C.M.D: Well, I'm back... Several months after the fact. Moving was... an adventure. Between unpacking, I've had to deal with: broken water heaters, leaking sinks, ruptured plumbing, delayed appliance deliveries, power outages... The list of problems just seem to keep growing, and honestly, it's supremely annoying. Creative work has been on a hold obviously. I wish I could say I was abundant in chapters, and that the kittycon/autodog artbook was available for release right now, alas, looks like it may be another month or two before it can be launched. I have to wrap up the colouring and compiling phase, then print a proof, before I make any big announcements. So, I'm off schedule (yet again) but not down for the count! In the meantime, please enjoy the little bit of writing I have managed to eke out in-between my IRL drama. :D
Title: Mainframe VI
Rating: M
Warning: Gore, violence, mild language
Agony.
"T-this... This isn't right."
Everything.
Bombshell paused, a hacksaw in one servo and a clump of metal in the other, giving the autodog a withering glower. "What the frag are you on, Brainstorm?," he demanded through his face shield, "'Cause it sure as slag ain't anything that I sold you."
Brainstorm glared back at the insectipuma. "I'm fully in control of my mental facilities, and a thousand times smarter than you, might I add," he snapped testily.
The squat mech just stared at the scientist for a long, uncomfortable moment before returning to his work with a shake of his helm. "Yeah, whatever."
"I'm serious!," the teal Wrecker shouted, wincing as Bombshell sawed away enough of the surrounding material to finally rip his handful free from the mess. The tervuren lashed out across the table, a servo snatching at the kittycon's wrist. "Stop that!"
Screaming.
Bombshell gave his arm a heavy shake, but the autodog's fingers were latched too tightly to his rubber gloves to be easily thrown off. Dropping his handful to the side, the narcotic dealer grabbed his lankier companion by the collar of his shirt, smearing energon and oil on the clothe as he pulled Brainstorm further across the table. "Stop what, mutt?," the puma snarled. "Yoketron gave me an order. Gave you an order. This is a job. I do mine, you do yours and we might actually get to go home alive this day."
Brainstorm bristled at the words, optics narrowing as he pressed closer to the other Wrecker; mindful of the stuff laid out underneath him. "He is not a job. He is Streetwise!," he rebutted loudly, releasing the kittycon to jab a pointed finger into his face shield accusatively, "He's been our coworker and friend for years now!"
Face twisting in slight disgust, the black mech shoved the tervuren away and onto the floor, readjusting his grip on the handsaw before plunging it into the open cavity on the table and aggressively cutting away once more. He shouldn't have been too surprised honestly when Brainstorm leaped back up shortly after, grabbing the blade with both servos and ripping the tool out of his grasp entirely. The puma slammed his fists against the table's edge, optics bright in outrage. "BRAINSTORM!"
"NO!," the scientist yelled in return, throwing the saw somewhere across the room from behind himself, "You can't do this. We can't do this! It's not right; he's not a danger to anyone. He's one of us, slaggit!"
"One of- Look at him, you fragging retard! Look at the so-called Cybertronian!," Bombshell demanded, gesturing wildly to the table's surface.
Unbidden, blue optics did slide down towards the slab, fuel tanks churning hard enough to make him purge. Laid out beneath the two arguing Wreckers, lay Streetwise -torn into pieces and smeared in his own unique blend of black and magenta fluids. The akita's limbs had already been removed earlier on from his torso, dismantled and the remains shoved into several boxes laying across the floor. Now his helm laid nearly a meter away from his chestplates, connected only by the gruesome string of spinal struts leading back through his gaping neck; torso split wide open and ravaged within, where the narcotics dealer had been ripping away internal segments indiscriminately. Even the cyborg's lower jaw was missing, along with its interior attached components, all the while crystal optics remained dimly lit.
Awake, yet unable to resist or make a sound.
