Characters: Arcee, Optimus, Bulkhead, Bumblebee, Ratchet, Wheeljack, Megatron, Starscream, Soundwave, Shockwave, Breakdown, Knockout
Each of them sat down as they were instructed in separate rooms, handed a PS4 "Cybertronian-compatible" controller, and asked simple questions. Optimus turned the controller in his servo once or twice nodding at what he was being told while others like Bulkhead just grunted at the meaningless rambles.
"So today, you are going to be playing Shadow of the Colossus. It's basically a platform game and all you do is track down bosses. That's the only thing you do," one of the cameramen said.
Arcee made a half-hearted grin, "So that's all we do? We just go around killing bosses? No intermediate fights, nothing like that?"
"Basically."
"This is gonna be interesting then," Breakdown scoffed in response to another cameraman.
"And I'm all alone?" Megaton raised a brow.
"Yes, everyone has their own room with no one to disturb them and we'll just be recording your reactions. We won't respond unless you want us to but it's mainly about you," the camerawoman gestured.
The warlord made a huff of surprise before holding up the controller ready to play.
"Here we go, baby," Bumblebee chirped.
"Fighting Colossi? This isn't going to be easy, is it? You made sure this game was hard when you chose it, huh?" Ratchet scowled.
Watching the Intro:
"This looks like so much of an improvement from the original, like the graphics are gorgeous. I've never played it though. I wanted to but never got around to it," Breakdown gasped.
"I don't remember this game too well but I remember it had quite a buzz around it," Arcee smirked. "I personally didn't care for these things but I certainly took note of its existence."
"Hey kid, the horse is freaking out. That's usually a sign that, you know, means bad things are about to happen!" Wheeljack emphasized with several motions of his servos.
The character, Wander, passed the idols.
Knockout raised a brow, "I'm guessing those are important? Are those the Colossi? Are they just going to spawn from the statues and attack me one by one?"
"Where's my statue?" Megatron laughed, "I'm a colossus compared to everyone. I'd scare that human dead, wouldn't have to worry about the boy killing me."
Wander placed the girl, Mono, on the slab in the altar and a multi-frequency voice radiated from the ceiling, scaring the shadows approaching into thin air.
"Mmm, that voice. Kind of reminds me of the Allspark," Arcee purred.
Bulkhead coughed, "Oh damn, when god starts talking down on you, you're either in deep scrap or you've done something amazing. That sword may also be the case too."
As the one called Dormin spoke about killing the Colossi, several of the bots grew confused.
"Oh no, we have to kill all these creatures just to revive one person? That's not right." Ratchet shook his helm angrily.
"Why though? There has to be an alternate way," Bumblebee frowned. "I wouldn't go that far...killing an entire species...Megatron…may, but I definitely wouldn't."
Megatron clicked his talons together, "I've done some terrible things almost close to this but the difference is I don't kill unless I deem them not useful. In this case, I would've considered if reviving one individual was worth a force of sixteen Colossi. They may not obey me but I can find a way to capture them and set them on my enemies in honor of my fallen sparkmate or respected soldier. I look more towards what benefits I reap from it rather than what's right or wrong. That may be selfish but that's what I think."
Optimus groaned in his servos as he heard Dormin's instructions. "This is not good."
The 1st Colossus:
"Introducing Valus, the first Colossus of your adventure!"
Bumblebee smirked, "Oh, big bad bull…I'm a matador...coming to put you down!"
He made his character whistle, attracting the large creature to turn and imposingly stare down at him as he prepared his bow to agitate it. It didn't take much for the Minotaur to swing down providing enough time to stab the heel of it.
Megaton eagerly climbed the monster to conquer it but the Colossus swung its head angrily as he latched on to perform the final blow but when he stabbed the beast, it only roared and black blood poured from its wound.
"You didn't die? That was a direct impalement to the brain, you would be dead in real life."
Arcee and Starscream kept falling off the backside of the beast because their grip bar ran out before they could get to the platform trying to navigate the fur. Bulkhead snarled as his grip died right before he delivered the last stab, prompting the Colossus to buck his head up and send his character flying back depleting a good portion of his health.
"Didn't like that, did you?" Breakdown chuckled, ramming his sword into the glowing insignia.
Knockout pursed his lips in frustration as he could not get a full charge to cause maximum pain. "Die already, Primus be damned! You aren't immortal so just take a nose dive and let me win! Give in to your doom, buddy, we can do this all day and I'm not leaving until you're a corpse!"
The Prime wasn't as thrilled as the others trying to beat the boss. Killing something "innocent" as the creature he invaded the home of felt wrong but to progress, he had to. "You all should be ashamed of yourselves for making me do this. This is not enjoyable to me."
"Sorry that we made you kill Valus, Optimus," the camerawoman chuckled.
"No you are not, I see it on your face."
