In cold energon
Written for this prompt: tfanonkink. livejournal. com ?thread=12851200#t12851200 Beware, it's dark.
He felt dirty. He felt miserable. He felt out of place.
Well, he had arrived at the outpost only a shift ago, so that had explained most of it. He hadn't been here for an orn... mechs still counted the passing time in orns here, yes? Or did they count the rotations of this Primus-forsaken asteroid?
He leant back on the berth. He would handle homesickness, he decided. Home wasn't much better, he reminded himself. For the rich, it was, but not for him. He reminded himself of why he came here to this slagging asteroid. He wanted to stay out of trouble for a while. He wasn't exactly running away from his troubles, but he could no longer see the point in fighting a system that only reproduced itself. While mining here, he at least had the illusion of being effective. Not that he was ready to admit to it, not to the illusion part. He had a job. He got a salary that he could save. And, considering none of his co-workers seemed to afford themselves a proper maintenance, they perhaps didn't even afford to indulge in high-grade too often, either. Which was good. Sanity was the assurance they would not get him into trouble.
The more he tried to power down, the more warnings came up to him from his frame. He felt dizzy. He felt dirty. He had not belonged to this place.
Eventually, he got off the berth and went to find the washrack. Maybe having the dirt rinsed off his not-so-silver-anymore plates would help him collect his thoughts.
He stumbled across the dormitory room, feeling unsafe as his heavy feet hardly made contact with the floor. The gravitation of the asteroid was nowhere near Cybertron's. He would adapt to the new circumstances, he knew. But it had not happened yet.
He opened a protocol halfway to the door, and opened a new file which he labeled as "C-12 settings". There he would add the protocols of how to move around, what to do in emergencies, what to avoid. How to get fuel out of the drones that belonged to the company that hired him. How to monitor the other miners' movements, how to predict their behavior, how to get their ratios if needed. It wasn't like he preferred stealing a co-worker's energon, but some just deserved less than what was given to them. Back home, it was a common rule that if a worker started a fight in the fuel area, they were not thirsty anymore. Of course most mechs were a lot wiser than to provoke a fight without securing their fuel first.
Still unused to the dark dorm room's arrangements, and with the file on his inner display, the miner stumbled across a mech who was recharging closest to the door. Knowing from experience that the first berth was the most convenient for many reasons, he guessed that the mech recharging here was some sort of the alpha in the room, to have the privilege. He politely excused himself, not wanting to start a fight in the middle of their first recharge joor.
"What are you doing, idiot?" the mech murmured.
"I want to get to the washrack" he replied.
"First corridor right, down the stairs, take the turn left."
"Thank you."
The mech sat up as the newcomer turned his back and left in the indicated direction. He stared. How could someone be this naive? He didn't hesitate to ping his three pals' frequencies.
::Guys! The noob is going to the washrack alone::
Two out of three pinged back ::Copied that!:: and the third said ::I'm on it, boss::
Well, his scale was still far from silver, but he guessed that he would have to adjust to the filth just as much as he had adjusted to the gravity. It wasn't like he cared for his good looks, especially not here in the middle of the big nowhere. But he had his pride.
"Nice shine."
Oh. He had not heard the steps of the other mech, maybe because he was standing under the shower. Or because the mech was moving silently in this gravity-less area.
"Thanks" he murmured. "I hope you don't get any ideas. I just prefer not to..."
He was interrupted with a laugh from another mech. He wasn't sure it wasn't the alpha he had encountered a breem before.
"Oh, why, yes we do have ideas" a third mech appeared. His dark orange plates were shining dimly in the rack. "Now bend over and let's see if you have properly polished yourself everywhere."
Slag it.
"I will gladly bend you over, rusty" he replied. "If you bring a certificate that you don't carry space barnacles."
The newcomers (hah, now there were four of them?) laughed at him. Two of them were blocking his way, two were slowly approaching with their crotch plates already loose.
"Easy, noob. Shut up and enjoy yourself" one said.
"Yes. While we also enjoy you."
The cornered mech gave them a hesitant look. He still wasn't sure of their intentions. How could they be that stupid and still function? He clenched his right hand into a fist while his left arm was raised to chest level.
"Don't come closer" he hissed. Three of the mechs laughed.
