Author's Note:
Here's Fli-Ni's art! Just remove the astriks!
h*t*t*p*:*/*/*k*a-j*u*.*d*eviantar*t*.*co*m*/*a*rt */*N*ightfli*er-37*2799189
There are also smutties truncated from this chapter. PM me if you want the link to the unedited chapter.
And again, thanks for all the support you guys give me with this story :)
"I'm going to make you SQUIRM, Nightflier," Starscream's voice taunted him devilishly. "You're going to BEG for me to stop!"
Nightflier felt sickening horror fill his spark.
No. That can't be right. Him—HIM! He—He was the one that made me . . .
His wing with the brace fluttered slightly beneath him.
He made me a cripple.
"And once I'm through with you, I'll drag your dead carcass to Lord Megatron!"
Nightflier gritted his dentures when Starscream grabbed his neck, hoisting him up easily. Nightflier's peds kicked and his in cycles thinned. "Look at you, pathetic wretch!" Starscream cackled, and Nightflier stiffened, optics flaring wide when he felt Starscream's fingers grip his wing with the brace. Starscream tutted his glossia. "Isn't that a shame. A helpless little cripple. Maybe I'll rip it all the way off this time."
Against his will, terror filled his spark, and Nightflier keened slightly when Starscream began to pull. He felt the shriek of metal and the strain it put on his wing. Starscream just laughed heartily, thoroughly enjoying the torture of his victim. He threw him down again, and Nightflier slammed into the concrete, spark sputtering in fear at the thought of losing his wing again and pain shocking through his neural net.
"You really are an easy wretch. Any last words?"
Nightflier shuddered, and his wings fluttered. He bared his teeth at the ground, hissing in pain. "None you'd want to hear, Starscream," he managed to bite out.
A rev of an engine caught Nightflier's attention. A second later, a feminine war cry interrupted and a small body slammed into Starscream's back.
Nightflier watched as Starscream staggered and then whirl away with a look of fury in his optics. "If it isn't ARCEE," he sneered. He walked away. "Come to help this pathetic wretch? How sweet of you. It's a pity you'll only die here with him."
"Not if I can help it, Starscream" he heard her growl back. He groaned, and his hand shook as he began to take off his shield. "I'm not scared of you."
Nightflier set his jaw. "Arcee!" He tossed his shield in the general direction of her voice, and he heard her transformation and rev of her engine. "The electricity! It conducts electricity!"
For a second, as the fight began in earnest again, Nightflier just lied on the ground, incapacitated by pain and warning signals flickering across his static-filled optics.
She needs my help. She was smaller than even me. I have to get up!
With a long-suffering groan, Nightflier shifted until he sat up slightly, and though he shook in apprehension for the pain he was about to inflict on himself, he knew it was necessary.
His hand curled around the hilt of his sword, Then, squeezing his optics shut, Nightflier yanked the blade from his impaled arm. Agony flared like fire. He screamed shortly, dropping his weapon and flopping back heavily on the ground, venting tightly as the energon poured more freely from his arm.
Arcee's grunts and yells mixed in with Starscream's taunts and infuriated screams. Hissing slightly, Nightflier forced himself to sit up, and he looked at the grisly dislocation of his knee, locked outward in a way that prevented him from using it. His optics flattened when he heard Arcee cry out in pain and a crash. With shaking hands, he took his hands on either side of his disconnected knee. His wings flared as he steeled himself, and then, he jerked his knee back into place.
There came an audible crack-crunch and grind of metal parts screeching back into place. His entire body curled up and arched with a spasm, but he didn't scream.
Nightflier looked up. Starscream was watching him from the far side of the street with a sense of morbid curiosity and impressed horror. Then, the rev of Arcee's engine as she drove in close and fast for another attack distracted the Decepticon, and he turned back to her, engaging.