"Does that look 'alive' to you?! Do you know any true Cybertronians who would even be conscious at this point, Brainstorm?," the puma continued with a snarl. His orange-gloved servos pointed to the mess around the room- even going so far as to grab the piece he had hacked free from Streetwise's abdomen and shake it towards the tervuren. "All these pieces -every single bit of scrap you see- it's all weaponry! Look, even this thing, right here in my servo- it's a fragging container of the special narcotics I made under Scorponok's direction, to subdue targets en masse or make them more complacent! There's a few others I had a servo in helping to manufacture, and there's another fragging component in here, that I don't even want to touch, which Oil Slick created. Do you get that now? There's no 'Streetwise' here; just a fragging doomsday machine of Scorponok's highest design!"
Agony.
"N...n-no," Brainstorm choked, trying to force his glossa to work through the nausea as he tore his gaze away from the sight of the brutalized akita, "N-no, you're w-wrong. I-i fixed him; I took a-away that part of him! He's still transbiological, he still has functioning parts like us. H-he's got a family and everything! He's not a threat to anyone now!"
Stop.
The kittycon lost any remaining composure that he held. "Not a THREAT?!," he bellowed, almost crushing the liquid-filled canister in his fist. "Having you finally gone off the fragging deep-end?! He nearly DESTROYED us when he first showed up, and you've spent years trying to study the full scope of his design to- WHAT!? Scorponok's coding is running rampant in him; you never got rid of that. At best, you've disabled his main weapons orders and convinced his programming to play 'nice' for a while! That's not fixed! You haven't got a slagging clue as to what you're doing with this hunk of reject tech and everyone else knows it, so stop trying to convince us that this freak's 'life' has any value and help me terminate it AS IS YOUR FRAGGING JOB!"
STOP.
Before Brainstorm could open his mouth to reply, an audio-splitting screeching erupted, nearly driving both Wreckers to their knees. Servos clasped tightly over his ears, the teal mech took a stumbling step toward the cyborg, tasting energon begin to pool in his mouth as his helm vibrated hard enough to rip in two. "ST-STREETWISE!," he attempted to scream over the mounting decibels, "STREETWISE, STOP! PLEASE!"
Bombshell's response was more tactful, a fumbling servo grabbing at an electrical prod to plunge into the cyborg's visible internals. He didn't get half as far though before several long, black tentacles unfurled from somewhere inside the prone mech, piercing through the puma's thick frame and hooking around his backside. The narcotics dealer's cries of pain couldn't even be heard now over the impenetrable wall of sound emitting from Streetwise; the black Wrecker lifted by those same barbed wires and slammed against the table's edge repeatedly. The tervuren released his own ears to dig through his pockets blindly, nearly collapsing himself as the insane screeching echoed down to his very processor, causing his visual pixels to disrupt in a million disjointed colours and a wetness to pool slowly around his optics. A wetness that Brainstorm was certain had nothing to do with coolant. Just as that little seed of fear was expanding rapidly into a large, knotted nest of thorns in his chestplates, the sound abruptly changed- a quick, unnatural high-pitched squeal of agony, followed by a deafening silence. Weakly, the scientist onlined his optics, finding himself kneeling on the floor.
More surprising than his sudden change of position was looking up and finding Sixshot glaring down at him from the side of Streetwise's slab. Black and magenta fluid splattered across the clone's usually so-pristine clothing; one servo practically drenched in the blend of colours, as he crushed shredded, black tentacles between his fist.
"H-how...?," the autodog mumbled through a numb mouth, still finding it difficult to collect his thoughts. Everything hurt, particularly inside. "B-bombshell-?"
"Alive," was all the snow leopard shared, his vocalizer cold and almost snappish.
Brainstorm cycled a rattling intake, unable to nod his helm at this time. "O-okay, I-i-"
Sixshot cut him off. "Up. Yoketron calls," he ordered, optics narrowing further.
