Wow... chapter ten... Wow...
Anyway, this chapter frees up the restriants of keeping to the story ever so slightly, not for long though. Anyway, I like this chapter, andI hope you do, too!
Chapter Ten: No Place Like Home
Mercury's ship was safely packaged onto the Steelhaven and sent back to Cybertron, but knowing the ship was going home tore a huge hole through Flash Bang's spark. She wanted to go back, so badly, but she had to stay on Earth to keep Blurr safe.
Blurr hadn't left her all night. They sat curled up on the berth together and fallen into recharge before they could do anything else. Blurr had come back online before her, and had simply watched her as she rested. He wanted nothing more than to take her home with him, but he still didn't want to go back to Cybertron.
The pair would probably have stayed where they were for longer, had they not been disturbed by the thunderous run of Bulkhead as he charged down the hallway. Flash Bang woke with a start and nearly fell from the berth, but Blurr looped his arm around her and pulled her back up.
"Whoa," she moaned. "What a way to wake up." Blurr chuckled slightly as he rolled off the berth. He sped round to the other side and gave Flash Bang a servo as she got up.
"How are you feeling?" he asked her softly. She looked up at him groggily.
"I'm okay," she lied, hardly able to hide it from her voice. "I need to see Mercury, though."
"You sent the ship back with Sentinel," Blurr pointed out. "How do you plan on getting back?"
Bulkhead ran past again then, shouting something to Ratchet about "notes on the controls" and how he had to go be elsewhere. Bumblebee's far lighter footfalls followed him down the hall, and the yellow mech shouted for his bulbous green friend to wait.
"Bulkhead's space bridge?" Flash Bang suggested, although she knew right away they wouldn't be allowed. Bulkhead still had work to do on it, although it sounded like it was down to Ratchet for the day.
Even so, the two found themselves on the roof of Sumdac Tower before much longer, mostly for the view, but Ratchet's grumbling away behind them distracted them somewhat.
"Need a servo?" Blurr offered.
"I hardly think you'll be of any help," the old medic mumbled. "Unless you're suddenly brilliant at space bridges like our very own Bulkhead?"
Blurr chuckled slightly. "I'm no mechanic."
"And neither am I!" Ratchet moaned.
The lift arrived at the roof just then, and the portly Captain Fanzone stepped off. He had his phone in hand and was roaring down the line about technical problems with his droids, two of which flew up over the side of the building as he hung up.
The chubby little man took to running about the roof, ignored by Ratchet and made a source of entertainment to Blurr and Flash Bang. They'd help him, for sure, but right now the scene was too funny to put a stop to. Just as things started to get a little out of hand, however, the space bridge roared into life, surprising everyone. A harsh wind began dragging everything towards the shimmering blue light. Snow, scrap metal and bits of paper all flew into the vortex, but the three Autobots stood firm against the harsh whipping wind. Fanzone, however, was not made of several tons of metal, and was sucked in, yelling in shock as he flew, limbs flailing in panic.
"That was unexpected," Blurr remarked.
"That's probably not good," Ratchet said as he prepared to jump in after him. "Don't touch the controls!" he added as he leapt.
There was a blinding flash of blue light as the medic vanished into the blue, and Blurr and Flash Bang found themselves alone with the rogue police droids. Swatting one away with her servo, Flash Bang walked up to the controls to take a look.
"Blurr, look at this!" she cried cheerfully. "The coordinates are set for Iacon!" Blurr looked at the screen over her shoulder; a slight frown creasing his faceplate.
"If you're thinking of doing what I think you're thinking of doing, then don't even think about it!" Blurr said, clocking on to what was going through Flash Bang's processor. Flash Bang was wondering how one bot could get the word "think" into a sentence so many times.
"But Blurr, I need to see Mercury!" she complained, turning round to face him. She had a slightly challenging look in her optics.
"She said she never wanted to see you again!" Blurr pointed out. "Just drop it, Flash, and lets go back to the base."
Stupidly, Blurr turned away to walk to the lift, and that was when Flash Bang took her chance. She leapt up into the light and vanished. Blurr spun round as he heard the noise of the machine and nearly exploded when he saw she was gone.
"Flash Bang!"
Flash Bang dropped to the ground with a clatter of metal against metal, landing perfectly on her support servos. She looked around where she was and grinned, she wasn't far from home at all, she was on Avalon Boulevard – Iacon's shopping district!
"Oh, Primus, another one!" a female voice cried. Flash Bang turned to see an orange and red femme stood by an enormous white mech, both looking like they may malfunction.
"You don't have a disgusting organic with you, too, do you?" the mech asked.
"Uh, no," Flash Bang replied, guessing they meant Fanzone.
Without another word, Flash Bang took off down the street, taking corner after corner until she came to a screeching halt at the sight of a billboard she's never seen before. The billboard was plastered with propaganda, most of it featuring either Sentinel Prime or the Autotroopers surrounding a shady Decepticon that didn't look too different from Shockwave.
A shudder tore through her as Flash Bang thought of that Decepticon. How could one bot be so sadistic, to crush another mech whilst he still functioned? Flash Bang couldn't even imagine the pain Blurr must have felt as those walls came in on him.
