Author's note. Sorry for the delay, been working a lot recently.
Suggestions are welcome.
Enjoy and please review.
Elita was standing there, still in slight shock and disbelief over what had just happened. They had just escaped a whole cavern of Rat Monsters, with barely a scratch. Well, that wasn't strictly true, Megatron did have a nasty looking gash on his arm but still. They had gotten away and for the moment, were safe once again.
"Megatron," she said softly as he examined the rock fall he'd caused. "I...are you alright?"
"Fine," he grunted, glaring at his injury as though it was mocking him.
"Let me look at it," Elita said, coming over to him and trying to take his arm.
"Its fine," he said with a grumble, yanking his arm away.
"Please, let me just clean it," Elita pleaded as she sub spaced a cloth, she didn't like seeing him hurt.
He eyed her for a long moment before shoving his arm at her with a grunt. She smiled and started wiping away the energon from his gash, gently cleaning it. She saw some shards of metal embedded and she deftly plunked them out, tossing them away. Megatron didn't react, he just watched as she did this.
"There we go," she said softly, finally finishing. "Do you want me to bind it up?"
"No, I need to close it up now," Megatron said grimly. "We can't have the smell attracting anything."
"But how...?" Elita started to ask but Megatron was already picking up a long, jagged piece of metal.
With his blaster, he set it to a lower setting and aimed it had the end of the metal shard. Elita watched open mouthed as he burned the point until it was white hot, melting into an even brighter orange. She wanted to turn away but she couldn't as she watched him place his blaster on the ground before pressing the burning white end onto his wound.
There was a hiss and smoke rose up as it was slowly dragged along the wound, melting the metal beneath. Elita felt sick, she could smell the burning and when she looked up, she saw Megatron's face contorted with pain. He was only just managing to stop himself from snarling with pain, his teeth were locked together in a terrible grimace.
Just as bile was starting to rise up her throat, Megatron pulled the hot rod away and flung it into a corner. He lifted his seared arm and blew on it, trying to cool the metal down. In an instant, Elita was there, helping him, anything to take her mind off the fact she wanted to be sick.
His optics and met her and amongst the pain in them, she also saw quiet gratitude. She gave him a soft smile and said.
"You'll think this stupid but...while I was hanging off that ledge, I...I managed to harvest some of those crystals."
His brow rose in shock at this and she wondered if he would be angry. But then he relaxed and said.
"Those are rare crystals Elita, they'll fetch a high price."
"Well, you'll be able to sell or keep them," she said softly and added as he looked briefly confused. "I'm your prisoner, which means they belong to you."
Megatron blinked before slowly nodding.
"I guess they do," he said softly before saying. "But you may keep them for now. And when we get out of this place, we'll both have a small piece to celebrate."
"That would be nice," Elita said warmly, touched by the fact he wasn't demanding the rare crystals right now.
"Come on, we better get going," Megatron now said, picking up his blaster and placing it in sub space.
"Meko," Elita called softly, the little Mecho-Mole had been doing more snuffling among the rubble.
He squeaked and came scurrying over, making Elita chuckle as she gave him a pat. She was pleased he'd escaped the Energy Leeches and Rat Monsters and had kept up with them. He felt like a good fortune mascot who would keep them safe while they travelled these tunnels.
"Good boy," she cooed softly, encouraging him to follow which he did.
She spotted Megatron rolling his eyes but he didn't say anything. She knew he thought her fondness for Meko as silly but he never mocked or teased her for it. In return, she didn't expect him to fawn over the little Mecho-Mole, she just wanted him to tolerate him. Which he thankfully was.
"Are you alright?" Elita asked softly as they walked along. "I know you had to do it but that must have hurt a lot."
"Its fine," Megatron said gruffly, flexing his arm and grimacing. "I can still use it, that's the main thing. I cannot risk attracting Mutants or Cannibals."
"Their senses are that good?" Elita questioned softly.
"They are," Megatron said softly. "Remember, they are not true bots, they may be cunning but they lack many higher functioning processers. Their energies are instead focused on all their senses, sight, hearing and smell. And of course, their taste is incredibly enhanced."
Elita shivered, these former bots drank the energon of transformers and relished in it. And it seemed that once they got a taste for a bot's energon, no other type would do them. They had to keep drinking it, all the while becoming less and less like bots and more like monsters.
"I don't know which is worse," Megatron continued. "The Mutants have had all sorts of things done to them which helps them with their senses. But the Cannibals are so obsessed with finding prey, they are relentless."
