Author's Note:
A little more about Nightstalker and what drives her . . .
Another quick and gruesome torture method . . .
Florence + The Machine
"Howl"
"If you could only see the beast you've made of me
I held it in but now it seems you've set it running free
The saints can't help me now, the ropes have been unbound
I hunt for you with bloodied feet across the hallowed ground!"
She left Cliffjumper to wrestle all day and all night with his guilt. She wanted it to wear on his mind. Then, the next morning, Nightstalker brought in another energon cube to the now familiar cell.
Cold blue optics touched her. His embittered voice filled the room. "Why couldn't you have just let me die?"
She didn't grace him with the obvious answer of why, but instead she fixated the tube from the cube to his arm. He gave a harsh laugh at her silence in the dim cell.
"What a way for me to live, eh? Refueling me with energon just to spill it all over again!"
Nightstalker moved back and crossed her arms, refusing to let his words affect him. For some reason, his managed to rattle her a bit more than the others, and she couldn't quite figure it out. Maybe it just meant they had had too much small talk the other day while he was recharging.
For the most part, Cliffjumper was silent as he already trembled in fear of the torture to come. However, he broke it again, and Nightstalker cursed with some ill luck that her captive was talkative. "You never did answer," Cliffjumper finally said. "Why Decepticons?"
"Autobots don't allow torture," Nightstalker stated.
He gave a tired sigh. "Yeah, but was that really all that moves you?"
Nightstalker flicked an invisible speck of dirt with her claws. "My loyalties always belonged to my brother."
"And where is he now?"
Nightstalker's vocals twisted up at the memory of Fli-Ni. Her loyalties to NightFlier had everything to do with why she was with Decepticons, and it wasn't even his designation in the war that mattered. Cliffjumper heard her silence, optics staring at her.
"You don't have anything here . . . do you?"
Nightstalker glared at him with orange optics. "Only because Autobots took him away from me," she stated evenly back. Cliffjumper flinched then.
"I see." He shook his head, looking at his half empty cube. "Guess some things will never be forgiven. Which battle?"
Her hands clenched. "He wasn't in any battle," she hissed at him, feeling her rarer cruel side rising. Cliffjumper looked up, sensing her pain. "He was just an innocent bystander!"
"Caught in the wrong place at the wrong time," the Autobot mech heaved with a resigned sigh. "I got it . . ." Nightstalker twitched as she waited for the cube to empty, wanting nothing more than to spill his energon now for bringing it up. "While I can't really speak for the Autobots, or even the one that killed your brother . . . I'm sorry."
Nightstalker slashed her whip across his front, causing him to arch in pain. His blue optics widened at her sudden ferocity. "Your word means nothing."
Cliffjumper stared at her as the last of the energon trickled in. Nightstalker removed the tube and kicked both it and the energon cube to the side. "My question remains the same, albeit, a little different," she told him thinly, lassoing her whip. "If the Autobot base is in America, where AT in America is it?"
His blue optics flickered. "Over my dead body."
"Pleasantly arranged."
Nightstalker vented her bottled frustrations on the red Autobot mech, forcing him to take the lacerations that another deserved. She knew the sight of that broad back that had turned away from her brother. For that, she would never forgive him, and because he was Autobot, she would always be Decepticon.
Cliffjumper took the whipping resignedly, knowing there was no escaping it and knowing that she was using him as an outlet now for her hurt and anger. Nightstalker purposely struck his wounded areas just to hear him scream, the way her brother's last scream had ended so abruptly before the explosion, just for the sake of hearing an Autobot scream.
It was some time before Nightstalker had worked off enough steam to reign in her hot head and begin the interrogation in earnest. Coiling her whips back into place, Nightstalker used a hand to bring his left one down. It seemed that she had been a bit uneven with his wounds—the right knee and the right upper arm, but nothing major on the left. She would change that now.
"The Autobot base," she repeated hollow. It didn't even matter now. She didn't care. "Where is it?"
He took a brave breath. "Not telling."
Nightstalker let her lips quirk up. "Great. That means more fun for me." She took his hand. "Such strong hands," she told him idly. He immediately curled his hand into a protective fist, and the sight made Nightstalker laugh loudly with amusement. "You really are something else, you know that?" She had always seen some type of defiance from her captives, but his by far were the most eccentric. She clucked her glossia and shook her head. "Until you tell me exactly where the Autobot base is, I'll have fun picking apart your hand piece by piece."
He didn't respond, not trusting himself to speak, and Nightstalker just smirked and brought out her sparsely used precision cutting tools. Carefully beginning, Nightstalker clearly heard his stifled sound of terror as she cut apart his first finger, shaving off the metal like a layer of skin. It wasn't long before this gruesome process had Cliffjumper screaming in pain again, shouting and pleading for her to stop.
She didn't, of course. He hadn't given the location of the Autobot base, and she would steadily keep the pain high today knowing he wasn't going to break. Slicing off the plating over his hands and exposing the soft insides, the wiring that made up his fingers, a smile played at the edges of Nightstalker's lips. He would break tomorrow, though. Today was to get him to regret not speaking up.
With his entire hand stripped raw of any protective shell, Nightstalker pocketed the knife briefly to tap her claws against the sensitive wiring. "Are we going to speak yet?" she taunted him mercilessly.
He didn't speak again, and if not for the screaming she would have wondered if he had tried to offline his vocal processor. She sighed as if a shame, shaking her head. "I thought better of you. Brace yourself—this one's gonna hurt."