Hang on, Flash bang suddenly though, Blurr didn't follow me. Flash Bang looked back the way she had come and scanned the area around her. There was absolutely no sign of him! Did he trust her to come back in one piece?
Shaking the thought away, she pottered along the alley, finding herself more or less at Mercury's front door. She pushed the shop door open and quietly called out.
"Mercury?" Flash Bang called, but no-one answered. "Mercury, are you home?"
Flash Bang stood before the shop counter, shivering slightly with nerves. It was far too quiet in the building, so she guessed Mercury was out on a delivery. But then she heard a slight shuffle upstairs, like someone walking but trying not to be heard. Cautiously, Flash Bang walked to the stairs. She saw nothing. The lights were off and it was pitch black, but she heard shuffling again. She began to climb the stairs, one support servo at a time.
Something wasn't right. The further up the stairs she climbed the more desperate the shuffling became. It sounded to Flash Bang like someone being held back. She carried on, anyway, and as she came to the landing, she noticed light pouring from Mercury's room. The door was open, and the shuffling had now turned to what sounded like thrashing. What was going on?
She found out soon enough.
"Flash Bang, run!" Mercury screamed. Flash bang's spark leapt in fear as Mercury was thrown from the room. She crashed into the opposite wall and slumped to the floor.
"Mercury!" Flash Bang cried, but she had no time to see to her femme creator as the doorway was filled with a tall and imposing mech.
"You see what happens when you get involved with Intelligence Agents?" Shockwave purred. He reached out to Flash Bang, those menacing claws extending out to her faceplate. He gently dragged his claws down her cheek, and Flash Bang was too terrified to do anything but stare.
Flash Bang wanted to scream, she wanted to run, she wanted to do anything other than stand there like a malfunction but she just couldn't! She felt completely frozen, and all the while Blurr's attempted murderer was advancing on her.
Mercury, however, was beginning to come round, and took one glance at her sparkling on the verge of being attacked by a Decepticon and lurched out to grab Shockwave's support servo. Shockwave looked down at her, irritated at her pathetic attempt to stop him, but then something happened that he certainly hadn't been expecting. Liquid mercury began to gush out of the palm of the femme's servo, flooding the pistons and cables in his leg. Shockwave yelled in pain as the silver liquid solidified on Mercury's command, crushing the cables and wires in his support servo. Some of it had leaked onto the floor, and when that solidified it kept the 'Con's support servo securely in place.
"That won't stay solid for long, Flash, run!" Mercury yelled. Flash Bang turned to do so, but Shockwave wasn't about to take this for defeat.
"Don't go anywhere," he roared. "Or I'll kill her." Shockwave pointed his gun at Mercury, who gave a slight whimper at the sight of the massive gun, but after a moment she shook it off and snarled at the horned slagger.
"Don't worry about me, Flash," she pressed. "Just go!" But Flash Bang cared far too much about Mercury to go and leave her to die, and so raised her servos in defeat.
"What a good little femme you are," Shockwave purred. He bent down and grabbed Mercury by the back on her neck, lifting her up off the floor to her support servos before throwing a pair of stasis cuffs on to her wrists. The mercury in Shockwave's support servo had melted by now, and so he moved with ease to Flash Bang, taking out another pair of cuffs.
Flash Bang, however, was not done. Quick as a flash, she brought down her servos and threw a flash bang charge right at Shockwave, but he had the reactions of a ninja bot, and batted the thing through Mercury's room and out the window. Flash Bang had never once thought her charges could seem so insufficient.
"Good try, little femme, but not good enough."
The stasis cuffs clicked onto her wrists.
"Now, both of you may exercise patience for a while whilst I take care of a few other things," Shockwave said as he powered up a retrieval beacon generator linked to a plasma dynamic thruster, which were basically the two main parts to a space bridge.
"Where are you sending us?" Mercury asked quietly. The Decepticon didn't bother to turn his one red optic to her.
"Your little sparkling ought to be able to tell you when you get there," he said, a sneer in his voice.
Shockwave had chained the two femmes together and shoved the plasma dynamic thruster between them. He tapped coordinates into the retrieval beacon generator and activated it. Blue light enveloped them both and suddenly they were sat on a grey and barren little lump of rock. When the light faded, Flash Bang's sight was filled with a stunning view of Earth, not that the beauty of the planet mattered to her right then.
"Mercury, I'm so sorry."
"You have nothing to apologise for," Mercury replied. "You took the ship to save yourself and Blurr, I can't really be angry at you for that."
"I meant for coming home," Flash Bang clarified. Mercury almost chuckled at that.
"Shockwave made me say all of that, Flash Bang," Mercury told her. "I didn't mean a single word of it."
Flash Bang smiled happily and relaxed against her femme creator's back. For a moment, the two just sat there, happy to be back together at last, but Flash Bang couldn't help but lament her decision to jump through the space bridge.
"Shockwave's after Blurr," Flash Bang realised. "That's why he wanted me to come home. Maybe he thought Blurr would come with me so he could grab him then."
"Why didn't he?"
