A Race Through the Night
Chapter 13
Sing Me to the Well
Disclaimer: I don't, haven't, and won't ever own the Transformers or the Transformers characters. I do however own my story and plot.
Huge thanks to my sister-beta enmused, who is my most loyal fan!
Before you all express your displeasure, I know, it feels like it's been vorns since I posted, but what can I say, RL is anything but cooperative. But, the good news is I'm still alive, and I'm still interested in this story, so don't run away! I'll try to keep my posts as regular as possible, but I'm not going to pretend I've got myself organized enough to give an estimate lol. Anywho, here's the next chapter, read, fav, follow, review, and most importantly, enjoy!
Review Responses: Cashagon: Thank you so much for existing! You are literally the reason this chapter happened. So, gratitude *presents tray of cookies**raises glass of milk in a toast* Here's to continuing long-abandoned stories! And faithful fanfic-friends! And new chapters of angst and drama!
The darkness brushed through her consciousness softly caressing her weakly pulsing spark.
Cold permeated the atmosphere.
She shivered, biting back a sob. Somewhere in the room a liquid dripped continually, like the drip of a leaky faucet. The little waitress shivered again, her arms burning, yet nonetheless numb and lifeless. A harshly amused laughter, colder and darker than the icy void around her, the cruel enjoyment in his voice seeming to wrap around her like tangible tendrils, so tender, yet crushing at the same time.
"I don't know…" She whispered brokenly, her voice crackling with static as she repeated the same three words in a futile, desperate plea for the pain to stop.
Somewhere close beside her, the femme felt more than heard a deep engine purr as its owner crooned, "Oh, I believe you, dear."
Lickety-Split forced her optics open with a groan as Tarn circled her slowly, taking in the various damages his crew had inflicted. Her vision was fuzzy at the edges, and one side was laced over with cracks in her optic lens. The femme's helm hung limply against her shoulder as she dangled from her place chained to the ceiling.
She opened her mouth to speak, then shifted to relieve the weight on her arms, stretching to scrabble at the slick floor with her wheeled pedes, only to trigger a bout of harsh coughing. Weakened, with the burn of life-En in her mouth and down her leaking front, she vented heavily.
At last she croaked defiantly, "G-Go ahead and k-k-ksshhh-kill me then. What are you waiting f-for?"
"What's the fun in that?" Tesarus snorted, leaning against the wall with a little smirk on his x-ed over faceplates. Beside him, Vos snickered about something in the old Cybertronian tongue.
The purple DJD leader chuckled softly, "Come, Lickety-Split, you're a smart femme. You tell me: what am I waiting for?"
The waitress glanced down at her shredded, melted, battered, and broken frame. She could see faint lights glowing from some of her internal systems, lights that were never meant to be seen. She jerked hard away from the sharp jolt of electrical current shooting through her struts as Kaon laid a hand on her shoulder. Beneath her the feral, sparkeater turbofox lapped thirstily at her spilt life-En.
Instinctively, the femme snarled at the optic-less mech's agonizing touch, biting back a shriek as he sent a more powerful shock through her. When at last the fire coursing through her stopped, she cycled air through her systems raggedly.
Finally, Tarn seemed to decide she wasn't going to reply and shrugged lightly, "You see, Lickety-Split, you're still of use to us. If you can't lead us to her, you'll just have to lead her to us."
"Ssshhhh-she won't come for me." Lickety-Split shivered convulsively, coughing up a bit more fluids. Her spark trembled at the words she spoke next, but she didn't much care. All she could feel was cold and pain, what did it matter if they killed her now? She was going to leak to death anyway. Killing her now would be a mercy. "You're a f-fool if you think they care what you do to me. I'm just the waitress."
"You underestimate your value." Kaon told her, the red and orange mech's tone as blank and unreadable as the void in his optics.
She watched as one by one the Decepticon Justice left her to hang and leak out in icy solitude, the echoes of their heavy pede-falls loud in her audials.
