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Discussion in 'Transformers Fan Fiction' started by Meta777, Mar 11, 2013.

  1. Meta777

    Meta777 Dr Pepper Fan

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    Hound threw himself to the side and the Decepticon’s lunge missed him by mere inches, the sharpened metal slicing uselessly though the air as its targets mobilised. The pain in his side blazed in response to the sudden movement, but it was a price he was more than willing to pay to avoid further damages. The Decepticon snarled in fury at having missed, before lunging into another attack.

    The jeep had to quickly skip back to avoid the next lunge, as the Mustang continued the assault and swung again, which the Autobot managed to avoid by leaning backwards slightly. His wound continued to flare agonisingly in response to the rapid motion, and it was throwing off his perception, much to the Autobot’s increased anxiety and fear. He ducked again, but this time the scythe tore into a back-mounted tire, ripping it open with a piecing explosion of air.

    But though it hurt dreadfully, it at least gave Hound the opening he needed to lurch forward and ram himself into his smaller foe, knocking Barricade back and putting some space between him and his savage opponent. He revved heavily as the Decepticon regained his bearings, growling with sadistic Energonlust, before he adopted a defensive pose and braced himself for the next attack.

    Barricade extended the chain of his scythe, swinging it around his head with astonishing speed before letting it fly, the blade aimed unerringly for Hound’s head. But the jeep managed to avoid it with a quick lean backwards, and also avoided the second swipe when Barricade pulled the chain back. The Decepticon snarled and swung it around again, aiming lower this time, and Hound had to jump over the intended sweep.

    However, this sudden motion jostled his injury, and his abdomen jerked slightly given its current lack of structural integrity; the result was that his torso flexed unnaturally, earning a yelp of pain as he lost his footing, staggering somewhat as he attempted to compensate for his failed recovery.

    Barricade just laughed as he watched his nemesis stumble in agony, before retracting the chain and lunging towards the weakened opponent, swinging his scythe at Hound’s chest. The blade cut neatly through the vehicular armour, shattering a headlight as a spurt of Energon spouted from the main slash and Hound staggered back, slamming into a tree which just barely managed to stay upright.

    As the huge plant creaked dangerously under the weight upon it, Hound whimpered softly as he struggled to work through the pain. He’d been hurt before, many times worse than this, and yet it burned him every time he struggled through it. There was no end to the pain, just repeated incursions with it.

    Was it worth it? Was this endless war ever worth the constant pain?

    Still, he revved his engine in effort and shoved himself upright, the tree finally falling over as he shifted with a colossal crash. Of course the endurance was worth it. Not just for everyone he cared for, but for himself. Weakened as he was now, even with his foe relentless and merciless and more of the innocent forest breaking, he didn’t want to die. He was scared of dying, yes; he’d been scared of it when the Seeker had been looming over him. But he was not scared of Barricade.

    He’d never been scared of Barricade.

    His foe laughed again, perhaps finding his resistance morbidly amusing, before he moved in for the kill, the scythe aiming for his head this time. Barricade swung around with all his strength, zealously determined to fell his opponent with a final blow-

    One of Hound’s arms deflected the attack. The other brought up a medi-kit. Barricade had just enough time to simultaneously curse his miss and wonder why Hound had a medi-kit, right before the jeep slammed it into his face with an echoing clang of metal. The Mustang was slammed to the side, crashing through the dirt and grass as he grinded to a halt, dazed and dented by the blow.

    Furious, he surged back to his feet, clawing at the ground to speed up his recovery, red optics flashing furiously as he brought his scythe to bear- and then he froze in shock. For Hound was not trying to take advantage of his brief fall, not trying to reload a missile or assume a defensive position, nor attempting to pick up the tree and hit him with it.

    Hound did none of these things. Instead, he turned and ran away, and before he had even cleared a few trees, his figure blurred and vanished beneath a hologram.

    Barricade was surprised for a moment, staring in disbelief after the retreat of the Autobot. And then surprise shifted into fury as he howled: “YOU FRAGGING COWARDLY HOLOGRAMMING PIECE OF SLAG! YOU DARE RUN FROM BARRICADE?! COME BACK HERE AND DIE!”

    Enraged, he lunged after his illusionary opponent, shrieking curses and violent threats as he blindly pursued Hound. No amount of trickery and deception would save his damnable foe, no amount of running would ever allow him to escape his retribution and no amount of pleading or begging would make his death any less painful!

    Barricade kept to a logical path, though, blinded with fury as he was; he kept moving towards the road, ensuring that if the jeep attempted to reach it and drive away, he’d be there to catch him! And it didn’t hurt that his optics caught sight of drips of bright blue Energon on the forest floor. No matter how well a hologram worked, it could never hide the aftermath of carnage. Barricade didn’t need to see his foe directly; all he needed was the spilt life.

    “I’M COMING FOR YOU, HOUND!” He roared, holding his scythe high as he stormed his way through the forest, keeping an optic on the trail of Energon as he put himself between the route to the road and wherever his foe may be. “YOU CAN’T HIDE FOREVER, AND WHEN YOUR HOLOGRAM RUNS OUT, I’LL RIP OUT YOUR SPARK AND CRUSH IT! CRUSH IT!”

    Obviously, his foe did not reply, and yet Barricade continued to scream after him: “YOU’LL NEVER ESCAPE FROM ME, HOUND! I’LL HUNT YOU TO THE ENDS OF THE UNIVERSE FOR WHAT YOU DID TO ME! I’LL KILL YOU, AUTOBOT, EVEN IF IT TAKES MY LAST SPARK! I’LL KILL YOU AND EVERYONE YOU’VE EVER CARED FOR!”

    And at this point, still locked onto the trail of Energon, which was now leading deeper into the forest surprisingly enough, Barricade activated his cloaking device, the infuriated Decepticon disappearing in a ripple of camouflaging power, with nothing but the upsurge of disturbed plants and dirt to follow his movement.

    Both hunter and hunted cloaked within their personal barriers, the chase had transformed from mindless pursuit into unnerving stealth. But this hunt was in Barricade’s favour. He was not injured and leaving a trail of life-blood behind. He wasn’t rapidly losing energy to fuel his camouflage’s efficiency.

    And he was the one who had a mind to summon the sole Decepticon that could see through holograms.

    --

    “It shouldn’t be taking this long.” Ratchet muttered, sat upon the berth with an air of anxiety as he watched Evac slowly picking out the spike-spheres lodged in Grimlock’s feet, the truck grumbling uncomfortably given the fact he was forced to lay on his back and hold his legs upright. “Hound should have called by now, or even come back by now!”

    “I’m sure he’s fine, Ratchet. Maybe he just prolonged his drive to clear his head or something” Evac stated reassuringly, optics narrowed in concentration as he worked to ease out another spike-sphere which had become particularly well-embedded into the unlucky berserker’s foot. They’d dug in pretty well considering Grimlock had ignored removing them in favour of picking a fight.

    But these were very intricate little devices, he noted, as he finally plucked the difficult one out. Expertly crafted to fit their sharp spines into a compact little sphere, so unassuming and harmless in appearance. Whoever had made these had a knack for design, certainly; even Wheeljack couldn’t make devices as neat and refined as these things.

    He thought about raising this point to the other two, when Ratchet continued, fidgeting uncomfortably as he flexed his leg slightly: “That’s exactly the kind of scrap Wheeljack would say, Evac. When has it ever gone well for an Autobot in contested territory to stay out longer than expected?”

    Evac had to admit he had a point; considering the amount of fights and shenanigans the Autobots had gotten into so far, like the ambush at the quarry and the fight in the nearby forest, it did seem fairly obvious at this point that the Decepticons generally had something to with any prolonged absences of their comrades.

    Of course, it made him think of Wheeljack and Bumblebee, out there on their own with only a lump of Solanor and some tools; easy prey for any hunting Decepticons in the area. He shuddered a little bit and shook his head. Best not to think like that.

    Grimlock took this moment of silence to interject: “Believe it or not, Grimlock agrees with you, Ratchet. Hound never prolongs his reconnaissance for meaningless reasons; if he is taking this long, than something significant must have caught his attention.”

    Ratchet took a moment to recover from such polite compliance, Evac raising a brow in slight impressment, before he replied: “Y-Yes. So, therefore, we should find out what’s taking him so long!”

    “Why don’t you give him a call?” Evac suggested.

    “I think I will, yes!” The Hummer replied, immediately tapping a finger against his head and activating his com-link: “Hound, this is Ratchet; we’re wondering why you’re….”

    Silence.

    He paused for a moment, expression marred with fear as he comprehended the lack of a response, before he tried again: “Hound, are you there? Are you okay?! Hound, answer me!”

    Silence.

    Evac exchanged an uncertain glance with Grimlock, who was now rolling onto his feet with the last spike having been removed, as Ratchet again frantically attempted to coerce the jeep to respond to his desperate communications. The two waited for the Hummer to finish, and when he did, his optics were twitching in barely withheld fear.

    “He’s not answering.” Ratchet muttered feebly. “The call is going through, his communication systems are picking it up. But he’s not answering me.”

    “Well then, Grimlock suppose that Hound did find something of interest.” Grimlock grunted, before shaking his plating slightly and shifting around, heading towards the door. “Evac, let’s move.”

    “Wait, what?” The helicopter asked in surprise, optics widening and rotors clacking, quite shocked at the berserker requesting his company.

    “If Hound is in trouble, than it obviously falls to us to find him.” The truck snapped, immediately frustrated by this hesitance, tilting his head slightly to glare at the larger Autobot. “So let’s go find him before we have another incident like we had with Bumblebee. Grimlock will need your flight capabilities if we want to be quick about this.”

    Evac hesitated, turning slightly with an uncertain expression towards Ratchet in clear need of guidance. The Hummer paused for a moment, considering the uneasy helicopter and the annoyed truck, who was fuming ever so slightly. His green optics flickered in contemplation, and he titled his head down to gaze at his leg for a moment.

    Finally, Ratchet spoke, a slight sense of defeat to his tone: “Grimlock’s right, Evac; you could find Hound much quicker than the rest of us. Besides, I’m of no use right now.” A glance towards the nearby berth, before he added: “And someone needs to stay with Jazz.”

    With that, he nodded at his apprentice, who returned the gesture and made for the door, rotors flexing slightly as he headed out. Grimlock turned to follow him, but as he reached the door, he paused and tilted his head towards the senior medic, a slight hint of questioning in his crimson optics.

    They stared at each other for a moment, before Ratchet revved slightly, seemingly struggling with himself for a moment, before muttered: “Don’t let anything happen to them.”

    Grimlock did not reply, but he at least flicked his tail somewhat and took his leave. Ratchet listened for a moment as he heard the signature rumble of the side hatch and the subtle shifts of transformation followed by the rumbling of a truck and the high-pitched whirr of a helicopter, and then all was quiet.

    He sat there for a moment, thinking to himself, before he glanced at the prone form of Jazz, still offline and with the plating on his chest shifting ever so slightly as it repaired itself, before he bowed forward and gripped his head between his hands with a soft whimper.

    --

    His foe’s frenzied shrieks seemed to echo everywhere through the forest; Barricade must be well and truly dedicated to slaughtering him today. Of course, for a brief moment Hound had felt the same way. He too had felt that insatiable desire to snuff the spark of his hated foe, crush it and its host into tiny pieces. But the gaping hole in his abdomen had changed that attitude, and now all he could think of was the best way to escape.

    The obvious answer was to reach the road, but he strongly suspected Barricade was planning for that. This left going deeper into the forest and hoping he might be to avoid the Decepticon and whatever reinforcements he summoned. The only Decepticon that could break through his holograms was Waspinator, but he doubted that drone was here; it belonged to Starscream, not the Mustang.

    That was assuming Barricade summoned any reinforcements to begin with. He may be hoping to finish Hound on his own, and the Autobot hoped that was the case; it was easier to lose one Con than a squad of them.

    He moved through the foliage slower than he would like, conserving some extra energy for his holographic projections. Leaking as he was, with several major valves having shut off to prevent the major sapping more Energon from him, he didn’t have enough power to keep his disguise for long. But it was alright, he just needed it long enough to get away from here-

    He paused slightly as he passed by a large boulder, and turned around. He stared at the massive rock for a moment, comprehending the relevance of it, before he paid further attention to a large imprint upon its surface. The impression was embedded fairly deeply into the boulder, cracks all around it and what seemed to subtle burn marks upon it.

    There was a definite humanoid form to the imprint, and Hound suddenly realised that he stood in the clearing where Jazz and some of the others had had their battle against Barricade and Soundwave. He stood at the stage of the first bot-to-bot conflict upon this planet, and it seemed almost fitting that this area where their grounded battles began could well see the end of either him or his nemesis.

    Slowly, he meandered over to the imprint and sat down beside it, revving softly as his frame shifted somewhat to make itself comfortable. He absently rubbed a hand along the cut in his chest, before revving again and opening Ratchet’s medi-kit. Within the container were a plethora of basic medical supplies, simple enough for even a non-medic to use. First stage was some basic regenerative plates adhered to his cut, but alas, none were large enough to handle the tear in his abdomen.

