Work Text:
Idiot wasn’t supposed to get hurt.
Luck promised he could fly through the defensive measures just fine as long as Netty made a big enough distraction to keep the actual guards busy. She offered him a cheeky grin, and their standard goodbye for missions: “Don’t do anything stupid!”
“Don’t worry, that’s your department.”
Hornet kept her side of the bargain. Distractions and diversions and dumb moves that paid off she could handle. Moving fast, landing hits, ducking return blows, all of that came second nature thanks to thousands of hours in simulation training and four centuries worth of actual missions. Pit, it practically came embedded into her CNA coding, thanks to her parents and the War they lived through via those very same tactics.
Supposed to be that way for her big brother, too.
But the next that Netty saw Locust, he’d clearly taken a blow. A bad one, if the state of his wings were anything to go by.
Still made it to the communications room, though.
And as Netty took down her final guard (one hundred and fifty-seven in less than four minutes, that was a new record!) Luck opened up a transmission that played on intercom screens all across the base, and hopefully went off to the Patrol as well.
She got just over ten seconds to stand there listening, venting heavily, grinning like a doofus through her battlemask.
And then it went wrong.
Hornet took off running even before Cruiser started yelling for Locust to take it back.
She pushed her engine into overdrive, spinning in and out of vehicle mode to zip through the tangled mess of corridors that led towards the comm room’s back entrance. Thankfully, no guards! Not so thankfully, low oil and low coolant and low everything else. Red warnings leapt into her HUD; Netty dismissed all of them without a second glance.
Final turn. She transformed, hit the opposite wall and bounced, soared through the already open gate, both doorwings flared high and crackling with generated electricity. More flashing red warnings; Netty didn’t even notice them, attention locked with laser focus onto the figure pinning down her brother.
Cruiser barely managed to look up and begin to panic when she cannoned into his stupid face.
Even so, he put up more of a fight than the guards. Enough that Hornet could understand how the fragger pulled a win on her big brother, especially with Luck’s balance shot from his slagged wings. Not enough to save himself, though. Not by a longshot.
Her fluid levels might have been screaming about dropping to 6, 5, 4%, but she still had plenty of knives to spare.
One went through each hand. Then both his elbow joints, and his knees, and his ankles. Netty needed to rip away some armor to get at his shoulder connections, but soon those both got stabbed through as well. Another blade slipped between neck cables and into the floor, and her last speared deep into his abdomen. At that point, Netty hit him with one final electric burst, before finally hauling herself up and back a step.
Cruiser wheezed. Still alive, but not for long, considering all the energon spilling out of him. Not that it mattered, with Pridefall coming. And speaking of whom - the Patrol badge sitting center on Hortnet’s chassis let loose a warning chime, loud enough to draw Cruiser somewhat out of his agony.
“Ha,” he gasped, barely audible around the knife through his neck. “Least- you die- with me-”
“Nah,” Hornet said, turning around and walking slowly towards her brother. Luck managed to push himself more or less into a sitting position during the fight; hell, they’d need to get him to the medics right away, Mom and Dad were gonna freak if they saw the extent of his damage- “We’re gonna get while the gettin’ is good.”
Another wheeze. Possibly an attempt at a chuckle. Netty got an arm under her brother’s mostly intact shoulder and helped him stand. “Even- you can’t- ‘scape- top speed- and with, him? Ha!”
Hornet only hummed. Her badge and Luck’s both chimed again; thirty seconds ‘til Pridefall. “I’ve only got one thing left to say to you, Cruiser.” She cast a look back behind her, and met his burning gaze. “Die screaming.”
A spacebridge opened.
“No-” Hornet kept walking, Locust leaning on her, energon and soot exchanged between their battered frames. “-no, no! NO! NO, NO NO NO NO-!”
Two siblings stepped through swirling green light.
The bridge vanished.
Pinned to the floor, the beaten mech screamed denials for all he was worth.
And in the upper atmosphere, a massive shipformer unfolded from vehicle to bi-pedal mode, her feet aimed directly at a certain transmission’s coordinates of origin.