Well, well, what do we got here? A new chapter? Yes, indeed. Sorry for another long delay, I gotta blame myself for bringing my latest story Ave Paternum Deo a lot of attention and less focusing on my other beloved stories. But ja, ja, I'm glad to give you guys a new chapter to read, though sorry if it's just a one-scene chapter. Big warning for drinking.
Soundtracks
First scene – Breaking A Promise from Elysium, Ryan Amon
Chapter 9 – Wrong Side Of Heaven
Face to face they stared on each other as Rodimus faced Hot Shot. The silver mech stood with a bottle-shaped object in his hand as he vented quickly as though with rage. The angry optics bore into Rodimus' own like icy daggers. Far from him stood the shuttle he stole from the base and seven large containers that Rodimus was able to detect with his olfactory sensors as high grade and ultra grade, and already three of them were open. None of them moved a muscle cable.
"Vad i helvete gör du här?" Hot Shot repeated.
Rodimus gulped nervously from looking Hot Shot continued to give to him without any sign of mercy when he noticed that the silver mech was standing uneasy. He winced at the disgusting stench of ultra grade. Was Hot Shot drunk?
"Svara mig för helvete!" Hot Shot suddenly bellowed out, causing Rodimus to jerk up in fear and he backed a couple of steps from the pissed mech.
He swallowed his fear as he straightened his back to glare intensively at him. "I've come to take you back."
The silver mech spat, then he raised the bottle high and drank with several gulps as he consumed the high grade. When he stopped, he turned around and walked unsteadily to the open containers, putting the bottle inside one of them and filled it up again and then proceeded to take another drink with more gulps than the last one. He held his gaze at Rodimus while consuming the ultra grade, making him more dangerously drunk.
"You've come to take me back?" he snarled coldly, lowering his bottle. "You've wasted your time."
No response came from Rodimus, although he sensed his spark pulsing at an alarming rate mixed by feelings. He swallowed again when the silver mech drank again, drinking the bottle empty. Without noticing it, his limbs began to shake in tension. What the hell was Hot Shot doing? He could not imagine Hot Shot drinking so much. The dragon tattoo had received twenty-eight scars that looked like he'd tried to tear the tattooed plate from his right arm, only to damage the shoulder plate pretty badly and you could easily see the protoform metal skin.
So scarred.
What has become of you?, Rodimus mentally asked, swallowing again as the concern deepened inside his spark.
"Hehehe," then he heard the silver mech laughing, then filling up the bottle and rose it up to drink again.
"Why are you doing this, Hot Shot?"
The question from the young Prime's lips caused Hot Shot to lower his bottle, staring at him. "Excuse me?" he demanded irritably.
"Why the hell are you doing this?" Rodimus snapped, struggling to hold himself in check but the concern inside was making things worse for him.
"Why? WHY?!" Without warning, Hot Shot threw the half-empty bottle away and charged towards Rodimus like a bull. The bottle shattered to thousands of pieces as the ultra grade splattered over the ground.
The Prime reacted just in time when he dodged the charging mech and rolled over the ground as Hot Shot smashed against a tree, snapping it in two. But as it happened, Rodimus suddenly felt the aching pain burn over my injured back. He groaned while wrapping one arm around his chest to touch on his opposite shoulder. Then he heard Kickan's panicking cries and saw the lapphund galloping towards him, then licking on his nose plate once she was close to him with a fast wiggling tail.
"Kickan, get out of here," he whispered under his breath, pleading.
But Kickan refused to abandon his side as she whined, whimpered and barked as if she was telling him to get up. He understood that he must get up and fight back. He pressed his other arm on the ground to rise up, despite the striking pain that spread over his spinal column like thousands of needles, but he would never give up despite his weakening condition.
But before he could ever straighten up, the last thing he received was a bark that alerted him, and then everything turned black as shooting stars cast over his processor.
The impact that he hit on a thick tree was one of the worst and most painful experience he'd ever got, worse it inflicted further pain to his back. He looked up just as he met a shadow standing above him and saw Hot Shot's growling face. Rodimus noticed directly that his hands were pressed against the ground, making him unable to fight back.
Just as it happened, Hot Shot rose up one hand, clenched it tightly into a fist and was about to throw it in Rodimus' face when the flamed mech responded faster than the other's blinded reflexes and punched the drunken mech's face plates so hard that he broke some denta in his mouth and scattered them over the grass. He then kicked him in the side, rising up on his shaking legs and grunted in pain by another wave of striking pain over his back.
"What the hell is wrong with you, Hot Shot?" Rodimus shouted, his voice intense and filled with emotions. "Why? Why are you doing this to yourself?"
"Why?" Hot Shot chuckled, spitting the Energon from his damaged mouth. "Because I've been such a fool."
"What do you mean a fool?" Rodimus asked as they walked around in a circle, glaring at each other. "You can't have just left without a good reason!"
"Heh, you still don't get it, kid."
"What is it that I don't get?"
"Everything! I left because of you!"
"Me?"
"Yes, I left because I never protected Ylva," a blush appeared on the silver mech's face features as he narrowed his optics with arched optic ridges, growling fiercely. "You came to her rescue, not me!"
"But Hot Shot!" But Rodimus never got to finish his question before Hot Shot charged him again and he slammed into him, but he just barely managed to catch his fists, holding him tightly. The mechs stood like two sumos and neither one of them was willing to budge. The pain behind Rodimus' back struck again and he grimaced in pain, but he still refused to give up.
