A/N: Great. I've taken too long to finish it. Now I'm going to have to start labeling stuff "Pre-Beast Hunter." Still got a couple/few chapters to go. Thanks for the reviews guys!
Wheeljack groaned as his optics came back online. Did anyone get the number of that truck? He tried to move but quickly realized he was clamped to a medical berth. Right. Breakdown and Knockout. Where was Arcee?
He lifted his head and was relieved to see her across the small medical bay from him. She looked worse than he felt. Her lead lolled to the side. She was scuffed and dented, and a thin stream of energon had meandered its way down the berth, starting at her elbow and going along her leg to drip onto the floor. At least she was alive, but Prime was going to offline him. Then Ratchet would bring him back just so he could offline him.
"Arcee?"
No response.
"Hey. Arcee. Up and at 'em. Come on."
After another few tense seconds, her face contorted with pain and blue and lavender optics flickered on. Then they widened and she tried to sit up.
"Easy," Wheeljack coaxed.
She looked around frantically, struggling against her bonds and thrashing her shoulders back and forth.
"Arcee! Stop!"
At last she seemed to realize he was there and met his optics.
"Hi." He smirked.
"No…" Her chest heaved for cool air, and he could hear her fans kick on, running fast. Her processor was going to short circuit. She went back to fighting the restraints, and the energon drip increased to a steady dribble.
"Arcee! Look at me. LOOK AT ME!"
She did. He'd never seen her afraid. Primus, he wouldn't have believed Arcee was capable of fear before now, but she was terrified.
"Wheeljack…"
"That's right; it's just me. Remember? Cocky, insubordinate, reckless grease ball?" he reminded her consolingly. He tried to smile for her, but it softened. "Not Tailgate. Not Cliffjumper. I'd have ended up here on my own even if Optimus hadn't made you come."
She was still looking at him like he had a third optic. He couldn't imagine what was going on in her head right now. He didn't want to know. She blinked and tears slid down her face. Then she was back at tearing up her arm again.
"Arcee, please stop…"
"Yes, please," Knockout concurred, walking in with a data pad. "You're bleeding all over my floor."
Wheeljack growled through clenched teeth. "You're gonna be in a world of slag when I get out of here."
The Decepticon only nodded, tapping his way down some sort of list as he inspected the readouts on monitors beside Wheeljack's berth.
"How about I shove that up your shiny aft for starters?" He watched him walk around to monitors on the other side. "Knockout!"
"I don't think you're in any position to make threats … Wheeljack, is it?"
"Don't you forget it."
Knockout snickered. "Consider your name as good as struck from the histories," he smiled.
"Leave her alone!" he demanded when the red mech crossed the room. "I'm talking to you!"
"Don't touch me!" Arcee snapped, suddenly lucid.
Knockout finished a scan of her from head to toe then grinned as he caressed her thigh just to spite her. "Looks like everything's fully functional and very healthy. Well, almost everything," he said gesturing toward her arm. "But, we have plenty of those parts already."
"Parts? What are you up to?" she hissed.
"Well, since you asked so nicely," he said. "I believe you understand what biotech parts are, right?" Her optics widened. "Right. You see, Megatron's been having to resort to 'culling' his lesser forces in order to maintain higher ranking and more skilled fighters. But, it's a bit of a crapshoot when it comes to quality. Then, I had a stroke of brilliance," he boasted. "Why not put all of the deserters to use? They're mostly loyal to the Autobots anyway, and they can't fight their way out of a wet paper sack. All it would take was a little trap and a little bait. If I'd known it would be so easy to catch some Autobots in my little honey pot, I would've done it sooner."
"You're a disgusting, fragging cannibal," Wheeljack accused. Knockout ignored him.
"I bet you've already guessed what's going to happen, Arcee, so sing along if you know the words," he laughed, stepping back over to Wheeljack. "I'm going to cut your partner up into neat little pieces. Audio, optics, spark chamber, t-cog, coolant processor, alloy modifier, energon pump, diagnostics system… I don't really care for his voice, so we'll probably scrap that bit. And, he's loaded with all sorts of other spare parts we can stand to stock up on."
"No!" She shook her head frantically. "Leave him alone; I'll go first!"
"Arcee!" Wheeljack snapped at her.
"Patience, patience," Knockout chided. "You'll get your turn. But, since you have some rather sensitive feminine bits that have to stay connected to a living spark, I'm going to recommend you go into stasis when you're done watching."
"Are you firing on all cylinders?" Wheeljack scoffed. "You don't really think Prime's gonna let you keep one of his team to butcher at your convenience, do you?"
"I'm sure he wouldn't if he wasn't predisposed right now … and forever as far as I can tell."
