a/n: So despite Vortex and the rest of the Combaticons being some of my absolute favorite 'Cons, this is my first time attempting to write any of them. I intend to attempt more in the future. This piece is very stream of conscious. I just had an idea and let the muses take me as they pleased. I hope you enjoy!
Title: Days Like Masquerades
Universe: G1
Characters: Vortex, Onslaught, unnamed Autobot
Rating: T
Warnings: torture, stream of conscious
Description: Vortex is not himself, not the mech he remembers or the mech he thinks he should be.
For Blitz-Krazi-1, who wanted a dark and introspective piece with Vortex. Thank you!
Temperature gradients were tiny notations on external environmental sensors. They were less felt and more registered. Only readings of certain extremes were even considered.
Vortex was a soldier, designed to withstand abuse and discomfort. Temperature was among these discomforts, if it could even be called such.
Cybertron was a planet with no sun, no seasons, no weather. At least, not for a long time.
Temperature had little meaning. Space was cold, the absence of warmth. Sensors registered environmental degrees, not quite numbers.
Somehow, the Box was cold. Like the frozen mineral deposits on that one organic moon Vortex had visited too many eons to count ago.
Vortex had no frame but the Box was cold. He had no optics but he knew that the Box was dark. He had no audials but the silence surrounded him. The Box was undeath.
He had no frame, no sensors, no processor, but Vortex felt cold. It was impossible. He laughed without a vocalizer and there was no sound. It echoed in his non-existent helm.
Freedom, such as Starscream gave them, was only another cage.
His new frame wasn't right, the components substandard. Temperature was more than a vague reading.
His processor itched, crawling with the irritation of a thousand scraplets.
Millions of years had passed since their imprisonment. Cybertron was a dull husk. Vortex barked a laugh and listened to it as it echoed in his tiny berthroom. Back and forth between the empty walls. It wasn't his vocalizer either.
The strings of new code were infuriating. He scratched at his helm, scoring through the thin plating, and still couldn't rip out the unwelcome coding. Vortex loathed it, loathed them.
Blast Off's disdain.
Brawl's ignorance.
Swindle's greed.
Onslaught's arrogance.
The unwanted emotion burned in Vortex's neural net. He wasn't himself. He didn't feel like himself. Sometimes, he couldn't remember himself.
Pain and pleasure were only words to him, concepts he no longer understood. He couldn't separate them, identify them.
Onslaught forbade him his curiosity on fellow Decepticons and on himself. Vortex was obligated to seek answers elsewhere.
Luckily, Soundwave already had his turn.
Vortex didn't know the Autobot's designation. It didn't matter. He didn't matter. The Autobot didn't matter.
Nothing mattered. Nothing but the Box.
Vortex worked in silence. There was a soundtrack at the back of his processor. The room vibrated with silence.
Labored ventilations. Stressed plating. Crackled cables. Hissing hydraulics. Metal scraping on metal. Cycling optics. Distressed whimpering.
The acrid stench of fear. It danced over Vortex's olfactory sensors. He could taste it on his glossa, picking out the subtle nuance of each cybermone with his chemoreceptors. He rolled it around his mouth, salivary fluid working down his intake.
The shivery bite of fear was present in the Autobot's energy field, too. Along with other strong and curious emotions.
"Soundwave already took everything I know!" the Autobot cried as Vortex peeled off a piece of thigh plating to get at the complicated mechanisms underneath.
He watched cables shift and tighten. Energon cycled through lines, coolant passing along side it. Struts gleamed underneath, webbed by more wires.
"Good for you," Vortex replied, and traced a servo around the edge of another plating seam.
The Autobot shivered, blue fire crackling across his grey armor.
Tilting his helm, Vortex drew charge with his other servo, pushing it into the open mechanisms of the Autobot's leg. A shriek of pain escaped the bot, who writhed against the table, against his restraints. The odor of charred circuits filled the room, a small curl of smoke risking from the limb. Energon welled, pooling in the Autobot's limb.
"Did that hurt?" Vortex asked.
A shuddery ventilation was his answer.