Nightstalker dug her claws into the mech and penetrated to the wiring beneath. Cliffjumper screamed, but that scream amplified to piercing when she dug around in his finger to get a good grip on his slick wiring, and tugged and pulled the wire free. The nerve had to be awash in splintering pain held bare in her grip because Cliffjumper's optics had flickered black again.
Nightstalker took her time in pulling each set of wires in each finger taunt and jerking, knowing the pain was more than would be excruciating for him. As she moved on to the next finger, she cajoled, "You know, this WILL stop once I get the location of the Autobot base . . ."
His gasp was nearly a sob of pain, and he wept, "Please, I beg of you, please stop . . . for pity's sake—stop!"
"Don't like the way I'm mutilating you?" she snarled at him, turning harsh in an instant knowing that he was weeping. Now was the time to set aside all pleasantries and turn as cold as space itself. "Tell me where the fragging base is!" Nightstalker tore into the next finger, groping through the insides until she could wrap the wire around her finger. Cliffjumper's screams escalated as he jerked uselessly against the stasis cuff. "Tell me, you glitching slag heap! Where is the base?"
He wailed in response, a wordless howl to prevent himself from telling her outright where to find his friends. Nightstalker yanked and pulled the bleeding wiring apart, his energon gushing from the wounds and making her grip slick. "Where is the base!" she bellowed at him again, tearing her claws through the fourth finger. His scream's rose in agonizing melody, echoing down the halls, and glazing inside Nightstalker's mind. Cliffjumper's screams.
She yanked relentlessly, pulling the veins and nerves free of his body. Cliffjumper's voice box suddenly gave out, fritzing before falling completely silent. It was maliciously eerie that he was still screaming in complete silence because his mouth was open wide and his lips pulled back over his teeth.
She smacked him once for good measure, knowing a smack would still hurt but cost his pride more than a punch. "Where is the base!" she shouted at him, letting her voice crack sharp like her whips. "Where is the base!" she repeated it for him over and over, letting it ingrain on his mind. She grasped the last finger, cutting through and gouging around the insides to grab his wires. He howled silently, unable to do anything but watch as she dismembered his hand with brutal ruthlessness. "Where is the pit spawned base!"
Her voice died out again leaving them in silence save for the quick splats of energon collecting in a pool on the floor. "You like how that sounds?" she taunted him, slapping him hard again. "You like hearing the sound of your body ripping like the flesh of a human?" Nightstalker drove all her claws into his palm, tearing maliciously what possibly remained. She kept quiet, letting him hear the sounds of spitting electricity, shrieking metal, and the indescribable sounds of his wiring slicing open and gushing.
She hit him again when he threatened to fall into a stasis. "Where is the Autobot base?" she hissed at him. She raked her claws across his front, letting her claws shred open the festering wounds he bore from Arachnid's venom of the day before. His body arched and shuddered, but his screams were still unheard to the heavens. "Where is your base!" she snapped, slashing her claws across him again, more of his energon on her today than any other day.
A static-filled moan finally left Cliffjumper's lips, audible this time as his body gained the time it needed to reboot necessary systems. "What was that?" she growled. Nightstalker mimicked his sound cruelly, slapping his face again. "Where is the Autobot base? Speak up!"
It was a bit before the word made itself clear, and even then Nightstalker barely heard it because his voice was a breathy rasp.
"Mercy . . ."
She started, staring with wide optics as he lifted his one-horned head. Chaste blue optics touched her hateful orange ones like the brush of angel's wings. "Mercy . . ." he whispered again desperately, eyes searching hers. "I beg of you . . . but that . . ."
With sudden ferocity, Nightstalker slammed her claws through the left side of his face, mutilating that too. She pushed his hand, mangled beyond recognition as a mass of tender energon, pieces of broken metal, and wiring away.
"Don't think I haven't forgotten Arachnid's venom," she snarled darkly at him, making him writhe in pain as she dug her finger's deeper. "And don't think I haven't forgotten what I was designed after!" Letting the tips of her claws transform open, Nightstalker let the lava flow from within. Cliffjumper shrieked again, his screams rebounding off the desolate cell walls as he writhed beneath her cruel grip. Nightstalker quickly shut off the flow though, not wanting to go too deep lest she accidentally offline him for good.
She slowly pulled her hand free of his face. Cliffjumper moaned wordlessly, shaking and shivering in terror of her as she approached close.
"I haven't forgotten any of my pretty little tools," she whispered to him. He fought for his breath, shivering and quaking violently while little sobs slipped past his lips. "And I'm just getting started on your body. There's always another hand—" A despairing cry punctuated her statement. "And I haven't even began here," she reminded him, and Nightstalker lightly tapped at his interface panel.
Cliffjumper gave some semblance of a moan or a sob both, trembling when she touched him. Nightstalker was suddenly glad that Cliffjumper couldn't find the strength to raise his head because she suddenly couldn't keep up her callous expression.
"However . . . we'll save those for tomorrow."
Nightstalker beat a hasty retreat, not knowing why she was suddenly leaving him when a bit more should have been in the wings. Cliffjumper's voice plagued her as she left, rasping hopelessly, "Please . . . I beg of you, mercy . . . If you would only grant me mercy, please . . . mercy . . . mercy . . . mercy . . . mercy . . ."
It was only when Nightstalker was walking through the halls towards her room and her berth did she suddenly realize why Cliffjumper's voice pleading for mercy was shaking her.
She was afraid.