Tarantulas is in Overdose's grasp, but can the Maximals leave him
there?
Hasbro owns the Beast Wars, and I own Overdose and the plot. She's mine, ya hear?! MINE!...I think. Or maybe she owns me? Heh. Anyway, sorry this is so late, but there's this thing called "school" that loves to eat up all my time.
Compromises
by Lady Dementia
dementedangel@hotmail.com
* * * * *
Part One
Offline in the darkness of the CR Chamber, Depth Charge's body was being purged off the last of the dosage of poison Overdose had given him and the damage done when she had ripped out his commlink was being repaired. His mind was active despite the status of his body, but he felt only distantly connected to it. He didn't feel distressed by anything that was happening in the real world; he couldn't concentrate long enough to keep focused on anything. This soft darkness was calm and peaceful; deep in his mind nothing mattered, past, present, or future. It always felt like this, though, and so the beginning of the dream didn't seem unusual even though it was as unpleasant as his dreams usually were.
He was searching the ruins of Omicron.
Now the emotions that were missing in the soft darkness of his mind were back, burning through him as he desperately dug in the wreckage of gutted buildings and shattered homes. Hope rose again and again in him with each small trace of survivors, only to be dropped like a stone into despair. A hand reaching out from under a collapsed wall proved to be connected to nothing. He found what he thought was the rest of the body, torn as it was, on the remains of the roof. He held one poor spark in his arms as she gasped her last, tortured breath out. A brave couple had managed to make a stand in a dead end alley. The femme had collapsed across the male in death, a last protection.
The trail of death led to the center of the colony city, where the commons clearing's grass was slick with mingled water and mechfluid from the flooded, corpse-choked river winding through it. Depth Charge stumbled to a stunned halt at its edge, wondering if he had the courage to search for survivors here.
Something moved near the middle of the field, a monster, and he found that he didn't need to have courage. Vengeance cleared everything from his mind and left him coldly purposeful. NOTHING would stand in his way. Weapon in hand, he moved forward quickly and stealthily, no longer looking for any survivors.
A whisper of a female voice teased his audios like something heard from a great distance, making him hesitate in his mission. "When did you stop defending the innocent? When did they just become obstacles in your path of revenge?" Wide, colorful eyes blinked open near the bottom of a pile of contorted bodies, staring at him with no accusation, only childlike, curious sadness.
The field slipped away as he paused uncertainly; the monster escaped as he belatedly glanced around for any living creatures besides himself in the blood-soaked clearing. He recognized the owner of the whirling eyes too late as he knelt down beside her, recent memories piercing into the dream.
Overdose's face melted away with the rest of the setting, reforming again in a scowl of concentration as another scene solidified around them. She was holding some sort of neon pink bird-like writing utensil in one hand; the other was buried in the short fins on her head.
"What exactly is her hobby?" Blackarachnia asked from across the circle of Maximals and Predacons.
The robot she was talking to turned his attention away from the sea slug sitting in the sand filling out a questionnaire. Rampage laughed. "Torture."
The femme looked up from the clipboard as the other transformers blurred out of focus, looking straight into Depth Charge's staring optics, tilted eyes flaring with colors in that intriguing mix of innocence and crazed knowledge of the galaxy.
--a short scream as she collapsed against the one robot she called a friend on this world, and her fins pulsed with pain from the explosion HE had just inflicted on her as Rampage supported her--
--and she turned back around, without any sign of injury as she laughed excitedly. "You and Rampage?! I knew he'd find a boyfriend!" Her fins darkened and the rest of the dream faded away around them, leaving them suspended in darkness. "You should never trust me," she whispered menacingly, seductively, as she swayed towards him.
He was frozen, captured in the depths of those changing eyes. He could hear her speaking from the blackness surrounding them, although she was right in front of him and her lips didn't move at all. Then his voice came from the dark, too. Her computer also spoke, but he remained still, unable to turn away from the femme before him.
"He's the guy who put me in jail. I was starting to think I'd NEVER find him..."
"Nobody named 'Eightline' is on this planet. Does he have a different name, now?"
"Like, totally, dude. The bad dude's, like, named, like, Tarantulas, now."
Her body had blended into the dark now, leaving only her eyes, lit with color and suspended like jewels on black velvet. Depth Charge had the feeling that he was being touched by the night as her hand brushed the side of his face and those bewitching optics neared his face. A gentle pressure was on his mouth, and he knew that in her insanity she was kissing him again...and he was allowing her to. "I told you not to trust me," Overdose murmured, lips moving from his mouth to breath in his audios.
And he was being dragged away, away, AWAY from her, helpless to resist the force that was taking him away from her! But then the screams of pain began, echoing through the darkness until he, too, screamed; screamed with the memories of Omicron and the confusion he suffered now, while the emptiness somehow throbbed with the sounds of torment from tortured sparks, him included, and above them all came crazed, feminine laughter.
Laughter that was both innocent and insane.
* * * * *
She was dancing at the exotic bar, but this was the last dance of the night. The beings assembled on the floor below the stage clapped wildly, clutching their last drinks as she posed one final time, and one certain male caught her eye. Always one for any spur of the moment idea, she did a flip off the stage and landed in his lap. People applauded that, too, but she merely waved and grinned an acknowledgment, wriggling to get comfortable.
"Quite the show you put on," Blacklight purred in her audios, arms settling around her waist since she was so conveniently in his lap. "Hey!" he yelped, spoiling the mood of seduction he had been trying to establish as she swiped his drink off the table. He wasn't quick enough in his return attempt to steal it back, and she gulped it greedily, throwing back her head and pouring it down her throat to restore depleted liquids after her strenuous dancing.
She grinned slyly around the rim of the glass as he drew in a quick breath at the sight of her with her head tossed back in abandon, trickles of the drink escaping from the corners of her mouth and trailing down her smooth neck. Blacklight had come here to seduce her tonight, Overdose knew as she drank, but SHE was the one who was going to seduce HIM...HER way.
With that in mind, she came up for air, eyes sparkling with mischief over the top of the glass as she looked across it--
--into Depth Charge's optics. His arms were the ones around her now, and she was sitting in HIS lap, not Blacklight's. Come to think of it, she wasn't in the exotic dance bar any more. They were on a beach on the planet she had crashed on...
She blinked, taking the change of identity in stride, and decided that he'd do just as well. "That was an interesting trick," she said thoughtfully, rubbing the rim of the glass against her bottom lip as a childishly curious thought with a cunning twist took shape. She giggled. "Is there a way to get both of you here at once?"
"I don't know how you can stand this chaos," a voice that had recently become familiar interrupted whatever the manta ray had been about to say in return, disgust dripping from the words as the dark shadow suddenly loomed over the two sitting on the sand. "Everything changes so...ILLOGICALLY...and you love it." Venom sneered as Depth Charge melted away with the beach, leaving Overdose sitting cross-legged on a random swirl of thoughts and colors in the depths of her own sleeping mind. "You are delaying, insane one. I want my vengeance!"
"Why?" the finned femme asked innocently.
"Because of what that pathetic robot did to me...us."
Tilted eyes widened up at her. "Why?"
The purple symbol on the huge black robot's helmet seemed to develop an angry shimmer of dark light. "Because you didn't follow what LOGIC told you to do and ended up as a prisoner of the Predacon Secret Police as a result!"
Overdose seemed to think that over. "Why?" she asked again.
"Because the Tripedicus Council is smart enough to realize that they can exploit Cybertron even though the Maximal High Council is currently in control." Venom laughed unpleasantly. "An admirable idea, although they don't take it far enough for my taste."
"Why?"
"Because I prefer to kill anything that gets in my way, not try and scheme around it."
"Why?"
Venom gave the sea slug a strange look. The crazy femme was poking at one of her fins, not seeming to pay any attention to what her sane predecessor was saying. With Overdose, looks were often deceiving, but... "You're not going to distract me that easily," the deadly robot gritted out. "I want this...Tarantulas...to be tortured, and I want it NOW!"
