Chapter Text
"I have to admit, your security is admirable," the mech said as he was brought online. He sat up, looking around the small room. "We're here, then?"
"We're here," Swindle said, smiling at the mech he only knew as Vault. It was certain to be a cover designation, but in this business, that was the norm. "I guarantee my product, and the only way to do that is to be as careful as possible. None of my facilities have ever been raided."
"Impressive," Vault said, cycling through different layers of visual readings.
"I am the best," Swindle said, motioning with his head for Vault to follow.
The medium-build, non-descript burnt orange and rich yellow mech complied. Every sense was alert, checking out everything he could without appearing paranoid. It paid to be alert and aware, but beyond that you were weak and he knew Swindle would jump on it.
Swindle didn't comment as he lead Vault out into the primary facility, an underground warehouse converted to his particular use. Above ground, he maintained and operated a storage facility that would explain the open space if anyone ever came looking. Safes lined the walls, ranging from small to large, and Swindle stopped at one in the middle, keying in a code and swiping his palm over the track pad.
"The security codes change three times per orn," he said as he opened the door. Vault looked through to see another long passage.
"Impressive. It must be expensive to maintain," he said. "Is it more to keep the law out, or your stock in?"
"Both, though you'll understand if I can't get too into detail on that subject," Swindle said. "As for price, my product ensures the necessary income for all maintenance." He stopped and opened another door, waving to the pair of heavily-armored mecha inside. "This is my security detail, they are alerted of any entrance into the building and are immediately hooked in by camera. If I were to enter without confirming my identity, they would change the codes immediately to keep everyone out. There are four on-site at any given time, working half-orn shifts in pairs. They stay underground for an entire vorn at minimum, to reduce visible traffic. It also keeps Enforcers from being able to track them, and they're brought in and out the same way you were. In stasis and ignorant of any actual locations. They don't even know what city they're in right now, just like you." They continued down the hallway. "The same is true of my entire staff, actually. Now, back through here is our on-site pharmaceutical production center. There is a reason I am the best, Vault, and this is one of them."
"Drugs?" the buyer raised an optic ridge. "Seekers are that dangerous?"
"Yes," Swindle said seriously. "And you should never buy from someone who says otherwise. Now of course, you should always work with a supplier that you feel comfortable with, Vault, and if that isn't me, I won't hold it against you. But I hope that by the end of today to secure your bid, because I have every confidence in my product. I'm sure you came to me because you've heard of both my reputation for discretion and also my consistency and reliability of product."
Vault nodded.
Swindle beamed, rocking up on his pedes a little. "This is what sets me a notch above everyone else on the market. Not only are Seekers highly dangerous, but breeding them is tricky. Before I even made my first sale, I invested a considerable sum into hormonal research. My researchers developed a supplement that guarantees production on the first try nine times out of ten, and I've never needed more than three times for the stock to take. When you buy from me, you are paying for a guarantee of product. No risky raiding nests, no endangering my clients' identities with back-alley theft."
"No need to travel off world to secure the product," Vault added with a hum of approval at the plan. "How many eggs can you produce in a vorn?"
"It depends on the vorn, of course, but the average is about thirty-six," Swindle said, beaming at Vault's surprise. "Even now we're looking into ways to reliably increase clutch size. I have my stock on a rotating schedule to level out production, and to be able to deliver my product quickly."
"How much of your stock is wild-caught?" Vault asked as he tried to process just how large an operation this had to be for those numbers. It was rare for a successful raid to come away with more than two eggs and the same nest couldn't be raided more than once every decade, if that often.
"All of it," Swindle said. "There isn't much room for expansion in this business, as I'm sure you can imagine, but it is there. Depending on growth, we may start a small breeding and raising program. Right now it is more lucrative to find adults rather than wait for one to come of breeding age."
"Understandable," Vault nodded as they reached yet another secured door. "We do not want the product to become so common that it loses its allure."
"I like you, Vault," Swindle said as he keyed it open. "This is the stock room, and I won't even begin to bore you with the extensive details of the security. If you'd like to stay, I've just acquired, quite by chance, a new adult. We're preparing to breed it this evening."
"I am definitely inclined to stay." Vault didn't hide his interest as his gaze moved over the hissing red and white Seeker that flared and rattled its white wings at them. "How can you tell if one is an egg-layer build?"
"The egg-layers emit a unique EM signature," Swindle said. "Others of their species detect it naturally, I can pick it up on specialized equipment."
Vault nodded and stepped forward, looking around the room with four large cells, only three of which had inhabitants. He glanced at Swindle. "Just three?"
"You can't expect me to keep everything in one location," Swindle said with a chuckle. "Far too dangerous. In the unlikely event that a facility did get raided, I would lose my entire stock."
"Of course," Vault said, and stepped close to the bars of a bright green Seeker who was huddled in the back corner, abdomen severely distended. "Is this one..."
"It's about to lay, should be in less than a decaorn," Swindle said, nodded.
The Seeker watched him with dim yellow optics, then whispered, "Please ... help me, please..."
Vault raised an optic ridge, then looked a Swindle. "It can talk?"
