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“Okay. Guys, pep talk time. Huddle up!” Scourge gathered the mechs of the house into a ring in the middle of the kitchen like this was about to be the fight of their lifetimes.
“Alright, Wings, what’s the juice? Gimme the motivation, man! Rile us up!” Whirl egged him on. Scourge licked his lips in anticipation, and prepared to rouse the masses.
“Alright. It’s one cake, against the four of us. We can do this. Just one energon pastry for Rodimus’s reunion party, right? Shouldn’t be so hard. We have this thing outnumbered four-to-one!” He said. “Guys, we’re gonna make this fraggin’ cake, and it’s gonna be AMAZING!”
“YEAH! That’s what we’re on about!” Whirl cheered, the speech a smashing success. “We’re gonna make the FRAG outta that cake!”
“Yeah! We’re gonna absolutely smash it! Knock it out of the park!” Tailgate chimed in. The other three mechs gave him a weird look. “Okay, maybe not literally, but what Whirl said!”
“Despite the fact that none of us have made a cake before.” Cyclonus added helpfully. “Much less prepared energon in a non-explosive, lethal way.”
“Well, way to be a downer, Cyclonus! Don’t rain on our parade!” Whirl smacked him upside the head, catching him in the jaw. “Come on. What’s the worst that could happen? It’s a cake, for Primus’s sake!”
Cyclonus, caught off-guard by Whirl’s playful smack, staggered back a step in surprise, where he hit the counter and his hand instinctively reached back to brace himself. Unfortunately, that was exactly where Tailgate had put the energon cartons, and with a snap of the servo, the contents of all three toppled and spilled all over the counter and floor.
All four mechs stared at the pre-emptive mess almost dumbfounded.
“Well, don’t answer that question yet.” Tailgate sighed. “I don’t want to think about the outcomes.”
—
A string of cuss words left Whirl’s vocalizer as the stove caught fire. Again.
“MovemovemoveMOVE!!!!” The ex-wrecker sprinted across the kitchen, flaming pan in hand, nearly setting fire to Scourge’s wings as the mech squinted over the recipe.
“Okay, that’s the last straw! How the hell do you mess up a reduction THAT BAD?” Scourge asked. “Cyclonus, you’re on stove duty now! Whirl, just- dude, just leave it. Let it burn out. We have other pans in the cabinet- yeah, no, that one’s ruined.”
“Wait, how much of this stuff was I supposed to powder?” Tailgate asked, smashing the spoon against the bottom of the bowl, crushing the silicon chunks inside into a fine dust. “Four was correct, right?”
“Powder? The recipe called for… a ‘light crumble’ of coarse silicon chunks. Did it not?” Cyclonus chimed in, rifling around in the cabinet for another pan. Scourge walked over to inspect both recipe and bowl. The recipe said ‘light crumble’. And yup, Tailgate had practically atomized his silicon.
“Tailgate! That is not coarse chunks???”
“I’m sorry! I just kind of zoned out watching Whirl frag up the energon!”
“Hey, did anybody turn off the stove, by the way?” Whirl peeked his head back into the kitchen.
Apparently not, as the stove burners flared up and nearly singed Cyclonus’s backside off, all four mechs nearly jumping out of their frames in alarm.
—
“Okay, I’m going to pour this in slowly. You shall mix, and indicate when I should pour more.” Cyclonus instructed. Tailgate nodded, big spoon in hand, as the other two watched intently.
“Okay, go!” Cyclonus heeded Tailgate’s command and started to pour the contents of the pan into the bowl. Hot, syrupy energon tipped over the lip, and… it followed the edge of the pan instead of falling straight down, missing the bowl entirely.
In the next two seconds, three things happened. First, Cyclonus swore under his breath, quickly course-correcting, but half of the pan’s contents had already missed the bowl.
“NO!!!” Whirl’s eye dilated in alarm, watching their last half-hour’s worth of effort go down the drain, as he then quickly pushed the bowl to catch the dripping energon- just as Cyclonus moved his pan forwards to compensate. Hot energon finally tipped over the pan edge properly, and dropped straight onto Whirl’s rotors as the heli howled in pain.
“Oh Primus, oh no! Cyclonus, what have you done?!” Tailgate freaked out, smacking the pan from Cyclonus’s hands. Hot energon- and the pan- flew right into the kitchen wall as the minibot clutched his fist in pain from where he had struck burning-hot metal.
