I'm not really anticipating a lot of people reading this. I just really, really wanted to get my interpretation of the villain of this piece out there, because I felt that Hasbro has a potentially awesome character on their hands that they are failing to utilize. I'm honestly better at writing introspective pieces, but I hope that the handful of people who actually read this can enjoy this story for what it is and what it's attempting to do (use obscure characters and make a character with a wasted cool name genuinely threatening).
Set in the same continuity as Autopedia Entries and Autobot Outpost Defensor 6.
Crosscut had always prided himself with the fact that he was a bot of action. In Cybertron's glory days, he had been one of their most decisive and active senators. Even after the fall of the Senate, he had remained a prominent figure in his efforts to help move the war along.
But now? His role had devolved. After so many millennia of war, he had been reduced to just another Autobot commander attempting to retake the former colony of New Praxus (a name which really didn't suit it anymore). At the moment, he had with him around 25 bots scouting the nearby area. Most of them were variants of Autotroopers and Centurions, semi-sentient drones meant to bulk up the Autobot forces, while four of them were fully sentient Cybertronians.
Fizzle: a sparkabot with a chip on his shoulder, who one day on a whim decided that his name would be Blaze from then on and insisted that everyone call him that (no one did). He had a form of pyrokinesis which made him useful... when all his allies got the hell away, because he rarely bothered to control his abilities.
Lancer: his first Lieutenant. She had the ability to produce energon lances and wield them as weapons, hence the name.
Clamp Down: a product of the spark duplication project, he was a clone of the ever popular Sideswipe. To Crosscut, it was obvious that whatever made Sideswipe special wasn't genetic, as Clamp Down was pretty much a standard, by-the-book officer.
Finally, there was Waver, a hydrofoil who- speaking of Waver, that was him on the comm right now. "-NOW!" he was shouting while laserfire echoed in the background.
Crosscut activated his comm. "Waver, repeat, over."
"Under Attack! - monster - through us! NO! Stay away- Aggghhhh!"
"Waver! Damn it!" Crosscut opened his comm to signal his entire team "All units! Waver is under assault and likely dead. Converge on his last known location!" and so he transformed and barreled to the spot. He met Clamp Down there... standing over Waver's corpse. Clamp Down looked on the verge of a panic attack, and Crosscut could see why. An expression of utter terror was written across Waver's face. His right arm was missing, as was his spoiler. There were claw marks on various parts of his body... and his chest had been busted wide open and as for his spark... not only was the light of life absent, but the entire spark chamber itself was gone, as if it had been torn out of Waver's chest.
They were quickly joined by Lancer and Fizzle. Fizzle took one look at the body and shouted "What the SLAG happened to him?!" at the top of his... I guess Cybertronians don't have lungs. As loudly as he could.
"What kind of monster does this? I haven't heard of a Decepticon with this M.O." stammered Clamp Down.
"I mean, with those markings, it could be the Predacons or Terrorcons or even the Horrorcons... though I haven't heard about them eating sparks so far. Maybe they've advanced to a new level of depravity?" suggested Lancer.
Sinister, inhuman laughter echoed all around them. The Autobots immediately went on high alert.
"Where the hell are you slag licker?! Come out so I can turn YOU into slag!" shouted Fizzle, flames erupting from his hands.
"Yes, that'll help us, let's TAUNT the monster to death." snapped Lancer.
Suddenly, an Autotrooper tumbled from its lookout post, sliced in half. Then there was a scream, and the body of another was thrown at them, its head bitten clean off.
Clamp Down backed into a corner, hoping that it would help him see the enemy approach, not noticing the glowing pair of eyes right above him. It launched off of the ceiling and in one clean slice, took off half his face, severely damaged the internal mechanisms inside his giant missile, as well as sliced off his right arm. Clamp Down cried out in pain and stumbled away, which was good for him, as everyone else turned around and, seeing their enemy, opened fire.