Grasping his blade doused in both Vehicon and his own energon, Nightflier staggered back to his peds. He hissed, leg wanting to buckle slightly, but he limp-ran to the side where Arcee was driving him closer and closer to the electrical lines.
Nightflier ducked beneath the electrical lines and backed up similarly to how he had done before. The tiny blue femme slowly made Starscream stagger back, Nightflier's shield lashed a bit clumsily and loosely to her arm, but her blows at Starscream were forceful and effective. The little sparks of pain from the high voltage of his shield drove Starscream backwards as well as Arcee's lithe form dodging his blows by a hairs breadth. The instant he was in range, Nightflier ran forward—ignoring the lances of agony rushing through his right knee—jumped, landed on the electrical pole, and wood snapped, bringing the electrical box crashing down on Starscream's head.
Starscream shrieked as the electrical current conducted through the Apex Armor. Ignoring the sparks singing against his armor, Nightflier grabbed the lines that snapped, and though it electrocuted him to his core, he jumped across, pulling them around Starscream's shoulder. His optics shorted out as Starscream began to thrash at the incredibly high voltage electrocuting him, and Nightflier groped blindly until he found the matching set of lines on the other side. With a snarl, he yanked them low, getting Starscream's other arm tangled in them.
Nightflier staggered back, gasping in pain until he stumbled backwards and into a strong, small pair of arms. He let Arcee support him and pull him back and away from the irate and screaming Decepticon.
In the time it took to finally recalibrate his optics, Starscream had finally managed to free himself from the electrical lines electrocuting him. Nightflier pushed off Arcee, gaining his own peds and brandishing his short sword again as the Decepticon staggered back, smoking and residue of electricity crackling across the Apex Armor. Arcee took an aggressive pose too, lifting his shield.
Starscream sneered. "You win this time," he hissed at them, stumbling away from them. "But mark my words! I'll be back with my armada, and I'll slaughter every last human in this town, and I'll have your sparks impaled on my hands!"
Arcee shot at him when he took off the Apex Armor, but he had taken off and fled so quickly her bullets missed. For a second, the two small Autobots just stood, one looking after the retreating Decepticon and the other taking steadying cycles of air. He let out a soft sigh. It was over. And just when he thought the entire town of humans was going to lift a cry of triumph, relief, and thanks, hard words cut the silence.
"What the frag do you think you were doing?"
Nightflier jumped, looking at the small blue femme that pivoted sharply to him. She retracted the blade on her arm and cast off his shield angrily. "I—I—What?"
"The frag were you thinking blowing your cover like that!" she snapped again. She cast her hands over the street decimated by battle. "Are you TRYING to get yourself killed?"
Anger started to bubble up in him, but he stifled it. "No," he stressed sharply, "I was trying to save lives!" He threw his servos out to the humans crouched in the shelter of their buildings. "Did you honestly think I was going to let him slaughter all these people?"
"And what for?" Arcee snarled back. "Just one town when the entire EARTH is at stake? Throwing away your life to protect one little town isn't going to save them all!"
"I wasn't trying to save them all, just these!" Nightflier snapped back before he could stop himself. He frowned deeply at her. "What good is saving the entire Earth if you sacrifice so many just to save yourself?"
"We have bigger problems than this!" she growled. "We're supposed to be surviving, not trying to play hero for a tiny settlement!"
Nightflier's optics flashed. "You see? That's exactly the kind of attitude that lost us Cybertron! You'll willingly sacrifice all of the little towns while you sit twiddling your thumbs about how to save the planet while you're letting people get slaughtered left and right! Why do you think I joined a strike force? Because I wasn't going to be a part of those sitting back and watching, I wanted to get out there in action and save lives!"
"What good is saving them now if they'll only get decimated the next day by a bigger, more effective team?" Arcee shot back.