"Oh yes," Swindle said cheerfully. "All that nonsense about them being like mecha-animals is just that: nonsense. They're highly intelligent, and highly dangerous. The thing that really sets me apart, Vault, more than my discretion, caution, business sense, and dependability, is that I respect my stock. I respect their strength, their grace, and what they do."
"Which includes being able to rip a well-armored mecha limb from limb." Vault shivered slightly at the images he had of a survivor from one of those hunts he bought from that hadn't survived the vorn and stepped away from the bars, out of arm's reach. "You don't even clip their wings or vocalizers?"
"Mm, no," Swindle said, shaking his helm. "I tried that in the beginning but their production rates declined. And frankly, I find it inhumane," he added. "No, I take care of my stock. As you can see, comforts have been provided. Space to move, a place to recharge, plenty of energon, access to a washrack once every three orns, environmental enrichment, and if they behave, they have access to a flight simulator. They just plug in and soar."
"Impressive. It makes me wonder why it's so scared," Vault cocked his helm as he studied the egg layer. "That's more than most mecha have."
Swindle could only shrug. "I have asked myself the same many times. I can only give, I can't make them appreciate what they have."
A crash behind them made them turn and they saw the red and white one against the bars, claws out, wings raised in a clear aggressive display. "You murdered their seekerlings," it snarled. "Why would we appreciate that?"
"They're just eggs." Vault scowled at the aggressive one, though it was more to cover being embarrassed at how much he'd jumped back despite being well out of reach already. "Small price to live well for anything that's sane."
"Would you eat your own kind to live well?" it demanded. "They're alive when you take them, did you know that?"
Swindle clicked with disapproval, then brightened. "Ah, but this gives me a chance to show you one of our security features," he said, and pressed a red control lever on the wall next to the Seeker's cell. A strong hum filled the air and the Seeker suddenly dropped to its knees, struggling, but it appeared to be stuck. After a moment, it dropped to its side, wings slamming into the ground. It shrieked at them in rage.
"Emergency electro-magnets in the floors," Swindle said. "They actually run through this entire area, in the case of a breach."
"Impressive," Vault nodded before addressing the prone Seeker. "They aren't alive when they are served. No Cybertronian I know of came from an egg. People are from Vector Sigma."
"You're all fake," it hissed. "A manufactured, soulless race that poisoned our world."
Swindle hummed happily. "I know it doesn't look like a promising breeder, but the spirited ones always last the longest."
"It must take some interesting tricks to sedate something like that enough to breed it," Vault commented "Or do they become compliant around the sire-type of Seeker?"
Swindle chuckle. "Not one bit. It amazes me that they continue to exist, as foul as their tempers are. Well, shall we?" He held his arm out for the door. "We can discuss my payment options and financing plans over some high grade."
"I like that plan," Vault grinned and agreeably followed Swindle out, leaving the Seeker behind them stuck to the floor.
Starscream guessed it was probably a joor later when the magnet in the floor finally switched off, releasing him. He groaned and pushed up, wings aching from the strange angle they'd been held at, then snarled and lunged at the bars. "Hey!" he shouted, shaking them as hard as he could. "I know you can hear me! Let me the frag out of here! I'll tear you apart, I'll crush your worthless spark in your chest!"
A chirp for attention drew him momentarily away from his rage to look at the Seeker in the cell next to his. Torrent, he'd called himself when Starscream had first booted up. Torrent crawled over to the bars separating them and one look told Starscream that the eggs would be delivered soon.
"They're going to breed you," Torrent whispered to him in Vosian. "It goes better if you don't fight."
"Frag you," Starscream hissed at him. "If that's what you think then you deserve what they're doing to you."
Dim yellow optics barely lit the sad features. "That's what everyone said. You'll learn, eventually. Two clutches a vorn until you can't anymore. You'll learn to fight when it's not about you and not before."
Starscream stared at him. What was that supposed to mean? Poor Seeker had obviously lost his senses, gone mad from the horrors in this place. "Or maybe you'll learn that we should always fight them," he snapped, and shook the bars again, craning his neck around to see the door. "Hey, fraggers! Why don't you try coming in here and seeing what happens then!"
The gravid Seeker shuffled back to his improvised nest of the mattress and several more pillows and blankets than Starscream had, leaving him to learn in his own time.
The hum of electro-magnets gave Starscream a few nanokliks of warning before they pulled his frame down.
He grunted, helm caught in such a way that he was facing the third Seeker in the cell across from him, an egg-heavy, dusky blue frame with vibrant green highlights that had so far been silent. He looked back silently, huddled in the far corner of his cell where he'd built his nest. Cirrus, Torrent had called that one.
Starscream was disgusted with them both. They should be screaming and fighting, not spouting slag about letting the grounders have their way. He'd show them how a real Seeker faced his enemies.
Though at the moment, even he had to admit that fighting would be difficult. Moving wasn't much of an option, though he could very slowly shift so long as he didn't try to stand.
He gradually got himself away from the bars, enough that his neck wasn't being pressed right against them, and more on his stomach. They'd have to turn off the magnets to get him turned over, or to even touch him, and he couldn't wait to see how that went.
