It was so odd, these newcomers who hovered their ship on the Lost Light. A medic, a bounty hunter, and a tiny mech whose purpose none could identify. The little one and the massive bounty hunter were hardly seen apart, but the medic... Rung had been attempting to get the bot alone since their arrival. The thin, lanky flier had all manner of quirks about him that that psychologist mech was just itching to explore. However, he was never able to get close to the reclusive mech, once he left his ship in the morning he disappeared seemingly without a trace.
There had only been one condition; one only, from the ship's crew. Do not enter the ship. Rung sat in the repair bay, looking to the hovering machine. It was a rounded vessel, clearly designed for space travel and not for landing. There was an open passage, with a ramp that lead down to the flooring. The small bot easily faded into the background as some of the Lost Light crew went about repairing superficial damage.
Rung watched silently, surprised when the mechs who had been working on the visitor's ship suddenly left. They seemed to be distracted, probably drawn away by high grade. Rung thought about reporting them, but he knew his file would never be read once Magnus saw his name on it.
Suddenly filled with curiosity, the small mech moved from the background and toward the humming ship. Looking around repeatedly, he made sure the bay was empty before taking the bold step up onto the ramp. There was a sense of thrill from doing so, and the small bot decided to follow his curiosity and walk inside the ship.
The first thing he noticed, was that it was dark. He thought, perhaps, because of the bright lights of the repair bay, that the abyssal like entryway only looked that way. He was wrong. The darkness pressed in on him, and soon the only light was from his pale optics as the small reddish orange mech moved through the space. The ship was a decent size; probably large enough to house ten or so Cybertronians comfortably.
Stepping further into the dark halls, Rung hardly noticed that the light from outside was slowly fading until he was suddenly in complete blackness. Stopping short, he took a tentative step forward, only to instantly trip over something thick that was draped in the middle of the floor. Grunting, the mech reached his hands out, only to feel more odd round, tube-like things spider-webbing across the floor.
Without warning, the lights overhead and below burst on, but only in the direct vicinity of the small bot. Rung swiftly noticed that what was across the floor were hundreds of extensions that were pouring out of the ceiling and the walls of the ship. The large one he had tripped over twitched and lethargically lifted one of its large coils, the end of it splitting open like a blossom to reveal a bright purple light within.
Feeling very much he was being stared down by a large snake, Rung tried to step back, but the thick tendril struck at him. It coiled around his waist, tightly, dragging him a few feet before it fell, and the lights flickered heavily, before going out completely.
Rung had wrapped his hands tightly around the nearest thing he could snatch, which ended up being a groove in the wall. He slumped against it, panting, as he was released. His optics lit the black metal that made up the walls, his nose pressed against it. He waited in terrified stillness for a few moments, then slowly stepped away, letting go of his handle.
Apparently, that small assault was all the ship could muster before running out of energy. Feeling like he had conquered the damaged ship, he peered down the pitch black hall, only to see a faint green light a bit farther down. Tilting his head, Rung couldn't help but investigate, wondering what secrets the strange mechs held in their abode. His small figure was soon bathed in the strange green glow. The ship must've been using what little energy it had left to keep this particular room lit. "How odd," Rung whispered to himself, leaning around the frame to peer into the room beyond.
What he saw made even his Spark wrench in terror. It was some kind of laboratory, and the green was coming from a curious sort of containment system. Massive jars, twice as tall as Rung, were along the walls, a total of seven. Each one had a different creature in it; all of them looked somewhat related, but they were different sizes and shapes. Rung swallowed thickly as he spotted one of the creatures out of its tank, splayed out on a nearby table. It's lithe form was somewhat reptilian in appearance; but it was clearly made of metal. Rung stared, in awe, scanning around the lab and almost seeing the skinny and elusive mech moving about doing his business.
But whatever that business may be was lost on him. Rung moved over to the table; the creature was obviously dead, mostly dismantled and its limbs twisted in a way that was clear it had been shoved around to get at its inner mechanics. Rung studied it, it was thin and appeared to be armorless; instead it had metallic flesh covering its body. Rung saw claws on the hands and feet, and a tail almost as long as the rest of the creature's body was coiled across the open torso.
What was this mech doing? What were these beasts? He'd never seen anything like them. He started walking along the line of cylinders; the beings within them, he was fairly certain, were either barely alive or recently dead. The first one he came level with contained a muscular beast, its tail curled up between its legs and over its shoulder. A visor was across its eyes, and a spiny set of cables came out of the back of its head.
Rung lifted his hand to touch the glass, and the creature burst to life, snarling wildly in the thick green fluid and snapping against the glass. Both of its hands pressed against the glass, and the burst of movement made Rung topple backwards and onto the floor.
What happened next made the fuel in his body run cold. A shrieking yowl, one he knew a little too well.
A Sparkeater.