"Oh I'm so scared!"the not-laughing one stated. If he wasn't grinning the lonely mech would have suspected he was actually wiser than his fellows.
The grinning mech and a bulky blue had reached him at the same time, and the newbie didn't hesitate to grab one of them with his left hand and punch him in the face while kicking the other above the spark simultaneously. The two "Aaargh" moans in unison told him that his first warning was now understood properly.
Good, because he didn't intend to give a second warning.
The rusty and the gang leader came at him, as if to avenge the harm he brought on the first two. He focused on the leader, the dark maroon mech with black lines on his helm.
"Oh look, pretty silver is fighting back!" he gloated. "I'm gonna like this. Frag, I might even consider taking you in if you submit to my needs. Consider my offer, noob."
After an astrosec of consideration, the new mech punched the gang leader in the face. He got a kick in the stomach area in return, and a counterpunch in the left shoulder joint. He hit back, but the rusty grabbed him by the upper arm, preventing him from landing another punch on the maroon mech. He lifted his right leg to kick the ballast away, but alas, his leg was blocked by the bulky blue he thought to have taught the lesson. He swung his right leg again, to shake off the third mech, but he couldn't get enough momentum in the unfamiliar surroundings. He felt a fist in his back, and he wasn't flexible enough to reach the mech who had hit him. He suddenly curled into a ball, however, pulling his right side limbs together, slapping the two hands holding them so fast that three fingers broke off and none of them were his.
There was no way he could safely get out of this, he realized.
He was on the ground, now, still in the protective ball pose, but all four limbs free at the moment. He rolled away, trying to stand up. One heavy foot pressed against his neck cables.
"Not so fast, pretty."
The other mech from the first wave of attack stood up beside him.
"You have broken my right face panel."
"As if it was of any use for you. But maybe it had some other function? Like, keeping your wires from getting slaggy as you work? Don't ramble, a little slag on your face might even make you look nicer than you look now."
He got a kick in his face for talking.
"Rover, hold him down" the gang leader ordered. "Killspark, get me the spreader. It might be safer to limit his range of motion.
At that, only two of the mechs laughed. The two who had lost some fingers to the pretty newbie were only grinning in pain.
He could feel his left shin lifted up, and a cold metallic tool was attached to his knee. Then, the same happened to his right leg. Once the spreader was attached to both knees, he could feel his legs being pulled apart gradually, and no matter how hard he tried to push them back together, the spreader was properly in place and it was too hard to break.
"May I step down now?" Judging by his voice, it was the bulky blue. The one called Rover.
"No. Keep him pinned until I get to him."
The newbie was not wasting energy with cursing anymore. He stoically stayed as he was spread out, his upper body pressed into the floor, his two legs spread apart and now the gang leader stepping into the triangle of his thighs.
"Now lift him for me. Hold him tight!"
Killspark on his left, the still bleeding rusty mech on his right, he was slowly lifted to the crotch level of the gang leader. He could feel the heat of the other frame so close to his own. He could hear the cover plate retracted, and he suppressed a grimace as his own frame was hacked to retract the black panel from his valve.
In that very moment, he pulled both legs under himself. The mech behind him was swept off his feet, the spreader tripping the maroon one who now fell under him. Using the spreader to transmit the momentum of both legs to his right knee, he swung his lower torso as much as he could and kicked the rusty one in the sensitive region of an energon filter. With the same momentum, he tore himself free from the grip and landed on his feet.
He was squatting, of course. His knees were both fixed in a bent position, and he could not straighten up. But he had seen the loose cable cover of the mech called Killspark, and he literally jumped at the occasion.
Killspark's cable was dirty and it tasted like refined slag, but his energon that flushed into the silver miner's mouth had washed away most of the horrible taste. Killspark screamed, and the miner spit out the bitten-off half of his cable.
As much as the miner had hurt, he was sure that he had already reduced his potential rapers' number to three. It was time to make it two.
Suddenly, he felt a strong grip on his own cable. Looking down, he had seen a maroon hand holding him by the most sensitive part.
"You know, at first I intended to go easy with you, pretty. But now, you have angered me. You will learn the difference."
With that, the maroon mech pushed into the newcomer's valve with one thrust of his cable. The delicate thing straightened out like shape-memory fibers, and the gang leader had to notice how frighteningly cold the silver newbie was. He did not give a sound as he was entered, he did not even moan. He wasn't cursing, even. If anything, he was stoic and focused.
