The Haunted
"Hey! What's going on? What're you doing?" several curious Autobots asked. The twins raised their heads from their slumped positions, looking at one of their oldest team members. Delta Silver was setting something up. He looked up from his work.
"It's Halloween, guys. Haven't you noticed?" he asked back slyly. After that remark almost everyone began to talk. The noise was, by human words, hellish. One silent Autobot moved behind him and glanced at the plans the white Autobot was making.
"What are those?" the green mech asked.
"Plans for tonight. Optimus personally asked me to set up a Halloween night. You know, ghost stories and such." Delta answered, but didn't say anything else. The green mech, who was no one else but Hound, joined in the conversation. When he told them what Delta had said, they all seemed to get excited. Delta was one of the best story tellers among the Autobots, and he almost every time managed to pull almost all of them into the world of his story.
-----In the evening----
They all had been shooed out of the lounge room a while before. Now Delta's voice came from behind the doors.
"Now, you all. Welcome to the world of eternal darkness..."
The spooky voice chilled them all, and it didn't certainly help very much that the doors seemed to open by themselves. The doors had been changed into hinged double doors just for that occasion.
"Well, here goes nothin'." Cliffjumper was the first to go in (why doesn't that surprise me?). He stepped through the doors, but then:
"AAAAAHHHHHH!"
That scream stopped the others dead in their tracks. The two first, Prowl and Jazz, looked in and tried to see behind the curtain of darkness hanging before their optics. All of a sudden Jazz started guffawing out loud.
"What? What is it?" Sideswipe asked from the side. Jazz just pointed towards the door, not able to say anything. Prowl then smirked and said:
"Poor old Cliffjumper just ran into a trap set by Delta. He's in there covered with cobwebs."
That managed to get some really loud laughs out of all of them. Finally they all gathered enough courage to step through the doors, looking around to make sure there weren't any traps around anymore.
Just then a chilling voice from the back caught their attention: "Welcome to the world of ghosts."
Delta stepped into the dim light and managed to spook almost everyone. The white Autobot was wearing a black, Transformer-sized cape and the hood was drawn over his optics. When he raised his face, they saw that he was grinning malevolently. It looked even more spooky, coming from their own comrade. They all backed up a bit, not even knowing they did before Delta eyed them, threw back his head and started to laugh good-humoredly.
"C'mon, guys! I can't be that scary! Oh, if you want to have something to drink or eat, the table is that way," he said, pointing towards the far end of the room. "Now I need all of you to form a circle on the floor."
They did as told and sat down. Delta himself sat between Hound and Powerglide. He straightened a bit and assumed the position they knew as 'the story-telling posture'.
"I'm going to tell you a tale from the ancient times. No one knows if it is true or not, but I've heard and seen many strange things during my life, so I personally think it could be true...
"Many, many millions of years ago there was a young mech known as Direstrike. His name was very misleading, though. He was friendly and peaceful, indeed, in fact he was much like Bluestreak. He had a couple of friends, known as Chrome, Widecoaster and Skyhaven. The four were inseparable, they went everywhere together.
"It started as a normal day, or as normal as it could get during a war. The four had heard about an abandoned building.
"'Let's go there! I'm sure it's haunted!' Chrome said excitedly. The three others changed glances and shrugged.
"'Why not?' Skyhaven said quietly. When the four young mechs arrived at the huge building, they all shivered. Now they all were sure it was haunted, as it was big, gray and very abandoned, about to fall apart. The most youngest and brashest of them, Widecoaster squared himself and walked in. The three followed for they did not hear any screams, and they were sure it was safe. After they entered, they all stopped. Widecoaster was nowhere to be seen.
"'Where are you?' Direstrike yelled. When there was no response, he looked at his friends. 'We have to find him. I'll go that way, you go to the other corridors.'
"Direstrike knew that something bad had happened. But he didn't know that he was going to meet his fate in that long hallway. He continued on walking, calling his friend by the name. After a few minutes that felt like days he reached an old, big door. He pushed and the door creaked open. He hesitated, but eventually stepped in. Then suddenly... CREAK! The door slammed shut.
"The young mech turned around quickly and tried to open the door. It didn't budge - was apparently stuck. Then he heard a rasping sound coming from behind him... he spun around and found himself staring at the face of Death.
"'You have arrived... Diireestriikeee...' the terrifying voice drawled. The creature moved aside and Direstrike looked at the most horrid thing he had ever saw. His friend Widecoaster was there... or at least his body was there... or what was left of it. The body lay in shreds on the floor, chest plate open and the Spark gone.
"Direstrike threw a glance at the creature beside him and backed up. The creature drew nearer... and nearer... and finally raised his hand and pushed it on Direstrike's chest plate. Horror had frozen the poor mech. He looked at the hand as green glow emerged from it and got absorbed into his own body. He collapsed...
"'You are my follower... now, go.' the creature said and vanished into thin air. Direstrike drew himself up and looked at the door. He walked to it and opened it, stepping into the corridor. He walked and walked until he reached the place where he and the others had separated. The two were waiting for him.
