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Pt. 4: Adaptation
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The dolphins splashed and squealed. Blast Off encouraged their activity, turning her hands into an obstacle course and angling her armor so the pod could chase reflected light through the surf. After a while, she managed to coax one particular dolphin up onto the offered palm of her hand so she could lavish attention on him.
Brawl had sat back on his heels by now, and Vortex was sliding step by step closer. The 'copter seemed reluctantly fascinated by their owner's play. Swindle had collected himself out of a limp heap and come to sit in the shallows. He stared at how Blast Off massaged her knuckles on their owner's belly.
A flush of pink spread across the grayish-white skin, and the three Combaticons twitched as the slave code picked up on that. The code assimilated every single information resource available to them. What they knew, it knew. It was them. And one of them, once upon a bored television spree, had watched some sort of nature documentary. The memory had been analyzed down to the commercial breaks by now, and the Combaticons waited uneasily for what the code had noticed this time.
Their lord's skin flush meant something very important to their new priority lists. Swindle and Vortex blinked, confused, but Blast Off's visor narrowed as her repair system pinged her. Well. That wasn't a piece of equipment she wanted to come online. She really didn't, despite how the servile, eager-to-please portion of her subverted by the slave programming did.
Suspicious, Blast Off poked at the equipment activation notice. Why did it come online right this moment?
She traced the activation back to its cause and winced. Oh. That…oh. That's what the color change meant.
Delaying unpleasant things only gave dread time to build into a crushing self-pity and sick despair, however. Even as a slave, Blast Off had marginally more dignity than that left. For the sake of those dregs of control, she was going to choose to go along with the code rather than wait for it to railroad her free will.
It required taking action. Part of her shrank from the thought, but Blast Off swallowed any objections. "Onslaught, come here," she said in a dead voice. Her spark screwed tight as it struck her who she'd ordered around, but the hierarchy established in her head insisted it was her duty to do so. Just as the harem slaves' were bound by duty to obey.
Onslaught fought the order for a long minute while the other Combaticons stared, dumbfounded. Vortex snickered, but it sounded forced. Swindle nervously glanced between commander and favorite slave. Taking sides was a dead end either way. Brawl tried to stand but found his legs weren't ready to cease kneeling yet.
Onslaught resisted, but the slave code won. "Fragging Pit," he snarled, but in the low voice of someone who knew better than to protest. Punishment put a shiver in his knee joints even for that. Head down and hatefully submissive, he sloshed into the water.
Fellow-feeling or not, Blast Off still snapped, "Don't upset him!"
Him being, of course, their owner. The all-important center of their very beings, at this point. Panicking the dolphin pod a second time was a nightmare none of them were ready to face.
Onslaught immediately slowed to a shuffling walk that merely stirred the water. Blast Off concentrated on keeping their Lord and Master distracted with the gentlest stroking she could manage. Her tanks pinched at the result that had. Vortex's laughter was most definitely forced by now, and a layer of despair curdled under the fake amusement.
"Take over," Blast Off ordered, still in that dead level voice. Onslaught winced. "Now, Onslaught."
Her (former) leader unwillingly knelt and extended his hands into the water. Their owner, curious as ever, wriggled free of Blast Off's hand in order to investigate. The shuttle coached Onslaught in the basics of dolphin handling while the other Combaticons looked on in envy. Envy with an edge of self-hate thick enough to taste, but envy nonetheless. Onslaught had been chosen to touch their master. The head of the harem had chosen her second-in-command.
Her? Her. Right. Even her gestalt links registered the change. Cybertronian parts were unimportant. Blast Off was apparently now part of the gendered world dictated by which set of genitalia a dolphin possessed. Officially part of it now, since her new-built pleasure-slave modifications had pinged online. Time for a test run.
Which she would take care of as soon as Onslaught got the hang of delicately stroking their owner's, er, equipment. Big metal fingers were not made for handling tiny things. Onslaught's clumsiness was partly from the ridiculous size difference and partly from horror as he realized just what he was…servicing.
Blast Off herself eyed the thing and swallowed. The stiff, S-shaped thing poking out from the rubbery creature was a foregone result of stroking a dolphin this way. There was no point in getting upset. And why would she get upset? No cause for alarm here. Slaves lived to serve, and apparently servitude to organics involved offering excessive opportunities for mating.