“No, don’t- why would you punch it?! You absolute fools, all of you!” Scourge gawked, watching as the disaster unfolded right before his optics. It wasn’t even an hour in and there was already one casualty. He grabbed the pan from its place against the wall and had half a mind to smack Cyclonus with it until he noticed the fist-shaped mark in the bottom where Tailgate had hit it. They were one reduction down again and now they needed another pan. “We’re never getting anywhere with this… you pathetic, miserable lot!”
“No need for insults, Scourge.” Cyclonus tried to calm him. “I shall take better care not to… pour hot energon so poorly next time. Whirl, are you alright? Are the burns serious?”
“Like there’ll be a next time! I’ll take care of pouring from now on!” This time, Scourge actually did hit him with the busted pan, which was a very bad idea. Hot energon was splattered everywhere- on the walls, on all four of the mechs now, and the only place it wasn’t was in the bowl.
In the back, Tailgate was running for a first-aid kit, while Whirl was still howling on the floor.
—
Apparently, a four-versus-one in their favor was not going to help them make this cake. Mainly because most of them had no idea what any of the baking terms were.
“What’s an… emulsion? Is that even a real word?” Tailgate squinted at the recipe. They had slogged through the first three steps, but the going was slow and the others were getting antsy.
“Sure it is. It’s what I used to do to ‘Cons back in my Wrecker days.” Whirl said helpfully, busting open another cube of energon. “No offense.”
“Why’d you look at us?” Scourge asked. Whirl snickered and refused to answer.
“Hm. This ‘emulsion’ requires a whisk.” Cyclonus said, pouring oil into a bowl as he read the recipe. “... What is a whisk?”
“Uh.”
“Um.”
Tailgate stared at all three of his co-bakers in disbelief. “Do none of you know what a WHISK is? None of you have spent any time with Swerve? At all?”
Scourge stared at him. “No offense, but we’re not short, insufferably talkative, and easily distracted by Earthen culture.”
That joke seemed to tick Tailgate off.
“That’s it! I’ve had it with you!” Tailgate leapt at Scourge in one angry blue blur and tackled him to the ground, letting loose a beatdown of slaps against the mech’s sorry face. “When I’m done with you, your face is gonna be an emulsion!”
“Tailgate!” Cyclonus lunged forth to pry the minibot off of his friend, before an extremely amused ex-Wrecker got between them, cackling in amusement.
“No, no, let him have it!” Whirl howled in laughter. “Fight, fight, fight, fight!”
It took all the will that Cyclonus had to not start his own fight with Whirl as he shouldered the mech off of him and ran to Scourge’s aid.
—
“So, the recipe calls for two shots of triple-filtered engex.” Whirl said, holding the recipe sheet. “Do ya think that’s enough to salvage this abomination we’ve made?”
Tailgate gazed into the gloopy mixture that they had managed to procure, which looked more like the remains of a scraplet attack than it did cake batter. “Not enough. Try four shots instead.”
“Frankly, I do not believe it matters. The engex is there solely for taste.” Cyclonus said. “We’ve deviated far enough from the recipe that it wouldn’t hurt it any more than it is ruined.”
“Though, it is a waste of good engex.” Scourge replied, bringing out a bottle of their finer intoxicant from the pantry. “Leave it to me. I’m an expert at ‘winging’ things.”
“Hah! I see what you did there!” Tailgate laughed as Scourge popped the bottle open, intent on tilting it into the mixture. “Good pun. Hey, those bottles do have the stoppers in them, right?”
Sploosh. Tailgate’s question was answered by the sound of half an astro-liter of engex being poured into the bowl- and the others turned in horror to see that their batter had now been turned to a thin engex soup.
“Well. As the gods say, I’m gonna need more engex for this.” Scourge said, his optic twitching as the others shot him a nasty glare. He flipped the bottle upright to check that there was still some left within before he turned it to his lips and chugged the rest of the bottle.
—
Against all odds, it was still daylight when the disaster brigade of bakers was able to recoup their early day losses and make it back to where they’d been, pre-engex disaster. But now, they were about to face another setback- a lack of ingredients.
“We’ve got the proper amount of engex in the mixture now.” Cyclonus said, throwing Scourge a stink-eye as he scanned the recipe. “Next, we need- half an astrokilo of sodium. Sodium- do we even have such an ingredient?”
“Beats me- I don’t eat that stuff.” Scourge shrugged, sitting on the counter downing a(nother) bottle of engex. “Certainly don’t buy it at the depot, either.”
“Eh, we got a block of cesium in the back of the ol’ box.” Whirl plunked a block of metal on the counter. “That’ll have to do, right? Similar stuff?”
“Similar compound, at least. Nobody’s gonna notice if we switch a few things around- probably.” Tailgate said. “I mean, I sure can’t tell!”
