A/N: I really got into today's chapter, I could've probably kept writing for the rest of the day! But then, it never would've gotten posted for ya'll, so I brought it to a nice lil cliffhanger as usual XD
Sez- Thank you for another wonderful review, and indeed Nightbeat has perhaps met his match!
Blackpanther- Thank you for your reivew, I'm glad you liked Snarl's possessiveness with his bars XD
To my wonderful Readers and Reviewers, Please Enjoy!
It had seemed like a perfect plan at first. Siren and Hosehead had made their way through the Slavers' encampment, staking out and listening around until they discovered where Nightbeat was being held. Apparently, Slag had gotten bored of waiting and had decided to begin his rampage through the encampment without waiting for the signal, leaving Siren and Hosehead with no choice but to make a rush for the ship where Nightbeat was being taken to.
The next step in the already-crumbling plan had been to stowaway on the ship and wait for everything to quiet down, to wait for an opportunity when the bounty hunter would be in the least threatening position before revealing themselves. Siren hadn't been able to hold back his war cry, however, when he'd heard Nightbeat's desperate shouts—thus, another plan was sprung prematurely.
Sparks shower down from the wall as Lockdown's hook drags a deep gash through it, narrowly missing Siren's ducking helm. Curses and shouts fill the air amidst the chaotic brawl, the long arms of the bounty hunter lashing out while the speedy peds of his smaller opponents dart them out of harm's reach.
Hosehead grunts as he's winded by a swift knee to his midsection, stumbling away before brandishing a dagger, his turquoise optics alit with a near-insane rage. Lockdown raises an optic ridge at the fiery look and growls, shoving Siren away by his face before planting his peds down in ready as the red mech charges him. The red-clad Colonist evades the bounty hunter's hook before managing to bury his blade deep into the bundle of exposed wires nestled in the nook between the large mech's neck and shoulder.
Lockdown lets out a sharp roar at the vicious wound, but takes the advantage of Hosehead's resulted nearness and grabs him tightly around the neck with his long hand, "That one's gonna cost you yer arms, you little slagger!"
Kicking his peds helplessly as he's lifted from the ground, Hosehead glares at the bounty hunter, "Not if you can't use your own!" In a swift series of clicks, the two pistols mounted on the sides of Hosehead's helm rotate and take aim at Lockdown's shoulders, each delivering a precision blast of bright red lasers that go straight through their targets.
Siren yelps as he stands up from the ground behind the bounty hunter, dodging the two lasers as they almost hit him after going through Lockdown's shoulders. Seems like Hosehead could use to learn the aspect of collateral damage. From Nightbeat's distressed shouts, it would seem that he agrees.
Lockdown snarls and drops the red mech as energon spews from his shoulders, "Just keep pushin' me, you little fragger, it'll only make it that much sweeter for me when I've got you where I want ya!"
Hosehead dodges a heavy fist before jolting as he's struck by a bright yellow flash of light that sends him crashing to the ground, conscious but unable to move. Turning his flickering optics as far upward as he can, he sees the source of the blast—an EMP generator locked on the bounty hunter's forearm. He cringes as he strains himself as he tries to move, "S-Siren—shoot him!"
Lockdown chuckles darkly as he turns on the pale blue mech, towering over him as he draws near with his hook, giving his EMP generator a rest in exchange for the opportunity to be amused by the small mech's attempts to rescue his little friends. Siren's optics flare brightly as he backs away quickly, gasping as his back hits a shelf of 'trophies'. It's now or never.
"Siren, shoot him!"
Siren's spark races as he hears Nightbeat's voice ring through the tense air and shoots his hand to the subspace compartment in his hip, drawing the blaster his friend gave him and lifts it—but freezes up. It's only a nano-klik of hesitance, but it's all that the bounty hunter needs.
Lockdown cackles as he roughly strikes the weapon out of the small mech's hand before seizing Siren by his arm, taking notice of the youngling's missing hand, "Guns don't seem to be your forte, kid, maybe I could set you up with a little something like this?" He holds up his hook and laughs at Siren's petrified expression.