Primus spare her this humiliation.
This was the worst day of Blast Off's entire life.
"I'll return soon," she murmured as she stood. Excusing herself from the curious visors and optics turned toward her, she waded slowly back up to the beach and strode out of sight. The other side of the island would have to do. It wasn't a big landmass, but there was privacy enough for a test. Her scattered slivers of dignity were shriveling inside her from what the test required, but she'd salvage what she could. Privacy allowed her tattered pride a momentary stay of execution until the real deal replaced the tests.
What pride she could possibly retain through the unexpected side effects of the test, anyway.
That was - that -
That.
In all likelihood, that was what the mating fuss was about. It explained a lot about why Earth in general obsessed about sex. It was nothing like Blast Off expected, and it took her a while to recover enough just to stand up. Joints didn't want to work, and her core systems had overheated almost to red-line levels.
Also, she throbbed in a way that made her want to, uh, repeat the test. To be 100% sure the mods were operating correctly, of course. Because as repulsive as the procedure was, she'd never felt anything like it. Being squicked and rampantly aroused at the same time was as uncomfortable as it sounded. Blast Off felt shamed but guiltily titillated.
Primus help her. She wasn't supposed to enjoy this slag!
Regardless of what she wanted, her body felt otherwise. Her body loved it. The mods ticked along, every light green, and Blast Off desperately wished she could turn the blasted things off.
She was shuddering slightly from continued feedback when she returned to the group. Fortunately, none of them noticed. They were busy with their own concerns.
The four Combaticons were, once again, lined up in a row along the beach. Swindle was the only one managing to keep his face out of the sand. As Blast Off came into sight, the conmech grimaced and bowed before the invisible force of the slave coding's disapproval.
Heavy footsteps gave away her approach, even if they couldn't see her. Vortex's rotors spun, and his voice cracked as he plaintively asked, "He'll be back, right? He's not...we're not bad because he went to go fishing. It's a thing animals do. They gotta eat." Brawl grunted from beside him, and the helicopter's voice cut off in a muted whine. Both mechs burrowed their masks into the sand as their sensor networks rolled a long wave of agony through them.
"I know that I've done nothing wrong," Onslaught said hoarsely into his own patch of sand. "Logic's not helping."
Okay, time to see how much authority she really had as head slave. Blast Off steeled her nerve.
"Our master prefers the company of his family. We are slow and not yet fully adapted to the ocean," Blast Off informed them, attempting firm belief in her own words. "It's our responsibility to be ready for his return. We are, hmm, establishing a secure location instead joining his family group. If he wishes us to accompany him to a new location, he will inform us. Perhaps he is waiting for us to be ready to travel."
She waited, expecting the programming to reject her reasoning and strike her down to grovel in the sand like the others, but -
One by one, the other Combaticons slowly relaxed. She could hardly believe it. It worked. She really did have authority as their owner's favored toy!
Certain duties came with the position, however. Blast Off winced as the slave code highlighted the appropriate file in warning. Voluntarily stepping up as the head of the harem meant it was going to pile duties on her. It was her duty to keep the other slaves online and in line, and the code reminded her that there were inspections to be done.
"Transmit your status updates," she commanded quietly. Brawl, Vortex, and Swindle didn't hesitate, transmitting the status of their internal changes. They looked too relieved to question why she wanted them. From his spot kneeling in the sand, Onslaught shot her a murderous look of betrayal that she refused to acknowledge. After glaring for a short while, Onslaught finally followed the order. He seemed to realize that arguing over it would only grind his pride against reality until nothing was left but submission.
Blast Off pored over the data for a moment before she saw what she'd feared. "Swindle. Your...womb," that never got any easier to say, "is complete."
The Jeep shifted uncomfortably. "Yeah. Says I've got to run a test, but I don't know what kind of test it is."
Brawl squeamishly inched away from his - now her - side. Not that the tank was in any position to be grossed out by what was happening inside his own body.
Blast Off didn't want to do this. Really. She didn't think about the part of her that actually did, for reasons Swindle would discover for herself soon enough. Despite the loathing that filled her mind, the shuttle's body informed her it was willing for another go. Mentally stomping on the rampant lust worked about as well as could be expected, which was not at all.
