AUTHOR'S NOTE: Apologies that this didn't get finished before Halloween - technical problems and a convention got in the way. Hopefully this story is still enjoyable even if it's not exactly on time for the holiday...
Despite the insistence of the other minibots, Cosmos couldn't bring himself to attend the Halloween party in the rec room. Not that he was averse to having fun and socializing – though he always found himself hopelessly awkward around crowds, and even among his comrades he found himself putting his foot into his vocalizer far too many times for his comfort. But right now it felt wrong to be out celebrating when a friend of his was undergoing a crisis, even if he refused to acknowledge it as such. And he wanted to be available should Hound need him, or change his mind regarding a possible cure.
He paced the hallway just outside Hound's quarters, fidgeting nervously. He was so frantic with worry over the scout that he hadn't even stopped to hit the washracks, and dirt and berry stains still covered his armor. Part of him wanted to disregard everything Hound had told him and just rush into the room, inject him with the antidote, and ask forgiveness later. But part of him wanted to respect his friend's wishes, and not interfere unless he asked for help.
You've got to have faith in him, he insisted. He's taken precautions, and seems to know what he's doing. But that thought did nothing to dispel the nagging feeling of dread in his tanks.
Hushed voices reached his audials through the door, and he paused in his pacing. The voices were too soft for him to make out more than generic murmuring, but they made his spark freeze anyhow. Hound should be alone in his room, right? Then why were there two voices coming from his room?
Before he could puzzle out who the other speaker might be, Hound cried out in pain… a cry that morphed into a snarl even as Cosmos listened, his entire chassis frozen in horror. The snarling and whining continued for a good minute… then terminated in an eerie howl that sent shivers up and down his spinal array. That howl was followed up by another, until it sounded like two voices baying in unison, crying out to a full moon that was invisible to their optics but exerting its sinister influence nonetheless.
Cosmos finally forced his vocalizer to work, his voice coming out in a rough squeak: "Hound? Hound, are you all right in there? Answer me!"
A low, wet-sounding snarl was his only answer.
Cosmos took a deep intake, then reached into his subspace pocket, pulling out the dagger and the syringe of belladonna extract. Armed with one item in each hand, he braced himself for whatever was to come.
"Hound, I'm coming in! Stand back!" And he opened the door, both grateful and worried that Hound had forgotten to lock it.
He thought he was prepared for what he'd see on the other side… but he was so wrong. Two hunched, lupine forms glowered out of the dim room at him, wicked violet eyes gleaming in long canine faces, drool streaming from their fanged jaws. They were vaguely humanoid, but with digitigrade legs and clawed hands, and armor that bristled in points as if to mimic fur and pointed ears. One, a dark green beast with gray and tan markings, could only be Hound… but the other was gunmetal-and-black, with a peculiar cannon mounted on one shoulder…
Dashboard! Of course… it all made sense now! Why hadn't they stopped to guess that Dashboard might not just know more about the Horrorcon that attacked Hound, but might actually BE the Horrorcon? He had been telling the truth – he hadn't shared his escape pod with another being. He hadn't had to – the Horrorcon lurked inside his spark, just waiting for the lunar cycle to allow him to emerge and infect others.
A guttural snarl interrupted his thoughts, and Hound padded forward, air huffing through his vents as he sniffed at the green minibot. Cosmos' tanks turned to jelly as he felt hot, moist air gust over his chassis. Something seemed to flicker in the green Horrorcon's optics… indecision? Recognition?
"Hound… Hound, it's me," he murmured, his voice high and quiet with fear. He didn't want to believe Ms. Budiansky's insistence that his friend wouldn't remember him now that he was a werewolf – he wanted to think that some measure of the gentle scout he had known for so long still existed in that savage body, that there was something still in his friend worth saving.
Dashboard growled, and Hound's audial receptors pinned back as his gaze flickered between Cosmos and the gray Horrorcon. His body tensed as if to spring, but there was confusion in his optics.
"Hound, please, let me help you," Cosmos insisted. "I can fix this… I can make you better. Please, let me save you."
Hound cocked his head, looking remarkably like a turbohound trying to decipher his master's words and decide whether to obey or not. Cosmos felt his spark lift a bit. Had some part of Hound heard him, and was fighting back against the beast within?