    Oh well. He settled on picking out a cylinder tipped with a sharp spike and jabbed it into his uninjured, wincing slightly at the sensation before relaxing as the contents within oozed into him. A brief burst of nanite fluid would speed up repairs; not enough to get him into perfect condition, but it should at least keep him stable for now.

    With these alterations performed, he closed the container, shortened his holographic field and then he sat back and waited. Barricade had stopped screeching at this point, but it didn’t take long to hear the unnatural sounds of something shifting through the forest, something far too large and noisy to be any mere Earth animal.

    Hound gave credit where it was due; Barricade was both persistent and efficient at hunting. It wouldn’t be difficult to follow any stray Energon droplets or footprints, and Hound wondered if his present cover might be enough. He narrowed his optics and paid closer attention to the sounds; the faint crumple of dirt and grasses under heavy feet, the subtle rumble of an agitated engine.

    Barricade was moving towards the clearing, that much was certain. Hound suspected his opponent was cloaked in order to prevent his hologramming opponent from possessing any advantage, and that only made any hope of an easy escape or a counter-attack obsolete-

    A sickening cracking sound merely a few feet away, and Hound sharply turned his head in time to see faint scratches appear on the boulder’s surface; tiny scars drawing across the grey structure with bits of dust and tiny pebbles scattering to the floor. Tiny scars in the unmistakable pattern of a clawed hand. Just as soon as it had appeared, the scratches stopped and the air shifted slightly, moving away from the boulder.

    Barricade had been right there. Barricade was in the clearing, shifting around in search of his victim. Hound slowly, very slowly, prepped his shoulder rocket launcher. The slightest hint of exposure, and he’d fire it right into his opponent’s damnable spark. He could see the grasses shift and flatten slightly, but the cloaked hunter was shifting too quickly for any hope of guessing where he was.

    Save for the faintest swivels of his rocket launcher, Hound didn’t dare move. He remained perfectly still, like the native creature they called a moth, a tiny animal that utilised camouflage as well to avoid predators. Hound felt just as vulnerable as a moth at this present moment, and only his hologram, slowly but surely losing power, could stave off discovery.

    His frame tense, optics dimmed, Hound waited.

    And now it seemed the Decepticon was moving away; the tiniest hiss of frustration sounded, then a tree at the edge of the clearing shifted slightly, a sudden crumpling upon an area of its bark, and the footfalls slowly shifted away. Barricade was leaving the clearing and Hound relaxed ever so slightly-

    “Where are you, Hound?”

    The voice seemed to come from all directions, and it made his spark chamber crawl. There was no sign of the invisible hunter, no shifting of plants or cracks on the rock, but he was near enough that his voice resonated all around the area, and it sounded again: “I know you’re in this area; I can feel your Energon leaking. Tell me exactly where you are, Autobot, and maybe I’ll be quick about finishing you.”

    The lieutenant did not respond. There was no point to responding; remain silent and wait for the Decepticon to lose interest and move on. Just wait, and don’t make a sound-

    “Are you too scared to face me, fragger?” Barricade called again, taunting this time, clearly intending to bait out his foe. “Too scared to fight Barricade, the magnificent warrior who’s gonna rip out your optics the second he finds you? Where’s that fire, Hound?! Where’s your zeal to kill me gone?”

    Don’t pay attention to him. Don’t respond. Wait, just wait-

    Barricade tried a different tactic: “It’s a shame you’re just going to hide here, you piece of scrap; who’s going to help little Bumblebee if his mentor’s too busy cowering under a hologram? But then, maybe it’s what you want! At least he’ll never know what you did to me when he’s too busy rusting in a grave to listen!”

    It was predictable. It was obvious. It was the stupidest thing he could do in this situation. And yet, Hound felt the brutal urge to rise to his apprentice’s defence. To crush anyone who would ever dare to threaten his innocent young Autobot.

    It was the stupidest thing he could ever do right now, and yet he called out anyway: “Listen to what, Barricade? How easily I’ve humiliated and beaten you all these years?”

    A cackle of delight sounded in response: “So you can talk! I was wondering if even your fragging voice was just another worthless hologram! But that’s not the point, Hound; the point is that your stupid little scraplet won’t ever have to realise just what a rotten pedestal his precious mentor is stood upon when I kill him, and that goes for all your other stupid friends too. Did you ever tell any of them of our past, Hound?”

    “Of course I did.” Hound stated coldly, amplifying his vocal processors to ensure his voice was as echoing as his nemesis, ensuring it could not be accurately pinpointed. “The first time I ever made an enemy of you, Barricade; the battle of the Polyhex Border. I remember an impudent Decepticon attempting to plant a bomb upon our mortar systems, and I remember how easily it was to lead him, like a rat in a maze, all the way back to his own comrades with a few holograms. I wish I could taken a picture of your face the instant you realised exactly which faction you had used a devastating explosive on. And insult to injury, when you tried to pay me back for that, I pummelled your useless frame into the ground. How could I have not told anyone about that?”

    For a moment, there was nothing but silence. The Mustang did not respond to this, did not respond to the reprisal of his greatest failure, and Hound suddenly felt quite smug. Sure, his foe may indulge in whatever berserk fury he could muster, but it would only render him reckless, and that would secure Hound’s opportunity to escape or, had he a chance, an efficient counterattack.

    So he waited.

    Barricade, from wherever he was, gave a demented cackle that only grew louder and louder, which echoed through the forest, unseen and twistedly amused, and despite his previously smug sensation, it made Hound’s plating crawl with unease.

    “Ha ha. Hahahahaha! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Oh Primus, oh Primus, I can’t fragging believe it! You, you honestly think it… ahahahaha, it’s funny but it’s really, really fragging not. I can’t believe this, oh wow… You don’t even know, Hound? You don’t even remember?”

    “I do.” Hound called, tensing against the boulder as he gazed around for any sign of his invisible assailant; his foe’s voice seemed closer than ever now. “I do remember that. Why else would such an egotistical self-absorbed scraplet like you be so obsessed with killing me? I humiliated you, used you against your own faction like a puppet. It must have truly tormented you to be such a gullible fool, Barricade.”

    “It did, and let your rest be fragging assured, I’m going to rip you open for that as well.” Barricade’s response was different now; all traces of humour were gone from him. Nothing left in his voice but hatred, his savage fire running cold like ice. “But truth be told, that’s not the real reason why you deserve so much worse a death than anyone else in your filthy species.”

    Hound’s defiance, his underlying unease, and his slight fears were suddenly frozen into blank shock. A moment of further unease passed, his optics widening slightly in disbelief as this news sank into him. The battle of the Polyhex border, his effortless defeat of the shock trooper, his utterly one-sided victory that left Barricade a pitiful laughable wreck, was not the cause for the brutal hatred emanating from the Decepticon?

    But he didn’t understand. If it wasn’t that, if their very first true battle as rivals wasn’t what caused this, then…

    What was?

    Barricade must have taken his equally camouflaged opponent’s silence as confirmation for his lack of knowledge: “Well frag. You really don’t understand, do you? What an annoyance. I really want to kill you, Hound. You have no idea how badly I just want to crush your filthy spark in-between my hands. But our connection, our past, can’t be ignored. It’s not fragging right to ignore it!”

    The Mustang contemplated this situation, before he called again, his voice a tad more lively now: “Well, if you really don’t remember, then I’ll tell you. Maybe when you understand, maybe when the full implications of what you did to me really and truly hit you, then maybe it’ll make you suffer so much more.”

    His voice seemed to be coming from everywhere, rebounding off the trees, and the jeep was frozen by disturbing curiosity. There was a moment of silence again, perhaps the Decepticon considering how to begin this tale, and the jeep remained where he was, hidden behind a veil of illusions as he waited for a memory he wasn’t sure if he desired to remember.

    Finally, Barricade’s voice sounded again: “My story doesn’t have a happy ending, Hound; you fragging ensured that. But it does a moral to it.”

    Cybertron, many years ago.

    Decepticon Science Outpost B-3, on the outskirts of Kaon.


    The alarms were blaring and the monotonous voice upon the intercom continued to shriek: “Intruder alert! Intruder alert! Autobot has breached the facility! Intercept and destroy or capture at all costs!”

    “C’mon, Barricade, we got a job to do!” Crankcase snapped as he pulled out his energy rifle and prepped it for battle whilst moving for the door, when the other Decepticon was slower to make his move. “Move your chassis already, you stupid junk-pile!”

    Barricade revved in annoyance as he unveiled his Shredder Shotguns, stalking after the other enforcer: “Give me a fragging break, you piece of scrap. Can’t I even-“

    “No you can’t, now shut up!” Crankcase snapped as the door’s intricate sealing system unlocked itself and swung it open, before the two moved forward: “We have to take this Autobot out quickly, before it can reach the control room. If it gets there, our entire operation gets sent straight the Pit. And I don’t know about you, but I am NOT in the mood to answer Megatron when he comes asking how an Autobot got in here!”

    “Then quit whining and let’s go KILL IT ALREADY!” Barricade snarled, dashing down the corridor ahead of Crankcase towards the next door, their intended course being towards the control room, which was most likely the Autobot’s target.

    Primus, as if his day hadn’t been bad enough stuck on patrol duty with Crankcase of all Cons, but now he had to deal with a pretty dire situation featuring some fragging Autobot hoping to sabotage their facility. This particular outpost was running some damn important research, and, like Crankcase, he was really in no mood for his superior’s reactions if the Autobot succeeded.

    His fellow enforcer growled but otherwise did not reply, and they maintained their pace as the door swung open to admit them into the next corridor. Several more Decepticons were scrambling ahead of them, splitting up into small teams to cover as much ground as possible, and Barricade and Crankcase quickly joined the two who were also headed for the control room.

    As they ran, Barricade considered which Autobot they might well end up facing. It could be one of the more savage ones, like that Warpath, or maybe Chromia, or even Ironhide. But the lack of corpses lying around, the lack of gunfire or screams, indicated that it wasn’t one of them, so it must be a stealthier one. A cloaker, perhaps, or a hologrammer, or maybe even the Lieutenant himself.

    Barricade idly wondered if he actually wanted to fight the Lieutenant if he was indeed the culprit. Yes, he’d adore ripping that elusive fragger apart, but he couldn’t quite deny that bigger, stronger and better-armed Decepticons had failed to defeat that Autobot, and he wasn’t quite on that level of skill. Still, who knows? He might get lucky and ram his shotgun right through the damn Autobot’s spark.

    The quartet moved as fast as they could, and just as they went through another doorway that was connected to the main corridor, the specific corridor that would lead them to the control room, there was a sudden flash of movement; a figure, gold in colour, running down the length of the corridor. Instantly, the Decepticons surged forward in pursuit, spinning round the corner and bringing their guns to bear.

    The Autobot turned upon seeing them, blue optics widening in surprise, and immediately picked up the pace. Swiftly, the Decepticons fired after it, but alas, their prey cast some kind of shield around itself as it opened the door and disappeared.

    “After it!” Crankcase shrieked, as he and the other two lunged after it. “Don’t let it get away!”

    But even as they too vanished behind the door, Barricade remained behind, optics narrowed in suspicion, before he grunted: “Fragging idiots. That leads AWAY from the control room”.

    Shaking his head in disappointment, he stalked away down the other side of the corridor, where the Autobot had just been running from, towards the most obvious target in this whole facility. But when he got to the door, much to his shock, it didn’t open. Annoyed, he pressed the manual switch, in case the automatic sensors didn’t work.

    Still didn’t open. In fact, the beep the little switch gave him told the Decepticon the door was firmly locked.

    “Oh frag!” Barricade snarled as he immediately realised what was going on. “We’ve been had! Fragging Autobot’s already in there, or an accomplice or whatever! Hey, HEY! OPEN THIS DOOR, YOU PIECE OF SCRAP!”

    He promptly began smacking the door as hard as he could with his fists, kicking it now and then, not even denting the thing, as he continued to curse: “OPEN THIS DOOR, YOU MOLTEN COG-FACED JERK! COME OUT HERE SO I CAN SLAP YOUR FRAGGING FACE! AND THEN SHOOT IT! OPEN UP, OPEN UP, SCRAPLET! AAAAAARRRRGGGGGHHHH!”

    And from within the control room?

    “Holograms.” Hound chuckled, idly leaning against the main console as the specialised hacking device lodged in one of the machine’s ports did its dirty work, quite amused by the swearing Decepticon futilely pounding on the door. “Works every time.”

    The console was promptly engaged by the Autobot virus within the device, which had already taken down the communications in the building, immediately hacking into the control room’s systems and rerouting control of the central hob to the intruder. It took a moment to grant him access to the console’s systems, or at least some of the basic stuff, and so he brought up some holograms of the facility’s experiments.

    Oh, there was some nice stuff on this database. Blueprints of weaponry and gadgets, scientific theories on Insecticon biology, documents of outer-territory planets and a particularly detailed picture of an organic creature with massive legs and jaws and oddly tiny arms. A wealth of information, fresh for the taking.