Even if they did manage to get to his spark, there was no way he was going to start constructing. Not for some filthy artificial grounder. He was appalled that any Seeker could want eggs so much that they'd start constructing for them. Starscream didn't even want eggs, let them just try to get him clutch-heavy.
The door opened and even though he couldn't see, he hissed at whoever was coming in and rattled his wings as much as he could. The mecha came in, heavy pedes. They were large grounders. Bigger than a Seeker, Starscream extrapolated based on what his wings could tell him. They walked up to the bars and he snarled at them, but neither seemed to care.
A long, thin object was pushed through the bars above him. A stick or something, and where it touched his neck there was a sharp prick.
He cursed at them and tried to jerk away, but it stuck with him, and after a moment, he felt a strange warmth flood through his lines. It started in his neck and moved rapidly through his frame, and his wings drooped, suddenly too heavy to hold up. After a klik, the magnet turned off and he pushed up onto his arms, and then promptly fell over. "What ... what did you ... do..." he mumbled, then groaned. He felt hot, and dizzy, like being pulled into a jetwash. Systems he'd never been aware of fired up and those he knew were for mating sent erratic flares of heat through him.
"It's heatin' fast. Prob'ly won't even need this," one of the grounders said.
"It's protocol, use it," the other grunted. "Even if it's ready in three kliks, gotta log it."
Ready? Starscream thought, and tried to get up again. Through fuzzy, wavy vision he could see Torrent watching him and he got as far as his pedes before a single touch sent him toppling over again, landing him on his wings. His chest was itching, the seam down the middle was trying to split. He hissed and clawed at his own cockpit, trying to hold it shut. His will managed that much, but he couldn't spare the attention needed to keep his valve cover closed and the click of it opening mixed with the cool air hitting the slick, sensitive components made him gasp.
He was distantly aware of the two grounders coming in and then his legs were forced apart and something was pushed into his valve. The other mech grabbed his arms and forced them to the ground above his helm, then pinned them under his knees. A large, strong hand rubbed his cockpit gently, every touch exactly the right one to encourage the molten heat in Starscream's frame.
He shook his helm and wrenched his entire frame with as much strength as he could manage, but all it did was cause him to lean slightly into the one holding his arms. The other one was pushing and pulling whatever it was--it didn't feel quite like a spike, and he couldn't feel any other part of a frame--and the steady rhythm was making his fans whirr and his spark chamber spiral open. Dread slammed through him.
This was breeding heat.
They'd poisoned him and induced breeding heat. This was supposed to be for trine.
"How..." he mumbled, and felt his chest split open.
"That's a good Seeker," the grounder on his legs cooed at him as the toy was pulled out and he leaned forward. His armor split, exposing his spark. "It'll feel really good if you just relax. No need for this to hurt."
"No," Starscream said, very clearly, and felt the pressure on his wrist lighten. He forced his arm out, searching. It took a few tries, but he managed to get his hand on plating and then extended his claws and sank in. He was rewarded with a pained snarl as his wrist was grabbed and slammed to the ground. He knew he left gashes in that one.
Then the world tilted again as a spark came close to his, reaching out with promises of pleasure.
"No," he said again, and tried to jerk away, but now there was an overwhelming need to fight against that was every bit as powerful as the poison in his lines. He didn't think that heat was supposed to make it so hard to move. Frag, he'd watched others in heat and they'd been much more in control of themselves than this.
The open chest above him mashed into his and he found that he still had some control over his spark as it shrank back once faced with the presence of not trine. To him, it felt like a decently good struggle that took up a lengthy amount of time, but in reality, his chronometer reported just moments before his spark surged into the other.
No no no!
~It'll feel much better if you go with it,~ the grounder, Gravel, told him in the strangely gentle contact. Gravel's spark teased Starscream's, encouraging the heat and pleasure, revving the Seeker up with the skill of a good pleasurebot.
~You drugged me,~ Starscream snarled, his spark churning in a maelstrom of vicious fury. ~You poisoned me!~ His heavy frame felt distant and warm, relaxed, but the drug couldn't touch him here.
But the heat could, and the spark contact was already priming him for something he would have refused even his trine, if he had trinemates.
Gravel didn't reply. He didn't care. He was doing a job, nothing more and nothing less. He knew what would happen to the eggs he was triggering and didn't care.
Starscream shrieked at him and heard the sound tear from his vocalizer. His frame bowed up and the more experienced spark thrummed in low, steady pulses that filled him. The energy flooded into his frame and something began to hum in his abdomen. He fought the overload, but with the older and stronger spark against his own, pressing and hitting right into his core, it was forcefully wrenched from him. It hurt, waves of energy and matter pounding inside, brutal compared to the gentle, shivering overload of the grounder.
Panting and disoriented, Starscream was only distantly aware of the grounder standing, his armor closed, and the visual clicked enough that Starscream checked his own armor.
Locked.
At least he had that.
With it and building awareness as the pair left his cell, Starscream also realized that these grounders really would eat their own creations to live well. He tried to roll over and managed to halfway flop onto his side, wing twisted painfully beneath him, ruby optics glaring darkly at the pair.
