Disclaimer: Transformers is the property of Hasbro and whoever they sell the rights to. Urielle/Elegance Prime/Ellie and Alpha Deca are original characters owned by the author. Use of the original characters without the permission and/or acknowledgement of the author is prohibited, (i.e. ask before you use them and give credit where due.) No infringement was implied or intended. No financial gain has been received.
A/N: This one has been bumping around in my head for a while now. Just had to get it out to try and open up a few ideas about 'Children of Megatron.' Rated M for explicit descriptions of robotXrobot interaction.
Setting: Over 150 years after 'Children of Megatron.' Ellie has been made Prime by Optimus when he decided to retire and was given the name of Elegance Prime. In this universe, another prime, this one a queen, is leading a war against Ellie and her allies about procreation. Ellie is unified to Skywarp, Starscream's wing mate and she and Starscream are prisoners on her rival's ship. Did I also mention that both Optimus and Megatron are unified to the rival queen? Tracy
Desperate Measures
She was getting twitchy, Starscream thought. He wasn't quite sure what that meant, but he was getting decidedly uncomfortable. He continued to watch the young queen from his side of the bars that separated their cells. Her hastily suppressed moan had him up and as close to her cell as he could get.
He was a scientist, he thought. He should be able to figure out how best to help her. The problem was, his forte was in the realm of research, in quantum mechanics, engineering and theoretical physics. He had no practical training in biology, and this was most likely biologically based, he guessed.
"What is wrong Elegance Prime?" he asked.
She huffed through her vents in agitation as she briefly debated with herself what to tell him. Mentally shrugging, she adjusted her position to open up her abdominal cavity a little more to give the seedlings within her more room to grow. "I am nearing my spawning time," she said simply.
His optics widened at the admission. Of everything she could have possibly said, that was certainly not something he wanted to consider. "Should we inform our captors?"
"No. Alpha Deca wouldn't know the first thing to do."
"But, she is also a queen, why would she not know what to do?"
"Simple, she refuses to nourish. She is of the opinion her classification as a queen is of a political nature as opposed to a biological one."
"How do you know this?"
"I guess it's time for queen anatomy one-oh-one," she muttered to herself before she stood up.
"Okay, in order for a queen to accept and nourish seedlings, she must first spark bond with her chosen co-creator. Deca has never spark bonded with anyone, therefore, she has never, to use a human expression, been pregnant.
"And before you ask, just as mechs will mark their bonded or offspring with their Energon signature, so will queens. It's a sort of 'no trespassing' sign to keep other femmes away from their chosen. I have detected no such marks on anyone, including those we know to have unified with her."
"The unification process requires the exchange of sparks. It must be witnessed by at least two others to be binding."
"I witnessed her so called unification with my dad. His spark was willing to engage with hers, she just released her spark energy to him instead. She didn't bond with him. I saw it, that is why I refused to sign as a witness."
"So, how long do you have?" he asked to bring the topic back to their current dilemma.
"Maybe a week," she answered honestly.
"You still use human time measurements," he accused.
"It's familiar."
"What will happen if you do not spawn your seedlings?"
"They will begin to consume my internal components to continue their own growth. When they have finally grown as large as they can, and killed me in the process, they will begin to cannibalize each other. After there are no others left, they will either eat their way from my body, and die within a couple rotations if they don't find an Energon source, or die within my frame from starvation."
"That sounds like a terrible way to go," Starscream muttered to himself.
"What is necessary to spawn them?" he asked her.
"Ideally, a pool filled with Energon and metalous to release them in to take care of their physical needs, and either a member of my collective or a prime to provide the necessary programming to make them release from my body."
"That is ideal, what are the minimal requirements?"
"An energy source to nourish them, a source of metal to build their protoforms from and a source to complete their initial program protocols."
"I have a full reservoir of Energon as well as my back up reservoirs and I can provide the program protocols."
"Well, the bars could be used as a source of metal, but I doubt both of us combined would have enough Energon to nourish my entire spawn release."
"How many seedlings do you currently house?" he asked with a sinking spark.
"At the current moment, I have six thousand, eight hundred forty-three seedlings within my seeding chamber. Four hundred six are ready to be released within the next week."
"Four hundred . . ." Starscream trailed off as his mouth hung open.
She walked over to the bars and gently closed his mouth with her finger. "Six," she finished for him.