Dashboard gave a snarling bark and lashed out, cuffing Hound over the ear. Hound yipped in pain and shook himself, then curled his lip plates in a savage snarl. Cosmos backed away, dagger in hand but spark valiantly praying that he wouldn't have to use it…
The gray lycanthrope barked again, and Hound growled in reply and leaped. Cosmos cried out in terror… only for the dark green Horrorcon to sail over his head in a single bound and lope off down the corridor, Dashboard right on his heels. The two Horrorcons skidded around the corner and vanished.
Cosmos stared after them for a moment, stunned. Had Hound's memory won out? Or had the two of them just decided he wasn't worth attacking? Probably the latter…
Then the horror of the situation finally hit home. Two Horrorcons were loose in the base, free to infect others, and the entire base was completely unaware of it.
"Oh no," he moaned, and took off as fast as his short legs could carry him. He sent off a radio call as he went, hoping beyond hope that someone would believe him.
We're under attack! Horrorcons in the base! One of them is Hound – don't hurt him, please!
When Cosmos' voice sounded over the radio, babbling some hysterical nonsense about Horrorcons, everyone's first reaction was to write it off as a Halloween prank. Even the officers rolled their optics and went about their business. They'd heard so much talk about Horrorcons lately that they were sick of it, and Hound and Cosmos' insistence on keeping the ridiculous story going was getting old.
But two snarling forms bursting into the rec room couldn't exactly be ignored.
"Nice costume, Hound-" Bumblebee began, but shrieked and backpedaled as razor-sharp fangs closed mere inches from his plating. "Holy hexagon nuts!"
"What th' slag?" Ironhide gaped.
Prime, for his part, managed to throw off his shock and pull his gun from subspace, training it on the two beasts that had just burst into the room. Hound and Cosmos had been right all along – he could only hope that their dismissal of the two mechs' claims wouldn't get someone killed.
The gray Horrorcon charged the drink table, upending it and sending multicolored energon flying in all directions. Perceptor had one hand raised and his mouth frozen open, as if he were about to launch into an explanation as to why what he was seeing was scientifically impossible, but the werewolf closed the gap between them and lunged, clawed hands raised.
A horrible bellow filled the room, drowning out the music, and Grimlock charged the Horrorcon, head lowered and flame spewing from his jaws. It yelped in pain as the Dinobot commander bowled it over, then gave a roaring howl of its own and laid into the other mech. Grimlock and the werewolf rolled and twisted on the floor, biting and clawing, shreds of Grimlock's Godzilla costume coming free and littering the floor. The other Dinobots swarmed in, surrounding the combatants in a loose ring, ready to leap to their leader's aid should it look like he would lose this fight.
Satisfied that the Dinobots had that creature under control for the moment, Prime turned his attention to the green Horrorcon. The werewolf snapped at any who got close, and already shreds of someone's costume (Jazz's judging by the shiny red look of it) were caught in its teeth. Blackened char marks blotted its plating where mechs had already taken shots at it, but even as Prime watched the burns faded before his optics, holes in its plating sealing as if it had never been wounded in the first place.
Just shooting at it isn't going to kill it, he realized. Unless we aim for the head… surely it can't come back from total CPU obliteration…
The werewolf turned to face him, a ravenous grin on its long jaws. Prime took aim and tightened his finger on the trigger as the creature tensed to spring, ready to put a plasma blast through its ugly cranial unit.
The Matrix flared hotly in his chest, and he hesitated for a brief moment. He jolted in surprise, and just a hint of anger. This creature was a threat to his troops – why should he stay his hand?
Before he could shake off the feeling – and before the Horrorcon could charge – something skidded between them, arms raised as if to try to shield each combatant from the other's wrath.
"No!" Cosmos shouted. "Don't hurt him!"
"You were right, Cosmos," Prime told him. "It was a Horrorcon all along. Now stand aside!"
"That's Hound!" Cosmos insisted. "Don't shoot!"
Prime stared at the Horrorcon in disbelief… and spotted a golden-tan marking on its shoulder. It was blurred and hard to make out, but it appeared to be a star… the same star Hound sported on his shoulder.
Hound… oh Primus, what happened to you? He had known the scout had been changing over the past few weeks, but he had no idea THIS would come of it. He had no idea one of his own Autobots had been turning into a monster right under his olfactory sensor. Now the question remained – could they undo this, or was it too late to save him?
Hound snarled and hunched down on all fours, pawing the floor and gouging scratches out of it. Cosmos turned slowly around to face him, hands still raised.