Defeated, she folded down to sit cross-legged in the sand and carefully retrieved the stick she'd painstakingly searched the other end of the island for. It was kind of necessary for the test. Once she'd figured out a viable procedure, it'd taken another half an hour to find anything suitable to use.
It wasn't a big stick. Absolutely tiny by the standards of giant metal robots, but not too big nor too small according to the criteria of her newly functional equipment. She had difficulty holding onto it because it was shorter than even the first knuckle of her finger and thin enough that she'd snapped her first two sticks before getting the hang of how much pressure wood could take.
"What's that?" Brawl asked, and Blast Off looked up. The other Combaticons were watching her with varying expressions of curiosity.
She ignored the question and beckoned to Swindle. "Come here."
"Why?" Swindle was already getting up and walking over, but she looked at Blast Off like she was crazy when the shuttle pointed downward. "What?"
"Lay over my knees," Blast Off commanded. This was going to be awkward no matter the position, but the opening that needed testing was tucked underneath Swindle's chest in rootmode. It would work, so long as the mech - wait, was that the proper term anymore? They were female only in organic terms, not mechanical, right? - stretched out.
"Why?" Swindle asked again. She clearly didn't want to, but she allowed the shuttle to pull her closer until her knees pressed to the larger Combaticon's knee. The hand attempting to push her down over Blast Off's lap was resisted. "What're you doing? Stop it!"
Blast Off gazed at her levelly. "The test."
"Oh." She still didn't get it, but the slave code caused a visible flare of her optics as it kicked her in the back of the cortex. "Um...okay, but why do I have to do this?" She laid forward slowly, guided down until she draped over Blast Off's legs. Short legs flailed for a moment before she drew them up, leaving her kneeling in the shuttle's lap with her feet hooked over one knee, chest flat to the other, and arms almost hugging that same knee for balance.
"Because it has to be tested," Blast Off sighed and put her arm over the mech's back, wrapping it around and under to probe for what her HUD overlay said would be there.
Swindle made an odd noise as one blunt, too-large finger found what it was poking about for. The other three Combaticons stared. Blast Off passed the stick to the appropriate hand before lightly restraining her small teammate.
The odd sound repeated as the stick gently nosed in. "Whaaa…" Swindle reset her vocalizer. "Uh, Blast Off? What's that?"
"A stick."
"I know it's a stick!" Swindle shot her an irritated, somewhat alarmed glare. "What the slag did you just do with it?"
Embarrassment swept Blast Off strong enough to blister paint, but in reality it did nothing more than trigger her fans. They whirred loudly, which didn't make holding Swindle like this any easier.
She kept her voice leeched of emotion as she gave the stick the tiniest push. In Cybertronian terms, it was a negligible measure. In organic terms, it bottomed out Swindle's brand new orifice. "This is called penetration," she told the Jeep, because explaining the humiliation was all part of the slave experience, apparently.
Dawning comprehension lit Swindle's face, big purple optics mortified. She gave an uneasy squirm. "Oh. It feels weird. I expected it to…I don't even know what I expected." She hugged the shuttle's knee tighter as if to anchor herself.
Shock hit Onslaught and Vortex next as they got it. Oh. Vortex's rotors flicked, spinning twice in a quick whirl that betrayed his discomfort. Onslaught just looked away.
Brawl still seemed confused by what was going on, but Blast Off had no intention of explain further and Swindle just shrugged after a second of adjusting to the intrusion. "It's not bad. I barely notice it's there."
That was a lie. Blast Off didn't call her on it. Swindle was probably referring to the physical invasion, not the mental repercussions of the probing. The way she avoided looking in the direction of the others was a dead give-away of what she felt.
The embarrassment was, however, only going to get worse from here.
Blast Off reset her vocalizer, stifling an awkward urge to apologize. "…to test the full function of the mod, you must be aware that the stick represents our master's genitalia."
Vortex barked a laugh on reflex. The rest of them certainly didn't see any humor in the situation. Onslaught and Brawl both recoiled. Swindle twisted to gape up at Blast Off.
The change-over was almost audible. The shuttle remembered it vividly herself, recalling the moment she made a connection between stick and owner. It clicked something together in the slave code. Their Lord and Master was, right this moment, fucking Swindle by proxy.