This time, the scientist didn't speak, just painstakingly dragged himself up into a stand. The resulting wave of vertigo forced him to bend over and purge; noticing then through the shadows encroaching on his peripheral that Bombshell lay sprawled out on the lab floor. Energon trickled from several wounds but the puma still cycled intakes. On the table, Streetwise's helm laid twisted to the side, a sizeable dent in the plating and his torso cavity more ravaged than it had been a klik before. Brainstorm dry-heaved on the guilt that flooded his frame.
"Quickly," the large kittycon urged from behind him.
There was no time for tears. Pushing down his pain, and everything else, Brainstorm slowly began the long shuffle towards the door and upstairs.
xxXxXxx
This couldn't be happening.
The computer's screen transformed from blue to a more glaring white; the millions of glyphs rolled into the distinct shape of a face. A facade that mimicked that of Streetwise's own features and was now glaring down at the cocker collie with empty sockets. Mainframe could only stare back.
"Pathetic," the ghostly visage hissed. "Tortured endlessly for cycles and who should I find holding the knife? You. A pitiful weakling who understands not the forces he plays with."
His processor was still trying to make sense of what was unfolding at this moment; mouth gaping silent phrases to the air. His emotions were equally as scattered as his thoughts. Should Mainframe be ecstatic at this sudden birth, of what seemed to be advanced Artificial Intelligence? It was a life-changing breakthrough to be sure! Yet... it carried the akita's features and it spoke with no kindness in its tone. That last statement especially caused the programmer to flinch.
"Tor- No, n-no, I've n-never," he finally croaked, leaning against the console, "Never h-hurt anyone! A-anything! Y-you're... you're just a program anyhow; a-a set of letters and numbers. Y-you, you were made b-by Cybertronians! W-why you look like that one t-though..."
"I was made by no mere Cybertronian!," the computer suddenly shouted, alarming Mainframe to the point that he fell backwards in a poor attempt to flee. The lights darkened to a frightening red, static cutting across the monitor in sporadic bursts. "I was constructed by the great and powerful Scorponok; I am the instrument of his illustrious vision and there is no force upon this world that shall impede my purpose."
The autodog inched himself into a stand, clutching at his chair for support. "I-i don't understand... W-what 'purpose'?," he hesitantly asked.
The Streetwise copy only looked down upon him coolly; behind Mainframe, he heard the gears shift in his office door. Thundering loudly in the sudden silence as they locked themselves. Panic set in at once. The programmer rushed the console immediately, his fingers flying across the keyboard- all to no avail. Nothing, not a single reaction, came from the computer. He couldn't input anything, not even to code-force shut down! Light shifted above him.
"A waste of time," the A.I intoned, calmer now than it had been moments ago. "As I told you, you have no power here. But please, continue. Your desperation amuses me."
The reality of what he had done was finally starting to sink in and coolant welled to the cocker collie's optics as his terror grew. He had placed an unknown data drive into his highly-sensitive, class-A super research computer. A CPU that had phenomenal power at its possession- power that now laid in the servos of a complex A.I with cruel motivations. He had disregarded every sanctioned rule of programming and cyber-security and allowed this rogue monstrosity to take over the Science Department's main network. And for what?! Curiousity? Dissatisfaction? Mainframe was seconds away from sobbing unabashedly, as he continued to slam at a dead keyboard. He had to shut this thing down and he had to do right now!
"Predictable," the cyber-doppelganger sneered, its vocalizer echoing over the red mech's pounding pedes as he ran further into the lab. Mainframe attempted to throw open the cages to the servers but the moment he touched one, it came alive with electricity, throwing the autodog back with an agonized scream.
It took him several lengthy moments before he could think through the pain enough, clutching his trembling arm close to his torso as he gazed all around his giant office from his spot on the floor. It did not escape his notice that every available security camera was pinpointed in his direction. "S-streetwise, p-please...," he whimpered, delirious.