Once they were out of hearing range, the femme sobbed, allowing the mostly held-back tears to flow freely down her face.
They should have killed her. Primus, they should have let her spark drift off to the Well, a small peace to recompense the suffering they had put her through over the past two orns. How on Cybertron she had lived this long, she had no idea.
Meanwhile, Altihex, Unknown Location
Hook redid the clasps on her abdominal armor and nodded to her, his visor gleaming bright red and reflective. "All done."
"So, the verdict? It's been two orns." The teal femme asked, clicking her armor back on and sitting up.
"I'm nowhere near ready to release you if that's what you're asking." The constructicon grunted, putting his tools all away in their proper places. It never ceased to amaze and please him just how much supplies he had full access to here. Fuel, supplies, space, this ship was a level of order, prosperity, and extravagance that just a few orns ago he would have sworn had been lost to Cybertron forever.
"Your repair systems are improving, but they're not even close to being able to handle the strain you'll put on them. And I'm a mech of my word, I ain't leaving till I'm satisfied you aren't just going to get yourself offed the minute I leave."
Nightracer rolled her optics at him, swinging off the berth and gulping down the nutrient-dosed med-grade Energon, making a disgusted face at it when she finished. "Well in that case, I'll just tell Blurr you aren't ever leaving then, because in case you've forgotten, getting offed is a simple fact of life for me."
The green and purple medic smirked slightly behind his mask, about to reply when suddenly both Decepticons went stiff, optics widening in fear.
His voice rang through the public Decepticon comm channel that neither bot had heard used in quartex. /Good orn, Nightracer./
The teal femme let out a terrified squeak, optics instantly scanning for a direction to bolt. The smooth voice laughed, /Oh, don't worry, we don't know where you're hiding this time, you've done quite the commendable job of it./
"Heya! Just got back from searching the scrap yard for that part we needed to get the engines working, and whaddya know I even managed to find one, plus that other thingy-bobber to go in the-" Blurr's rambling cut off and he froze in the doorway of the med-bay, a frown flashing over his faceplates as he took notice of their fear-filled expressions and Nightracer's trembling form. "What's going on?"
As Tarn went on over the comm line, Nightracer and Hook both ignored the speedster entirely, /However, you seem to be getting a little sloppy, worn out perhaps? Not to worry, though, our doors are always open to our dear friends. In fact, you might find we have a mutual friend aboard./
Nightracer trembled, her engine whining softly. Who had they found?
/Lickety-Split, dear, why don't you say hello to Nightracer?/
The femme's ruby optics widened. The waitress from Maccadam's. The DJD had somehow found out that she'd helped them. There was no way the tiny femme could have lasted long under the DJD's hand. She knew she never should have gone back to Maccadam's. Every time she did, someone died, and it was her fault.
Always her fault.
A harsh, frame-wracking cough filled the channel, then a frail, trembling snarl, /Go rust in the Pits./
She could practically see the mech shaking his helm in disapproval. /No manners at all. My proposal is simple, your spark for hers within the joor, no other conditions. I've sent you the location of our ship, Nightracer, do try not to be late. After all, it would be a shame if your little friend were to leak out before you arrive./
Her engine growled angrily, even as her armor clamped down tighter to her shaking protoform.
/Oh and you can tell your pet speedster to stay home, his time will come soon enough./
With that, the line cut off with a hiss of static, leaving the two Decepticons in stunned, terrified silence. Blurr was starting to fidget, his gaze flitting back and forth between the two of them, awaiting some sort of an explanation to the fear that was tangible in the air.
"'Race? What's going on? You both look like you just saw Unicron himself, what's the matter? Was there someone on the comms, do I have a scraplet on my back, what's the problem? Someone?"
Nightracer glanced between the two bots, her expression stonily blank as she attempted to mask the terror in her spark. It would seem her running had come to an unexpected end. Half a vorn she'd managed to stay alive on the List. She ought to be proud, most didn't even last half an orn.
"Get the ship working, Blurr, then get as far away from Cybertron as you possibly can."