"Optimus is on his way right now," Arcee warned with grim satisfaction. "Ratchet would've called him as soon as I blacked out."
"That's assuming Ratchet got him out of Arachnid's own little trap, which she claims he has not." He shrugged with mock apology. "So, until someone tells me otherwise, I've got all the time in the world to do this carefully and slowly," he emphasized, summoning his torch cutter attachment. "We can save the pump for last. I'll even turn off his pain receptors so you can see the moment those big blue optics go out for the last time."
"Stop! No!" she shouted, thrashing at her restraints again. "Leave him alone!"
Her right arm was bleeding badly now, but she didn't notice or didn't care. Wheeljack thought he heard the ligaments grinding in her elbow, she was straining so hard.
"Arcee… " Wheeljack began to try consoling again. He willed himself not to flinch when the plasma cutter touched his protoform. "Optimus will get out." Optimus would get out, and she'd be saved. He knew it. She had to know it too.
"Hey Knockoff!" she goaded. "I've seen better rims on lawn mowers."
Knockout rolled his optics. "Oh, now you're just desperate."
"Where'd you get that paint job? Maaco?"
"Heard that one before - twice actually," he recalled, unamused.
Arcee twisted to face him. "I think I see some scratches on your aft," she sneered. "Does Megatron like it rough?"
"Charming," he deadpanned.
"I bet the pretty ones are his favorite," she prodded further.
"You know, I just remembered, there are a LOT of parts a femme can live without - like her voice box," he warned, turning around to face her.
Arcee smirked. "I'm sorry. Did I hit a nerve?"
"Hey! Don't turn your back on me, Turtle Head!" Wheeljack jabbed, but Arcee had Knockout's attention. "Arcee, cut it out …"
She ignored him, locking optics with the mad doctor.
"Do you just service the boss, or is it a chain of command thing? Soundwave too? Dreadwing? Does Starscream like to cuddle first?" She chuckled dangerously. "Primus, do you even remember your way around a femme's panel?"
Knockout stood over her, still and silent for a long, weighted moment.
"Knockout! You need her alive, remember? It's me you want!" Wheeljack shouted, jerking his shoulders back and forth, trying in vain to loosen his restraints.
But, Arcee had him hypnotized.
"It would be unprofessional of me to not run a full diagnostic while you still have your wits," he leered.
Arcee bent her head forward closer to Knockout and gave him a smile that would've kicked on Wheeljack's fans in any other situation. "You don't have the tiny, fuzzy dice to try."
He seemed to grit his teeth, his mouth twitching between a scowl and an attempt at a good humored smirk. Then, he grabbed the lever on the Arcee's berth and slammed it back into the fully horizontal position making her wince.
"Don't you dare, you fragging slag sucker!" Wheeljack yelled, slamming his helm against the berth and straining his back and shoulders as he twisted against his restraints back and forth. "Knockout!"
"I … have always wondered …" Knockout purred, bringing a hand up to trace her jaw with a sharp digit, "… how this supple little body would feel under mine." His hand trailed down and over her breastplate to her narrow waist, admiring her lovely figure. "Me and Breakdown have a bet I'd really like to settle. Do you wax under this flirty little get-up?" He ran his hand along the joint of her hip and thigh, running his fingers beneath the armor. "Oh, I think I was right all along."
She tensed at his touch, but raised her hips to press against his hand. Knockout arched a brow ridge at her reaction, but Arcee smirked disdainfully at him and turned her head away from him to her right, to look at Wheeljack.
"I'm sorry it isn't you, Wheeljack," she breathed. "But … at least you're here … with me."
Wheeljack's optics widened. Had her processor fried?
"Now, now," Knockout chuckled, coming around to block her view of Wheeljack. "No distractions." She jerked as he opened her. "You'll forget all about him in a moment."
Wheeljack growled, heaving against his restraints again to the threshold of his pain tolerance. "Knockout! Get off of her!"
"Or what? You'll deafen me?" He grinned at Arcee and opened his bracer to produce a cable with a clamp on the end which he let her get a good look at. "Just so you don't feel too clever," he explained. "Medics have this nifty little workaround for our strictly-medical dealings with femmes' matrices."
She watched him clamp it to a bolt on her table, and realization seemed to be sinking in since the confidence in her optics was fading.
"And just like magic, your defenses think I'm good to go," he grinned. "No pillow talk, no foreplay, and none of that inconvenient lethargy and … vulnerability that goes with it." He caressed her thigh again appreciatively. "Best of all, I don't get the transmission fluid shocked out of me. Too bad I can't say the same for you."
"Knockout!" Wheeljack shouted in vain.
