Author notes: I have no real idea what inspired me to write this. After having a retro moment and watching the entire Beast Wars series on DVD in one fell swoop, I didn't even think about it for a good two months.
My brain gave me this. I blame my subconscious mind entirely, as I dreamt this whole thing. :P
If my brain gives me more of it, I'll write more of it.
Disclaimer: BWAHAHAH. No.
Warnings: Torture. Unsure if this can be defined as gratuitous. I don't know where this plot is going; my brain tends to plan things and not tell me.
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There's a bed of skeletons waiting for me
On the other side
They're waiting for my next move
Next fatal breath
-- Avenged Sevenfold, Remissions
"Mal Vu"
Waking from forced unconsciousness tended to be a very strange sensation for most beings, no matter the breed, make or faction. The slight dizziness and dancing spots were disorienting at best, especially if one couldn't quite recall how they had ended up unconscious in the first place. It was no different now, as yellow optics slowly flickered to life.
"Ow.." Was the first thought to race cross his CPU and, thus, the first thing that came out vocally. The mech sat up slowly, rubbing his aching head. Damage reports from his system demanded attention, but there were simply too many of them for limited focus to center on, so all were temporarily ignored. Glancing around, still trying to force his optics to cooperate fully, he found that hope of repair was likely somewhere between nil to none for now.
He was most certainly in a cage and someplace very, very warm. It didn't take long to realize the lava flowing beneath the hanging cage was likely the cause of the increased temperature.
"How did I get here?" It was asked to no one; there didn't appear to be anyone here. In fact, the entire area was as silent as a tomb. To say that Silverbolt was confused was a vast understatement.
Confusion quickly turned to alarm when he finally decided to pay attention to his damage reports; the left talon was simply gone -- although he couldn't recall how that had happened -- and his wing mechanisms appeared to be injured. Not that he could fly in a cage, but knowing that he theoretically could fly was normally a calming relief to the winged wolf; not having it at all increased his panic ever so slightly.
For a while, he simply stared at the stump of his leg in morbid fascination; the cut was clean, fused at the edge as if it had been against something incredibly hot, and didn't hurt in the least.
He couldn't recall how neither injury came about and, for now, did not care. As far as damage went, he had been in worse pain and came out all right in the end. For now, finding where he was, why, and how to escape was top priority.
No one was here. If he was where he surmised he was, it wasn't supposed to be this way. After a few cycles, Silverbolt was somewhat mortified to finally find his missing talon -- along with a small pile of other parts from who knows what or where -- in a neat little cluster not far from the cage. A cylindrical bracelet cuff on top of the pile caught his attention. Canine-esque ears perked up in recognition; his commlink!
Most of his wing missiles had been stripped -- and were within the pile, he assumed --, but several 'blanks' were still in his wing holster. He took one out and tried to reach the comm with it; if he could only hook it or press a button..!
"Come on, come on.." He reached as far as he could through the cage bars to get his feathery extension to the cuff. He couldn't quite hook it, and dared not accidentally push the comm away by fierce attempts. So, he simply tried to press that one button barely on the edge to simply turn it on, to start an automatic transmission. After what felt like a very long time, but was likely barely a breem, the edge of the button was hit.
The comm beeped to life. "Yes!" He took in a deep breath, smiling slightly in exhilaration. "Silverbolt to base!"
The static that responded for a moment clutched at his very spark for several seconds.
"Yo, bird-dog! Where've you been?! We've been lookin' for ya for almost the whole day!" Rattrap's voice had never sounded so beautiful in his life.
"I.. Think I've been captured." Silverbolt breathed.
"You WHAT?! Slag, I'll get Optimus! Knew the Preds've been too quiet..!" His voice trailed off, become farther away.
For a few precious nano-kliks, silence reigned. Silverbolt looked around warily, listening intently for any sound. Any at all.
"Silverbolt?" That was definitely Oprimus Primal on the other end of the comm; Silverbolt actually jumped at the sudden noise. "Are you all right? Where are you?"
"I'm relatively unharmed." Well, he had to admit that it could have been worse. "I believe I'm within the Darksyde, if the magma is any indication. I couldn't tell you how I ended up here, how --" He stopped abruptly, looking to the direction of an open doorway.
"Silverbolt?" Primal's concern was clear.
A loud squeak -- the sound of rusted and uncared for metal swinging open -- echoed from down the hall. Silence reigned even on the other side of the comm, Silverbolt waiting with slow, shallow breath.
A large monstrosity of a mech -- Rampage, aptly named -- simply walked on through, dragging what looked like all the world like a pile of scrap. He seemed quite pleased with himself. It was not lost on the fuzor that the destroyer of Omicron was very much alone.
No Megatron. No Preadacons. Rampage was alone.
The pile of scrap was suddenly dumped on the ground; the sound made Silverbolt jolt slightly. Then, Rampage simply walked down another hall, not even sparing the imprisoned fuzor a glance. The fuzor waited several seconds, unsure what to expect. A sudden squeak from a different source caused him to look sharply to the pile of scraps.
Silverbolt gasped aloud; it must have been heard on the other end of the comm, because Primal called his name in concern.
"Rampage is free." Silverbolt stared at the scraps with wide optics. "..I am, at this moment, staring at Quickstrike's mangled corpse." He paused a moment. "..I can't tell if he's still.." He paused, fuel pump beating faster and faster as the nano-kliks ticked on. "..Functioning or not."
The silence on the other end of the comm spoke volumes; each and every mech and femm amongst them -- Maximal, Predacon -- dreaded the day when Protoform X might regain freedom.
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"..Holy slag." Rattrap actually felt his energon veins reroute fuel away from his head, blanching.
