Flashback time!!! Before the war... Heatseeker has been spending so much time thinking lately, it was only a matter of time before she had a flashback. :-D I wanted to show how ruthless this chick can be. It's in her spark still even if her logic circuits are on a mission of their own. Plus, I just wanted to flaunt her badaftness and her great need for approval from Starscream. Sound familiar? The apple doesn't fall far from the tree. Anyway, so here it is.
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Heatseeker lays on the bench in the cell. What the pit was I thinking, she mulls over in her mind. Her feet are propped up on the wall and she's hanging her head over the edge of the bench, watching the world from upside down. She watching everyone walk around. Seeing fighters leave, fighters return often severely injured, some dead and carried through the hall she thinks about the outcome of her own fight soon to come. She turns a knife over and over in her hand, the familiar sickness in her reservoir and the weird rush in her fingertips returning. It was only a matter of time before she is to be lead out. At what point will I finally just say enough or no when he asks? She hisses out a small laugh as she thinks of what lies ahead. So many mechs pass by where she is still laying upside down. She wonders who her prey is today? Mech? Femme? Part of her hopes for a femme. It's been a while since she fought another femme and the crowd really seems to love a femme fight. Unfortunately, the other femmes tend to be smaller than her so even when their quick, it's not enough. They often resort to typical femme helmet grabbing and such. The kind of fighting she can't stand. Femmie fighting. The red femme snorts in disgust. She likes fighting the mechs since it seems to be more of a fair fight. Whatever...
She catches a glimpse of Starscream heading towards her, she lowers her feet from the wall and twists to sit up on the bench. He stops in front of the door to the cell she has chosen to prepare herself in. He shakes his head at her and gives her the 'you're so hopeless' look that really pisses her off. Thanks for the vote of confidence, Screamer. She narrows her optics at him as he speaks, one hand on a bar the other poised over the keypad. "Why, for the love of Primus, do you insist on locking yourself up in this thing each and every time?"
"It helps me to think." She says flatly, optics still narrowed at him.
Starscream raises his optic ridges at her and shakes his head, "Well I hope you've thought enough." He presses the code into the pad and pulls the barred door open." Are you sure you want to do this? Again?"
Heatseeker stands up and twists her head back and forth, loosening her dampers. As she passes through the door she stops next to him and glances sidelong, locking optics with him, "Yes. Worried?"
She's in a cocky mood today. He crinkles his lip components at her, choosing not to answer her question,"Bound to be a good fight."
"Mech or Femme?" Her face is impassive, as it often is when she prepares herself for the fight.
"Femme."
Damned the luck. Heatseeker gives him a disbelieving look, "But is she worth it? I want a fight, not a quick slaughter or a rolling femme fest on the ground."
The taller mech smiles wickedly at her, "Definitely. Another Seeker."
No pit! "Really?" That was good news. Finally a femme worthy of her fight. "I better not be disappointed."
"Yes. She's young, cocky, and violent. Sound familiar?" He smirks at her. "You better watch your aft, you may have competition."
Oh, that last part hit a sensor. Seeing the fire in her optics and her lack of response, he knows he did exactly what he needed to. He put the anger in her. Now the fiery red femme ought to be ready to fight. Heatseeker doesn't speak as he leads her to that entrance she's walked through so many times before. The evil smile that crosses her face plates does all the speaking for her. She walks forward into the arena, the roar of the crowd a sweet song to her ears. She's the femme. The champion femme. She revels in the sound. Her pump racing, an unseen crackling of energy coursing through her frame. She looks back towards the entrance which she had just passed through, flashing Starscream a demonic grin as she raises on fist in the air. This is her moment and the new glitch is going down.
A purple and black femme confidently steps into the arena across from where Heatseeker has entered. She attempts to give Heatseeker a cold, callous glare, hoping to instill fear. No fear is felt in Heatseeker's spark from this femme as she smirks back at her. "What's your name, femme?" Heatseeker beams at her opponent and asks in a voice so sweet and so friendly that it visibly confuses the new fighter.
The purple femme gains her composure before answering the red femme before her, "Vesper. Why do you care?"
Heatseeker's smile falls as she returns to her impassive glare. Her voice lowers as she speaks, "I want to know what name will be etched on the sword that will kill you."
Vesper shakes her head at the cocky femme and snorts,"We'll see about that."
The call goes out to begin the fight. Heatseeker stands back, prepared for the rush that Vesper puts on her. An opponent of equal size and speed, Vesper hits her with good deal of force but Heatseeker flips her over and lays a punch squarely in the purple femmes face plate. It is a strong punch that racks the femme with pain. Crying out she pulls at Heatseeker's helmet, aggravating the red femme. "Don't pull my helmet you, glitch. What the slag do you think this is, a sparkling fight?" Heatseeker sits up straight, straddling the red femme and drives both fists into her chest plates again before standing up. She grabs Vesper's hand and pulls her as the purple femme kicks and hollers. "Get up and fight me!" Heatseeker commands to the femme in her grip. The red femme throws the other's arm down at her. "GET UP! Or I will shoot you now." The furious, standing, femme watches her opponent slowly get up. She hisses at the injured femme, her lip components curling up in disgust, "This is a joke."