"Well, that won't work," he started as he began to turn from the bars.
The queen caught his hand and held him in place. "A total spawn release won't work, but I know of another way that could potentially solve several problems at once," she told him.
He turned back to face her with hope gleaming in his optics and waited for her to continue.
"The design of this ship has us located by the outer hull. The architects designed it that way so the first casualties were prisoners. If we can get next to the bulkhead, I can release a limited number of my seedlings to use that section to generate their protoforms. That should poke a hole in the side of the ship that we can use to escape through. It will also free up a small amount of room to buy me some time to make it to a hatchery."
"How many can you release?"
"At the moment, it would make more sense to release four of the clutch I'm carrying by Skywarp. That way, since he's your wing mate, your protocols would be more readily accepted."
"How do we start?"
"Hang on a second," she stopped him. "These seedlings will be very vulnerable. The only reason I am considering releasing four is because they will have to be nurtured via surrogate means until they can be properly spawned into a hatchery. Once they have begun to form their protoforms, I can't nurture all four. So, will you agree to nurture two of them?"
"I am a Seeker, and the seedlings are from my wing mate, of course I will be a surrogate to them. So how do we start?"
She bit her bottom lip plate and closed an optic as she looked at him out of the corner of the other. "Uh, we have to interface."
Starscream's optics widened again. Suddenly, a thought snuck into his processors. "It will seed you further with my offspring, won't it?" he asked as his optics narrowed thoughtfully.
"Yes," she said quietly.
He said nothing for a few moments as he thought things through. "Very well," he decided as he moved to the back corner to begin tearing out obstructions.
"Two rules," she said as she moved to her corner to prepare her side of the bars. "First is you can't offline. No matter what, you have to be awake and aware. Who knows how long we will have to make our escape if it works."
Starscream nodded as he wrenched the berth away from the wall on his side. "And the second?"
"Please call me Ellie. It's the only reason I accepted the name 'Elegance' when my dad passed on the prime hood to me."
"Alright then Ellie.
"I believe I'm ready on this side."
"Looks like I'm ready over here too.
"Just remember, when you are nourishing the seedlings, it will alter your center of gravity. Make sure to allow for that when in your alt."
"Of course. So, what first?"
"First, we need to get some Energon where we want them to consume the metal," she started as she opened her chest plates to reveal her spark. Wordlessly, she began to milk her own nourishing valves and smeared the Energon she expelled on the bars and bulkhead.
Watching her for a moment, Starscream opened his chest plates and began to mimic her movements.
"There, that should be enough," Ellie told him. When he began to close his chest plates, she stopped him. "I need access to your spark. We will have to bond for this to work."
Hesitantly, he considered her again, then reluctantly complied. "So, now what?"
"So now," she said with a sigh through her vents, "we interface.
"I don't think Skywarp will mind if you use his data entry point this first time," she said as she turned around and opened her spinal port.
Respectfully, he caught her around the waist and gently pulled her back against his chest. She had said this first time, he thought as he extended his mating dock. Perhaps this meant a beginning, he continued his internal dialogue as he felt their connectors snapping flush. Maybe she wouldn't run away from him now, was the last thing he remembered coherently thinking before he lost himself in her mind.
It was easy to find and access Skywarp's data entry point. From there, he explored the common files her collective shared and compiled his own data files and entry point. He was amazed at how quickly she identified his files and began to add her own perspective and desires. Finding the information he needed, he closed the connection and released his seeder.
Wordlessly, Ellie turned around and moved closer to the bulkhead, lining up her still open chest plates with his until her wing was rubbing against the metal. She stepped up to the bars and pulled him flush against them.
Their chests were the first part of their bodies to meet. The initial energy exchange would have been enough to knock them both back if she wasn't holding him to her. Then, eagerly, the lightning began to leap back and forth in a bright storm of raw power. Soon, the rhythm changed from one of competition to one of desire as the walls they had built between themselves vaporized. Unbidden, they each felt their spark lurch out of their own chests to crash together between them, generating a unique explosion of true violet light as they bonded.
Eventually, their sparks retracted and Ellie was able to lean her lower half against the bars, lining up her interfacing port with his seeder as she quickly impaled herself. They both screamed in pleasure when his grapples deployed and the duct slid home into her seeding chamber.
Panting to regain enough of her composure to remember why she was doing this, she was able to retract her plating along her abdomen and reveal the vulnerable skin of her protoform.
