Disclaimer - "Transformers" and all related characters, events, and concepts belong to Hasbro, Takara, and any other related owners/distributors/producers. I get no monetary benefit from this. My benefit is the enjoyment of dealing with beloved characters.
Salted Wounds
by DragonDancer5150
Chapter 4 - As a Team
The spirits shifted around them, impatient and fearful, as everyone waited for Prowl to return.
Don't want to hurt you.
Don't want to be hurt.
Master is demanding.
Master is angry.
Master is returning!
Prowl sped back down the hallway, but just as he passed the last of the bank of lightbulbs, a foul wind howled through the cavern, and something slammed into the ninjabot, smashing him into the far wall. Prowl fell heavily and didn't move.
NOOOOOOoooooooo!
The wails of the ghosts joined the raged snarling of the black mass, and they attacked. Intangible forces knocked Optimus to the ground once more, this time holding him there with impossibly cold grips. He felt his strength slowly seeping from him, siphoned by the spirits.
"H-hey! LEGGO!" Bumblebee's panicked cry echoed through the room under the cacophony of the dead, and Optimus knew his team wasn't faring any better than he was.
"B-Boss-bot! Heads up!"
Optimus twisted in time to see one of Bulkhead's wrecking balls slam through the stalactites directly overhead, breaking them free and raining rock and salt deposits down through the group of spirits holding him. The ghosts hissed and squealed in pain and dissipated from around him. Optimus sat up, spotting his teammate who'd already freed himself the same way. "Great thinking, Bulkhead!" Shifting to a knee, Optimus snatched up the axe he'd dropped, threw it into the cavern ceiling over Bumblebee, then turned and deployed a grappling claw to wrap itself around a stalactite over Ratchet, yanking back to snap the lower half free and rain salt and rock shards over the medic.
"Bumblebee!" Optimus yelled even as more spirits started to close around him again. "Time to put that speed of yours to use! Find the belt piece Prowl took. Get it into that-ACK!" Optimus's knees buckled as the ghosts bore down on him again.
He watched Bumblebee's expression shift from terrified to determined. He dove out from under the ghosts starting to press on him again, bolted for the mined section of the cavern, and crowed as the tires on the outsides of his ankles touched smooth floor. "Wheels on heels! Can't catch me now!"
The ghosts tried, but Bumblebee ducked, dodged, and wove between them, too fast and agile for them to properly get their icy hands on him. Optimus saw him snatch up the belt from under Prowl's hand and start back for the alcove, the malevolent mass screeching overhead. It clawed at Bumblebee, who bucked in pain as it left blistering marks in the yellow finish over his shoulders and down his back, but it didn't seem able to affect him otherwise. Then it turned, as if changing tactics. Optimus sensed more than saw it "look" at Fanzone, whom Ratchet had just managed to free from his ghostly captors. It can't do much to an Autobot, Optimus thought in alarm, but it can affect a human.
Fanzone must have felt it too because he backpedaled into Ratchet with a cry, eyes wide as he stared in horror at the mass that began to float over to him, radiating malicious intent. He and Ratchet started throwing salt crystals, but the entity had gotten wise to that tactic, sections of vile fog merely parting to allow the crystals to pass harmlessly through without actually touching the mass.
"That's…not good," Ratchet muttered as he scooped up Fanzone and started retreating. The mass gathered itself, then dove at Fanzone.
A flash of white intercepted, putting itself between Fanzone and the entity and causing it to buck back in surprise. The ball of energy resolved itself into the little girl, Ariel Hugo, her arms thrown wide in a gesture of protection. The mass snarled and sent out a tendril of black fog ending in points like claws to slash through Ariel's ghostly form. She vanished with a scream.
Fanzone gasped in horror. "Ariel!"
"Got it!"
The mass had started for Fanzone again but shifted at Bumblebee's triumphant cry. He had the lidded jar in his hands. Howling in rage, it rushed the repair-bot.
Bumblebee shrieked in terror and dove out from under the mass's trajectory. "D-don't got it! YIKES!"
"Hey, ugly! Pick on someone your own size!"
The mass hesitated, hovering over Bumblebee who had curled up on the ground around the jar.
Bulkhead flung one of his wrecking balls into the collection of stalactites in the ceiling over Bumblebee and the alcove, raining salt and rock through the gathered cloud. There was too much dispersed volume for the entity to dodge, and it dissipated with a furious shriek under the assault. With that, the ghosts backed off again, seeming to curl in on themselves, huddling in fear and pain.
Optimus glanced up at the rest of the ceiling. "That tactic won't work for much longer. We'll run out of ceiling with salt deposits." He pulled himself to his feet once more, retrieving his axe as he approached to check on Bumblebee, battered and half buried by Bulkhead's attack.
"I-I'm okay. I'm all right." The repair-bot's voice was as shaky as the rest of him as Optimus and Bulkhead uncovered him and Ratchet took a quick look at his wounds. He held up the jar. Optimus noticed for the first time all the intricate symbols carefully painted around its belly - an element of the binding magic, perhaps. "I put the belt in the jar. Why didn't that work?"
"I don't know," Ratchet said, the tone of the growl in his voice one that he only got when he was truly worried, "but we'd best figure it out, quick. That thing will be back any nanoklik."
"The shaman or whoever that was in the vision said to pierce blood with winterberry." Optimus shook his head. "I just wish I knew what he meant by that."
"Well, I think we got the blood part covered." Bumblebee opened the jar and pulled the leather back out. It was smeared with something dark and wet. "I think it's the blood from the television."
Bulkhead nodded, glancing over at his teammate's unmoving form. "Trust the ninja-bot ta think of somethin' like that."
Optimus nodded as well. It was a brilliant move.