Vesper stands up,faces Heatseeker and says nothing as she aims a gun at her. Heatseeker does not move but instead laughs at the purple femme, nodding her head towards the weapon. "A gun. You get hit twice and you pull out a gun?! What is this? This is madness! I expect to fight a warrior but you are barely worthy of my effort to walk through that door." Heatseeker points at the door behind her. "Fight me like you mean it or shoot yourself now out of embarrassment."
Vesper glares at her as she throws her gun to the side and beckons Heatseeker to approach her. Heatseeker resolves herself to allowing the new fighter a chance to prove her worthiness and willingness to fight. She walks towards her, smirking, taunting the purple femme with her body language. Heatseeker raises her arms up to her sides both palms up, "I'll give you a free shot." Vesper wastes to time in taking that shot. A shot that makes Heatseeker bend over in pain. Vesper can't see the grin on Heatseeker's face. Pain is what it is all about.
"Thats more like it!" The red femme says as Vesper lays into her with all that she has. The two femmes throw punches, kicks, head buts, each other, whatever they can to disable the other one. After about 2 breems of hand to hand fighting, Heatseeker gains the upper hand by delivering a hard, fast blow with her elbow to the already weakened Vesper's chin, knocking the purple femme off of her feet and down onto her back.; unfortunately, placing the weaker femme close to the gun she had thrown only a short while before. Heatseeker's optics flare as she watches the weakened, dented, and cut femme reach for her gun, the stronger femme acts immediately. A red blur sweeps around next to the head of the fallen Vesper. The gun skitters aside and a swoosh cuts through the air as a sword comes down on the purple femme's arm, slicing it off just below the shoulder. The crowd erupts in a furious cacophony of cheers. Heatseeker stands up, grabbing the severed arm and breathes in the sound. The thrill engulfing her.
Vesper screams in agony on the ground as Heatseeker gives the arm a kiss and then throws it aside. Heatseeker leans down closely to Vesper's face and says sweetly but just loud enough for the crying femme to hear above her own wails of pain and shock, "I'm just a better fighter, Vesper. You didn't stand a chance." Heatseeker doesn't see the flash in the purple femme's still attached arm as Vesper, in one last chance to save her own life, drives a knife into Heatseeker's side. Heatseeker lurches forward in surprise. She looks at the femme below her and shakes her head as she stands up, "Nice effort. Shame it was a waste." Heatseeker looks down at the small knife sticking out of her side and laughs wickedly as she strokes it's hilt almost affectionately with her index finger. "I get to keep this one."
Heatseeker stands above a sputtering, energon covered Vesper. The angry red femme raises her sword up and the crowd cheers on wanting to see one of her cold hearted kills. She raises her left arm as if asking for a gift to be presented, a wish to be fulfilled as she turns in the direction of where she knows she is being watched, diligently. The glare of her optics begging for the kill. She awaits the sign, a yes of no. The crowd goes wild as the sign for 'Yes'. Is handed down. A wicked smile curls up on her lip components as she bows respectfully before turning back to Vesper.
Vesper lays on the ground still sputtering, energon runs from her open wound. The purple femme's optics wide in fear. Heatseeker stands over her, looking down, an expression of sympathy on her face. Then the sympathy fades into flaring optics and an evil, demented smile as the sword comes down towards the femme's spark.
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"Heatseeker!" She is violently jolted back to the present, literally, by two hands on her shoulders. "What is the matter with you?"
"I-I.." She looks around getting her bearings straight. Starscream is right in her face. She looks at him in bewilderment. "I-I don't know. What happened?"
"You were stunned." He stands back from her a look that could possibly be guilt on his face,"You took a hit. Offlined for breem but your optics never shut off. You seemed to be in an extended daze or something."
"Who hit me?" She asks him suspiciously. The red femme already knows the answer she just wants to hear it from him. It's a training day, meaning she, being the junior there, has the unfortunate position of being the target for practice. Only two things are going to stun her like that and those would mounted on Starscream's arms. But both null rays are supposed to be set to a very low setting. She glares at him waiting for the answer. She hears snickers from behind her, recognizing them as belonging to Skywarp and Thundercracker, she vows to hurt one of them later. Preferably the one who she already has to even a score with. "Who stunned my aft, Screamer?"
He stands back from her, seeing she is apparently okay and angry as usual, he waves a dismissive hand at her. "It was all part of the training."
She seethes in anger and embarrassment. "I can't believe you shot me." She shakes her head at him and glares at Skywarp and Thundercracker, who are still snickering. Turning back to Starscream, she adds, "Again."
Skywarp stops his snickering long enough to add what he just couldn't resist, "Hey, someone has to be the dummy."
Heatseeker turns to glare at the black mech, "To bad you already have that title."
His snickering stops as he catches her insult. He steps towards her as if to answer her want for a rematch but is stopped by Thundercracker, "'Warp. Come on. Not now." Skywarp looks at his friend, obviously not wanting to stop. The black and purple mech points a threatening finger at her to which she rolls her optics and turns back to Starscream.
