A/N: Hi~ This little bunny started jumping around my brain not long after I posted the one shot Sparkly Flutterbee. You'll see traces of that original one shot in this chapter but the whole thing has been completely reworked. Many, many thanks to my amazingly awesome beta, Megami Mao. She's wonderful and puts up with my constant pestering, questioning and wishy washy ways of deciding things. As a general disclaimer, I don't own anything in this except for Kenzie and Kale. So here's chapter one of Glitched. Let me know what you think, because I always have room to improve.
A mechanical chuckle drifted around the room, echoing slightly. The space was dimly lit by the few, feeble shafts of light that escaped from the hallway. But even that was blocked by the figures standing at the door; two of them were of the right proportions for the oversized door while the other one was much, much smaller. In fact, she was so small she fit comfortably in the hand of one of her larger associates.
"Hush, Skywarp," the smaller being whispered urgently, before breaking out into a nervous giggle of her own. A hand clapped to her mouth and she swiveled around to stare across the room at the object of her concern.
The room was simple, just the normal four walls, ceiling, and floor, and looked to have once been tidy. Various mechanical parts and pieces of scrap armor were neatly categorized and stored away in crates against a side wall. But spare parts littering the floor and askew boxes suggested that the occupant had been searching for something in a hurry and had yet to find time to clean up the mess. What appeared to be a large, metal table was pressed against the far wall to serve as a bed of sorts. And 'sleeping' on that bed, was their target.
Skywarp threw the whisperer an exasperated glance. "Look who's talking, Kenzie. Besides, he isn't coming out of recharge for at least a cycle. Not after what I slipped into his energon earlier." He stood a little straighter as he made the last comment and rolled his shoulder joints back into a prideful posture.
"I fail to see how drugging your commanding officer is something to brag about," the third being in the doorway scolded, effectively bursting the younger Cybertronian's bubble.
"Not the point, TC," the smaller mech practically whined to his older wing mate, visibly deflating to a more hunched stance. "The point is that we have plenty of time to pull this off because of my efforts."
Kenzie chose not to comment on the drugging issue. She had tried to talk Skywarp out of it, but once that mech got something into his processor, there was no removing it. Instead, she was scanning the room, looking for any hidden cameras or recorders. Not that she'd be able to find them of course, but it didn't stop her paranoid search. "Guys, I know you're having a wonderful conversation over the benefits of drugging one's superior, but can we get out of the hallway?" Kenzie interrupted the hushed argument taking place over her head, nervousness leaking into her tone despite her attempt to shut it out. "I'd like to get this done before he wakes up and blasts us to BFE for being in his room."
She suppressed the muscle spasm that demanded she flinch from the wine red glare of the mech holding her. Even so, Kenzie couldn't force herself to relax and sat, rigid and tense, in Skywarp's warm palm. 'Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid. You know he hates being interrupted when he's talking. How stupid are you?' she silently berated herself. The violet Seeker had been one of the first to actually tolerate, possibly even enjoy, her presence. It had taken her months to learn how to interpret his mood swings and figure out his personality. And then Kenzie went and allowed herself to slip up like that? He was holding her and she was stupid enough to piss him off. She was trying to survive, not get herself killed.
Thundercracker quirked an optic ridge at Kenzie before turning back to his younger brother, drawing his attention away from the human. "I don't know what a BFE is, but the organic has a point. We're more likely to be caught by a patrolling Barricade if we stay out here."
"Whatever. He's not going to come out of recharge, so I don't know what you two are so worried about," Skywarp grumbled as he moved into the room proper, flicking the lights on as he went.
"Better safe than sorry," Kenzie reminded him. The hand she sat in tipped suddenly, sending her tumbling onto the metal table next to the recharging Cybertronian. She sat up, rubbing her head where she had landed and glaring at Skywarp's back. "You did that on purpose. Just because you know I'm right." She took his silence as a yes.