Hmm. That wasn't very conclusive.
Vortex shifted his weight, left one digit to push messily through the complicated gears and cables and lines, and peeled back another plate of armor. He discarded it over his shoulder, heard the clatter-clunk of it hitting the floor.
More of the same had been beneath that plating as well. How boring.
The Autobot twitched.
Vortex moved on.
The Autobot's energy field drew tightly around himself. It wavered, bursts of fear and unease registering on the edge of Vortex's own. He hummed to himself, extending his field, letting it taste the ragged ripples of the Autobot's fear. Of pain? Of death?
He wanted to bark a laugh but all that emerged was a rolling chuckle. Death? Not so scary. It was undeath that the Autobot really should fear.
Sensory panels. He set his optics on those. The Autobot had a nice pair of them. Useful things, he supposed, but a liability. They were targets and Vortex rather liked targets.
He rapped his digits over the broad plane of the left sensory panel, the rubbery lining of a leather-imitation registering beneath his haptic sensors. Oh, right. The Autobots had molded themselves around the image of human transport. As had the Decepticons, truth be told.
Only the Combaticons had been forced to be made of the inferior materials. Vortex felt brittle. Breakable. Sometimes, he was surprised his armor could withstand the weight of itself. He even rusted. Their entire gestalt had to be coated with some concoction of Mixmaster's just to keep out the worst of the rust.
Vortex was relieved when Megatron stopped requiring they berth themselves on the Nemesis. The dampness had been maddening. Rust itched.
The Autobot's ventilation's hitched.
Vortex's lipplates curled into a grin. He bore down harder with his digits, experimentally digging a groove into the panel. Curls of metal rose in his wake, thin shavings. Would have been deeper if he'd been made of sterner stuff.
A wavery wail left the Autobot's vocalizer.
"Oh," Vortex said, optics shifting to the Autobot's faceplate. "Did that hurt?"
Static crackled from the Autobot. His optics flickered, bright blue dimming to a flat shade. Perhaps indicative of pain.
"Tell me," Vortex purred, leaning forward to brace more weight against the Autobot. He absently carved several more lines into the sensory panel. "Why does it hurt?"
"S-sadist!"
Vortex tilted his helm, peeling off another curl of metal. "I do not think that means what you think it means. Good guess though."
"Vortex!"
He hunched his shoulders. Did Onslaught always have to bellow his designation like he'd done something wrong?
Visor flickering to acknowledge the summons, Vortex continued his work. The glyphs on the Autobot's panels were starting to look quite interesting. Vortex was no scholar or artist, but they were almost Towers worthy. He approved.
"Enough!" Onslaught's servo landed on his shoulder, shoving him away from his experiment, and causing him to mess up his last glyph.
Frag.
Vortex's dorsal plating hit the wall, and for a Cybertronian it would have been a tap. Not even strong enough to cause a dent. For a spark in this inferior metal casing, Vortex's helm struck with a processor-jarring blow. His optics briefly fritzed.
"He has to be intact," Onslaught added as Vortex peeled himself off the wall and rubbed the back of his helm. Yeah. There was a dent. Frag Starscream to the Pit and back.
"Aww. I was just getting started," Vortex muttered, staring sullenly at the Autobot which Onslaught was carefully unclipping from his restraints.
"My spark bleeds for you." Onslaught jerked the Autobot from the berth, prompting a cry from the mech, energon drip-dripping to the floor in mesmerizing pools of bright pink. "You'll get another chance."
Vortex folded his arms with a huff of his ventilation. "I wanted to play with that one."
"It's out of my hands."
Frag Megatron to the Pit and back. He always ruined things.
Muttering, Vortex waved his commanding officer off and watched as Onslaught dragged his experiment out of the room. Foiled again.
Oh, well. Another battle. Another prisoner. This war wasn't ever going to end after all. Vortex would have plenty more opportunities to remember what he used to be.
For now, maybe he could convince (re: bribe) Swindle into letting him experiment with pleasure again. It was worth a shot.
a/n: Comments are welcome! I love Vortex but I have no idea if I managed to pull him off or not.