X
She told Blade.
"You know, Tanktanica. I can't say I am surprised, but I can't help but feeling just a bit… sad."
"Please!" I scream, straining against my restraints. The plasma whip cracks again, and I feel nothing but pure, all encompassing agony
"Eighty-nine!" Mischief counts aloud.
"I'm sorry!" My vocal processor cracks under the strain as the lash strikes my exposed back once more.
"I had such high hopes for you too."
Blade's calm demeanor dances before my eyes, the pain overloading my optics. The pain is blinding; I truly understand that statement now. I can't think straight. I have no way out of this. All I can do is scream. I feel the sting of the whip once more, and I scream in turn.
I am strapped face down on the rack Blade keeps in his dungeon for just such occasion. Always one for presentation, he has actual carbon burning torches down here. Not that I think he put them there himself. Even now as I lay in anguish, he merely looms over me, quaffing. Mischief is the one with the whip, skilled as she is spiteful, counting out each and every one of my one hundred lashes.
Here's the thing about plasma whips. They work best when their victim is restrained, as I am now, and stripped of their armor and plating, as I currently find myself. They are less a weapon and more of a tool.
Cybertronians possess an endodermis of sorts, a thin polycarbonate layer that protects our internal curicurty from water, silt and grime. It is essential for any species of sufficiently advanced sentient robot life to thrive, though I have heard some robotanists suggest certain phylogeny could evolve without it.
The superheated shourge cuts right through the endo-layer like it is nothing, allowing oxygen access to the body cavity. The plasma tendrils dance around inside, burning up systems and machinery of everything they touch. Some of the stronger arcs can last in upwards of a minute. It is agonizing in an a way unimaginable to most beings. Every alarm and warning bell in my head is going off. With the safeties engaged, though, I can't even slip into stasis lock.
"Ninety!"
"Blade! Please stop!" I am not ashamed to admit I am crying. The ground below me is covered in blood. I can only imagine what my back looks like.
"Ninety one!"
"Boss! Stooooooop!"
"You know you deserve this, my child." He leans in close and I smell the energon on his breath. "I gave you instructions, very specific instructions. I ordered you to retrieve the artifact and to execute anyone who stood in your way. What did you do? You let the Autobots live and instead passed to buck off. If it were not for my most devoted Mischief, our treasures would be wasting away in some museum. She will retrieve them where you failed.
"I wanted more from you, but you held back. The worst part isn't even your betrayal. I can look past that. Treason is to be expected amongst our kind. No, the worst part is, you don't trust me, Tanktanica."
"Ninety two."
I offer a shuddered gasp, staring up at him.
"I am so disappointed in you."
His words hurt more than any whip ever could, and for two full strokes I forget to scream. His words cascade in my head like the plasma across my back. All my life I have been a disappointment to everyone I encounter. But this is the first time that truly counts. I wanted to serve him faithfully, for him to love me, as I love him. Instead I have disappointed him. I would gladly spend the next hundred years on this table if it meant not disappointing him.
He turns away, and I fear I have lost him forever.
"Please!" I beg before the lash even falls. "I can't!"
"Ninety five!" Mischief calls.
Blade moves to the door. He is done with me. I will be thrown away like rubbish. I can't lose him. I have to make this right. He wants more from me. He wants something I've never given anyone else; he told me so the first day we met. I have to go beyond. I have to prove to him that that I am loyal. That I love him. That I trust him.
"Master, please! I love you!" I scream.
The words spill out of me of their own accord, brought on more by fear than from pain. Blade turns. Even Mischief falters on the next whip stroke. Oh Primus, what have I just said? I wish Mischief would just go ahead and kill me.
Decepticons make slaves, and have been slaves ourselves. We understand servitude. Anyone can be a thrall, but to voluntarily call another Decepticon 'master' is an action of grave magnitude. I am placing myself under Blade's authority forever, honoring him with all loyalty and respect due to him. It is tantamount to a religious proclamation of the highest order. There are few practices like it, but the human concepts of 'marriage' or 'blood oath' are close. Only a Spark bond is more venerated.
"Sparrow." Blade orders. "Remove her restraints."
I close my eyes as my head falls limp. I can't look at his face.
"Master." Mischief reminds everyone of her title. She is his mate, not me.
Blade leans down and strokes my cheek. It is wet with condensation. Though I can still feel the plasma arcs burning inside my body, it is nothing compared to the electricity in his touch. He smiles at me; a genuine smile. I have given him exactly what he wants.
"Oh, I think we can do without the last five lashes, don't you?"
"Thank you!" I cry, my breath coming out ragged and broken. Maybe I should be more indignant of the ninety five strokes I've already received, and less grateful for the commutation of the last five. The answer is simple though. Unless you've been on the receiving end of a plasma whip, you have no room to talk. I would have been grateful for one less stroke. Five less is a miracle.
"Blade, you can't-" Blade silences Mischief with a glance.
"You think me cruel?" He caresses my face.
All I can muster is a weak "No."
I am too weak to move. Blade's hand comes away from my cheek smeared of blood. How bad of shape am I in? Mischief grips her right forearm, hanging her head, and idly I wonder what he has done to her in the past. I can't see what Sparrow is doing, lurking in the shadows as she releases me.
