It takes them months to locate the wayward female, months of fighting with Vos' most ruthless criminals before one finally caves in during an interrogation and spills the location of Skywarp, and when Thundercracker learns of the location a fury never seen rises in the blue male making Starscreams initial rage when Skywarp vanished seem like nothing. It's the first time a detainee dies while in custody of the enforcers when the blue enforcer agent simply loses control of himself and his sigma ability.
A snort of disdain from the door to his office draws Thundercracker's attention away from the blank screen he has been staring at for the last twenty or so minutes, completely lost in thoughts.
"I hear you short-circuited a few hours ago?" Starscream mock teases as he enters the office and elegantly flops himself into the chair in front of the desk with his thrusters lazily slung onto the desk.
A low growl escapes the blue male and he narrows his optics.
"I would like to see YOU act differently if it had been you to get this knowledge. For frag sake Star, he was leering! He knows what that brothel is like. Frag I know it!" Anger slowly fills Thundercracker's rumbling voice as he recalls the sparkling optics and the lecherous tone the male had used as he finally spilled his secrets.
"I don't care what it is like, all that matters is that we now know where our female is." Starscream interrupts as Thundercracker is about to explain the severity about that particular city state's brothels.
"It isn't going to be easy this time." Thundercracker sighs, giving up on making Starscream understand the severity, the Crown of Vos would understand soon enough.
"I. Don't. Care." Starscream growls "Get your friends on the screen. We need to begin planning." the Crown of Vos orders.
With a nod Thundercracker moves to comply.
"And then I was like—"
Skywarp firmly drowns out the voices of the other females around her as she relaxes in the lounge area of the brothel where all the females visibly are on display for the customers entering. She still can't understand the other females' indifference with their life. Then again, you either accept your fate or you go insane in this kind of environment. And Skywarp do have a reason to at least feel a bit grateful, because even if she is forced into servitude once again, the brothel in Helix at least is nothing like the one she lived in in Tarn. The females working in the Galaxy, which is one of the more classy brothels in Helix catering to the higher ranking males in the society is all treated well and has more freedom than most pleasurebots.
When she turns her attention back to the females sitting around her she is aware of the sudden silence and the expressions on their faces as they keenly watch the entrance of the establishment.
"What?" she asks curiously as she slowly turns her own head.
"Look at THAT!"
"Now that is a frame I would just loooove to touch!"
"It isn't often we get any fliers. Look at those gorgeous wings!"
The sultry comments simply drown out when Skywarp finally sees what has caught the others' attention.
Hope is blooming in her spark as her optics takes in the sight of the seeker, and expects to see light blue and royal decals on the imagined proudly held wings.
But what greets her optics is white and not blue.
And there are no decals on the impressive white expanses.
No Thundercracker.
No Starscream.
The hope in her spark withers and her spark feels like guttering as the despair she has managed to hold in check during the last four months resurfaces in full force. It is the same hope and the same despair surfacing every time a seeker enters the establishment and it just leads her to once again realize the hard facts.
They aren't coming for her.
Tears are forming in the corners of her optics and all she wishes is to flee to privacy and break down in secrecy, but she can't.
Unable to watch what should have been her hope, she turns her back to the male seeker and just tries to ignore the praising words coming from the other females as she succumbs to her misery. Somehow she manages to hide the telling hiccups as she allows the tears to flow, her wings trembling slightly, but none of the other females around her is a seeker and don't see the small movements or pay them any further attention. After all there is a hot seeker in the brothel and they all hope to be chosen.
Caught up in her misery it takes a moment for Skywarp to realize that suddenly everything is completely silent around her. There is no one speaking, not even the sound of breaths is heard in the staggering silence.
"Wha-" she begins to ask the stunned expressions on the females around her, but stops as her audios catch onto the faintly whirring sound coming from just behind her before gentle fingers slowly and carefully travel the leading edges of her wings. Completely taken by surprise she is unable to stifle the moan when the touch to her wings activates several sensors.
A pleased rumble sounds and she shivers. Even if it isn't as deep as what Thundercracker is able to produce it does something to her.
