Prompt: Damaged
Required Character(s): Slag
Other Featured Character(s): Snarl and a hurtin' Swoop.
Rating: T/PG-13
Warnings: Ptero-whumping, resulting in lots of "blood" and somewhat graphic descriptions of injury and improvised medical treatment. I don't think it's gratuitous, but YMMV. Also, presumed fiery human death "off-screen." But who cares about humans? ;)
Genre: Drama
Word Count (Not including this intro): 2,482. Liek whoa!
Notes: I've been giving some thought, lately, to PR-type relations between Autobots and humans. I do not really know why, and I don't want to be all cliché about it (Like, say, RoTF was for a few…what?...minutes? And don't even get me started on "Megatron's Master Plan"), but I tend to think that all might not be peachy all the time in that arena. And then I watched the movie Hancock a couple of weekends ago, and that seems to have nudged my brainz down this particular path.
So, a story is slowly forming in my brainz, and given that my brainz are pretty darned Dinobot-dominated lately….Well, there we are. I've tentatively sketched out a story and have begun to fill it in here and there, and while doing so I realized that this particular bit – which for this very moment is the opening of the story – would sort of fit my little prompt here. Even though it is not Slag who is damaged, for once; I thought that actually made for a nice little twist on the prompt. So, assuming that my brainz keep pondering this issue/story, this or at least something similar to it might someday be incorporated into a larger story, one which, strangely enough for me and my proclivities, would give Optimus Prime a chance to really shine and to give the humans some much-needed (IMO) what-for, inspired by a Dinobot or three. IRONY! But for now…it is what it is.
The news helicopter was going down spectacularly, spinning as it fell from the cloudless, searingly-blue sky in a precipitous arc toward the ground. It was wrapped in bright, thick swathes of flame, and it was trailing billows of ominous black smoke in its wake.
Slag hardly noticed. He was far too busy following Swoop, smashing his way heedlessly and with all possible speed through a swatch of dense, old-growth coniferous forest. Because Swoop was also going down. Also spectacularly. Also in flames.
It had happened quickly, so very quickly. The Aerialbots had been in pursuit of the Stunticons, who had pulled off a rather daring, even for them, energy raid. The Dinobots, who'd happened to be in the area and who had been bored and spoiling for a fight of any kind, had readily responded to the Aerialbots' call for backup, giving the fliers a mostly-ground-based hand. They had worked to keep the Stunticons out in the open so that the Aerialbots could more easily pick them off from the air, but the Stunticons had apparently called in for some aerial back-up of their own in the form of half a dozen Seekers. Swoop and the Aerialbots had gone off to engage them, with the goal of preventing them from assisting the Stunticons.
All had been going quite well. The four ground-based Dinobots had had four of the five Stunticons pinned down. Sludge and Snarl had been working on corralling the remaining one, Dragstrip. Grimlock had mostly incapacitated Motormaster so that the Stunticons could not combine, and he and Slag had been keeping the other three contained while the Aerialbots and Swoop had been joyously pursuing and picking off the Seekers, one by one, for once incurring little damage themselves.
But then the small fleet of news helicopters had arrived on the scene. In pursuit of ratings, they had become much bolder of late, pushing themselves far too close to Autobot/Decepticon combat situations for their own safety, particularly so because they were simply civilian vehicles, lacking weaponry or any sort of armor whatsoever. The Autobots had pointed this small fact out to the humans' news organizations time and time again, urgently warning them to stay away from hot zones both for their own safety and so that the Autobots could more easily deal with the Decepticons, only to be met with refusal after refusal and a chorus of righteous citations of "the freedom of the press." Dealing with them, so Jazz had been heard to loudly lament, was like beating one's head against a concrete wall.
The Decepticons, unsurprisingly, took advantage of the foolish human intrusions. Sometimes, they would simply shoot down the humans' vehicles on sight, which served as an excellent diversion when a conflict was going against them, but they had also discovered that the humans' vehicles could be used as shields. The latter was the tactic that the Decepticons employed far more often; destroying the vehicles only convinced the humans to stay away, depriving the Decepticons of the more tactically-useful shield function.
Thrust, with Swoop in hot and dogged pursuit of him, had been trying to circle back to assist the floundering, Dinobot-harried Stunticons and had been carefully keeping one of the humans' helicopters between him and the pursuing aerial Dinobot. Thrust knew that Swoop would not fire directly at the pathetic human vehicle in order to get to him. So Swoop had been trying to work his way around the helicopter, trying to get a clear shot at the Seeker that wouldn't also put the humans in more peril than they were already in. But as Swoop had carefully maneuvered in, the helicopter's human pilot had made a jerky, abrupt, and ultimately very ill-advised maneuver in an attempt to evade Thrust.