Fanzone came back from digging in the rubble at the foot of the alcove. "Winterberry is a species of tree." He held up the wedge of wood that had fallen out of the old piece of leather. "Also known as Michigan holly, an' dependin' on who you ask, holly is supposed ta be a magical wood, really powerful. If you believe in that kinda stuff." Which, from the look on his face as he gazed around the room at the milling ghosts, he was starting to.
Optimus looked at his team. "Ratchet, go check on Prowl. Bumblebee, Fanzone, you-!"
This time, even the ghosts had no warning as the malevolent entity blasted back into the cavern with the speed and strength of a hurricane, howling in rage. Optimus only just caught the sight of Bumblebee grabbing Fanzone as everyone, Autobots and ghosts alike, was picked up and scattered, flung to the far corners of the cavern. Optimus smashed hard into a wall, dropping heavily to the broken ground, and shuddered at the chill that penetrated him to the core as the spirits around and in him attempted to recover from the assault as well.
"Pierce blood with winterberry!" Fanzone's shout echoed through the chamber. Still dazed, Optimus looked up in time to see Fanzone, propped awkwardly in Bumblebee's lap where they'd both fallen, jam the piece of holly into the leather in Bumblebee's grip, wedging it securely through a belt notch in the middle of the smear. The blood began bubbling across the surface of the leather, causing both Bumblebee and Fanzone to shrink back in alarm.
The effect on the entity was immediate. It writhed and shrieked in the middle of the cavern, shoots and tendrils of blackness reaching out and pulling in as if confused and desperate with agony. All around the cavern, the spirits also twisted and shrieked, tortured by their master's struggle.
"Bumblebee," Optimus yelled, "get that thing in the jar! Now!"
Bumblebee peeled his attention from the horrors around him, fumbling for the jar. Miraculously, it had survived being flung into the rock wall next to him. He shoved the leather inside.
Impossibly, the shrieking rose another octave, splitting audios and eardrums alike. All the air in the cavern seem to be rushing into the pot, the force of it threatening to crush Bumblebee and Fanzone into the wall behind them. Bulkhead pulled himself over to them. "Bumblebee, give me the jar!"
Bumblebee managed to wrestle the jar over to press back against the palm of Bulkhead's clawed hand. The massive construction-bot could much better withstand the force of the vacuuming pot.
In the center of the cavern, tendrils of the mass clawed at air and ground trying to find purchase to anchor it against the pull of the jar but to no avail. Finally, it lost ground for good and was sucked into the jar, the force of that slamming Bulkhead's elbow into the wall behind him, breaking either the wall or the joint from the sound of it, and leaving a deep dent in his palm. Bumblebee scrambled to catch the jar as it fell, and Fanzone darted forward to clap the lid on top. In the sudden, deafening silence, the three looked at each other, then the pot, no one moving for a moment as they waited to see if it was really over this time.
Groaning, Optimus pulled himself up to his knees, swayed, and put a hand to the back of his head, his fingers coming away smeared with oil. Across from him, Ratchet lay still, while on the other side of the cavern, Prowl finally stirred.
The ninja-bot moaned as he pushed up off the ground. "W-what…what happened?" He gasped and bucked back as he spotted the ghosts all around him.
"Prowl, it's all right. It's . . . it's over." Optimus dragged himself the rest of the way to his feet and limped over to check on Ratchet. The medic still had his color, and he gasped in pain as Optimus rolled him gently over. He smiled in sympathy. "Still with us, Ratchet?"
The old medic peered up at him and managed a strained grin. "Can't get rid'a me that easy, Prime."
Optimus allowed a low chuckle. "Wouldn't dream of it." He helped Ratchet to his feet.
Bulkhead had managed to get to his feet as well, favoring his wounded arm, and moved over to help Prowl.
Bumblebee held the closed jar like he expected it to explode any second. "W-what do we do with this?"
"Bury it," Fanzone stated with a growl. "Stick it back in that damned alcove and collapse it. Bury it in so much salt nobody will ever find it again."
Here.
Here.
Over here.
Bury it here.
The ghosts had congregated in a corner, on the opposite side of the cavern from the tunnel, pointing at the ground.
Under.
Pocket.
Smash it open.
The ghosts hadn't led them wrong yet, not of their own volition, so Optimus retrieved his axe once more and headed over to join them. He started hacking at the rock and salt crystals where indicated. After three swings, a whole section of the floor caved in, revealing a deep pocket thick with salt crystals. "Bumblebee." Optimus waved the repair-bot to him.
Bumblebee darted over and carefully set the jar into the pocket. Then Fanzone and the Autobots swept the entire cavern, gathering as much salt debris as they could to pile into and on top of the hole, followed by Bulkhead using the wrecking ball of his working arm to knock down parts of the ceiling to further bury everything.
The spirits watched silently as the Autobots finished their work. Finally, Optimus turned to them. He gave them a gentle, reassuring smile. "Go. You're free now. That thing can't hurt or hold you any longer."
Glazed eyes and empty eye sockets gazed back all around him. He could feel their gratitude and relief. One by one, then in pairs and groups, the spirits faded into the ether until only one was left.
"Ariel," Fanzone murmured, dropping to a knee to face the child spirit at her own eye level.
The little girl bore a ragged gash across her dress where the entity struck her, but she smiled brightly and darted to Fanzone, throwing her arms around him. Optimus saw him shiver with the cold of her touch, even as he brought up his arms to try to hug her back. Then she was gone, and Optimus saw tears on the police captain's cheeks as his head dropped for a moment, hands over his face. Ratchet stooped to lay an understanding hand on his back.
Optimus took in the sight of his team, battered and wounded. "Autobots . . . let's go home."