While he was busy helping Thundercracker sort through a couple of totes on the floor, Kenzie warily observed the Transformer next to her. His armor was dented and scarred from a long history of battle. Despite the damage though, his plating was polished to a spotless shine. Including the glossy, black insignia emblazoned on the wing at her feet that seemed to glare angrily around room. She resisted the urge to itch her left shoulder blade at the sight. When Kenzie had first seen the symbol, she had thought it was some sort of stylized fox. Later she learned that it was the crest of the Decepticons.
Thundercracker set a container by her side, drawing her attention away, and handed her a paintbrush, "Best to get this over with as quickly as possible." He picked up another, much larger, brush and set to work, as his wingmate already had.
Kenzie dipped the bristles into her paint and was about to apply it to the Cybertronian lying before her, when she hesitated. "I'm going to get blamed for this, aren't I?" she sighed in a dejected tone. Of course she was going to get the blame. He always accused her of everything, even when it was impossible for her to be the culprit.
"Most likely," the larger Seeker smirked down at her.
"He is so not going to be happy with me tomorrow."
"When is he ever?"
"Point taken."
Sometime later Kenzie found herself sitting in her usual place at Megatron's feet while he was seated in his throne. Skywarp and Thundercracker were lounging against a wall near the door. It wasn't really necessary for the two Seekers to be present in the throne room, but they knew the victim of their prank would be coming here once he woke from recharge and that was a sight neither was about to miss. Blitzwing and a few of the Constructicons were loitering around somewhere behind the throne, out of Kenzie's sight.
She fidgeted nervously on the edge of the dais where she was perched. Skywarp might have been in the middle of a giggle fit over what he knew was coming, but she wasn't. It wouldn't be long now before he came storming through the door in front of her in a violent rage. She was not looking forward to it. If she had gotten her way, Kenzie would have already slipped away to the communications room to wait out the storm with Rumble and Frenzy. But Megatron was in one of his dominating moods and wanted to demonstrate the power he held over the human. She hoped that if she didn't argue or put up a fight that he would grow bored and dismiss her before all hell broke loose.
Wiggling in place again, Kenzie glanced up at the towering mech seated behind her. His optics were narrowed in Skywarp's direction; most likely trying to figure out what the Decepticon prankster was up to now. If he noticed her look, he ignored it. Time seemed to pass slowly for her. The more she sat there, the more jumpy she became. Little noises resonating from Megatron's internal workings had her twitching and shifting every few minutes. She just couldn't sit still knowing that, at any moment, one very angry mech was going to be looking for her. She could feel her heart racing inside her chest from her nerves.
'Why, oh why, do I let Skywarp get me mixed up in these messes?'
The echoing clang of metal on metal nearly had Kenzie jumping out of her skin. The sound continued to bounce around the room in a rhythmic pattern as someone stomped down the hall towards the throne room. Kenzie froze in place, trying to quell the shaking of her limbs. A cold sweat coated her skin, dripping down the back of her neck and she wiped her slick palms on her jeans. When the door suddenly hissed open, Kenzie squeaked and nearly slipped off the ledge she was seated atop.
Starscream, in all his raging menace, stormed into the room, only to pause halfway to Megatron's throne to take in all the mechs who were staring in shock at their Air Commander. Behind the enraged Seeker, the hallway was lined with soldiers that had paused in their routines to point and laugh at their commander.
"What? What has you fraggers looking at me as if I just had myself reconfigured into a femme?" he roared at the room, already at the breaking point from the amusement the mechs behind him had gleaned from his passing. If Kenzie knew one thing without a doubt about Starscream, it was that he loathed being the punch line of a joke.
Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Skywarp losing the battle to control his laughter. She had to admit, Starscream did look ridiculous. She, Skywarp and Thundercracker had covered his head, torso and wings with a clear lacquer that had been saturated with pink glitter. Then they had drawn little butterflies and hearts on his wings in black sharpie. A suspicious expression passed over the glittery Seeker's face as Blitzwing's cackle rang through the room.