    Hound grinned to himself. Optimus Prime would surely reward him greatly for procuring such a mass of data! Alas, the only problem was that he was unable to download them onto his device; the security systems were too tightly encoded to allow any kind of casual transfer. Thankfully, he had a solution.

    “Computer, initiate security protocol purge in response to newly discovered viral signature.” He stated confidently, and on cue, his device implanted said virus, a newly created corrupting system developed personally by the unmatchable scientist Perceptor. Instantly, the console’s holograms began flickering as the virus commenced into forcing itself into the facility’s systems, specifically targeting the security protocols.

    Short and sweet; corrupt the security protocols, force the main systems to purge it in order to remove the virus and thus leaving the data free to download. It was almost too easy. Well, there was that Decepticon banging on the door, but Hound could take care of that in time. Now that the security protocols had been purged, his device was promptly downloading the sweet data. Just a matter of cycles and then-

    The intercom activated, loud and blaring, and it said something that would change the course of this day forever. It said something that neither he nor anyone else would ever want to hear in their entire lives. The intercom said something that would haunt him forever:

    “WARNING! SECURITY SYSTEMS ON LEVEL 4 DEACTIVATED; CONTAINTMENT OF INSECTICON SUBJECTS HAS BEEN COMPROMISED! REPEAT: CONTAINMENT OF INSECTICON SUBJECTS HAS BEEN COMPROMISED! INSECTICONS HAVE ESCAPED CONTAINMENT! REPEAT: INSECTICONS HAVE ESCAPED CONTAINMENT!”

    His jaw dropped. His optics dulled into narrow points. His whole frame froze. His processor halted. For a moment, there was nothing but horrified comprehension.

    “INSECTICONS HAVE ESCAPED CONTAINMENT!” The intercom continued to shriek. ”INSECTICONS HAVE ESCAPED CONTAINMENT!”

    “They… they have Insecticons here?!” Hound whimpered with terror as his motion was regained in an invigorating burst of fear, immediately running his fingers over the console and bringing up exposed files to comprehend this development. “That’s, that’s not possible, no-one would ever….. they couldn’t have! I… I…. What have I done?!”

    “INSECTICONS HAVE ESCAPED CONTAINMENT! INSECTICONS HAVE ESCAPED CONTAINMENT!”

    Panicked, he instantly ordered: “Computer, restore all priorities to Insecticon containment! Energy fields, combustion turrets, anything! Bring them back online before the facility is overwhelmed!”

    The console simply beeped: “Action unavailable. Security protocols and countermeasures have been deleted.”

    “WHAT?! No, NO! That can’t happen, security protocols can’t get-“ He froze then, sudden realisation dawning upon him, before he sagged with complete defeat and whimpered: “But… but they can. Because… because I just did delete them. Oh…oh no… no, no, no, NO-”

    The intercom continued to scream: “INSECTICONS HAVE ESCAPED CONTAINMENT! INSECTICONS HAVE ESCAPED CONTAINMENT!”

    The Decepticon outside wasn’t banging on the door anymore.

    ”INSECTICONS

    HAVE

    ESCAPED

    CONTAINMENT”


    And even with the intercom continuing to shriek ever louder, even he immediately pulled his device out of the console and initiated the facility’s self-destruct sequence with a bright beeping of confirmation, even as his own spark’s terrified pulsations pumped through his neural net, he heard the screaming start.
     
  2. Ømnidrive

    Ømnidrive Stop.....think......fart.....and keep on going

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    OH CRAP IT JUST GOT GOOD!!!! :popcorn 
     
  3. black mamba

    black mamba Seal Team 6

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    THIS^^^^^^
     
  4. Jamocha101

    Jamocha101 Well-Known Member

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    Shoot, late to the party. I'm sorry, I've just been all over the place lately and now all I ever do on the computer is MSPaintAdvenutres because I sold my soul to Hussie and post scribbles on deviantArt. So when I read this a couple of days ago I was inherently in a rush and kind of distracted so even though I've efficiently gotten high off of entertaining notions pertaining to this episode, I wasn't even completely into it at the time. And I was like, "Alright, Imma just gonna read like the first half or quarter or something and then finish it later," and then I was seventy-five percent of the way through it before I even knew what I was doing. Naturally, the exposition stuff, the descriptions we need from one transition to the other, had me uninterested because naturally nothing was going on; and that's not a problem, that was just me at the time because, like I said, I wasn't even completely down for reading it at the time (if you can believe it).

    But then it just like randomly got so good, holy cow. When Hound was hiding from behind the rock and we kept getting hints at Barricade's distance and the sense of danger as he potentially grew closer and even nearly found his adversary but not quite, and it was all so deliciously suspenseful. Easily the most successful endeavor at creating suspense that TFM has even come by so far, my eyes were so wide open as I was reading I swear they were really sore when I was done. -_-'

    There was something I loved about them just...almost casually...talking to each other when neither of them knew exactly where the other was. Like, idek. It was just really, really awesome and thought-provokingly ironic and bizarre. Two bitter enemies looking to unhesitatingly murder the other, in a however sadistic fashion, and they're both kind of just conversing like over a cup of tea. It reminds me of a World War I scenario, where, if you're familiar with trench warfare, the two opposing front lines would often be rather close to each other. And sometimes, at least this is what my history instructor has claimed, soldiers of opposing nations would obliviously hold conversations from across no man's land (the space between the trenches). It obviously wasn't buddy-buddy type stuff in the case of Barricade and Hound by any means, but it still intrigued me. Add the fact that they're conversing in that manner with the fact that Barricade is hunting down Hound and Hound is rather close to him, working on a severe injury that will inevitably deter his strength against his worthy adversary.

    Probably the best part was the revelation on Hound's part though; that he played a role in it that I never, ever saw coming. In the beginning I thought that Barricade was exaggerating the whole thing and nothing that serious ever actually happened between the two that he wasn't blowing out of proportion. And then I thought that Hound blatantly did something immoral and was simply minimizing his account of it in denial. I speculated a lot of things, but nothing that ever came to mind insinuated that Hound didn't even know what he did. I mean good golly, what a clever twist. Add insult to injury by stating that Hound thought that he did know and was regarding the crisis between him and Barricade falsely the entire time.

    Also Imma just throw it out there, that I called Insecticons being involved in this episode somehow. Idk if they're what burns Barricade's face off later on (not spoiler tagging it because everybody knows by now), but it would make sense considering they've been mentioned by now. Oh man, imagine if they came back and got Barricade again. Wow, that would be awesome, so much irony. Then again, I question myself about how they would ever be on earth. Maybe they were cryogenically frozen on the Dark Syde the entire time or maybe there was a space bridge oopsie poopsie. Haha jk, I really dunno, I both believe and doubt that Insecticons will be in this episode present-time in any event. So I just gotta wait and see.

    The one thing that confused me was when Barricade asked Hound if the latter ever told his team about their fateful rivalry and Hound was all "pssh, yeah glitch" when it seemed the opposite was true from when Wheeljack didn't know anything about their personal problems at the end of the fourth (I think) episode. I don't know if Hound was fibbing or if it was just Wheeljack who didn't know, but yeah whatevs.

    Awesome chapter.
     
  5. Meta777

    Meta777 Dr Pepper Fan

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    ”Oh frag, oh frag, oh frag, oh frag-“

    These were the words that kept rolling out of Barricade’s mouth as he dashed down the corridor as fast as he could, hands tightly clenching his Shredder shotgun as the alarms insistently blared all around him and that damn intercom kept shrieking the words he never wanted to ever hear, not now and not ever.

    The captive Insecticons were loose, and Insecticons had a nasty habit of overrunning any facility they were contained in at a terrifying pace; their acidic excrements and incredible digging skills meant that they could just rip and melt their way through any structure with ease, and it wouldn’t be long before they started clawing their way throughout every inch of this place in search of prey.

    And if that wasn’t enough, Insecticons were immensely hard to kill. The facility had been studying their regenerative abilities, so Barricade knew first-hand that they could heal from almost any injury. Tear off a leg, they grew it back. Cut them in half, both halves make a new one. Rip out their eyes, they’re only blind for a cycle or two. Oh, and they were acidic too, with corrosive Insectoplasma running through their valves. Wonderful.

    Barricade had hoped that the fact the more scientific Decepticons had been keeping the Insecticons starved would hamper their effectiveness in hunting and killing their chosen victims, but judging by the distant screaming he heard, it had only made them more ferocious. Frag the Autobot in the control room; the impudent fool had released those monsters and now everything had gone to the Pit for it!

    Well, so long as he reached the exit and got the Pit out of here before any of those monsters reached this level, he’d be home-free. Let someone else take the fall for this major screw-up-

    He paused slightly when he became aware of some other sound amongst the chaos of alarms and screams. Some kind of weird humming noise, coming from the wall. He hesitated, wondering where he might have heard such a sound before, before his optics widened and he threw himself to the side just in time.

    The Stalker burst out of the wall in a spray of acidic residue and charred metal, shrieking violently as it dragged itself from its hole, rearing upwards in a serpentine fashion in search of victims. Its bulbous optics locked onto the shocked Decepticon and with a predatory screech it lunged at him. Barricade promptly responded by thrusting his leg out, and his foot slammed into the monster’s head, neatly halting its lunge with a comical jerk of its body and denting its skull.

    Taking advantage of the Stalker’s stunned state, he rolled to his feet, prepped his Shredder shotgun’s longest range and fired, the powerful blast impacting and obliterating its head. The long body shuddered violently before going limp, its severed neck bleeding out bright green I-plasma.

    “Yeah! Yeah! Regenerate from that, fragger!” Barricade howled in success, pumping a fist in triumph. He’d never killed an Insecticon before, and the fact he’d managed to avoid a Stalker of all things was just grease on the cog-

    Except that now the body was shuddering again, and he could see its plating and valves starting to extend, clearly intent on rebuilding its missing head. Annoyed, he levelled his gun at the creature and blasted it a few more times, splattering acidic residue across the corridor as he blasted the creature into bits. No more shudders now.

    “Okay then. Regenerate from THAT, fragger!” Barricade sneered, before he quickly danced over the corpse, being sure to avoid the steaming lumps of corrosive innards. First rule of Insecticons, never underestimate their ability to recover. You had to either obliterate their whole body or burn their I-plasma, the only two ways that could put one down for good.

    A glance back down the corridor gave him the unfortunate view of an Insecticon Dropper melting its way through a door at the far end, the gangly creature too far away to threaten him, but nevertheless a grim reminder that the Insecticons were dissolving this place’s defences like they were nothing. Stupid Autobot must have fragged up the security protocols if even a Dropper had gotten this far up.

    Barricade stepped through the door and made sure to lock it behind him, grunting: “If I survive all this slag, I’m gonna quit the war, grab a nice girl and maybe settle down on some piece of scrap planet as far away from everything as possible. Missing out on the Autobot’s deaths won’t be too bad so long as I NEVER have to see an Insecticon again.”

    Speaking of Autobots, he wondered if the saboteur had escaped by now, or been eaten. He hoped for the latter, and he really hoped the latter had been terribly painful, but somehow he imagined that the cause of all this scrap wasn’t dead yet. Oh well, if he found the culprit, he’d rip his head off and feed it to a Feeder.

    Going through the next corridor, which had observation panels connected to a studying centre, he noticed Crankcase and a third Decepticon, some idiot he vaguely recollected as Cy-Kill or something, who were apparently debating something. As he slowed down and made his way over to them, Barricade glanced through the panels into the room below.

    It wasn’t pretty. Insecticons had overrun that part of the facility, and he could the various types of creature greedily feeding on the corpses of those unlucky Decepticons who had been in the room when the security had failed. The various holes in the room indicated that plenty of them had escaped and were spreading fast, and most disturbing of all was the presence of a Marauder, one of the largest and most powerful sub-species of Insecticon.

    The huge predator pulled an arm off the body it was feeding from, idly munching on it as it gazed around with bright green optics, before pausing and slowly turned its head upwards, idly flicking its long tail and ragged wings. It turned its head until it was looking right at the Decepticon who in turn was watching it.

    The Marauder seemed to stare right into his spark as it bit the arm in two almost disdainfully, and Barricade shuddered and stepped away from the observation panels.

    “Barricade, I was wondering where you went.” Crankcase grunted as Cy-Kill went to open the door, gripping his energy rifle tightly. “Thought an Insecticon had got you.”

    “One of them tried, and I shot its damn frame apart.” The shock trooper declared smugly. “But let me assure you when we should probably get out of here right fragging now; a Marauder knows we’re up here.”

    Crankcase cursed, before he turned to Cy-Kill and snapped: “Get that door open quickly; the self-destruct’s been activated anyway, so we have to get out of here now and make sure none of these corrosive piles of slag exit this place alive.”

    “I’m trying, but the locking mechanisms are going nuts and bolts!” Cy-Kill protested. “The doors keep locking and unlocking randomly, and I can’t-“

    The door beeped in an affirmative and opened. Just in time for two Droppers behind it to realise the presence of three delicious victims. The two of them lunged, seizing Cy-Kill in their long gangly arms and dragging him away, the unlucky Decepticon screaming in terror as they promptly dug their claws in and started to pull him apart.

