic, speechless for a moment, and then sneered. "And how ye be accomplishin' tha' amazin' feat? Unless ye be Primus in disguise, there be no way o' bringin' him back withou' the Allspark!"

Scorponok shrieked when the bi-pedal police cruiser suddenly surged forward, clenching a talon'd hand around the transformed submarine's neck and shoving him roughly up against a steel wall.

"Wha' – t-the slag?!" choked Deepdive, his crimson optic widening as he struggled under the iron hold of the smaller Decepticon.

The black cruiser bared his sharp dental components in a snarl, his coal-red quadoptics narrowed and bleeding light from rage.

"Don't ever question my intelligence again, slagheap," he growled darkly, his steel claws digging into Deepdive's neck cables and causing him to choke again, his hands wrapping around his arm and desperately trying to pull himself free. "The Allspark is eternal; it's not possible to extinguish it. Its physical form may have been destroyed, but that just means it's taken on another."

"What-t ar-are y-you sayin-ing?" Deepdive gasped, his strange dialect forgotten in his panic as air intake became difficult.

Barricade scowled and suddenly backed off, allowing the bi-pedal submarine to collapse on the floor. Deepdive glared up at him as he brought a hand up to his assaulted neck.

Turning his back on him, the Decepticon police cruiser tilted his head up, shouting, "Take us back to shore!"

"As commanded," exploded the deep voice, the walls vibrating lightly under the thunderous sound.

"Slaggit, Barricade, wha' are ye plannin'?" demanded the transformed submarine, bracing himself against the wall when the massive aircraft carrier suddenly banked in a sharp turnaround.

The Saleen Mustang stood over the motionless form of their leader, staring down into the empty spark chamber that gaped up at him. Scorponok made gentle clicking noises, deeming it safe to move more into the room and stand next to him.

"Answer me!" shouted Deepdive.

The Decepticop glanced coolly over his shoulder, his quadoptics hard with lack of emotion. "That boy – Megatron's murderer; he's the Allspark's new form. And fortunately, I know where he currently lives."