"I know you can understand me, Hound," he murmured. "I know you're still in there. Please… fight it. You're stronger than you think!"
Hound whined and shook his head, sending drops of slaver flying in all directions.
"Prime, orders?" Prowl slid in by Prime's side, acid rifle aimed at the Horrorcon. Ironhide flanked him on the other side, and other Autobots had moved to pen Hound in, guns trained on him.
"Hold your fire!" Prime ordered. "He's our ally! We have to reason with him!"
"How d'ya expect us to reason with a monster?" demanded Ironhide.
"This is no monster," Prime retorted. "It's Hound!"
Prowl turned to stare at Prime. "That can't be…" His voice trailed off as he took in the creature's dark green plating, and the markings on his chassis that had once been yellow. "Primus below… it is."
"Holy scrap, Hound, you got ugly!" Sideswipe observed rather unhelpfully.
Cosmos ignored the chatter around him, approaching Hound with his hands outstretched. Hound, too, seemed completely oblivious to the ring of mechs around him, optics fixed on the green minibot. It was as if the two mechs were the only beings in the room. Weapons lowered slowly as everyone watched the encounter, though no one relaxed. Even Prime remained tense and wary – there were so many ways this could go wrong, and Hound or not, he had no intention of letting this creature tear Cosmos apart.
"You're not a monster," Cosmos told him gently. "You're still Hound. You're still our friend… you don't want to do this. You don't want to hurt anyone. I know it, and you know it."
Hound whined again, audial receptors pinned back.
"Let us help you," Cosmos urged. "We can fix this. I know you didn't want this, not really. We can help you… we can make this all better."
The scout stared fixedly at Cosmos, trembling from helm to foot. He slunk forward a step, and Cosmos pulled something from subspace – a medical syringe, meant for delivering stimulants or antitoxins into a mech's fuel or fluid lines. Prime wanted to ask what the minibot intended to give him, but decided that for now, questions were best saved until after the crisis has been averted.
A howl filled the room, and Jazz yelped as the gray Horrorcon tackled him to the floor. The beast snarled and slavered as it clamped the saboteur's arm in its jaws, biting down hard. Jazz yelped again in pain and tried to pry the monster's teeth out of his armor, but it hung on grimly.
Before Prime could fire off a shot, Hound acted. He whirled and sprang with impossible swiftness, a feral bellow tearing from his throat. Prime swung his gun around and fired a shot at Hound now, hoping to draw his attention away from Jazz. Frag it all, had his hesitation cost him Jazz's life now?
But it wasn't Jazz Hound was gunning for – it was his fellow Horrorcon. The two beasts went rolling across the floor, gray and green flashing as they tore ate each other, claws and fangs squealing against armor and rending metal and tubing, savage growls interspersed with yips of pain filling the air. Jazz scrambled to his feet and backed away, clutching his wounded arm.
"Do something!" Cosmos demanded. "Shoot the gray one! Shoot Dashboard!"
Dashboard… so the neutral had been lying to them all this time. And he hadn't left the base at all, but had stayed on to encourage Hound to rampage. That should have shocked Prime… but he'd received enough shocks tonight that this didn't even faze him.
"We can't," Prowl replied in a grave tone.
"But he'll kill Hound!" Cosmos insisted.
"And we risk shooting Hound if we shoot at Dashboard," Prowl countered.
Cosmos didn't argue that, though he stared at the combatants in horror. Then, to Prime's shock, he bolted forward.
"Cosmos!" Prime dropped his gun and lunged, intent on grabbing the minicon and pulling him to safety. Their mistakes might have already cost them Hound, but he would be slagged before he let Cosmos get hurt because of this.
Cosmos didn't even stop to think – he dove into the fray and grabbed at the jagged armor of the nearest Horrorcon, trying to pry the combatants apart. He had just gotten through to Hound, and Dashboard had to interfere! He wasn't going to let the neutral turn Hound into a full-on monster… not even if it cost him his life.
A hand grabbed his shoulder and tried to yank him back, but he wrapped his arms around Hound's neck and clung with all his strength. Hound didn't even seem to notice him, but continued to tear and claw at his foe. Gaping rents lay open in both mechs' armor, but even as Cosmos watched they began to stitch themselves closed, leaving their armor stained with fluids but free of any sort of scar or weld mark. There seemed to be no possible end to this fight… not unless both mechs finally collapsed from fluid loss…
A final yank, and Cosmos felt his grip loosen.