    “Oh frag!” Crankcase swore, as he and the other Decepticon levelled their guns at the two monsters, but they instantly halted and spun around at the sound of ripping metal behind them; the Marauder was clawing its way through the observation panels, optics locked intensely upon them. They were pinned, with those two brutes on one side and this monstrosity on the other.

    “Oh frag.” Crankcase repeated, before he turned to Barricade and asked: “Marauder or Droppers, which one would you rather try?”

    “Neither. Let’s just fragging roll!”

    With that, they both transformed into vehicle mode, tires spinning wildly, and drove through the door past the two Droppers, Cy-Kill squealing for help right before they succeeded in ripping him in half. The Marauder gave a roar of anger as its prey drove away right before it fully smashed its way into the corridor and immediately pursued them, the Droppers squealing in surprise as they dragged their victim out of the way of the titan.

    The two cars reached another door, thankfully unlocked and drove through it, before transforming back into robot mode and locking it behind them. They had reached the weapons level now, which was just a few corridors away from the exit, and Barricade stated: “Should we grab some better guns or just make a run for it?”

    “Better to run and survive than fight and die.” Crankcase stated wisely, already trotting off to the next door, which was reluctant to open thanks to its faulty locking systems. He cursed upon seeing this, before revving with annoyance and declaring: “And of course the sane option is the difficult one. Alright, fine, if you want some new guns, go grab them quickly while I try and unlock this slag.”

    “Gotta be quick, Crankcase.” Barricade sneered as he opened the door to the weapon storage, thankfully free of any Insecticons. “The other door won’t keep the Marauder out forever.”

    “I know, now shut up and let me concentrate, you idiot.”

    The shock trooper rolled his optics and stepped into the weapon storage as the other Decepticon started fiddling with the locking systems, glancing around eagerly at all the delightful gadgets of destruction around them. Tempting as it was to grab as many as he could, Barricade knew he’d need pretty specific weapons to deal with Insecticons. So, sheathing his shotgun, he made way to the incendiary weapons; no Insecticon could tolerate fire for long.

    Ah, what a juicy supply of burning tools he found, all neatly stated on a rack under the label of ‘Incineration’; burner pistols, fire grenades, a pretty hefty looking flame thrower and heat-infused blades. He grabbed two of the pistols and some of the grenades, decided to ignore the blades (who wanted to get up close to an Insecticon anyway?) and grabbed the flame thrower, slinging the fuel tank onto his back and clipping the long nozzle to his hip.

    Satisfied, he made to head back to Crankcase, but was surprised at the sight of another Decepticon near the grenade section, curled up in the corner and clutching a sleek energy rifle awkwardly, the barrel scraping the side of her face. He recognised her as one of the other enforcers in this level, a petite but agile soldier, and he promptly stalked over to her.

    Oh dear, she had that fear in her optics, the really dark and traumatic fear that Barricade was well aware of. He’d seen it before, a few times in fact; everyone was aware of the terror the Insecticons inspired, and some bots took it harder than others.

    Her mouth was agape, but she wasn’t whimpering or anything, but her optics were pretty alert, flickering here and there with an unmatched fear and agony flowing through them. Barricade stood before her and those optics locked onto him almost desperately as he said: “Hey, trooper, can you walk? Me and my fragging idiot friend are making our escape; wanna come with?”

    She didn’t answer, merely staring at him with those unholy optics, and he felt a tad uneasy. Shaking it off, he snapped: “Well? Are you just gonna sit there and wait for the Insecticons to get you, or the self-destruct? Get up and we can get out of here already.”

    Her optics flickered painfully, and it seemed like she was trying to tell him something.

    That was when he finally paid attention to the weird crunching noise emanating from her abdomen, so soft he’d barely even heard it, and he stepped to the side to glance at her back.

    The Stalker didn’t see him, nor did it pay attention to his disturbed step backwards; it was far too busy lodging its head through the Decepticon’s back, idly munching away at her innards. Oh right; Stalker venom paralysed victims, left them nice and alive for the beast to feast on. No wonder she’d been holding that rifle so awkwardly, right up to her face; she must have tried to turn it on herself when the Stalker got her, but the venom had beaten her to it.

    Barricade’s response was instant in the face of his comrade’s excruciating and slow demise; he clicked one of his fire grenades, activating it and jammed it into a vulnerable segment in the creature, which gave a muffled screech of pain from within its prey. He jolted backwards, towards the door, and as he made his escape, he swore that the Decepticon’s optics were dimming with thankfulness.

    The door sealed shut, so he didn’t hear prey and predator go up in flames, but what he had seen left him feeling horribly cold. Another victim of those unnatural monsters, just like poor Cy-Kill and all the other fraggers unlucky enough to get caught by them. There was no mercy, no pity; just slaughter and hunger. And it was all that Autobot’s fault; they had released the Insecticons upon everyone in this facility, and all these brutal and grisly deaths were on that saboteur’s hands.

    Barricade promised himself that he’d make the Autobot’s death just as painful as that Decepticon’s would have been.

    Crankcase unlocked the door just as the other Decepticon awkwardly shuffled over to him, and he accepted the offered burner pistol and some fire grenades, stating: “Good haul, Barricade. Lucky that Marauder still hasn’t gotten through, right?”

    “Right. Let’s get out of here before I have to see another one of these fragging monsters.”

    Crankcase raised a brow as the door opened and they moved through it: “Was there one in the weapon storage?”

    Whatever response Barricade would have made, it was halted when both of them saw something astonishing; a gold Autobot, the very same Autobot Crankcase had left Barricade to pursue, struggling to open the door that led to the final corridor towards the exit whilst simultaneously swatting at a hovering and persistent Cutter attempting to bite his head.

    They froze for a moment, and then Crankcase shouted: “Stop right there, Autobot!”

    He levelled his energy rifle at the attacking Insecticon, as the surprised Autobot turned to look at them, and blasted it, the little creature exploding in a tiny ball of fire on impact. With this threat removed, they lurched forward, and before the fool could whip up another hologram, they tackled him to the floor, pinning him down with ease.

    Barricade was aching to rip this fragger apart, a fragger he recognised from the archives as a scout named Hound, but Crankcase took control of the situation, pinning his energy rifle’s barrel against the frightened Autobot’s head and snarling: “Was it worth it, Autobot? Was the data you wanted worth condemning everyone here to their death?”

    “I didn’t know!” Hound protested, struggling against them. “I didn’t know there was Insecticons here!”

    “SHUT UP!” Barricade roared and smacked him across the face with one of his pistols, before getting off of him and moving to finish unlocking the door: “You killed everyone here, Autobot! You’re responsible for all of this!”

    “And that’s why you deserve only the worst we could ever muster up.” Crankcase snarled as the Autobot pitifully writhed under his weight. “We’re gonna throw you in Polyhex, Autobot, and let Conciller Overlord extend your pain for eternity-“

    The Marauder smashed through the door behind them, optics locking triumphantly on these small prey items, and before any of them could react, it sprang forward and seized Crankcase in its massive claws, mercilessly crushing into the screaming Decepticon even as he tried to fight back against it, his energy rifle clattering uselessly to the floor.

    As Hound frantically crawled out of range, Barricade gave a roar of anger and aimed his flame thrower at the monster, firing a steam of chemical flame at its soft abdomen. The Marauder howled in pain, but it did not release Crankcase; instead, it beat a retreat back the way it had come, dragging its victim away as it escaped the stream of fire.

    “HELP ME!” Crankcase begged as the Marauder fled. “BARRICADE, HELP ME! HELP-“

    The creature vanished down the next corridor, and his screams cut off. There was no helping him now. Another victim of the Insecticons.

    Barricade swung round towards his only chance of exit. There was no-one left here now except him and the Autobot. The Autobot who had just finished unlocking the door and was now making a run for it towards the exit. Enraged, furious, merciless, Barricade gave pursuit, hefting his flamethrower up in an attempt to blast the Autobot, but a screech behind him caused him to realise another batch of Insecticons were also hunting for prey.

    He reacted promptly, throwing his flamethrower off of him and rotating his upper torso around; just as a gang of Droppers and Stalkers reached the doorway, he fired his burner pistol at the flame thrower’s fuel tank, penetrating the shell and reacting the fluids within. The tank exploded violently, splattering flaming chemicals all over the monsters, the Insecticons screaming and screeching as the fire boiled away their I-plasma and formed an effective burning barricade between any others and the exit.

    His torso snapped back round and he was catching up to the Autobot, who appeared to have an injured leg. With the wall of fire behind him keeping away any interruptions, he lunged at the Autobot, but instead of crashing his foe to the floor, he flopped through a hologram and hit the ground hard with a yelp of pain. Struggling back to his feet, he realised that Hound was already unlocking the final door, glancing back at him in terror as he tried to open the final obstacle between himself and freedom. Barricade snarled, made to charge, but then he saw the Autobot’s expression change into complete panic.

    Barricade had no time to react when another Marauder leapt through the flame wall, its armour thick enough to bypass the heat, and he had no time to react when it locked onto him and lunged.

    The Marauder seized him by the leg, twisting it to an unnatural angle, and he was dragged screaming to the floor. The massive beast pinned him down, and even as Hound looked on in paralysed horror, its jaws sank into the Decepticon’s shoulder with terrifying ease.

    Barricade shrieked in pain, howling with agony as the monster tore into him, bright blue Energon spilling from his shoulder as he struggled against the beast, kicking and punching at it as hard as he could even as the pain raced through his entire body. But it was no use; he had no chance to fight it off, no chance at all.

    “HELP ME! HELP ME!” Barricade screamed as the Marauder’s claws dug deeper into him, his own hands scratching futilely at the monster’s armour, twisting his head around with frenzied optics staring right into the Autobot’s own as he managed to throw his burner pistol towards Hound. “SHOOT IT, SHOOT IT, GET IT OFF ME! GET IT OFF! HELP ME! HELP ME!”

    Hound was frozen as he watched the titanic brute tear into the struggling Decepticon. Hound didn’t know what to do; the fear permeated through his frame, the instinctive terror in the face of these monsters that came from below. The Insecticons killed everything they came across; the Insecticons corroded and tore and sliced and consumed and nothing could stop them.

    With a viral tear, the Marauder tore off the Decepticon’s arm, throwing the twitching appendage aside as the prey gave an audio-piercing screech of agony.

    He could have tried, though. He could have shot this Marauder with his rocket launcher, blasted it off of its screaming victim. He could have grabbed the burner pistol by his feet, attacked it, distracted it, given the Decepticon a chance to escape. Perhaps lure it away with a hologram, or try and pull the Decepticon out of its grip. He could have tried to help the Decepticon. He could have tried to save him.

    Hound did none of these things. Instead, Hound turned and ran, ran as fast he could through the door into the outside world. He ran as fast as he could and he did not look back.

    In a world of agony, Barricade could only gaze after him in horror, horror at being abandoned, horror at being condemned to a grisly death, and it hurt him. The sheer revelation that he would die now hurt him more than this monster ever could. It hurt so much.

    Just like Crankcase, the jerk he had always hated, must have hurt when the other Marauder had torn him apart. Just like Cy-Kill, the idiotic but funny idiot, must have hurt when the Droppers pulled him in half. Just like that nameless Decepticon must have hurt as the Stalker ate her alive from the inside.

    It hurt, everything hurt, everyone was dying, everyone was suffering-

    Everyone except the Autobot, the Autobot who the archives called Hound, the Autobot who had ran away, the Autobot who vanished behind the sealed door.

    And then Barricade was angry.

    “YOU COWARD!” He howled, a mixture of fury, hatred and agony searing through him and invigorating his damaged frame as the Marauder’s jaws tore at his chest plating, intent on reaching and consuming his very spark. “YOU FRAGGER! YOU MURDERER! YOU MONSTER! YOU KILLED US ALL! YOU KILLED US! I’LL KILL YOU! I’LL KILL YOU, I’LL KILL YOUR WHOLE RACE, I’LL KILL THEM ALL!”

    In a final act of defiance, as the intercom blared that self-destruction was a mere twenty astro-cycles away, he raised his functional arm and roared as he drove his claws right through the Marauder’s skull, the beast howling in pain at this sudden assault and attempting to rear back out of his reach, but he clung on persistently, his fingers digging only deeper into the beast.

    “KILL YOU, AUTOBOT!” Barricade roared, demented from the agony. “KILL YOU, MONSTER! KILL ALL OF YOU! YOUR WHOLE SPECIES! YOUR CHILDREN, YOUR FAMILIES, YOUR FRIENDS, KILL THEM ALL! KILL THEM ALL!”

    His hand enclosed and the Marauder’s skull imploded in a burst of acid, acid that splattered across his chest and his face and he was screaming when it began to eat into him, burning him beyond any pain he had ever felt in his life. It seemed every neural throughout his frame was on fire, and the acid had clear access to his innards via the tears and gouges into his armour.