He failed—Siren thought that he had what it would take to shoot a bot, one that meant harm to him or his friends. It happened so fast, his gun was taken from him before he could even squeeze the trigger. He hesitated. He couldn't take a life, and because of it, he and his friends may lose their own.
This mech is going to kill them, and he's going to do it slowly, Siren has no doubt of this. No more Nightbeat, no more Hosehead—they'll be gone forever, never to see one another again in the realm of the living. He failed.
Nightbeat clenches his teeth tightly as he screams furiously at the bounty hunter, thrashing violently against the table he's clamped down on, "Leave them alone! I'm the one you want, I'll—I'll give Megatron what he wants, just leave them alone!"
Lockdown lifts Siren by his arm and grins over at Nightbeat, "You lost your chance to negotiate with me, kid. Megatron will get what he wants either way, and I'm gonna get to have a little fun now that I have a pair of nameless faces that no bot will miss."
Siren feels his tanks churn and sink as the energon rushes to his helm. He can't rely on Nightbeat's help, not this time. Something begins to rise in the small mech's core, and quickly it begins to burn like nothing he's ever felt. Taking in a deep, slow breath, Siren's intakes expand until his chest feels tight enough to burst. Lockdown's attention is drawn to him, just as an audio-piercing scream suddenly erupts from the core of his vocalizer.
Nightbeat and Hosehead both wince and cry out in pain as their audios are washed out and nearly burst from the sonic scream leaving the pale blue mech, both unable to bring their hands up to protect their sensitive receptors. Lockdown's optics flare wildly in shock before the red lenses shielding their inner mechanics shatter from the pounding waves of sound. Dropping the youngling, the bounty hunter claps his hand and hook over his audios, energon and sparks seeping from them.
In the cell room next door, Snarl roars and stomps about madly, transforming into his Dinobot alt-mode as the deepest of his primal senses are sent spiraling out of control from the unbearable noise. Just as Siren's scream is cut off as he falls onto his aft, the massive Dinobot suddenly musters up enough raw power from his disturbance to smash through the bars of his cell—and keeps charging.
Nightbeat flickers on his optics, dazed from the sonic scream that nearly sent him into stasis lock before feeling his chassis tense up at the sight of a massive Dinobot crashing through the wall separating the trophy room from the cell room—this is gonna hurt. Bracing himself, Nightbeat holds on (or pretends to) as the table he's clamped down to is sent flipping over onto its side on the other end of the room as Snarl's heavy form collides with it.
Lockdown releases an infuriated roar as he gathers enough of his wits to realize that all Pit has just broken loose on his ship. However, he doesn't realize it fast enough as he's nearly skewered on one of Snarl's horns and is sent flying through a wall to the hallway beyond the trophy room. Filled with the rush of attaining his freedom and still in a frenzy from Siren's startling sonic scream, the Dinobot aims for the bounty hunter, scuffing his peds on the floor before puffing steam from his nostrils and storms forward.
Hosehead, still paralyzed on the floor, lets out an embarrassingly high-pitched scream as he sees the Dinobot charging his way—almost springing a leak as Siren grabs his arm and drags him out of the way just in time before the metal-crushing peds stomp down on him. Gathering Hosehead up into his arms as much as he can, Siren drags the red mech quickly to the overturned table Nightbeat is still stuck on.
All three of the young mechs jolt as the sounds of Snarl and Lockdown hurtling through several more walls pain their already-raw audio receptors. Siren grabs his discarded blaster from the floor and takes aim at the first clamp holding down Nightbeat's left ankle.
Nightbeat's golden-orange visor flashes as he gasps, "Wait! What the frag do you think you're gonna do with that thing? You'll—!" He yelps as his friend is unmoved as the blaster is fired, blinking as he finds his ankle is now freed and unscathed. The midnight blue mech braces himself as the remaining clamps are shot off before he slides freely from the sideways table. Gathering himself onto his knees, Nightbeat grabs Siren into a tight embrace, "I thought—I thought you—"
Siren blushes at the mushy sound in his best friend's voice and returns the embrace, "I never lost faith in you, Beat. I'm… sorry if I lost yours." Looking to one another's optics, the two young mechs hold gazes for a moment before a third face pops into their view.