"You're not seriously just going to hand yourself in?" Hook asked incredulously, "The femme's as good as dead already."
Blurr's azure optics widened and he started vibrating with his unanswered questions, "Wait, hand yourself in? To who, where, why? What's going on? Who's as good as dead?"
"That was Tarn on the comms." Nightracer explained. "They took Lickety-Split. I'm going to get her back."
"Are you completely glitched?! If you think for one astrocsecond I'm gonna let you run off and commit suicide for no good reason at all, you're crazy. There's no way the DJD's actually going to honor their word and let her go if they offered your life for hers, they'll just slaughter you both when you get there and you won't be able to do anything to stop them!" Blurr picked her up by her shoulders as she tried to push past him, setting her down in the middle of the room faster than she could blink. "You are not gonna go and off yourself."
Nightracer jerked out of his grip with a growl that she hoped didn't sound as shaky to them as it did to her own audials. "You can't stop me. T-they never would have taken her if it weren't for me. She risked her spark to help me, and I'm a worse monster than they are if I don't try to get her back."
The light blue speedster looked ready to object, but after locking optics with her for a moment, he crossed his arms and huffed, then zipped out of the room. Returning half a klick later, the mech nodded, "Fine, let's go then, where are they keeping her? We'll go in and get her and bring you both back alive or die painful, torturous, and no doubt prolonged deaths together because that's what friends do."
The young clone smiled a broken little smile. And with that broken little smile, a piece of her broken little spark seemed to shatter inside of her.
"I-I'm going alone."
Somehow knowing that the mech would rush forward to try to stop her, to persuade her otherwise, to make her change her mind, she reached up a servo in perfect time to press her servos to his lips, silencing the unintelligibly fast protests before they came. She shook her helm gently, looking into his optics, pleading for him to understand.
"I'm going alone." She repeated quietly, "And I'm turning myself in. Spark for a spark, her life for mine. A rescue i-is out of the question."
"You aren't-"
She steeled herself, her engine letting out a low growl. "As the previously declared captain of this vessel, I o-order you to stay here. I order you to live."
Not waiting to hear some form of further protest, the clone left the room, flinging the revolving door spinning behind her. She hugged herself tightly, stopping by storage to throw a med-kit in her subspace. Pulling out her golden rifles, the femme latched them on her waist for quicker access and ran. She needed to hurry; every astrosecond she wasted could bring Lickety-Split to her death.
Nightracer stepped out into the cold night air with a sigh. Or was it morning? The dark gloom over Cybertron never changed. The distant stars shone dimly amidst the thick pall of smoke, smoke from burned dreams, shattered sparks, and ashen hopes: the trademark of this dead world they still called home.
Her spark felt like a dead weight in her chest, her t-cog heavy. For the first time in almost a quartex, the sniper transformed into her sleek alt-mode, her stiff frame rattling with pain from the lack of use. Her joints flared sharply as they bent in ways they hadn't for far too long.
The femme didn't pause to admire her reflection, or to revel in the pleasure of being back in her vehicle mode again.
She had a deadline to meet. In far too literal a sense for comfort.
The Peaceful Tyranny
Sing me to sleep, my lord,
Sing my spark to sleep.
Feel my life-blood seeping out,
Feel my essence drifting down
To the Well
Sing me to the Well…
The femme snorted at the irony of her processors half-delusional thoughts, her static-filled vocalizers feebly humming along to the Orchestrations of Tarn song that she'd always been fond of. The lyrics suddenly made far too much sense in her mind, and in her pain-blurred processors it was downright hilarious.
She used to like the Orchestrations.
Now that she was living them, Lickety-Split found that much like everything to do with the mech, the soft, eerie melodies that would ease her to recharge held a much deadlier meaning.
Her arms and pedes were shredded almost beyond recognition. What little of her civilian-grade armor that remained was cold slag, melted out of shape and digging into her protoform. Tarn had restrained Vos from making her wear his face, but the mech had of course found other ways to join in causing her pain.
