A/N: This is on the same day as previous chapter, but at the Decepticon base. Will Flare-up kick some serious can? Read on to find out! You all know my disclaimers and such.
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Of femmes and Sparklings chaper 12 – What's the situation - part 2
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Unknown, Decepticon base.
Flare-up had woken peacefully to an empty berth. Barricade had told her he had an early shift the next day. The day previous after their visit to the medbay, they had come back to the large quarters of the SD. The young femme had been alone after that, until Barricade had come back and they had evening energon together.
It was actually quite pleasant. Barricade, while not giving up all his secrets, had chatted amiably with her about what he had been like before the war, and vice versa. No talk about either faction, no demanding for intel. Just talk. They had a mutual respect for each other, at first grudging, but flowed out into a vein of friendliness that made the situation more of a 'enemy/friends with benefits' situation. Flare-up did not mind that at all.
And now it was mid-morning. On the Star she, Firestar and Arcee would get together for energon before sparring together to keep each other in top condition if any battles arose. Not here in the Con base. She was to fuel and be domestic. Take care of the sparkling as it grew within her chestplates and do Barricade's bidding – paraphrased from Megatrons, 'Enjoy your spoils.'
Stretching, she hopped off the berth, hoping for some energon from the dispenser. But reaching the main room, she saw there wasn't enough in the canister underneath.
Confused, she opened up her side of the bond with Barricade and sent her question, hoping he would catch it. 'Barricade, there's no energon in the room. Is someone going to bring some down to me or something?'
'No.' Barricade's reply was swift. 'I forgot to fill the dispenser. I'll see what I can do,'
Frowning, Flare-up sat down to wait. Tracing the tips of her fingers in random patterns with the canister in her hands, she let her thoughts drift to the Autobot base. How were her friends and the other femmes going? Had they found a way to overcome the virus? Were some, like she, expecting a sparkling yet? Too many questions, no answers to be found until she escaped. And if she escaped, would the Con's try to capture her to stay in Barricade's quarters forever? Would Barricade allow her to go back? Sighing, the orange and red femme dropped her head to her chest.
Hearing shuffling outside the door, she snapped her head back up as there was a beep and the soft sound of a door sliding open, revealing Skywarp.
"Hey little missy! How are you doing here at Camp Con?" grinned the seeker. Although a great flier and warrior when he wanted to be, Skywarp had a reputation among the Autobots to be a bit ditzy at times. Cautious, Flare-up stepped closer to the taller mech.
"Are….are you here to bring me energon?" she asked.
Still grinning, Skywarp shook his head, "Nope, I'm gonna bring you to the energon. I'm your guard, so hold on!" Before she knew it, Flare-up had her arm gripped hard as she was warped with the seeker, dropping the canister as they warped.
As they arrived, she fell to the ground, gasping as she fell. Looking up to chastise the pranking seeker, she found herself the focus of multiple pairs of amber and blood-red optics. She shut her mouth and hauled herself up, waiting to see what would happen. She was obviously in the Con's rec-room.
Grabbing her arm again, Skywarp said, "I'm not going to get it for you or feed you, princess. I'm just the unlucky mech who guards you."
Before she could stop herself, she spat, "Don't call me 'princess.' The designation's Flare-up."
Instead of snarling back at her, he grinned, "Okay, Flare-up. Here's a dispenser, I'm sure you know how to use it. I'll just be over here." He warped all the way to the back of the rec-room, furthest away from the main energon dispenser. Flare-up huffed. Fine. If the seeker wanted to be childish and make her take a 'walk of shame' through all of the Decepticons here in the rec-room, then so be it. She was an Autobot bonded to one of them. They wouldn't touch her. She hoped.
She took a cube and filled it with mid-grade (the best for now until Hook could mix up some nutrient grade energon) and turned to face the room at large. While some Decepticons had gone back to their energon and conversations, others still watched her, pinning her under what felt like a hundred red gazes.
She glared at Skywarp, who smirked back. 'Bring it on,' she thought.
