Also known to my brain twin as Bad Ass Mother Fuckers.
Title: Retribution and Redemption
Rating: R for violence. Not sure but maybe some M for slashy-ness later.
Transformers animated (OC centric.)
Summery: Wildfire's story of Retribution. Zack's story of Redemption. The two try to sort their shattered lifes out as the renewed threat of war looms. One is filled with rage and the other with guilt. A tale of revenge and friendship with a dash of craziness.
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The timing couldn't have been more perfect. The elite guard where all off planet and stretched thin while the Deceptioncons attacked the space bridges at the rim of the galaxy. The maximum security prison ward was virtually emptied of Autobots but still chalk full of Con prisoners. The last remaining guards never saw it coming. The empty halls rang loudly with footsteps as the intruder strolled deeper into the detention center. The unfamiliar sounds brought the inmates to the front of their cells to peer through the bars.
"Hey there hot rod, why don't you let me out of here? I'll make it worth your while."
A purple Decepticon purred from behind the bars. Others soon joined him, and in astro seconds the entire complex was bursting with sound. Shouts to be set free rang up through the multiple levels making an unholy racket that the trespasser ignored like it didn't exist. The stranger stopped in front of the door at the end of the long hall that read "solitary" and paused for a moment. With a blur the door was cut down and pieces clattered to the floor with loud metallic bangs. The outsider stepped over the threshold and began walking down another long hall, this time sparsely populated with cells. These ones where completely blocked off from each other with not bars but solid walls to separate these prisoners. The din from the outer cells had quickly faded away to nothingness and soon too did the solitary confinement cells. It was a long stretch of nothing but eerie footsteps ringing off the cold bear walls.
Finally at the end there was a door, thicker then the first that was marked "isolation." Here the stranger stepped to the side to look at the security computer screen. It asked for a hand match to access the single cell beyond. The foreigner held their hand up to the screen to see how close of a match their hand was. Theirs had long fingers where tipped with razor sharp claws instead of the boxy, squat fingers of the Autobot guards. The palm connected to the fingers was smaller than the one needed to make any kind of match. Then the hand began to change, the fingers folded over as the claws retraced, the palm spilt open down the middle to allow the base of the fingers to retract inward and then the metal realigned itself into a thin palm supporting short stubby fingers. Once the owner looked the hand over they pressed it to the security panel. The computer screen scanned the hand and beeped in approval. The heavy door groaned and its hydraulics hissed with effort as it slowly retracted into the wall. Its purpose fulfilled, the hand split back open as the stumpy fingers extended back to their original length and the razor like tips snapped back into place. The intruder quickly stepped through the crack the door had opened to find themselves in a small room.
There was only one light in the room, just over the row of glowing bars that ran through the middle of the space leaving everything but the one spot in complete darkness. The stranger stayed in the darkness looking at the bars. They glowed an angry reddish orange. Energon powered bars, only used on the most dangerous prisoners and incredibly treacherous.
"There are no visiting hours." A deep, low voice said from the far end of the cell. "So I wonder who could this be?"
The visitor stayed quiet and in the shadows, slowly creeping away from the door.
"How sad," the voice said in the dark with a touch of irony. "After all these millina I finally have a visitor and their vocalizer is broken."
There was a soft clatter on the floor near the glowing bars fallowed by a handful more of the same. The stranger watched as a pair of blazing red optics finally came online behind the bars. They hovered in blackness for a moment and then started moving forward to the front of the cell. A long hand reached out into the light to pick up whatever was thrown. Where fingers would have been on a normal bot there where long, deadly sliver claws. Wicked tools to rend armor from bodies with lethal efficiency. With a little bit of difficulty the blade like tips managed to pick up a small silver rectangle from a host of them scattered along the floor. The arm and hand disappeared back into the darkness where the red optics disappeared to look at whatever it had retrieved. There was a snort of vents and an unmistakable chuckle of amusement.
"Memory cores." The prisoner said tossing the rectangle back into the beam of light. "By the looks of them, no doubt torn right out from the processer of quite a few bots."
There was a clicking and whirring as the prisoner heaved himself up from the floor and walked into the light. The mech was big for an Autobot, small for a Decepticaon. Every inch of armor and metallic "skin" was as black as the void between the stars. His massive claws glittered coldly as he folded them across his massive chest plate. His helm was decked with a blade like adornment going front to back and an impressive, almost crown like, decoration sweeping up on both sides of his helm. The ruby red optics looked broadly out into the darkness, probing for his visitor.