"What's the date again?" the one he'd gotten his claws into asked.
Gravel answered, leaning against the wall. They were looking at what Starscream assumed was the information log he could see next to the locks on the other cells.
He heard a series of beeps as the date was entered. "All right ... general attitude?"
"Resistant," Gravel said. "Foul-tempered."
"Mm. Okay, so no incidents or problems--"
"You'd better enter that cut. You know how boss gets about records."
"Right, yeah. Minor incident, cut, no medical attention sought. Yes, yes, yes, no, yes," he rattled off as he filled out what Starscream could only guess was a generic report. "And signed."
Gravel nodded and lifted his hand, adding his signature as well.
They moved over to Torrent's cell and looked in and had a brief discussion about his state as they filled out another log entry. "Supervisor recommends no further contact until product retrieval," Gravel said. "It's ready to pop, I'm not goin' in there." The other snorted in agreement and they shifted to the blue Seeker. "Wanna get it done while we're here?"
"Nah, got a few more orns, I'll get it later," the other said.
Gravel chuckled. "You know you'll just complain about it when you have to do it last klik," he said as they left. Starscream couldn't hear the reply, but it was also a chuckle.
Pits, his valve was throbbing.
With a groan he shifted again. Up to his knees, shaky but gradually steadying, and fought to keep from fingering himself.
"There's a toy in that small box under your berth," Torrent told him without moving.
"'M not ... giving in ... to their poison," Starscream tried to snap, but his voice wasn't as steady as he wanted it to be. The hum from his abdomen was almost inaudible, but he felt it through his entire frame.
"If you give in it'll be over faster," Torrent said. "Waiting it out takes a few orns."
"How did they ... do this?" Starscream hissed as he crawled for the berth and tried to climb on. His first attempt to get up on it ended with his hand slipping off the edge and his chin hit the padding.
"Sedatives to reduce your resistance and a cocktail to induce the heat. That jab you felt in the neck was the injection," Torrent explained without a hint he'd witnessed Starscream's fumble.
"Not giving in," Starscream ground out, finally managing to claw his way up. Torrent fell silent, willing to allow the new prisoner to find his own way of surviving their shared nightmare.
Starscream got onto his front and pressed his face against the padding, trying to resist the urge to rock against the berth. His gripped the blanket in his hands to keep them still and away from his valve and tried to think of home, flock, flying. Anything to keep him from thinking about the way the grounder's spark had felt throbbing against his own, the eggs that he knew were now growing within, how soon the grounders would be back to spark life into them so they didn't just reabsorb into his frame.
Heat surged through his frame and he shuddered with a low moan. Hot air flushed out from his vents and his plating, his armor slowly expanded and loosened.
He didn't care what it took, he was not going to give them another victory over his frame.
Starscream was still twitching with discomfort when Torrent started groaning. By his chronometer, it had been three orns since the heat had started, and he'd managed to keep himself from giving into it, but it had been a near thing. The one time he'd fallen into a fitful recharge, he'd booted up to find himself grinding his bare valve on the blanket, which he'd shoved between his legs sometime during the night.
He sat up and made sure his cover was closed before crawling over and peering into his cell. He could see the other Seeker moving in the corner, shifting around the makeshift nest. The bright green finish was dull with stress, egg-production and lack of mates to care for him. He was also in far more distress than he should be. Even Starscream could see that the delivery was not going right.
He rested his forehelm against the bars, wrapping his hand around another one, and wondered if he should try to call for some kind of help. Would they help? "Hey!" he tried calling.
He was immediately hushed, but not by Torrent. It took him a moment to realize that the blue Seeker had finally made some kind of noise and he looked over to see him shaking his head. He scowled and looked back. "What's wrong with you?" he whispered.
"Don't want them coming. Not ever," Cirrus hissed as he shifted uneasily. "Give him what time he can with his eggs."
Starscream's wings tipped in confusion. Torrent's frame shook with convulsions and he moaned again, louder, before he grabbed part of the blanket and stuffed it in his mouth to muffle the sounds. He was hunched forward, but it wasn't right for laying. He was only going to injure himself that way. Starscream shook the bars in frustration, feeling a driving need to help the Seeker in distress, knowing that he was trapped and so was the other.
There was nothing he could do to help.
His wings rattled in the building stress and his own helplessness.
It was sickening on a very deep level to watch the egg-heavy frame contorting in on itself, fighting against the transformation sequence. Starscream's frame twinged with sympathy and then Torrent began to sob and the low groan of protesting equipment became audible. His frame was pulling itself open, trying to expel the eggs that their carrier wanted so desperately to keep.
In the dim light, Starscream could see the bright pulsing light from the first one as soon as it cleared Torrent's frame, a weak, diluted blue. Torrent keened through the fabric as the next one began to press up and gathered the first in his arm, pushing down on the second.
It was, by far, the most horrific thing the young Seeker had ever witnessed or learned of. Even his own rape paled in comparison to watching a Vision try to force his eggs to remain inside him when they were ready to emerge.
It was wrong. So very, very wrong.
It also didn't last long. Once the first had begun to emerge it was only a matter of a couple breems before both were out and Torrent was desperately trying to hide one, the second one, in his blankets with the first one more visible.