Starscream watched in amazement as he saw the metal visibly sag outward in response to the pressure he now knew her seedlings had to be causing. Slowly, a seam appeared down the center of her abdomen and four small figures wriggled their way out. Quickly, the seam resealed to keep the rest of the seedlings within her body.
The newly delivered seedlings began to wail out their hunger and blindly crawl up their mother's body, following the scent of the Energon. Soon, they found the trail smeared on the bars and began to eat it. As they consumed the Energon soaked metal, their tiny figures began to take on more angular shapes and they began to grow. It wasn't long before they could identify their elements; two grounders, a flier and a Seeker.
"G-g-g-ground-ders?" he asked as an overload worked its way through his circuits.
Ellie screamed out the peak of her own overload and began to pant as it receded and another wave began to build. "I'm a . . . I'm a . . . a . . . multi . . ."she started before she moaned as another release roared up on her. "I'm a multiform!" she screamed as the overload washed over her, igniting another spark storm.
"Stay awake!" he hissed when he saw her begin to relax in his hold. When her optics flickered dangerously, he roughly pulled her aft plate open to keep her awake.
"Aahh!" she screamed as she came back online painfully, instinctively clamping down on his docking ring.
"Nnnngghhh!" he roared as he experienced the most powerful overload he ever felt and released his seeding mixture within her, fanning the flares of their continuing spark storm.
She felt him begin to relax and realized he was most likely entering recharge, so she dug her nails into his hypersensitive canopy. The pain instantly revitalized him.
"Ow! What?" he asked breathlessly.
"Returning . . . favor," she panted as the pleasurable sensations began to ebb away slowly.
"They're almost done," she motioned to the seedlings.
"Are we?"
"We need to keep our sparks exposed for them. But we can stop interfacing," she replied as she reluctantly raised herself off his apparatus.
Quickly, he retracted and turned to the decent sized hole the seedlings had eaten. He saw that the non-Seeker flier was starting to wobble at its perch as it began to enter recharge. Gently, he plucked it from the bulkhead and smiled at its tired wail. Its cries abated when he deposited it inside of his chest plates and guided her, he realized, to one of the nourishing valves next to his spark.
In rapid succession, each of the others consumed their fill and were deposited within the adults. Closing their chest plates, they looked awkwardly at each other, and then at the outer hull the seedlings had exposed.
"Well I got us this far, so now what?" Ellie asked her newly bonded.
"Hmm, this hull was constructed with alumasteel," he analyzed aloud. "Which means they had to treat it with carbon glass on its outer surface."
"And that means . . .?" she prompted.
"That it is highly sensitive to excessive heat on the untreated side, which is the side facing us."
"So, what will happen if we use our thrusters to overheat it?"
"It will melt, which will leave a carbon skin on the other side."
"Can an Energon blade cut through it?"
"It should produce enough stress to cause it to crack, which will hopefully be enough to shatter it and blow us out into space."
"I guess we should try it then," she said as she assumed her alt form as an F-117A Nighthawk stealth fighter.
"Yes, I suppose we should," he agreed as he also assumed his alt form.
As they fired up their thrusters and the metal began to melt, they became aware of the alarms going off above them.
"Hurry!" he sent her through their new bond link. "Try your blade."
Easily, she returned to her robotic form and manifested her Energon blade. Calculating the most probable harmonic weakness of the now exposed carbon skin, she viciously struck at the spot and was rewarded by the sound of cracking. Happily, she noticed the spider webbing around the small hole her blade had made, and reassumed her alternate form.
"What are you doing?" they heard Megatron bellowing from the entrance to the brig.
"You will not take my daughter from me Starscream," he promised darkly as he brought out his fusion cannon.
Changing back to his robotic form at the last possible second, the Seeker dodged under the weapon just as it fired, ripping an even larger hole in the already weakened hull and blowing both prisoners out into space. Megatron found himself pinned against the metal bars of the cell until the ship's force field was able to close the breach.
Finally, the brig stabilized and he was able to step away from the bars. Opening the cell, he sadly walked inside and looked out the hole. "Forgive me, Urielle," he sent over his bond to his daughter. "You better take care of her, Starscream," he said to his former second in command over their private link. He quickly cut off the transmission before there was a response. He had done all he could to help them. The rest was up to them.