His optics narrowed at her. "And no one thought to help Kaon when it was routed, did they?" he snapped at her, voice deepening to a low growl. "No one thought to help Simfur either! Or Tarn, or Blaster City, or Slaughter City, or Stanix—And all the small cities in between! Why do you think the Decepticons spread like the Plague? It's because no one stepped up to help those smaller than them!" Arcee recoiled at his vehemence. "I'm not about to forsake any life that I have the chance to save, got it? Now if you're an Autobot like that emblem of yours claims, then you can start sacrificing like one instead of looking out for your own hide!"
His scowl slipped. He felt his knee buckle from beneath him, and he threw out his servos, grabbing a hold of Arcee. She locked her knees, supporting him as he gasped thinly in her audio receptors.
"Here, here," she said, and she helped him over, laying him down against the closest parked car. Nightflier spasmed slightly again, suddenly VERY aware of his leaking and the amount of damage he had sustained.
"I-I'm sorry," he managed as she unclipped the armor of his arm to get a clear look at his wound. "I didn't mean to lose my temper. It's rare enough that I do, it just . . . hit a little too close to home."
Nightflier shifted uncomfortably at the thought of Kaon as he looked over at the humans still soundlessly huddled on the sides of the streets. "It's all right," Arcee told him quietly. He shifted and hissed a little when she began to apply pressure to his wound.
"Here—use these." Nightflier brought out what was left of his medical field kit, a few clamps, some electrical tape, and a spare welder.
He watched her make a face at the lack of proper tools to patch him, but she set to work immediately. Her optics flicked up only once as she dug around the gash, finding the severed energon lines. "Jack?"
"Right here," was the immediate answer, and Nightflier saw the human from back on Cybertron hovering close.
Nightflier twitched and gritted his teeth when he felt Arcee pull the wires, tape them together, clamp the bleeding lines shut. Her stunning optics flicked up once to him and back down. "Arcee," she finally offered her name. She tilted her helm. "And that's Jack. Who are you?"
He inclined his helm to both Jack and the femme patching him. "Fli-Ni."
Her hands froze. Then, a blaster was pointed to his face so suddenly he only had the time to blink before it appeared. He jerked in shock. "Whoa!"
"Who are you?" she snarled with deadly intent, and Nightflier shifted, ready to defend himself if need be, Autobots or not.
"I told you," he said evenly. "My name is Fli-Ni."
The barrel of her laser jabbed a bit closer. "FULL designation!"
His optics narrowed, reassessing her as friend or foe. "Nightflier of Kaon, sixth addition of the Protectobots, warrior class, function: espionage, reporting from Kalis, Cybertron, MA'AM."
His small glare faded at the look on Arcee's face agape with astonishment. Finally, her numb lips worked out, "Impossible . . ."
"Arcee." She jumped, looking back to the small human with her. Jack shook his head. "Now isn't the time. Starscream's gonna be back, and he's gonna be mad. We've got to get out of here."
"Scrap." Arcee knelt back down, putting away her weapon and hurriedly finishing patching up his arm. Nightflier shifted.
"I'm missing something. One of you care to fill me in?"
"Trust me," Arcee muttered. She snapped his armor back on, beginning to weld it closed. "You'll want to hear this in a better environment."
He didn't know what to think after she had pulled that gun on him, but finally he just said, "All right," and had to leave it at that.
Jack looked up to Arcee. "Should we try to contact Fowler for clean up?"
"I'm sure he already knows," Arcee murmured as she finished welding his arm. She touched up a couple leaking cracks in his knee, and Nightflier stood shakily with her help. Using her as leverage, Nightflier brought them near a fallen Vehicon.
When he knelt, taking out his blade and cutting into the Vehicon's body, Arcee recoiled. "What are you doing?"
"You don't remember ever having to do this?" Nightflier mused to her. He looked up to her, once again stunned by how pretty she was. Yeah. It was the optics. That was what he liked the best. "Scavenging. I won't make a flight so low on energon, and while it's not exactly appeasing . . . it'll work." He arched a brow. "When was the last time you had a good fill? Gas is only so sanitary."