He suddenly looked her right in the optic as they continued.
"You remember that we must destroy any Mutant and Cannibals we come across, they will hunt us down otherwise."
"I...I will," Elita said with a slight tremble.
"Just remember, you will be saving lives by doing this," Megatron said softly. "If they don't get us, they will slaughter another innocent Spark who falls down here."
Elita nodded, she knew he was right. She'd never forgive herself if she allowed a Mutant or Cannibal to escape who then went on to kill a bot. It wouldn't be easy, it wasn't like killing a Rat Monster, these creatures had the faces of bots. It would be like killing an actual bot although Megatron assured her they no longer were bots.
They walked for about an hour, the path was becoming littered with debris, meaning they had to pick their way over it. Megatron's optics were fixed up ahead and he'd taken his helmet off again. Elita stayed close, her senses on high alert for anything suspicious.
But then Megatron suddenly came to an abrupt halt, his hand flying to cover her mouth. She gave a muffled squeaked but he silenced her with a look. He nodded to where the tunnel turned a sharp corner, it was obvious he had sensed something. She couldn't help but clutch at him as he held her, there was something beyond that corner.
And judging by the look on his face, it was nothing good.
He very slowly removed his hand from her mouth, she knew by now to keep absolutely silent. She guessed by the fact she couldn't hear anything, whatever it was hadn't been alerted to their presence yet. She was never more grateful for Megatron's heightened senses underground.
Megatron brought out both his blaster and his knife, pointing to the corner. His meaning was clear, they were going to go around that corner and that destroying everything in sight. She silently swallowed, here was the moment she'd been dreading.
It would be kill or be killed.
She nodded to him as she raised her own blaster, she would do what needed to be done. Megatron gave her a short nod and they started to carefully advance. She glanced behind them, Meko was hanging back, burying into the ground as though he knew what was coming.
"Primus, please protect us," she mentally whispered. "And please protect the Sparks of the once bots whose lives we are about to take."
With this prayer, she felt stronger and moved with more confidence, even as she felt sick inside. The corner came nearer and nearer, she could actually hear the sounds of movement behind that corner. There was also some strange hissing and scraping, it was obviously a group of...Mutants? Cannibals?
Well, they were about to find out.
With a war like cry, Megatron surged forward, tearing around the corner of the long tunnel and opening fire. Elita was a mere moment behind him, but choosing her shots more carefully so as not to hit Megatron.
The wide tunnel was filled to bursting with snarling, pieces of bots, there were limbs and chasses everywhere, as well as splashes of bright energon. For a moment, she thought Megatron had already torn them all apart but then the reality hit her. All the bots here were made up of a jumble of different mixed matched parts.
As one frothing Mech charged at her, screaming wildly she raised her blaster and shot him clean through the head. She realised they must be Cannibals, Megatron had told her they scavenged parts from the bots they killed. The one she had just killed still managed to run a few more stumbling steps as it died, before finally falling at her feet.
But she had no time to dwell on this fact, there were more lunging for her and she was forced to back away, still firing. To her horror, the shots that didn't kill instantly didn't slow them down, they still kept coming even as their armour shattered and energon splattered.
"Ahh," she screamed as a former Minibot clawed at her, scoring several scratches in her armour but not causing them to bleed yet.
He was close, too close. She slashed at him with her knife and he went stumbling back, shrieking with pain and rage.
"Primus forgive me," she cried as she plunged her knife into the Minibot's Spark, it's armour had been barely covering that area.
She couldn't tell who was Femme or Mech, they were such an unbelievable mixture. One she thought was a Mech, turned out to be a former Femme with massive arms, clawing and biting. One of the flailing fists caught her and sent her crashing to the ground, gasping in shock and pain.
As the Femme snarled in victory and made for her, she saw a sudden bright flash of colour which caught her attention for a brief moment. But she couldn't focus on this, she needed to shoot this mad Femme down. Her first shot hit the Femme in the tank area and she howled with pain, doubling over.
Almost crying with regret, Elita aimed better and shot her chest area which exploded in a shower of sparks. The Femme clawed at her front, falling to her front but still trying to get at her. With one last tremble, Elita shot her in the fact and she went down. Unfortunately, the Femme fell across her lower body, pinning her there.
"Megatron," she couldn't help but yell, shoving at the Femme's body while shooting at the others who were coming for her.