The bots of the Decepticon Justice Division were anything if not creative in their methods.
Ease this agony, my lord,
Ease my pain away
Wipe the coolant from my optics
Wipe the screaming from my vocs
With your song
Sing me to the Well…
The little beige and orange waitress continued humming the gentle, lullaby-like tune, her optics shuttered to the world, her tortured imagination thinking the drips of her own life fluids seemed to fit the beat quite perfectly. She wondered at her sanity, singing the compositions of the very mech responsible for the all-consuming agony searing through her numb frame.
Feeling had long since left her arms and the whole right side of her frame from helm to pede was icy and tingly with numb pain. She couldn't move that side of her face, and she hadn't tried to move any part of her frame for what felt like an eternity.
At her pedes, the spark-eater turbo-fox was curled up contentedly, it razor denta clamped down on her left foot, its bushy, layered tail wrapped around her pedes. The creature was in a light recharge now, and periodically in its sleep it would snarl and gnaw half-sparkedly on her ankle joint, which the fox had dislocated a while ago.
Her life-En and coolant was caked all over the creature's armor in a gruesome mess and it was laying in a large pool of her fluids, but it showed no indication of minding.
"Interesting choice of melody." The flat tone touched her audials.
Lickety-Split forced her optics open, cringing away with a startled whimper as she found herself staring straight into two perfect black holes. She vaguely registered the now gentle buzz of electricity in the air around her, sparking slightly as her EM field collided with his super-charged one.
"He will soon enough, femme."
She didn't even have the energy to respond in any way to the red and orange mech. She couldn't get herself to look away from those abysmal optics. It was as though she could feel her spark being drawn into their endless void as though the Pit itself lay behind them.
Kaon walked behind her casually, laying his hands on her shoulders and leaning in close so that his lips were directly beside her audial. The burn of electrical current coursing from his hands into her made her stubbornly pulsing spark flutter painfully in its chamber, but she knew he wasn't even trying yet.
"Your friend is on her way to rescue you as we speak." The mech sent a stronger jolt through her, tearing a scream from her convulsions. "She will be unsuccessful, but it's the thought that counts, is it not?"
The femme shrieked, feeling the blessed embrace of darkness wrap through her consciousness again.
Sing me to sleep, my lord,
Sing my spark to the Well…
Nightracer stood at the coordinates the leader of her execution band had supplied. The femme shivered, but not from the cold breeze blowing through her armor. Her forlorn figure was perfectly silhouetted in the dim moonlight as she looked around the scrapyard her journey had brought her to.
Above her loomed the massive, dark, thorny shape of their ship.
Fate had a strange sense of humor, and the universe was laughing along with it. Too bad her life was the joke. Maybe she was a killjoy, but she wasn't much amused.
Perhaps when she was one with the Allspark, she'd see the bright side.
Because there was absolutely no way she would survive this. Then again, that was the conclusion she'd come to, and reminded herself of every rotation since she killed Bludgeon on that cliff what felt like eons ago now. Yet here she stood beneath the Peaceful Tyranny, telling herself once again that there was no way she would survive this.
She was getting rather tired of telling herself that.
Nightracer cocked her helm at a heavy thud from behind her, startling her slightly, causing the sniper to whirl around. Instinctively the femme fired rifles she hadn't even realized she'd drawn.
The shadowed figure grunted lightly, then laughed. "Tarn said ya might do that if I came up behind ya."
The sand-colored colossus stepped into the light, reaching up with a hand to touch the chipped edge of the red 'x' over his face plate. Just above his spark, the mech's armor now sported a smallish dent. Other than that, her signature tactic of aiming for optics and spark had failed completely, causing him only aesthetic harm, possibly bruising protoform slightly.
"Predictable aim for a Nightracer model."
Her optics narrowed slightly in confusion at his wording. He spoke almost as though he had encountered her before. Or more accurately, another clone of the legend.
"Where is she?"