"Oh, yes you do. For I am cruel. I have to be. Your life, all your lives, are in my hands. I have to prepare you for what lies ahead. I demand your loyalty, but I can only earn your faith. There is a storm coming, and you are not ready. None of you are. This is the final battle, and it challenge everything you are. You must be stronger, smarter. You have so much promise, Tanktanica. You just need a little conviction."
Conviction. His words stirr me. I push myself off the torture rack, trying to get my arms underneath me. I falter twice, but I don't ask for help. No one offers it. Unsteadily I stand to my feet. My spine is straining under the trauma, but it holds. I was built to handle tougher things than this.
I stand on my own, a Decepticon true. I look Mischief in the eye and don't flinch. She stares right back, optics full of malice and hate, but I see a begrudging respect too. I am her rival, but I am also now her sister.
Blade takes my hand. "Come, my dear." he says. "Let me tend your wounds."
"You… You would do that for me? Yourself?"
Blade smiles knowingly. I can no longer tell the difference between his genuine amusement and smiling just to get his way. It is all true to me, now.
"After that beautiful confession? Tanktanica, my dear, how can I do anything but?"
He leads me to his room. Not the treasure room, but his private quarters, off limits to everyone but Mischief. I would be elated if every step were not agony. Everywhere in the castle are signs of Blade's taste, but here is shines most fully. A Maltese statue of a bird. A war torn Decepticon battle standard. A Daishō Koshirae with a single, extravagantly ornate hilt, sword missing from the stand.
There are other signs too, indications that all is now as it should be. Only half the bed has been slept in. There are piles of books and scrolls thrown about the room, much too haphazardly for their age and condition. I notice blood soaked bandages littering about, and more than a few torn and rent capes in various stages of ill mend.
I notice a last few things as my legs give out. Mischief has left her mark as well, though vastly overshadowed by Blade. She is almost a guest but for a few indicators. The air smells of her. The disheveled bed bears the impression of her slight frame. There is a pile of spare armor parts in the corner in a slightly different paint job than she currently sports. A hand mirror sits on the lone desk, almost a broken as the hologram next to it. I can't make out who the two adolescent bots are, but they are smiling and happy.
I collapse face first into bed. Blade palms the control panel and the bed hums to life. The base glows white, recharging my systems. A thin layer of pink energon thrums into action, the film actively tingling where in contact with my body. I smirk when I realize I am bleeding all over Mischief's side.
"You poor thing." Blade sits next to me, gingerly touching the gaping wounds in my back. I quickly find my mouth full of energon as a clamp down on the sheets between my teeth. "Mischief did a number on you."
"Yeah, funny that. It's almost like she knows what she's doing."
"Well, suffice it to say I would be disappointed if she didn't." He opens the med kit retrieved from the desk. A quick jab with the thumb drive and I have a new temporary subroutine to combat the pain. Unfortunately it complies a new batch of error conflicts. "After all, I'm the one who taught her."
"Really?" I cry out. The plastic weld he is putting on my back will close the wounds, but it will do precious little for the internals.
"I would be an overestimation to say I raised her. But let us just say, I made her everything she is today."
"How did you two meet?"
"She came to me much as you did, broken and alone. I gave her strength. I gave her power. I gave her purpose."
"So you just collect us, huh?" I turn my head to look back. His hand has paused mid-air, covered in salve. It takes him a moment to realize I am teasing him.
"Now listen, you." he smirks, resuming his duties.
"I must be insane," I muse, my mind dizzy with pain. "Teasing my master. I've got to have a death wish."
"I am pleased you have opened yourself to me fully, Tanktanica. I would never harm you." He doctors the lashes on my back ordered struck by his command.
"And what of me?" I suddenly find myself very afraid. Being so open and vulnerable, both figuratively and literally, has made me quite aware of my standing. "What if I disappoint you again? Will you kick me out? I couldn't live with that. You are my everything. I worship you."
His answer takes longer than I would have liked. I look back and he is lost in the past, still putting salve on my back, quick-welding it shut. His silence lingers heavy in the air.
"Everyone is looking for a master. Some just can't be their own. Starscream called Megatron 'master,' and yet he betrayed him at every turn. Everyone thought Megatron should have just shot him, or cast him out. But he never did. In the end, it cost Megatron his life.
"I, too, once called Megatron my master. Yet it was failure, not treachery, that was my did not forgive.
"But I shall. You have nothing to fear from me, Tanktanica. I discipline, I admonish, but I shall never cast you out. Everyone is searching for a master; some just can't handle being on their own."
I nod, taking in his words. "Wait, who is your master now?"
"That," he leans close enough for me to see the cicatrice on his face. He almost kisses me. Almost. "Is above your pay grade." He stands, helping me to my feet once more. "You're done. Go don your armor and find Sparrow."
The pain is much more manageable now without oxygen finding its way into my internals. I walk quickly from the room, sparing only a single glance behind me. Blade looks so proud and regal, and yet so profoundly alone. I know I've made the right decision, opening myself to him. In time, he may return the token. I just have to trust him to make the right decision. After all, what choice do I have?