Wings of Love Chapter 2

[ledishae]

Title: Wings of Love

Fandom: Transformers AU

Author: LediShae and deathmustang

Pairing/Characters: Sunstreaker, Sideswipe, Ratchet, First Aid, Tracks

Rating: PG-13

Summary: Harpies, creatures with angelic faces and the bodies and talons of the fiercest hunting avians, had long been rivals of the gryphons, the eagle/lion beasts of legendary might. Yet, being inthe wrong place at just the right time brings three would be enemies together against a common foe.

Warnings: Mature situations, mentions of quasi non-con.

Word Count: 3155

Disclaimer: All Transformer characters belong to their respective owners, I'm just having a little fun.



The distinctive whooshing of wing beats filled the air as Ratchet and First Aid circled lower over a clearing a mile from the outer most range of the Common Lands. Optics bright Aid had been in awe as the raven black forest he had always known slowly shrunk and faded behind them turning into pale greenish grey mineral leafed scrub land bordering the distant verdant undulating plains that stretched to the horizon.

Even here in this clearing amongst some of the taller brushes along the border of forest and plain they were little more than specks. First Aid watched in continual awe as his carrier landed gently, form shifting from harpy to mech in a smooth rearrangement of plating. Turning with a loving smile Ratchet reached out to Aid, stealing the youngling from the wind as he held the smaller frame close in a proud embrace.

"You have become a very good flier." Ratchet beamed as he let Aid reclaim his pedes. "Have you been able to shift forms yet?"

Aid shook his head in silence, out there, in the plains known as the Common Lands, the normal mechs strode proudly despite being trapped within a single form. They could not shift and from their jealousy of the free races they sent Hunters into the free lands to seek the many races liberated from their stifling mech forms.

"I thought not, here I have a present from Uncle Jack." Ratchet pulled a small talisman bound on a thick cable. The talisman Aid lifted with his leading primaries was half the length of his longest feathers. Made of gathered mer-femme scales and siren feathers it radiated a totemic power that tingled through Aid's relays. "This will let your frame take on the form of a common mech. It will also hide you should danger come and guide you to safety."

"Wow!" Aid grinned ducking through the proffered cable and watching in childish enthusiasm as his pure white wings and crimson chest ruff drew in and changed becoming white mech arms and red chest plating similar but different from that of his carrier. "Do I look like you, Carrier?"

"Of course you do." Ratchet smiled grateful he could answer honestly. Despite having Tracks' finer facial features and lacking the helm crest above his optics that Ratchet bore they still looked too much alike to be anything but mech and spark-youngling.

"Now listen, the common mechs are always creators and femmes are always carriers. You have to call me either Uncle Ratch like your brothers or creator."

"Because Hunters might find us and if I call my mech carrier by what he is they will know we are of the free races and want to kill us." Aid replied somberly despite the gleam of excitement that lit his optics. Despite, or maybe because of the stories he had lived on and all the violence inherent in a harpy's life this was still more a game to young Aid. Ratchet could only smile, grateful his mechling could see the adventure despite the danger and the fun despite the duty they had to fulfill.

"Very good, now come on we must walk fast to get to the borderlands healing hall." Ratchet led Aid through the bracken leading to the plains guiding Aid through safer paths away from the lethal critters that filled the tall purplish grasses filling the ever dense undergrowth. The early morning brightened further letting the sun bless the glistening plains with its light. Metallic grasses that screeched and shattered lightly beneath their pedes from last season's growth provided the only sound of their passing. Finally they crested a hillock taller than Ratchet and very steep that led down into the gently rolling burgundy basin that was the common lands.

Ahead of them just at the base of the hill a temple of stone and canvass stretched out parallel to the line of hills that formed a barrier between the civilized common lands and terrifying savage lands beyond the scrub. Ratchet halted Aid as they looked down upon the temple, "That is the healing temple. In there all are called either mechs or femmes or by their names. Never call any two-leggers for that will give us away and our home land is known to them as savage. For them we are creatures of terror and nightmare. Once mechs turned to monsters for hideous deeds done by ancient ancestors banished to the forest wilds and eternal damnation from Primus' Light. They believe this and for them that is reality. They do not know we can change our appearance. Remember this."