She seemed to give a defeated sigh. "Affirmative."
Nightflier pried the Vehicon's energon tank free and hacked off the top as Arcee cut into her own Vehicon body. He took a drink, almost wincing at how warm the energon was from being in the Vehicon's body. His optics drew over the humans staring amassed beneath the awnings.
"We need to get them out of here."
Arcee came up next to him. They glanced at each other.
"Then I guess we better get started."
*scene truncated*
"Primus, Nights . . ." He shuddered again, shaking his head. "That was . . . ngh, FANTASTIC."
Nightstalker chuckled, climbing into his lap and enjoying the sight of his blackened optics and voice delirious with pleasure. She put an affectionate kiss on his cheek. "I love doing that to you. I love hearing you moan, and I'd do it all the time if I could."
"Anytime you want," he panted. He dropped his head back, shuddering once more beneath her. "Holy frag, Nights . . . I'm definitely going to have to do that to you."
She snickered before she could stop herself. "Newsflash, hot stuff," and she leaned up to murmur into his audio receptor, "I don't have a spike."
He waved a tired hand. "Technicalities," he slurred. He settled down, wrapping his arms around her and taking a deep cycle. "You've got a spark. I could do some serious WONDERS in a spot like that . . ."
Nightstalker chuckled softly, reaching up and stroking one of his horns. "Save it for another time, Cliff. Get yourself a recharge. You're tired."
He grumbled slightly, putting a small kiss on her audio receptor. "My pleasure," he murmured before sighing and, almost immediately, fell into a recharge.
Nightstalker's lips quirked up into a smile at the sight of him. Settling down and curling up in a ball in his arms, she laid her head on his shoulder, comforted by his presence. After a pause in the silence, she realized she wasn't that tired, and she opened back up Dreadwing's file, picking up where she had left off.
Dreadwing still stood at the side of the screen. Then, after a moment, it flicked black and picked back up with him sitting on his berth again. After a moment, he continued, "She became my spark mate that night, and also the bearer of my sparkling. During this time, dissent among the gladiators began. Megatronus was rising into power, and he stirred rebellion. My spark was with him. This was the mech I placed my hopes in and through him, promised Ampere and our unborn son that we would be free."
The great air commander shook his head. "Ampere worried. She did not approve of my willingness to run into battle, and I tried to pacify her the best I could. I took her to meet my brother, and I was relieved when he liked her immensely. There came a span of time in which I did not see Ampere for the longest. I worried because of the skirmishes about, but soon, she came back to see me." He shook his head. "She carried my son below her spark chamber, hidden from my master's view. He did not suspect I had sparked her."
Nightstalker witnessed a small smile play at the edges of his mouth. He looked down at his servos. "He was tiny, Nightstalker," and the femme felt her spark jump, amazed that he had used her name without malice. "He fit, just so . . . in the palm of my hand. He was the most precious gift I had ever been given. We named him Flier because it was our greatest desire, to fly to freedom. We named him after the night because it had been in the night where our only solace and love was."
There was a pause in which Dreadwing reflected, and then, he pushed a sigh out of his vocalizer and leaned his elbows on his knees. "Ampere always said he was the spitting image of me, but he had his mother's optics. He had her free spirit, and her talkative personality. Though I tried to toughen him up, he cried easily. He wore his spark on his sleeve." Dreadwing stopped. "He was a curious rascal," he said while shaking his head. "He got into everything and hid so well from us. And was just as fidgety as his mother."
Nightstalker shifted when Cliffjumper moved beneath her. But, he settled down again, so she curled back up and diverted her attention back to the video.
Dreadwing rubbed his brow. "Shortly after she left, Megatronus began his uprising. He began by liberating all of the gladiators still in the shackles of slavery. My brother and I were amongst the mechs he helped free, and we pledged our allegiance to him. We were affirmed by his rescue that he would free us all and create a society in which we could live freely, and with it, Ampere and Nightflier could live happily with what they wanted, not slaves like my brother and I."
