(Thanks for your support, everyone~ Well, my laptop is shot. However, we can get it fixed. However, yet again, it's going to be a week or so until HP sends us the necessary parts we need. My aunt has kindly allowed me to use her laptop, however, I am limited in my use of it. The screen, with which I use to see, is LITERALLY the size of my hand. Its like, six inches long, by four inches tall.
It sucks, but it's a computer. Anyways, enjoy. We're just jumping along here, and now we get to see my rendition of the thirteen primes next chapter~ Enjoy chapter 10~
Question: Is this story too dark for all of you? Because I've noticed that the number of folks who started out reviewing has dropped a lot. If it is too twisted, never fear, eventually it'll straighten out a little bit before it plunges back into the dark torment that I currently enjoy writing~)
The cables beneath my back shredded beneath the spiked chain that sunk into my armor. One sliced across the node of my missing wings, and I was almost lost to the blessed and well loved pain. When the chain finished its loop around my chest, I forced myself to grab it and pull sharply, nearly tugging it out of the hands of my opponent. However, the mech holding the casting end of the chain was twice my size. Within the second that it took him to pull the chain back into his grip, I found myself unbound by gravity for a short time. The chain tightened in its biting embrace, and I flew towards him.
Letting go of the chain, I braced myself to hit him head on. My claws slid out, a mild acid filling them, and sunk deep into his armor once I hit. His lip plates parted, and he roared savagely in my face. Pouring the acid in my claws into his abdominal plattings, I felt myself torn away just as quickly as I hit him. The feeling of weightlessness took me once more, and then my optics saw stars as I was crashed helm first into the metal ground. Not being allowed to rest and gather my thoughts even for a split second, I was yanked back into the air.
My own whips dropped from my wrists, and I managed to get two cracks across his face before distance became a problem. His foot came up and met with my stomach, and my body crumpled around the enormous pede as velocity caught up with me from being swung around like a toy. The organs beneath the plate ruptured, energon flooding my mouth, as the mech shoved me back. The chain let go, tearing furrows in my armor as it tore back from me. His laughter mocked me.
I hit the ground rolling, and ended up laying on my front, heaving out little ruptured bits of my internal organs and energon. Struggling onto my hands and knees, I hurried to get up. The same foot that kicked me slammed down on my spinal strut and hips. I hit the mat flat again, the pede grinding into me. My spinal strut groaned, creaked, and then my hips were the first to cave. With sickening snaps, my legs were rendered useless as my pelvis shattered through my outer armor and protoform.
His foot continued to grind down into me, mashing my organs and using the bits of my own armor that had impaled me to essentially tear me apart from the inside out. My vents heaved with chokes and gasps, and I purged up a part of one of my storage tanks.
"Enough, Blackwind." Windstrider stopped the fight. "She did well, but not good enough. She's almost there, Blackwind. Almost." He sighed. "But almost is not good enough. Fix her up and start all over again, now." He ordered.
As soon as Windstrider had uttered a syllable, Blackwind had stepped off of me, leaving me untouched. At the order, Blackwind dropped down next to me, gently rolling me over. There was a sorrow in his dark navy optics as he sat down and drew me into his lap, the savage nature he had when he fought was forgotten. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry." He rasped softly to me. "I'm so sorry… I don't want to hurt my friends…"
It was always the same. Since Windstrider got me back into training, he's incorporated Blackwind into it as well. Blackwind was a student from the age group I was supposed to be in, and was as good at fixing those he broke as he was at breaking the bots he breaks. But, Blackwind is a medic at spark. He doesn't want to fight, and he doesn't want to hurt. However, he's slagging good at what he does, and what he does is not very nice. He's a little slow in the processor some times, like a sparkling. But, considering half his processor was literally beaten out of his skull by me at the beginning of our training when he underestimated me, it's little wonder why. Processors can't be grown back; so he has to remain slow for the rest of his days.
