CHAP 3

"Release me, you wench!" the robot vampire shouted, struggling to free himself from Shadowstar's grip.

She wasn't going to let him go so easily. "Oh I'll free you," she said, baring her fangs. "After I drain all your energy and leave you a useless husk!" when he tried to wiggle loose she tightened her grip on his arms, digging her taloned fingers into the metal. He actually flinched. "You don't realize the serious mistake you made, crossing me!"

He struggled further but wasn't accomplishing much. He couldn't exactly kick her to get her off because he didn't have any legs. She smirked, figuring this out when he did. "Maybe your creator should have thought of giving you feet before he put you online."

He hissed at her. "I don't need feet to get away from you."

Something strange happened then. Translucent dragon wings shot out of his back. She was so surprised by this that she loosened her grip slightly. The moment she did, he shot into the air, breaking her hold on him. He hovered above her, just out of reach. She stared up at him, her optics widening. She hadn't expected him to do that. Where did he hide those wings anyway?

He took advantage of her surprise and dived at her, his hands slamming into her shoulders, knocking her back. She was knocked off her feet and sent flying into the wall of one of the buildings. She felt an electrical charge shoot through her body and she screamed in pain, flailing her arms around to get rid of the source.

Her hand crashed into a smooth metal surface. It felt like a face.. Her taloned fingers punctured it. She heard a grunt then that strange bird of prey scream. Her optics flicked on just as the other energy vampire pushed away from her, holding the damage to his face, which seemed to be leaking blue fluid. He stared through his hand at her. The look was nerve wracking.

For a moment she thought he was going to go after her again but then he surprised her by reactivating those weird wings and shooting into the air, leaving her where she was. He was running away!

"Oh no you don't!"

Shadowstar got up to chase after him but a sharp pain in her wing stopped her. She glanced back, accessing the damage. Her right wing had a long crack in it. Like most seekers, her wings were the most sensitive part of her design. One little crack could leave her grounded.

Sparks! she growled, glaring at the damage. If it weren't for that she'd be grinding that legless robots triangular face into the pavement right now. She looked back up at the sky. The other vampire was already a good distance away and getting smaller with each passing second. "This isn't over!" she shouted at it. "Next time I run into you you're going to wish you'd killed me!"

The other vampire either didn't hear her or didn't feel she was worth replying to. He continued on his course, putting more and more distance between them.

She sighed and turned away from him. "Sparks, now I'll have to find another robot to feed on."

She headed down the alley, her audio receptors already picking up the metallic sound of an approaching machine. Right on time.

Sari waited impatiently while Prowl concentrated his Processor Over Matter on the cables holding them prisoner. After a few minutes she couldn't take it anymore. "Hurry up!" she shouted, startling him out of his trance.

Prowl turned his head to look at her. "I would be going a lot faster if a certain little girl wasn't breaking my concentration," he told her, his voice full of annoyance. "Now could you please not say anything?"

"Okay, fine," she said.

He looked away. "In the meantime why don't you try it out for yourself?"

"No thanks," she said. "That mind of matter stuff sounds way too corny."

Prowl chose not to respond to that. Instead he turned his focus on the cables, allowing himself to clear his mind of everything but the things holding him immobile. He began to hum again, only louder. The sound was starting to annoy Sari but she chose not to say anything because she did not want to break his concentration.

Soon the cables began to move. As Sari watched, wide eyed, the bindings slowly began to unravel. Within minutes both were free. They landed on the floor without making any noise. "So what now?" Sari asked, wiping herself off.

Prowl lifted his arm. "Now," he said, the points of one of his shurikens sticking out between his fingers. "We get answers."

Something about the way their captives had been acting bothered Mira. They had not exactly said or did anything that would make them criminal material.. well except bringing an energy vampire to Trade World. But they had also mentioned that they had been looking for that being and wanted to stop it. That was a bit confusing. Why would they admit to bringing it there then say they wanted to get rid of it? Unless....

After giving it some thought she realized that maybe she and her comrades had over reacted a little. She also remembered that when they had mentioned both Zurg and Nos-4-A2 to the two beings neither had looked at all like they knew what the Space Rangers had been talking about. Almost like... no.. it couldn't be.

"Hey, Buzz," she said, looking up at the human who was sitting at the main control board. They were heading to Star Command because Lightyear had said that Commander Nebula might have some questions of his own for their captives. "Do you think we might have jumped to conclusions back there?"

"No," he replied, not giving it a second thought. "You heard what the robot said. They are responsible for Nos-4-A2 being on the Trade World. That means we didn't make a mistake."

"But still..." she looked back toward the closed door. "I don't think that they-"

"Of course they do," XR cut her off. "Like Buzz said; they admitted it."

"I know," she replied. "But I'm not sure if what they meant was what we meant."