"Nothing personal," he consoled, slipping his claws back under her armor. "In fact, I'm sure you're a wild ride, but I've still got a some long hours of surgery ahead that I need my utmost concentration for, and I can't stand working with my goods all gummed up and dirty."
Arcee had time to take a last calming, collective breath and shuttered her optics before she jerked with a convulsion. Her face contorted, and she clenched her teeth in pain. Wheeljack heard and felt her energy field from across the room as it crackled and sparked with agony.
"ARCEE!" he bellowed, rocking his body hard enough to feel the bolts on the floor beginning to loosen. "LEAVE HER ALONE!"
"Shut up!" Knockout snapped at him then returned his attention to her.
She held out admirably for several more torturous minutes. Every part of her was taut with the pain. At last, a single energon tear slipped free, and she let go, screaming until he thought her voice box was going to short and his processor was going to fry. Then, the moment she'd been waiting for happened. Knockout bent over her to whisper something into her audio or to taste her, Wheeljack couldn't tell. She went silent, and he heard it - the last snap of her elbow joint, freeing her upper arm.
Knockout lurched back with a gasping cry of pain, clutching his chest.
"You GLITCH!" he snarled, swallowing back the reflex to purge.
Energon was dripping down Knockdown's arms, and when Wheeljack looked at Arcee, he saw the last thing he or Knockout would have thought of. Arcee's kickstand - a part of the structure of her upper arm - glistened with the Decepticon's energon. But, she was too burnt out to immediately realize her plan had failed. If she'd been aiming for his spark chamber, she must have barely missed it.
"Breakdown!" Knockout shouted. "Help me!"
His goon came running.
"What in the Pit happened?!"
"Never mind that now," Knockout snapped, helping him stem the bleeding. "Finish cutting that mech to pieces!"
He produced a smaller version of his taser rod and snatched a tool off his instrument table. Arcee screamed as he shocked her brutally, then he thrust the sharp tool into her abdomen between her hips and jerked it back out. She gasped a final cry and collapsed to the berth. Her optic's flickered, her face went lax, and at last, the blue and lavender orbs went dark.
"Arcee!" Wheeljack's voice snapped and popped from overuse.
"Are you insane?" Breakdown said in disbelief. "We were supposed to take her…"
"No self-respecting Decepticon would want her corrupted spark matrix!" Knockout snarled. "Kill the mech slow. Maybe she'll come around in time to see him and her rusty hardware expire."
Breakdown watched him leave, bewildered, then met Wheeljack's hateful glare.
"Better finish me fast," he warned. "Because I'm gonna make you eat each other's bearings if I get out of here."
Breakdown scoffed, and tapped something on Wheeljack's monitor. He felt the pain in his arm and back tingle and fade. "You first," he smirked, picking up a cutting torch and trying to decide if it was the right tool for the job.
Wheeljack experimentally pushed against the restraints again to what he thought had been his limits earlier. His HUD warned him he was pushing his hydraulics beyond their ability, but the wrecker didn't care. He smirked behind Breakdown's back and snapped his battle mask into place.
"Maybe I could have a go at her if …" He barely managed to yelp with surprise when Wheeljack grabbed him from behind in a half nelson. Their struggle knocked over instruments and monitors. But, without the element of surprise and room to charge his adversary, Breakdown couldn't seem to get the upper hand over the wrecker. At last Wheeljack found the prod that had fallen off the table and shocked the Decepticon into stand by.
"Arcee…" He quickly got up off the floor to check for a spark pulse, but a shock from behind made him collapse again.
"Forget someone?" Knockout spat. "Just had to patch up."
The white mech screamed again as Knockout jolted his system. He couldn't get his knees under himself or he would have thrown himself at him.
"I really should just offline both of you, and leave you to rust," he scowled. "But, some of your components are in very short supply."
He zapped him again with satisfaction.
"Like that big, juicy t-cog for one. Your energon pump's the right size for the next time Megatron gets himself blown up. Maybe I could hook Breakdown up with one of your optics for his trouble." He paused to watch Wheeljack writhe on the floor, waiting for him to try getting up again. "What else do I need?"
"You forgot the winch they're gonna need to pull your head out of your ass!" a familiar tiny voice shouted.
Knockout's optics went wide, and he whirled to see who was behind him. He was even more surprised when he saw it wasn't Optimus Prime, escaped from Arachnid's trap, but a tall, green-armored mech throwing a fist into his face.
"Wheeljack!" Miko shouted, running up to face him.
He groaned. "Good work, kid. I was about to give up on you," he smirked. "Good to see she changed your mind," he added, taking Oxbow's offered hand to be hauled to his feet.
"Yeah. Don't mention it," Oxbow said. "Seriously. Don't."