Then a sky-blue hand reaches in front of her in open invitation and shakily she takes it and allows herself to be lead away. When he tugs her firmly against his frame she can feel the thrumming of his powerful system working just beneath the armor. It all feels so familiar and natural and she can't stop herself from resting her head against his shoulder joint. Before she offline her optics in bliss something triggers in her processor and she abruptly onlines them again to stare at the plating her head rests on.
A mesh of blue red and white greets her sight and her processor stalls at the sight.
What are the odds?
Then the scent register and it is so familiar to that of Thundercrackers.
"Starsc-…" She starts to say as the Crown of Vos leads her towards one of the private rooms, but he silences her with a finger to her lips.
"Silence female." He growls before he looks over one of his shoulders at the owner of the brothel and the rest of the females gathered in the lounging area.
Only when they are inside one of the private rooms does he allow her to speak.
"Starscream, what are you doing here?!" she begins as her spark pulses in panic. "You can't be here! They are going to kill Thundercracker if I don't cooperate! Go – just GO!" she stress as she doesn't get the reactions she wants from him. "They got people placed inside the royal residence. You have to believe me!" she pleads hoping to get him to understand that he need to leave.
"Oh you silly female." Starscream just snorts at her tirade.
"Do you really think Thundercracker doesn't know?! Do you really think I only chose him among all the other enforcers because of his good look? Thundercracker is one of the most skilled enforcers Vos can show and he knows when to exploit a weakness. He knew who "they" were the instant they entered the ranks of the guards. They tried, they really did, to hide their connections to the underworld, but they didn't succeed, far from. He deliberately feeds them certain knowledge and as long as he controls what information they are able to obtain and keeps an optic on their movements they are no bigger threat. Keep your friends close but your enemies closer." Starscream explains with a smirk so unlike what she has seen from him before.
She stares confused at him. The seeker before her has changed completely since she last saw him – gone is the fear, the worry and the insecurity, instead Starscream carries himself with an air of confidence and determination.
"What has happened to you?" she asks.
"You." Is all he says before he with a hand forces her head to the side to bare the ports at the back of her neck, while he with the other hand reaches into his subspace and withdraws a data stick. Then he flickers one of the port covers to open and inserts the data stick.
"Relax Skywarp. Don't fight it." he tells her as she jerks and struggles a bit in the hold he still has on her head. "Allow it to happen Sweet spark." He murmurs as his thumb gently rubs at her temple.
"What are you doing to me?" she whimpers as numerous lines of code begins to scroll down on her HUD and she feels how her frame grows hot and cold at the same time while her spark pulses wildly inside its chamber.
Then soft lips are onto hers and she reciprocates before she realizes what she is doing.
"Freeing you." He murmurs and his voice usually so high and shrill and screechy is a low gentle vibration against her audio.
It's a déjà vu.
The words.
The very same words Thundercracker had said when she first met him takes her by surprise and her optics widens in shock.
He is there to free her. The Crown of Vos is there for her.
Then the shock is replaced with a wash of terror.
"I can't leave. They'll kill Thundercracker." She protests adamant.
The chuckle leaving Starscream throws her completely. He is laughing at her fear?! At the obvious danger to Thundercracker?!
"I would like to see them try." He then says still chuckling a bit when he turns his attention back onto her deadly serious expression. "Skywarp, the last thing Thundercracker did before we left Vos was to throw "their" sorry afts into some nice little holding cells down in the enforcer headquarters' lower levels. They won't be doing any harm where they are now." He smiles "They had outlived their usefulness and was too much a risk now that I have declared their leaders war." He adds.
"Thundercracker isn't stupid Skywarp. Give him some more credit." He adds further before he lowers his head and kisses her again.
A vicious stab of pain in her processor forces a gasp from her vocalizer and suddenly her legs will no longer carry her. Supporting her unresponsive frame, Starscream lowers her gently on the berth and sits down beside her. "Don't worry. This is what is supposed to happen. You will regain motor control soon. Just don't fight the coding that I am uploading to you. It will remove the pleasurebot coding and prevent you from falling victim to it again, but to do so it has to force entrance into the deepest lines of your code." He tells her in a gentle reassuring voice while he caresses her frame.