Hosehead raises an optic ridge as he looks between the other two bots, "Listen, if you two wanna go hug it out in the corner—then by all means, do so. But how about first we find someplace where we don't have to worry about Captain Hook or Stompy the Angry Dino-Freak?"
Nightbeat's lip twitches into a light snarl at the stranger's smart-aft intrusion, but then reminds himself that it's probably thanks to the red mech that Siren is here at all. He nods his helm, "Alright, we're gonna find an escape pod and get off this ship, there's no way that it'll end well for us if we stick around—no matter which one of those two win, we're gonna end up diced 'n sliced if they get us."
Standing, Nightbeat leads his two battered companions out of the trophy room, all three helms turning curiously in the direction of the clashing thuds and shouts, hoping to get a glance of the bounty hunter getting his aft handed to him; unfortunately, they've moved into another section of the ship, out of view. The trail of destroyed walls and charred floors, however, is testament enough to what Lockdown must be dealing with.
Running down a long hallway to the back of the ship, it takes little searching to find where the escape pods are; thanks to Wheeljack's weekly lessons on ships, Nightbeat knows how to find the general location of where things are kept on ships, no matter what size or shape they may be.
Nightbeat pushes Siren down into one of the seats of the small pod, buckling him down, "Make sure this is on real tight, we might still be in an asteroid field, it could get bumpy."
Siren whines quietly in protest to the paternal treatment, pushing Nightbeat's hands away so he can adjust the safety belts himself, "M'kay."
Hosehead squints his optics behind his translucent visor in uncertainty, "An asteroid field? What exactly is the plan here? We shoot ourselves out into a 'field, hope to Primus that we don't get obliterated by a collision with a space rock, and then what? You got some kind of cavalry out there lookin' for you two? We could be trapped out there for who knows how long! The closest place that this pod might have enough energy to reach is the moon we just came from—and I'm pretty sure we won't have a nice welcome party waiting for us there!"
Nightbeat frowns at the red mech, feeling his position as 'team leader' being challenged, "Stop runnin' yer trap for a klik and listen—somebot will come for us, we've got… friends in this part of the galaxy."
Hosehead scoffs, "Oh yeah? Seems to me like you and your friend here have a lot of the opposite, Siren here has told me plenty about what you two have been up to. Yeah, so don't treat me like I don't know—you're full of hot air!"
Nightbeat nearly snaps on the red mech but instead directs a sharp glance to Siren, "So you're telling our life story to strangers? You're not even drunk this time!"
"Hey, don't treat me like your enemy, I'm the only reason either of you are still alive!" Hosehead steps up into Nightbeat's space, having just enough extra height on the other to look down at him.
"Guys, stop! Are you seriously doing this right now?" Siren's protest is cut off as he receives two equally heated glares from the clashing mechs.
Nightbeat looks up at Hosehead, pointing his finger up at the red Colonist, "I don't care what you think you know, I'm telling you right now—we have someone out there who will come for us. Now, either you can have it your way and stick around and wait for 'Captain Hook and Stompy', or you can come with us. If you do come with us, though, you're gonna do things my way, got it?"
Hosehead narrows his optics down at Nightbeat and scoffs with a sharp, angry smirk, "Oh, is that right? Y'know, kid, you have a lot of bark for one so small. Primus, are all Cybertronians so sure of themselves?" Walking past Nightbeat, he brushes arms a bit roughly with the other mech before sitting in the pod, "You better have the bite to back it up."
Nightbeat frowns at Hosehead, "Call me kid one more time. You hardly look any older than either of us, so step off the high 'n mighty act. They'll come for us." Stepping inside the pod, Nightbeat sits down between Hosehead and Siren before initiating the escape protocols.
Just before the hatch door of the pod closes, however, a hook suddenly snaps around and keeps it pried open. Siren gasps and presses himself as far back against his seat as he can as Lockdown's mangled form comes into view in the pod's doorway. The pod's countdown to launch continues as the bounty hunter forcibly keeps the hatchway open, murderous optics focused on his target, gored hand reaching in towards Nightbeat.