"..Agreed." Optimus half whispered, horrified at the connotations of a psychopathic immortal free to wreck havoc. He took control of a secondary comm. "All units return to base. I repeat, everyone, get back to base as fast as possible!" He shut down that line before any arguments or questions could be sent back, looking to Rattrap's comm station. "Silverbolt, we'll get you out soon, try to stay calm."
"We're all gonna die." Rattrap squeaked from shock, truly believing his own words for the first time.
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Silverbolt had truly been tempted to respond to the order to 'stay calm' with sarcasm typically devoted to Rattrap, panic and terror starting to climb at the sight of the mangled mech on the floor. Looking at the wreck of a body, the fuzor was almost certain Quickstrike was still alive; crimson optics occasionally flared back online, would flicker, and then shut down again.
It did appear most of the Predacon was simply gone; the bare essentials left to stay alive had been left. Both legs and the cobra arm were missing; why the other arm was still there was unknown. Wires dangled horrifically from where the limbs should have been.
"We're all gonna die." He barely heard the squeak from the comm. He did, however, hear the stressed echo from the hall.
Silverbolt did not want to admit that he was really rather frightened. Terrified, actually; he had heard incredibly horrific stories from Primal and Rhinox about Protoform X and some of what happened on Omicron. To be in the same room with the monster was rather high on the list of things he rather not experience; being a prisoner of the mech in question was somewhere close to number one.
Rampage calmly walked back inside, actually humming a cheerful tune as he strode in. The very ominous looking hacksaw -- all metal, no energon blade or laser there -- sent cold shivers down the fuzor's back.
It was really rather unfortunate for the other fuzor in the room to flicker online when he did. Optics flashed online again, looking directly at the very large and very pointy hacksaw. Said optics widened as far as they could likely go when the hacksaw came down and Rampage laughed in delight.
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The comm was still on. Neither side had the courage to try and shut the connection down, now. Shocked and horrified silence reigned aboard the Axalon as Quickstrike's hoarse begging and screaming came through, shrieks that would have driven ordinary bots to sympathy. Even Megatron had been known not to handle screaming well for very long.
Almost a full breem later -- screaming had waned ever so slightly to sobbing -- and the rest of Axalon's crew were once again within the ship. Optimus had whispered what had happened, not knowing what X would have done if he knew that the comm was transmitting as much as it was.
It took nearly three full breems for the noises to finally die down; a cry cut off with a horrid abruptness.
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From the moment Quickstrike had started to scream, Silverbolt had offlined his optics, refusing to look at the scene. Less than a full cycle thereafter, his hands covered his audio receptors. No love was lost between the two fuzors, but that did not mean the canine wanted to bear witness to the torture or murder of the scorpion.
Despite closing himself off, he noticed when the screams ended. It still took nearly a full cycle to uncover himself and see reality again.
X stood barely feet from the cage, looking directly at him.
Silverbolt yelped a bit and shrank back for only a moment; then, he glared and growled at the large mech, noticing the corpse on the edge of his vision.
Quickstrike was very much and very certainly offline. His spark chamber was wide open, dark, empty and dead.
"Are you frightened, Silverbolt?" The unnervingly calm tone of Rampage's voice was somehow less of a terror than hearing the thing speak his name.
Silverbolt didn't respond; he found himself mute from sheer terror, shrinking as far in to the cage as possible. Yet, he maintained the growling; to his credit, he didn't divert his deep glare once.
Rampage let out an uproarious laugh. "Delightful! Perhaps you'll be more fun than I anticipated.." With that, the crab quickly opened the hanging cage and pulled the fuzor out through the swung open hatch. Dark glee danced in the crimson mech's optics.
Silverbolt didn't have time to say or attempt anything at all; he could only yelp in sudden pain as he was slammed, face-first, in to the floor. Something cracked; it took a moment to realize it was an optic. It was barely a comfort to find it wasn't gone entirely; it merely distorted his vision.
It wasn't lost on the fuzor that the comm was barely a foot away; did Rampage know it was on? There wasn't time to ruminate over the query; a deep, sharp pain from his back evoked a pained yelp.
Rampage chuckled; then, he calmly tore Silverbolt's right wing clear off his back, tossing it to the side in the same simple motion. Silverbolt buckled and screamed, flailing -- or trying to -- with one large claw pinning his shoulder down and his lower back straddled. The world actually went black for a brief moment from the intense pain; he had never felt anything quite like that in his life.
Spots danced in the air again, a twirling miasma not quite letting him fall back in to unconsciousness. Silverbolt gasped and wheezed for several seconds; just as his vision began to clear, the sharp stinging pain returned to his back; tensing did not diminish the renewed pain as his other wing met the same fate as it's brother, nor lesson the slightly hoarser scream.
The only thing the fuzor was able to do for quite some time was lie in the growing pool of his own mech fluid. Despite the fact that he had been staring at the commlink since the torture began, it wasn't until now that he had finally noticed it was there.
"I'm going to slagging KILL you!" He knew that voice from the comm, shrieking in what was nothing less than absolute fury.
"Blackarachnia.." Silverbolt simply stared at the comm.
"Don't you DARE touch him again, you slagging --"
Rampage chuckled calmly from above him, one claw still pinning him down. The other reached for the commlink and, with a simple press of a button, ended the transmission in the middle of Blackarachnia's rant. Perhaps the loss of vital fluids had an impact on his frame of mind, but the fuzor found himself utterly unsurprised that Rampage had known about the commlink the entire time.
"Now, let's have some fun, shall we?" Silverbolt could actually hear grin and quaked.
If we didn't have hope, how would we behave?
Would they still feel remorse
If they slaughtered innocent beings?
Or is hope the only thing that keeps you sane?
-- Avenged Sevenfold, Reminissions
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Author notes: Best part is? Neither Silverbolt nor Rampage were my favorites when I was younger. o_o
