CHAP 33

An hour later

Shadowstar returned to the dungeon, full up on robot energy, to find Nos-4-a2 had somehow gotten his cuffed hands in front of him. He sat on the floor the manacles held up to his face, gnawing unprogressively on the metal.

She paused, watching hi for the briefest of moments, frowning. "What are you doing?" she demanded.

The other energy vampire, startled, by her voice, lifted his head and stared at her, his teeth still clenched around the stubborn stasis cuffs. She forced her face to stay in its position. At that moment he looked like a kid caught doing something he shouldn't and she had the almost irresistible urge to burst out laughing. Instead she remained stone faced, frowning disapprovingly down at the other vampire.

If she had allowed herself some merriment at the somewhat adorable expression he held she might have changed her mind about it. She had no intention of doing so, no matter how cute he looked.

It took a moment for Nos-4-a2 to recover. "What does it look like I'm doing?" he demanded, glaring up at her. "I'm trying to get these bloody cuffs off me!"

'Yes, I can see that." Now she did smiled. But it was out of pity. "I wouldn't advice trying that again," she stated, opening the cell and stepping inside. "They're kind of durable. If they could be broken that easily I never would have ended up in the stockade in the first place."

She grabbed his arm and pulled him up. "Well now it's too late," she said, yanking on his arm and hoisting him out of the cell even as he tried to keep her from doing so by activating his wings and flapping them backward. "It's time to pay the piper." she looked back at him, amused by his feeble attempts to stay in the cell. "Looks like that help you mentioned didn't arrive in time."

He stubbornly kept up his hope that it would even though the situation was rapidly turning against it. "There is still a chance, wench."

She smiled tolerantly at him, feeling almost sorry for his blind faith. "I'm sure there is." then she yanked hard on him, pulling the other vampire out of the cell and into the hallway. He let out a startled yelp and his wings flickered and powered down. "Now come along. Your chariot awaits."

Against Nos-4-a2's protests and attempts to free himself, the femme managed to drag the struggling vampire down the hall and to the intended room. As they moved, ideas formed in her head, new ones cancelling out the old ones. If she was going to do this she would do it right. I don't want to be disappointed, she thought. He'd better not disappoint me.

Finally they reached the room and the femme drug him inside and over to a table resting in the middle of the room When she was close enough it she thrust him onto it and uncuffed Nos hands.

The moment the stasis cuffs fell off his slender wrists he reacted, roaring and reactivating his wings, taking her completely by surprise. He shoved her away from him, sending her back into the wall. She hit it hard and fell to her knees on the floor. When she lifted her head she saw Nos floating in the air above her. He was smiling. "I am sorry, my dear," he said to her. "But I am afraid you won't be having any fun today."

She bared her fangs. "That's what you think!"

Nos-4-a2 laughed, bringing his hands up which had begun to glow. "Let's see how you like it."

Shadowstar quickly jumped to her feet, dodging sideways when Nos shot a bolt of plasma energy at her. He followed her movements, firing dark green plasma after her as she dodged out of the way.

She moved around him, her had falling on a long chain hanging from a nail on the wall. Why anybody would stick a chain there was beyond her but it would work t her benefit. Chains always did. . She thrust her arm forward, throwing the end of the chain at him. He couldn't dodge it in time and the last few feet wrapped tightly around him, pinning his arms to his sides. He roared in anger and tried to free himself.

But it was pointless. She had him now. The tables had turned back into her favor. Good.

"So much for your escape, Nossy," she taunted.

The fembot yanked hard on the chain, pulling him down toward her before he had a chance to retort. He crashed onto the floor at her feet. She pounced on him instantly, wrapping the rest of the chain security around his struggling body. When she was finished she stood back and and looked down at him, her mouth turned up in a satisfied smile. "Don't feel too bad," she said, grabbing the end of the chain and pulling him across the floor.

She headed toward the table then grabbed the twined links and hoisted him off the floor then threw him back onto it. He grunted when his back impacted the hard metal. She smiled and he roared in her face.

That only served to heighten her irritation. She climbed onto the table and punched him square in the face, so hard it nearly knocked him offline. For a moment he lay there, dazed, which gave her a chance to do what she wanted before he recovered. She grabbed at the chains holding him still he regained his sense enough to roar in her face again.