"I doubt you came all this way to show me your little trophy collection." He said.
"Do you know…" a voice said coldly from the dark. "What all those memory cores have in common? Besides you?"
The Deception's mouth quirked into a small smile.
"I'm sure your about to tell me."
From the dark the stranger walked forward slowly and deliberately. The Con's optics widened and his arms uncrossed with surprise at the figure sliding into the light. It was a fembot. As red as his eyes with black fire painted across her legs, arms and chest. She was huge for a fembot and taller than him by at least a full cranial unit. That wasn't all that was strange about her. She didn't look like anything the former con had ever seen. Sure all bots looked different but all of them where based off one of a handful of protoform starting molds, and this fem didn't look anything like any of them. For starters her doorwings that normally would be on a bot's back where mounted on the side of her shoulders like shields. Her helm swept back but then split and turned up sharply into what looked almost like horns that where usually only found on minibots. Even the parts to her alt mode looked strange and alien, uncybertronion even. And she did not look happy, though it was hard to tell because of the visor over her optics that was as red as the rest of her.
"Best looking company I've ever had." The con said after the shock wore off.
The fembot didn't look amused as she stared the smaller bot down.
"You have information I want." She said simply.
"I do?" The Decepticon said. "Well since you have such a pretty face I'll tell you whatever you want to know for a kiss."
Everything was instantaneous. The fems arms shot through the engeron bars, grabbed hold of the Con's armor and rammed him into the bars. The black mech screamed as the bars burned into his armor as easily as an energy blade. After an eternity the fem jerked him away from the bars, her face nearly touching the crackling energy.
"You listen to me Duskstrike!" The fem snarled through the bars. "The only reason you're alive right now is because you're a traitor. If you where still a Con I would have ripped out YOUR memory cores just like I did to the rest!"
The fems claws pressed deeper into the underside of the black armor as Duskstrike was lifted off the ground to look her in the visor. The former con gave a little grin despite the pain.
"I'd like to see you try sugar thrusters. You see I'm not locked up in here with all the other slag, their locked up in here with me."
For his little show of defiance Duskstrike had another, longer, meeting with the energon bars. When he was released his armor had smoking, lateral impressions in his armor where the bars had eaten through the tough metal. The red optics flickered weakly as the mechs legs buckled under him.
"Shade!" The fem snapped loudly as she shook the weak mech. "I want everything you know about that slag sucker! Where he came from! What he did in his unit! Where he is now!"
Duskstrike laughed softly to himself.
"Look red," the black mech said. "I haven't seen that skid plate since the war. If you're looking for him now after all this time I can't help ya."
"Then you tell me what you know about him RIGHT NOW!"
"STOP RIGHT THERE!"
The fem whipped around as a shot hit one of the bars next to her shoulder. There was a pair of guards at the door with their weapons trained on her.
"Step away from the prisoner or we will shoot!" The first guard yelled.
"You should have been firing already!" The fem yelled.
The red transformer moved faster then the optic could fallow and disappeared into the dark. The first guard opened fire as the second one hit a switch and the prisoner escape alarm started blaring. Melting out of the darkness a red blur slashed the first guard across the chest sending the wounded bot staggering back who was then bowled over when the rest of the fem landed feet first on him. The second one turned to run when his legs where literally cut out from under him. That guard fell face first to the floor. He tried to claw arm over arm away from the scene when a boot on his back crushed him back down. There was a slicing noise and one of his arms flew free of his body. The rookie guard screamed with pain as energon and coolant started pouring out of his wounds.
Duskstrike watched the fem bring down the irritating guards with literally no effort on her part with an amused optic. Long red swords retraced back into her arms as she turned and walked back towards him. She bent down and scooped up the first guard's body.
"Looks like you're going on a little vacation." She said.
"And you'll be getting me past these bars… how again?"
The fem's mouth quirked up in a little smile.
"I'd stand back if I were you."
Duskstrike moved away from the bars just as the fem tossed the guard she was carrying into the crackling bars. The guard screamed as the raw energy poured into his circuitry and quickly overloaded the bars power supply. The lights in the prison flickered and then went out as the guard's charred body dropped from the cell bars. Now devoid of the deadly engergon the fem gripped two of the bars and pulled them free with a grunt.
"I love strong fems." Duskstrike laughed.
