Thundercracker worn down with his energy levels on low is not why he lost it with Barricade. For he never really needed an excuse when dealing with Megatron's hunter. With how he felt at that moment, the speck of a 'Con was lucky that he didn't get torn apart.
Already exasperated, when he found Barricade pummeling another of his defenseless humans, TC became irritated to the extreme. He never understood the pleasure some got when asserting their power over a weakling.
That was how the mech found himself shoved against a wall, and the Seeker's canon shoved before his optics. Sparing a look down, he found the astonished human looking up at him, the slave whom Thundercracker had the misfortune to come upon that would have only ended up terminated.
"You disgust me," Thundercracker rasped. "Your lack of restraint only speaks of your weakness."
"At least I don't go soft for them," Barricade shot back, chuckling. "And trying to disparage my actions when just a couple of weeks ago you killed your only one? Who had the lack of restraint then?" he hissed.
Ignoring the words, TC shoved the mech deeper against the hallway wall. Chunks of cement broke up and fell down at his pediforms. He spared one more look of disgust for the black-and-white hunter before releasing him. Turning, Thundercracker's words drifted down to the bruised and bloodied human.
"Get out of here. Your life is spared. Be more careful in the future," he warned.
He heard the scurrying of feet when the male slave picked himself up and ran away.
The remembrance of coming to the aid of a human was the first thing that tapped into his processor when his charging cycle was over. And being how Barricade was, his intervention would surely only cause contention, or, in reality, greater contention, for the two of them had never gotten along, and it wasn't just because the hunter was a mere grounder.
However, Barricade could do whatever he wanted. It was no concern to him. Thundercracker had dealt with duplicitous individuals before, slag, he was Starscream's trinemate. He was more than prepared, and it had been some mega-cycles since anyone got the better of him.
Not that he was overconfident because that would have been foolish for anyone in his position, but he had far more important things to take up his time.
Thundercracker didn't think of her, or at least he labored not to. Anytime he found himself distracted; he would push it away as easily as he could when Starscream felt the need to criticize, whether about his circumstances, his troops, or the planet in general. Not that the Supreme Air Commander complained of late. In actuality, Starscream's mood became gratified after the hostile confrontation involving the femme. As if him killing the human, awoke a sense of camaraderie that he had not bothered with for some time.
Weeks passed with time flowing smoothly across his days as tasks took up his time. TC took more to flying since his arrival on the planet, going across the earth as he learned. Finding what data he could, taking it in readily, he familiarized himself with the indigenous beings as he shuffled through it all. He watched their movies, read their books, finding other odd things here and there that he took in and processed. No, he most certainly wasn't interested in the humans, but the femme did something to his systems, awakening his curiosity of the humans, something that forced himself to create rather extensive programs to keep his educational jaunts private. His curiosity in the creatures would not have gone over well.
Thundercracker had just returned from such an excursion. One where he found a radio station with hard drives full of data, which, after decoding the simplistic security walls, he found what humans called music inside. A strange mixture of sounds and voices that blended, or didn't blend together, creating a unique, albeit disconcerting track of sound waves.
So focused on listening to his strange discovery, he tried to ignore how agitated everyone appeared. However, Skywarp grabbing hold of Thundercracker and pulling him into a storage room, he found his opportunity lost.
"You're never going to believe it," Warp chirped out, an excited manner to his speech that was only bellied by the seriousness in his optics, "the slaves are gone."
TC lifted an optic ridge and shrugged his shoulder plates. "Is that all?" Unimpressed by the revelation, he made a move to get away.
"All of them," Skywarp elaborated. "And we can't locate them, even the transmitters they were implanted with have been deactivated."
"So they escaped, that doesn't..."
"No, not escaped, they were helped! Someone, one of us, helped them. And you're looking at him," a voice said, it materializing into Barricade as the black-and-white mech settled easily against the wall, his optics severely latched to Thundercracker. Now that he had their attention, Barricade eagerly continued, "He freed them. Of course, I would expect no less from the human lover." The grounder laughed.