Scrambling to stand, he saw the beast slinking from somewhere far beyond the lab, perhaps even a few rooms away. It shifted toward him in a fashion of clear intent, and Rung quickly turned to bolt. The door to the laboratory slammed shut violently just as he was about to leave it, causing him to crash, cheek-first, into it. The hunger on the Sparkeater's face was burned into his memory as the beastly being crawled forward, panting and snarling as it came closer. As it arrived in the middle of the lab, it stared at him with piercing yellow optics, its deep red armor muted by the green light.
It launched itself toward him, rushing forward on all fours, long arms hoisting its mighty weight across the floor, gaping mouth wide, ready to tear into the armor of the defenseless bot pinned against the door. Rung raised one arm, as if this could somehow protect him, and clenched his optics shut while waiting for the bite, the vicious and audio-shattering snarling making his processor fuzzy-
Then it stopped. There was a loud thump and a shadow passed over Rung, but the noise of the Spark Eats suddenly became silence. Lowering his arm, he saw it had faded back, cowering, but from what? Before his mind could think of a reason, a shape dropped down from above, right in front of him. Rung let out a muffled scream, falling back against the door as the furious amaranth optics stared into his. The medic loomed over him, only slightly taller but seeming so much bigger as his fury frothed from him in literal waves.
"What are you doing in my ship?!" The white mech snarled, his voice textured with ire, his hands sparking violently at his sides, held in a position that inferred he fully intended to grab Rung by the neck and not leg go. Rung was so relieved that he wasn't getting his Spark ripped out and devoured that he fell limply against the door and stared at him.
"I-I was just-" He tried to find an excuse, but none came, so instead he changed the subject. His eyes darted to the Sparkeater, who was pacing behind the medic a bit away, like an animal only held back by a set of bars. It barked out a snarl when Rung locked eyes with it. "Y-you have a Sparkeater!" He shouted, pointing to the deep red creature, that spat and lifted upright, though its back still hunched and its long arms hung in front of it.
The deep purple optics of the thin mech darted to the left before his head turned sharply to stare at the heaving creature. Curling a lip back, a set of very sharp dental plating glinted before he made his move. Reaching past Rung, who noticed that as their plating nearly touched, the medic's expression became pained. He yanked down a series of cables out of the ceiling, then he spun around to lash the cables toward the Sparkeater.
Rung watched in awe as the cable coiled with expert aim around the beast's neck, the other end wrapped twice around the bot's arm. Thick bolts of electricity exploded down the cable, just in time as the creature had started biting through it. As the sparks reached it, the red creature's optics widened and it began gnawing with ravish hunger onto the sparking cable. There was a moment where the two stood this way, the medic standing with a straight back and flared wings, arm extended while the terrible being gorged itself on the energy that writhed down the cord connecting them both.
Moments later, the white flier dropped his arm, the cable slithering from his arm and coiling on the floor. The Sparkeater slumped and stuttered out a strange howling noise, but it slowly slunk back into the dark in the back of the lab. Rung, for a split second, thought he was going to get off with a warning, after all, the mech's body language was so calm and collected, not angry at all-
"AH!" Rung screamed as one of those sparking hands suddenly collided with his face, claw-like fingertips coiling against the top of his helm. The sparks singed the edge of his round optics, as well as his cheeks and antennae; he screamed in agony as the energy forced him to his knees. Blinded with agony, the small orange mech could only weakly writhe as his limbs began twitching of their own accord.
Next thing he knew, he felt the extensions start running over the back of his legs; he was being dragged down the hall. Rational thought was quickly leaving and his screams became hoarse, his hands clawing pitifully at the one that clenched down on him. Then the sensation of terrible burning and stabbing in his optics, audios and helm stopped, and his body was no longer in contact with anything at all, as if he was floating-
CRASH.
Rung skidded to and fell off the end of the ramp outside of the medic's ship, landing on his back and rolling twice before he finally came to a halt. The medic had thrown him, and with a good amount of force, too. Laying on his side facing him, he looked through his one working optic, though it was cracked, to see the white mech looming over him from the top of the ramp. "Stay out." He hear him snarl out in a very old dialect; there was no doubt that there was many very true threats laced within the words. "And stay silent." Rung flinched when the ramp suddenly started retracting, and the medic sharply turned to stalk back into the darkness.
Rung sat up on his side, though his arm trembled. He let out a burst of static that would've been a scream if his throat wasn't literally singed as a voice sounded directly behind him.
"Slag, kid," It was the black and green bounty hunter. Though a Decepticon, he had no reason to harm the Autobots on the Lost Light; he was off the job. "You're lucky, last guy who wandered in there came out as dross." Hooking a massive hand between Rung's shoulders, he pulled the mech up to stand, holding him for a moment until he was steady. "I'd suggest doing what he says and keeping his mouth shut, or you and he are gonna have an altercation."
"R-R-Right." Rung choked out, stumbling backwards to lean on a barrel of fuel. The bounty hunter chuckled, red eyes glinting in amusement, sticking around to watch Rung start to head toward the medical bay before he left to go about antagonizing Drift for another few hours while his commander cooled off in their ship.