Trepan knew he was in trouble the moment the severed head of his original captor bumped into his shin, the lifeless eyes staring back into his, a precursor to his own fate.
He surely pissed off Overlord by escaping. Well, 'escape' may give too much credit to Trepan's ability to outsmart Overlord up until this point. Right now, he was pretty sure Overlord had let him run away. The behemoth always loved the thrill of the chase. But Overlord had grown bored of Trepan.
The mnemosurgeon had taught Overlord enough complete his original goals in mnemosurgery. He'd tried to delay Overlord's progression as much as possible, but Overlord was sharper than one would expect from a mech built to be nothing more than a weapon of genocide. The more times he tried to throw Overlord off, the more he was punished. Eventually, he stopped trying and finished teaching Overlord all he knew.
That's when he knew he was no use to Overlord anymore. And as rumours went, once you served your usefulness to him, you were thrown away.
Or even more brutish rumours had the victim eaten alive. Trepan hoped Overlord would have at least some mercy, if his helpfulness meant anything.
The heavy footsteps of the Phase Sixer announced his arrival before he could be seen, the mech cast in monstrous shadows that only distorted him more, his figure imposing in the light but red optics burning murderously in the shadows. The energon splattered on his chassis still glowed faintly, fresh energy of a recently slaughtered mech.
"How kind of the bounty hunter to wrap a present for me," his deep voice echoed through the small chamber, reverberating right through the chains that bound Trepan and rattling his body. Trepan didn't struggle; there was no reason to. Overlord had found him, and he never liked to leave loose ends.
That didn't stop him from pleading with his eyes, however futile, to perhaps spare him. Being gagged with a metal plate bolted to his mouth left little options in terms of changing the super-mech's mind. But he could try. He always wormed his way out of a situation.
"Shhh, none of that now," a smirk was plastered on those devilish lips as Overlord lowered himself to Trepan's level, face now cast in light. He placed a finger on the bolted lips, as though shushing Trepan, though the smaller mech never spoke. "Wouldn't want to ruin the surprise, now, would we?"
Trepan started to panic. He must've been displaying this on his face because that smirk morphed into a full toothy grin.
"It was quite fun, I must say… Hunting you down for the past orn. Really impressive, covering your tracks by erasing the minds of those you came across." He crushed each line of chains between his fingers until they warped and broke, falling from Trepan's body. "But it appears someone else wanted you just as much, and put a bounty on your head." He tsked.
"That won't do. This present belongs to me." At that, the last chain fell, and Trepan's first instinct was to run, but Overlord snagged him before he could make any move.
"And with presents, there's a gift held inside."
A finger on Overlord's free hand was wiggling its way under his left leg's white armour. Trepan stared confused, until there was pressure. Metal began to creak ominously as it increased, and warning signs popped onto Trepan's HUD. The cables supplying the armour with energon snapped, and the plating was ripped off.
Trepan jerked trying to yank his leg away but it was futile. It wasn't a major injury, as armour only had energon feeding into it to repair damage, but it still meant a drain in energon if left unchecked. There were safer ways to remove armour without damage, but ripping it off from its magnetic locks and severing cables?
Overlord set the plate of armour gingerly aside, unusually gentle for a beast of destruction. He repeated the process for the shin armour, splitting the metal with relative ease and then yanking it from the protoform, causing more pain and energon to spill. Trepan wailed, the sound muffled and pitiful. Trepan was never good with pain. He could barely stand Overlord's normal torture sessions, but this? This was a whole new level. But again, Overlord set the metal aside carefully. Through Trepan's wincing, he managed to ask the question via confusion on the face.
"Oh, I love preserving the wrapping paper, for future reuse," Overlord said this so casually, as if it were normal to technically skin a mech.
The process continued until Overlord had finished with both legs, protoform now indistinguishable from soft pink energon coating his legs. The pain was unbelievable, parts of protoform having been ripped off with his armour due to how it was welded on versus magnetization. The shaking of his legs left irregular splattering of his life fluids on the ground, painting a rather pretty canvas in Overlord's eyes.
"I always did have issues with getting the tape off of the paper without damaging it," he murmured, running a finger over one of Trepan's legs gently. Gentle didn't matter, though, as the protoform's sensors were tuned to register pain right now, and it spelled hell for Trepan as the finger left wide strokes of fire on his sensors.