She stepped forward, trying not to notice the Decepticons on either side. It struck her as odd that they hadn't cuffed her for the trip here. Regardless she kept moving.
"Weakling," hissed Astrotrain as she passed. She faltered slightly, but kept going.
"Autobrat," snarled Vortex. Hardening her expression, she realised it was a test.
Upcoming on the left was a table with two femmes. Slipstream and Flamewar. Seeing the femme seeker smirk, she knew what was to come. "Little Auto-slut. Probably hasn't faced in so long she took the chance with Barricade." Flamewar remained expressionless. Flare-up wanted so badly to attack the disdainful, yet beautiful femme seeker. There were a few cruel snickers, but steeling herself, she finally reached the table where Skywarp sat, still grinning in a way that made Flare-up's energon boil.
She sat down, back facing the room, and didn't say a word. The young warrior femme merely shuttered her optics and drank.
Feeling a slight ping in her spark, she opened up her bond with Barricade. 'Well done,' he said, 'I saw and heard the whole thing through the cameras.' Flare-up sent her acknowledgement and closed the bond.
Skywarp was watching her with amused optics as she sat stubbornly. Shrugging, he got out a game pad and started fooling around with it. They sat in silence as Flare-up drunk the energon. She was almost finished when the rec-room doors slammed open and the Stunticons stomped through. Well, Motormaster stomped, the rest just followed.
The Stunticon leader was about to retrieve his daily energon when he caught sight of Flare-up, polished slender chassis standing out in a crowd of mostly blocky forms. The towering mech turned and sauntered across the room. Yes, he knew she was Barricade's. But he didn't give a damn. A femme was a femme, and they were meant for playing with - in Motormasters opinion – sparked up or not.
Skywarp saw the brute coming, but didn't say a word. He knew he still had to make up to the Menasor leader for a prank he had played on him a while back. If he interfered, Skywarp knew, without a doubt, that the truck would rip his wings off.
The seeker could only hope that Barricade was noticing.
Hearing heavy footsteps, Flare-up put down her cube and turned to look – and was met with a metal wall of black and dirty brown armour. She craned her head to look up at the glowing garish orange optics of Motormaster coldly.
"What?" said Flare-up in a bored tone. Giving a glare to Skywarp that told him to scram, the Menasor leader wrenched the slight form out of the seat and sat down where she had been sitting, placing her on his lap.
"Frag off!" Flare-up snarled.
She hadn't noticed that Skywarp had warped himself a few tables away. He had a duty as the femme's bodyguard, but he valued his wings just a little too much at the moment.
Motormaster paid no heed to the struggling of the femme in his lap, holding both her small wrists in one hand as he ran his hand down her side. She yelped in disgust as he continued to run his hand up and down.
Huffing, she yelled, "I'm bonded you glitch! As if you can do this with me!"
Motormaster grinned darkly, "I don't care. You'll do for what I want."
'Oh he did not just….!' wondered Flare-up in disbelief. She growled. She was not going to be some helpless little femme. Oh no, she was going to give this 'King of the road' an introduction…..to her guns.
Un-subspacing her blaster (and with both wrists restricted too), she twisted the handle to blast a small hole in the Decepticons shoulder. The mech howled as she jumped free of his hold and leaped away. Motormaster, filled with fury, went after her like a raging bull. Flare-up nimbly jumped from table to table, upsetting cubes of energon as the mech behind her decimated those same tables.
Decepticons shouted angrily after them as the chase continued, energon now staining Motormaster's armour from when it had splashed on him, Flare-up beginning to pant with the extertion her smaller body was making to escape the much larger brute.
"YAH!" Flare-up called out as Motormaster missed snatching her pede by an inch. Seeing she was near a wall, Flare-up tried a move she thought she'd never try in her lifecycle.
Using all her strength in her legs, cables straining, she jumped off her current table, and kicked off from the wall. She slung her body through the air, landing off to the side of the large mech, who had realised his mistake too late and crashed head-first into the wall. The Decepticons throughout the room who had been watching this drama unfurl with intense curiosity laughed at the sight of Motormaster slumping to the ground for a brief moment.