The servers' lights all flashed into blinding red, appearing as if a thousand pairs of optics were glaring out of the darkness all around Mainframe. "I. AM. NOT. STREETWISE," the vocalizer snarled, the entire room trembling with the force of its intensity. "Stupid mortal. You believe you have the fortitude to withstand me -control me- and yet you fail to grasp what I truly am. I know whose name you pin me with. A failure. Waste of scrap. It will be terminated soon enough for its' shortcomings."
Blue optics onlined weakly beneath his visor, rolling over and onto his knees. Every inch of his neural net was on fire still, and he muffled a sob as the pain spiked with his motions, but he couldn't lay there upon the ground any longer. He was in danger if he remained here any longer; everybody in this city was at risk! Streetwise particularly, the real Streetwise. His helm began to ache as his processor worked away, flitting through thoughts and fears lightning quick as he tried to come to a resolution and fast. Frantically, his optics landed on the fire safety box bolted on the west-facing wall, a rare spot of clear space among the sea of tech.
"Still struggling, are we?," the A.I spoke, its earlier temper having faded again. Without the rage, it sounded less Cybertronian; cold and thoughtless, and capable of unheard of atrocities in that soft-spoken, staticky monotone. Cameras followed Mainframe's whining climb to his pedes, lenses zooming as he limped for the security case and slammed his fist against it until the glass shattered. "Mortals are so burdened with choice; they cannot simply lay back and die when they are clearly beaten. You are the weakest of your kind -physically and mentally- so why waste the effort?"
The cocker collie ignored the taunts, sweeping away jagged bits of glass and pulling the small hand hatchet out of the case. He cradled it, awkwardly, between shaking servos, turning and facing the rest of his office once more. As he did, the same electric energy came to life, dancing across the metal cages containing all of the servers. The intensity of the surge of energy was akin to staring into the sun. Mainframe threw a servo up over his face as he was blinded, wailing in silent despair as he realized his plan was useless. There was no way he could destroy the servers or cut off their power supply now!
Think, the red mech yelled at himself internally, THINK! BEFORE THIS THING GETS OUT!
"I see you've finally realized the futility of your mere existence," the cyber-being said, in reaction to the programmer's ears perking up. "I'd congratulate you on this rare moment of intuition, alas, it is- What are you doing?!"
Mainframe ignored the speakers bellowing at his backside, ripping the small panel off the floor and staring into the highway of wires running underneath. Nestled in a nest of black and red cords sat an innocuous-looking box; small LED lights lit green upon its face. The programmer didn't even think twice about what he was doing. He swung his arm back and threw the hatchet into the narrow space, hearing it thunk in place before the entire room erupted in a cacophony of unnatural shrieks. Ears flattened and frame shaking, Mainframe reached into the dark access tunnel, yanking the miniature axe free from the now-smoking box and giving it a couple more violent and jerky hacks. It was spitting flickers of light and acid when he finished, the lights faded to a dark grey as it stopped functioning.
"HOW DARE YOU?!," the A.I screamed in audio-deafening frequencies, its words cutting out for pure white noise on certain syllables.
A hundred cables lunged out of the darkness like cobras, snatching Mainframe's limbs and ripping him away from the hole in the floor. He writhed in terror, screaming, but he could not escape their clutching grasp and was dragged through the lab back to the super computer. The screen had bled to a full, dark red now, the glyphs an inky black upon its face. The mask of Streetwise the coded doppelganger wore was twisted, barely holding any resemblance to the person it tried to imitate any more.
"Yoooouuuu...," the unCybertronian vocalizer growled.
His hysteria grew as the cocker collie watched, trapped in place, while the walls around the super computer began to crack and crumble. Wires and cables, and anything tube-like, burst forth from the concrete bedding; punching out from the console's dash as well, and spilling along the floor like oily internals. As quickly as they had broken free, they were wriggling and curling, building around each other to create two monstrous limbs, slamming their 'servos' on either side of the programmer, leaving coolant fluid and sparks to shower along the tiles as they did. The worse though, was the corrupted code continuing to morph on the monitor; twisting and fading into astroseconds of glitched visuals as they somehow pushed forward and out from the screen. Now, Mainframe lay beneath the hulking maw of some cybernetic Frankenstein and it felt as though his spark might just burn out right then and there.