"You don't understand kid!" Hot Shot roared. "I've always been there for her! I've protected her, taking care of her and helped her!"
"Then why aren't you with her right now? She's missing you dearly and she's deeply depressed because you left her!"
"I told you to stay with her and take my role as her guardian. Why can't you understand that she needs you more than me?!"
"She doesn't want me as her guardian! She wants you as her guardian, nobody else!"
"Then she's wrong! IT'S ALL MY FAULT THAT SHE'S GOT A BROKEN LEG!"
"No, Hot Shot! It's not your fault!"
"Oh yeah? Just because I failed to realize that you're MUCH better than me!?"
"No! I'm not better than you – AGH!" suddenly the pain was too much for Rodimus to take anymore and he fell on his knees. Hot Shot immediately took advantage of his weakness and smashed a kick into his abdominal area. Agony burned through him just as the impact sent him crashing hard on the ground, dust and dirt kicking up in his wake.
He felt the injury opening again and Energon poured out from there. The stitches were ruptured apart. Painful groans escaped from his mouth as he lay on one side, curling up into a ball. When he opened his optics back online and saw the silver mech standing next to a high grade container, drinking from there. Nausea made him feeling very disgusted, both by the pain and by the view of sight of a heavily drinking Hot Shot. Then Hot Shot stopped, shooting his gaze on him, high grade drooling from his lip plates.
"I've made a promise to Ylva a long time ago," he spoke up, "that I'll always be there for her. But then she broke her promise…"
"What are you talking about?" Rodimus grunted through gritted teeth.
"Ylva was only ten years old when we met first time. She ran away from home but got attacked by a gang on bullies, I came to her rescue. I scared the crap outta the kids and took her with me. She begged me to take her with me."
Listening to Hot Shot's story, the young Prime sharpened his audio receptors while heaving to hold himself in check and never dared to interrupt.
"We made promises, you know kid. I promised her to be her guardian and she promised me to never tell any human about me. If she did, I would have no other choice but to terminate her. I can still remember."
Rodimus swallowed when Hot Shot paused and then bit hard on his under-lip plate, grunting in pain. He watched him take another drink. Though, the pause didn't last longer than five minutes before the drunken mech went on. "I remember much of the day when we got separated. The police got a tip about us by a gang of gangsters when we were in Stockholm. We got chased by the police, but we ran… then came the Säpo and made things worse."
"What h-happened?" Rodimus stuttered.
"They trapped us on an open field, away from the capital. We were surrounded and they fired gunfire at us. I tried my best to protect Ylva from them… but then they shot hooks at me and I was caught -"
Suddenly Hot Shot stopped as he pressed a hand on the side of his head, grunting and closing his optics tightly. Then he laid the other hand on his head as he started to shake violently, saying something in Swedish that was inaudible for Rodimus' audio receptors. The drunken mech's doorwings rose and dropped, up and down, again and again as Hot Shot suddenly started to show signs of emotional reaction. Tears filled his optics, then he threw his head backwards, roaring out a bellow in rage and sorrow. Watching him, Rodimus' optics opened wide in disbelief as he recognized the signs from Hot Shot's body language.
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
That was the first thing he got in his processor. Things were getting worse when the silver mech activated his assault blasters on his arms, whirring loudly. "No!" Rodimus shouted out, and as if Primus had been watching over his pain, he had new strength and he leapt towards the silver mech. His hands clenched on Hot Shot's blasters as they fell backwards and hit on the ground.
"Stop it, Hot Shot!" Rodimus pleaded. "Nobody's gonna hurt you!"
"Håll käften, din mög!" Hot Shot swore back in Swedish, trying to get himself free but with the weight above him made it very hard for him to shake off the now badly injured Prime. "Du kommer aldrig ta min Ylva ifrån mig! Håll ut, gumman! Jag kommer och rädda dig!"
"Stop it!" the young Prime cried out.
A second later, everything changed.
BANG!
A loud bang was heard that echoed far for many miles away, then silence overwhelmed everything again. The only one that witnessed the horror was no one but Kickan. The lapphund barked out.
Heavy breaths were the sounds Hot Shot heard when he opened up his tearful optics for the first time and met a tragic view. Rodimus was lying above him, Energon drooling from his lips as he stared at him intensely. Underneath him laid his right blaster that was pointed up on Rodimus' abdominal area, right through the injury. With widened optics, Hot Shot moved the Prime aside and gently laid him lying on his back. There he found the horror he'd done. A gaping hole right through Rodimus' body.
"No… no, no, no, no!" Hot Shot cried out. "Rodimus!"
He laid his hands on Rodimus' chest plates that moved weakly. The Prime's blue optics were half-open, dimming weakly. As the silver mech tried to do something, the effects of his heavy drinking finally paid off when blurriness came to his vision and he collapsed into unconscious.
By then, Kickan had already galloped toward them, barking and whining in panic as she tried to wake them up but without success. The Energon pool was getting bigger and bigger by every minute as she ran around them, barking desperately. Then she understood. She must get help and fast. But where could she get help when they were in the middle of nowhere?
Translation:
Vad i helvete gör du här – what the hell are you doing here
Svara mig för helvete – Answer me for fuck's sake
Håll käften, din mög – Shut up your shit
Du kommer aldrig ta min Ylva ifrån mig – You'll never take my Ylva away from me
Håll ut, gumman – Hang on, sweetie
Jag kommer och rädda dig – I'll come and save you