Some days with him are worse then others. Some days he can seem almost like a youngling, innocent and care free. Other days, he's even more ruthless then he normally is. I don't know what I damaged exactly, but he forgets things a lot, and his moods can shift at the drop of a needle. Demonstrated with my fights, he drops from a killing rage into sorrow faster then a bot can drop into stasis. Sometimes, it seems as if he's all there, because he'll say something that any sane bot would, and then he turns around and says that I'm his friend. Truthfully, eventually I think, I will take pity on him and end his life. I know I wouldn't want to live like he is; I would want my own life to end if I wasn't able to be fixed.
Its been another half a year since I began fighting with Windstrider again, training, while my creators worked double time to collect the credits all the way to seventy percent for the repairing and reattachment of my severed wings. Pain tolerance was easily reached again with the help of Mimi and Papa before Windstrider was back, and then I was tossed into the ring with Blackwind. Windstrider says that the purpose of my continuous beatings was for me to fight through the pain and the injuries, to shove them back and fight until I cant move, and then to spit at the feet of my foe even when I can no longer defend myself. He says that if I kill my opponent, its even better, but its not the purpose of this training yet.
So far, I haven't been able to last as long. My armor is thick, my armor is strong, but I'm not yet big enough for my armor not to cave in to a kick from a foot that's the size of my entire upper body and that has the force of twelve Naz stomps behind it. So, more often then not, I find myself where I am now with Blackwind treating only the injuries that he himself caused upon my body. With the rate that I'm going, I could reach the stage within the hour, or within the next year or so.
As soon as I managed to stop coughing and expelling organ chunks, I waved him off. "I'm not your friend, you hunk of metal." I half joked and half choked, my voice ringing in the training arena that was strangely empty, save for the three of us here fighting. "Fix my innards later. You're only going to mash them again and again." I was already rerouting my energon lines to stop the energon from going to my ruined organs, instead funneling through the good cables left. "Set my hips, weld them, and then help me up." I vented.
"I don't have any anesthetic." He murmured. "I can't numb the pain." He apologized. His hands went to my hips, and he began shoving my pelvic bits back under my armor, digging large hands into me as he repaired me. "You're my friend." He said. "I don't have a lot of friends." He droned softly. "And neither do you. So you can be my friend, and we can both get stronger if we help each other."
"Pit fighters don't have friends." I told him, spitting out a glob of acidic energon. "We have pain. Pain is the closest friend we'll ever have." I said. "And I don't know why I tell you this. You wont remember it tomorrow."
"It takes being friends first in order to be mates with someone, like your creators." He whirred softly. There was a slurp from my hip as he shoved the welder inside of me and welded my main frame together. My legs snapped back into position, crackling hard in the sockets as he moved my legs back into their normal places. "Your Mimi told me so. I remember."
"Will you remember tomorrow?" I clicked.
"Yes." He said in a determined tone. He rolled me over gently, cradling my helm in his hand, and set to work fixing up my armor and my hips in the back. "I will. I'll make sure I remember. You are my friend."
"I'm not your friend." I hissed lowly. Behind my visor, my optics flashed with the irritation that started to brew inside my spark.
"Sure you are." He chirped.
"No, I'm not." I said. He simply trilled softly at me and continued to work gently on me. "You know, Blackwind, if it weren't for the fact that you are still useful, I'd end your miserable half-existence now."
He patted my aft briefly in a friendly manner, seeming to ether ignore my growl, or failing to even hear it. "You wont kill me. Friends don't kill friends."
"Friends don't leave other friends half dead in the processor, and yet I did it to you." I pointed out, huffing. "Want me to finish what I started?"
His hands stilled for a minute, and then resumed working on me. "Someday," he intoned deeply, a flash of the mech he used to be shining through, "I hope you do. Not today, not tomorrow, but someday. I would do the same honor for you, my friend."
"I'm not your friend, Blackwind. Get it through your fragging thick helm." I snapped.