Tesarus merely grunted at her, apparently deeming that he'd spoken to her enough for the cycle. She shifted nervously, her armor tightly pressed to her frame. Nightracer fought for a klick with her own terror and fighting protocols, then put her rifles back on her hips.
A short while passed in silence before a loud howl pierced the cold air and before she could even react to the sound, her dorsal plates hit the hard ground, a heavy weight over her spark.
Acid dripped from the creature's jowls, hissing as it splashed on her armor, the massive thing standing over her frame, spitting and snarling into her face. It glanced up briefly at a quiet clap that she almost couldn't hear over the sounds of its growling engine, but the rabid turbo-fox leapt off of her to pad over to Kaon.
She sat up swiftly, swiping the creature's saliva from her face as she sprung to her pedes, watching the rest of the DJD approach with understandable fear and wariness in her large ruby optics. Her gaze locked onto Lickety-Split and her spark twinged with pain at the sight of the bubbly young waitress so harmed.
Her engine growled quietly in her frame, rumbling up through her only to be stopped in her chest, held back by her fear. "H-How can I be sure you w-won't…."
"Kill her now that you have been so kind as to come out of hiding?" Tarn queried, coming forward with the waitress cradled almost gently in his arms. So contrary to the knowledge that he was responsible for her injuries. "Why, I am offended that you should suggest such a thing."
Nightracer cringed as a harsh clicking and shrilling sound came from somewhere to Tarn's left, vaguely resembling some form of speech. The teal and charcoal femme peered into the dim light behind the leader of the DJD, trying to view the source of the noise. Her servos brushed subconsciously against her gun, lightly fingering the trigger.
"Oh, where are my manners? I do not believe you and Vos have had the pleasure of meeting yet." The badge-faced tank gestured another mech forward.
The lithe, slight framed mech moved as indicated, inclining his masked helm towards her politely, emitting more of the unintelligible speech. Tarn translated for him, "Vos says it will be a pleasure to… ah, make your acquaintance, Nightracer."
"We are mechs of our word: Lickety-Split will not be further harmed." The massive purple mech continued coolly as his team casually formed a circle around her. "I am assuming your fellow transgressors are nearby or on their way, so you needn't worry about our leaving her here. Come, Nightracer, we have much to discuss."
She raised her helm, a blank expression on her face, though her optics shone with a terrified defiance. In spite of the cold weight of doom in her spark, the femme followed her executioners to their ship with her helm held high. This way they had not won. This way she was doing something good in her death, not simply meeting her end in some alley, leaking out, crying for fear of being pursued.
She stepped toward the round panel beneath the ship where the group stopped, hesitating for a moment to cast her gaze about the ruins one last time, knowing fully well that once she set foot on that ship she would never see the dark of day again. In the state their world was in, she could hardly call it light.
In that moment of hesitation, the teal and charcoal sniper saw a glint of lime green dart between stacks of rubble, a sudden breeze sweeping past her faceplates.
No… She thought, a gleam of desperation in her optics, They'll kill them, they can't be here, they're the only friends I have left…
The sniper whispered a plea to Primus to preserve them. There was nothing she could do from here, with Helex's hand literally on her shoulder. She tried not to think about the uncomfortable warmth radiating behind her from the mech's smelter chassis. She especially tried not to think of the fact that when he transformed to use it properly, that smelter was hot enough to melt a point one percenter's armor.
Lickety-Split's limp frame seemed to disappear into thin air from where Tarn had set ever so deceitfully gently on the ground, being so generous to have placed a pillow from his subspace beneath her dented helm.
Helex's massive hand on her shoulder tightened its grip, one of his smaller arms wrapping around her waist and holding her firmly enough that she heard her armor groan against the pressure, his other three hands now drawing weapons.
He looked down at the trembling femme pinned to his scalding hot chassis. "Cozy?"
Nightracer hissed at him in reply, struggling futilely against his grasp. Blurr appeared directly in front of her, tugged at her hand for a moment, then squealed like a sparkling and ran as soon as Helex growled. The purple and tan living furnace chuckled at the less than dignified retreat of the Autobot speedster.