"I will, Uncle Ratch." Aid replied with a sly grin happy to see his carrier smile for doing as he had asked. "My carrier never told me you were my creator and I grew up with my brothers knowing you as an uncle. I wanted to be like you and made carrier let me go with you. Only since I'm not always good I overheard you two arguing and found out who I thought was my creator was really the creator of my half-brothers."

Ratchet chuckled, "You are too clever by far for your own good. Just make sure you remember what you just said because I may not." Finally reassured that his mechling would not reveal them from poorly chosen words Ratchet led the way down to the temple and the common mechs he volunteered with as a medical courier into the savage lands.

"Good morning Patch, Fixit." Ratchet greeted as he walked into the temple. Looking up from duties the healer mechs smiled widely at First Aid and the resemblance to Ratchet he possessed.

"Ratchet and who is this youngling?" Patch asked as he approached, kneeling to get on optic level with Aid.

"I'm First Aid." He looked up adoringly at Ratchet, "He's my creator."

"C-creator? I didn't know you were bonded." Fixit stammered with heated facial plating watching Ratchet with dim optics.

"I'm not, Aid was an unintended blessing." Ratchet grinned, waggling his optic ridges as the others chuckled, Fixit still watching Ratchet hesitantly as she returned to her duties. "What do you have for me this time?"

"Are you sure you want to bring a mere sparklet into the wilds? It's dangerous out there."

"Carrier lives in the forest with my brothers." Aid piped up smiling brightly as Ratchet flinched.

"What!" All the healers within the temple gasped staring at the small mechling standing to Ratchet's knees.

Ratchet sighed, "His carrier's family is all foresters."

"Wow, so you have a youngling with a bonded femme?" Fixit asked warily.

"Femme, enough, you have duties. See to them." Patch barked sending Fixit off to the many patients needing attention. "My apologies, she's become fond of you and this is quite a surprise."

"None needed," Ratchet replied, internally shuddering at the thought of being paired with a common femme.

"As for what we've got," Patch continued pulling small satchels of vials from a cabinet of medicines. "Here's supplies for the northeast foresters' station, and the western ford. A new camp to the west has reported some new virus in their ranks. Here's the supplies, list and map. We'll have more for you in three months as usual. Good luck."

"Thank you Patch." Ratchet took the proffered items, placing them in subspace and turned Aid and him back towards to scrub lands and the worn path that marked the uncertain border between the lands both Common and Free. They walked in comfortable familiarity, Aid marveling at the new novelty of walking on his common mech shaped pedes. Overhead the sun wheeled across the vault of the sky morning blue turning into evening's purple hues.

"Carrier," Aid whispered, "I smell something - yummy?" He looked up to Ratchet uncertainly torn between what his nose was telling as something tasty and an unfounded fear that he should not go near. "But it scares me."

"Hunters put out bait laced with poisons. It is the scent of prey that makes you hunger." Ratchet warned, "The talisman makes you fear." Ratchet stepped back optics shuttering as he scented the wind trembling as the heedy fragrance of half dead something tainted the wind. "Run, the talisman will keep you safe, just run."

"What about you?" Aid clung tighter to Ratchet's leg, not wishing to be alone in the growing darkness.

"The hunters may have damaged an innocent. I have to tend to him. You will be fine, just go where the talisman leads you." Ratchet nudged First Aid desperately the scent of live mechs and metal snares growing heavier in the air making his spark pound with urgency. "Now!"

Aid fled from the path small pedes pounding into the bracken surrounding them, his form vanishing ino the deepening gloom.

Ratchet continued to walk down the path pulling his vial of medical energon doped to block his symptoms of being in heat. He swallowed some quickly and hid it once more. He had to keep his oncoming symptoms at bay, he had to keep his processors clear or Aid would be lost out there alone.