"How heroic you must feel," it hissed, all pre-text of faking Cybertronian dialect gone. "Pulling that little stunt, cutting off my access to the outside world. A mere delay, I assure you. The will of Scorponok will prevail. He. Is. Inevitable."
Electricity arched from the makeshift creature's corded fingers, striking Mainframe caught between their path and electrocuting him down to his piping. Everything exploded into black as he screamed, the sound of laughter chasing him down into the darkness.
xxXxXxx
He couldn't believe this was happening.
Brainstorm sat, in a hard-backed armless chair, out in the hall of the Wreckers' headquarters, waiting, as if he was a student summoned to the principal's office for misbehaviour. It was both demeaning and a waste of valuable time. But what was he going to do? Go back downstairs to Streetwise's mangled frame? Go home and wash his servos of this place? On both accounts, he was sure that Sixshot would intercept him and drag his beaten-up frame back to this desolate hallway and this uncomfortable chair. Irritably, he began to bounce a knee as a means of distraction, only to grasp his helm with one servo part-way through. Primus, it felt as if his whole brain module was swollen within!
"In pain, Brainstorm?"
The question caught the tervuren by surprise; regretfully, he snapped his helm upwards, clutching it anew as fresh agony ran over his sensory grid. "F-finally... t-took your ancient aft l-long enough to get here," he spat.
The kai ken merely smiled at the weak barb, though his companions looked less than pleased with the teal mech's attitude. "There were matters requiring my immediate attention," Yoketron replied, setting his cane firmly on the ground before himself.
Brainstorm scoffed. "You always have fragging 'matters to attend to'. It's just an excuse not to get your own servos dirty!"
"Watch your tone, Brainstorm!," Soundblaster piped up huffily. "Master Yoketron has-"
Sixshot cut the persian off with a glare, as the old autodog silently vented. "You are having difficulty with the task at hand. This is an unusual lapse of judgment in you, Brainstorm," Yoketron continued, as though there had been no other exchanges since he first spoke. "You, particularly, should know of the risks involved."
The teal mech glared at the nonchalant kai ken, standing to his pedes in anger. "Don't you start that slag with me, Yoketron! Of course I know of all risks and dangers therein; how fragging dare you imply that I'm just some pede-licking Yes-mech, like Soundblaster over here?! I was the one that got Streetwise under control; I am the only one that's made the most notes of his creation and reverse-engineered hundreds of tech from Scorponok's designs. I know exactly what Streetwise is capable of and who he is! DON'T YOU FRAGGING TALK DOWN TO ME!"
Sixshot was the only one this time who took a step forward, looming over the scientist imposingly. Maddened by emotional turmoil and his pounding processor-ache, Brainstorm only looked back up at the snow leopard, throwing his arms out in challenge.
"Bring it, snow clone!," he shouted in provocation.
Yoketron only raised his cane, holding the thin staff between the two Wreckers as signal to settle down. "This was always the most likely outcome, Brainstorm," the older mech said to the tervuren. As cutting as his words were, his tone remained its characteristic softness. "You know this. Still, you've become attached. That was never the intention behind you overseeing Streetwise's maintenance."
Brainstorm didn't know what was worse. Being talked down to as though he was a sparkling, or having the head of the Elite Guard's spy network still referring to the cyborg as though he was a real Cybertronian.
If Yoketron knew what the scientist was thinking (and he had an uncanny ability of being able to glean others' thoughts often) he didn't remark on it. Instead, he set his cane back under his two folded palms, a thumb tapping minutely at the beak of the handle's carved bird. "It seems as though your hesitancy was warranted this time. Streetwise has not gone rogue."