And then Overlord proceeded to strip him all over again, on his arms. Trepan feared the worst when Overlord reached his wrists, the bands plucked easily from them, exposing the intricate circuitry that connected to delicate handiwork of his mnemosurgeon hands. But Overlord didn't continue further, curiously avoiding his hands and proceeding to dig into the armour of his torso instead.
Overlord was meticulous, leaving nothing to induce the most discomfort possible as he turned Trepan around to expose his back, detaching the cords that helped regulate his core temperature more easily with liquid energon. The valves depressurized on his back, letting out steam as a secondary but less efficient method of cooling. Overlord made a noise of interest, before pinching the valves and lifting.
Trepan honestly thought Overlord would take his spine with him, but after some generous tugging, the valves lifted, exposing the ports underneath that normally connected his cooling systems in a beautiful display of Primus' craftsmanship. This wasn't as painful as Trepan had thought, as it was meant to be disconnected more frequently for medical inspections, but it was still disconcerting to feel cool air sinking in further than protoform, into his very internals.
Overlord stroked his head, having maneuvered into a more comfortable position and guided Trepan into his lap. Trepan was limp, only able to twitch at this point, unable to output limb movement due to the constant overwhelming data being received from damage all over his body. He may have been an intelligent mech, but without something to cool him effectively, he risked overheating his processor if he tried to push it while handling this much data.
He knew this was the end. Why drag it on further by trying to flee again?
Overlord traced Trepan's helm, disturbingly intimate, a lover's touch. Mapping out his antennae, his goggles, his facial attributes, lightly with his fingers, before stopping at the metal panel binding his mouth shut. He wasn't so gentle with removing it, the bolts taking a portion of soft metal with it, and marring Trepan's face with damage that would require a metal transplant to fix. But Trepan was still able to bite his lips in pain, and grimace at Overlord.
"I think I know what the surprise is," Overlord whispered, ghosting his touch over the once piece of armour that still remained on Trepan's torso—his spark chamber.
Trepan's optics widened. Of course it would come to this.
"N-no…" he tried weakly, knowing it wouldn't help, but self-preservation required him to do it anyway.
"Yes," Overlord countered.
It wasn't hard to open his spark chamber. While the metal was more reinforced than the armour that Trepan once wore, Overlord was an unstoppable force, and it was an effortless task. Trepan could feel the fluids dropping from his optics, wetting his face. He could have just stayed with Overlord. He could have found ways to make himself more useful. He could have turned Overlord while his needles had been in his brain module. He could have—
Trepan abruptly let out a hoarse moan as Overlord touched him. Touched him. His very essence stroked by hands that have murdered billions without regret. His optics flared as his spark did, nearly white as physical contact was administered to the ball of energy.
He lifted his hands to grip at Overlord's arms. His hands, the only thing aside from his head that had been left wrapped. They didn't know what to do, to push away or to pull for more. They could only shake.
"It is as lovely as I anticipated," he murmured, stroking it and watching it bounce and swell in his hand, and in return, the charge began to build in Trepan's frame. Conducted and carried by the energon staining his protoform, static surged and crackled, illuminating his frame with an irregular current that contrasted against the colourless light of his spark. More energon squirted out as Trepan's frame began to move once again, damage reports fading in favour of this direct stimulation, the forefront of data being interpreted in his processor.
"I will thoroughly enjoy it." Trepan could only wonder what Overlord meant by that, and he opened his optics—wait, he couldn't open them. Despite it all, the panic was nil, pleasure overriding it. He felt something wet touch his core. He no longer registered the pain from his body, or the data flooding and taxing his brain, or the drain that was felt from depleting energon levels. It was like he was no longer in a body…
And then he was surrounded by wet heat, touched on all sides, and while it was suffocating, it was the strangest and greatest pleasure that had ever blessed his spark. Without anything to redirect the new energy formed by his spark due to these ministrations, it doubled back on himself and caused an overload that transcended physical form.
And through the midst of his overload, he felt the pressure on his spark increasing. Trepan understood now. This was the good ending.
.o
A/N: why did I write this