Once the calming affects of the medicine filled his lines he moved the final distance separating him from the source of the deliciously mouthwatering and stomach turning smell. Upon the ground lay a fledgling roc, the massive bird mech not even possessing its adolescent plumage would have stood taller than Ratchet.

Ratchet fought the urge to retch, tanks heaving at the sight. The infant creature had been tortured. Taloned pedes had been bludgeoned, shattered beyond repair. The oversized optics the roc chick should have grown into were but hollow sockets already infested with the pestilent, writhing shapes of maggots whose motions sounded as a million miniature marching legs of ants.

With a final choke he looked down on the creature, too young to even fly and felt his spark wrench in fear and grief. But for the grace of Primus alone that could have been First Aid. The infant creature before him stirred a deep rooted hate for the hunters who staked the poor youngling out to die. Deep score marks along the ground told of the young spark's struggles and slow agonizing death in solitude far from its loving carrier.

Ratchet swallowed the keen of grief he longed loose to the skies and moved from the grey frame. He strode swiftly down the road keeping to the path that led further towards the forester camps and his duties. It was getting dark fast, and he would soon need to find a camp site. Soon it would be too dark for normal mechs to travel safely and then hunters would realize he was not what he seemed.

A heavy tread behind him signaled he was already too late. "Pretty nasty thing back there, eh?"

"Very nasty," Ratchet agreed as casually as he could, voice still thick from the visage of the broken youngling.

"You're pretty shaken over a monster." Ratchet finally looked back at the mech behind him, the approaching mech was taller than him, broader. Green and purple the hunter seemed twice Ratchet's size, fingers still stained with dried flecks of the infant roc's life fluids. The sneering twist of the grey lips and all too calm red gaze poured cold terror into Ratchet's thudding spark.

"It was newly hatched, not even in its first molt. That creature had been tortured and left alive. Anymech would be horrified by the sight." Ratchet replied stiffly, unable to keep the queasy hoarseness from his voice.

"That would entirely depend on the mech." The hunter replied, vile grin widening.

Ratchet froze instinctively at the other's piercing gaze, terrified the common mech could see through his shifted plating to his true form within. A keening sound filled the air, making it heavy from the noise. Whirring, moaning the sound increased, surrounding Ratchet and the common mech. Terrified, Ratchet bolted frame shifting in the sparkbeat it took him to get into the air once more safely in his true harpy form.

Wings pumping desperately Ratchet tore through the darkness swift as an arrow. He angled upwards seeking altitude as fast as he could - and realized only too late he should have gone for distance. From far beneath him a jet of water slammed into him, pulling the wind from his wings, sending him to fall from the skies. The mech he had fled from, initially a mere speck upon the ground, became too big to fast as he plummeted to the unforgiving ground below.

Agony wrenched through him, freezing the breath in his intakes. His entire weight hung limply in pained shock from his trapped wing, ensnared within hanging chains decorating the trees along the road like a massive spider's webbing. Ratchet fought his pain, swallowed the agony and struggled to free himself from the chains, cursing in tongues as the shiny coating along the chains seeped into his plating slowly paralyzing his frame.

"Ha! Hook ya sly tosser, ya spied the beast again. That's three for three." A new voice chortled smugly. The hunters below pulled the chins from the trees lowering Ratchet's slowly freezing form.

"This new stupifier you made up works quick, Mix Master!" A different voice called out excitedly.

Ratchet tensed as his frame lowered, waiting until he could see the greedily burning optics of the hunters. Once the glowing optics of yellow and red came into focus he lashed out at the encircling forms. Long talons on grasping claws sunk deeply into plating tearing at lines and rending relays while his own body fought the paralysis slowly freezing his frame. Legs and talons flailing Ratchet continued his assault, the cries and screams of the hunters filled the night with their agony and ratchet's spark from their pain.

Undaunted by several blows that sturck his benumbed body Ratchet struck harder, seeking the kill as he fought until blackness enveloped him with sudden oblivion.

"Primus, what the Pit is this thing? It walks like a mech, looks like a harpy carrier and fights like the Unmaker incarnate." The smallest of the hunters demanded wearily, clutching his profusely bleeding arm and exposed internals.