It leapt away, and kept killing Autotroopers and Centurions as it moved, but persistent fire eventually forced it onto open ground where they were finally able to get a good look at the thing they were fighting.
It almost looked like a cross between both kinds of raptor that belong to the animal kingdom (the bird and the dinosaur). It had curved talons on its feat, which looked powerful, its body looked bulky, but not the comical kind of bulky, more of a stocky, powerful kind of bulk. The creature was clearly mechanical, but if it wasn't, the look would make it seem highly muscular. It had a beak with a pair of golden boar-like tusks on either side curved inwards towards the mouth. It had arms almost identical to the stereotype of the Velociraptor. Those claws looked incredibly sharp, and were if the energon coating them was any indication. Its entire body was dark purple, so dark purple that it was almost black. Its eyes looked like glowing embers in its skull.
"What... in Primus's name is that thing?" questioned Crosscut.
"Who cares? I'm going to slag it!" exclaimed Fizzle, and he launched a stream of fire at the beast. It just stood there and let itself be consumed by the flames. "Hell yea! Now that's how you get it done!" exclaimed Fizzle enthusiastically. "One monster, extra toasty!"
"Look!" cried out Clamp Down in alarm.
They all took a closer look at the flames, and what they saw made their servos freeze. The monster was standing in the flames, completely unharmed. Actually it wasn't just standing in them, it was pacing back and forth among them, as if it belonged there.
Fizzle asked the question they were all thinking. "Are you... from the Pit? The creature somehow seemed to grin as a sound resembling a sinister chuckle left its throat. Then... it opened its mouth... and white hot flames leapt out of its mouth and covered Fizzle's body. As he fought to control the inferno, his teammates leapt into action. Lancer charged forward while Crosscut opened fire with his salvo of mini-missiles.
It batted a few of them away and took the brunt of the others, then engaged Lancer. It clawed through her lance and and slashed through her Autobot insignia. Before it could charge in for the kill, Crosscut rammed it and shot it in the stomach a couple of times. It grunted as its belly smoked and as it recovered and prepared to attack, it was forced to leap away again as Fizzle recovered, compressed the flames he had been covered in into plasma balls, and launched them at the beast.
It roared at them, then turned its attention towards Clamp Down, who was attempting to fire his missile at it. However, the creature's attack from earlier was causing a major malfunction and it began to overload, then a warning alarm blared out. It had been compromised and was going to blow!
Fumbling, Clamp Down attempted to activate the automatic lock to unclip it, but that wasn't working either! And he was having trouble getting it off because the arm on that side was gone! And so it exploded, taking his entire upper body with it.
The creature seemed displeased by this. It charged in and began rooting through the remains. Apparently it couldn't find what it was looking for, as it snarled angrily.
Lancer charged in, stabbing repeatedly with her energon lance. It just dodged and deflected all of her blows. It eventually knocked the lance out of her hands and sent it spinning towards her comrades. It glanced Fizzle's chest, but because his armor was already weakened, it left a large gash that left his spark visible. The creature grinned and charged straight for him, charging straight through Crosscut's cover fire.
Then, its beak split open and as it leapt on top of Fizzle, a grey cylinder shot out of its throat and pierced Fizzle's chest. Fizzle froze, mouth hanging open, then... energon began to leak out and his eyes grew dim. The cylinder retreated into the creature's throat, a glowing orb visible inside."
"What in every layer of the Pit?!" exclaimed Lancer.
"A SPARK EXTRACTOR! IT HAS A SPARK EXTRACTOR!" exclaimed Crosscut in alarm. Now the beast charged at him. It made it all the way to him, making two lengthy gashed across his body and disabling a number of his hidden weapons, and then it proceeded to knock him to the ground. It stood over him and its beak began to split open... then it shrieked in pain as Lancer impaled it from the side. She gripped her lance as tightly as she could as she dug in as the coals in its eyes dimmed, then she heaved it to the side. Then she heaved her commander up.
