Shadeweaver moves silently into what appears to be a medical bay and the door closes softly behind her while her optics warily scans the surroundings.
The room is huge, housing both a medical bay and a large fully equipped surgical unit.
Primus!
She can easily imagine the horrors that have taken place here.
Cameras in her optics document the place while she slowly moves further into the room, and she looks for the cameras, that she knows have to be there.
The cloaking device that is connected to her internal systems efficiently hides her from sight, silences any sound from her systems and neutralizes her field when it is activated, but she still has to be mindful of her movements.
Small groups of physicians are talking together in low murmuring voices further inside the medical bay while the surgical unit appears to be empty, and she carefully moves towards it.
There is a research unit connected to the surgical bay, and she hurriedly leans against the wall when a technician leaves the unit and briskly walks towards her position.
He passes by her, and she moves further into the research unit.
A larger group of technicians and engineers are occupied with carefully disassembling a strange looking device while documenting the process and creating technical schematics, and she slowly retreats after having documented the area.
The more she sees, the more she gets the feeling that this facility isn't one of the syndicate's usual bases.
Did they hit jackpot?
As she moves out of the surgical unit, she hesitates and turns toward the awakening unit.
Opening one of the doors, she looks inside.
Empty.
The door into the unit to her left opens, and her spark pulse increases when a physician leaves it.
That was too close.
She slowly opens the door and slips silently inside.
She carefully scans the room for cameras and when she finds none, she moves towards the berth while deactivating her cloaking device.
"Skywarp. Can you hear me?"
Skywarp onlines his optics slowly at the low whispering voice, unsure if it is yet another hallucination.
"Who are you?" He asks weakly. His systems are still affected by whatever drug it is Torrent is filling him with, and he is unable to focus on the small figure that is standing beside his berth.
"Joint Investigation Unit reconnaissance officer Shadeweaver."
Hope blooms in his spark.
"Can you get us out?" He asks, his voice trembling with emotion. He has held out so far, but his mind is fraying and he doesn't know for how much longer he can stay sane.
"Not yet." Shadeweaver answers, "I'm alone and the area is too fortified. It needs to be coordinated, but now we know where you are and we will free you. You need to be strong."
"Is there any information you can give me about this place, that I can bring with me back? Any knowledge is going to be invaluable." She asks urgently, knowing that their time together is short. The longer she stays uncloaked, the higher the risk she gets detected.
"I have been kept here ever since they took my warp-gate, and I haven't seen Thundercracker since we arrived. I'm not sure I can be of any help." Skywarp answers frustrated.
"It's okay. I will-..."
Skywarp stares shocked when the Joint Investigation Unit officer suddenly begins to shimmer and then vanishes completely from sight, but a brief invisible touch to his shoulder reassures him that Shadeweaver hadn't been an hallucination, and he relaxes.
The Joint Investigation Unit knows where they are, and it gives him renewed energy to fight against Torrent's sadistic machinations.
Shadeweaver retreats from Skywarp's awakening unit, her steps slow and measured so as to not create any sound, and her optics follow Torrent closely as the syndicate's operative leader passes her and walks into Skywarp's room.
Who are you?
She remains outside the room, listening to the conversation, and begins to realize, that where Skywarp appears to be in good health, the case seems to be different for Thundercracker.
Torrent leaves the medical bay, and she follows him from a distance while her optics analyze his frame down to the last piece of integrated weaponry.
She stores the collected data for later analysis by their tacticians in the preparation of the global operation against the syndicate. It is essential that the teams, that are to attack the syndicate's bases can match the firepower they are going to face.
The confirmation of who she is following comes the next moment, when Torrent stops up to speak with a grey sire. She increases the sensitivity of her audio to be able to listen in on them, and realizes how important this find is.
They have finally identified the syndicate's operative leader, and despite the urge to keep following Torrent, she focuses her attention on the rest of her reconnaissance mission.
Now that she knows that the large building is the syndicate's operational headquarter, everything she has seen so far makes sense, and her spark fills with enthusiasm. They are one important step closer to shutting them down completely.
She carefully documents every level of the building and gathers all the information she can get access to.
With the mission completed, she moves to the roof and activates her hover wings before she jumps from the building and flies away from it.
::Reconnaissance completed.:: She sends, when she is out of range of detection and deactivates the cloaking device.
::On my way.:: Her partner answers, and she sees him fly towards her in the distance.
She lands on him as he flies by and the magnetic locks in her feet secures her to his alt-mode.
"Get us back to the headquarter right away. I have important news."
Thundercracker sits at the windowsill inside Torrent's office and stares with longing at the sky. Tears trail down his cheeks while he follows how everyday life continues for the citizens of Iacon.
He sorrowfully rests a hand against the reinforced window.
Even if he could fly, he would never be able to break it.
A dark grey seeker suddenly attracts his attention. Not because it is a seeker, but because of how low and fast it flies. Seekers aren't allowed to fly above mach 3 when within city limits, and the dark grey seeker is definitely flying at its max velocity while it flies away from the center of the city.
It skillfully steers in and out of the air traffic and vanishes from his sight when it takes a sharp left turn.
His spark constricts painfully.
The door into the office gets unlocked, and he walks over to sit down on the berth.
By now he knows what Torrent expects of him, despite not understanding why the sire is so interested in him. He can't recall ever having met him before, but his spark seems to recognize the large sire, with how the sight of the dark blue and white frame instills fear in it.
He positions himself dutifully on hands and knees on the berth while Torrent walks into the office and waits submissively for the sire to show him attention. He can hear a one-sided conversation, but doesn't understand much from it, and anxiety fills him when he hears Torrent's heavy steps move towards him after the communication has been cut.
There is a creaking sound from the berth when Torrent moves behind him, and the sire's possessive hands move sensually along his hips and aft before one of them moves between his legs and pushes demandingly against his valve cover. It slides aside and he moans in pain when the spike without preparation penetrates him.
"What a good and well-behaved little slave you have become." Torrent praises sadistic when he begins to thrust, and he groans lustfully at the wonderful feeling of suffocating loneliness, despair and hopelessness, that permeate the carrier's field in reaction to the isolation and psychological torture he has exposed the seeker to during the past few weeks.
A sobbing sound leaves Thundercracker while Torrent brutally takes him, and he offlines his optics to distance himself from the situation and imagine that he is with Skywarp.
The dead black and purple seeker would have been gentle and considerate, mindful of his scarred valve and ready to stop at any sign of discomfort.
Torrent is none of that, and while he is thankful that he hasn't been locked into a cage underground and sparked right away, his existence in this 'gilded' cage is just as horrible.