Blackwind didn't say anything more to me until I was finished and fixed, and then he simply informed me of his success once more. Pushing my arms up underneath me, I got to my hands and knees. My metal organs were pulped inside me as usual, and they made nasty sounds when I moved. Venting in harshly, I clawed to my pedes, balancing as my hips recalibrated themselves. The agony cleared my head, and I smiled, pulling the pain in and tucking it deep within me to keep my processor as clear feeling as I could.
I wasn't given time for the recalibrations to take effect. "Begin." Windstrider barked from the sidelines. "You know what to do, NightStrike. Do it, and tear him to shreds while you are at it. It bores me to see you pulped each time."
Blackwind met my spinning kick with his shin, and I used my velocity to whip my whips out in a blinding arc of glowing toxins. The little barbs warped themselves into his armor, locking on his visible and reachable cables and delivering a nasty dose of acid and my own pain inducing energon straight into his blood stream. His hand came up and grabbed one of my whips, tugging me closer.
The roar from Blackwind's throat nearly deafened me as I sank my claws deep into the metal floor, planting myself in place and foiling his plan. Pulling back on my own whips, I jerked him forwards off balance, and bolted forwards to ram my shoulder into his stomach plates. His pedes grinded on the floor as I pushed him backwards, large fists' of heavy metal crashing down onto my back plates as we grappled. My whips sucked back into my arms as my forearm blades descended simultaneously into battle position, just in time for me to whip my blade across his side, splitting the metal with a little bit of difficulty. His energon bubbled and spilled in thick and rolling waves of glowing blue, and I couldn't help but laugh as it made my grip difficult.
A small grimace escaped my mouth as a section of my armor was ripped off and then shoved back into my body point first. Weedling through the short and sharp ache, I continued to drive him back. I watched his cables flex in his side, a spurt from the shorn metal splattering across my faceplates and visor, and I had a split second chance to duck between the apex of his legs before his fists slammed down in a hit that would have shattered my spinal strut. Skidding on my hands and knees under him, I brought up my blade and sliced through the cables that allowed motor control to his right leg. I missed on the left, only succeeding in making him bleed.
As his weight brought his leg down briefly, I rolled out of the way. Stopping in a crouched position, I licked my lips, tasting his energon. It was hot and tangy, half processed through his lines, and almost bitter sweet. Swallowing, I grinned, my denta flashing briefly as I almost contemplated waiting for him to move. Deciding against it within a matter of a micro millisecond, I bolted back for him, aiming to disable his arm at the shoulder socket while it was still within my immediate reach.
Instead I was sent reeling backwards from a fist in the face. Half of my high durability visor shattered, allowing one of my optics free, as the shrapnel dug into the softer metal of my cheek, poking all the way through. When I got my balance again, I didn't bother trying to remove the remnants as I found myself fending off Blackwind again as he drove through the obvious pain and proceeded to try and maul me again.
I was pinned on my back, blocking his kicks and hits as he drove me into the floor, my broken armor bits stabbing deeply into me, when my saving grace came from the staircase. The sounds of thundering feet ether large enough in mass quantity or size came blaring into our fight, and it was enough to distract Blackwind for a split second. In that second, I made use of my pulped organs to bend my lower half flush with my upper half. From that position, I rocketed my legs back down and out, kicking Blackwind back wards.
The loss of his normal use of his leg made him topple back onto his back with an outraged roar. Flipping to my feet, I launched up to the top of his chest, standing on him as I dug my claws in and injected a very thinly strained version of Nixazto, a fast acting metal corrosive. Blackwind roared at me again, and his arm came up and hit my weaker hip. The socket cracked, and I toppled from on top of him with a resounding crash.
Struggling back to my feet, the bad leg useless with it dislocated and fractured, I was knocked down again as he rolled over, swinging his leg, and knocked the other leg out of place as well. With both legs officially out of commission, I pushed myself onto my hands and released my whips. I managed to get four good cracks across his armor and across his face as Blackwind stood up again. He growled in a feral tone at me, and when I cracked him across the face again, he grabbed my whip on the back draw.