As a result, there had been a collision between the helicopter and Swoop, who had not been able to move out of the helicopter's suddenly-changed trajectory quickly enough. The helicopter's rotor had sliced one of Swoop's wings clean off and had then torn brutally into his body, almost shearing entirely through him before Swoop had somehow managed to tear the wedged-in blade from the helicopter's rotor assembly. That was when the flames had started, and it was unclear who or what had caught first, Swoop or the helicopter, but both, now, were going down in billows of noxious smoke and flames. The helicopter's rotor blade was still buried in Swoop's torso as he plummeted toward the hard and unforgiving Earth.
There had been confusion amongst the Autobots as to what to do: assist the humans, assist Swoop, or pursue the Decepticons since, as the Autobots had dithered, the Stunticons had regrouped and had begun to limp away. For Slag, the choice had been very simple. In his estimation the humans aboard the helicopter had brought their fate on themselves and fully deserved the horrible, fiery death they were no doubt experiencing, if they were still alive at all. And as far as he was concerned the Decepticons could damn well have the energy they'd stolen from the humans; the humans deserved to lose it due to their gross collective stupidity. Swoop didn't deserve the fate he'd been dealt. At all. He was suffering entirely due to the humans' stupidity and that fully enraged Slag. And so he had taken off, not bothering to listen to what Grimlock had to say on the subject. Snarl had joined him in steadfast but wordless solidarity.
So now the two of them were plowing side-by-side through the forest, determined worry spurring both of them with all possible haste toward the spot where Swoop, a few seconds later, impacted with the Earth. They left a wide swath of destruction and smashed, uprooted trees in their wake, and somewhere in Slag's mind he just knew that he'd be getting a lecture about that from the tree-huggers amongst the humans, likely via a similarly sanctimonious Optimus Prime. But he did not care about that in the slightest. Nor did he care about the dents and dings that he was acquiring as he pushed heedlessly through the Earth flora. Neither, apparently, did Snarl.
Too-long moments later, Slag and Snarl arrived at Swoop's crash site, and an unsurprisingly gruesome scene greeted them. Despite the fact that they'd been expecting gruesome, it still brought Slag and Snarl to an abrupt and horrified momentary halt. They took a moment to exchange a silent but deeply uncertain glance and then approached their fallen comrade, transforming out of their sturdier dinosaur modes as they did so.
Swoop lay awkwardly in the smoldering center of the clearing that his crash had created, at the end of a long and deep rut of gouged, blackened earth. Impaled as he still was, he could not transform, but he was still somehow conscious. A constant gurgling keen of pain issued from him, morphing into outright soul-rending screams when he made even the slightest move. His intact wing, singed mostly black now, was bent awkwardly underneath him, the long rotor that was wedged in his body having forced him onto his side. The remaining stump of his other wing was upraised, twitching randomly and spasmodically, and it was violently spurting gouts of vital fluids that liberally splattered Swoop's surroundings, including Slag and Snarl themselves as they knelt down next to their gravely injured comrade. The rest of Swoop's body was twisted and mangled from the collision and the subsequent crash. Armor plating that was normally dark grey, deep blue, and bright silver was dirt-covered, thickly smeared with vital fluids, and largely singed black from flames that had, at least, extinguished themselves somehow.
It was, Slag realized as he numbly took in Swoop's damage, a minor miracle that the helicopter's rotor had not sliced clean through Swoop's spark chamber, but it had come frightfully close to doing so. Slag could see the faint glow of Swoop's spark pulsing with distressing weakness through the tear in his body. The tear was truly horrendous to behold when viewed up close, wide and sparking and sizzling where shorted circuits mingled with bleeding fluids. The edges of the gaping wound were jagged and blackened, and fluids seeped out of it in pulpy gushes around the impaling rotor blade, like hot molten lava pushing its way out of a narrow crack.
Usually, it wasn't Swoop suffering like this. Usually, it was Slag himself who suffered this sort of catastrophic damage. He was quickly discovering that being the damaged one was in a strange way much easier than being the one to figure out what to do about damage like this. Swoop was their team's medic, and he was no longer simply a field medic trained in enough first aid to, hopefully, keep a damaged comrade alive long enough to get him to a real medic. He was instead one of those real medics now, heir to Ratchet's renowned compendium of knowledge. Since they were often thrust into extreme and dangerous situations, usually without readily-available backup, the other Dinobots relied on Swoop for that…but now he was the one in need of help, help that rather obviously needed to happen in a hurry. And neither Slag nor Snarl had much of a clue as to what to do. They exchanged a horrified and helpless glance across Swoop's struggling, twitching, keening body.
