Chapter 14: Afters
I AIENT DEAD. Just kind of fried. Nothing belongs to me, if you're not old enough to read this story then don't, etc. etc.
Skyfire had finally gotten a chance to talk to her leader, the Noble and Beautiful Prime. Ugh. Now she was thinking in bad romance downloads. As a young and socially awkward mech, she had loved the things, and had read them voraciously. Even as a youngling, she had known that most of the stuff in there was ridiculous, but now she was kind of living a sub-plot of one, and she really wasn't sure how she felt about it.
After all, she was apparently cast in the role of a supporting character who had a star (ha) crossed love of another faction. Not only that but she had been ravished by the Evil Warlord in a graphic and titillating fashion. Of course, in one of the stories, the villain would have cruelly rejected her the next morning, instead of her fragging him offline and sneaking away, but it was close enough.
In the (sort of) historical novels, it had usually been the ancient city-states of Cyberton. The various wars and intrigues between them made for good stories, and lots of opportunities for purple prose. That was only because all of those files had been written before the War broke out, of course. Someday, if they didn't drive themselves to extinction first, the Autobots and Decepticons would probably serve as the backdrop for bad plating ripper novels too.
She could only hope from the bottom of her spark that this was one of the stories where the dark but intriguing anti-hero gets redeemed by Love and not one of the arty ones where the entire cast ended up cold and grey while symbolic ice crystals fell from the sky onto their beautiful (but dead) face plates.
She settled her gyros and stepped through Optimus's door.
"Prime?" Skyfire queried softly. She took in the tense lines of her leader's frame, could practically feel the air sizzle around the other femme. Perhaps this wasn't a good time…No. She was a pacifist, not a wuss.
"I…must speak to you, my Prime." She said.
"Of course, what is it Skyfire? The imposing femme asked, her voice filled with its usual resonant compassion. Skyfire suppressed a shiver. Damn, she had just had a marathon fragging session with two Very Impressive mechs. She should not be wanting to lave her commanding officer's plating with her glossa. Even if she was currently living up to the horny reputation of fliers.
Despite her (blindingly) obvious tension, Optimus looked concerned. "Are you well, my friend? Your paint is abraded, and you have, uh, marks on your wings. Did…did things not go well with your visit?" Even though the Prime was fully aware that she had left the base to find and frag Starscream, she was still officially uninformed of it.
A laugh manifested in Skyfire's vocalizer without her prior permission. "I am more than fine, I assure you, my Prime." She purred. In fact the delicious ache in her systems made her want to head straight back for another helping of Decepticon attentions. She shook herself mentally. Must not be slutty flier stereotype in front of the commander.
Said commander only looked more concerned. "Please, sit. Shall I get us some energon, and you can tell me what happened?" Optimus asked.
Syfire took the slightly too-small seat and vented hard. Perhaps this called for the direct approach. "Well, sir, the thing is… I was fragging Starscream when Megatron showed up and decided to show us both that he actually lives up to his name and it turns out he's really, really good with his glossa and his spike is amazing and slag that is some stamina and he smelled you on my plating and it really really really turned him on and I think he's subconsciously trying to present himself as a candidate for Lord High Protector."
Prime stared at her incredulously. Well, at least she had touched on all the salient points. Only she accomplished it by doing a bad impression of Bluestreak.
"You…Megatron…and Starscream at the same time." Optimus sputtered. Her fans came on. "Uh, are you…all right?
Skyfire go a hold of herself. "Yes Prime, Megatron scared me a bit when he showed up, but he didn't do anything to harm me. I feel wonderful. A little sore, but in the most delicious way…"
"Ah." Said Optimus. "That's…good. Wait, what do you mean he could smell me on you?"
"You do smell very nice, Prime." Skyfire ventured.
Suddenly, Skyfire found herself the focus of a pair of hot, intense blue optics, locked on her with almost unsettling intensity. "Skyfire," Optimus Prime said. "I need you to explain to me what you mean, about Megatron presenting himself as a possible Lord High Protector." One of her servos strayed to her chest plates, directly above the Matrix of Leadership.