"Okay, so can we finish whooping my aft for the day?" She may be back online but she's pretty numb. Damn him. He owes me BIG TIME now. The numbness is making it hard to walk. Her walk resembles more of a wobble than a walk right now.
Starscream watches her struggle and feels bad but can't help but chuckle at her odd gait. She shoots him another fiery glare as he speaks up, "Okay, I think that's enough for now. Time to head back. We'll debrief in a while. I'll call for you."
Heatseeker doesn't even try to transform. She sits down on the ground and looks up at him as they all leave."Don't you dare even think about leaving my aft here. You did this. You get to wait with me and suffer my attitude until I can feel my body again." She wiggles her fingers while grimacing. "Primus, what do you have those things set to?" She shakes her hands, making her look like an excited sparkling awaiting a gift.
"Not enough to shut you up, Heatseeker." He rolls his optics at her. The two of them were in pretty cranky moods today. "I don't know what got into you, but you were flying and fighting like you truly hated all of us." He stared down at her, something resembling concern on his face. "I haven't seen you that fired up in a while. What's gotten into you lately?"
"Nothing." She says flatly.
"Thats a bunch of slag and you know it." Now he just looks angry as he remains standing and crosses his arms. "You've been... off lately. Ever since your injury you've been acting weird."
"Thats a bunch of slag and you know it, Screamer." The red femme's silver face flashed in hurt. "I have been no different."
"The pit you haven't." Now he looked angry,"You've been distant, more quiet than usual, as if that were possible, and your moods are erratic."
"Hello? Femme." She points to herself with both hands. "...Comes with the territory or do you forget that part when it's not to your advantage?" The 'oh slag' expression on her face corrects what she just said. She closes her optics and sighs just as he shoots her a spark piercing glare. "Sorry, I guess all the being ostracized is just getting to me anymore." The embarrassed femme pauses, thinking of what else to say and shakes her head, "It's not easy you know." She whines at him, "Think about it. I am the femme right now. No others. No one to talk to. No one talks to me. I have one friend and he just shot my aft with a null ray that wasn't set to the lowest setting." She shoots him a guilty look. Time to kiss some aft. Talk about high maintenance. She stands up and walks over to him, he's still giving her a distrustful glare. Primus, stop it, she whines at him in her head. He watches her closely as she comes to stand directly in front of him, looking up, her optics pleading. "I'm sorry!"
Starscream looks down at her trying to decipher if she means it or not this time. She's still staring up at him with the pleading optics as she raises her hands up and rest them on his chest and mouths the words,"Please?" He inhales through his intakes and lowers his arms, "Okay."
She hates apologizing when she knows she isn't the one thats wrong but sometimes it's necessary to keep the peace. Well, that and the fact that an argument over who's right with Starscream can be never ending. Unless it's Starscream vs. Megatron, in which then Megtron will just point a fusion canon at his lieutenant which usually shuts him up, well, after some pleading from Screamer. She lacks the necessary fire power, rank and lack of respect for Starscream that Megatron has to pull off such an act. So instead, she ends the possible conflict with an ornery, slag eating grin. "Well, I must have been putting up a serious fight for you to laze my aft."
His face breaks into a smile at her last comment, "Yes, you were. Although, if I didn't hit you when I did, you probably would have tried to permanently offline Skywarp. You two seriously need to sit down and figure out why you loathe one another so much."
"Nah, it's more fun having someone to beat the slag out of a few times a deca-cylce." She quickly wiggles her optic ridges at him and grins. "Keeps me sane. Lock down duty with the two friendliest con's on Cybertron makes me a little itchy for interaction from time to time. But I'll tell you what, working in the same room with Shockwave really makes you realize exactly how precious life is. Stay as quiet as possible because, one wrong answer and," she pretends her left fist is a laser and points it at him while closing one eye. She imitates the sound of a laser gun then makes a dead face at him, all which makes the white, red, and blue mech laugh, "the one optic'd wonder ends your aft because you're illogical."
"You can be so goofy sometimes," He's still laughing at her imitation of Shockwave and wraps an arm around her.
"I'm just being real." She looks up at him, "He freaks me out. Huge, purple, one optic, creepy voiced... Ick. You have to admit he gives you the creeps too."
"I can't stand him." He grimaces.
"You can't stand anyone!" She laughs.
"I can stand you. Don't know why though." He says as she punches him lightly in the side. He laughs and backs away from her.
"Whatever." She rolls her optics."Look, Mighty Supreme Air Commander of the Cybertronian sky, I have to get back for assistant duty to the two mad scientists. If I'm late, I'll probably get wired into the computer console and used as a telepathic antenna or sacrificed to the All Spark. Are we gonna go or just continue to razz each other out here in the middle of no where while the logic of my existence is pondered?" He raises an ornery optic ridge at her to which she shakes her head while rolling her optics. "I am going."
"Yes, I have to debrief all of you. Including the fallen 'enemy'." He smirks at her.
Now she raises an ornery optic ridge at him, "Race ya' back?" He nods, they both transform and take off. She didn't stand a chance at beating him but it sure as pit was fun trying.