"Oh, stop that," she ordered, leaning her elbow against his stomach plating to keep him still while she worked meticulously on the chains. "You're only making things worse for yourself."

"Like I'm going to just hold still and let you do whatever you're planning to me?" he growled. He manged to free one of his arms and grasped her wrist with the liberated hand. The energy vampire brought his face close to her own, his optics burning with hatred. "No, I think not."

The femme wasn't intimated nor did she feel all that threatened. "I am afraid you don't have a choice." she grasped his free arm and slammed it brutally against the table. Something built into it closed securely around his wrist the moment it touched it. He stared at the binding with wide optics, realizing what it meant. He was in one of those rooms!

Shadowstar meanwhile freed his other arm from the cocoon of chains and repeated the process even though he started struggling and she had a hard time holding him still.

Once he was secure, she reached over and undid the clasp on his cape. "You won't be needing that," she muttered to herself. "It will only get in the way of what I want to do."

He stared at her, a strange horror building in his system. 'What are you going to do?"

She then pulled it away and threw the cape to the floor then looked up at him, smiling strangely. "Whatever I want."

Shadowstar then reached for his chest plating. He watched her do it unable to prevent whatever was going to happen next.

Suddenly she paused as if reconsidering what she was about to do. She put her hand to her cheek and studied him for a moment, frowning. Finally she turned away, heading toward sliding off the table and moving to another corner of the room. Nos-4-a2 didn't bother wondering what she was doing. He focused his attention on freeing himself before she came back and did who knows what to him.

He turned his focus back to the metal binding him to the table and yanked on it. Hard. Nothing. It didn't even give.

"Craters," he cursed, grinding his teeth together. "Bloody steel!"

A moment later Shadowstar returned, her hands full of what looked like.. nails? "Your creator doesn't have the kind of stuff I usually use for things like this," she said, setting the items down on the floor. "Most of what I've seen looks childish, even the laser he uses to torture the prisoners for fun. No offense to him, but he doesn't seem to know how to use these things right."

What did she know about it? "You'd be surprised."

She looked back at him. "I'm sure I would be." she headed back to him, holding one nail and what looked like a hammer. "But I don't really care all that much. This will do for now. If I don't get the proper responce I'll try something different."

He hissed at her, his entire countenance radiating his displeasure of the whole thing. He closed his hands into fists, wishing he could use them to break out her optics. She ignored him and turned her attention to his right hand. She stared at it for the longest time, her hands touching it gently as if it was something delicate. She slowly pried the fingers open. After a few seconds she turned the hand over and ran her fingers gently over the knuckles of all four of his fingers.

Then.... she slammed them all with the hammer, so hard she put a huge dent in his hand. He cried out in pain and tried to yank his hand away. Sadly he could not do that because it was still fastened to the wall. He was stick having to endure the agony of having his knuckles smashed into uselessness.

But Shadowstar wasn't done yet.

The fembot turned her attention to his face, more appropriated the monocle covering his left optic. While the pain in his hand was still fresh she reached down and touched the eyeglass. At her touch he froze. This made her smile.

Very gently she ran her sharp, nailed talons over the delicate instrament. I wonder why he was given this thing? she asked herself. Is it useful for something or just for show?

"Well no matter," she said out loud. "It's useless now."

She shoved her talons into it. A long spidery crack snaked up the entire monocle. Nos-4-a2 sucked in a breath, forcing himself not to cry out in pain. he would not give her the satisfaction this time. She'd merely taken him by surprise before. Now he was ready. Hopefully she wouldn't do anything worse than crack it.

But she wasn't finished with the item yet. She pulled her fingers out and clenched her hand into a fist. This time she did not use the hammer. She slammed her fist into the instrument, shattering it into a million pieces.

Even though he'd braced himself for this it did little. Nos-4-a2's cry of was even worse than when she'd hit his hand. This made her realize something about the thing she'd just destroyed. It had been important. She smiled. Good. Now to find more important things.

She once more reached for his chest plate.

"What are you planning on using to save Sari?" XR asked again. He faced Prowl, his expression curious.

The Autobot did not meet his gaze. He kept his optics focused on the black void of space, hoping the robot would take the hint.

But he did not. "Come on, you can tell me," he pressed. "What are you going to use?"