"Also," she murmured, "tell me how he was. I would like a…detailed report."
Hound, Mirage and Barricade had had a very pleasurable evening. The three of them lay in a comfortable tangle of metallic limbs, too content to move. Hound was currently stroking the sensuous curves of Mirage's back strut, and Barricade was on her other side, propped up on one arm, watching. He looked a lot more relaxed than he had earlier, as was only reasonable after the number of overloads he had had in the last few hours.
"Do you think this makes me a traitor to the Decepticons?" The scout asked, his four scarlet optics worried.
Mirage cracked open a blue optic to peer at the enemy scout. "If it does, you're in the company of most of your command staff and at least half of the Seekers. "I'm pretty sure that your officers basically have a 'don't ask don't tell' policy in place where fraternization with Autobots is concerned. Though if you need some blackmail material to keep them off you back, I've got plenty on Screamer."
The mech grinned. "Seriously? That explains a lot, actually. He's been almost pleasant the last few weeks. I shoulda known he was getting some. It's that shuttle, right?
"Mmmm hmmm." Mirage agreed with a slight engine rumble. "Skyfire has been putting him through his paces. I guess it's true what they say; it's always the quiet ones." She nuzzled Hound's chest plating playfully. "Thank Primus."
Hound dropped a kiss on her lover's helm. "I don't know, the poetic aristocratic types can be pretty frisky, too."
"So…do the two of you come to these woods often?" Asked Barricade as innocently as a Decepticon could (which was not very, in case anyone was wondering).
The Autobots shared a glance. "Hound and I do have a couple of favorite spots near here. We should show you one of them, in case you ever need some…private time for equipment maintenance again." Murmured Mirage. "In the name of interfactional understanding, of course."
Barricade grinned at his new lovers. Existence was good.
Elita One, the commander of the Autobot forces on Cybertron was having a staff meeting.
There wasn't all that much of a staff, all things considered, but those few of her troops in this sector who were currently active and not on perimeter or monitors or shut down in stasis pods due to energon deprivation were present.
She sighed inwardly, seeing how few they were. Cybertron had once been a thriving planet with billions of sentients. Now it was a deserted wasteland, starved of energy and depopulated by war, starvation and attrition. The Allspark was gone, and the planet was depleted of energy and resources. The war had gone on for nearly four thousand planetary rotations, and had gone from a rebellion against the calcified caste system and corrupt government to a monster that ate all of Cybertron's children.
At least now she knew that there was a glimmer of hope. Their Prime and his crew lived. They had been thought lost in a battle with Megatron, and the only comfort was that they had taken Megatron and a substantial number of his command staff with them.
Elita had done her best to rally the surviving Autobots on Cybertron to continue the fight. Most Cybertronians were gone now; dead or left in search of energon or safety. There were several known colonies that granted haven to Autobot and Neutral survivors, but they existed in permanent tension with the Decepticon forces that were stationed on other worlds or on satellites and moons.
Ultra Magnus, her longtime friend and respected colleague was one of those mechs, the commander of the remaining Autobot fleet. He had left years ago, taking most of the Autobots with heavy energon requirements with him. Large mechs like Magnus needed a lot of fuel, and couldn't function on the small amounts of energy that could be gleaned from the weak light of Cybertron's dwarf star.
Elita and her femmes remained. They were smaller and more fuel efficient. They were also better suited to stealth than the larger, bulkier models like Optimus or Ultra. That wasn't to say they were the only transformers left on Cybertron, of course. There were other Autobots and even some remaining neutrals in power-saving stasis as well. The stasis-locked Autobots were all female now, and Elita wanted her medics' opinion on waking a few of them up.
Currently on Cybertron there were a small number of active Decepticons awake and many more in stasis, along with samples of Cybertron's other mechanical species. Fortunately Shockwave was enough of a true scientist to want to preserve those.
Elita and Shockwave had a highly unofficial understanding that neither one of them would attack those sleeping bots or the cyberbiological reserves. If Cybertron was ever to be at all restored, unlikely though that seemed sometimes, they would need them to have any hope of success.