His laughter was cut short as the fem grabbed him by the throat and drug him out of the cell. She hauled him across the floor out the door with Duskstrike clawing at her hand. Power walking back through the solitary confinement hall the fem burst back into the screaming over crowed general population ignoring both her own prisoner, the screaming of the alarm and the countless captured Decepticons throwing themselves against their weaken bars.
"I hope you have a plan to get out of here!" Duskstrike gasped as he was drug across the prison grounds. "They'll have the docking bay locked down."
"I didn't come in a ship." The fem snarled.
She burst through the doors to the living quarters and swiftly made her way to the trash disposal unit where she dropped the treacherous former con.
"That's you big plan?!" Duskstrike yelled from the floor. "To jettison us out into space with no ship?! Oh yes this will turn out well!"
"Shut up!"
The fem tossed him into the airlock and quickly fallowed after hitting the release button with her fist. The first door closed and locked leaving both of them in darkness.
"Worse… rescue… ever." Duskstrike said as he waded up to his optics in trash.
There was a click and the outer door opened to the vacuum of space. With a loud roaring sound the air and everything else in the chamber was sucked out into space. It all happened in a blur, Duskstrike was tumbling end over end bumping into all manner of repulsive garbage and then he was floating helplessly in space. Unable to do anything about his situation now he hung suspended upside-down watching the asteroid prison drift slowly father away.
"Just great." Duskstrike thought to himself.
Then there was the roaring of engines above him. It was difficult in the zero gravity of space but the mech managed to flip himself around to see where the noise was coming from. A shuttle was descending on him with it's hanger doors open. Unable to do anything even if he wanted too Duskstrike was caught by the docking arms and brought up into the shuttle. As soon as the hanger doors where closed the shuttle turned it's thrusters on full and raced off into space.
Duskstrike didn't realize just how tiny this shuttle was until he was locked up in it. Its hold was barely big enough for him and he hardly had room to turn his head.
"I didn't realize I'd be traveling in a coffin." The former con grumbled.
He could only wonder where the emancipator had dissappered too. Clearly this thing wasn't big enough for the both of them, and just who was flying this stupid thing? It had always been an eerie feeling to travel in shuttles. Most shuttles where transformers so it felt like he had been swallowed whole.
"I don't suppose there's an in-flight meal or movie on this ride." He said out loud, more to himself then for anyone that happened to be listening.
"You're complaining?" A grumpy voice said throughout the shuttle. "You're not the one hauling ten tons of dead weight."
That was definitely the fem from the prison, but where in the pit was she.
"Oh I see." Duskstike said with a grin. "I didn't have you pegged for a shuttle sugar thrusters."
"You shouldn't peg me for anything. Appearances are deceptive. Or don't you remember you old motto?"
Duskstrike sighed and turned his optics off.
"Back to business so soon? The movie is about to start."
There was a silence from the shuttle for a while.
"You've been in jail for a long time, you're weak. Get some recharge or you'll be of no use to me."
"Oh be still my beating spark. The great Decepticon warrior thinks of my well being." Duskstrike mocked. "Forgive me if I'm not full throttle for falling into recharge when I'm the prisoner of some strange bot."
"I'm not a Decepticon." The shuttle said simply.
"Well you're sure as the pit not an Autobot."
"That's right I'm not. I don't belong to anyone, remember that."
"You're still a stranger. You busted me out of the Autobot's most impenetrable prison and I don't even know your name."
"What does my name matter?"
"Do you want to remain sugar thrusters forever?"
There was a pause; clearly the shuttle didn't like the name.
"Wildfire." The shuttle said. "My name is Wildfire. We're not strangers anymore. Recharge. Now!"
"That doesn't mean you're not going to turn me over to the cons."
"You're getting irritating with your conspiracies. I made all that effort to break you out of prison so I sure as hell am not giving you over to the cons. Go into recharge or I swear to Primus almighty I will send you into a coma."
"Hell? What's… hell?"
"You're going to find out first hand if you don't SHUTDOWN!"
"Alright, but I'm warning you, if I come online in con territory you're going to be one sorry shuttle."
Duskstrike got as comfortable as he could and then initiated his recharge cycle. Shut down was swift. The former con had never recharged so well in his life.
Now everything was silent besides the sound of her own engines. Wildfire set the coordinates and settled into a fast pace towards to the edge of the galaxy and a long forgotten space bridge. Everything was as planned. Once she got back to Earth the next phase would begin. Her revenge was one step closer.