“That’s probably ‘cuz you can’t taste with that mouth of yours.”
“What, do you wanna be eating through a straw too?” Tailgate shot back, as Cyclonus cut the cesium accordingly and dropped it in the mixture whole.
“The way this pastry’s going, I’m pretty sure we’re going to have to eat it with a straw.” Scourge said, most of the way through his bottle, tilted over the counter. He squinted at the batter, to which Cyclonus was trying to beat the block of cesium into the mushy amalgamation with a spoon. “Unless we don’t get that block mixed into the batter. Need some help, Cyc?”
“Ah- it would be appreciated.” Cyclonus mumbled. “I do not think it was meant to go in whole.”
“Some warrior you are- all those bajillion years of fighting and you can’t even mush a block of cesium in a cake?” Whirl jeered, beating Scourge to the chase. “Man, I really gotta do everything around here- gimme!”
He grabbed the bowl and spoon from the jet, raising the spoon over his head, like a blacksmith wielding his hammer. “Watch and learn, puny disciples, as I demonstrate the power of a Wrecker!”
By the time he was finished mashing, there would be more batter on the walls than in the bowl itself. Again.
—
“We’re out of time. We’re running completely out of time, this thing is never gonna bake!” Tailgate pressed his face against the oven door, staring at their train-wreck of a cake inside. They’d managed to make it this far, procuring something remotely edible after the umpteenth try, and yet they faced one more obstacle- they were out of time. Rodimus’s reunion party was in two hours, and they still needed to travel across half the polity for it. And the cake would take three hours to cook.
“Well, if someone had remembered to preheat the oven, maybe we wouldn’t be in this mess?” Whirl needled, lying on the floor in a pool of engex.
“Well, excuse me for overlooking that when our kitchen nearly caught fire four times.” Scourge whined back, drowning his sorrows in (more) engex of his own. “Not the worst thing I could’ve done. I could’ve melted through six pans in the span of three hours like you did.”
“Shut up.”
“Say, why does it take so long for ovens to preheat, anyway? Why couldn’t we just ratchet up the temperature in there super fast… wait. Why are we even baking this thing at the lowest temperature anyways? It’ll take forever to cook!” Tailgate said. “Wouldn’t it bake faster if we just set the temperature higher?”
That seemed to give the others ideas.
“Wait, Tailgate- you’re a genius.” Scourge said. “If the cake takes three hours to bake at 600 degrees…”
“Then it should bake in one hour at 1800!” Whirl chimed in.
“You know, there’s a likely reason why the temperature is as specified on the recipe…” Cyclonus said, sweeping the remains of their cake carnage into the dump as the two other fliers sat up in excitement.
“We’re on a time crunch, here, Cyclonus, we have to cut corners.” Whirl said. “Some of you may die but that’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.”
“Yeah, and why stop there? Our oven’s great! We could turn it up higher!” Tailgate exclaimed. “Half an hour at 3600!”
“Wait, that’s not how temperatures-”
“One minute at one-hundred-thousand!”
Cyclonus’s life- and savings account- flashed before his optics. He dove between the oncoming horde of lunatics that he lived with and turned the oven off immediately.
“Cyclonus!”
“I paid too much for this house to see it burned down in one afternoon. None of you are touching the oven.”
“But the cake?” Tailgate gestured. “It won’t bake in time for the reunion. We have to-”
“Then listen to me- I have another plan.” The warrior sighed, standing over the kitchen carnage. “All of you, help me clean this place up. And I’ll handle this fiasco myself…”
–
“Wow, thanks for coming all this way, fellas!” Rodimus grinned, waving the party of four in. “Man, has it been a while since I last seen ya- hey, you brought a cake?”
The orange speedster’s face turned from nostalgia to delight upon seeing the pastry in Cyclonus’s hands, nicely-iced and sprinkled with bismuth flakes all across the top. “Oh, Cyclonus, you guys didn’t have to! I mean, I’m not complaining- that cake looks incredible.”
He gestured them over to the concessions table, which was across the launch field and stocked to the brim with goodies. “You can set the cake over there! I’m sure folks’ll help themselves to it shortly- thanks for stopping by, guys!”
“It is our pleasure.” Cyclonus nodded, bringing the cake to the table, his housemates in tow, flanking him on each side. When they were out of Rodimus’s audial range, Scourge looked around sheepishly and leaned in to whisper something.
“So, how much did you pay for this thing?”
Cyclonus sighed, placing the store-bought pastry on the table in defeat.
“Too much.”