Overdose smiled up at her. "Why?"
"Oh, wake up and get to work, you little fool!!" Venom watched the dominant mind in their body rise up towards reality, angered once again despite herself at the casual insanity of the colored female. She cursed under her breath, jaw clenching as she turned away from the infuriating sight of the chaos that surrounded her, entrapped her, contained her. "What are you looking at?!" she yelled at the distant dark blue and gold shadow that merely flashed a tiny, weary smile at the murderer's frustration.
Above them, Overdose laughed.
* * * * *
Optimus Primal looked down, his face serious as he studied the smaller form of the manta ray. He wasn't quite sure what to think of Depth Charge any more. Overdose's revelation of what he was truly like had shocked the Maximals, but Blackarachnia had quietly taken the Maximal leader aside and told him about what had the ray-bot had said to her in his quarters when she had confronted him. All that Overdose had said was true...but in forcing him to face that truth, she had somehow been made into a symbol of forgiveness by Depth Charge. Repentance for past deeds. He had disappeared from the base, refusing to acknowledge radio signals as he searched for the sea slug.
And now he had found her...and she had found someone else.
All of which was creating a confused image of what Depth Charge was really like in his mind. "You're sure she'll kill him?" he asked finally, putting aside questions of the ray's morals in favor of the immediate crisis.
Depth Charge nodded. "Most likely very slowly," he said grimly, "if what Rampage told us all about her hobby was correct." He hid a wince at the thought of what torture another 'bot could do to another; the memories of Omicron were still sickeningly clear in his mind. "We can't let her do that," he said after a moment.
"Eh! Why not? I ain't puttin' my life on da line for no Pred, and 'SPECIALLY not dat eight-eyed one." Rattrap crossed his arms and leaned against the wall beside him, eyes narrowed. "If dat crazy femme wants ta kill him, it ain't nothin' off my tail. If she's lookin' for volunteers ta try her hobby, I'm not gonna put myself in her way."
"Er...Big-Bot, she wouldn't really, uh, TORTURE Tarantulas, will she?" Cheetor looked at his leader for reassurance that someone who could laugh as much as Overdose did wasn't really the killer that she was being described as. "I mean, we can't let her do something like that, can we? He surrendered to us..." He looked down, guiltily aware that the spider had vanished while he was on guard.
"She'll do it," Blackarachnia said coldly, staring at Rattrap. "Have you ever seen what Tarantulas left of his live meals, Rattrap?" she said suddenly after a moment's silence. "I think you have. Maybe the next time I catch a rat, I'll come eat it in front of you, screaming and trying to get free the whole way down." Silverbolt put a hand on her shoulder, stopping her from stepping forward towards the Maximal rat. She looked up at him and sighed, then turned to face Rattrap again. He was looking a bit ill at the description of what her next prey might go through. "That's torture," Blackarachnia said, looking around at all of the Maximals, who stared back at her in surprise. "Do you want a fellow Cybertronian, even one like Tarantulas," she made a small face, " to go through that?"
"No," Depth Charge said, his voice solid with conviction.
Rattrap couldn't meet her eyes. "...nah, I guess not," he said softly.
"I abhor harming females, but more harm will come from this if we do not," Silverbolt said sadly, holding Blackarachnia close. "We must free Tarantulas."
"Yeah," Cheetor added slowly, but he wouldn't look anyone in the eyes. "I just...can't believe she's really like that. Overdose is just so ultra gear, you know?" He sighed heavily.
Optimus put one of his large hands on the cat's shoulder. "Even at her, uh, 'picnic', Rampage accompanied her," he told the face that looked up at him.
"But she wouldn't let him attack us..." Cheetor mumbled, and the other Maximals shifted uneasily, each disturbed by what Overdose was and had done since her arrival.
"Cornered animals are dangerous," Rhinox rumbled into the silence. "How are we going to get Tarantulas out alive? We can't go through the underwater tunnels you described, Depth Charge. We don't have aquatic beast modes." At the ray's helplessly frustrated shrug, he frowned. "You mentioned ventilation."
"Yeah. I could see the sky through the hole in the ceiling. I don't know if there were more..."
"It's a start," Optimus said decisively. "We can work from there. Maximals, move out!"
* * * * *
The small cave was dark, but the soft glow of the force shield across the entrance provided enough light for Tarantulas to desperately pick at the bonds around his ankles with his tied hands. Overdose had tied him hand and foot but hadn't tied his wrists behind his back in a move that would be foolish had this been normal circumstances. As it was, the knots were so tight they wouldn't unknot and the ropes were made of some sort of metal that wouldn't break, as hard as he tried. He had been trying for what seemed like a long time, but terror could have deceived his sense of time.
He almost gave up in despair as the loop he had been working at slipped from his fingers again, but a sudden loosening around his left ankle gave him a surge of hope. A couple moments more, and that loop was free, and he was following it around his right ankle. The rope was snugly secured in about six or seven figure-eight loops around his lower legs. He only had to undo five more!
With a nervous look at the mouth of the cave, Tarantulas concentrated on getting free, slowly but surely.
* * * * *
What are you doing NOW?!
"Making breakfast."
WHY--?!
"Because I still have a couple tacos left over." Overdose tested the oil she had poured into one of her ship's dented side panels in place of a conventional frying pan. It sizzled and popped over the heating coil she had rigged up, giving off a nose-numbing smell (she didn't seem to notice) as she poured in her 'batter'. Actually, she had just shredded the slightly stale remains of her picnic and blended it all together. It LOOKED kind of edible. "I mean, I don't really HAVE to eat, but since I don't have any energon and I don't feel like leaving home to find any, this makes the most sense, doesn't it?" She flipped the blob to its other side in the oil to fry. "Good source of energy with dozens of essential vitamins and minerals and all that."
Whatever. Just as long as you eventually get around to business.
A dark flurry of color crossed the sea slug's fins. "Oh, I will..." she crooned softly, but then her fins returned to normal. "...after breakfast, that is!" she added cheerfully.
"Dudtte? Are you, like, talking to me?"
"Hm?" Overdose blinked, glancing around. "Bob? No, I'm talking to one of the voices in my head. She's mean, but it'd be rude to ignore her, wouldn't it?" She tipped her head to one side, studying the cooking blob of food (in theory) intently.
A brief silence filled the caverns. Then, "Like, dudette? Are you, like, tripping?"
"Tripping?" She looked at her feet uncertainly. They certainly didn't LOOK tangled up in themselves. "I'm sitting down, Bob..."
"Like, dudette, I like meant did you take, like, those totally gnarly pills today?" The computer's voice was completely emotionless.
Snapping her fingers, Overdose leapt to her feet. "No! I haven't yet! Thanks for reminding me, Bob!...um, Bob?" She looked around the cluttered cavern uncertainly. "Where are you, anyway?"
"Like, dudette. Look up."
She did and found herself staring at her computer's plain gray form...on the ceiling. "How'd you get up there?" she asked.
"You, like, glued me up here, like, when you woke up, 'cause I was, like, getting on your nerves. Then you totally, like, started talking to yourself again, dudette. It's, like, a majorly bad habit."
"Is not."
"Like, it is."
Overdose directed a glare up at the computer. "Is NOT." She rummaged around on the junk-covered floor, eventually emerging with a pill bottle It went into the boiling oil, too, plastic bottle and all. "And how would YOU know, anyway?" Smoke began rising from the make-shift pan. Maybe she shouldn't have used motor oil to cook with...but, then again, she had used the last of her cooking oil in an engine. The thought that the switch of oils may have caused that engine's malfunction was quickly dismissed.
"Dudette, like, you told me so."
"When?"
"When you, like, woke up, dudette."
"Oh." The colorful femme lost interest as she caught sight of something sparkly further into the pile of junk. She promptly dove after it. It turned out to be a wad of some kind of sticky, shiny substance, which occupied much of her attention when she got her hands stuck in it. "Eee! It's GOT me!!" Overdose rolled across the cavern, narrowly missing her smoking cooking things as she fought with the gooey stuff.