The blankets were thin and Torrent's hands were shaking, but eventually, the light was blocked and the first egg was brought into his lap as he huddled facing the corner, as far away from the bars as he could manage, wings held high as he trilled soothingly. There was some debate on whether or not the protoforms within eggs were developed enough to process sound, but many sang to their nests and reported that their seekerlings always calmed when they did. As Starscream watched, the faint light pulsed in steady beats that did, gradually, smooth and slow.
The door to the holding area opened and instinct drove Starscream to throw himself towards the bars, both as distraction and in a vain effort to protect the new eggs. He was faintly aware of Cirrus hissing, rattling his wings and trying to reach the newly delivered eggs and their carrier despite his own heavily gravid state. All Starscream could focus on was keeping the grounders away from the nest.
"Pits smelt it, how are we supposed to sedate it?" one of the guards groused as he considered the huddling green Seeker curled around his egg and angled so his wings were completely in the way of the syringe-stick.
"You could go in and get them," the second one snickered, leaning against the empty cell just out of reach of Cirrus, looking amused.
The first snorted. "Yeah, and you could suggest something helpful for a chance." He banged on the bars and whistled. "Hey, c'mon! Move it!"
Torrent just sang louder, his voice shaking as he stroked his egg.
"Fragging things," the first muttered, examining the scene. After a moment he sighed and tilted his head in thought. "Got anything we could grab it with?" he wondered out loud. "Sorta pull it away?"
"Stun blaster?" the second one half suggested.
"You want to paid for it if it dies?" The guard snorted. "You know the boss forbids violence against them, especially right after they lay."
"Just need to get it to move a bit so the magnets work," the second one huffed. "What about an energon treat? It hasn't fueled at all in two orns."
The guard closer to the cell rolled his optics, then pulled a half-consumed cube out of his subspace and held it through the bars with an inviting whistle. "Heeere jet jet jet," he called.
Torrent ignored him. Starscream snarled, and was similarly ignored by the guards.
"Right, okay." The cube was stashed again. "Look, I'm gonna grab it and pull it back, you gotta get the magnets on and sedate it, and fast, all right?"
"Will do." The guard walked over to the magnet switch, syringe stick in hand and fully tensed at the prospect of opening the cell without the contents immobilized. "Ready."
The first let out an x-vent, clearly not happy with this idea, but obviously lacking any others. Torrent's frame tensed at the sound, wings angling back just enough to have a full read on the attack from behind. The guard steeled himself, then opened the door and dove in.
Torrent waited a beat, then whirled about so fast that Starscream's optics registered only a blur. He got claws into the guard's neck before the magnets pulled on, slamming them both into the ground. Torrent continued to snarl and tear at the other, fighting the pull with every joule of strength he had to drive his claws in deeper as the magnets pulled his hand down. He shifted and flinched, struggling to keep fighting as the other guard jabbed at him with the strong plastic syringe pole.
Even as the sedatives grabbed him and sapped what strength he had left after the difficult expulsion of his clutch, he kept digging his claws in deeper.
"Get it off!" the grounder shouted, his own arms pulled down and leaving him defenseless. The magnetic hold powered down a moment later and the second hurried into the cell to pull the weakened Seeker off his colleague and pushed him onto his front, pinning him with knees on his wings.
"You all right?" he asked, over the sound of Torrent's enraged shrieking and the distressed, angry and demanding screams from the other two Seekers.
"Going ta need the medic for this one," the downed guard grunted as he held his neck cabling as he struggled to his pedes. "I'll get the eggs. You keep that one pinned."
The one on top of Torrent nodded and the first got to his pedes, scooping up the first egg and then frowning at the nest. "Fragging trying to hide them again," he said and began to pull the blankets and pillows apart until he found the second one. "Right, got it," he said, and Torrent keened, struggling as hard as he could to get out from under his captor. It worked no better than it had for Starscream, but he tried and Starscream knew without doubt that these Seekers might be broken, but their coding was intact.
The guards locked him in and then the one with the injury stood by with the eggs as the other began to fill out the report. "Retrieval of two, moderate incident, see attached incident report and medic file, to be submitted. Violent behavior displayed. One egg hidden in blankets. Yes, no, no, yes, no." They both signed and left.
Barely able to move, Torrent sobbed on the floor where he'd been laid out, uncaring if he ever moved again.
With the eggs gone, coding leveled out somewhat and Starscream could think more for himself past protect the eggs. Not that he had much new to think about. Now he knew how they got the eggs, and how quickly, but it didn't add much to his knowledge.
Plan. He needed to plan. He was smarter than every mecha in this place combined. There was a way out and he'd find it.
It was just a few joors later, not long after the lights brightened to indicate "day," that Gravel and the mech who'd been with him before walked in.
"...until the last klik, I told you, honestly, you don't have enough time and now you're dragging my aft--"
"As long as the timestamp is in before the deadline it's fine," the other one said, going right to the log on Cirrus's cell and starting an entry. "Right, material supplement, compliant, no incident--" Gravel snorted. "Shut up, it'll be fine. No incident, yes, yes, yes, no, yes. Sign." They both signed, and Gravel lounged by the controls.