Swindle's body reacted accordingly.
Motor roaring to life, Swindle arched up off Blast Off's knee so hard her struts creaked. Her vocalizer choked out a high-pitched noise. Armor abruptly went from sun-warmed to baking hot as the Jeep's systems jumped from neutral to high gear in the space of a few seconds.
Blast Off braced a hand on the smaller Combaticon's shoulders to keep her down. Meanwhile, most of her concentration was on not breaking the stick she was ever-so-carefully tweaking in its tight little hole.
A tight hole connected to thread-thin traceries of pressure sensors and nerve wires built so sensitive the relatively smooth surface of the stick felt like sandpaper inside it. Densely packed circuitry built to mimic foreign, alien senses transmitted exactly as programmed. This was no jack sliding into a socket. Blast Off's own body heated in excitement as she manipulated the stick, turning it in her fingers like a drill so it rubbed against the sides and bottom of Swindle in a hard twist.
The stick didn't compromise, but the elastic material jam-packed with firing sensors did. It contracted around the stick and loosened a second later, rippling as the pressure changed from second to second, and Swindle cried out. Electric thrill translated into a give, a stretch that was purely organic. Metal didn't have it, metal couldn't mimic it, and metal wasn't constructed to understand it.
The slave code gave Swindle's frame no room for error, hijacking her sensor network. It ruthlessly rewrote what should have been frighteningly alien and incomprehensible into the epitome of good. It mainlined utmost pleasure straight from the new hardware - wetware - into every working sensor in the slave's body. Cybertronians weren't designed for sex, not how Earth did it, but the slave code took their natural forms and changed the programming that ran them. It rewrote them until submission to their owner's fundamentally different body feel so very, very right.
"Oh Primus, oh. Blast Off!" Huge fingers flexed the tiniest bit, and the stick stirred. Overwhelmed by a fresh flood of sensations that weren't physically possible, Swindle's garbled cry became a plea. The hole clenched, the protective flaps covering it trying to pull the stick deeper and keep it in place. A slickness coated the inside now, contained by the outer lips. Both pairs worked together to create a water-tight seal that sucked greedily at the stick. Swindle curled as pleasure too fluid to be anything but organic drenched her body and shook her with its power. Only by the hand pinning her down kept her from bucking right off the legs she clawed at. "Blast Off!"
Blast Off remembered how it felt. She hesitated before giving the stick a shallow thrust.
Swindle screamed. The rasping pant of her ventilation fans sputtering underlaid the shriek, and the Jeep writhed. Ecstasy tore sounds from her throat that sent Onslaught and Brawl backpedalling down the beach, kicking up sand as they scrambled away. Vortex just stared as if mesmerized.
It didn't take long. Their new reproductive systems were meant to turnover in time with their master's completion. That didn't make the short time span any less intense, as Blast Off knew well. The finale, the climax, wasn't the sharp crackling release of an overload as they knew it. Tension coiled in rhythmic surges, turning tighter and tighter on the peak of every thrust until it unraveled in a hot gush that rattled plating and melted reason. It was a clenching action, a hungry milking spasm that had nothing of mechanical parts or pieces about it.
Swindle gave one last cry and stiffened in her first orgasm.
Blast Off's own body shuddered in remembered pleasure, restlessly clenching a part of herself that suddenly felt achingly empty and unpleasantly damp. She pulled the stick free and tumbled the smaller Combaticon off her lap.
Swindle twitched, trying to make uncooperative limbs less limp but ending up as a heap on the sand when the effort failed. Still taking in huge, gulping pants of air, the Jeep blearily peered up at her. "Is it…gonna be like…that…every time?"
"I have no idea." And she wasn't going to admit that she wanted to find out.
An update pinged through the gestalt links. Blast Off sighed and beckoned the next of her fellow slaves down. Onslaught looked between her and Swindle, then took a step back as if to flee. The slave code was having none of it.
Onslaught grunted quietly, bending double in the sand under punishment. No resistance. Slaves submit.
Blast Off held the stick away from herself as she waited. The end of the stick had a wet sheen on it. She tried not to think about it.
This was the worst day ever.
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A/N: Stick-y sex was a pun that had to be made, and no one will ever convince me otherwise.