* * * * *
His hands were still tied, but at least his legs were free. Tarantulas climbed to his feet and edged to the front of the small cave to look out the entrance cautiously. The force field didn't react to his presence or even shock him when he touched it. It just stopped him from leaving the cave. Giving up on the front of the cave, he began to investigate the back in hopes that Overdose's strange computer hadn't shielded the entire place. He felt his way along the walls, looking for weak spots, hollows, anything that could give him a way to retreat. ANYTHING!
His searching hands slid into a shadowed area camouflaged by the weak light from the force field...and he didn't feel anything but air. The shadowed area was a crack in the wall! Admittedly, it was narrow enough that he'd be leaving scraps of himself behind when he squeezed though...but he COULD get through! Afraid to make any noise, he managed not to exclaim with relieved hope as he forced himself into the small vertical slash in the cave wall, holding his bound hands up above his head to pass through and scraping the front and back of his body raw before popping into a small hollow that gave him some breathing room.
He paused inside, searching the tunnel with his thermal vision and seeing nothing but the tiny amount of space he'd have to fit himself through. But the tunnel DID keep going!
Tarantulas grimly raised his hands to his neck for a moment before starting forward again. The collar felt cold to the touch, and seemed to be part of him. The potential for pain through it was a terrifying thought in his mind. Overdose could press any of the buttons on its remote control at any time, and it was almost certain that she would once she discovered he was missing. He kept moving, though. Pain far away from the insane female was a much better choice than pain up close and personal.
He wasn't looking forward to either one, anyway.
* * * * *
Overdose was currently poking at the steadily blackening mixed blob of leftovers and the once-shiny glob she had also added into the oil while she munched on the crisped bottle of pills she had just fished out of it. "Crunchy," she said around the bottle happily. "You think the plastic will cause any side affects?"
"Like, dudette--"
"But it's not like we'd really be able to tell, anyway," she chattered on, "because these are all experimental, but it was an interesting thought, and doesn't this mark on the wall look like that weird fish I ate yesterday--"
"Dudette--"
"--will you stop interrupting me? I swear, you're as bad as Rampage sometimes, you rude, uncouth, barbarian computer, you. I'm going to reprogram you someday, have I mentioned that? And I--"
"Like, yeah, dudette, but--"
"--and there you go AGAIN. What did I just say? Oh, I forget. You know, I don't think that I really want to eat this thing after all." Overdose poked at the blackened lump frying in the oil. Her eyes whirled distractedly, but then she blinked and glanced up in puzzlement. "Where you saying something, Bob?" she asked absently.
If computers could have emotions and be able to sigh, by all rights Bob would have been exasperated and sighing. Then again, if Bob had emotions and lived with Overdose, he would have had a nervous breakdown LONG ago. "Like, yeah, dudette. The prisoner's, like, totally escaped."
Overdose smiled smugly, the colors in her eyes whirling faster. "As that purple guy, um, whatever-his-name-is, would put it: yessss..."
* * * * *
There was a light at the end of the tunnel, but Tarantulas wasn't exactly filled with happiness at the sight. It was artificial light, caused by artificial means, which meant that the tunnel he was squeezing through ended in Overdose's caverns. It wasn't like he had a huge chance of escape since as far as he knew the entrance the sea slug had taken him through was covered with water and in the middle of a maze, but he had hoped that somewhere in this cave system was another exit closer to the surface. He wasn't completely sure of how the mad femme had gotten him down here in the first place since she had used the collar around his neck most of the way so that he was paralyzed from the pain and easier to handle, but he was pretty sure that he couldn't duplicate it. He was stuck down here under the water, trapped with Overdose.
Unless there was another exit.
And the only way he was going to find out if it existed was if he risked emerging from the narrow tunnels and into the inhabited area Overdose had claimed.
Tarantulas strained his hearing as he inched forward. There was no sound, and he dared to slowly peek out. A quick glance showed that he was in another small cave, but this one was filled with junk. Well, not really JUNK. Just...lots and lots of THINGS.
Including weapons. Odd weapons, but usable.
The crack in the wall was slightly narrower that the one he had used to escape from the holding cave, but the sight of the knives and other sharp objects so close to his grasp gave him the incentive he needed to rip free. Unfortunately, that freedom came at the price of tears across his shoulders and chest...and a loud rasp. At least, it seemed loud.
But at the same time, an echoing shriek of amusement came from somewhere else in the cave system. "Fire in the hole!" yelled the frighteningly familiar voice, and a rumbling explosion followed her yell.
Tarantulas tensed and dove for the knives, ignoring the pain and awkwardness of his bound wrists as he picked the longest one off of the strange rack it and the other weird weapons were on. He came up with his back against the cave wall defensively, watching the entrance to the cave and holding the knife in front of himself with both hands.
"Note to self: don't cook with motor oil! Bob, are you alright?! Whoa, I think it melted the ceiling..."
Overdose's yelling showed no sign that she had heard him, and he relaxed slightly from his panic. He waited for a while, before venturing through the piles of objects randomly strewn throughout the room towards the cave entrance. He had to get out of here!
The spider approached the entrance slowly and carefully, making sure that he didn't make any noise. In the cave system, that would give him away as surely as Overdose had given away HER position. He ended up coming at it from the side as it was the only clear path he could find. Pausing a moment to strain his hearing again, he started to look out into the tunnel.
"Where'd I leave my repair stuff, Bob? Left or right side?"
Pure terror shot through him, causing him to freeze in place.
Overdose was RIGHT OUTSIDE the cave. Only an arm's length away. Looking into the cave on the other side of the tunnel.
Tarantulas eased back out of sight in case she turned around, but he knew he wasn't near being safe. The knife in his hands began to waver as his hands shook with fear. If she looked into this cave, he'd have one chance to strike. One. She'd incapacitate him in a moment if he missed. She might anyway.
He silently pleaded with every god he'd ever heard of that she wouldn't discover him, his panic building as the sea slug rummaged around in the opposite cave and didn't find her repair kit. She was loudly vocal in her opinion that gremlins had stolen it.
"It's gotta be around here somewhere...well, maybe it's over there."
Hearing her footsteps shuffle through the other cave, Tarantulas stifled a shudder and tried to prepare himself. His doom was walking closer...closer...
"Oh, here it is. How'd it get under there? Slagging thing!" Something crashed. "Bob, make a memo: get caverns sprayed for gremlin infestations."
"Memo, like, made, dudette."
Overdose sighed and Tarantulas trembled. "I mean, how else could it have gotten under there? Would I have put that there?!"
"Like, yeah."
"Shaddup, Bob."
"Like, shutting up, dudette..."
"ARGH! I can't win! First you, then gremlins! What's next, an evil twin?!"
The spider slumped against the wall weakly, listening to the voice of his doom moving away, arguing with herself about the possibilities of having an evil gremlin twin. That had been close. VERY close. It had been so close he wasn't sure he could get his legs to work again right away since his knee joints felt like gelatin.
Regardless of the state of his knees, though, he HAD to get out of here. He had been lucky that Overdose had missed him; he doubted that he'd be so lucky again.
Holding the knife like a talisman against insanity, he cautiously crept out of the cave and into the tunnel, searching for an escape route.
* * * * *
Depth Charge pointed at the island sitting low in the water ahead. "There it is." Strange how the surface of the island reflected Overdose, he mused as he airlifted Rattrap towards its brightly flowered shores. Greenery abounded along the soft curves of the beaches, but a stark, black cliff thrust straight up from the lush foliage to drop abruptly to the sea on the opposite side of the island.
Beauty and danger, attracting unwary tourists to their deaths?
"Spread out!" Optimus ordered. "Search for any caves or openings!"
* * * * *
The lights were strung everywhere pretty randomly, so Tarantulas had no idea where he was going. All he knew was that whenever Overdose made a sound (which was frequently), he tried to move away from it. Unfortunately, she seemed to be moving, too!