He didn't laugh for long though. Skywarp disappeared in a flash of light and gush of air, reappearing before the startled hunter. Not even wasting a moment or word, Warp brought his wrist up, shoving it brutally against Barricade. Down the mech went, Energon gushing from an exposed circuit relay, his paneling scraped along his chin-plate.
"You may have Megatron's audio receptors, but dare to repeat such lies again, and I will really take it personally." Skywarp leaned forward, his attitude shifting into a playful banter of words that could be more dangerous than an open show of bitter contempt. "So, have anything else you want to say?"
Barricade spat and brought himself up slowly, carefully.
"I know it was him," the hunter accused. "He has grown soft for the humans."
Skywarp stared at the mech before bursting into a fit of laughter. Coming back toward TC, he playfully shoved Thundercracker as he laughed further.
Pushing some of the mirth back, Warp spoke cheerfully, "Yeah, TC going soft for a bunch of humans, as if that day will ever come. All though, I must admit, if he did, at least it would show a spark of something different. And Primus knows, of all of us mechs if anyone could use an upgrade of personality it would be Thundercracker."
The chuckling stopped when Warp got a good look at TC's expression that was far from amused. Walking away, the purple Seeker stopped once more before Barricade, who smartly did not remove himself from the floor that Skywarp shoved him on.
"I tell you what, Barricade." Warp smiled, an edge along the lines of his mouth that was as easily changeable as his moods. "You don't speak any such filth again, which I might add only shows how obviously inferior you feel you are, and you won't wake up with your head in the trash compactor, and the rest of you scattered across the far side of the moon. What do you say?"
Not waiting for an answer, Warp left the two alone, a quick nod spared for Thundercracker.
Walking up to the hunter, Barricade flinched but didn't back away and even went as far to lift up his frame, a sneer of a smile caught at the corner of his mouthpiece.
Bending down, Thundercracker stared at the mech, unimpressed and unamused.
"Have nothing to add, Thundercracker? Or do you let Skywarp do all your talking for you?" Barricade taunted
"No, I do not," he said, his fist coming forward and impacting along Barricade's jaw plate. "I can speak quite well on my own."
"You may have gotten away with it this time, but..."
The words were literally slammed away with TC's fist, the mech's optics dimming. Getting back up, he left Barricade and the room behind. But not the accusation. Him helping humans? Even if he had, Barricade would be the last to discover such a thing. Perhaps, if Barricade tried to back up his words with something more than blind belief and rancor, he would have seen he was closer to a truth then even Thundercracker would have ever acknowledged.
"What exactly are you up to?"
Skywarp slammed his body down, sitting before Thundercracker. The recreation room was mainly empty, the rumor that Megatron was going to arrive in the next couple cycles, probably the cause for its emptiness. Many were busy preparing for their Decepticon lord's appearance.
Thundercracker held back a sigh. "Right now? Lining up the south quadrants received data packet with the information gotten from the..."
"That's not what I meant, and you know it."
"If you just spoke what you meant, you wouldn't force me to waste my time."
Skywarp looked happy enough to do just that. He spoke readily, "You have looked exhausted for weeks, no slash that, you have been exhausted for weeks, even now I can feel your obvious strain. What lofty goal are you forcing upon yourself this time? It doesn't have anything to do with Megatron's arrival does it? I mean, not that I blame you, although Megatron actually tolerates you, so..."
On and on Skywarp talked, and TC let him. He felt slightly amused even as he angled his data pad back around so he could subtly continue what he had been doing before he was interrupted.
"You need to get out."
It took Thundercracker a moment to realize the blithering was cut off by a rather long pause, which had just been shattered by Warps spoken words.
"Not in the mood," Thundercracker replied evenly.