He vented sharply, turning his face away in his dim recharge room. "We found her living in a cheap apartment with Nightflier. These were . . . our last happy times. We celebrated as we could. Skyquake adored his nephew. We were . . . happy. A close knit family that loved each other."
Dreadwing made a frustrated sound. Nightstalker traced illicit and vague circles in Cliffjumper's chassis as she watched and listened quietly to her family's background. "I had to leave. I had pledged my allegiance to Megatron with Skyquake, and Ampere resented that. She begged me to stay. She said we could run away and hide and live in peace." He shook his head slowly, leaning his chin on his fists broodingly. "But I knew the peace would not last. The planet was falling into war. There was no way for us to run and be safe unless we were in the haven of Decepticons where the Autobots could never get to her. So I forced her to say while Skyquake and I headed out to the front to battle.
"Much . . . changed during this time." Dreadwing rubbed a hand over his face, a trouble rumble rattling from his chassis. "Skyquake and I became renowned generals. We were Megatron's most reliable generals, both in strength and loyalty, because we fought through his cause for our family, no matter how little it was. When I finally had the chance to go back, I found Ampere again, but the struggles of war had hit her. Credits were tight. She lived on what little they had through me, and she fought with herself often, refusing to sell her body again for money though she knew she needed it."
He trailed off again. Agitated, he stood again, pacing and shaking his helm. "I should have known," he cursed quietly. He halted looking away from the camera, hands gripping his hips tightly. "That should have spoken of her fidelity to me. It should have been more than enough to reassure me that . . . but I came in, and Nightflier's helm was changed. It was not my helm, the helm he had inherited cybernetically."
His jaw clenched. Every fiber in his body seemed to reel up in anger. "I was furious," he whispered. "I demanded to know why she had dishonored me by trying to erase my heritage from my own son. Before she could answer, I demanded to know who the mech was, demanding her for a name, promising to rake the mech over the coals. I shook her. She said there was no one else, only me. I didn't believe her. I again asked about his helm. She said she was scared. She said people had been asking about him, that they wanted to know if he was my son. They knew who I was, and she was afraid they would hurt us. So she changed it.
"I told her she shouldn't have changed it. They were under my protection." Dreadwing shook his head, seeming to become stiffer with anger until he would snap. "She told me I was out fighting," he hissed. "There was no one protecting them but her. I told her she was wrong, that I fought for her, that I was there for her. She told me I was never there."
Nightstalker felt her spark begin to pain. She curled up tighter into Cliffjumper, seeking his protection from a tragedy she wished she could change and couldn't. He shifted in his sleep, arms automatically tightening around her.
"I argued that I was doing all I could. I shook her and shook her so much she said I was hurting her." Dreadwing shook his head. He cursed under his breath, shaking his head and pacing to the other side of the room and muttering, "That probably hurt the most. That I was hurting her when I swore to protect her. So I let go. I . . ." He finally gave a weak, defeated sound as he passed his hand over his face. "I can't even remember everything we argued about. All I can remember is that anger, the dishonor, her tears . . . and my accursed pride. I left, seething, vowing not to come back until she apologized."
She watched his wings droop. He pressed his face into his palm a moment, silence overtaking the video. Cliffjumper stiffened beneath her, dreaming. Nightstalker reached up, stroking his cheek, shushing him. He settled, and Dreadwing finally began talking again.
"Of course, that never happened. She couldn't dare go to the front where I fought, and my pride kept me from going back. We grew distant in our sparks. We still loved each other, we just . . . couldn't overcome this hurdle with everything falling to Pit around us. Eventually, I . . . guess it grew too much for her to bear, my cold shoulder. She was so affectionate, and I can easily see it as that, but . . . She broke the bond. She took herself away from me."