"Hook, tend to Scavenger, get him functional. Mix Master, what the Pit! I wanted something that kept this from happening!"

"Calm down Scrapper, it worked. The harpy will be out cold for a good two days at least. Then we can bring him to Barricade for parceling." Mix Master soothed his leader. The hunters moved swiftly repairing their injuries and sealing their acquisition in a reinforced cage. All could only hope the harpy would not prove stronger than energy bars.

"So this mech goes walking by, all handsome-like fine as you please. Then Hook comes up behind the mech and gets the pretty bot all twitchy. Hook gives us the signal and we do the whirly things with some chains and suddenly that mech's a slaggin' harpy wingin' away like the Unmaker was on his tail feathers."

"And we brought him down. We know Scavenger, we were there." The first talker was shushed by a weary voice.

Ratchet slowly stirred, wings pinioned painfully behind him. He shifted, clawed feet forced into tight balls and mouth gagged, he was helpless. Tired, head spinning and every feather aching while his plating stung with pins and needles he wondered if this was what death felt like.

"But Bonecrusher, this has been our best haul yet!" Scavenger cried indignantly.

Ratchet slowly slitted his optic shutters, watching with dim optics as the blurry forms of the hunters lounged around their camp fire. Initially dazed, he could only let the world spin. Yet slowly the sounds of the world beyond the light of the camp fire reached his audios. Where he had been captured on the border of the rich scented scrubland and whispering forest they were now surrounded by the burbling of a river and the light fragrance of the open grasslands.

"It might be our best haul yet," Hook sneered, "It is also the foulest." He wrinkled his nasal ridge in revulsion.

"You're right, what in the name of Primus is that smell?" Scrapper demanded gagging.

"It's those gryphons! Something's got them hot and bothered under their plating." Long Haul cursed as he kicked a cage sitting across the camp from Ratchet's twin blue optics glaring balefully as dangerous rumbling hisses warned the mech off.

"Then what's bother'n them?" Bonecrusher demanded, looking about their camp warily as if itching for a fight.

The others rose to their peds as one, sudden nervous fear jangling through their lines like the uncertain fluttering of butterfly wings. Dangerous and scared they prowled camp seeking the hidden scent that made their most perilous acquisitions prowl their cage restlessly.

Ratchet watched dazedly as the hunters stalked through the camp. Uncaring as his processors drifted through his fog of pain he ignored the large masses in the cage across the camp from him. His optics closed of their own accord the camp fading into darkness. Struggling, he finally opened his optics again, the hunters now missing from the camp, their heavy treads could be heard in the surrounding plains lost in the darkness.

His world darkened once more, the tingling in his plating finally abated. In a moment of darkness that might have been an eternity a vision of First Aid flashed behind his optics, keening in fear within the sheltering embrace of Wheeljack's arms. As the image of his youngling faded Ratchet once more unshuttered his heavy optics. Once the camp returned to his vision he was finally able to focus on the glowing energy bars of the cage around him and the true extent of his bindings. The gag silencing his muffled curses was tethered through the bindings pinioning his wings and attached to the jesses about his ankles that forced his claws into tight balls. Only once he realized where he was did the pain from his neck arching sharply backwards set in.

As did the sudden burning ache filling his lines from his heat cycle. Ratchet thunked his head to the side in frustration against the floor of the cage. At this point his potion would not stop the symptoms. He knew the routine his frame put him through each year. Once the symptoms set this badly he normally had hide for the next ten days for the heat to burn out of his systems. He just only hoped that he would be free of the hunters and whatever other creatures they had here before something decided to use his bound state to get a quick frag in.

The first few days of their captivity they let themselves be held, allowed the strange creatures that had no true form to keep them in their cage of light. And, in the first burgeoning dawn, had looked to the horizon for their former clan; no one came. Their own grand carrier had forsaken them, cast them out for being hot headed and foolish.