"Huh?" the robot stared at her. "That doesn't even make any sense."

"Well neither does complete strangers bringing Nos-4-A2 to Trade World and then looking for him," she pointed out.

"Yeah," Booster spoke up. "The robot with the sunglasses did say he was there to fight him."

"So if they were working for Zurg why would they want to fight him?" she agreed.

"Because they were trying to trick us, duh," the robot responded. "That whole "we wanna fight the energy vampire" thing was probably an act. They wanted us to think that they were there to help when for real they are working for Zurg and were going to take us out. Why else would they have come up to Booster and started asking about it?"

"Because they didn't know where he was?" she replied. "I don't know about you guys but those two looked pretty confused when we started talking about Zurg and Nos-4-A2."

"Yeah," Booster agreed. "When I mentioned Zurg earlier they acted like they had never even heard of him."

"Of course they didn't! They were acting."

"XR is right," Buzz agreed, not about to change his mind. "Why else would they pretend to not know who they were if they weren't lying?"

"Because they- oh never mind! We're just going in circles here." she folded her arms and turned away. "Just forget it."

Buzz let the matter drop without making a comment. But now a nagging thought was bothering him. What if they got out? "XR," he said, not looking up from the controls. "Why don't you go back and check on the prisoners?"

"Right away Buzz." he said, saluting.

The robot wheeled out of the room and headed down the hall between the control room and the room where their prisoners were being kept. While he went he figured it couldn't hurt to interrogate them further.

Even if they insist that they have no idea what we're talking about I know they're lying. They already admitted it.

He arrived at the door and reached up to punch in the code. As it turned out he didn't need to. At that very moment the door burst open, knocking him off his feet. He crashed into the wall and hit the floor, hard.

"Ow!" he moaned, getting up.

"Sari, you didn't have to blow the door off its hinges."

"Hey, don't yell at me I couldn't wait for one of those jerks to come here and open it for us."

XR sat up and found himself staring at their prisoners. At the moment they didn't seem to notice him. The girl was looking at the male robot who didn't look happy. "The prisoners escaped!" he exclaimed before he could stop himself.

The robot and his human partner looked at him. "Maybe we won't have to question them all," the robot said, stepping toward XR.

"Yipe!" XR jumped quickly to his feet and shot down the hall. "BUZZ!" he yelled, bursting into the control room.

Lightyear looked back at him. "What now?"

The robot waved his arms up and down. "The prisoners have escaped!" he shouted, almost in panic mode.

"What?!"

"The prisoners!" XR repeated, pointing back the way he came. "They broke out of the room and they're coming toward us!"

"Not if I can help it." Buzz got to his feet and stepped toward the door. He looked at Booster and Mira. "Come on. Let's take care of this before they escape."

"Hey, the can is getting away!" Sari yelled, moving to apprehend him.

Prowl had to grab the back of the girl's dress to keep her from charging after the little box robot. "You're going to make things more difficult if you keep that up," he told her, pulling her back until she was standing next to him.

"Hey, they started it," she snapped. "We only wanted to know if they saw that fembot freak and look what they did! They wrapped us up in cables and accused us of working for this Ziggy person."

"I think they called it Zurg," Prowl pointed out.

"Whatever." she said, making a face. "Let's just do this. I want to get this whole misunderstanding resolved as soon as possible before they do something else to us. Like force us to eat Lima beans and watch Super Mario Brothers the movie.."

Prowl had to agree, even if he didn't know what Lima beans or Mario brothers were. The last thing they needed was to be put in jail for something they didn't do, not when Shadowstar was out there feeding on helpless machines. "Let's go."

Just then the door to the control room burst open and their captors entered the hall. The three larger beings aimed their lasers at them.

"Freeze, escapies!" the one named Buzz ordered.

"I got a better idea," Sari said, charging up an orb. "How about you duck!"

"Look out!" the blue woman shouted, diving to the floor.

Buzz rolled to avoid the orb then fired his laser at them. The Autobots jumped in different directions to avoid being hit. Prowl rushed forward, throwing his shurikens. One of them hit Booster right in the chest. It knocked him off his feet.

"Okay, you asked for it, buster!" he raised his arm and fired his laser at Prowl.

The cyber ninja took it in the chest, being knocked back. He hit the floor with a crash.

"Good work, Booster," Buzz said before running toward the cyber ninja.

Prowl recovered just as Buzz lunged at him. He reacted quickly, grabbing the human's arms and kicking him in the stomach. He sent the space ranger flying. He crashed into the floor.

"Buzz!" Mira shouted, rushing forward.

"I'm okay," the human replied sitting up. Mira ran past him, heading straight for Prowl.