    Barricade screamed as he felt himself burn from the inside out, but even as the titanic body toppled over, twitching violently in its attempts to regenerate, sheer fury and hatred forced him to start to crawl away, pushing at the ground with his twisted legs, the plasma eating into his internal systems.

    Scraping the floor with his melting hand as he began to crawl towards the door, his vision distorting and vanishing as the acid corroded his optics, he continued to howl, voice becoming weak and gurgling as his mouth began to dislocate: “K-kill yoooou, Autoboooo, ki-kill you, kill all ooof yooooaawwww, kill you, AAaaauuutoo-“

    With a sharp hiss of corrosion, his lower jaw dropped off and clattered against the floor and his voice degenerated into incoherent groans.

    Ignoring this, ignoring the fact pieces of him continued to melt off of his frame, even as his vision finally vanished into darkness when the acid destroyed his optics, even as his hand continued to grind away into a mere stub, he pressed onwards just as the intercom buzzed: “Five astro-cycles until facility self-destruct-“

    No. He wasn’t going to die. Not until that Autobot had been torn apart, crushed under his feet. Never mind Polyhex or Overlord; he refused to die until he had killed Hound with his bare hands. Even as he burned, even as his data chip howled damage reports and system failures in his distorted audio, he continued to drag himself to the door that led to freedom. He had to kill the Autobot. He had to kill them all-

    “-Four astro-cycles-“

    -Autobots needed to die. They always needed to die, but this was their final mistake, the greatest mistake any of their kind had ever made. This was the day they truly earned Barricade’s attention, and every day beyond this one would be filled with their screams of pain and their shattered chassis and their obliterated sparks-

    “-Three astro-cycles-“

    -Chances are the door was locked, but he still possessed the burning residue upon him; if he had to melt his way out, so be it. All that mattered was that he escaped, that he hunted down the Autobot who had done this to him and all the others and that he killed him, tore him apart, pulled out his valves and peeled away his processor-

    “-Two astro-cycles-“

    His leg was hurting again, a stabbing pain digging into him, suddenly stopping him, and he realised that the Marauder had finished regenerating its head, judging by the angered screeches he was hearing. The Marauder had him again, and it would end him for daring to hurt it so.

    “-One astro-cycle-“

    As the jaws enclosed around his head, he painted a beautiful picture of the golden Autobot screaming as he pulled out his spark.

    And then the whole world was white and burning.

    --

    The Decepticon transport vessel came to a landing near the wreckage of the facility, landing upon the ground near the smoking rubble of what had once been a shining example of Decepticon science and engineering. The side hatch opened, and Commander Strika stepped out onto the ground, her red optics narrowing slightly as she observed the carnage. Such sites of ruin were typical nowadays, but this one had held great promise, and thus the loss was a tad more potent.

    Tankor stepped out beside her, and voiced the obvious: “Now THAT is one big pile of slag.”

    “Yes.” Strika replied smoothly, before moving forward towards the wreckage. “That’s what tends to happen to any structure paid much attention to by the Insecticons. At least someone had the bright spark to destroy this place before they could escape.”

    Tankor followed after her, a tad hesitant as he asked: “Do you think anything could have survived the blast?”

    “Doubtful, but not impossible. You know that the Insecticons are tenacious.” She replied, pausing just short of the blackened metal that surrounded the smoking corpse of the facility. “Such an unfortunate event; Lord Megatron will be displeased upon learning of this facility’s premature demise.”

    “Well, at least the Insecticons went down with it, right?”

    “Hopefully. I’ve called in the newest member of my unit to sweep the wreckage, so we shall find out in due time.”

    “New member? Who?”

    “Do you know Commander Blackout?” When she got a nod of confirmation, she went on: “Well, his best student failed miserably in her first battle, so she has applied her enthusiasm to medical studies. I have agreed to adopt her into my unit, since she has flown free of Blackout’s training, and this shall be her first field endeavour as a proper medic under my command. And if I’m not mistaken, here she comes now.”

    And indeed, swooping towards them came a deep purple-and-teal jet at high speeds, and when it came close to their position, the jet transformed and jetted down to their level, a tall and slender Decepticon with prominent sharp wings and an Energon ray in place of her left arm.

    She landed neatly next to the larger Cybertronian and swept upwards into a salute, declaring: “Medic Slipstream reporting for duty, Commander Strika, ma’am! What do you require of me?”

    As Tankor raised a brow in bemusement, Strika stated calmly: “I require you to scan the wreckage for any surviving life-forms. This facility was self-destructed after the captive Insecticons overran it, so we must ensure that none of them survived.”

    Slipstream hesitated, before quivering fearfully: “I-Insecticons?”

    “Insecticons. Tankor and I will patrol the outer border of the wreckage. Go scan the central rubble, Slipstream.”

    “Y-yes, commander! No problem, commander!”

    With that, she quickly pranced over to the ruins of the facility, lightly stepping over the charred rubble and torn hunks of metal. Strika promptly moved one way and Tankor, shrugging to himself, moved the other, all three prepping their various systems in the event of discovering a live Insecticon. It was unlikely, given that the creature’s intolerance to heat meant an explosion should well have annihilated them all, but one must never underestimate the tenacity of an Insecticon.

    Dancing over the rubble, Slipstream’s ray arm engaged an elaborate scanning beam, bright white through the smoke, searching intently for any survivors of the explosion. She kept her optics open and moved with caution; if something particularly nasty like a Stalker or a Marauder had survived, she certainly didn’t want to get caught off-guard-

    Her ray arm started beeping; a life signature! At first she almost panicked, fearing that an Insecticon would burst from the rubble, but luckily for her, it was a normal Decepticon signature. A spark, negatively charged, indicating a male, still pulsing despite everything that happened.

    “Commander!” She cried out, disbelieving but enthusiastic. “There’s a signal here! Someone survived all this!”

    Striker and Tankor ran over to join her, and she pointed them towards a particularly thick hill of rubble. Working together, the two bulkier Decepticons started shifting it aside as Slipstream pointed them in the right direction, and eventually, they shifted aside a particularly large piece of twisted metal to reveal the survivor.

    To say he was in a bad way was an understatement. His legs were twisted, his armour molten, one arm missing and the other melted down the elbow, his chest ripped open, his face barely non-existent and certainly unrecognisable. Acidic residue, permanently infused into his innards by the intense heat of the explosion, marred his frame and struts. And yet, from this twisted body gleamed a soft light; a spark, visible through the torn spark-chamber, pulsing as strongly as ever.

    “Unbelievable.” Tankor muttered.

    “Incredible.” Slipstream whispered.

    “Surprising.” Strika mused, before turning to the other two. “Tankor, take him back to the vessel. Slipstream, return to base and prep the med-bay. We have a lot of work to do.”

    “Y-Yes, ma’am!” The medic squeaked, before jetting into the air, transforming and flying off as fast as she could.

    Tankor was perplexed, even as he moved to pick up the ragged body: “He’s pretty fragged up, commander. Are you sure it’s worth the resources to repair all this? He’ll need a new outer structure at least.”

    Strika replied: “Call me sentimental, Tankor, but I personally believe that whatever determination drove him to survive both Insecticon assault and a self-destructing facility should be rewarded. If he can bring himself to live through all this, what else could he strive to fight through?”

    “I guess. But I still don’t get how he managed it. I mean, look at his spark! Beating wildly, wilder than any spark I’ve ever seen! How does a spark manage that, despite everything?”

    As they moved back to the vessel, Strika replied: “Motivations vary between individuals, but if I had to guess what drove this Decepticon to keep resisting even as the fire and acid burned through him, I’d wager he still had something he needed to finish.”


    --

    Hound was frozen in place. His entire frame sagged against the boulder. His optics flickered uncertainly. His rocker launcher retracted into his back as its systems powered down. The past was all he could think of. His darkest hour.

    Every ounce of fight in him, every ounce of hatred, had died.

    Slowly, very slowly, he climbed to his feet, staring blankly into the trees. Slowly, very slowly, he shuffled forward, almost like the fictional creature the humans called zombies. When he reached the centre of the clearing, he paused. His hologram was nearly out of power.

    Barricade’s voice came again, light and teasing: “Ah, memories. Aren’t they so great, Hound? Especially if they’re the ones you’re prefer to have rather than the ones you wish you could just forget forever.”

    “I didn’t know.” Hound whispered.

    Barricade didn’t hear him as his voice echoed on: “Of course you’d want our first match to have been that stupid fragging hologram trick at Polyhex. No harm for you there! But you gotta face facts, Hound; you murdered everyone at that facility, let the Insecticons rip them apart and eat them alive, and you left me to burn. Is it any wonder I have to kill you? Would have killed you anyway, like we’ll kill all of you Autobots, but you know why, for me to you, it’s pretty personal.”

    “I didn’t know.”

    A pause, and then Barricade spoke: “Did you say something?”

    Hound spoke louder now, his frame still and his optics unseeing: “I didn’t know.”

    “Right, you didn’t know it was me, fair enough. Just like you didn’t know there were Insecticons there. Funny how bad things happen when you don’t know things, right? But hey, at least today you’ll get the chance to make up for all that when I beat you to death. Your communications are being jammed, so no-one’s gonna come to save you. It’s just me and you.”

    Hound’s hologram failed at last, but not because its power had ran out. As before at the quarry, a strange beam was breaking it apart, and just when he became visible, he dully noted Waspinator perched on a tree branch, staring at him curiously with huge navy-blue compound optics.

    A moment’s pause, and the jeep heard the faint ripple come from behind him. Slowly, his injuries aching profusely, he turned around. Barricade was standing by the rock, decloaked, idly tossing a little silver thing up and down in one hand, glancing up at the sky.

    “Frag me.” Barricade stated, surprisingly soft now. “I’m feeling sentimental. Probably because it’s the last fight we’ll ever have as rivals. Here’s how it’ll work, Hound; no weapons, just your bare hands. Winner gets to see tomorrow. Sound fair to you?”

    Hound could only gaze at him, the agony within him only peaking now. Staring at him now, all he could see was a different Barricade, a Marauder ripping him apart, begging him for help. He wasn’t seeing the Decepticon he hated anymore; he was seeing the Decepticon he left to die.

    There was no fight in him anymore. How could he fight? How could anyone fight someone they had abandoned to the Insecticons, the monsters beyond anything Cybertron had ever known? No, wait. There were monsters worse than Insecticons. There were bots like him, bots who valued their own plating over the most basic decency and compassion.

    He couldn’t fight with this knowledge contaminating him. He probably couldn’t even survive.

    All he could do was murmur: “I’m…. I’m sorry.”

    Barricade shrugged indifferently, clenching the silver thing tightly in his hand as he reared the arm back: “Too late for that, Hound. It was too late for sorry the day you decided to become an Autobot.”

    With that, Barricade attached the Battle-Inducement Nodule to the back of his neck and turned it on.



    Note: Holy crap, this chapter. I felt pretty unnerved writing it.

    Hound's in deep, deep shit.
     
  6. black mamba

    black mamba Seal Team 6

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    DUDE.......that was......................F'ing crazy, epic, horrifying, brilliant, and awesome all at the same time!!!
     
  7. Ømnidrive

    Ømnidrive Stop.....think......fart.....and keep on going

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    THIS!!! :popcorn 
     
  8. Meta777

    Meta777 Dr Pepper Fan

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    Note: University work has been kicking in lately, so the next chapter of Hounded may take a while. In the meantime, please enjoy a brief synopsis and sneak peek of episode nine, Cave In.

    Synopsis: A freak accident in battle ends up trapping Bumblebee and Slipstream deep underground, leaving their comrades struggling to rescue them in a time when Autobot and Decepticon must cooperate.


    He was surprised at the undiluted panic and fear in her voice, her frame shifting under him with surprising vigour and her optics wide and terrified. He blinked once in light of her shaking and quivering, and promptly raised his heads in a soothing gesture, showing her the active headlights upon them.

    "Okay, okay. I won't turn them off." He stated softly, sounding as reassuring as he could manage. She shuddered again, before her expression changed into distaste and she awkwardly glared at the rocky wall of the small cavern, presumably chastising herself for showing weakness in face of the enemy.

    Bumblebee tilted his head in curiosity, examining her for a moment before asking: "Why don't you want me to turn them off anyway?"

    She continued glaring at the wall, before her optics dimmed in inner defeat and she muttered something to herself. He leaned towards her slightly, silently asking for a repeat.

    She shuddered again, her larger frame vibrating against his, before she repeated clearly: "I'm scared of the dark, okay? I don't like the dark. That's all there is to it."

    Head turned, the Decepticon glared at the wall again, her tailfins twitching against the rocky floor.

    Bumblebee just laughed slightly, causing her to swiftly glare at him, assuming mockery, before he enlightened: "That's nothing to be ashamed of. Lots of bots are scared of the dark. I not too fond of total darkness myself! But Hound always said that the darkness isn't the true fear we have, but the things we imagine within it."

    She raised a brow, expression softening into curiosity: "Philosophical. I suppose it makes sense."