That's how he ended up stumbling into a room blackened by a recent explosion. "Oh, no..." he moaned under his breath. Most of Overdose's outbursts had been directed at cleaning up the mess her...breakfast...had made and preparing for something else. He had a sickeningly clear idea of what that 'something else' was. Now he was right where he didn't want to be! "Nooooo..."
"You're starting to sound like that purple guy," a cheerful voice said from behind him, and he whirled to see a bright collage of fins. They waved colorfully, changing and swirling as their owner turned around to face him. Her eyes lit up with delight. "Hey, what a great guy! You found my missing knife!" She pointed at the weapon shaking in his hands and smiled. "I knew I collected the whole set...they offered me a special bonus knife if I bought the entire interrogation kit, and that's what I did!" Overdose waved a hand at the rack she had been dragging into the room.
Tarantulas stared at the blank slot where he had taken the knife he was holding from, and a pitiful sound of terror pushed from his throat. An interrogation kit. All those sharp, pointy objects were an interrogation kit.
"Mind putting it back, now?" the femme asked, her voice shading a bit more menacing. "That would make me happy, and you want me to be happy, right?" One of her hands dipped into her chaos of fins, and Tarantulas caught a glimpse of a thin black rectangle with glowing green buttons. The remote!
"O-of course, hehehahehehahahe! A-anything to k-keep you happy!" he stammered with a nervous laugh. He carefully edged forward, trying to keep as much room between the femme and himself as possible. His visor locked on the remote control with fascinated horror as he fumbled to replace the knife. Don't let her use that...he still remember the pain all too well!
Her eyes were narrow and dark, but her lips were still smiling. "Now, be a nice little guest and sit down. I made something for you to eat." The smile was almost malicious with poisoned happiness as she calmly pointed at the charred seat she had pried out of her Star Hopper.
Tarantulas gulped and slowly moved towards the seat, making no sudden moves and easing down into the burned chair, never taking his gaze from her the entire time. She smirked merrily and presented him with a hunk of smoking charcoal that gave off a noxious smell. He recoiled instinctively. "N-no, thank you," he dared to say.
Her smile vanished.
The movement was almost too fast for him to see.
Tarantulas screamed in fear for the brief moment before his voice choked off as his throat closed involuntarily; Overdose's hand had done it for him. The crazy femme lifted him out of the seat by his neck with ease, ignoring the scrabbling of his bound hands, and he was treated to an up close and personal look at the sneer now on her face.
"I had thought to give you a last meal, Eightline, but it's okay with me if you don't," she chuckled darkly. "We can start right away." A sinuous movement of her body moved her out of the panicked kick he tried to get her with. His visor flickered desperately as something inside her choke-hold crunched with the sick sound of collapsing metal. Her face suddenly turned more pleasant as she watched him fight to stay conscious, a look of curiosity entering her eyes and making them swirl with bright yellows and blues. "I wonder how long you'll hold out on me before the pain finally forces you to tell the truth?"
Overdose opened her hand abruptly, releasing the limp form of the spider and sending him crashing to the floor. He moaned, barely able to move, much less fight back as she knelt by his side and secured his tied hands to a ring on the floor above his head. He did manage a weak whimper as she smiled down at him.
"Lemme see...how shall we start?" She picked up one of the pieces of the interrogation kit, a forked metal knife, and ran it down the cavern wall. "How about with...what are you doing on this planet?" Slivers of rock flaked away from the new grooves carved in the wall, and Overdose pricked her finger on the edge of the knife. "Oh, good. It's still sharp!" She giggled and bounced in place. "You've got to love Hythian manufactured metal goods. They hold an edge no matter WHAT you do with them! And speaking of which..." Her attention returned to the trapped spider on the floor.
Tarantulas rasped in a breath through his injured throat. "The Tripedicus Council sent me," he said desperately, visor locked on the knife in her hand.
The colors in her eyes managed a unique effect for a transformer with optics: they rolled. "No, really? I never would have guessed." The knife flipped in the air as she tossed it casually...and got stuck, tines first, in the ceiling next to a semi-charred gray rectangle. "Ah, slag," Overdose groused, staring up at it. "Now what am I supposed to do?"
Forget about the tool. There are more important matters at hand.
"Really?" She looked at her hands, curling them into fists to prove that, yes, they were empty. "Hey, I think I chipped a nail...but anyway, where? I don't see anything."
Vengeance.
"Vengeance? Yeah, that would be nice. But what does that have to do with my hands?" The mental scream of frustration her question caused made her look up at the ceiling in confusion, eyes swirling merrily. "You know, I have some pills that could help you relax a little. They also knock you out, but that's just a side affect. Er, oh so the doctors told me when they tried to make me eat them, but then I killed them all so I don't know if they really worked or not. I mean, I just snatched the pills on my way out. I haven't tried them yet. I was kind of figuring on testing them on the next PSP officer I ran across before I try 'em." She paused to look to the side as Tarantulas made a tiny sound of strangled protest. "Hmm? Who are you? Do I know you? And why are you tied up like that if we've just met?" A bemused look crossed her face. "That's more of a second date thing..."
Overdose!
The crazy femme looked back up at the ceiling. "What?"
"It'd...it'd be nice if you'd let me go," Tarantulas risked saying, hoping frantically that she really DIDN'T remember who he was. Her sudden conversation with the ceiling seemed to be distracting her from him! "Please?" he added when she turned to look at him again, another slightly puzzled look crossing her face and absolutely no trace of recognition in those sparkling eyes.
Don't you dare, you malfunctioning scrap heap!
"He's polite; you're mean. What do you THINK I'm going to do?" Overdose cheerfully asked the ceiling while Tarantulas blankly wondered who she was talking to. Then she skipped over to sit by his head. "So...what's a guy like you doing in a place like this?" she asked coyly.
He gulped. Was she...flirting with him?! "Ummmm...trying to get out?" he replied hesitantly. He realized it must be the wrong answer when she pouted, and his mind scrambled for something to say to someone who had wanted to kill him only moments before. His experience with lying to Megatron came to the fore. "That is to say that, er, hehahehaheh, as much as I enjoy your company, something back in my lab urgently requires my attention," he lied through his mandibles.
"Oh. Well, in that case..." A flick of her hand loosed the bonds from the ring on the floor.
Amazed, he stared up at her until she offered him a hand up from the floor. He dazedly accepted with his still-tied hands. "Thank you--" he started to say belatedly.
Overdose! Don't! Kill him!
"Oh, shut up!" Overdose suddenly screamed at the ceiling. She blinked as the spider jumped away from her. "What?"
Shaking, he backed away from her. Had she been talking to him or to the mysterious person apparently in the ceiling?!
She gave him a hurt look. "Well, if you have to leave that quickly, it's the second tunnel to the left. No," she corrected herself as Tarantulas started to go in that direction, and he froze as she tapped the interrogation rack with an idle finger. "No, you probably can't get out the sea entrance. Did you come in that way?" Tarantulas shrugged hopelessly. He had been in too much pain to remember, but she didn't seem to care if he answered or not because she immediately began to draw a map visible only to her in the air. "Left, no...right at the fork, but it's tricky because the ground's covered with rocks so you have to almost climb through on the walls, but if you get past that it's pretty simple to get to the surface by taking the cracked tunnel through the cave where I put the dashboard...yes!" She clapped her hands. "That's all you've got to do."
"Huh?" Hopelessly confused from watching her draw in thin air, Tarantulas shook his head. "Uh...can you tell me that again?"
She smiled. "I'll do better than that! I'll SHOW you!"
The spider flinched. "I, um, I don't want to waste more of your precious time, Overdose, really..."
"Nonsense!" Overdose bounced in a circle, clapping her hands and giggling. "Just call me Tour Guide Barbie! Now, if you'll direct your attention to the left of this room, you'll see my fascinating collection of, er, stuff. But please don't touch! Remember, anything you say or do can be held against you in a legal court of law; since we're stranded in the middle of nowhere, go ahead and do whatever you want--"
Tarantulas followed the happily chattering sea slug out of the burnt room, baffled by her cataloging of her rooms. What the slag was a 'Barbie', anyway?!