"Oh! Oh! Are we prancing around like fluttering pink butterflies today?" Kenzie heard Blitzwing clap his hands together before floor began to vibrate and shudder as he pranced around the room, singing. "Fly, fly butterfly! Fly, fly butterfly! Fly in the sky so high! Flitter, flitter butterfly!" She couldn't help it; Blitzwing and Skywarp's chuckles were getting to her. She broke down into her own hysterical giggles, quickly burying her head in her hands to stifle the sound.
"W-what the frag?" Starscream spluttered after a few more crashes. He must have found his reflection in something.
'Wait, he hasn't noticed? How could he have not noticed that he's covered in glitter? I thought they had sensors or something to detect stuff like that?'
Kenzie peeked out between her splayed fingers to watch the Second in Command's expression shift seamlessly from confusion to horror and finally to anger. A quick glance at the other side of the room told her that Skywarp had already made his escape, leaving her to take the blame for this particular stunt. She hadn't even wanted anything to do with his plan. But he had insisted that she participate since she had inspired the idea. That was the last time she would ever mention annoying substances within earshot of the prankster.
She turned to look up at the Cybertronian behind her in a silent plea for permission to leave. Megatron was staring at Starscream with a look that clearly expressed doubts in the Seeker's processing capabilities, a mocking sneer already residing on his faceplate. Though the Decepticon Leader didn't turn his eyes to Kenzie, he must have noticed the glance because he waved a clawed hand at her in a dismissive gesture.
"If I had known you had a glitch this bad, I would have offlined you vorns ago to save myself the embarrassment of having you as my Second in Command," Megatron's scathing tone rumbled over Kenzie as she tried to restrain herself from sprinting for the door. She had given a moment's thought to skirting around the edge of the room but decided that a direct route across the middle would get her to safety quicker. In her peripheral vision, she watched Starscream stiffen before rounding on his Lord and quickened her pace.
She hadn't made it half way to the door before an angry roar nearly knocked her off her feet.
"You!"
Kenzie went still as a statue. She could practically feel the jet's eyes boring a hole through her back, no doubt imagining his guns blowing her into a subatomic particle smaller than a quark; if that was even possible. Her entire frame shook like a newborn pup that had been removed from its mother's warmth.
'Calm down. Calm. Breathe. Don't show fear. He can't do anything in front of so many mechs. Just play dumb and watch your mouth.'
Taking a deep breath to steady her nerves and clenching her hands to hide the shaking, Kenzie turned to face Starscream and almost collapsed when her legs turned to jelly under his murderous glare.
'Oh who am I kidding? If he'd murder me for existing, he's definitely going to relish in torturing me for this.'
"Me?" Kenzie asked, adopting an innocent expression.
"Yes, you, fleshling. You did this," rage dripped from every syllable Starscream used to accuse the human before him.
'No I didn't you idiot. I'm not that suicidal. If it had been my idea, we would have just thrown loose glitter at you when you walked in the door instead of lacquering it on.'
She wanted to tell him who the real culprit was and how he had done it. But her relationships with the various Decepticons were held in a precarious balance and even though every mech here was programmed to do whatever it took to save his own ass, if she were to rat out Skywarp it would doom her. Instead she pressed a hand to her chest in a 'what did I do?' gesture and stared at the glowering Cybertronian with wide, innocent eyes.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Don't play stupid with me, you pathetic insect. You know exactly what you've done. You've covered me in this disgusting human creation."
Starscream was beyond infuriated at her ploy to act innocent. Kenzie would have to watch how far she pushed her luck on this one or she'd end up as nothing more than dust on the wind. "And what if I did have something to do with it?"
If the Air Commander had been a canine, he would have been frothing at the mouth. As it was though, he was snarling when he spoke next. "Then we'll see if you can survive one of my punishments as opposed to Scalpel's."
A smirk stretched across Kenzie's face. "Aw, are you jealous, Flutterbee? Worried that Scalpel'll show you-" she cut off as horror shattered her calm façade into a million pieces when she realized her slip up. "Oh, shit." Of all the times for her filter to decide to turn itself off. A gasp escaped her and she quickly back stepped from the barrel of the launcher that was suddenly aimed at her.