He was in the thick of a group, snarling and slashing at any who tried to take him down. He was shooting with his blaster and stabbing with his knife, the Cannibals were falling but more seemed to appear. Elita desperately concentrated on those coming for her but again, was slightly distracted by that flash of colour.
Most of these Cannibals had dark colour or were stained with either energon or dirt. But this flash was made up of bright colour or white, red and blue. Damn it, what was it, it was really distracting her. A thin Mech stumbled over to her, missing most of his left leg and greedily eying up hers.
"Uhh," he grunted, grabbing the dead Femme and tossing her away, trying to get at Elita's newly freed legs.
Elita shot him in the Spark, he collapsed on top of the Femme he'd thrown away. Elita sat up, looking for the strange flash she kept seeing. There were less Cannibals now but even a single Cannibal was dangerous. She started blasting any that moved now, still being careful not to aim near Megatron.
Still, some of her shots were a little wide, she was just so pumped up she had to keep firing. There were more death cries, more explosions of armour and inner circuitry and more splatters of energon. Elita felt sick to her Spark but she carried on defending herself even as Megatron finally despatched the last few Cannibals.
Now the tunnel was littered with the bodies and parts of former bots and Elita knew it would have been impossible to put them all back together. She felt great sadness for them all, they didn't deserve this cruel fate that had been bestowed upon them. Once again, she prayed to Primus that he would look after his poor forgotten children.
"Elita," Megatron said gruffly as he stumbled over, his face was a mask.
"I...I'm fine," she said, her voice cracking up. "W-what about you?"
"Fine," he bit out, his optics scanning the bodies, checking to see if any still lived.
There was one who was twitching rather a lot, so he coolly walked over and shot them in the head, before checking to see if their Spark still glowed. It apparently didn't so he moved onto others, checking them all.
Elita could feel tears running down her face, she felt worse than she had ever felt in her whole life. But just before she could break down and start sobbing, she spied the flash once again. She focused all her attention onto it, she didn't want to think about what had just happened.
She moved forward, half bent as bodies leaked fluids beneath her.
"What?" she exclaimed in surprise as a pair of red optics blinked at her, before disappearing behind a body.
She really was shocked, these Cannibals all had either white or black coloured optics, because they drank the energon of bots. But this one had a normal bot's optics and he was clearly of the Decepticon linage. She moved closely, why wasn't this one attacking?
All of the Cannibals had fought to the last, even when all of their limbs had been destroyed, still they struggled. But this one hide, and had bright flashes of colour on its armour.
She finally arrived at that body, Megatron was still among others. She peered over and was completely shocked at what she saw. A young Sparkling gazed up at her, his armour dirty and stained but nonetheless showing his colours. He looked weak and underfed, his armour was barely holding together.
But the thing that caught her attention was the little wing growths on his back, this was the child of a Seeker. The very thought was staggering, no flyer enjoyed being underground, most went mad if forced to stay for a prolonged amount of time.
"Little one?" she said softly and he hissed at her, trying to bare his teeth like the adults had.
He was no Mutant and she doubted he was a true Cannibal but she could only conclude he'd been living with them for a while. Why had they not taken him apart and drank his energon? Had they been planning to, as an emergency store? Perhaps deep within them all, there was still a shred of goodness that compelled them to adopt the youngster rather than eat him.
"I won't hurt you," she said softly, reaching for him but he back away, still hissing at her.
"Elita?" came Megatron's voice, he was obviously wondering what is going on. "Is there a live one?"
"Yes," she said and she heard Megatron hurrying over, so she quickly stood so he couldn't do anything.
"But it's not a Cannibal," she said breathlessly and as he stared at her, said. "It's a Sparkling, a Seeker Sparkling."
"Sparkling?" he said in disbelief before looking around her and gaping at the hissing Seekerling.
"Primus," he said, his voice revealing just how shocked he was.
"I know," she said softly. "Oh Megatron, he must have gotten lost, I don't know why but those Cannibals didn't kill him. Please, we must take him with us, we can't leave him."
He stared at her for a moment, before striding forward and grabbing the hissing Sparkling but it's scruff bar. The Sparkling snarled, struggling and trying to swipe at Megatron but the grey Mech ignored this. Megatron seemed to be looking for something, she saw his optics focus on something on the Sparkling's neck and he grunted.
"Starscream. His name is Starscream."
To be continued.
Author's note. So, what do you all think of this twist? I hope you all like it, next time, how do Megatron and Elita cope with a little Sparking? Find out next time, until then.