"'Well, finally! Where were you, meeting invisible friends?' Chrome asked irritably. Direstrike shook his head and looked at the two with a horrible grin plastered on his face. He walked to them, and around Skyhaven until he was straight behind him. Suddenly Skyhaven screamed. It was a terrifying scream that was cut off by a gurgling sound. Chrome looked at his friend and his optics widened. Direstrike had an energon knife in his hand and he had just slit Skyhaven's throat. Then Chrome gazed at Direstrike and leaped at him with a roar. The creature, who was not Direstrike anymore, cast his glance at Chrome now... and did the same to him."
"It is said that Direstrike is still alive, creeping around and killing different Transformers. He goes around in dark places, clothed in a black cape... who knows, maybe he is in this room, right now." Delta finished his story. A silence followed. Until a snort was heard, from Cliffjumper's direction.
"Really? Then maybe he's right behind..." he trailed off. He stared at Jazz, who in turn was staring at Prowl who was on the opposite side. A black hand emerged from the shadows, holding an energon knife. The black and white's throat was cut open. Sideswipe and Sunstreaker leaped on their feet, but just then the lights went off.
There was a lot of noise as they all scrambled to their feet and started running in panic. A loud bang was heard and a yelp from Ratchet indicated that he was going to get caught. The next was Trailbreaker. And then a terrifying gurgling sound came from beside a little group of Autobots, consisting of Wheeljack, Jazz, Bluestreak and Hound. The three looked at the direction of the sound, and froze. A figure clothed all in black was there with an energon knife. Then the most unexpected happened. Bluestreak yelled and lunged at the figure, but the figure dodged easily. For a while the three thought Bluestreak was going to fall, but then he surprised them. He turned around and managed to get the knife out of the figure's hand.
Then a heavy hand dropped onto Hound's shoulder and the green scout yelped. He turned swiftly around and...
"AAAAAAHHHHHHH!"
Jazz, and Bluestreak, turned around and stared in shock and disbelief as Prowl, Ratchet and Trailbreaker stood there with their arms dangling limply. Hound was on his back on the floor, trembling with fright. When Bluestreak looked behind him, he saw another quite shocking thing... or didn't see, if speaking the truth.
"Jazz... Wheeljack's gone missing." Bluestreak said quietly. The black and white jerked his head and looked behind him.
"He was there a minute ago. Where..." and then he yelped. He and Bluestreak turned and saw a two black figures in front of them. They almost fled right there, but then Bluestreak stopped to think for a moment.
"Sides? Sunny?" he asked and the two figures emerged, looking quite scared.
"We... we saw Delta. He had his throat cut open." Sideswipe stuttered. The five (Hound was included) of them looked around and almost jumped out of their armor when a chilling laughter came from behind them.
"You will not escape..."
The black figure was there with the knife again. Wheeljack was standing right beside him with a blank look in his optics.
The five were about to run, when they saw they were surrounded. The dead mechs were closing in on them and pushing them into a little defensive circle. The black figure stepped in front of Hound and looked him in the face. Hound yelped.
"He has no optics!" The other four stared at him. When the knife-holding hand rose, they all cringed. But the hand didn't use the knife. Instead it was placed on the figure's face and he turned around. His shoulders were shaking and guffawing noises were heard. Then the figure straightened, threw his arms to the side and turned around to look them all fully in the face.
"BOO!" the sound scared the hell out of them. But the voice was vaguely familiar. Bluestreak had his doubts about this scary figure, and they were proven when he removed his mask.
"Whoa damn... MIRAGE!" Hound yelled in uncharacteristic frustration and lunged at the blue and white spy who was laughing uncontrollably, trying weakly to fend off the enraged scout. The twins, Jazz and Bluestreak glanced at Wheeljack who laughing his head module off as well.
"You should've seen your own faces! It was priceless!" a laughing voice came from behind them. Delta was there, wiping off the fake fluids from the fake gash on his throat. Ratchet, Trailbreaker and Prowl were doing the same. Just then Jazz stared at the one who he had never expected to join in something like this.
"How did ya get Prowl into this?" he asked Delta. The white-silver-azure Autobot grinned.
"You know, Prowl was the first to go with me in this. Ya never expected that, huh?" then he laughed out loud.
"And what 'bout him? How did you get Mirage to play th' main role?" Jazz asked again, staring at Mirage and Hound who were both laughing now.
"Heh... when I told him the story, he got so thrilled that he came up with this idea. The whole thing was set by him. I was just keeping your focus off of him with my 'plans'." Delta answered. Now they all looked at him in surprise, except Mirage, of course.
"So it was Mirage's idea, huh? Never expected him to have a sense of humor." Sideswipe said out loud. Mirage just grinned at the remark. Everyone knew now that there was indeed a sense of humor in the mech. Then Bluestreak started speaking:
"That was really scary, I don't mean funny scary but scary scary, if you know what I mean, and those fake fluids and wounds were just awesome, where did you get the material, by the way, and that this was set up by Mirage and all..."
"Bluestreak, shut yer yap or I'll WELD it shut." Ratchet said good-humoredly. Bluestreak did as told wisely.
There was a lot of activity after that, but no more ghost stories were told. Well, everyone clearly understood the reason. It was then revealed that no one else but Mirage, Delta, Ratchet, Prowl, Wheeljack and Trailbreaker knew about it. The others had bolted out of the open door before Mirage had caught the five. The main topic that night was about how Mirage had surprised them all by the scary idea. Even Cliffjumper admitted he was scared half to death by the descending, black hand of doom and the story of 'Direstrike's Fate'.