"Sure thing," Wheeljack dismissed. He didn't have time for a recruitment speech. He only cast the unconscious mechs on the floor a cursory glance as he went back to Arcee's table.
"Arcee? What happened to her?!" Miko demanded, watching Wheeljack check for her spark.
"She saved my worthless aft," he growled to himself, wincing when he saw the damage Knockout had done. "She's alive, but we've got to get her back to Ratchet NOW. Get him on the horn … "
"No one's answering," she said, upset.
"Arachnid got them too?!" He couldn't believe it. "FRAG!" He slammed his fist into a cabinet.
"Arachnid?"
"We gotta go," he said, collecting himself and formulating a plan. "Any more 'cons on this boat?"
"No," Oxbow shook his head. "Looks like you cleaned them out."
"If you're not staying, offline these two slag sacks and dump them in the deepest hole you can find," Wheeljack told him before turning down the hall.
Miko ran after him, close at his heels as he ran to the cockpit of the ship.
"Wheeljack! What happened to her? What did they do?"
He fell to his knees and ripped the access panel off of the instrumentation console.
"Wheeljack!"
"He violated her!" he snapped at Miko loud enough to make her shrink back. "She lost her fragging mind, and she … kept him from killing me."
Miko gasped, covering her mouth in shock.
"She's gonna make it," he assured her more gently. "She has to."
He pulled out a circuit board and touched a wire to a delicate component. It snapped a couple times, dimming the lights as the engines hummed to life. They heard blasters and screeching tires in the corridor.
"Scrap," Miko swore. "Oxbow?!"
Oxbow stepped into the room, nursing a blaster wound in the shoulder. "Sorry. Out of practice," he panted. "They got away."
"You getting off?" Wheeljack asked without even acknowledging Ox's statement. "We gotta fly."
Oxbow nodded. "I'm sorry I couldn't do more."
"Dude, you did plenty," Miko assured. "Thanks for the backup. If I can ever help…"
He shook his head. "Good luck." And, he turned back to the corridor, transforming to get off as quickly as possible.
She felt the ship lurch under her feet as it lifted off. Wheeljack began to set its coordinates in silence. For what felt like hours, she let him stew and keep himself busy and messing with things on the ship, but her mind raced with a hundred questions.
"I didn't know femmes could be raped," she finally said. "Could she get … you know … pregnant?"
"No," he stated sharply, but he regretted his tone immediately seeing Miko's hurt expression. "No," he said more gently. "He would've had to sync with her to even try that. Besides, Arcee chooses if she sparks or not."
"How did he hurt her then?" Arcee had only ever mentioned the robot birds and bees once, and she hadn't wanted to elaborate.
"Look, kid … let's just drop it. You don't have to worry about it." He shook his head more at himself than her she suspected.
"She's my friend too!" Miko snapped at him. "I deserve to know what's happened to her. Don't insult me by trying to sugar-coat it!"
He met her glare uneasily then sighed.
"Arcee said femmes are all the same size," he said, trying to organize his thoughts. "That's because their systems all run at the same slow speed. It has something to do with efficiency and the whole sparking … process. Anyway. Mechs run faster at all different speeds depending on a lot of different factors. If they want to do their thing, a mech has to sync up with a femme first to slow down to her speed. If he doesn't, her defenses will kick in to protect her spark matrix. Depending on what he does and how he does it … a mech can hurt a femme pretty bad." He sighed. "Arcee's been hurt pretty bad," he admitted.
"But, Ratchet can fix her, right?"
"Yes," he said, trying to sound confident, "but only if we can get her to him fast enough. I've flown cargo lifts faster than this hulk."
Miko sighed, hugging her knees to her chest for comfort. She watched Wheeljack. His optics were unsteady, like he was looking between thoughts and arguing with himself on the inside. He was going to lose it.
"So, if there aren't any consequences for her," she said, shaking him from his mental self-punishment, "why doesn't she break loose once in a while and … you know … enjoy a mech's company?"
Wheeljack's face fell. "She's haunted," he said thoughtfully.
"Come again?"
"I heard about Tailgate, and Bulkhead told me about what happened to Cliffjumper." He shook his head. "Anyone's going to hurt when they lose a friend, but if a femme's bonded with a mech and knows his coding as well as her own - then that bond is broken suddenly or violently - it can leave … ghosts."
"Like real ghosts?"
"Well … it's like … I don't know how to explain it. She can feel what they would be thinking if they were in a situation with her."
Miko thought she did. "So, it's like … knowing your dead boyfriend would think a movie was funny?"
"More like thinking you hear them laughing at it while you're watching it."
The idea made her skin prickle.
"I've seen femmes short out with just one in their processor. Arcee's got two of them butting heads in there."