"Turn him around" the maroon ordered. "I want to see his face."
Rover and the rusty held him tight and the blue one clicked the spreader off the right knee so that the victim could be turned around the gang leader's cable. His mouth was shut, only his audible panting gave away the pain he was silently enduring. His optics were dimly lit, a pair of faint pink lights instead of the burning red they had seen earlier.
"You broke him" Rover muttered in awe.
The maroon mech shook his head. No, he knew better.
"Grip him" he said, noticing the who weren't holding the arms of the silver one hard enough. They were barely holding him horizontally against their leader's crotch, only supporting his weight now that the fighter was defeated.
The mech silently endured the movement of the cable inside him. Once it was hard like steel, the other astrosec it went limp and then hard again. He had not moved along with that rhythm. He was patiently waiting for the leader's overload, when the cable would harden up with electricity and remain stiff until the current passes. He was silently counting the thrusts, and waited. He braced himself for the worst pain to come.
When the other mech was finally ready, he sat up in his lap. His movement was sudden and unexpected, and he gave no warning as he lifted his body against the maroon one. He had heard the unmistakable sound of a breaking cable, and the maroon mech screamed out loud, his pained cry echoing in the washrack even after he stepped aside, miserably holding on to where his stern cable had been.
The remaining two didn't even realize what happened to their leader as their target had pulled away from them, jumping on one free leg as the other was still bent with the spreader. He made it to the washrack's door... and turned around.
He removed the spreader from his knee. The two mechs could see cold fire glowing in his optics.
"Rover" the fallen leader whispered "Kill him, or else he will kill us."
The silver mech made one step forward. One scary, intimidating step, but one that also gave the illusion of an escape now that he wasn't blocking the way out. The two remaining mechs, the rusty and the blue one, had attacked together. One of them aimed for the still uncovered interface cable, the other, for the spark.
They both ended with their heads broken as they were grabbed by the neck and pushed together. The drivers of their brain modules were still spinning as their lifeless frames were thrown aside, sparks still pulsing, energon still leaking from the head wounds.
"No...!"Was it a silent scream or a muted cry? Was it the last tremble of a coward, of a weakling?
The mech went back to the washrack door, but only to pick up the spreader he dropped when the two attacked him. With still visible discomfort in his crotch, the silver mech walked over to the one he had neutralized first.
"Why not?"
The mech failed to give an excuse. Not that the silver one had waited long before stabbing the spreader rod through him, from right shoulder straight down to the spark.
The mech walked over to the leader, the only one remaining out of four. He grabbed him by the hip with one hand, and by the neck with the other.
"Now, my dear and helpful guide, you will tell me where the ore smelters can be found."
When he was finished, his once silver frame was covered in cold energon stains that dried on him as he carried all four to where they could finally be of some use. He watched as their metals slowly melted in the enormous pots along with the ore that was dug out in the shafts. He didn't feel satisfaction, but he didn't feel anger, either. He had been attacked, and he reacted accordingly. No witnesses, no evidence against him. He wondered if anyone would ever miss these mechs. The company probably wouldn't mind the loss, since they would not have to pay four workers and they could always recruit more anytime.
After smelting down the fourth frame, the miner walked back to the washrack. He flushed most of the energon with the cold solvent, silently watching as the energon and tiny pieces of metal were carried away by the flow. He had killed those mechs. They raped him, and he had outlived them. That was the rule of life. His pain didn't matter to anyone, perhaps, not even to him. It was over. Those mechs were over, too.
He stepped under the shower, and started washing himself free.
He found the berth in the dormitory still unclaimed. The other miners all recharged on the berth they used before, some exchanging wary looks among each other as he returned but the maroon mech was nowhere to be found.
The silver mech sat down on the berth that was closest to the entrance. He heard a loud murmur of respect as the other miners pieced the puzzle together, recognizing the connection between the newcomer mech's fixation on tidiness and the sudden disappearance of the former gang leader. A mech whispered a shy thank-you behind him. He aired back an acknowledgement, and laid down on the berth he had earned for himself. His valve still hurt, but there was nothing to be done about it. He decided he would find a factory doctor the next orn. For now he didn't feel like asking anyone for guidance.