Hasbro owns the Beast Wars, and I own Overdose and the plot. She's mine, ya hear?! MINE!...I think. Or maybe she owns me? Heh. Anyway, sorry this is so late, but there's this thing called "school" that loves to eat up all my time.
Compromises
by Lady Dementia
dementedangel@hotmail.com
* * * * *
Part One
Offline in the darkness of the CR Chamber, Depth Charge's body was being purged off the last of the dosage of poison Overdose had given him and the damage done when she had ripped out his commlink was being repaired. His mind was active despite the status of his body, but he felt only distantly connected to it. He didn't feel distressed by anything that was happening in the real world; he couldn't concentrate long enough to keep focused on anything. This soft darkness was calm and peaceful; deep in his mind nothing mattered, past, present, or future. It always felt like this, though, and so the beginning of the dream didn't seem unusual even though it was as unpleasant as his dreams usually were.
He was searching the ruins of Omicron.
Now the emotions that were missing in the soft darkness of his mind were back, burning through him as he desperately dug in the wreckage of gutted buildings and shattered homes. Hope rose again and again in him with each small trace of survivors, only to be dropped like a stone into despair. A hand reaching out from under a collapsed wall proved to be connected to nothing. He found what he thought was the rest of the body, torn as it was, on the remains of the roof. He held one poor spark in his arms as she gasped her last, tortured breath out. A brave couple had managed to make a stand in a dead end alley. The femme had collapsed across the male in death, a last protection.
The trail of death led to the center of the colony city, where the commons clearing's grass was slick with mingled water and mechfluid from the flooded, corpse-choked river winding through it. Depth Charge stumbled to a stunned halt at its edge, wondering if he had the courage to search for survivors here.
Something moved near the middle of the field, a monster, and he found that he didn't need to have courage. Vengeance cleared everything from his mind and left him coldly purposeful. NOTHING would stand in his way. Weapon in hand, he moved forward quickly and stealthily, no longer looking for any survivors.
A whisper of a female voice teased his audios like something heard from a great distance, making him hesitate in his mission. "When did you stop defending the innocent? When did they just become obstacles in your path of revenge?" Wide, colorful eyes blinked open near the bottom of a pile of contorted bodies, staring at him with no accusation, only childlike, curious sadness.
The field slipped away as he paused uncertainly; the monster escaped as he belatedly glanced around for any living creatures besides himself in the blood-soaked clearing. He recognized the owner of the whirling eyes too late as he knelt down beside her, recent memories piercing into the dream.
Overdose's face melted away with the rest of the setting, reforming again in a scowl of concentration as another scene solidified around them. She was holding some sort of neon pink bird-like writing utensil in one hand; the other was buried in the short fins on her head.
"What exactly is her hobby?" Blackarachnia asked from across the circle of Maximals and Predacons.
The robot she was talking to turned his attention away from the sea slug sitting in the sand filling out a questionnaire. Rampage laughed. "Torture."
The femme looked up from the clipboard as the other transformers blurred out of focus, looking straight into Depth Charge's staring optics, tilted eyes flaring with colors in that intriguing mix of innocence and crazed knowledge of the galaxy.
--a short scream as she collapsed against the one robot she called a friend on this world, and her fins pulsed with pain from the explosion HE had just inflicted on her as Rampage supported her--
--and she turned back around, without any sign of injury as she laughed excitedly. "You and Rampage?! I knew he'd find a boyfriend!" Her fins darkened and the rest of the dream faded away around them, leaving them suspended in darkness. "You should never trust me," she whispered menacingly, seductively, as she swayed towards him.
He was frozen, captured in the depths of those changing eyes. He could hear her speaking from the blackness surrounding them, although she was right in front of him and her lips didn't move at all. Then his voice came from the dark, too. Her computer also spoke, but he remained still, unable to turn away from the femme before him.
"He's the guy who put me in jail. I was starting to think I'd NEVER find him..."
"Nobody named 'Eightline' is on this planet. Does he have a different name, now?"
"Like, totally, dude. The bad dude's, like, named, like, Tarantulas, now."
Her body had blended into the dark now, leaving only her eyes, lit with color and suspended like jewels on black velvet. Depth Charge had the feeling that he was being touched by the night as her hand brushed the side of his face and those bewitching optics neared his face. A gentle pressure was on his mouth, and he knew that in her insanity she was kissing him again...and he was allowing her to. "I told you not to trust me," Overdose murmured, lips moving from his mouth to breath in his audios.
And he was being dragged away, away, AWAY from her, helpless to resist the force that was taking him away from her! But then the screams of pain began, echoing through the darkness until he, too, screamed; screamed with the memories of Omicron and the confusion he suffered now, while the emptiness somehow throbbed with the sounds of torment from tortured sparks, him included, and above them all came crazed, feminine laughter.
Laughter that was both innocent and insane.
* * * * *
She was dancing at the exotic bar, but this was the last dance of the night. The beings assembled on the floor below the stage clapped wildly, clutching their last drinks as she posed one final time, and one certain male caught her eye. Always one for any spur of the moment idea, she did a flip off the stage and landed in his lap. People applauded that, too, but she merely waved and grinned an acknowledgment, wriggling to get comfortable.
"Quite the show you put on," Blacklight purred in her audios, arms settling around her waist since she was so conveniently in his lap. "Hey!" he yelped, spoiling the mood of seduction he had been trying to establish as she swiped his drink off the table. He wasn't quick enough in his return attempt to steal it back, and she gulped it greedily, throwing back her head and pouring it down her throat to restore depleted liquids after her strenuous dancing.
She grinned slyly around the rim of the glass as he drew in a quick breath at the sight of her with her head tossed back in abandon, trickles of the drink escaping from the corners of her mouth and trailing down her smooth neck. Blacklight had come here to seduce her tonight, Overdose knew as she drank, but SHE was the one who was going to seduce HIM...HER way.
With that in mind, she came up for air, eyes sparkling with mischief over the top of the glass as she looked across it--
--into Depth Charge's optics. His arms were the ones around her now, and she was sitting in HIS lap, not Blacklight's. Come to think of it, she wasn't in the exotic dance bar any more. They were on a beach on the planet she had crashed on...
She blinked, taking the change of identity in stride, and decided that he'd do just as well. "That was an interesting trick," she said thoughtfully, rubbing the rim of the glass against her bottom lip as a childishly curious thought with a cunning twist took shape. She giggled. "Is there a way to get both of you here at once?"
"I don't know how you can stand this chaos," a voice that had recently become familiar interrupted whatever the manta ray had been about to say in return, disgust dripping from the words as the dark shadow suddenly loomed over the two sitting on the sand. "Everything changes so...ILLOGICALLY...and you love it." Venom sneered as Depth Charge melted away with the beach, leaving Overdose sitting cross-legged on a random swirl of thoughts and colors in the depths of her own sleeping mind. "You are delaying, insane one. I want my vengeance!"
"Why?" the finned femme asked innocently.
"Because of what that pathetic robot did to me...us."
Tilted eyes widened up at her. "Why?"
The purple symbol on the huge black robot's helmet seemed to develop an angry shimmer of dark light. "Because you didn't follow what LOGIC told you to do and ended up as a prisoner of the Predacon Secret Police as a result!"
Overdose seemed to think that over. "Why?" she asked again.
"Because the Tripedicus Council is smart enough to realize that they can exploit Cybertron even though the Maximal High Council is currently in control." Venom laughed unpleasantly. "An admirable idea, although they don't take it far enough for my taste."
"Why?"
"Because I prefer to kill anything that gets in my way, not try and scheme around it."
"Why?"
Venom gave the sea slug a strange look. The crazy femme was poking at one of her fins, not seeming to pay any attention to what her sane predecessor was saying. With Overdose, looks were often deceiving, but... "You're not going to distract me that easily," the deadly robot gritted out. "I want this...Tarantulas...to be tortured, and I want it NOW!"
Overdose smiled up at her. "Why?"