"I know it is unpleasant. I- eh kind of tested it on myself." He explains awkwardly.
Seeing her widening optics he laughs. It's the only way for her to communicate while under the influence of the upload but it shows clearly enough what she tries to say.
"No, pleasurebot coding doesn't fit into a male's code. I- ehm - seized completely. They had to bring in code specialists from Iacon to sort out the mess. But at least I know that it works." He answers her unsaid question rather embarrassed. "Did it for you." He then adds, his cheeks blushing and he looks away for a moment.
What he doesn't say is the fact that despite being skilled code specialists even Ratchet and Perceptor had had a hard time saving him and he could just as well be an impersonal drooling drone right now than himself. Lesson learned – don't use yourself as a test subject. At least not without telling someone what you are doing. He had never seen Thundercracker more enraged and the rage had been completely justified. His trinemate had – as a sort of punishment he guessed – avoided him for several orns after he had become himself again.
But the blue seeker had had to come around. They needed to work together to infiltrate Helix, and with the clientele of the Galaxy being the more prominent males in their society, they needed one able to act properly, which is why it is Starscream entering the fashionable pleasure house instead of one of the enforcer agents.
As he looks away from the prone female, his optics lands on his wings and the plain white sheets covering his royal decals from sight. With a few well-placed swipes he rips the welds keeping the sheets in place and his wings flutter when they are freed of the added weight. Then with a deep sigh he returns his attention to Skywarp.
"Only a few more kliks Dear." He sooths as he reach a hand to gently caress one of her wings. The weak fluttering response to his touch has him smiling and with sparkling optics he allows his fingers to follow the leading edge all the way to the wingtip.
Her disappearance had been a wakeup call and he can no longer deny the feelings she is rising inside him. Just being this close to the female after this long a separation is enough to send his sensor net crawling with a need to be close, to claim. Claim her thoroughly before Thundercracker and anyone else can, make her his and protect her through his power as a ruler.
A weak strangled moan escapes her vocalizer and his optics meets hers. Movement is slowly returning to her and her lips are moving but no sound escaping. The sight is so tempting and before he knows it he leans down and kisses them, tasting her and purring at her uniquely sweet taste.
A tweak of a wing tip, the escape of a moan and Starscream feels how his spark flutters in its chamber when he feels her reciprocating in the kiss. Forgetting the here and now he begins to explore her frame and slowly rises her core temperature and arousal with deft fingers playing all over her delicate frame. When overload claims her he greedily takes in the sight of her buckling on the berth, his spike pressing to be released as his arousal peaks at the enticing sight.
With the female melting under his touch and willingly retracting her valve cover he takes everything she offers him and gives just as much in their gentle lovemaking. Sinking into her welcoming warmth, groaning at the valve so willingly moving around his spike he begins a gently pace while staring down into her glazed over optics with amazement. Feeling how his overload approaches steadily he takes a chance and parts his chestplates, revealing his spark to her.
When she parts her own chestplates in response he almost stops breathing. Her spark is alluring and calling to him, whispering possibilities and he willingly gives in to the temptation. Lowering himself he brings their sparks into connection and he instantly feels the drain her spark puts his under as the creation protocols activates. It is a heady sensation and it doesn't take long before overload claims him and he releases his coding into her.
The overload claims his consciousness and he slumps lifeless on top of her for several kliks until his systems reboot and realizing what he is doing he gently rolls off of her, bring her with him and hugging her close.
"I love you." He murmurs into her audial and pecks a gentle chaste kiss to her temple.
In her overload addled state with creation protocols running the first stages of splitting her spark Skywarp isn't aware of much and seeing her distant optics and how her frame runs hot Starscream rises while gently cradling her to his chest.
Then with determination he activates his com link to Thundercracker.
"I got her. Bring the pit to them, will you?" he communicates to his trinemate and the group of enforcers waiting to get a clear from him that the mission is a success.
"Will do. See you soon. Thundercracker out." The stern reply from the blue seeker sounds.
As he looks down at the female in his arms Starscream can't stop himself from laughing.
Oh yes, they would see each other soon, and the Crown of Vos can't wait to see the expression on Thundercracker when the blue male realizes what he has done.