Starscream stared as he opened Cirrus's cell without any kind of preparation and the mech just walked in. Cirrus didn't fight, just climbed onto his berth and spread his legs, turning to stare at the wall as the grounder released his spike and climbed in between. Cirrus slid back his valve cover.
Wasn't he going to fight? He could get away!
But the grounder pushed inside and other than the shudder in the wings, Cirrus made no response.
Starscream's attention shifted rapidly between the rape, the grieving carrier curled up without his eggs and the guard standing by the controls watching in boredom.
But Cirrus already had eggs, so what was the point? "Hey!" he shouted, shaking his bars. "Get off him or I swear you're a dead mech!"
He was ignored, as always. These grounders were arrogant, thinking they had all the control. They would learn.
The guard didn't take long with Cirrus. He grunted and moaned a weak overload, pulled out, wiped himself off and walked out of the cell as his spike retracted and the cover closed.
"Your turn," he said to Gravel.
Gravel groaned. "That one is going to be a pain," he complained. "Anyway I've still got three orns."
"What were you just telling me about not procrastinating?" the other snickered. "C'mon, first time's always the hardest, the sooner you get it over with the better."
"Yeah, yeah, I know, Lounge," Gravel said. "I just hate new stock." He regarded Starscream, who suddenly stepped back away from the bars, not liking the way the conversation was going.
"Why do that?" Starscream said. He managed to make it sound more like a demand than the fearful question his spark knew it was.
Instead of an answer, he was pulled to the floor, face down. He hissed and tried to dodge the injection, but after a few tries, they got it into his neck and he felt the warm, heavy drugging spread through his lines. After a moment he realized that the heat-inducing cocktail hadn't been included. At least there was that. They waited a few more kliks, then turned off the magnet.
Starscream still couldn't move, but he could track them as they walked in. One grabbed and pinned his hands while the other -- presumably Gravel -- lifted his hips up and rubbed a thumb along the valve cover. From a lover, the touch would have been electric. This turned Starscream's tanks.
"Open up," Gravel actually cooed at him.
Starscream snarled and pulsed his wings up and down, the closest he could get to a rattle. His claws transformed out, digging into the floor, and he yanked at his hands. Lounge was ready for him this time and it wasn't any use. His head was pressed down on its side and he could see Torrent's silent, shaking frame. "Already ... have eggs," he slurred.
"And this will help you build them. Don't you know how it works for your own kind?" Gravel gave a few more insistent rubs. "Now open or have it opened."
"Don't need," Starscream forced out. "Frag ... off."
"Suit yourself," Gravel shrugged as he touched a spot to one side and to Starscream's shock and humiliation, his valve cover slid open. Two hands went to his hips and he felt a large spike press into him without and prep or preamble.
It hurt. Tore and pulled instead of sliding smoothly.
He shrieked, the sound wordless and static-filled and pulled from him. The same sickening horror of having his spark touched by the repulsive grounder swept through him, humiliation on top of everything else. He wouldn't beg for them to stop, he had his pride, but he clung to the floor and waited with a frozen frame.
It was everything he'd heard whispered of. Painful, degrading, an act of power, not for pleasure. This was even worse, knowing they were being paid to do this, that it was just part of their job, and it was to build the egg he was creating faster so they could make him build more.
He held back the sobs, the urge to purge his tank, everything until he felt the crackle of the grounder's overload and the wash of hot, charged fluid into his abused valve. When the grounder pulled out, his wings shuddered. He could feel fluid leaking out, down the insides of his thighs. The hands let go and he dropped. He still held back the sobs as they locked him inside, and while they filled out their log entry, congratulating each other on a smooth procedure, and then left.
The sobs couldn't be stopped after that. The grounder's transfluid would go right to his eggs to be absorbed as nutrition, to strengthen the shells and the protoforms and prepare both to nurture life. Lives that would never emerge from the shell if these sick, twisted monsters had their way.
Starscream was curled up on his berth, staring at the wall when he heard Cirrus. For a moment, he dismissed the sound and didn't pay attention, and then realized it was words.
"Hey, you!"
He lifted his helm and looked over at the blue Seeker.
"Yeah, you. What's your designation?"
Starscream stared for a moment. "Starscream," he said. Had he really never told them his designation? Torrent had told him both of theirs when he'd first gotten here ... he'd never answered.
"Okay, Starscream," Cirrus said, and pointed at Torrent's cell. Torrent still hadn't moved in five orns, other than when he was force-fueled. "Go over there and see if you can reach him."
At first Starscream resisted. He didn't take orders, he gave them. But this order was given because it was the right thing to do, so Starscream hauled himself off the berth and walked to the bars separating his cell from Torrent's. He reached through, trying to touch the despondent Seeker.
"Can't," he said, when he came up short.
Cirrus sighed and sank to the floor, the corner of his cell that was the closest to Torrent and stretched his arm out as far as he could. "Torrent," he trilled. "Please, Torrent, I know you miss Flightplan. You have to move. They'll be back soon, Torrent, please."