"Flutterbee?" Starscream growled in that deadly soft pitch that never meant well for the one hearing it.
She raised her hands in front of her in a pathetic attempt to ward off the inevitable. "I-I didn't mean it. Honest. It was a slip up."
"My designation-"
"Can't we be rational and talk about this?"
"-is Starscream!"
Kenzie clenched her eyes shut and prepared for the inexplicable oblivion of death that was sure to follow the cluster bomb aimed at her head. Images of her life flashed across the back of her eyelids as the sound of the bullet leaving its housing washed over her. She sent out a silent prayer to whatever deity existed that her death would be painless, only to be blown off her feet by a gust of wind and what felt like particles of sand.
The human lay on her back for several moments, too stunned to contemplate what had just happened. That had not been the explosion she had been expecting. She was apparently of the same mind of those around her, if their raucous laughter meant anything. Her face and hands stung, like they had been scrubbed raw. Warily she blinked her hazel green eyes open to find that her vision sparkled and shimmered. She rubbed a hand across her face before lifting it to her eyes. It was coated in flecks of glitter and smears of blood where the sharp specks had cut into her skin at such a high velocity. Sitting up, she realized that her whole body was covered in loose glitter that Starscream had blasted from his launcher. Kenzie suddenly realized why Skywarp had stayed behind while Thundercracker and she had left after finishing the drawings on their victim's wings. Speaking of Starscream…
Kenzie glanced up at the mech, expecting to have to dodge away from an oversized foot about to reduce her to a bloody smear on the floor, but he was still in the same position he'd been in when she had closed her eyes, snarling expression and all. The only difference was the dimmed look in his eyes. She couldn't believe her luck. Starscream's processor had frozen from the shock of covering the room in glitter. Not one to waste whatever fortune grace bestowed on her, Kenzie jumped to her feet and ran from the room amid jeers and laughter in search a safe haven from the homicidal robot that was bound to be after her as soon as he got his processors working again.
"Ow, shit Kale that hurts."
"Hold still. Do you want to get an infection?"
"No, but do you have to be so rough?"
"It's what you get for going along with that insane robot."
"His name's Skywarp and don't let him hear you say that."
Kenzie fixed the man in front of her with a pained glare as he dragged the alcohol soaked rag across the palms of her hands again, cleaning them. She had figured that Kale's workshop was the best place to hide out for a while. It was out of the way in a little used section of the base and its narrow corridors made it harder for the Seekers to move about without scraping their wings. She had run into the chemist's workspace, wide eyed, frantic, shedding glitter all over the floor and demanding to be hidden. It had taken Kale a few minutes but eventually he managed to calm Kenzie down enough for her to tell him what had happened.
"Like how you called Starscream Flutterbee?" Kale pointed out her hypocrisy.
Kenzie plucked and brushed at her clothes, trying to dislodge as much of the glitter as possible when the rag moved to wipe away the blood and shimmering flecks dried to her face. "It was an accident. I don't have that big of a death wish."
A dark eyebrow rose in silent doubt of her statements.
"You didn't see him, Kale. You think Skywarp is insane when really 'Screamer's the crazy one," the woman informed him, hissing when he rubbed a particularly sore spot. "I mean, I was right there at his feet. If he had actually blasted me with his bomb thingy he would have taken out himself and everyone else in the room!"
Kale stepped back to survey his work, turning the thin face in his hand this way and that. "Really? Is that why you look like you've been mauled by an angry kitten?"
She swatted his hand away. "Funny. That's what happens when you get sharp, pointy specks of plastic - or foil, or whatever the hell they're made of- shot at your face at point blank rage at some odd miles per hour. I'm lucky I still have my head!" Kenzie emphasized the last word before turning away from her male companion to spit in the trash can. "And I'm going to be spitting glitter for a week. Great. Why is it that every time I get dragged on one of Skywarp's escapades I end up with the short straw?"
