Caro Transmutata Metallo 10
A Transformers Prime Fanfiction
::Warning:: References to Torture
"Please, please, do not continue this Lord Alchem."
Glyph sat on the medical berth where she had crawled up with her arms wrapped around her knees and her faceplates pressed down into her lap. She heard the steady tread of his approach and flinched away as his hand reached out to gently almost tenderly cup her helm and force her to look up at him. Cold red optics glared down at her and his field was held so close to his mesh that it felt as if she was being caressed by dead metal.
"Give me the codes I require and the pain will stop."
The femme gave a soft laugh and shook her helm.
"We both know that is not true," she stated. "My codes are useless to you."
For a long moment he lingered over the Autobot staring at her faceplates as if he would burn them into his memory. There was a sudden surge through her systems that made the femme gasp in a sharp intake of air. It was a wave of suffering such as she had never felt and the scientist in her wondered in fascination how he had produced it in her. Then he shifted his grip and took hold of her neck. Faster than she could react his other set of servos darted out and pierced her armor at multiple points. Alchem dropped her and stepped back looking at her coldly.
"Maybe you will talk faster with more creative methods," he offered. "Remember all you need to do for it to stop is reveal the codes."
The mech stepped away from her and sealed the door before taking up position with his legs spread slightly and his hands clasped behind his back staring neutrally at the femme. Clearly he was set to wait for some time. Glyph wondered at this. The damage left by the punctures was not severe and did not increase her overall pain level significantly. In fact the only systems she could detect as damaged were her temperature regulation units. Just as she realized that the vents in the room began to labor to life and the temperature began to drop.
Close on the heels of the temperature drop the dihydrogen-monoxide content began to rise and the sheer insidiousness of the mech's plans hit the femme like a blow. The first tendrils of cold atmosphere reached her and sent shudder after shudder through her frame as her body tried to raise her internal temperature. Several heat producing sections of her frame kicked in to fight off the temperature drop followed closely by her atmospheric distribution fans.
Glyph's sharp scream pierced through the small room and her limbs flung out spasmodically. Wave after wave of pain swarmed out from her damaged fans as they struggled to complete their function. Gears stripped and cables snapped. The severed cables caught in the fan mechanisms causing further damage. The femme didn't know how long she fought through the growing pain. Nor was she certain if the pain began to fade or if she had simple grown used to it but eventually she gathered the mental composure to begin shutting down the associated pain receptors. Not a choice she usually made but there was nothing she could do to repair the damage and therefore no reason to have the receptors online. She could not silence them all without compromising functionality but eventually the little blue minibot slumped from relief. She could still feel the fans spinning and ripping and then stilling one by one as the damage overwhelmed the gears but now she was able to process more clearly and realize that the pain was not the goal of this exercise.
Her entire chassis had begun to vibrate violently as it fought to maintain her temperature. Within the Autobot her spark was a burning sphere of fire and pain as it produced the heat that could no longer be distributed to the rest of her frame. Her secondary heat producing units were working at full power and she knew it would not be long before they began to warp and malfunction. The dihydrogen-monoxide began to crystallize on her extremities. The polarized molecules seeped into the slits in her flayed mesh and aligned as the temperature dropped forcing the barely healed damage apart again. Glyph expanded her chassis core and flared her plating then pulled it in. Pain laced across her frame and the damaged plates and gears were forced into movement. A brief wash of cold air ghosted through her core, cooling her internals and warming her extremities. Crying in agony she repeated the motion.
"The codes Glyph," Alchem whispered into her audial. "You cannot keep this up. You must be suffering. Let it end."
The femme whimpered and shook her helm weakly as she gathered the strength and flared her armor.
"Very well."
The Seeker moved away and triggered another change in the atmospheric controls. Instantly a hot wash of air rushed over the femme melting and subliminating the crystallized dihydrogen-monoxide. The gaseous molecular cloud flew around her to re-condense on her visor turning the world into a blurry haze. The liquid found its way even further into her mechanisms and mingled with the seeping energon growing conductive and sending a steady wave of small minutely painful shocks through her systems that traveled like itching fire.
Glyph realized that she was once more begging the Decepticon to stop this. There might have been logical arguments mixed in with the cries and whimpers, she could not be sure, but Alchem's only response was to coldly request her codes again. The femme was beginning to consider giving them to him but even the mildest Autobot scientist had her honor. More importantly it was illogical. He had no reason to do this. He could be mad of course but that did not fit her observations. But no theory she currently held could explain her observations. Her desperately whirling processor kept going round and round trying to make sense of the situation, trying to distract from the suffocating heat.
"The codes femme."
"According to what I have researched of these situations," Glyph gasped out. "The appropriate response would be to curse at you now."
An odd look between a smile and a grimace flashed briefly across that the mech's faceplates.
"Give me the codes Glyph, and you will have repairs and rest."
"No."
"Very well."
The temperature began to drop again and the Autobot let her helm slump back against the floor. She wondered idly when she had fallen off the berth as the pain and creeping discomfort began to intensify. The reality of the situation was creeping in with the suffering. This was going to last. It would not be over soon unless she was misreading the cues. Which, given her recent misinterpretations of the facts was not impossible. That thought alone made her cry out in fear.