As for Wheeljack, he had the largest grin of all. Stabbing the beast left and right, the camera crew were kind of feeling bad for the creature more so than Wheeljack's character. "What'chu gonna do? What can you do? You are dead!"
Shockwave and Soundwave beat the Colossus relatively easy with little to zero feedback while focusing hard on the objective. The Silent mech managed to beat the Colossus in under 1:30 and gave a small fist thrust in victory.
The Decepticon scientist shrugged in comparison, "One beast down, fifteen more to go. Extinction is the only logical solution."
Ratchet gagged a bit at the black blood pouring from its skull. "That's a sign of a procedure gone bad. That's worst case scenario on the operation table if that were to happen in processor surgery. That Colossus is dead."
"Yeah baby!" Arcee shouted, "Go down to the ground and bury yourself, boy! Whoohoo!"
"There we go! Let's go!" Wheeljack yapped.
Megatron simply lied back as the cutscene of the dead Colossus played. "A victor once more. Kind of wish I had someone like that to fight in the Pits. Now I know how Arcee feels when she's fighting me."
Optimus, on the other hand, peered at the crew with disappointment, "That was terrible. Why did you make me do that? Now I feel awful."
"There are more Colossi to fight and they only get harder from here," the producer spoke individually to each bot.
"Aw damn, so that was easy?" Breakdown smiled.
"I kind of feel tricked because you said I was only doing one session," Starscream frowned surprised.
"No you are, one gaming session. You are defeating the Colossi until you die or reach the end of the game which isn't as long as you think depending how fast you can figure out how to defeat them."
The Seeker raised his brows, "Oohh, so that's how it's going to be."
"I'm ready…I ain't got nothing to lose." Bumblebee whirred.
The 2nd Colossus:
"Oh no, what is that!?" Knockout whined.
"Another bull, huh?" Wheeljack huffed, "Alright Ferdinand, we about to dance."
Arcee clapped her servos in glee, "Aww! I just found my favorite Colossus design so far. Like I love that. I want to adopt it."
Megatron snorted, "Oh okay, steak and ground beef it is. Probably wouldn't taste too good considering it's made of earthly materials and ruins."
Ratchet just peered down into his lap before glaring at the screen, "This is an absolute nightmare. Now I'm starting to feel guilty."
"You are about to kill Quadratus, the titan of the beach. Her wrath is powerful but slow though nonetheless effective."
"No don't name it, that'll make my guilt feel worse!"
Starscream was the first to figure out what to do, pulling out his bow and shooting the pads beneath the mammoth's foot sending it kneeling down in agony. It took the others a minute or two to find out this because they were staring up at it rather than below it.
"Why would a weak spot be on the creature's aft? That doesn't seem logical," Shockwave grunted, stabbing the insignia.
Arcee's character seemed to get stuck under the hip plating, losing her stamina and fell back down with some of her health depleted from the impact.
"Oh, that happened? Thank you, game gods! Dormin must really like me." The green Wrecker laughed. Bulkhead got lucky. His character nearly got stuck there too but the game glitched slightly and shot him up which he then landed on top of the plate. This allowed him to recharge his grip bar and continue with no penalties.
Megatron slipped only once while his character made a break for the head insignia when it began to shake. He found himself too close to the edge and was thrown off rather slowly. He glared at the beast with an unreadable expression and kept silent as he aimed the bow again this time at the creature's front hooves.
"No, you fucking lunch meat!" Breakdown scowled as he lost his grip too early as the Colossus kept shaking its head nonstop.
The silent Decepticon had better luck entirely, speeding through the boss as soon as he figured out where all the weak spots were and how to scale the massive monster. Stabbing the rear insignia last, the creature fell gracefully which brought Soundwave to produce a sad, crying symbol on his screen.
Others like Optimus and Ratchet were slow at killing the Colossus because guilt was reeking from them and there were very well aware of it. Though Optimus kind of became frustrated climbing the creature, especially the legs where he struggled the most out of all the bots, he completed the task nevertheless. The medic just grumbled as he paced it to his liking which took almost thirty minutes.
"Stab you in the aft, stab you in head. I'd pity you, you beautiful bastard if I could," Knockout smirked.
Wheeljack just blew by the Colossus vigorously, milking every in of life from the beast even before he got to the insignias. When it came down, he just clapped his servos mockingly before bringing his arms behind his helm to rest back in victory. "Easy pickings, boys. Give me something harder."
"Poor cow," Bumblebee innocently pouted.
"That was epic but I didn't like that I had to kill it. I would have kept it. I would have gotten yelled at by everyone but it would be my pet and we would fight everyone together," the two-wheeler sadly smiled.
Shockwave stared down at the controller for a second before suddenly saying, "I feel like I have, in some small way, murdered the creations in my lab. This makes me a bit unnerved. Predaking certainly would not forgive my actions."
"It's just a game though," the producer frowned.