Nightstalker watched him sink back into the berth without strength. He pressed the heel of his palms to his forehead, staring down at the floor. "I was . . . distraught," he finally managed. "I thought—Primus, for that one, horrible moment, I thought she had died. I was terrified. I could still feel Nightflier, and I knew he was too young to be caring for himself yet. I tried and tried to buy myself some military leave time, but I was refused it. It was well known that Megatron believed that loyalty should come to him first and no one else, and it was no wonder I was not allowed to leave to find out what had happened." A low grumble shook his chassis. "My brother covered for me, and I finally went anyways.
"When I found Ampere I was so relieved. I saw her, alive and well, though a little haggard from her hardships. I was ready to throw myself at her peds and beg for her forgiveness. I was ready to do anything for her, even forsake the Decepticon cause for her, anything to have her back. And then . . . I . . ." Cold red optics looked up to the screen.
"I saw you."
Nightstalker swallowed, and then, she jumped when Cliffjumper stiffened and jerked in his recharge, a soft cry catching on his vocals. Cutting Dreadwing's video short, Nightstalker turned her attention to him as he jerked again, crying out fully this time.
She grabbed his shoulders, shaking him. "Cliffjumper! Cliff, wake up! Cliff—"
She shook him again, and his optics snapped open, wild and in a frenzy. Immediately, he grabbed her, bringing her into a crushing hug as he began to continuously soothe his hand down her wings.
"You're all right," he cracked out of his vocalizer. He shuddered, pressing scared kisses to the top of her helm. "You're all right, I'm here, I promise . . ."
Nightstalker shushed him as best she could. She wrapped her arms around his neck, letting him stifle her in his desperate embrace. He rocked, shivering in remembrance of the relived nightmare.
"It's all right, Nights, I'm here, I promise. I promise . . . I won't let it ever happen again, I swear . . . I'm sorry . . ."
Tears pricked her optics. Nightstalker blinked them back steadily, knowing exactly what he was talking about. "It's not your fault," she whispered back.
"Yes it is," he rasped. He trembled, rocking her and soothing her, kissing her, eaten up with guilt. "I should have done something. Anything."
"And what good would you being dead be?" she murmured back. She pulled back, looking him in his optics.
Something seemed to tear inside him. He leaned forward, kissing her deeply before breaking away, trying to stifle haunted tears. "I'm sorry," he whispered. "I'm sorry . . . I should have been able to protect you . . . I'm sorry . . ."
She hugged him tighter, seeking to comfort him. "Cliffjumper," she said softly, "it's all right—"
"No it's not," he interrupted roughly. He leaned back enough so that he could look into her optics. "You keep trying to tell me that you're not worth it, but you are, Nights. You are to me. And the fact that I couldn't protect the one thing I care about most in this life just tears me apart."
Filled with broken passion, Cliffjumper kissed her again, a hand reaching up and holding her behind her helm. Then, he hugged her again, pressing kisses to the side of her head as he tried to calm himself down.
Nightstalker's spark shifted. Her breathing became shallow as she finally saw the light she had missed for so long.
I'm in love.
More than that—he loved her.
This is what it's like . . . to be loved?
He cherished her. He would die for her. Even with the fact that she had tortured him when they first met, he put it behind him, caring about who she had become. Slowly, the epiphany turned from shock into horror.
This is madness. I'm—I'm in love? I'm in LOVE? Why—What—I'm in love? How—Why does he love me? I'm in love?
Then, the fear wore off, comforted by the strength of his arms, the depth of his voice, and the compassion in his voice laden with guilt.
He loves me . . . despite all my imperfections. He doesn't care that I was a glitch, he doesn't care that I was a torturer, he doesn't care that I'm a sadomasochist, he doesn't care that I'm bipolar—
He just cares. Loves.
Though he couldn't see them, hot tears began to slip down her cheeks. She held him tightly, struggling to hide her tears of shame.
I'm in love.