    Bumblebee nodded, and his smile faded into contemplation: "It does make sense. You're scared of it because you're scared of dying."

    "...What?"

    "It's in your optics." He replied, shrugging slightly. "Optics say things you'd never say. The things you wish you could say, but you'd never say for whatever reasons, is what your optics will say. You just gotta look hard at them, and you'll see what's important. Darkness reminds you of dying, and dying, well..... who's not scared of that?"
     
  9. Ømnidrive

    Ømnidrive Stop.....think......fart.....and keep on going

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    Bee is a boss. Seriously he shows potential to be a leader.
     
  10. Jamocha101

    Jamocha101 Well-Known Member

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    Wow this took me forever to actually read, I started reading it as soon as it was updated and then just randomly got distracted by all kinds of other stuff and I'm so late and it's a terrible feeling. e_o In fact, I started to review a couple of days ago and then got ripped away from the computer because of rehearsal. But enough about me!

    Wow, this chapter was so righteous. I'm loving this episode so much so far, you don't even know. ;_; I don't really know where to begin, but I generally loved everything about this update; the dialogue, the atmosphere (omg the atmosphere), the shifts in mood and the characterizing and the everything. It was so eerie and immersing that, I swear, I stopped realizing that I was reading a think after a little while; I was pretty much just there and it was the best and worst thing ever. It kind of turned into a first-person perspective thing, like I imagined being there, because it was so cinematic that it reminded me of a lot of other things. Namely a lot of horror video games contain nearly identical atmospheres, even scenarios.

    I mean, really, it was pragmatically basically a horror game; characters are stuck in a screwed up facility with monsters on the loose, and the main thing is you gotta get out alive. Good luck. You have weaponry and some buddies (at first). There are other NPC's running around, but they're doomed. You have a certain amount of time to make your escape before it will all just be over. It reminded me primarily of Nightmare House 2, an indie Halflife 2 mod because it operated a lot on the same presence, except there were zombies instead of Decepticons. At one point, the player is accompanied by a few other NPC's (who in this case would be Cy-Kill and Crankcase), and the player along with these aforesaid NPC's have to make it through an abandoned hospital--it's just that there are zombies everywhere. The first guy dies because all of the zombies and everything, supposedly, got to his head and he had to get shot. Second guy died because he got dragged away form underneath a door by a monster (ohoho, lookie Cy-Kill and Crankcase). Third guy died because a helicopter crashed into the building (incidentally their original means of escape) and caused him a fatal injury. (Yo, Barricade). The whole thing was so spine-tingling, so immersing, so well-executed, it was so wonderful. I could feel the horror creeping up at the notion of Insecticons wandering around while Barricade and the others were discussing escape.

    It also reminded me of Alien, particularly when Barricade found the unfortunate lady sitting in the corner of one of the rooms; because a lot of the movie was creeping around the dark, dilapidated ship whilst the big bad monster lurked around and killed at his pleasure. Also I want to point out that I thought it was really nice and cute of Barricade for trying to help out the lady and then going ahead to put her out of her misery in an actual benevolent way. Even though it was at the lost of some of my mental stability having to picture a little Insecticon thing gnawing away at the innards of a conscious paralyzed victim, but at the same time the image was so potent that it just added to the immersion. I mean, everything did. The dialogue, the nightmare fuel, from both in the flashback and the short time out of it.

    The characterization in Barricade and Hound I also really loved; I can't know for sure if it was intentional, but I thought that I noticed that behavior of the characters being a little different in the flashback; or in other words, I can tell that they've changed/developed at least somewhat from time that lapsed since the incident. Even though Barricade was still characteristically mean, it seemed to me like he was perhaps yet a bit less miserable than he is now. Maybe not necessarily less snarky and what have you, he obviously still acted like a jerk, but I kind of felt like he was acting more "normal," for lack of a better term, more rational and maybe even just not as loud. Like, I actually saw him talk to be people without being 300% sarcastic and not in capitalized letters until it was warranted. What I additionally thought was great about Barricade here is that he didn't even necessarily want to kill all of the Autobots after Hound royally screwed up just for his own sake; he was angry about everybody that died in the facility. He even specifically referenced to people that he witnessed dying in his monologue; saying that he wanted to make Hound suffer like those victims did. I know that Barricade is a malevolent jerk who's harbored unmotivated anger even back then, but I can't help but almost be touched (there's a much better word out there somewhere that I could use, but idk what it is right now) by the mere insinuation that his hatred doesn't germinate solely singularly personal issue.

    As for Hound, obviously he wasn't in this chapter all that much. However in the short time that he was in the flashback, I thought I could still tell that there was a perceptible distinction between his behavior then and now. I got the impression without thinking too hard that he was more naive and unsophisticated (although still gosh darn good enough to rack up a reputation for himself) than the Hound that we presently know. I mostly felt such a way about him when he was pinned and started yelling about how he didn't know that there were Insecticons in the facility; even though I speculate that Hound has panicking tendencies, per se, I perceived they were exaggerated in this situation. Not to mention when he upped and ran on the fly despite pleas for help from another person.

    Which was another great twist. Honestly, I fully expected to shoot at the Insecticon, even though given the status with Houndicade it wouldn't have made much sense. So not only did Hound unwittingly unleash Insecticons in an observation facility, killing a butt load of Decepticons inhumanely, but he also did something more personal to Barricade by abandoning him when the latter was getting killed right in front of him. Another sentient lifeform that was in imminent danger and was clearly going to die, was forsaken by the enemy, which could be arguably dishonorable. Even though the fight between Hound and Barricade is seeminly black and white, stereotypically good vs evil, I could actually see a discussion with two sides debating whether or not it was morally okay for Hound to have left in that situation; a situation where Barricade didn't even really do anything extraordinary to him other than swat at him once when Hound has likely seen much worse. >.>

    The bitter irony is, though, that Hound still literally saved Barricade by abandoning him in a way. It parallels with your theme that hatred is an extremely powerful force, even less of a philosophical one and more physical, especially in this case. Barricade would have presumably bit the dust like everybody else if his seething hatred for Hound hadn't kept him alive; he suddenly acquired something he had to live for. If nothing mattered before other than engaging combat in warfare in what other than a war, he had to get revenge on Hound for leaving him to die and killing everybody that was there, including Cy-Kill, and Crankcase, who I like to think Barricade had a sort of friendship with. Hound, even if he didn't use the gun to save Barricade, still provided him with enough motivation to conquer the kiss of death. It's almost like Barricade physically can't die now that he has this motivation...otherwise, he definitely would have.

    So it turns out that Hound is just as, if not more shocked at the revelation as we are. And I honestly really loved his spooked reaction. I never thought we would see the day where he exposes himself and earnestly apologizes to Barricade, not only for not helping him individually, but for doing the damage he had done to all of those Decepticons. And, to my surprise, Barricade took it carelessly and threw it away, it amazed me at how suave he was actually acting as he and Hound conversed in the forest. It was so sinister and creepy, so righteous to the atmosphere. I swear.

    OHOHOHO AND LOOK WHAT CAME BAAAACCCCKKKKK.

    Yo I don't even know, these words do not properly describe my feelings. As foR SNEAK PEEK--

    Holy cow, I've literally been waiting this episode; it was one of the ones that I accidentally got spoiled on, I wasn't expecting, knowing my luck, for it to come so fast. I really can't wait to see how Bumblebee and Slipstream interact in a scenario where two adversaries (who actually have a short personal history go fig) interact with one another in a scenario where both of them are helpless to do anything but...talk, I guess. And it doesn't stop there, oh no, on the surface we have even more adversaries that have to...gasp...work together. :eek:  I have purty much no speculation as to what happens when and how because we know pretty much jack right now about things like who's going to be completely incapacitated next episode, if there's gonna be a time jump, if this episode leads directly into the next one like Star's Screams into Bee Free Or Bee Gone (I think?), etc etc etc but yeah, best of luck to all parties involved. :T
     
  11. Meta777

    Meta777 Dr Pepper Fan

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    The instant it activated, Barricade hunched over with a rev of pain hydraulics hissing and metal plating scraping together as he curled inwards, groaning and snarling as the machine implanted into his neck whirred with activated power. It seemed to be having a more potent effect upon him than it had had with the Seekers, and his systems were straining with the sudden sensations flooding through his processor.

    Hound backed away a step in sudden fear as Barricade twisted and snarled before him, optics widening with unbridled terror as he immediately recognised the device and its potent effects; his battle with the Seeker at the quarry had been an intense and gruelling match, and it had ended with his near-death. That Barricade had acquired the same power that had turned a drone into a savage brute sent terror and disturbance pulsing through his spark, total fear for his very life and utter realisation that all this was his doing.

    Barricade’s groans were morphing now, shifting into a sort of demented cackling, and Hound found his frame freezing up, unable to do anything but watch his mortal foe and wretched victim give in to the nodule’s effects. Every rational circuit throughout his body begged him to unload his rocket launcher and blast the Decepticon whilst the nodule impacted him, every rational circuit begged for him to try and flee whilst the Decepticon was unable to attack, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t bring himself to either attack or retreat.

    Why couldn’t he run? Why couldn’t he fight? Yes, Barricade had been the one who he abandoned all those years ago, but surely the past didn’t matter now. This monster wanted to kill him, rip him apart, beat him to a pulp, and he wanted to do the same to his friends and comrades, wanted to kill his own apprentice purely to spite him.

    He tried to force himself to act. He tried to force himself to forget the Decepticon screaming and melting under the jaws of a Marauder. Think about Bumblebee, and Jazz, and the others, he desperately told himself, think of all the friends and comrades he’s killed, all the innocents he wants to kill. Fight for them, live for them, make sure this monster never hurts anyone again!

    In a way, it worked; he found control returning to his limbs, he found motivation to act, but it was not attack the Decepticon. Instead, as he had done but moments before, as he had done years ago, he turned and ran away. He ran as fast as he could, away from the cackling procotic savage, but unlike before, he did look back as he fled.

    He looked back just as Barricade suddenly straightened up, and even at this distance, even whilst fleeing, nothing could describe the utter level of feral rage and sadistic ecstasy boiling within his optics and he was smiling now, smiling so wide it seemed as though his jawline could break. His whole frame seemed to ease into the gait of a predator. The nodule was completely in-tune with him now, and it seemed the sensations of fury and cruelty it was pouring into him melded beautifully with his own hatred.

    This wasn’t Barricade anymore. All traces of rationale, sentiment, calmness and contemplation were eradicated. The nodule was completely in control, and he was a puppet with strings under the rage. And then Hound crashed through a cluster of bushes, and he lost sight of the Decepticon.

    He ran as fast as he could, no matter how cowardly it was. It didn’t matter where, it didn’t matter how much it aggravated his injuries, he had to run and get as far away from Barricade as he could. Some part of his processor snidely noted it was futile; if he couldn’t flee from his past sins, how could he flee from the berserk Decepticon? But he ignored that, and he kept running.

    He was vaguely aware of the buzzing above him, the observational pursuit of Waspinator, and it was fairly clear that he had no hope of escaping anyone with the drone monitoring his position. If he had any hope of truly escaping his foe, and any other Decepticon, he needed to take down the drone-

    And now he became aware of a new sound; heavy footfalls rampaging through the forest, right behind him, accompanied by a disturbing mixture of cackling and roaring, and he looked back as he ran. Barricade was right behind him, running faster than he had ever known the Mustang too, to the point the Decepticon was racing along on all fours, claws ripping up the earth in his furious charge, his frenzied optics locked solely on the Autobot before him.

    Like the Insecticons from so long ago, it was the terrifyingly fast movements of a predator who has every confidence in capturing a helpless prey item.

    It was if his entire world had slowed down. Hound could only stare in horror, his body suddenly all too slow, as Barricade charged after him, taking three steps in the space of Hound’s one, howling in pure unrestrained fury, pure demented sadism and nothing would ever stand between him and Hound’s death again. The jeep had no chance; within the next second, Barricade closed the distance and lunged, slamming into his victim and bringing them both crashing to the ground.

    The dirt and grass tore apart as they crashed through it, and Barricade’s momentum sent him rolling over the Autobot and slamming through a tree, the huge organism buckling at the impact and slowly falling downwards. Hound kept on rolling, out of the plant’s path, and even as Barricade tore the ground asunder in his frenzy to get back up, the tree crashed down right on top of him and snapping in half over the Decepticon’s back.

    Desperate and with his injuries leaking Energon, Hound struggled back to his feet, attempting to adopt a defensive stance, but he was too slow. Barricade was already on his feet and lunging, his fist slamming into Hound’s chest with a sickening crunch of dented metal, sending the Autobot staggering backwards at the force of the blow.

    Barricade gave a howl of demented laughter as he watched Hound struggle to maintain his footing, frame shuddering violently as his processor comprehended every ounce of the violent flairs flowing through him, gleefully shrieking: “No Autobots coming to save you, no Insecticons coming to stop me! You’re gonna die, Hound, gonna die alone and scared! JUST LIKE ALL THOSE CONS YOU KILLED!”