"Play a game where you kill an animal you have as a pet in real life and tell me it does not make you uncomfortable," he growled.
"You aren't going to like a few of the Colossi coming up then. One is in fact dragon-like."
The one-eyed mech groaned.
The 3rd Colossus:
"Gaius is the knight of the realm here with his mighty sword at hand. Just don't get hit by it."
"I…don't know what that's supposed to be but the long limbs are creeping me out…just like Soundwave fittingly," Starscream said with uncertainty.
"That thing looks like someone tried making a human but made it look like a hyper realistic version of a stick figure," Wheeljack grimaced.
Bumblebee gagged a bit and placed two perpendicular fingers in the form of a cross at the screen.
Bulkhead glared at it with unease, "I would not want to meet this thing in real life. That thing's ugly and the fact that they promoted it more than any other Colossus just makes it ten times worst."
All the bots present roamed for almost two minutes trying to piece together how to defeat the Colossus. Some kept trying to climb the creature with no avail while others just kept shooting it with arrows hoping it slam down its sword and a cutscene would finally run or something.
"What the hell am I supposed to-does that round thing in the middle of the field do something? Do I get him to stand on it or what?" Ratchet bellowed.
Eventually, a majority of them connected the circle with an item of importance, watching the cutscene in glee and relief as the arm armor shattered. The rest found out accidentally running in random directions and the beast just happened to swing down on it.
"That was stupid, why did I not see that?" Megatron huffed.
Bumblebee scaled the giant to the head and just bludgeoned the creature in an attempt to end the fight quickly as did Soundwave but once the insignia disappeared, both of them had mixed reactions along with many others.
After stabbing the creature repeatedly, Arcee narrowed her optics, "There's another one? Where is it?"
Optimus stayed silent, wandering across the Colossus' backside looking for the second weak spot.
"Prime, are you okay?" The camerawoman asked.
"I am not in the mood for communication, please," he politely answered with very big emphasis on politely.
Breakdown focused as he peered towards the abdomen of the creature with suspicion, brows furrowed, "Is it here? It better be here. Like it's nowhere else; where could it possibly be, unless I'm missing something."
"Oh my god!" Knockout scowled. "It's on its fucking stomach, isn't it? That's the most inaccessible area on this Colossus and you want us to jump over there without falling down? This is bullshit, whoever placed this weak point in production has to get fired! That's stupid!"
"Scrap, did not mean to do that," Shockwave whispered as he attempted the jump to its waist ruins but unfortunately missed, falling to the ground beneath the Colossus' feet.
"I'm going to kill whoever designed this Colossus, I really am," Bulkhead growled.
"JUMP, YOU SON OF A—"
Megatron lowly sighed, "This is terrible, absolutely terrible. I want to die."
After falling off for the third time, Wheeljack tapped his knees angrily peering into his lap. "Fuck this Colossus. Any pity I had for the other two died with this ugly bastard."
Starscream literally screamed as he stabbed the abdomen and finally watched the Colossus fall to its death. "Thank you!"
Several bots whooped and hollered as they defeated the creature, some even began laughing madly. Soundwave placed his arms in the air and spun in his chair, pumping his arms up and down happily while Optimus made a sound that could only be assumed to be a whimper of distress and exhaustion.
"I want to kill everybody in this room. I am not a happy camper right now," Ratchet spat.
Bumblebee twirled his thumbs, "I have never been so frustrated…free at last, free at last! Thank god almighty, we are free at last!"
"And you said this was only going to get harder as I meet more Colossi? Really?" Breakdown gasped. "Like that was hard hard, and from what I've heard most of these are only medium hard compared to a few."
"Well that's if you know what you're doing," the cameraman stated.
"Still," the ex-Wrecker motioned, "that was horrible! I don't think I'm going to have so much of a problem with the others."
"Okay, do you want to keep playing now that you've had a taste of this game?" Asked the producer to each Transformer.
Only two didn't raise their servos out of all the sessions: Ratchet and Optimus.
"Why don't you wish to continue?"
Ratchet shook his head, "Gaming is not for me because I am going to break your controller if I continue."
Optimus replied, "I just…cannot kill even fantasy creatures such as those. It just disturbs me watching my character murder them like that."
The camera crew looked at each other before the producer continued to speak, "What if I told you that if you complete the game, we'll throw in a free supply of Energon for two months."
The medic barked, "You think you can bribe me to keep playing this nightmare? Then again that's a fair deal."
"I would have to consider it before I make my decision," the Prime rumbled calmly.
"If you agree, come back for the next session. If you don't, we'll know because you won't enter the room. How about that?"
Optimus nodded but Ratchet scoffed, "We'll see. No promises."
AN: Finally got to do this one. I've been sitting on this for so long, it's not even funny. For those of you who think this feels like a bit of a cheesy start, it is but the other chapters are significantly better and funnier (at least to me).