"Nothing," Prowl replied, evasively. "Well it's nothing to you anyway but it's very important where I'm from."

"Well then let's have a look then," XR persisted. "It's not going to hurt you, unless." he smiled mischievously. "unless it's something embarrassing."

"No it's not something embarrassing," the cyber ninja exclaimed, his hand still resting over the hollow spot on his chest. "It's just-"

"It's just hidden in an embarrassing place." The space ranger robot got out of the chair and leaned toward Prowl, his hands reaching out as if he was going to touch his chest. "Come on, Prowly. Let's see it already. Is it a picture of her in her underwear?"

"No!" the Autobot backed as far away from XR as he could. "and what is with your obsession with the under garments of organics anyway?"

XR seemed a little disappointed that it wasn't Sari in her panties but that didn't stop him from prying. "Okay, so it's not her in her underwear," he said. "What about you?"

"Me?" Prowl stared at him. "You are aware that I'm already what people call naked."

"That's not what I meant." XR was leaning so close to him he was nearly falling out of his chair. "I mean is it an embarrassing picture of you with your inner workings showing?"

The Autobot was mortified. "Absolutely not!"

"Then what is it?"

Prowl sighed, knowing it was a lost cause. XR wasn't going to stop bothering him about it until he showed him what he had. "All right," he consented. He took out the item and held it to XR. "This is is."

The robot stared at it a moment then turned back to Prowl. He was unimpressed. "A key?" he asked. "You're going to show her a key?"

"It's a very important key," the Autobot informed him, putting the key back into his chest plate. "It belongs to Sari."

"Then why do you have it?"

"That is not important now," Prowl said, not wanting to explain himself. "What is important is if I can get to key to her she should be able to break his hold on her easily." a small smiled crossed his features. "After all; That key saved me and my comrades many times."

"How can a key save anyone?" XR asked. "I mean it's just a key. Did she use it to unlock the door of your house when you locked yourself out or something?" he turned back to the controls. "It doesn't seem all that impressive to me."

"Of course not. You weren't there to see it."

"Then why don't you enlighten me?" he prompted. "How about you explain to me all the key's magical qualities?"

"It doesn't matter now anyway."

"Why not?"

"The key no longer works, it's dead."

"Then why do you want to show it to her?"

"Recognition. I am hoping she will see it and remember what she used to be."

"Oh.. so you're not trying to like use its magical force to resort her or anything?"

"No, why would you think such a thing."

XR shrugged. "I don't know," he said, looking away. "It just sounded logical."

Nos-4-a2 lay on the table, barely conscious. His entire frame was covered in scratches and dents, the pain from the fembots torture session barely dwindling. He couldn't even remember exactly when the real agony began. After she'd broken his monocle everything else seemed like a blur. The only thing imprinted in his mind was the pain. He didn't even know how long it had lasted but when she'd finally stopped it felt like hours. Many many long, agonizing hours of ceaseless pain..

When Shadowstar finally slid off the table she left him with a linger dread. She wasn't finished, oh no, she was barely getting started. This was just the first course.

I shudder to think what else she has planned in that twisted CPU of hers.

His one good optic flickered slightly. He was hearing voices. He listened carefully, recognizing both of the speakers. Shadowstar, that blasted harpy, and Zurg. They were talking, though he couldn't understand the words.

"You have nothing to worry about, Zurg," Shadowstar said to the evil emperor. "I'm doing a very good job. It's too bad you don't have the time to see it for yourself. I did you a favor and recorded the session in case you wish to watch it." she smiled, a wicked smile and held up a disc. "Your son is a rather interesting toy. It's too bad he doesn't have a spark in him, otherwise I could have done more..."

"I'm sure you would," he said, sounding a little irritated. "and I'm sure you plan on having more fun but I am afraid that will have to wait for another time."

Her optics flickered slightly, the smile fading rapidly from her features. "Why is that?' she questioned.

"Oh nothing much," he said, smiling at her in a strange way. "I was just wondering if.. YOU COULD COME BACK TO MY THRONE ROOM AND CLEAN UP THE MESS YOU MADE!"

She cocked her head to the side, putting on a phony look of confusion. "Mess?" she implored innocently. "Whatever do you mean?"

"You know exactly what I mean."