Nevertheless, the knowledge of a rescue attempt being underway sparked a new hope in the femme and she begun scratching at the tan appendage pinning her to the fire. It didn't take long for her to realize that it was a futile effort. She shook the metal shavings from her claws and snarled, slamming her heel into his side out of sheer, frustrated spite.
The action irritated the mech, making him cuff her upside the helm with the butt of his blaster with his other small hand, then slap her again with one of the larger main hands. She took advantage of his blows instantly, feigning unconsciousness, letting her frame go limp in his grip, while surreptitiously reaching her hand towards her waist, where one of her rifles was just barely free from the mech's hold.
Her spark pulsed rapidly in its chamber and the clone hoped with all her might that Helex wouldn't feel its terrified, clearly conscious, throbbing.
With her optics offline, she couldn't see what was going on, and her sensors seemed to be being jammed by some sort of signal, or perhaps Kaon's mere presence charged the air enough to fill all her readings with a haze of static. The DJD mechs were shouting at each other and their targets alike, and she could hear Vos cackling like a madmech.
Tarn alone was silent.
A scream rent the air, this time of pain rather than terror. It took all of her will to keep her optics offlined. She didn't even dare to send out a comm. A rush of wind blew past her, rattling her limp armor. It didn't feel as though Helex had moved at all, he seemed to simply be standing by the ship, firing lazily from a distance to ensure that the speedster didn't take her.
Even the DJD knew not to underestimate speedsters. What they lacked in strength and durability, they more than made up for with enhanced processors and raw, unbridled speed.
Life-En dripped onto her dangling helm, startling the charcoal sniper, nearly making her lose hold of her newly acquired rifle. He'd actually hurt the mech. Blurr had actually injured one of the Justice. In spite of her fear, the femme grinned behind her mask, which she'd elected to keep raised to hide her fear from them.
They could be hurt.
She expanded her EM field, knowing Helex didn't even consider her the slightest risk. Murder radiated from the mech, enraged by Blurr's persistent passing jabs as he raced around them in a blue blur.
Nightracer wrapped her servo around the cool metal of her gold rifle, securing her grip around the trigger and steeling herself for an action that could very well get her killed. Not that she wasn't going to die either way.
Like she'd thought, when she drew herself upright, her captor paid no heed to her.
She blasted the mech's neck, watching in awe as the bullet embedded itself in one of the weakest points of armor in a bot's frame, piercing through, but not reaching any vital lines. A tiny rivulet of life-En rolled from the hole and no more.
"Hey! Glitch-face!"
Her taunts and shot drew the mech's furious gaze down to her and he opened his mouth to roar some sort of insult, but she didn't give him the chance, firing an incendiary shot into his mouth as soon as it opened.
An ordinary mech would've found his helm in a million pieces, but Helex merely howled, dropping the femme in his arms like hot coals and roaring, for a brief moment seeming like one of the Predacons of legend, breathing fire and fury and destruction.
The gray sniper didn't hesitate, running for her life without so much as a glance behind her. Maybe she was a coward, but she'd rather be that than dead. Her run for freedom was cut short by a burst of harsh clicking and static, a dark frame wrapping around her and knocking her to the ground with a muted cry. The mech clambered over her and let out another string of the strange language that he spoke, rolling her over onto her back. She watched in horror as he began to remove his faceplate, revealing the inside of it lined with corkscrews, needles, blades, and an assortment of drills.
Vos gave her a feral grin, leaning closer to her, brandishing the lethal mask.
She fought, squirming and kicking as much as she could, but the mech didn't budge, his weight pinning her pedes to the ground and her arms turned under her frame at a painful angle. The femme cried out in fear as he brought the faceplate close enough that she could hear the whirring of its mechanisms, feel the vibrations through the air, see the life-En and rust of the last victim still embedded in the tiny crevices.
Some legend you are. A cruel, unafraid and unaffected part of her mind scoffed, You've lasted what, two klicks? Even the Autobot and the merc are better than you. If it had been one of them, you wouldn't have come, cause you're a coward.