    He lunged again, and Hound frantically brought his arms up to block the hits, but Barricade clawed them aside and slashed at the jeep’s chest, smashing a headlight and ripping away a plate of armour. Hound cried out in pain and Barricade laughed at the sound before bringing his knee slamming into his foe’s wounded abdomen, further drawing Energon from the ragged tear, and following it up with a savage punch to the head that flung him back into a tree.

    He gave his victim no chance to recover, lurching forward and seizing him, forcibly head-butting the disorientated Autobot before violently throwing him away, Hound crashing to the ground with spurts of Energon painting the dirt blue. Up above the Autobot, Waspinator dutifully recorded the brawl, head tilted in anticipation for the next part.

    But even as he readied the next assault, Barricade suddenly froze for a moment, suddenly impacted with a furious wave of anger so intense his neurals briefly jerked to a stop in their inability to cope with such a massive fluctuation of sensation. As Hound slowly dragged himself upright, Barricade forced his frame to move, snarling now as he took a shaking step towards his nemesis, the nodule’s effects digging further into his processor to overcome the freeze-up.

    “You have to die, you need to die.” Barricade muttered, voice shuddering as he forced himself into action, easing some of the neural tension via his enraged declaration. “All of you, every last one of you, your family, your friends, your species, they have to die, you have to die, YOU HAVE TO DIE!”

    He shifted back into the berserk fury as he kicked Hound to the floor, stepped over the shuddering victim and began repeatedly stomping on him. Every impact shook Hound’s frame, further crumpling his wounded chest, and Energon oozed more frequently out of him as Barricade continued to shriek in fury and sadism.

    Hound was experiencing a bleak sense of déjà vu as the Decepticon crushed into his torso, optics blurring and systems screaming pain as he endured the Mustang’s frenzied attack. He remembered being helpless beneath the Seeker that was prepared to cut him apart, he remembered fleeing from the Insecticons back in that facility, he remembered many scenarios where death had seemed imminent-

    “Gonna rip you apart, pull out every valve-“ Barricade snarled as he raised his foot and brought it down right upon the ragged tear in the jeep’s abdomen, impacting the vulnerable section with a spurt of Energon. “-Crush you, tear you, kill you-“

    Perhaps he deserved this, a bleak thought wondered. Perhaps this was the universe’s retribution for what he had done to all those Decepticons. For a moment of glory, for a simple promotion, he had unleashed monsters upon them, and now karma had unleashed its own monster upon him. If he had to die, how fitting it would be at the hands of someone he had once left to death himself.

    Maybe this was all he deserved-

    No.

    The foot came down and before it could impact him, suddenly his hands shot up and grabbed it; his arms jolted from the force, hydraulics wheezing as he stopped the stomp short, and Barricade gave a feral yelp of surprise.

    It wasn’t your fault. You couldn’t have known. He’s the one who took it too far. He’s the one who tried to torture a youngling, your own apprentice!

    Hound’s hands squeezed and Barricade snarled in pain as his foot’s armour began to dent and spark under the sudden pressure, too off-balanced and surprised to effectively retaliate. This wasn’t supposed to happen, Hound wasn’t supposed to be stopping his assault-

    He’s the one who wants every Autobot to die out of spite. He’s the one who’s hounded you for all this time. He’s the real monster.

    With a roar of effort, Hound twisted the Mustang’s leg with a sickening crack of the knee joints and rolled his body to the side, sending Barricade crashing to the ground with a howl of pain. A flurry of dirt as the two Cybertronians scrambled to their feet, engines revving furiously as they worked to overcome their injuries, one hand clutching Hound’s torn chest as the Decepticon angrily twisted his leg back into place.

    Monsters like him don’t deserve to live.

    Hound straightened up to his full height, blue optics ablaze with reborn determination as he brought his fists up into a defensive position, Barricade sinking his claws into a tree to pull himself up and furiously pulling it down to the ground as he snarled at his foe.

    He’d been wrong to act like that, to allow the past to weaken him like that. Yes, he acknowledged that all this might have been avoided if he had never gone to that facility in the first place, he acknowledged that the deaths of every Decepticon in that place would never have happened if he hadn’t removed those protocols. But he should never have let that stop him from fighting to see tomorrow.

    To allow Barricade to break his resolve was weakness, both to himself and to his faction. To honestly contemplate that he deserved death at the Mustang’s hands was delusional. Nothing could change the past, but Hound had made sure to change his future; to never be so overconfident, so rash again. Barricade had not done that; Barricade had allowed his own hatred to overtake him, and he had devolved into the same kind of savage beast that had slaughtered his comrades all those years ago.

    They faced off, Hound stock still, Barricade shuddering with the rage flowing through him, and Hound knew that he had to win this fight. No more doubts. No more fear. Only one would be standing at the end of this. Logic pointed out that it might not be him who survived, but damn it all to the Pit, he would not hand Barricade victory today; he would fight to the bitter end, fight to the last spark, for the sake of his faction and his friends and his apprentice, and damn it all to the Pit if he didn’t at least try and ensure that the broken corpse in this forest was his enemy’s and not his own.

    All those years ago, in that facility, he’d been weak. He should have attacked the Marauder, killed it, and at least made sure one life wasn’t lost due to his mistake. And today, he’d been weak again, failing to realise what Barricade had become, had far he had fallen and he had hesitated because of it. But enough was enough. He could not pity this Decepticon anymore, the Decepticon who had ignored his regrets for the past in favour of brutality; he could only put him out of his misery, before he could try and do the same to the other Autobots.

    War is not the Pit, for the Pit spares the innocent, he considered, briefly flickering his optics at the torn trails of grass and the felled trees around them, the causalities of their battle. If I had acted sooner, if I had acted with more force, perhaps this fight might have ended already. This war is cruel, and so are you, Barricade. If I am to win today… I must be crueller.

    Barricade lunged at him with a feral shriek, claws extended for the kills and Hound side-stepped the wild charge. But despite his insane fury, he was very much alert to the fight and swiftly swung around before Hound could take advantage of his miss, his claws scraping against the defensive arms. The jeep absorbed the attack well and struck back with a quick punch to the shoulder that knocked the Decepticon back a step. But Barricade’s nodule granted him power and relentlessness and he swung back into attack, arms repeatedly lashing out in his frenzied attempts to rip apart the Autobot.

    Hound relied on evasion now, regardless of the pain from his wounds, shifting to the side and backwards as Barricade came at him again and again, howling with rage as his claws flashed at his foe. Fury boiled through every neural in his frame, demanding him to exact his long-awaited vengeance, to tear the very pulsing spark from this filthy Autobot and to do the same to every last one of his kind. If it took his own spark, he would condemn every last Autobot to the Pit!

    The nodule pushed him onwards, and he lunged with a devastating punch- But Hound was ready, and as he dodged to the side, he grabbed the oncoming appendage as tightly as he could, spun round and-

    Barricade’s arm came off at the shoulder, metal tearing with a spout of spilt Energon as the Mustang’s own momentum was turned against him, leaving him stumbling and snarling as he struggled to recover from this sudden turn of events. But now it was Hound’s time to go on the offensive; optics flashing with determination and anger, the jeep brought up the severed appendage and hit Barricade as hard as he could across the face with it.

    The Decepticon staggered under the force of the blow, barely able to keep himself upright. With a feral shriek, he lunged at the Autobot again, but Hound caught him across the head with another swing, the impact cracking the armour on his cheek. Again and again, Hound came forward, swinging his foe’s own arm into his head with as much force as he could muster, and Barricade had no chance of effectively retaliating, disorientated by the constant pain and the nodule’s insistent sensations of fury.

    The Autobot had no mercy for his foe now, and with every last bit of force, he slammed Barricade across the head again, the blow so potent it snapped the severed arm in half, the upper joint clattering to the floor and Barricade stumbled backwards into a tree. His facial armour was horribly dented, cracked and leaking Energon, and one of his optics is barely visible under the warped metal that’s been knocked over it.

    Revving heavily, briefly observing to see if Barricade remained against the tree, Hound drops the bleeding arm to the ground and unveils his rocket launcher. There’s no hesitance now. Now is his chance to end this fight once and for all. Now is the time to rid the universe of this monster, to rid every Autobot of this threat, to finally rid himself of his most persistent and personal enemy.

    He locks onto the prone target, unmoving and injured, and all he must do now is fire. All he has to do is shoot. A missile straight to the cranium, obliterate the processor, render the body without any control and that would be it. Barricade would be no more. He would never threaten or hurt or kill anyone ever again.

    Hound steels himself. He will worry about the moral consequences later. Do it now, kill him now, before he can do anything to steal victory from you! Make sure he can never continue living his twisted and hateful existence! Finish him before he hurt anyone else, end his miserable life, kill him, KILL HIM-

    Hound fires.

    The missile flies straight and true, right at Barricade’s head.

    Barricade, almost disinterestedly, moves out of the way.

    The missile impales the tree, lodging itself within the bark, not even exploding as the tree creaks woefully and falls over with a hefty crash. With an almost pathetic puff, the missile’s fuel burns out, leaving the projectile uselessly stuck in the plant. Barricade gives a low rev of dissatisfaction as he straightens up, glaring at the Autobot with his unhindered optic.

    Hound gapes, frozen in utter disbelief. Impossible. Impossible! There was no way Barricade could have recovered so quickly, no way he could have avoided that so easily, no way the missile wouldn’t have gone off anyway! How could he have failed like this, so easily, so miserably?! No, no, never mind the missile, he had to finish this now-

    Slowly, Barricade raises his hand to the side of his neck, wraps sharp claws around some kind of protrusion upon it, and twists. A sudden hiss of steam, emanating from the cracks and creases in his damaged facial armour, and it’s as if his whole head is breaking apart-

    Only it’s not the whole head breaking apart, crimson and black metal starting to come away, folding itself backwards, peeling off of his inner cranium. It is his face, his outer layer that is coming away, shifting down and locking around his neck almost like a collar, exposing what lies beneath.

    If Hound’s vocal components were not locked up in terror, he might have screamed.

    Beneath Barricade’s damaged outer armour is another face, dark-silver in colour, the jaw prominently protruding and horrifyingly sharp, his optics retracting into the silvery innards like pits, the faint blue of Energon shimmering under the more translucent metal, and all across this inner face, in twisted ragged scars that blacken and gouge the metal, is the eternal damage of acidic residue.

    There had been no way to repair such damages. There had been no way to remove such wounds on the inner cranium. The only way to alleviate such damages had to been to cover it all up in an armoured carapace.

    It makes Hound viral. It makes Hound’s entire body shake. His enemy’s face, for all these years, for all this time, has not been the face he’d seen screaming in agony under the claws of a Marauder. All along, his enemy’s face had just been a cover, an extra layer, hiding the corroded victim within. The sight of the smaller silvery head, burnt so terribly with the acidic blood of the Insecticon, nestled atop the thick crimson-and-black armour, is perhaps the most terrifying thing Hound has ever seen.

    “No.” Barricade mutters softly, his whole frame shaking intensely as the nodule on his back glowed brightly. “No. I’m not going to die just yet.”

    And then he lunges, and his jaw, protruding now without the carapace shielding, bites into the chest armour of the Autobot as his force sends them crashing to the floor, Hound shrieking in pain as the make-shift teeth sink into him. With a sickening tear, Barricade jerks back and rips off a chunk of armour, tossing it away as Energon splatters over his jaws, and he howls:

    ”NOT UNTIL YOU DIE FIRST!”

    Hound can’t do anything to defend himself. Hound has no hope of removing the monster upon him. With rage beyond anything he could comprehend, Barricade furiously punches and claws and bites at the struggling and helpless victim beneath him. A desperate attempt to punch the Mustang off is countered by his jaws sinking into the oncoming fist and ripping it apart, his claws slashing at Hound’s arm to disable the valves within, screaming all the while:

    ”I’M GOING TO RIP YOU APART, GONNA BITE YOU OPEN! KILL YOU, KILL EVERY LAST AUTOBOT, KILL ALL OF THEM! I’LL RIP OUT THEIR OPTICS, I’LL PULL OFF THEIR LIMBS, I’LL PEEL OUT THEIR VALVES-“

    He’s insane, demented, completely absorbed into the rage of the nodule attached, his own intense and unending hatred, his desires to kill and hurt and maim, and Hound’s vision is rapidly darkening, systems screaming out countless warnings as the Decepticon continues his mad tirade:

    ”-ALL OF YOU, YOUR FRIENDS, YOUR SPECIES, I’M GOING TO RIP ALL OF THEM OPEN, I’M GOING TO REAP EVERY LAST AUTOBOT’S SPARK! I’M GONNA KILL YOU, TEAR YOU TO PIECES-“

    His jaws lunge down and bite into his chest, ripping away at the weakened metal.

    “-PULL YOUR HEAD OFF, SQUASH EVERY NEURAL, I’LL CRUSH YOU, I’LL KILL YOU-“

    He claws and rips and tears at Hound’s torso, losing himself to his fury.

    “-I’LL EAT YOUR SPARK!”