"Cosmos, get out of there!" Prime ordered, and pulled him back.
"No!" Cosmos made another grab, and his hands found Hound's right arm. His fingers slipped briefly on the slick, silvery-green material of his scars…
Silver… the dagger! He released Hound and let Prime pull him back… and pulled the dagger out of subspace. The moment Prime's grip relaxed, he jerked free and charged.
Pain erupted in his weapon-arm, and he found himself staring up into the wild, furious gaze of Dashboard. This was far more than oil-lust or hunger – the neutral's optics burned with rage at Cosmos for interfering with his plot, whatever it might be. And he had no intention of turning Cosmos as he had turned Hound – he was going to rend the minibot limb from limb.
"Not today, mutt," Cosmos muttered, the words coming out with more bravado than he felt. "Today… you go to the Pit."
Dashboard's optics flared brighter, and he clenched his jaws, driving his fangs deeper into Cosmos' arm. Cosmos forced back a pained cry and scrambled with his free hand, switching the dagger to his good arm. The Horrorcon swatted at him, trying to bat the weapon away, but withdrew his paw with a muffled whine when the silver edge sliced into his plating.
"This is for Hound," Cosmos grunted… and drove the dagger into Dashboard's shoulder.
The gray Horrorcon gave a piercing howl, releasing his grip on the minibot. Cosmos yanked the dagger free and stabbed again, hitting him in the neck. The metal parted easily beneath the blade, the edges of the wound sizzling as if he had been struck by acid. Claws raked at Cosmos' chassis as Dashboard fought back, but pain and rage blinded him, and most of his blows did little more than scratch his paint.
Cosmos struck one last time, burying the blade to the hilt in Dashboard's chest, then staggered back. Someone grabbed his shoulders, and he flailed briefly before realizing it was Ratchet.
Dashboard thrashed wildly on the floor of the rec room, smoke rising from his chassis and fluids streaking the floor. Then, as abruptly as if someone had hit a switch, he stilled, a final gurgling intake of air leaving his vents. The wild, hateful light in his optics dimmed, the violet shifting to blue before finally fading to gray.
Hound padded forward and nudged the body with his muzzle, as if ensuring the mech was really dead. Then he looked up at Cosmos and gave a soft whine. He couldn't speak… but his optics and that simple sound seemed to say "Thank you."
Cosmos was torn between telling him "you're welcome" and chewing him out for not listening to him in the first place. He settled for passing out in Ratchet's arms, the pain of his damages and the enormity of all that had just happened catching up to him at last.
"All of this could have been avoided in the first place if we had all just sat down and TALKED about it!" Ratchet snapped, making a final tweak to Cosmos' wiring before shutting his shoulder panel. "Instead of everyone being all mopey and secretive on us!"
"This all could have been avoided in the first place if people would have just listened and not dismissed everything they heard right away," Hound countered mildly, rubbing at his arm.
"Enough," Prime chided. "Accusations will get us nowhere. The important thing is that we've dealt with the crisis."
The Halloween party had come to a rather abrupt end right after Hound and Dashboard's fight – there were few party killers quite as potent as a deactivated chassis in the middle of the dance floor. Somehow, in all the chaos of the aftermath as everyone tried to figure out just what the slag had happened, Prime had found the syringe in Cosmos' hand… and, trusting that Cosmos had known what he was doing, he had approached Hound and managed to inject him with the belladonna dose.
By the time Cosmos had come back online, Hound was back to normal, and Ratchet was busy patching up the mechs who had been bitten or clawed during the battle. Just to be on the safe side, he had ordered Wheeljack to whip up three more batches of the extract to dose Cosmos, Jazz, and Grimlock. None of them had shown any of Hound's symptoms, but all the same, Ratchet was going to keep them in the medbay, under close watch, until they were sure they weren't infected.
Cosmos, for his part, felt only relief that the whole mess was over. Hound was back to normal, and the Horrorcon responsible for his transformation was dead. And if he ever heard another mention of werewolves or lycanthropy in his lifetime, it would be too soon.
"Prime, sir?" Hound said nervously. "I owe you an apology."
Prime shook his head. "No, Hound… we owe you an apology. You have always been honest with us, and we should not have dismissed your story out of hand. We could have put a stop to this much sooner if we had simply trusted you in the first place."