Dumbfounded silence fell then, all attention on the old autodog. Even Sixshot stared down at the older mech.
"Master Yoketron," Soundblaster was the first to speak up, "What are you saying? I don't-"
The kai ken merely offlined his optics. "Ironfist has confirmed it; Shockwave's readouts support it. Our Streetwise is not culprit for the sudden spike across our systems," he replied neutrally.
There was a flicker of relief... and then a tank-dropping crushing force as Brainstorm grasped the full meaning behind his employer's words. They had literally tortured an innocent mech, dehumanizing him beyond the cybernetic monstrosity that his frame had been twisted into, all for a precaution that now had no purpose. And there was a second, true aggressor running unchecked outside of their control. Another Streetwise. The tervuren gagged, slapping a servo against his mouthguard as though that would quell the nausea raging inside his tanks.
"A-a duplicate?," he wheezed, processor whirling as the teal mech tried to stop the shaking in his knees, "H-how would it-?"
He paused, staring wide-opticed at Yoketron as realization sunk in.
The head of the Wreckers onlined his optics slowly, looking straight into the other's optics. "Yes," he confirmed, his words intoned in a rare flatness. "Prepare yourself, Brainstorm."
Under the shock, horror was fast taking root.
xxXxXxx
He awoke, groggy and shaking in the after-shocks of unimaginable pain, confused by everything around him. More so, he could not recall what had led up to him feeling this way. Groaning, Mainframe slowly rolled over; his sounds quickly turning to a sharp yip as he jostled his left arm. Light shifted in the room; blearily, he turned to face the cracked monitor of a giant computer, a sigil of a scorpion tail formed in flowing binary upon its red glass.
"Awake, are we?," a bodiless vocalizer questioned, the smallest hint of amusement in its words.
The cocker collie choked, his glossa heavy and dry in his mouth. There was a taste akin to energon amidst his denta, resonating so strongly, that it almost overwhelmed his other senses. That alone was enough to pierce through the heavy fog engulfing his processor, bringing along with it the surge of memories. Optics flared, the autodog weakly tried to rise to his pedes; tripping and falling back to his knees as his limbs failed him. How badly he hurt all over...
"S-Street-," Mainframe began, cutting him off the same time that his corrupted monitor pulsed with a spike in energy.
"Not," the A.I hissed, the unknown logo vanishing to be replaced with image after image. Every single one was of the akita; recognizable to the cocker collie, as they were all stills salvaged from the department's private security system. The screenshots snapped up across the wide screen in rapid succession, faster and faster, as the monotone soured with the tell-tale notes of disgust. "You refer to that defunct contraption. The inadequate wreck who so blithely deigned to put itself above our master's will, allowing itself to be corrupted and modified by scum who refuse to accept their place among this world. Its' suffering will be paramount for its' transgressions."
The images finally stopped, landing on a clip from what felt like eons ago now. All the same, Mainframe cringed at the sight of his own frame illustrated on the computer, minuscule to the camera's optic at the time, while Streetwise straddled the prone programmer, caught in the throes of bliss.
"Your confusion is repulsively understandable. How easily you've succumbed to that broken junk," the cyber-doppelganger continued. "Such feeble mortal minds could not differentiate between perfection and the waste anyhow."
The programmer finally glanced away from the monitor, that foggy sensation flooding his processor again. He was struggling to stay on one mental track, especially with feelings of regret and guilt compounding in his spark. "W-why...?," he croaked, trying to coax his glossa into cooperating, "W-why are you d-doing this?"
It was quiet for a moment, the screen returning to its violent shade of red and that disturbing sigil.
"It is Scorponok's will."
The name did not register for Mainframe. Brow furrowed, he turned his face back to the computer, optics slowly surveying the damage he was now noticing throughout the room. Cracks and giant gaps littered the walls and ceilings; the entire computer console ripped apart from within and even a few of the servers tossed across the room, their bulky forms scattering mounds of wiring and fractured CPU pieces everywhere.