"What happens when they come back?" Starscream scowled, angered that a carrier was expected to be fine only five orns after he'd lost his eggs. He was grieving for Primus's sake! "Who was Flightplan?"
"He was in there before you were," Cirrus said. "He was here before Torrent. Torrent," he trilled again, and Starscream heard trine harmonics in his voice. His wings hiked up in shock. Visions couldn't trine other Visions!
"Leave me alone," Torrent whispered.
"Please," Cirrus said. "I need you for this."
"What happens when they come back?" Starscream asked again, then shrank back when Cirrus hissed at him.
"They're going to put me in heat," Torrent said flatly. "It starts all over."
"But ... but you just released a clutch!" Starscream couldn't hide his horror and shock. "How can a frame do it so soon?"
"Flightplan was only 2000 when he could no longer build eggs," Cirrus said.
Starscream's wings quivered as he tried to process that and simply failed. He looked at the dusky blue Seeker. "What did they do to him?"
Cirrus's hand dropped and Torrent keened.
"Same thing they'll do to all of us," Cirrus said. "Bred him until his frame couldn't support it."
"Then they kill us," Starscream said flatly. He didn't need to guess.
"Yeah," Cirrus whispered. "If you don't take in three tries, they put you down. You're young," he said, looking at Starscream. "You'll last a while."
"I'm going to get out of here," Starscream rumbled definitely. "They have a lot going for them, but I'm smart. I'll work it out."
"No you won't," Torrent said flatly. "Others have tried. It isn't possible. You might as well accept it now."
"This isn't the education I came all the way to Iacon for, but I'll take it, learn and turn it on these sick monsters," Starscream's wings lifted high and rattled sharply. "There is always a way out if you're smart enough to find it."
"Don't you rattle at him!" Cirrus snarled, jumping to his pedes and slamming against the bars, causing Starscream to jump back and flick his wing in startlement. "There isn't a way out and as soon as you get that through your frayed circuits the better we'll all be!"
"You've given up; wingless dead," Starscream's tone was of pity rather than anger. "I'm not. I'll fly again."
"Cirrus," Torrent murmured, then sighed and pushed himself up. Cirrus's wings immediately dropped. Torrent turned around. "He's young. Let him hope. It'll end soon enough."
Starscream huffed and flopped on his berth, half frustrated, half morning how lost the pair were. He really had no idea how to talk to them.
After a few kliks, he saw Torrent get up to his pedes and move to the corner closest to Cirrus. "I hope you find a way out, Starscream," he said, though in his voice he clearly didn't believe it was possible. He held his arm through the bars towards Cirrus, who reached back the same way.
"How close are you?" Torrent asked.
Cirrus curled an arm around his middle. "Feels like I might have half a metacycle, now."
Starscream watched them as he thought and plotted and generally bemoaned his lack of knowledge about breaking out. "Do you know how many others have been in this cell?"
Torrent sighed. "Flightplan was here when I got here. He could remember Seekers I'd never met. Try not to think about how long it's been ... but I know it's been 182 clutches." He shuddered. "It's been 446 eggs."
"Ninety one vorns, maybe ninety-two," Starscream didn't even think before he said it. He paused, not sure if he really wanted to know the next answer, but he needed to know. "How long do most last?" he asked quietly.
"They put Flightplan down after his 303rd clutch," Cirrus said when Torrent couldn't answer. "There's been others who didn't even make it half a century. There were three here in a row before me that were a decade each."
Starscream closed his optics and said a small, silent prayer for the departed. "How will they kill us?"
"Same as the sedation, but it's poison," Cirrus said quietly.
"Fast acting?" Starscream knew he was pressing a line he shouldn't, but he wanted to know now, not when he was finding out first hand.
Torrent sobbed, curling in on himself.
"...Not really," Cirrus whispered. "Puts you out pretty fast but he didn't gray for almost a joor. Torrent thinks--"
"I could feel his field," Torrent keened. "He was in pain the entire time!"
Starscream clenched his fists and silently cursed these monsters again. "I'm going to kill them all just as slowly. There's no excuse for that."
Cirrus just shook his head and tried to reach for Torrent again. Torrent reached back, and they got as close as they would ever be able in their lives.
"I'll hurt them for you too," Starscream murmured. "No excuse to isolate one. Not good for survival." He jerked as something occurred to him and rolled off the berth to scan for a camera he knew was watching. "You hear me? Seekers will last longer when they aren't separated!"
"They don't care," Cirrus said. "We're--we're stock to them."
"Yes, stock that produces better the better they take care of us," Starscream reasoned, his processors flying even faster than his frame could. "Mechanimal husbandry 101. Safe, well-fed and content stock produce better, no matter what the product is." His optics narrowed and he looked at the camera. "That's why we're in threes. That's why the good energon, the flier-grade berths, the nice washracks, entertainment, the shifting light cycles, not disabling our vocalizers, thrusters, flight systems, movement. Isn't that right? You know we produce better when conditions are good. Well I'm telling you that Seekers need physical contact with our kind. Look through your thorough records and notice that the removed Seekers don't last as long."