"But sir… I knew what was wrong, and I avoided treatment for it despite Cosmos finding out how to help me. If I'd just consented to that, we could have avoided all this. But I didn't… and Autobots got hurt. For that… for that I'll accept whatever punishment you have in store for me."
Prime considered that a moment. "May I ask why you didn't seek treatment?"
Hound sighed deeply. "Because, despite the drawbacks… I liked the additional powers being a Horrorcon gave me. I… I finally felt like a warrior. Something useful to the Autobot cause."
Prime's optics softened at that. "Hound… you were already useful to the Autobot cause. You may not be the most powerful fighter among us, but it takes more than fighters to win a war. It takes scientists, tacticians, medics, spies… and scouts. You've always been the best at what you do, and that makes you invaluable to us. Never forget that."
Hound sighed again, but a bit of a smile crossed his faceplate. "I guess I did let myself forget that, sir. I'm sorry."
"Apology accepted. For now… I'm aware that Cosmos took on extra patrol duties in exchange for information on how to help cure your condition. I think you taking over those patrols for him is adequate punishment."
"Yes, sir." Hound gave Cosmos a smile. "I owe Cosmos that much anyhow. For not giving up on me, and for believing me. Cosmos… thank you."
Cosmos' faceplates heated up behind his mask, and he squirmed in embarrassment on the berth. "Aw, Hound… I was just trying to help a friend."
"Hold still if you want to help a medic," Ratchet grumped. "I'm just glad this whole mess is over with. Primus save me from trying to treat werewolf bites again."
"With any luck, we won't have to deal with Horrorcons again anytime soon," Prime replied. "All the same, now that we know a colony of them exist, we'll need to be extra vigilant. At least we know how to combat them now."
"Kinda wish I coulda seen your fight against th' Stunticons, Hound," Jazz put in from his berth, laughing a little. "Bet that was a sight t' see. Shame we won't get t' see it again."
Hound shrugged a bit. "I have to admit… being able to take down Motormaster and his cronies was pretty satisfying. Speaking of them, though… what's being done with them?"
At that, Prime looked pained. "They escaped during the fight in the rec room."
"Aw, fraggit," Ratchet snapped. "So we didn't even get a capture out of this whole mess! Having the Stunts out of the picture would have been at least one bright spot…"
"Megatron's going to have our heads on a pike for this," whimpered Breakdown.
"Shut up already," Wildrider snapped. "Not like he's gonna believe that a scout kicked our afts anyhow."
The Stunticons were gathered at the mouth of a saltwater bay near the city of Tillamook, taking a brief rest before continuing on to the Decepticon base. They were all exhausted, dirty, and still covered in dings and dents from their ill-fated fight against Hound. The fact that they had made it this far without incident wasn't much consolation, as they all knew they were in for a verbal thrashing at the very least when they finally made it back to the Nemesis.
"What do we tell Megatron, boss?" asked Dragstrip, pulling a broken pine branch out of his elbow joint.
"We'll come up with somethin'," Motormaster replied. "Somethin' a little more believable than that Hound took us all out. If anyone hears that a mech that frickin' Laserbeak can take out without any problem beat us in a fight, we'll be laughingstocks."
"Don't the Decepticons laugh at us on a regular basis already?" Dead End pointed out.
"Oh, hush," Motormaster snapped. "You're not helping."
Dead End might have made some half-snarky, half-fatalistic comment right then… had an eerie howl not split the night. All five Stunticons turned to stare in the direction the cry had come from, as if trying to spot the maker for themselves. It was no use – despite the full moon illuminating the night, whatever had given that mournful cry was hidden somewhere in the trees.
Breakdown shivered. "Let's go… I don't like this place."
"Oh, come on," Motormaster huffed. "Don't tell me you're scared of a wolf. What's the worst it can do to us anyhow?"
"Haven't you seen those human movies?" Breakdown demanded. "Wolves are terrifying! Especially when the moon's in its fullest phase!"
"Those are purest fiction, Breakdown," Dead End assured him. "Though that's not to say that there aren't worse horrors lurking out there in the night…"
"Shut up all of you!" Motormaster growled. "Don't make me start banging heads together!"
The Stunticons were so caught up in their argument that they didn't see the gleam of violet optics shining from the shadows of the trees… or the glint of moonlight on silver fangs…