Hosehead hisses between his clenched teeth and pulls out a dagger, stabbing it into the older mech's reaching hand, drawing a pained shout from him. Lockdown's patience snaps as he blocks the escape pod's hatch from closing with his body as he darts his hook-end appendage forward, digging it into Nightbeat's leg before he starts pulling the dark blue and yellow mech out. Nightbeat's hands scrape along the floor of the pod as he's yanked towards the opening, optics flaring behind his visor as he shouts in protest.
Siren screams in terror as he grabs onto Nightbeat's hand, fighting against Lockdown's stronger pull. Hosehead pulls Siren back, forcing him to let Nightbeat go as the escape pod's hatch suddenly closes as Lockdown manages to pry his prey out and steps out of the hatch's path. Both of the young mechs bang their fists against the escape pod's closed hatch, trying to find a way to get out to assist their missing companion. As the launch countdown comes to an end, however, both Siren and Hosehead are pressed against the wall of the pod by the force of its propulsion as it jettisons away from the main ship.
"We have to go back for him!" Siren continues to bang his fist against the hatch of the pod, frantic and afraid.
"We will, just—just calm down! We'll get him, we just gotta figure out how to fly this thing!" Quickly sitting at the controls of the pod, Hosehead chews on his lip anxiously, unfamiliar with the format of the pod's navigation systems.
Aboard the sharp, blood red ship, Nightbeat struggles and kicks in Lockdown's hold, screaming and biting at whatever he can get a hold of as he's dragged down the hallway. Lockdown growls and throws him onto the floor, stomping a heavy ped onto the youngling's chest to hold him down as his EMP generator folds up and locks itself onto his forearm.
"You're gonna make up for every single trophy that I've lost because of you. Megatron didn't say what parts of you he needed, and I don't think he's gonna miss the majority of 'em."
With a bright flash of yellow light from the paralyzing weapon, Nightbeat feels his entire form go lax, his vision blurring and getting black around the edges. Strangely enough, it's almost… pleasant. He can't remember the last time he was this relaxed, when there wasn't some part of his chassis taut and stressed to the near-point of fracturing.
Lockdown continues to talk, but the words don't really matter anymore, Nightbeat's mind is focused on the calm, content feeling of knowing that Hosehead and Siren are going to be okay. The bounty hunter doesn't need those two, he won't waste his time going after them. Hosehead seems like a capable-enough mech, he can get Siren to somewhere safe, maybe even all the way back to Cybertron. Siren's smart, he'll know what to do, he's taught him everything he needs to get home.
Just as Nightbeat prepares to allow his processor to slip into recharge, his senses are brought up several notches as a dark blue form suddenly steps up behind Lockdown. A set of blazing, golden optics light up from the blue mech's face, a raised gun pressing to the base of the bounty hunter's neck.
"You've got something that belongs to me, Lockdown. I'm taking him."
That voice… so familiar… so far away, but so… familiar…
Lockdown freezes as he feels the cold metal of the barrel dig into the back of his neck, his shattered optics flickering in silent rage, "You've got rheanimum-coated diodes, coming aboard my ship again. You think this kid is worth it?"
The dark blue mech frowns sharply, "You have no idea what this kid is worth to me."
My vision blurs in and out, pieces of what happens next missing from my memory drive.
Strong, warm arms slowly curve under my knees and around my back, lifting me from the floor. My cheek is cushioned on a rounded piece of shoulder armor that could easily be wider than my own chest. Golden light fills my vision as the mech holding me turns his focus my way, and my visor naturally retracts to reveal my matching pair of gold optics. His midnight blue helm frames a solid, chiseled face that I know I've seen before, but I'm just too tired to place it right now.
I'm not sure how long I stare at him, but it isn't long before he smiles at me, "Hey, kid. Look how big you are… Your mother must feed you well."
My voice catches in my throat for a moment as I feel my optics begin to burn, blurring my vision even more, masking the mech in further mystery, "Dad…?"