"Here," Kale grabbed her by the arm, dragged her over to a stool and sat her on it, "sit down," he walked away and returned a moment later with a glass of water and a bucket, "rinse your mouth out, and relax." He returned to the project he had been working on when she had come running into the room, but continued to glance over his shoulder to be sure she was doing as he said.
Kenzie sighed, took a swig of water and spat it out into the bucket. She ran a hand through her dark blonde hair in annoyance, growling at the shimmering cascade that fell from the locks.
"Relax!" the chemist insisted from his workbench where he was painstakingly measuring different liquids and combining them in large beakers. Some beakers were positioned on heating plates to speed the chemical reactions along and another was submersed in an ice bath to halt the process taking place in its contents. Every once in a while he would jot down a note or two in the notebook at his side to keep track of his experiments and observations.
A quirky smile stretched across her face as she watched the different colors swirl together and react to form new compounds. She had a vague understanding of what Kale was doing, but it was rudimentary at best since she had only taken two semesters of chemistry in college. He was working on formulas that required a higher level of understanding. Eventually Kenzie allowed herself to sag against the table, letting the day's anxiety and strain roll off her shoulders. This was her haven; the only place where she could let her guard down for a moment of peace and sweet, stress free oblivion. Here she didn't have to constantly be alert of who was in the room with her, of what was being said, or of the tension levels between the different mechs. She didn't have to judge when she should speak and when she shouldn't; didn't have to carefully gauge each and every word that came out of her mouth. Here she could shut down her higher thought processes and just be natural, just be Mackenzie. Kale's lab was the only place where, for a few precious minutes, she could pretend that she had never been abducted by giant, alien robots; that her life hadn't been turned completely on its head.
Kenzie looked up to find the only being on the base that she trusted absolutely staring back at her with a distant, worried expression. "What?" she questioned.
Kale blinked, seeming to come back to himself, "Oh, I was just thinking."
"About what?" she pressed. "You had that look, Kale,"
His eyes darted away from her's before reluctantly returning, "You've lost weight and you're paler than you were when you first arrived here." She noticed that he conveniently left out the addition of scars, even though his gaze traveled over those that her t-shirt failed to cover.
"What do you expect? Insufficient meals, inadequate sleep and abnormally high stress levels will do that to a person," Kenzie scoffed, downplaying the seriousness of the issue. "It's not like this is the Ritz. We don't exactly have the best living conditions. I'm sure you lost weight when you first got here too."
"Well, yes but…" he trailed off, leaving the thought unfinished.
"But what?"
She knew what he wanted to say; he'd brought it up many times before that she interacted with their captors too much. Kale may have been on the base a good six months longer than her, but their situations were different. He was kidnapped for abilities, set up in this laboratory and provided with whatever he needed to develop whatever the Decepticon's ordered him to create. There was no need for him to be around the Cybertronians except when he needed something or they wanted to know his progress. He had no incentive to get to know the mechs around him. But Kenzie was a pet, Megatron's pet to be specific, and her purpose was to entertain the Leader and on occasion his men. It was to her advantage to understand the soldiers, to know what made them tick. Knowledge increased her chance of success, success pleased Megatron, and a pleased Megatron kept Kenzie alive.
"It's nothing. Nevermind," Kale muttered, turning back to his experiment.
Kenzie eyed her companion for a moment, noting his tense posture and jerky movements as he picked up a test tube. Deciding not to press the matter further, she stretched her arms above her head, popping her spine and shoulder joints in the process, before finishing off the glass of water and hopping off the stool. "Nothing it is then. Thanks for cleaning me up Kale but I've gotta run. I'm due in the command center soon and I'd rather not deal with 'Screamer and 'Cade in one day," she called over her shoulder as she moved towards the door.
"You know Barricade wouldn't hesitate to step on you if he ever heard you call him that."
"Yeah, yeah, I get the point. I'll keep a closer watch on my mouth from now on. See ya."
"Don't get squished."
"No promises."