"Oh, wake up and get to work, you little fool!!" Venom watched the dominant mind in their body rise up towards reality, angered once again despite herself at the casual insanity of the colored female. She cursed under her breath, jaw clenching as she turned away from the infuriating sight of the chaos that surrounded her, entrapped her, contained her. "What are you looking at?!" she yelled at the distant dark blue and gold shadow that merely flashed a tiny, weary smile at the murderer's frustration.
Above them, Overdose laughed.
* * * * *
Optimus Primal looked down, his face serious as he studied the smaller form of the manta ray. He wasn't quite sure what to think of Depth Charge any more. Overdose's revelation of what he was truly like had shocked the Maximals, but Blackarachnia had quietly taken the Maximal leader aside and told him about what had the ray-bot had said to her in his quarters when she had confronted him. All that Overdose had said was true...but in forcing him to face that truth, she had somehow been made into a symbol of forgiveness by Depth Charge. Repentance for past deeds. He had disappeared from the base, refusing to acknowledge radio signals as he searched for the sea slug.
And now he had found her...and she had found someone else.
All of which was creating a confused image of what Depth Charge was really like in his mind. "You're sure she'll kill him?" he asked finally, putting aside questions of the ray's morals in favor of the immediate crisis.
Depth Charge nodded. "Most likely very slowly," he said grimly, "if what Rampage told us all about her hobby was correct." He hid a wince at the thought of what torture another 'bot could do to another; the memories of Omicron were still sickeningly clear in his mind. "We can't let her do that," he said after a moment.
"Eh! Why not? I ain't puttin' my life on da line for no Pred, and 'SPECIALLY not dat eight-eyed one." Rattrap crossed his arms and leaned against the wall beside him, eyes narrowed. "If dat crazy femme wants ta kill him, it ain't nothin' off my tail. If she's lookin' for volunteers ta try her hobby, I'm not gonna put myself in her way."
"Er...Big-Bot, she wouldn't really, uh, TORTURE Tarantulas, will she?" Cheetor looked at his leader for reassurance that someone who could laugh as much as Overdose did wasn't really the killer that she was being described as. "I mean, we can't let her do something like that, can we? He surrendered to us..." He looked down, guiltily aware that the spider had vanished while he was on guard.
"She'll do it," Blackarachnia said coldly, staring at Rattrap. "Have you ever seen what Tarantulas left of his live meals, Rattrap?" she said suddenly after a moment's silence. "I think you have. Maybe the next time I catch a rat, I'll come eat it in front of you, screaming and trying to get free the whole way down." Silverbolt put a hand on her shoulder, stopping her from stepping forward towards the Maximal rat. She looked up at him and sighed, then turned to face Rattrap again. He was looking a bit ill at the description of what her next prey might go through. "That's torture," Blackarachnia said, looking around at all of the Maximals, who stared back at her in surprise. "Do you want a fellow Cybertronian, even one like Tarantulas," she made a small face, " to go through that?"
"No," Depth Charge said, his voice solid with conviction.
Rattrap couldn't meet her eyes. "...nah, I guess not," he said softly.
"I abhor harming females, but more harm will come from this if we do not," Silverbolt said sadly, holding Blackarachnia close. "We must free Tarantulas."
"Yeah," Cheetor added slowly, but he wouldn't look anyone in the eyes. "I just...can't believe she's really like that. Overdose is just so ultra gear, you know?" He sighed heavily.
Optimus put one of his large hands on the cat's shoulder. "Even at her, uh, 'picnic', Rampage accompanied her," he told the face that looked up at him.
"But she wouldn't let him attack us..." Cheetor mumbled, and the other Maximals shifted uneasily, each disturbed by what Overdose was and had done since her arrival.
"Cornered animals are dangerous," Rhinox rumbled into the silence. "How are we going to get Tarantulas out alive? We can't go through the underwater tunnels you described, Depth Charge. We don't have aquatic beast modes." At the ray's helplessly frustrated shrug, he frowned. "You mentioned ventilation."
"Yeah. I could see the sky through the hole in the ceiling. I don't know if there were more..."
"It's a start," Optimus said decisively. "We can work from there. Maximals, move out!"
* * * * *
The small cave was dark, but the soft glow of the force shield across the entrance provided enough light for Tarantulas to desperately pick at the bonds around his ankles with his tied hands. Overdose had tied him hand and foot but hadn't tied his wrists behind his back in a move that would be foolish had this been normal circumstances. As it was, the knots were so tight they wouldn't unknot and the ropes were made of some sort of metal that wouldn't break, as hard as he tried. He had been trying for what seemed like a long time, but terror could have deceived his sense of time.
He almost gave up in despair as the loop he had been working at slipped from his fingers again, but a sudden loosening around his left ankle gave him a surge of hope. A couple moments more, and that loop was free, and he was following it around his right ankle. The rope was snugly secured in about six or seven figure-eight loops around his lower legs. He only had to undo five more!
With a nervous look at the mouth of the cave, Tarantulas concentrated on getting free, slowly but surely.
* * * * *
What are you doing NOW?!
"Making breakfast."
WHY--?!
"Because I still have a couple tacos left over." Overdose tested the oil she had poured into one of her ship's dented side panels in place of a conventional frying pan. It sizzled and popped over the heating coil she had rigged up, giving off a nose-numbing smell (she didn't seem to notice) as she poured in her 'batter'. Actually, she had just shredded the slightly stale remains of her picnic and blended it all together. It LOOKED kind of edible. "I mean, I don't really HAVE to eat, but since I don't have any energon and I don't feel like leaving home to find any, this makes the most sense, doesn't it?" She flipped the blob to its other side in the oil to fry. "Good source of energy with dozens of essential vitamins and minerals and all that."
Whatever. Just as long as you eventually get around to business.
A dark flurry of color crossed the sea slug's fins. "Oh, I will..." she crooned softly, but then her fins returned to normal. "...after breakfast, that is!" she added cheerfully.
"Dudtte? Are you, like, talking to me?"
"Hm?" Overdose blinked, glancing around. "Bob? No, I'm talking to one of the voices in my head. She's mean, but it'd be rude to ignore her, wouldn't it?" She tipped her head to one side, studying the cooking blob of food (in theory) intently.
A brief silence filled the caverns. Then, "Like, dudette? Are you, like, tripping?"
"Tripping?" She looked at her feet uncertainly. They certainly didn't LOOK tangled up in themselves. "I'm sitting down, Bob..."
"Like, dudette, I like meant did you take, like, those totally gnarly pills today?" The computer's voice was completely emotionless.
Snapping her fingers, Overdose leapt to her feet. "No! I haven't yet! Thanks for reminding me, Bob!...um, Bob?" She looked around the cluttered cavern uncertainly. "Where are you, anyway?"
"Like, dudette. Look up."
She did and found herself staring at her computer's plain gray form...on the ceiling. "How'd you get up there?" she asked.
"You, like, glued me up here, like, when you woke up, 'cause I was, like, getting on your nerves. Then you totally, like, started talking to yourself again, dudette. It's, like, a majorly bad habit."
"Is not."
"Like, it is."
Overdose directed a glare up at the computer. "Is NOT." She rummaged around on the junk-covered floor, eventually emerging with a pill bottle It went into the boiling oil, too, plastic bottle and all. "And how would YOU know, anyway?" Smoke began rising from the make-shift pan. Maybe she shouldn't have used motor oil to cook with...but, then again, she had used the last of her cooking oil in an engine. The thought that the switch of oils may have caused that engine's malfunction was quickly dismissed.
"Dudette, like, you told me so."
"When?"
"When you, like, woke up, dudette."
"Oh." The colorful femme lost interest as she caught sight of something sparkly further into the pile of junk. She promptly dove after it. It turned out to be a wad of some kind of sticky, shiny substance, which occupied much of her attention when she got her hands stuck in it. "Eee! It's GOT me!!" Overdose rolled across the cavern, narrowly missing her smoking cooking things as she fought with the gooey stuff.