Sunstreaker shook his head savagely, dispelling the memories. He glared at the glowing bars around him and his brother, wishing the burning pillars of cold fire would vanish. Each time they touched them they sent tongues of blue fire through them. The only bright spot in this whole mess was not being in their cage alone.

:: What is that? :: Sideswipe purred over their bond, bright optics staring keenly at the new cage they had ignored for the past day.

Within the other glowing cage lay a strange figure. It was not a gryphon, none of their kind had such slender, willowy grace. Despite being bound in a painful reverse arch the other creature was mesmerizing - as was the subtle scent that emanated from the still figure's cage. Slowly, as the day progressed the scent increased while the brothers could only bide their time.

High above the wheel of the sky rotated sending the sun to sleep and awakening the thin sliver of the crescent moon. As if pulled from its long slumber by the rising moon the figure in the other cage stirred, hazy bird optics somewhere between lavender and purple stared uncomprehendingly out onto the camp.

Sideswipe's tail normally flipped and flopped, showing his need vor constant motion. Yet now it was completely still. Sunstreaker was rigid as a statue, staring intently at the bound figure across from them. :: I want her. ::

Sideswipe snickered, amused at his brother's intent desire. Normally it was Sideswipe who chased all the tails, dragging his brother along for the fun. He guessed this time it would be fun to tag along. Gradually the glowing optics across from them closed, the figure once more still as the wheel of night turned ever so slowly across the sky.

:: She's awake again. :: Sunstreaker rumbled across their bond, waking Sideswipe up from a light doze. :: Look at her ::

Sideswipe could only agree. The figure was beautiful, especially now that its optics shone their true amethyst hue. Above her optics, a dark crest upon her brow made her optics more intense their large size only emphasizing her delicate frame.

Within the camp between their cages the hunters prowled, seeking the darkened grasses beyond their pitiful firelight. Once the hunters had passed into the darkness Sideswipe steeled himself sensing his twin equally tensed until the last hunter had faded beyond their hearing. Then as one entity they lunged in opposite directions shattering their cage with ease. The blue tongues of fire, once so agonizing were now mere irritiants to be ignored, shrugged off as they shattered their bonds and took to the skies.

Wings streatching in the wind they circkled once, diving to grab the annoying hunters in their front talons and tossing them into the mighty river nearby praying for their deaths. Then, knowning that their pleasures would not be interrupted they landed, stalking slowly to the other cage.

They looked down at the pinioned fomr in the cage, clawed bird feet wound tightly, tied painfully packwards against her wings, a leash from the gag she bore across her mouth pulled her head back nearly touching her foled talons. She looked up fearlessly at them, optics daring them, challenging them to try taking her in this bound state.

"Don't fret pretty one," Sunstreaker purred, "We'll take you in the skies." Within the cage those daring optics turned hard, glaring icily at them in her silence. "Close your optics, we'll break you free."

Glaring at them once more she complied, optics shuttering safely against flying debris. The pair looked her over one last time, admiring her leth build and slender grace. They couldn't wait to fly her. Finally they rose on their hind paws and balled their fore claws smashing the cage into splinters. Through the ruins of her cage they finally were able to reach her, drag her pinioned form from the rubble. Only then could they see her true size.

Neither small nor as frail as she looked she was still smaller than them. Yet she was a gorgeous harpy. "Don't move, I don't want to damage you." Sunstreaker murmured, lethal talon slicing neatly though steel cable bindings. "Now lets see you in the air,"

"Good idea," Ratchet launched himself into the skies once the gryphons had sat back to watch him. Frustrated at being bound and worried over First Aid he gouged his rescuers wherever his talons could reach as he took to the skies and fled to the distant forest that was now little more than a distant smudge in the darkness.

"She's a mech!" Sideswipe gasped disturbedly.

"I don't care." Sunstreaker snarled as he launched himself after the fleeing harpy, "He scratched me." They rowed through the air, their heavier frames slower to gain in altitude as they struggled to follow the lighter harpy. Behind them they heard a hated familiar sound, that of the hunters' water cannon seeking to drag them from the sky. They peeled off from their pursuit, turning on the hunters instead. They would get the femme-mech later.

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