Time began to take on a new meaning as she lay there in the fluctuating heat. Occasionally Lord Alchem would leave to attend some duty and the Seeker Shard would come in and tend to her. There was something soothing about the smaller Decepticon, other than the fact that he was now apparently in charge of giving her just enough medical attention to keep her alive. His field was steady and stable, laced with innate traces of hostility, but there and detectable and most importantly predictable. There was nothing mysterious about Shard. He was simply a Seeker loyal to his commander and competent at his assigned task.
At some point during the next two cycles she was alone in the room and the pain was searing through her. It suddenly occurred to the femme to activate her energy saving stasis mode. The little Autobot nearly gave a broken laugh at the thought and how long it had taken her to think of it.
"This is why I am not a field agent more often," she whispered brokenly as the femme fell into a quick contemplation of the risks.
It would look odd, she finally decided if what appeared to be involuntary stasis lock occurred during this relatively peaceful time but when Alchem returned and resumed his work it would be perfectly logical if the stress shorted out her processor. Afterwards she could peruse the memories for any pertinent information and simply edit out the pain. Now that she had that relief to look forward to the Autobot began eagerly waiting for the Seeker to return.
As usual the Decepticon arrived exactly on time and carefully shredded her just healing platting before leaving her to the hot cold treatment. Just as Glyph was preparing to shut down at the peak of the heat cycle the vents gave a stutter and the lighting failed. The sound of the door sealing itself cracked loudly in the now silent room and the atmosphere quickly reset to a comfortable medium as the simple backup generators grumbled to life. Alchem stalked over to the portal and tried a few overrides then bent down and scooped the small femme up to deposit her on the berth when that failed. Glyph cursed the untimely failure in her processor for stealing her chance at oblivion but the rustling in the medical cabinet soon distracted her as the Seeker produced a mesh spanner. Unsure whether to feel relived or dismayed at the Alpha's dedication to the task the scientist simply braced herself and waited for the opportune moment.
O
O
Glyph came online to clever careful servos running over her. The repairs were painful but methodical and soon over. The calm predictable field touching hers told her all she needed to know about the mech so she didn't bother unshuttering her optics until he was leaving and murmured out a soft thanks. Shard gave no response as his wings disappeared down the hallway.
"Glyph! Oh thank the All Spark you are online! I was so terrified when that pit spawned Seeker didn't bring you back. It looks like he worked you over good tough," Tap Out continued bluntly pulling a tired laugh from the femme that sent spirals of pain through her where the still damage fans moved.
There was really very little a simple emergency medic like Shard could do in that case. The microbot nets he had released into her had reattached the cables and straightened the warped gears but the healing and regeneration would take much time and would never be complete until she had been tended to by a proper Cybertronian medical professional. Given the circumstances he had done excellent work.
Tap Out ranted on against Alchem and the rest of the pit spawned Decepticons and Glyph had to force her vocalizer silent. She did not understand this urge to defend the Seeker that rose within her. He had hurt her and hurt her badly but she still felt connected to the mech somehow. Her tank. The femme let out a tired laugh and shook her helm. Tank reactions were the purview of rough fast warriors like Jazz. Scientists did not have them, and yet that was the only way to describe what she was feeling.
"What's funny?" the green mini in the cell across from her asked curiously.
"I think I am having a hunch," she replied.
That shocked her friend silent for a moment then he burst out laughing.
"Pit! He really did do a number on you femme!"
O
O
Jazz glanced up as the door spiraled open ready to launch into the Alpha Seeker with all the venom and range in him but the words caught in his vocalizer and the glyphs dissipated as his optic band focused on the smaller Decepticon with the cocky sneer on his faceplates and a white sliver hanging limply from his servos.
"So this is how you have been doing it all these eons Jazz? I must say I'm rather disappointed. It is always so sad when you finally get a peek behind the curtain at the wizard."
The curious mech filed away the indecipherable reference and shot a cocky grin up at Starscream.
"So sorry ta steal some of the wonder outta your life mech! It must get pretty boring being stuck out here in the back a nowhere."
Frowning furiously at that he moved forward, triggered the immobilization feature and slapped a set of stasis cuffs on the special ops mech. Jazz realized with some trepidation that these were class seven and there would be no easy breaking out of them. That coupled with the fact that Starscream had found one of his spy units did not portend good things.
"Normally I would punish you for that Autobot but I am in a generous mood. You see this discovery was useful to us in so many ways while our own power was down," the Seeker waved the tiny segmented worm in front of the smaller mech's face as he fitted it onto some kind of scanner.
The proximity allowed Jazz to ping the unit. All he got back was the unit number; it had been the one in Glyph's interrogation room. The black ops mech cursed himself for not checking in on it earlier, but he had been busy planning the final details of the escape and had planned to download the data later. It looked like cold stress had caused the damage that had allowed the clever little unit to be captured. Making a note of the weakness the Autobot focused on the threat currently in front of him. The scanned had stopped on an armored section of his helm and lit it up a pale green.
"But even with how useful it is to us we simply can't have them scurrying around now can we?" purred the Seeker.
His servos darted out and all that Jazz's superior reaction time would allow him to do was see the blow coming. The battle hardened and razor sharp talons punctured the heavy armor and begun to twist and probe. A small swarm of the little segmented worms separated from the hidden compartment and began to flee on their base programming as the stunned and screaming Autobot lost direct control of them. With a distasteful sneer Starscream removed his servos and flicked the remains of the sensor units off of them. A quick EM pulse from the cell security system fried the little things and with great fanfare the Seeker held up a small energon prod.
"Must make certain I got them all now," he muttered as he approached the mech and jabbed the sparking tip of the prod into the wound.