"Oh Primus, the femmes been sent by Primus to kill us all! She and the little demon sparkling," shivered Breakdown, paranoia kicking in when he saw his leader slump, Stunticons looking on.
"Face it: We're doomed to die a painful death by a femme Autobot," acknowledged Dead End soberly.
Motormaster took his helm out of the new dent in the wall and shook it to get his processor back to full function, and turned to snarl at his gestalt-mates, static filling the snarl. Seeing the Autobrat femme with a little smirk on her faceplates, he charged again. One second the femme was standing there, smirking as he drew nearer, the next she had disappeared.
Flare-up had let herself fall to the ground and, as Motormaster was set to charge into her, raised her legs to catch him in the abdomen and flipped him over, his back landing with a resounding crash. Quickly getting up again, Flare-up tried to twist his arm behind his back to immobilise him, but was sent flying as he regained enough sense to land a punch into her side.
Gasping in pain, Flare-up retrieved her blaster and brought it up to target it on Motormaster's head.
"Don't…..you….dare," Flare-up panted, clutching her side as a few trickles of energon escaped her hand. The fraggin' punch had been powerful enough to dent her side far in enough to nick a few energon lines.
Motormaster had made as if to stand but was stopped by a cold voice at the door of the rec-room.
"You touch my bondmate one more time, or have hurt my sparkling in any way, Motormaster, I will dredge up every bit of blackmail I have and send it to every Decepticon and, if I'm feeling really sadistic, every Autobot as well. While I am slowly picking apart your carcass after offlining you by a painful and slow death. Un-der-stood? Or do I have to break it down further?"
Silence followed Barricade's cold, livid tones, broken by Breakdown's small "Eep!" and dashing out of the rec-room wimpering, 'they'll never take me alive!' and Dead End's 'yey, we're doomed,' muttering.
Still in silence, Barricade walked forward to Flare-up and picked her up with gentleness of a degree that Flare-up was grateful for. Acting the part of a fearful bondmate, Flare-up cuddled up to his chestplates with a stricken expression muttering 'I'm sorry.' He said nothing, still striding evenly, taking her to repair bay with Hook rapidly fixing the dent and energon leaks, checking the sparkling orb and confirming it was fine.
He didn't even open up his side of the bond until he was in his own quarters. Flare-up shrank back physically from the amount of roiling anger within his spark. Setting her down, Barricade paced to the dispenser and re-filled it from subspace pocket before turning around to scrutinise Flare-up.
"I'm sorry." Flare-up did not expect those words out of her newly bonded's mouth. Tentatively she asked, "What for Cade?"
Flare-up could see the gritting of his denta when he replied, "I was foolish, believing that you would be untouchable physically because you were bonded with a sparkling on the way. You will only go out with me there. I can't allow that to happen again."
"But you didn't know Motormaster was actually going to do that!" argued the femme.
"But I knew what he was like!" the SD snarled back. Seeing her taken aback expression, Barricade harshly ventilated through his intakes in an attempt to calm the fury within. Sending feelings of apology and receiving forgiveness, Barricade moved to lightly embrace Flare-up. Smiling, Flare-up reciprocated, clutching his back-plates in a way that Barricade knew that she had been truly scared of Motormaster. Not for herself, no. For the sparkling. He had felt it before he had abandoned his post to Soundwave to reach the rec-room where he knew where his sparkmate would be.
"I said I'd protect you and the sparkling to the best of my ability. Today was only part of what I'd do. After all….this is the first true family I have ever had," murmured Barricade comfortingly into her audial.
Pulling back slightly to glance at him in surprise, Flare-up had no time to question as Barricade leaned down to meld his lips against hers.
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A/N: WHOO! Flare-up kicked can! If only he wasn't so bloody big! But she can hold her own, she proved that much. Do people like this pairing? And does anyone have any suggestions as to how she escapes. Back to the Autobots for the next chapter. Still the same day!
p.s Cowardly Skywarp! Lol. Sorry, I just read an article on TF: A and the clones of Starscream and thought it was funny.