Cirrus was staring at him, and so was Torrent, but before either of them could answer the door opened and Gravel and Lounge walked in.
"Start with the easy one?" Lounge glanced at his partner.
"Definitely. The red one's not going to be easy this time either," Gravel gave an annoyed look at Starscream. "He's going to take a few rounds to tame."
Lounge shrugged in agreement and walked into Cirrus's cell, grabbing the Seeker's wing and practically hauling him up onto his pedes and back to the berth. Starscream watched, seething at his inability to do anything and the casual disregard everyone had. At least the burnt orange and rich yellow one had seemed shocked they were people, even if he'd soon recovered. These mecha were just broken in the worst way. Lounge shoved inside Cirrus's frame and Starscream slammed into the bars. "Leave him alone!" he shouted. "Are you listening to me? Leave him alone!" The grounders ignored him. Starscream snarled and rattled his wings. "Hey! Answer me!"
"I hate the vocal ones," Lounge grunted as he pushed Cirrus. "Break my concentration."
"I'll do a slag lot better than break your pathetic concentration, you processor-deficient walking dead!" Starscream snarled, shaking his bars. "Why don't you try coming in here without sedating me!"
"For Primus's sake," Lounge muttered as he thrust, and then apparently disengaged his audials because after that, nothing that Starscream yelled at him got so much as a hitch in the rhythm. Finally, he gave a short series of grunts, then a low groan as he shuddered and spilled into Cirrus. The blue Seeker looked like he couldn't even feel it and Starscream wanted to scream.
And then the magnetic floor dragged him down, leaving him pressed uncomfortably against the bars as they drugged him and Gravel came in, pushing him onto his back. "It'd be easier on you if you would just move to the berth and spread out, you know," he said, as Lounge grabbed his hands to pin over his head.
"Never going to make it that easy on you slag-sucking piece of scrap!" Starscream screeched despite the slurring.
"I can't wait until it's pushed out a few batches," Lounge commented as Gravel shoved inside. "Maybe it'll stop screeching all the time then."
"Never!" Starscream tried to struggle, tried to fight, tried to hurt, but the drugs made every effort useless. "I'll get out. I'll make sure all of you monsters know what a slow, pain filled death by that poison is like. I'll kill you! I'll kill you all!"
"Oh, shut up," Lounge groaned, which only prompted Starscream to screech as loud as he could through the entire rape.
Two orns after that, the pair reappeared, and Starscream was immediately at his bars and shouting and snarling as they walked right past him and Cirrus, going for Torrent. The green Seeker just looked at them and gave a low whine from his engines when they pressed the syringe into his neck. He didn't resist though, standing and walking to his berth to flop on his back before the sedative took effect.
Lounge followed him in and pulled something from his subspace, settling on the edge of the berth. It was black, and looked long and flexible, smooth, and after a moment Starscream realized it was the thing they'd pushed into his valve to fully induce heat. Torrent was just staring at the ceiling, looking completely impassive to the cocktail they'd just injected, and his legs fell apart. His valve was bared, and Lounge pushed the false spike in. He pulled it in and out in slow, smooth thrusts while turning his wrist. Starscream couldn't even hear Torrent's fans, and he wondered if the other Seeker was even capable of going into heat anymore. He'd felt it less than a klik after being injected. Torrent looked completely unaffected.
But slowly, surely, his frame began to tense, his fingers dug into the padding, his back arched and his thighs spread wider. When he started to meet the thrusts with slow rocking, Lounge pulled the toy out and touched his cockpit.
Torrent whimpered, a soft keen escaping him as it slid to the side and his armor parted. Even Starscream could recognized conditioning when he saw it, at least when it was this blatant.
"How can you stand it, touching his spark right now?" Starscream demanded. "A pool of grief can't be fun."
"Seriously gonna look into some kind of muzzle for that one," Lounge said as his crystal spiraled open.
"Boss'll say no," Gravel said, relaxing and watching. "You know he will. Doesn't want 'em muzzled."
"It would still produce," Lounge said, then lowered his frame down over Torrent's and brought their sparks together.
"Just turn your audials off. It'll stop screeching after a few clutches," Gravel shrugged. "Not like boss can do anything about that."
"That's such a pain," Lounge huffed, but seemed to do it anyway and stilled into the spark merge. Gravel continued to ignore Starscream's questions, threats and violent commentary, much to the Seeker's annoyance.
Starscream was never one to be ignored, no one should be ignored if one valued oneself. He fumed as the merge ended, glaring at the pair as they left the cell. Torrent immediately went for the small box with a desperation that embarrassed Starscream just to witness. He pulled the toy out and shoved it into his valve, whimpering, and Starscream looked away.
The guards were moving onto Cirrus's where the process was repeated with Gravel overloading inside the dusky blue Seeker's valve, and then it was Starscream's turn.
"So, are you going to stand still for this, or do we use the magnets again?" Lounge asked him while Gravel leaned against the wall by the switch.
Starscream snarled, and a moment later was slammed into the ground, injected, and mounted. He could hear Torrent overloading in the next cell, the desperate in-out of the toy, the sickening strike of Gravel hitting inside his valve.
He'd never been happier to drop offline in his life.