Navy optics glinting with a strange light, he flung me through the air with my one whip as I withdrew the other one. Keeping a steady pulse of acid through the whip was hard to do, especially when the main frame of my arm broke beneath my protoform, rendering my motor functions in that arm as useless. Blackwind began to laugh as he pulled me towards him multiple times, batting me away with a large palm each time. He kicked me when he tired of hitting me, and then he smashed me into the ground. I bit my glossa on accident, and used the pain to remember that I was fighting him for a reason. Stomping towards me, he stepped on me, digging his toes into the bared nodes of my back before he began to press and grind downwards.
My pelvis shattered once more, the pieces even more sharp and brittle then the last time. Following my pelvis was a fracture of the lower part of my spine, and for the metal cage of my chest to partially cave in. When he kicked me over onto my back, I looked up at him with energon from my glossa dribbling down my face. I grinned at him, my optics flashing faintly from the half missing visor. I spat at him, sending my toxic blood into his wires.
The arm that hadn't broken lashed out as he bent down to grab me and do who knows what the frag with me, and I raked my claws deeply across his face. With a wild sound, he flailed back, grasping at his optic that I had managed to scratch. Blackwind made a garbled sounding growl and lunged forwards, pile driving the heel of his pede into my working arm and snapping it.
Letting my helm drop back to the floor with a clang, I started to laugh upon realization that I had indeed reached the stage that Uncle Windstrider had been drilling into me for six of Cybertron's months. I laughed, because the pain wasn't really pain anymore. The pain was normal now, broken main frames, mulched organs, and shattered armor. It was all normal for me now! My laughing hiccupped when Blackwind kicked my chest, sending me rolling. But it resumed with the same resounding pitch as when it had started.
"Enough." Windstrider said. "She has achieved it." He said. I rolled my helm towards him as he walked forwards, peering down at me. "It took you two months longer then it did for me." He said in disappointment. "But, your Mimi did set you back a bit." He clicked. "I suppose you are doing well." His gaze flicked from my grinning face to Blackwind's. "Fix her now. We are done for today; Her welds need time to heal before we continue."
Blackwind dropped down next to me again, tending to his own wounds first as was his norm as well. While I let my laughter die off completely, it finally came to my notice that we weren't alone. Off to the side, a group of rather large and strangely built Cybertronians were watching us intently. One of them looked desperately torn as the bot gazed at me. With the silence following my laughter, I could hear them talking to one another.
"I shouldn't be here, Prima." The desperate looking one said to the largest of the bots, a femme by the frame type, who towered well over the height of my Papa, and towered closer to the height of the Naz. "My spark is tearing itself apart. I fight the need to fix them until their frames are as unblemished as a newly birthed sparkling." He said.
"Calm yourself, Mavnal." The large femme spoke, her voice calm and gentle. "There will be time for fixing them when Cybertron is a peace."
"These two will be offlined by then, surely," another Mech spoke. "Can we not let Mavnal Prime heal them now? Does it matter if our followers see this act of Primus?"
"Yes, Vector Prime." Prima said softly. "Not all of us are here yet ether; keep that in mind. Alpha Trion and Aanas Prime are gathering our forces to defend this place."
Another Femme spoke from up top, her voice almost too soft for me to hear. Tuning in my audio receptors, I watched them with one optic, the other closing so as not to give me a headache with my half shadowed vision. "The rebels are going to strike here. I have seen it in my paintings."
Mavnal let off a small sound and stepped forwards, leaning heavily on the railings around the arena. "It matters not to me when they strike; my spark sings with the call of Primus to heal those younglings now."
"And you will, when the rest of the thirteen arrive, Mavnal." Prima soothed.
"Excuse me," WindStrider interrupted them, planting his hands on his hip joints as he flared his door wings into a sharp V shape. "The Arena isn't open to Civilians right now. I'm going to have to ask you to leave immediately. This is the time for us fighters to practice and hone our skills without all of you watching us."
"We aren't Civilians, young fighter," the one they called Prima called back down to my uncle. "We are the Thirteen Primes. We are waiting for our allies to come, and then, we shall begin to teach you the ways of Primus."