"When's the last time you had a good interfacing? I would say it has been a while, because you seem tense as well, or at least that kind of tense." Skywarp smiled wide, a giddiness overtaking him as his words rushed forth. "Tell you what, I know this little place on Rhigor Seven, they have a pit filled with nothing but Energon and the best put together femmes you have seen."
"Don't let me stop you."
"That's it!" Skywarp slammed his hand down on the table which caused the few mechs that were there to look in the Seeker's direction. "We are going and we're going now." Scrambling forward he grabbed TC's data pad and threw it against the wall where it shattered. Warp's smile evolved into a devious grin. Thundercracker knew what was going to come next. He was less than surprised when the room he was in shifted. Light disappeared and then burst and shattered before his optics.
Skywarp just didn't know how to take no.
"Lord Skywarp sent me. Said I am to relax you."
So Thundercracker had a moderately decent time, even allowed himself a couple of high-grades as he gambled on the Rentar rats. Animals that were the size of human cars, with the intelligence of sparklings and the ability to turn what was should have been a simple race around a designated course, into an all out brutal fight as they fought to the end of the finish line.
"You know why they fight so hard?" Warp said at some point, shoving another high-grade his way, the two having just won again. "Because the winner gets to choose a female to mate with. Got to hand it to the operators, gives the creatures a reason to win, and them reproduction and multiplication of resources with minimal cost."
Optics coming on-line with his thoughts coming back to the present, he looked at the femme who just spoke. He had been relaxing just fine on his own, drifting in the buzz of the high-grade Energon as he flew contentedly along the edges of consciousness. Being interrupted was definitely not appreciated. And even if Skywarp had the uncanny ability of picking a femme that he probably would have himself, he was still not pleased.
The femme seemed to sense his displeasure. Stiffening, her optics grazed along his frame, boldly taking him in. She was well put together and knew it, and used to be looked at. She shifted along her dainty pediforms, lifting her frame upwards to allow Thundercracker to look her over as well.
Yes, femmes could be a rarity, but being a Seeker did have its advantages, and being an Elite, even more so. Not long ago he might have been enticed, but her sleek frame and too perfectly molded chassis, nor the bold way in which she stared at him, did absolutely nothing.
However, when she managed to step more directly into the light, his optics drew toward her again. Any coloring she could have been, the odds that she would be that shade of green was so astronomical, that he was still calculating the equation when she stepped closer to his berth.
She wasn't just some simple pleasure bot. Femmes, in their rarity had become more emboldened, some even allowing their mating protocols to dictate their purpose, as they, in their own way, fought to further their race. He couldn't say that the femme in front of him was exactly such an individual. The fact that she was wearing a Decepticon symbol along her slender shoulder plate meant there was more to the female than her appearance. Doing a quick search, he found her in his database, and while her importance was minimal, she was still a soldier just the same.
In the end, it had been Thundercracker, who initiated contact, TC, who brought the femme below him on the berth, her struggling enough for show as she rubbed suggestively along his frame. Her optics intently on his own, she whispered his name and honorific in appreciation. Taking her would have been simple, even normal to use the femme as he released all his pent-up frustration. Warp was right, using his wingmates words; he was that kind of tense.
But even if he did somewhat sate himself with the femme below him, being with her wouldn't take away the true temptation, nor, no matter what he did, could he get away from the enticement, not anymore. He had forced himself in too deep, the deception because of it, the addiction and strangeness of his actions, even as he acclimated so easily because it meant being near...
"Leave me," he said tersely. The ephemeral desire blew away, wafting along and out with the filtered air of the room. Rolling off the femme, she smartly wasted no words as she departed with haste.
He sat down on a nearby chair, wings spreading as he felt a burst of raw emotions from Skywarp. A pleasurable rush followed from his wingmate's own encounter that was going a lot further than Thundercracker himself allowed. Tensing, he had no recourse but to wait for it to end. Processor dipping away, his thoughts drifted back to Earth and the mystery of interest the planet now held.