* * * * *
His hands were still tied, but at least his legs were free. Tarantulas climbed to his feet and edged to the front of the small cave to look out the entrance cautiously. The force field didn't react to his presence or even shock him when he touched it. It just stopped him from leaving the cave. Giving up on the front of the cave, he began to investigate the back in hopes that Overdose's strange computer hadn't shielded the entire place. He felt his way along the walls, looking for weak spots, hollows, anything that could give him a way to retreat. ANYTHING!
His searching hands slid into a shadowed area camouflaged by the weak light from the force field...and he didn't feel anything but air. The shadowed area was a crack in the wall! Admittedly, it was narrow enough that he'd be leaving scraps of himself behind when he squeezed though...but he COULD get through! Afraid to make any noise, he managed not to exclaim with relieved hope as he forced himself into the small vertical slash in the cave wall, holding his bound hands up above his head to pass through and scraping the front and back of his body raw before popping into a small hollow that gave him some breathing room.
He paused inside, searching the tunnel with his thermal vision and seeing nothing but the tiny amount of space he'd have to fit himself through. But the tunnel DID keep going!
Tarantulas grimly raised his hands to his neck for a moment before starting forward again. The collar felt cold to the touch, and seemed to be part of him. The potential for pain through it was a terrifying thought in his mind. Overdose could press any of the buttons on its remote control at any time, and it was almost certain that she would once she discovered he was missing. He kept moving, though. Pain far away from the insane female was a much better choice than pain up close and personal.
He wasn't looking forward to either one, anyway.
* * * * *
Overdose was currently poking at the steadily blackening mixed blob of leftovers and the once-shiny glob she had also added into the oil while she munched on the crisped bottle of pills she had just fished out of it. "Crunchy," she said around the bottle happily. "You think the plastic will cause any side affects?"
"Like, dudette--"
"But it's not like we'd really be able to tell, anyway," she chattered on, "because these are all experimental, but it was an interesting thought, and doesn't this mark on the wall look like that weird fish I ate yesterday--"
"Dudette--"
"--will you stop interrupting me? I swear, you're as bad as Rampage sometimes, you rude, uncouth, barbarian computer, you. I'm going to reprogram you someday, have I mentioned that? And I--"
"Like, yeah, dudette, but--"
"--and there you go AGAIN. What did I just say? Oh, I forget. You know, I don't think that I really want to eat this thing after all." Overdose poked at the blackened lump frying in the oil. Her eyes whirled distractedly, but then she blinked and glanced up in puzzlement. "Where you saying something, Bob?" she asked absently.
If computers could have emotions and be able to sigh, by all rights Bob would have been exasperated and sighing. Then again, if Bob had emotions and lived with Overdose, he would have had a nervous breakdown LONG ago. "Like, yeah, dudette. The prisoner's, like, totally escaped."
Overdose smiled smugly, the colors in her eyes whirling faster. "As that purple guy, um, whatever-his-name-is, would put it: yessss..."
* * * * *
There was a light at the end of the tunnel, but Tarantulas wasn't exactly filled with happiness at the sight. It was artificial light, caused by artificial means, which meant that the tunnel he was squeezing through ended in Overdose's caverns. It wasn't like he had a huge chance of escape since as far as he knew the entrance the sea slug had taken him through was covered with water and in the middle of a maze, but he had hoped that somewhere in this cave system was another exit closer to the surface. He wasn't completely sure of how the mad femme had gotten him down here in the first place since she had used the collar around his neck most of the way so that he was paralyzed from the pain and easier to handle, but he was pretty sure that he couldn't duplicate it. He was stuck down here under the water, trapped with Overdose.
Unless there was another exit.
And the only way he was going to find out if it existed was if he risked emerging from the narrow tunnels and into the inhabited area Overdose had claimed.
Tarantulas strained his hearing as he inched forward. There was no sound, and he dared to slowly peek out. A quick glance showed that he was in another small cave, but this one was filled with junk. Well, not really JUNK. Just...lots and lots of THINGS.
Including weapons. Odd weapons, but usable.
The crack in the wall was slightly narrower that the one he had used to escape from the holding cave, but the sight of the knives and other sharp objects so close to his grasp gave him the incentive he needed to rip free. Unfortunately, that freedom came at the price of tears across his shoulders and chest...and a loud rasp. At least, it seemed loud.
But at the same time, an echoing shriek of amusement came from somewhere else in the cave system. "Fire in the hole!" yelled the frighteningly familiar voice, and a rumbling explosion followed her yell.
Tarantulas tensed and dove for the knives, ignoring the pain and awkwardness of his bound wrists as he picked the longest one off of the strange rack it and the other weird weapons were on. He came up with his back against the cave wall defensively, watching the entrance to the cave and holding the knife in front of himself with both hands.
"Note to self: don't cook with motor oil! Bob, are you alright?! Whoa, I think it melted the ceiling..."
Overdose's yelling showed no sign that she had heard him, and he relaxed slightly from his panic. He waited for a while, before venturing through the piles of objects randomly strewn throughout the room towards the cave entrance. He had to get out of here!
The spider approached the entrance slowly and carefully, making sure that he didn't make any noise. In the cave system, that would give him away as surely as Overdose had given away HER position. He ended up coming at it from the side as it was the only clear path he could find. Pausing a moment to strain his hearing again, he started to look out into the tunnel.
"Where'd I leave my repair stuff, Bob? Left or right side?"
Pure terror shot through him, causing him to freeze in place.
Overdose was RIGHT OUTSIDE the cave. Only an arm's length away. Looking into the cave on the other side of the tunnel.
Tarantulas eased back out of sight in case she turned around, but he knew he wasn't near being safe. The knife in his hands began to waver as his hands shook with fear. If she looked into this cave, he'd have one chance to strike. One. She'd incapacitate him in a moment if he missed. She might anyway.
He silently pleaded with every god he'd ever heard of that she wouldn't discover him, his panic building as the sea slug rummaged around in the opposite cave and didn't find her repair kit. She was loudly vocal in her opinion that gremlins had stolen it.
"It's gotta be around here somewhere...well, maybe it's over there."
Hearing her footsteps shuffle through the other cave, Tarantulas stifled a shudder and tried to prepare himself. His doom was walking closer...closer...
"Oh, here it is. How'd it get under there? Slagging thing!" Something crashed. "Bob, make a memo: get caverns sprayed for gremlin infestations."
"Memo, like, made, dudette."
Overdose sighed and Tarantulas trembled. "I mean, how else could it have gotten under there? Would I have put that there?!"
"Like, yeah."
"Shaddup, Bob."
"Like, shutting up, dudette..."
"ARGH! I can't win! First you, then gremlins! What's next, an evil twin?!"
The spider slumped against the wall weakly, listening to the voice of his doom moving away, arguing with herself about the possibilities of having an evil gremlin twin. That had been close. VERY close. It had been so close he wasn't sure he could get his legs to work again right away since his knee joints felt like gelatin.
Regardless of the state of his knees, though, he HAD to get out of here. He had been lucky that Overdose had missed him; he doubted that he'd be so lucky again.
Holding the knife like a talisman against insanity, he cautiously crept out of the cave and into the tunnel, searching for an escape route.
* * * * *
Depth Charge pointed at the island sitting low in the water ahead. "There it is." Strange how the surface of the island reflected Overdose, he mused as he airlifted Rattrap towards its brightly flowered shores. Greenery abounded along the soft curves of the beaches, but a stark, black cliff thrust straight up from the lush foliage to drop abruptly to the sea on the opposite side of the island.
Beauty and danger, attracting unwary tourists to their deaths?
"Spread out!" Optimus ordered. "Search for any caves or openings!"
* * * * *
The lights were strung everywhere pretty randomly, so Tarantulas had no idea where he was going. All he knew was that whenever Overdose made a sound (which was frequently), he tried to move away from it. Unfortunately, she seemed to be moving, too!