"I have no idea what the hell that was, but we should probably bring it in and get it examined. Who knows, maybe-AUGGHHHH!" suddenly, Lancer jolted in pain and energon began to leak from her mouth... then she collapsed into a heap. Standing behind her, stood the creature, its beak closing.
"NO! Lancer killed you! I watched you die!" cried out Crosscut in alarm. The creature only smiled. Then it opened its mouth and lunged forward. The last thing Crosscut saw was the creature's beak closing over his head.
After extracting Crosscut's spark through his neck stump, the creature put a claw to its ear and pressed a button. Soon, a ship appeared over the horizon. The creature had it scoop up the bodies, then it boarded. It made its way to the bridge where a device plugged itself into its chest. There was a rumbling sound, and soon, the sparks it had collected appeared in containers before it. It tapped on a few buttons on the console, and the image of a bat-like Decepticon appeared on the viewscreen. "What is it?" he snarled.
"Senator Ratbat. I'm calling you in order to report that my mission was a success. I successfully felled Senator Crosscut and his surviving team." said the creature in a sinister, throaty voice.
Ratbat seemed pleased by this. "Ah, I see. Thank you for that, but if you don't mind, could you please revert to your humanoid form while you give your report? I know you prefer it, but your hunter form unnerves me, Sparkstalker."
Sparkstalker rolled his eyes, transformed and continued his report. "I successfully extracted the sparks of 4 of the 5 pure Cybertronians present, as you can see."
"What happened to the fifth?" asked Ratbat.
"He was a Lambor unit, and he had a malfunction with his missile that caused it to explode at point blank range when he attempted to fire it. It extinguished his spark immediately, so I was unable to extract it." growled Sparkstalker.
"I see. That is acceptable. Your pay is being sent to you as we speak. Good work as always, and I hope you... enjoy the... additions... to your... collection."
"Are... you sure you don't want me to send the Senator's spark to you?" asked Sparkstalker, somewhat reluctantly.
Ratbat actually seemed to consider it for a moment before he said "No. As much as I love the idea, there is a higher chance of him being recovered if I keep him. And in some twisted way, I get more satisfaction leaving him stuck in your claws. Do with him as you will." and he cut off the transmission.
And so Sparkstalker pressed a few buttons and had the sparks sent through a tube into a larger chamber in his ship... that contained dozens upon dozens of other sparks.
"Sparkeater. Prepare the repair and replacement sequence for me." he ordered the ship's computer.
"yessir. How many shall we be replacing this time?"
"Just one. Because I got careless. I'm not really picky about who you use, just give me whoever's been shoved in the back of my storage for the longest." after getting an affirmative noise, Sparkstalker went to the back of the ship where the bodies of his victims were stored. As he watched, an old corpse was dropped into a miniature smelting pit and soon, molten ore was poured over his injuries.
Then, he lifted up his chest piece, revealing the usual glowing green light of his spark... as well as an odd, giant glass-like chamber, as well as a giant chestpiece with five slots in it. Four of them had blue glowing orbs in them, while one of them had an empty orb, which was promptly dumped. "Farewell Garboil even now, your life was a total waste." muttered Sparkstalker to himself.
The tube from earlier reappeared, bearing a spark inside. "Here you are sir. This is the spark of the Autobot Sky Blast" said the computer cheerily.
"Fine. Install it." said Sparkstalker impatiently."
This was his secret. Sparkstalker truly lived up to his name, for he had a morbid fascination with the spark. He collected them and used them to prolong his own life. Whenever he received a mortal injury, the spark of one of his victims would automatically be used to jumpstart his own. And if his entire body were to be destroyed... he always made sure to leave a recent backup of his personality and memories onboard the Sparkeater whenever he went on a mission. It would sense his demise and completely rebuild his body from scratch. He would live on, even if the original him was snuffed out. He would continue on for he was the bot who came for your very soul, he was the never faltering, never wavering, Sparkstalker.