"W-who?," he asked, puzzled.
"The one true master of this planet," the A.I informed, the sigil upon the monitor flashing brightly as it spoke. "What he started over thirty stellar cycles ago, I shall bring to fruition. It is his legacy; the only path for this sickened planet."
He was certain now there was dried energon on his lip components and on his denta. Probably from gashes broken open as he was electrocuted. The cocker collie remembered that. "T...t-there w-was only the w-war, t-thirty stellar c-cyles ago. B-between kittycons a-and... and A-autodogs. T-there i-is no Scorpon... t-thing...," he struggled to say. The ache was growing stronger in his helm, his intakes rattling against some unseen force.
"Correction," the cruel vocalizer replied, "There was only Scorponok. Master, manipulator, visionary... Cybertron warred because he decreed it. In its turmoil, he set his foundations for a new future. There are those who brought the charade to an end, but the seeds are still in place. There is no stopping Scorponok."
This information was horrifying to hear, moreso because of the implications it also left behind. All of Cybertronian history -at least fifty stellar cycle now- were lies. And it seemed this unholy creation was set upon reigniting the machinations of its creator even after his passing. "Y-you...," Mainframe wheezed, optics squinting at the gigantic screen while shadows danced around the corners of his vision, "Y-you can't d-do that... Y-you are t-trapped here. Y-you have n-no body! T-the war is o-over!"
The screen flashed again. This time, it brought up a dozen different security feeds from across the entire building; rooms lit and machines moving without employee input. Disturbing to note, there were multiple frames seen across the different screens, prone individuals collapsed to the floor in random locations. Perceptor was most noticeable, curled up at the door to his lab as ghoulish concoctions boiled away in the various vats throughout his office. He looked practically dead, the programmer thought with sickening horror.
"On the contrary, I shall have a more mobile frame in a short time. Better than the one my predecessor was crafted with." The screens were beginning to darken now, leaving only a distorted face of binary upon the black glass. "I must thank you for giving me the means to make such a feat possible. I shall recycle your parts as reward once you have expired."
Mainframe opened his mouth in protest, breaking out into a violent fit of coughing. He hacked and hacked, intakes failing to recover and his spark withering in his chestplates as the tension only continued mounting. Eventually, he fell forwards across the floor, his coughing causing him to purge across the shattered tiles. Neon-bright energon glowed back up at him as the ache subsided for an astrosecond; panic wracking the red mech's entire frame as he noticed finally the little wisps of noxious gas floating across the surface of his energon.
"P-poison?!," he weakly gasped.
"Yes," the A.I spoke, and it sounded almost as though it were purring in delight that it's little trick had been found out. "I hope it's profoundly terrible upon your systems. The others haven't bothered waking since I began pumping it into the ducts an hour ago."
The cocker collie sobbed, feeling his intakes began to squeeze in horribly familiar agony as his dose of noxious gas became increasingly damaging upon his frame. He couldn't understand what was happening, or think of a solution to escape, or anything! This was a nightmare brought to life; a terror that he could have never thought true, let alone planned for. His death was imminent. By Primus, he didn't want to die!
"I-i...," Mainframe whispered, his final words nearly failing to vocalize as he sunk to the floor entirely, "'M s-sorry... So-sorry..."
Consciousness was fading away, a light curling over the edges of the blackness and piercing deep into his processor to his very spark below it seemed. Calling him... It was almost unsurprising when he felt fingers snatch around his arms, the dying autodog letting himself go completely lax in their grasp. Death had finally come to collect him.
It did not register to the programmer as the A.I howled in all-consuming rage while he was dragged away from this plane, its biting vocalizer shrieking a strange designation until the void abruptly swallowed it up.
C.M.D: Be kind; give me your mind~ REVIEW, please?