That's how he ended up stumbling into a room blackened by a recent explosion. "Oh, no..." he moaned under his breath. Most of Overdose's outbursts had been directed at cleaning up the mess her...breakfast...had made and preparing for something else. He had a sickeningly clear idea of what that 'something else' was. Now he was right where he didn't want to be! "Nooooo..."
"You're starting to sound like that purple guy," a cheerful voice said from behind him, and he whirled to see a bright collage of fins. They waved colorfully, changing and swirling as their owner turned around to face him. Her eyes lit up with delight. "Hey, what a great guy! You found my missing knife!" She pointed at the weapon shaking in his hands and smiled. "I knew I collected the whole set...they offered me a special bonus knife if I bought the entire interrogation kit, and that's what I did!" Overdose waved a hand at the rack she had been dragging into the room.
Tarantulas stared at the blank slot where he had taken the knife he was holding from, and a pitiful sound of terror pushed from his throat. An interrogation kit. All those sharp, pointy objects were an interrogation kit.
"Mind putting it back, now?" the femme asked, her voice shading a bit more menacing. "That would make me happy, and you want me to be happy, right?" One of her hands dipped into her chaos of fins, and Tarantulas caught a glimpse of a thin black rectangle with glowing green buttons. The remote!
"O-of course, hehehahehehahahe! A-anything to k-keep you happy!" he stammered with a nervous laugh. He carefully edged forward, trying to keep as much room between the femme and himself as possible. His visor locked on the remote control with fascinated horror as he fumbled to replace the knife. Don't let her use that...he still remember the pain all too well!
Her eyes were narrow and dark, but her lips were still smiling. "Now, be a nice little guest and sit down. I made something for you to eat." The smile was almost malicious with poisoned happiness as she calmly pointed at the charred seat she had pried out of her Star Hopper.
Tarantulas gulped and slowly moved towards the seat, making no sudden moves and easing down into the burned chair, never taking his gaze from her the entire time. She smirked merrily and presented him with a hunk of smoking charcoal that gave off a noxious smell. He recoiled instinctively. "N-no, thank you," he dared to say.
Her smile vanished.
The movement was almost too fast for him to see.
Tarantulas screamed in fear for the brief moment before his voice choked off as his throat closed involuntarily; Overdose's hand had done it for him. The crazy femme lifted him out of the seat by his neck with ease, ignoring the scrabbling of his bound hands, and he was treated to an up close and personal look at the sneer now on her face.
"I had thought to give you a last meal, Eightline, but it's okay with me if you don't," she chuckled darkly. "We can start right away." A sinuous movement of her body moved her out of the panicked kick he tried to get her with. His visor flickered desperately as something inside her choke-hold crunched with the sick sound of collapsing metal. Her face suddenly turned more pleasant as she watched him fight to stay conscious, a look of curiosity entering her eyes and making them swirl with bright yellows and blues. "I wonder how long you'll hold out on me before the pain finally forces you to tell the truth?"
Overdose opened her hand abruptly, releasing the limp form of the spider and sending him crashing to the floor. He moaned, barely able to move, much less fight back as she knelt by his side and secured his tied hands to a ring on the floor above his head. He did manage a weak whimper as she smiled down at him.
"Lemme see...how shall we start?" She picked up one of the pieces of the interrogation kit, a forked metal knife, and ran it down the cavern wall. "How about with...what are you doing on this planet?" Slivers of rock flaked away from the new grooves carved in the wall, and Overdose pricked her finger on the edge of the knife. "Oh, good. It's still sharp!" She giggled and bounced in place. "You've got to love Hythian manufactured metal goods. They hold an edge no matter WHAT you do with them! And speaking of which..." Her attention returned to the trapped spider on the floor.
Tarantulas rasped in a breath through his injured throat. "The Tripedicus Council sent me," he said desperately, visor locked on the knife in her hand.
The colors in her eyes managed a unique effect for a transformer with optics: they rolled. "No, really? I never would have guessed." The knife flipped in the air as she tossed it casually...and got stuck, tines first, in the ceiling next to a semi-charred gray rectangle. "Ah, slag," Overdose groused, staring up at it. "Now what am I supposed to do?"
Forget about the tool. There are more important matters at hand.
"Really?" She looked at her hands, curling them into fists to prove that, yes, they were empty. "Hey, I think I chipped a nail...but anyway, where? I don't see anything."
Vengeance.
"Vengeance? Yeah, that would be nice. But what does that have to do with my hands?" The mental scream of frustration her question caused made her look up at the ceiling in confusion, eyes swirling merrily. "You know, I have some pills that could help you relax a little. They also knock you out, but that's just a side affect. Er, oh so the doctors told me when they tried to make me eat them, but then I killed them all so I don't know if they really worked or not. I mean, I just snatched the pills on my way out. I haven't tried them yet. I was kind of figuring on testing them on the next PSP officer I ran across before I try 'em." She paused to look to the side as Tarantulas made a tiny sound of strangled protest. "Hmm? Who are you? Do I know you? And why are you tied up like that if we've just met?" A bemused look crossed her face. "That's more of a second date thing..."
Overdose!
The crazy femme looked back up at the ceiling. "What?"
"It'd...it'd be nice if you'd let me go," Tarantulas risked saying, hoping frantically that she really DIDN'T remember who he was. Her sudden conversation with the ceiling seemed to be distracting her from him! "Please?" he added when she turned to look at him again, another slightly puzzled look crossing her face and absolutely no trace of recognition in those sparkling eyes.
Don't you dare, you malfunctioning scrap heap!
"He's polite; you're mean. What do you THINK I'm going to do?" Overdose cheerfully asked the ceiling while Tarantulas blankly wondered who she was talking to. Then she skipped over to sit by his head. "So...what's a guy like you doing in a place like this?" she asked coyly.
He gulped. Was she...flirting with him?! "Ummmm...trying to get out?" he replied hesitantly. He realized it must be the wrong answer when she pouted, and his mind scrambled for something to say to someone who had wanted to kill him only moments before. His experience with lying to Megatron came to the fore. "That is to say that, er, hehahehaheh, as much as I enjoy your company, something back in my lab urgently requires my attention," he lied through his mandibles.
"Oh. Well, in that case..." A flick of her hand loosed the bonds from the ring on the floor.
Amazed, he stared up at her until she offered him a hand up from the floor. He dazedly accepted with his still-tied hands. "Thank you--" he started to say belatedly.
Overdose! Don't! Kill him!
"Oh, shut up!" Overdose suddenly screamed at the ceiling. She blinked as the spider jumped away from her. "What?"
Shaking, he backed away from her. Had she been talking to him or to the mysterious person apparently in the ceiling?!
She gave him a hurt look. "Well, if you have to leave that quickly, it's the second tunnel to the left. No," she corrected herself as Tarantulas started to go in that direction, and he froze as she tapped the interrogation rack with an idle finger. "No, you probably can't get out the sea entrance. Did you come in that way?" Tarantulas shrugged hopelessly. He had been in too much pain to remember, but she didn't seem to care if he answered or not because she immediately began to draw a map visible only to her in the air. "Left, no...right at the fork, but it's tricky because the ground's covered with rocks so you have to almost climb through on the walls, but if you get past that it's pretty simple to get to the surface by taking the cracked tunnel through the cave where I put the dashboard...yes!" She clapped her hands. "That's all you've got to do."
"Huh?" Hopelessly confused from watching her draw in thin air, Tarantulas shook his head. "Uh...can you tell me that again?"
She smiled. "I'll do better than that! I'll SHOW you!"
The spider flinched. "I, um, I don't want to waste more of your precious time, Overdose, really..."
"Nonsense!" Overdose bounced in a circle, clapping her hands and giggling. "Just call me Tour Guide Barbie! Now, if you'll direct your attention to the left of this room, you'll see my fascinating collection of, er, stuff. But please don't touch! Remember, anything you say or do can be held against you in a legal court of law; since we're stranded in the middle of nowhere, go ahead and do whatever you want--"
Tarantulas followed the happily chattering sea slug out of the burnt room, baffled by her cataloging of her rooms. What the slag was a 'Barbie', anyway?!