The cyber ninja braced his body, ready to defend himself. He didn't really want to hit a female, especially an organic one, but he didn't have a choice. As it turned out she surprised him. Before he could hit her she.. went right through him like he wasn't even there! He stared at the spot where she had been, confused. The blue female, who had ghosted through him and came out behind him, took advantage of this and kicked the cyber ninja in the back. He went flying, slamming into Buzz who had just gotten back up.

"Ugh! Get off me!" the human yelled, struggling to push the heavy Autobot off.

Meanwhile Sari was dealing with XR who seemed to have an unending arsenal of guns. Every time she'd knock one out of his hands with an energy orb he'd pull out a new one. Finally she just gave up on that and threw the orb at his face. He screamed and ducked, dropping his weapons which crashed to the floor. The orb flew over his head and slammed into Booster who had come to help. The big red alien crashed into the wall. "Ow!" he moaned, sitting up and rubbing his head. "That hurt."

"There's plenty more where that came from," Sari said, charging up another one. "Take this!"

Booster and XR scrambled to get out of the way blue projectile. Sari came after them, shooting more. The robot tripped over his own gun and Sari got to him before he could right himself. Suddenly she had a hammer in her hands that she seemed to have pulled out of nowhere. "Time to open me a can of dork!" she said.

"Now wait a minute!" he shouted, putting up his hands as to protect himself. "You don't really want to open me up. I'm very valuable. I can give you anything you want! How about a massage?"

"Shut up!" she shouted. "just hold still! This won't hurt for long!"

But she never got to swing because the red alien came up behind her and scooped her up in a bear hug."I'm sorry but I can't let you do that," he said.

"Let me go!" she shouted, struggling to get free.

"Good work, Booster!" XR exclaimed, getting up.

Meanwhile Prowl was having his own trouble with Buzz and the blue alien woman. When he had gotten off the human Buzz kicked him in the stomach which he had not been expecting. The man kept up the assault and Prowl was forced to defend himself.

While he fought against Buzz the woman would disappear than reappear. He didn't know where she would pop up next. He was so busy trying to avoid being hit by the human that he could do nothing to stop her but it didn't take too long for him to get wise of what she was doing. After a few more incidents he jumped into the air when he sensed her using her ability. Instead of her hitting him she punched Buzz right in the face.

He made a really goofy face and fell over.

"Oh, Buzz!" she exclaimed. "I'm so sorry! I didn't think he would do that!"

Prowl landed behind her and grabbed her by the back of her suit. "I didn't want to," he said. 'But you and your comrades aren't giving me much of a choice."

"Hey, let her go!" Buzz shouted, getting to his feet.

"All right." Prowl threw her into the other space ranger.

Both crashed to the floor. Prowl heard a yell and turned his head. He saw the big red alien holding Sari in his arms while she struggled to free herself. The little robot was cheering his comrade on. "Yeah, hold her Booster!"

She growled at the little robot and kicked him in the face, knocking his head off. "Hold that, googlehead!"

Booster tightened his grip. "Now don't do that!"

"You're crushing me!"

"Sari!"

The cyber ninja started to run over to help her but was hit in the back by a laser. He crashed to the floor, his back screaming in agony. What? That was stronger than I thought. he grunted and he tried to get up. "More painful too. Why can't I move?"

"Because I set it for stun."

He looked up to find Buzz and the female standing over him with their laser aimed at him.

"One move and I'll take you out permanently," Buzz said.

Prowl didn't move, because he couldn't. Instead he turned his attention back to Sari. She was still being held by the one named Booster who seemed to be getting annoyed because she kept kicking him in the stomach. It didn't look like she'd be getting away any time soon.

Sparks.

Nos-4-A2 did not bother going back for round two with the fembot that claimed she was a vampire. Instead he flew off until he put a pretty good amount of distance between himself and her. Then he found a nice place to hang and suspended himself upside down above the busy city. There he worked on repairing the the small amount of damage she'd managed to give him. It would not take long.

It seems I have competition now, he thought, remembering the angry fembot as he proceeded to repair the puncture wounds in his face. She claimed to be a vampire herself and he couldn't say she was lying. She'd acted like one, even had the fangs, though hers looked weird.

But there was something else about her that bothered him. Her energy signature. He had never picked up one like that before. It seemed... different. Like it didn't belong there. Other worldly....

Nonsense. It just seems that way because you have never met another one like youself before.

Now that thought really bothered him. If there was another energy vampire that meant he was not the only one who would lay a claim to the machines in the city . It was likely that he would run into her again next time he needed to feed. If he learned anything from their previous encounter that meant he'd have to fight for it again. He looked at the puncture wounds in his arm and felt the ones in his face as he carefully filled them in with liquid metal. That bimbo had claws.

She could kill him with those things.

On no. That's not going to happen. he activated his wings and detached himself from the flagpole. I think I'll take care of that little problem before it gets worse.

A/N

hehehe yeah..