The camera panned over to the pile of deactivated hornets blocking one of the doors. 'That mess!" he reported angrily. "I don't mind you feeding on my robots, as long as you have no intention of doing anything else with them, but I do mind when energy vampires make messes and don't clean up after themselves." the camera refocused on him and he pointed at the lens almost as if he was trying to poke her face. "Now get up here and clean this up!"

Shadowstar frowned, not the least bit happy that he intended to end the session because of a minor mess. Why couldn't he have his Grubs or whatever clean it up? Wasn't that what they were there for? She was tempted to point that out to him but changed her mind. It wouldn't do her any good to get on his nerves. He was a bit childish but not incompetent.

"Fine," she consented. "I'll be right up after I take your son back to his cell."

"Be sure that you do."

The image blinked out.

Shadowstar sighed then returned to Nos-4-a2. She stood over him a minute, studying the robots now mangled body. To her, he looked much better that way. She reached over and ran her hand over his chest plate, feeling him shudder slightly at her touch.

She smiled, knowing why. In the future that certain area would become very personal to him, the slightest gesture toward that location would send him into a fit. Violating one in the sensative places will do that to a machine.

Then she moved around the table and released his wrists from the metal clamps, her optics briefly running over every single dent and scratch in the silver colored metal. She'd actually been very generous with him. Other robots would have looked far less recognizable by now.

As she worked she noticed he watched her but didn't do much else. He was spent. That was a shame. Maybe a break was a good idea after all.

Once she was finished releasing him she lifted his limb body off the table and tucked it against herself. On the way out she grabbed his cape up off the floor and took it with him. He didn't put up a fight. Of course not. She'd taken the liberty of draining quite a bit over his energy. Not because she was hungry, but because it was painful and oh how she loved to hear his roars of pain.

It had been fun. But not nearly as fun as tormenting Prowl. she thought wistfully. How she wished that Autobot had been on the table sintead of Nos-4-a2.

By then she'd reached the dungeon. She carried him inside and opened his cell door. Then she unceremoniously dropped him onto the cot where he lay, a limp and battered machine. Even in that state she could still see a burning hatred lighting up his good optic.

"You just continue feeling that way," she said, looking down at him with a smirk. "I like when my playthings look at me that way." she touched his chest plate again, making him flinch. She leaned down until their faces were only inches from each other. "I am looking forward to having more fun with you but do me a favor this time." she grabbed his face and licked it sensually. "Try putting up more of a fight this time."

His response was a low, guttural growl.

She smiled at released him, straightening up. She turned away and headed out of the cell but paused long enough toss his cape carelessly over his body. "I wouldn't want you to get cold," she cackled, walking out of the room.

The door slammed shut behind her, leaving Nos to himself. He sighed in relief and allowed himself so slip into stand by.

Thirty Minutes later.

Sari did not land 42 on the planet. Instead she left it in the atmosphere, activating the cloaking mechanism then reactivating her battle armor and exiting the ship through the shoots. She made her way down to the planet's surface, destroying anything that could give away her presence in the process.

Finally she touched down gently on the surface, powering down the jet pack she'd stolen from one of the extra suits stored in 42's lockers. She paused for a moment and looked around herself, her glowing red eyes falling to rest on Evil Emperor Zurg's spiraling castle. Yes.

Her master's distress signal was coming from there and it was growing more urgent as the time passed. "Master.... he is in trouble."

Reactivating the jet pack, she rose into the air and moved across the sky. Her destination: the black, spiraling palace in the distance.

"I just want to make one thing perfectly clear," XR said as the small ship drew nearer to planet Z. "I am the one calling the shots once we land. I don't want you running off and doing something stupid in the name of being heroic, understood?"

Prowl shrugged carelessly. 'Whatever."

"Not whatever!" the other robot shouted, making him jump. "You either agree to it or I turn this ship around and we wait until Buzz Lightyear has his stitches removed before we rescue her or do anything else."

The Autobot had no intention of waiting that long. He nodded, though he wasn't happy about it. XR sounded like a strict parent. "Fine," he agreed grudgingly. "We'll do it your way."

"Good," XR smiled and gripped the control stick. "Just remember; I'm only doing this for your own good."

"Yeah," Prowl muttered, looking back out at the steadily growing planet. "For my own good.."