"That's not true!" Nightracer screamed, throwing her frame to the side with all her might, biting back a second scream as the action tore her arm out of alignment. Vos stumbled for a split second, long enough for her to land a sharp kick to his unprotected face before running again.
This time the femme transformed, speeding off in her alt-mode amid heavy fire from the DJD. She careened around an eruption from a missile launched her way from Tesarus.
A niggling feeling of unease brushed her spark as Blurr appeared at her side, jogging at what appeared to be a leisurely pace alongside her speeding alt-mode. He seemed to be favouring one pede, but he was moving too quickly for her to see why.
/Hook's a couple hics off, in a safe location out of their sensor range with the waitress. We'll rendezvous with them, then head home./ Her unease grew as the Autobot went on flippantly, /Told you it'd all work out, I mean really, all this fuss is over these guys? I've been in battles with Megatron and we've gone up against Overlord, these guys are small fry in comparison. Pit, I think we could probably have hung around a little longer!/
She shuddered at the mech's foolishness. Such thinking would get them all killed.
/They let us go, Blurr./ Nightracer's engine rumbled, then groaned in objection to the strain she was putting on it so soon after being repaired. She pushed herself harder anyway, wanting as much distance between her and the Decepticon Justice Division as possible. /Don't you think otherwise for even and astrosecond. They let us go. I don't know why, or for what purpose, but they let us go./
The Peaceful Tyranny
Tarn looked out over the bleak landscape and gave a little sigh for what Cybertron had become. The Decepticons had not yet won, but he knew that they would. All in good time.
He glanced over at Vos' hissing and clacking voice, cocking his helm minutely. "It does seem unusual letting them go, does it not?"
"We've been tracking her for quartex, and she walks into our hands and you let her go." Kaon stated, his empty optics somehow bearing a sense of displeasure in their void. "Why?"
Helex grunted in agreement, "She came right to us."
The leader of the Division smirked behind his mask, shaking his helm at his comrades. His comrades, his troops, his weapons. He stepped away from the small gathering they had made around him, clasping his servos behind his back and gazing thoughtfully in the direction they had fled. The shadows seemed to caress his frame with their cool touch, drawing him forward, begging him to bathe them in the life-En of the traitors and Autobots.
Traitors of their people, of their cause.
"Don't you see?" It was so very clear to him. Perhaps only he was enlightened enough to see it. The others remained too thoroughly steeped in the present, in the physical. No, that was not enough. To let the traitors by with mere agony was not enough. "What is the point of harming, maiming, and slaying, if they do not break?"
He could feel that he had their full attention. Good, very good. They all needed a lesson in Justice from time to time. Some lessons easier learned than others.
"She came to us willingly. She has lost all hope, so that to kill her would be a release."
"The other Nightracer models were stronger than this one." Tesarus grumbled, prodding absently at a little bit of blue metal damp with life-En caught in his abdominal blades. "This one's weak, scared, insecure."
"Every spark has its facets." Kaon's cool tone replied, succinct as ever.
Tarn hummed softly in acknowledgement of their observations. "You see mechs, *if you want to break someone – mentally, physically, emotionally – wait until they're happy. Let them live and love and thrive. Once they recognize the value of a life well-lived…*"
Behind the insignia he wore as a mask, the mech smiled appreciatively, recalling the expressions of the bots he had so broken, "*That's when you move in for the kill. Because you can't take anything from someone who has nothing to lose*."
*Note* - this is a quote of Tarn, from the Tfwiki page, from "The Sun in Flight" teaser.
Also, I have a quick question for all you lovely people, just to make sure my readers are all in agreement, or at least mostly all in agreement: Should this story's rating be bumped up to M for violence? Cause the DJD is a major part of this story and will continue to be, and if you know anything about the DJD, violence is pretty much their forte and passion. And also anyone associated with the DJD is likely the same, as we saw with Overlord a couple chapters back.
Please do give your opinions on this!