Snarl, coming to a decision, stood and commed Silverbolt. Slag vaguely heard Snarl inform the Aerialbot leader in no uncertain terms that they needed emergency transport right now, vaguely heard Silverbolt grimly reply that he needed a runway in order to take off in Concorde mode, and then vaguely heard Snarl contact Grimlock to let him know that they needed more forest demolition right away. But Slag's attention was mostly focused on Swoop. Who, after a moment, weakly nudged Slag's knee with the tip of his beak.
"Wing…" he uttered determinedly but weakly around whimpering gasps of pain, his voice choked with static. "Slag…have to…stop…bleeding."
Slag stared down at him. "How?" he murmured.
"Main feed," Swoop choked. "You'll see it…under the engine. Can't miss it. Pinch it off."
Slag swiftly moved behind Swoop, only to quickly realize that carrying out Swoop's instructions was easier said than done. The engine in question, one of two mounted on Swoop's back, was still securely attached to Swoop's body, and Slag had no idea how to remove it without doing further damage.
"Uh…"
"Just tear it off," Swoop gasped, anticipating Slag's protest. "Use…Snarl's sword…if you have to."
"But—"
"Do it!" Swoop urged as loudly as he could, desperate now, and very obviously afraid. "If you don't….die. Don't wanna die, Slag…pain OK…don't wanna…"
Still Slag hesitated. This was definitely worse than being the damaged one.
"Please," Swoop was moaning, meanwhile. "Slag…"
The pleading, the desperate tone, and the frightened and pain-filled look that Swoop gave him finally spurred Slag to action. Before he could talk himself out of it, he called out to Snarl, who was conferring with the just-arriving Sludge and Grimlock, relaying to them Silverbolt's requirements for a takeoff runway. Snarl approached Slag warily, and Slag took his sword from him without explaining why he needed it. While Snarl watched, thoroughly confused, Slag stood to wield the sword as required.
He wanted to close his eyes, wanted to not see what he was about to do, but he knew that was impossible. He needed to see or else he risked further, perhaps fatal, damage to Swoop. Taking a deep, steadying breath, he raised the sword and gave Snarl a glare that silenced the protest that he'd started to make when he'd realized what Slag was intending to do. And then Slag paused, another thought occurring to him.
"Hold him still," Slag growled at Snarl, jerking his chin down at Swoop. When Snarl hesitated, Slag angrily added. "No time to explain. Do it!"
Snarl blinked but complied, dropping to his knees and positioning his hands on Swoop in an attempt to compromise between the need to hold him as still as possible and not causing him further pain. The rotor blade that skewered Swoop made this more difficult and with a growl, Snarl laid a hand on it to attempt to rip it from Swoop's body.
Swoop, his body stiffening in alarm, weakly cried out, "No!" and then when Snarl looked down at him questioningly, he added even more weakly, gasping, "It's wedged…in my main…energon artery. You move it…bleed out in seconds."
Snarl jerked his hand away from the rotor blade as if he'd been burned. Not taking the time to appreciate the irony that the thing that had caused Swoop's damage was also the thing that was keeping him alive at the moment, he positioned himself to hold Swoop in place as best he could, opting to carefully straddle the smaller Dinobot's body and to rest maybe half of his weight on him while pushing down on his shoulder, trying to balance necessary firmness and a need to be gentle for Swoop's sake. Swoop grunted, pained anew, but he held himself still.
Snarl gave Slag an apprehensive look, signaling his and Swoop's readiness, and then Slag brought the blade down, with all of his considerable strength behind it, on Swoop's engine, trying to aim for its mounting. Even so, it ended up taking two strokes to hack the engine messily away from the rest of Swoop's body.
Swoop screamed in a way that would, Slag knew, forever haunt him as he brought the blade down on him, his body reflexively convulsing a few times as pain flooded him, pain that eclipsed even that which was radiating from his ruined torso in waves that hurt so much that, oddly, he almost couldn't feel the pain anymore, his sensory net curiously numb, bombarded with far too much constant sensation for it to handle. The new pain from his back seemed to wake everything up again, though, and it was far too much to compensate for.
Swoop blacked out, mercifully, his body going limp.
Moving quickly, Slag knelt down behind Swoop again, probing hurriedly and none-too-gently, since Swoop was unconscious, through the wreckage he'd caused. And, just as Swoop as said, he easily found the main energon line that fed, uselessly now, Swoop's severed wing. Slag yanked viciously at the fat line, pulling it out and away from Swoop's body, and then clamped both of his hands around it until the neatly-chopped-off end of it finally stopped spurting out Swoop's lifeblood. With a relieved sigh, Slag sagged back on his haunches, keeping his grip tight on the energon line, staring at the mess he'd caused. The remains of Swoop's engine sparked and hissed and leaked fluids, but not nearly so badly as Swoop's wing had been messily spurting them all over the place. It dimly occurred to Slag that, if the terrible injury to his torso didn't do him in, he had just saved Swoop's life.