In truth, the Decepticon Guardian and the Autobot commander had been unofficially at truce for years prior to Prime and Megatron's miraculous return from the dead. Neither she nor Shockwave had the energy to spare, literally. Besides, the mech was nearly insane from isolation. Poor fragger. He should have kept a nearby mech awake to talk to, at least. Cybertronians were a social species, and they did not handle isolation well. Elita's intelligence suggested that Shockwave's experiments had turned more and more to building new bots, supposedly to create soldiers with war-worthy powers. The Rainmakers were a win as far as that went, but probably did not provide Shockwave with a lot of companionship.
Lately the cycloptic guardian had been getting energon imported from Earth over the Space Bridge, and Elita and her people had taken the opportunity to liberate some of it.
Her CMO, Torchweld was giving her an update on the status of the now female Autobots in stasis. "I'm mostly concerned about how they're going to take it. It's a psychologically risky thing to revive any of our comrades until we know the circumstances behind their change. They're going to want answers when they wake up and find some very important hardware missing."
Elita nodded. "Agreed. The energon supply is far from secured, in any case. We need to establish contact with Earth."
Thundercracker had decided that the Great Autobot Gender Change was incontrovertible proof that Primus loved them and wanted them to be happy. There head been many long years where he didn't' believe that at all, but his Deity had made up for all that by sending a couple of psychotic, evisceration-happy Autobot frontliners to seduce him and his trine-mate until their processors melted.
There was just one liiiiitle snag in his happy state of near permanent afterglow. And that snag had a raspy voice and a planet sized ego.
The blue Seeker knew that he and Warp were going to have to come clean to their Air Commander and trine leader sooner rather than later, but he was not relishing the screeching, and possibly shooting, with probably a side of clawing and possibly even some military discipline that was sure to ensue.
His purple and black Trine mate was still deep in the Land of Denial, but Thundercracker had always been the practical one. He needed to come up with a good way to break the news to Starscream. Maybe he could convince Sunstreaker and Sideswipe to bring Skyfire to their next rendezvous, and they could do the traditional Seeker thing and have an orgy. That usually solved a lot of problems caused by flier group dynamics, after all.
He began to mentally rehearse his pitch to the twins. They'd probably need some convincing, if only to be persuaded that they shouldn't gag Starscream while fragging him. He was a handsome mech, but even his own trine could admit that the voice was pretty unfortunate…
Operation Introduce Wing Leader to Girlfriends was definitely going to require some prep time.
Cosmos sent an encrypted message to base, screwed up her courage, and approached the downed Seeker.
He was hot in more ways than one; his plating was still giving off excess heat from atmospheric friction, and her sensors informed her that he was also throwing off a not-inconsiderable amount of radiation.
At first she thought he might be unconscious, but shelved that idea when he hissed blearily at her. His optics were more than a little unfocused. As she neared, her olfactory sensors picked up the unfortunate bouquet of ruined engine components, scorched plating and burnt feathers. Those poor organic fliers. They hadn't been at all prepared for an alien jet to appear and ruin his turbines on their bodies.
The formidable talons on his servos flexed, and she once again wondered if this was wise.
"Um." She said. "It's part of the Cybertronian space-farer's code to help any mech who runs afoul (part of her processor giggled inappropriately) of alien life forms. So if you wouldn't mind refraining from killing, maiming or capturing me, I'd be happy to render my assistance. It looks like you could use some field patches."
The Seeker's optics successfully focused on her at last, and that handsome face went from snarling to looking like a sparkling who had just been offered a carbon crème. "Primus has given me the ability to subdue my powers for a short time, pretty Autobot. I will not harm you for helping me."
Cosmos prided herself on not having more plating than wit. She needed a better guarantee than that. His radiation was the least of her worries, heavily shielded as she was. Those claws could probably penetrate even her reinforced plating though.
"Swear to me on your honor as a servant of Primus that you will not attempt to harm or capture me and it would be my pleasure to assist you." She said.