"I don't know," Flash Bang admitted. "Maybe he thought I'd stick with Ratchet?"
Mercury chuckled. "He clearly doesn't know you like I do if he thought that. You've been a little rebel ever since you were protoformed." The two were silent for a moment longer, but then, Mercury asked Flash Bang something she'd wanted to ask ever since she knew she wanted to be a creator.
"Do you love him?"
Flash Bang didn't answer right away, almost as if she expected the question but wasn't yet sure how to answer it. Mercury wasn't like most bots; she could deduce almost anything from the slightest of clues, particularly when it came to the emotions of others. She didn't want to know if Flash Bang was in love with Blurr – she already knew.
"I guess I do," Flash Bang answered. "But how did you guess? We've hardly spoken since I came home."
"Shockwave gave it away more than you did, sweetspark," Mercury replied.
"Don't tell me you got it from that "involved with Intelligence Agents" remark," Flash Bang gasped.
"Alright, I won't," Mercury chuckled and, despite everything, Flash Bang joined in.
"I should have gone after her; I can't believe I didn't go after her! I'm such a malfunction; I just watched her go! What sort of mech would do that?"
It had become evident that Blurr's speech became more like it used to be whenever he was agitated, and the long-winded sentences began pouring out of his fabled motor mouth as he fretted over Flash Bang. He had a point though, why hadn't he followed her?
"Blurr, just relax! She's a tough femme, she'll be fine!" Bumblebee said, desperate to calm the speedster down.
"But what if she's not fine? What if a Decepticon's got her or she's stranded or she didn't warp to Cybertron? What if the space bridge malfunctioned and her parts are scattered across the galaxy?"
"Okay, whatever did happen, I'm sure it's not that," Bulkhead said, defending his creation. But Blurr didn't seem to care about what the space bridge genius had to say, he only cared about wearing a rut into the floor by pacing at a super-fast rate. It would have been a comical sight had it not been for the seriousness of the situation.
"I'm certain Ratchet will bring her back safely," Optimus promised. But when Ratchet appeared moments later accompanied by Jazz and Captain Fanzone, carrying the Magnus Hammer and with no Flash Bang, Blurr was almost too distraught to speak.
Almost.
"Where is she? Why didn't she come back with you? Is she hurt? Did she go to see Mercury?"
"I don't know, Blurr!" Ratchet moaned at the speedster. "I didn't even know she'd gone through!"
"She's in trouble," Blurr moaned. "I just know she's in trouble! Don't ask me how I know, I just know! I have to find her; I don't care what it takes. I will find her!"
"… I'm picking up two Cybertronian energy signatures on the Moon," Prowl said, looking at the monitors dotted about.
"It's Flash Bang!" Blurr cried. "I can use the space bridge to get to her, I'll go right now!"
"Blurr, it's not certain that either of those signatures is Flash Bang," Prowl continued. "And even if one is, who is the other one?"
Blurr continued his protest, shouting that he didn't care and was going for it. Before he could run to the Tower however, Bulkhead managed to pin him down, holding him flat against the floor with a single massive servo. He thrashed and kicked out and generally behaved like a small child not getting their way, but in the end he just gave up and let his body go limp in Bulkhead's grip. Optimus approached and put a servo on the blue bot's shoulder.
"We'll find her, Blurr," the Prime promised. "Whatever it takes, we'll make sure she's okay."
Flash Bang and Mercury had both fallen into recharge, having nothing else to do, but both were shocked out of their shells as the sound of a transwarp field materialising tore through their audio sensors.
"Primus, what was that?" Mercury yelped. A heavy, clanging thud behind them drew their attention to the cause – a bloody great Autobot ship.
"Autobots! We're saved!" Flash Bang grinned, but her faceplate fell the second the hatch opened and Shockwave stepped out. "Aw, slag."
Shockwave chuckled cruelly as he laced his claws through the chains keeping them together and began dragging them towards the ship. Flash Bang tried digging her heels into the dirt, but Mercury just squeezed the younger femme's servo in her own to tell her to stay calm. The dirt changed to a metal ramp as they were brought onto the ship, and the two femmes looked up fearfully as they were dragged passed Megatron.
"These are the femmes you were after?" Megatron queried. "They look far less than anything you've dragged in before." Flash Bang did her best to suppress the shudder that came as she realised what the Decepticon leader meant. Mercury glowered at Shockwave.
"You do anything like that to my sparkling-" she began, but a mouth clamp was clipped to her faceplate before she could finish. He left Flash Bang free, however.
"I can assure you my Lord, I have not claimed these two for anything like that," Shockwave replied. He continued to drag the two bound femmes through the ship, and all the while Flash Bang was growing more and more terrified that she wasn't just there as bait.
Shockwave opened a door and threw the two inside. There was a tremendous screech as they slid along the metal floor, their armour scratching faint lines into the polished surface. Mercury managed to pull herself, and therefore Flash Bang, upright, pushing against a berth with her support servos for leverage.
"Don't go anywhere," Shockwave taunted as he closed the door. The door hissed shut and Flash Bang and Mercury were left alone.
OMG! Shockwave's got them! Oh noes! D:
Please review!
:D