    --

    Soundwave squeals to a stop and shifts off of the road to transform without any human noticing his conversion. His rear end forms the feet and grab the ground in time to hoist his body upwards and twist around into robot form. Visor lighting up with activation, he promptly examines his communication wavelength; nothing.

    How bizarre; he’d been so sure that he’d felt a message pulse through the line. Some kind of static sensation, like a sort of scream. It perplexed him, and he did not appreciate being perplexed by communication systems, considering they were his forte, so to speak. His visor narrowed slightly, before he opened a channel to Sideways and Barri-

    “Soundwave!”

    He jolted in surprise at the sudden shout, and glanced at the nearby road to see a motorbike, a fairly hefty thing designated as a Harley model, deep purple with yellow highlights in colour. Of course, normal motorbikes were incapable of recognition or speech, and they normally had a visible driver upon them when mobile.

    Considering this motorbike had no such driver, and had demonstrated the aforementioned recognition and speech qualities, Soundwave supposed he was looking at Sideways’ newly gained vehicle mode.

    “Nice choice.” Soundwave complimented, somewhat genuine. Whatever faults Sideways had, his physical vehicle form was pleasing to the optic. “Fast and manoeuvrable, though the colour scheme doesn’t do much for subtlety, and you should really invest in a holographic driver.”

    The bike dipped its handlebars slightly in the gesture of a shrug: “Well, Waspinator picked out the vehicle for me, and I liked it a lot, but the template was white, and I thought, hey, Nighttrace is already white, I better find another colour! And purple’s my favourite colour, very nice and deep and versatile, and it suited it so well I thought, hey why not! And sure, I’ll make a hologram, let me just-“

    Primus, if he wasn’t whimpering in nervousness or paranoia, he was chattering like a freaking radio on repeat. The Lamborghin revved in annoyance, before stating: “That’s very nice, Sideways. Now shut up and give me a moment to call Barricade.”

    The bike promptly shut up, awkwardly apologising, but the car ignored him, focussing instead on opening the channel and asking: “Barricade, this is Soundwave. How’s is your mission progressing?”

    No answer.

    Visor narrowing yet further, he asked: “Barricade, are you there? What’s your status?”

    This was bizarre. The channel was open, the channel was functional, it’s just that the other Decepticon was refusing to answer. What was going on? Why wasn’t the shock trooper responding? He couldn’t have been jammed, the signal was getting through just fine. And he couldn’t have been captured or killed by Autobots, they’d have been sure to shut off his communication systems.

    So why wasn’t he answering?

    “Is everything alright?” Sideways asked nervously, tilting the front of his vehicle mode towards Soundwave, headlight flashing in curiosity.

    “No.” Soundwave replied coldly, moving back towards the road as he shut down the channel. “It’s not alright. Barricade is refusing to answer the communications. Whether he’s engaged in something, or deliberately ignoring me, I’m not sure. But it falls to us to find out what’s happening. Let’s roll out, Sideways.”

    Soundwave threw himself forward, twisting into vehicle mode with his tires neatly catching the road, and with a sharp squeal of rubber on tarmac, he was off at an impressive pace. Revving in shock, Sideways hollered for him to wait up as he spun round and drove after him, promptly bringing up a human hologram to make it seem like he was being driven.

    Oh boy, the idea of Barricade, the most hateful and vulgar and violent Decepticon ever, getting up to ominous happenings did not appeal to Sideways, not one bit. Anything that could prompt the shock trooper going silent, anything he might actually be plotting or whatever, made him feel pretty darn nervous.

    For the sake of his health, Sideways really hoped there was nothing particularly dangerous at wherever the Mustang was.



    Author's Notes: Holy crap, sorry for the long wait. Been busy with university and all that jazz. This chapter's kind of short, couldn't be bothered trying to lengthen it when the next chapter will sort everything out, but at least it sets up the episode's climax.

    Sideways finally gets a vehicle mode. Barricade loses his mind. Poor Hound keeps alternating between sucking and fighting. Soundwave is sick of this crap. WHAT WILL HAPPEN NEXT?!
     
  12. Jamocha101

    Jamocha101 Well-Known Member

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    So there's this guy down in Florida who got caught by authorities on the side of a highway, literally eating a guy's face off. Like, ripping off the skin and some facial integrals, and he had to get shot four times or something before he was stopped and was killed; beforehand moments prior, when an officer attempted to verbally subdue him, Randy Eugene (the cannibal) looked at the guy and growled. Like a dog. When medical experts air-lifted the victim off the scene, some 75% of his face was missing. Further analysis suggested Eugene had been on bath salts or was under the influence of at least some kind of drug that led to his batshizz insanity. I kid you not, people around here thought that it was the zombie apocalypse. >.> Idk, some text-to-text relation for ya.

    So yeah, this chapter was pretty darn gruesome. Like I said, it's hard to imagine that we ever go from things like Barricade getting chased by Starscream around the room because the latter lost to him in a round of video games, to Barricade chasing his nemesis and ripping him apart with his teeth. Not to mention using severed arms as weapons and exposed robot skulls that were burned by acid years prior. Did I mention that I didn't suspect in the least bit that Barricade had a false face? Nice twist. I mean no, it wasn't nice, but you know what I mean.

    This chapter wasn't as atmospheric as the last one, just more direct and action-packed, which made it fun. I mean, no not "fun," but I digress. Fun for some people and not for others. Anyway, since there was minimal ongoing dialogue and mostly description and monologue, I can kind of sense how it's setting up the finale, where I assume all of the graphic fighting and gore will get swapped out for more steady plot progression. Basically what I gathered from this chapter was semi-cannibalism, blood, and if it weren't the eighth episode, I would be certainly convinced that Hound is going to die. Likewise, there is no way that if this was a canon as a children's television program it could go uncensored. Although as a comic series...*rubs hands*

    So it turns out, Insecticons aren't going to show up in the episode (at least with this pacing, as much seems inevitable). I think it's actually cool that our introduction to them was via flashback because it builds up suspense since we get a more indirect, impersonal idea of what they're like and how lethal and formidable they are. Even though I initially had an instinct that some Insecticons would show up, it would have never made sense for what this episode is. (Crowd new character introduction into an overdue rivalry-centric installment which is incidentally 70% flashback? Yeah, no). I guess that means that Barricade's face doesn't actually get burned off in real time. Wow, led me on you sneaky Meta.

    Hound's ongoing internal struggle and mood swings were probably the most intriguing characterization contingency of this chapter; how he bounces back and forth between strong, then cowardly, then apathetic, to feeling sorry for himself, back to strong, to getting beaten up no matter how hard he tries to get the upperhand. It's sad to see him in such a demeaning position, but it's not wonder given that a) he was just put through a huge emotional setback, and b) Barricade is literally on steroids. Barricade, who in ordinary circumstances probably wouldn't be such a formidable opponent, is kicking Hound aft right now because he's gone from stereotypical jerk to actually mentally unhinged. Now there's theoretically no chance that he's actually in control of himself, because he's more literally fueled solely on his rage. The image of him writhing with the transformation I might add, ouch. Seemed painful. Like when your blood is going through your arm and it starts to itch under your skin and you can't get it--

    Never mind. Furthermore, I nearly came to remarking that I thought the graphics in this chapter were even just a tiny bit overdone, but I thought about how Barricade was built up to this moment. Even in the small amount of episodes, we know that he's been a consistently sans-depth, perpetually enraged moron who's mad at everybody all the time and that's how he's always been and probably always will be. We've seen that, despite his ignoramus tendencies, he's got that darker, more sophisticated side, where he can actually intimidatingly dark and cryptic and scary. Since the nodule turns that characteristic rage up about ten notches, I guess you could say it's expectant that he'll do things like rip apart his opponent with his freaking mouth and run animalistically on effing all four appendages. I can't quite shake the Man Of Steel action-saturation feel, but it's all in all just an elaboration on Barricade, and it's characteristic, so.

    The chapter as a whole was just great. I mean, it was real geek service. I got to see two of my favorite characters in what has probably been the most intense fight since the series began, one going through emotional turmoil, and the other going through puberty a state of actual insanity, and the imagery...so disturbing and weirdly creative. I mean wow.

    I can't really speculate for how this will get resolved...I know you mentioned to me that
    Soundwave might come along and "interrupt"
    but I feel like there's a chance you could have been red herring me. It's not that easy to get answers from you. I suspect that Grimlock and Evac might have something to do with the resolution (I would personally love to see Evac put in another one of these situations), but it's up for whatever at this point. I could easily see both parties colliding and saving their respective comrades. Or maybe even just Soundwave showing up and subduing Barricade knowing about how the circumstances built up to such an extent of extravagance, he'll just remove Barricade from the scene and leave Hound there for whatever until Grimlock and Evac find him.

    Note that I deeply appreciated a subtle nudge toward Soundwave being concerned about Barricade, awww.

    I'll also throw in there, how much I continue to love Hound's actions being catalyzed by his compassion for others. But I'm not sure that it'll be enough to get him out of this one--I pray that the update will come with relative quickness, I barely survived this last hiatus. Good luck with the next chapter!
     
  13. Meta777

    Meta777 Dr Pepper Fan

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    This war has gone on for a long time. Far too long for his liking. It’s been around five Earth centuries since it began, and since then, planets have been ravaged, moons and stars destroyed, lives born into chaos and torn asunder by it. Ever since it first began, the uprising of Megatron’s desire to transform Cybertron’s lustrous expansion into his personal empire, Hound has seen death and destruction and pain sweeping over worlds and galaxies.

    And worse yet, it seems to have no sign of stopping anytime soon. Even with the energy shortages plaguing both factions, even with the increasing reliance on drones to replace true-sparked troops, even with more and more planets being reduced to burning wastelands, Autobots and Decepticons alike continued to fight and hate each other. At this point, it was easy to imagine the enemy faction as a different species entirely, an inferior species that needed to be wiped clean from the slate.

    Hound had tried his best not to think like that. There had been goodness within the Decepticons somewhere, there had to be. Monsters would always roam their ranks, of course, but did not monsters roam the Autobots too? Those who believe death would be the only way to end this war? Hound had tried his best not to think like that.

    It’s a shame he’ll die with that mindset finally upon him. Not completely; he had only wished for an individual to die, not the entire faction. But it had been close enough, enveloping enough, that he might just as well have been as brutal-minded as Grimlock. His armour is being torn apart, his head is dented and cracked, optics only seeing black, and soon his very spark will be exposed and ripped apart.

    He’ll die today with only the cold knowledge that, for a moment, he’d vowed to be as cruel as Barricade. He’ll die with the cold knowledge that Bumblebee will lose his mentor, the closest figure he has to a father, and that Bumblebee will understand the depravity of war via said loss.

    Barricade’s claws sink into him, but the pain has lost all meaning now. Physical pain does not compare to the pain of leaving his beloved apprentice behind in this cruel universe of warfare and hatred.

    Atop the Autobot, Barricade ceases his frenzied carnage for a moment, shuddering violently as it all hit him at once; Hound was going to die now. He was really truly about to kill Hound, the filthy hologramming coward that had left him for dead so long ago, about to crush his very spark!

    Some kind of sentimental sense of finality impedes the nodule for a moment, withholding the fury that had driven him this far, and Barricade shudders, growling: “No, no. I’m going to kill him, not you.”

    The nodule does not deactivate, but its effect weakens, and he feels his own personal anger take the lead. Now would be the moment where he finally killed Hound, where he finally paid him back for so many years of frustration, humiliation and pain. The Autobot was barely even moving, weak little twitches and optical flickers being the only sign of life here.

    In this moment of pitiful weakness, Hound barely seemed like his nemesis, but more like some weak little scraplet. Barricade gives a snort; he cares not for pity. All he wants right now is for this pathetic weakling to die, painfully, alone and a failure.

    “Time to die, Hound.” Barricade growled, a zealous excitement building up within him as he lowers his Energon-covered jaws down. “Time to die alone and scared, as all Autobots should, as I’ll make your rookie die too.”

    His jaws latch onto another piece of torn armour, and he rips it aside. Exposed at last is the gleaming silvery spark-chamber, and through slits on its reinforced frame pulses the Autobot’s spark. It flickers wildly with its body so badly wounded, and Barricade smiles in satisfaction. It would feel good to crush it once and for all.

    Hound should never have abandoned him to that Marauder. In doing so, he had unleashed something worse, and the irony of such a matter was truly delightful.

    Slowly, savouring the moment, eagerness and anger and hatred boiling through him, the nodule starting to regain its potency. His claws wraps around the spark-chamber, a heavy vibrating sensation immediately ringing through his hand as it encloses the warm metal, a kind of rumbling becoming apparent in his audio, getting louder and louder, closer and closer to the end, and he hisses in delight as he prepares to squeeze it into oblivion: “Today, I finally reap your pathetic little spark! Let the last thing you ever hear from Barricade, your reaper, be-“

    Suddenly the rumbling intensifies, changes into a shifting of metal, there’s a crash behind him, and Barricade turns in time to see a massive orange form reaching for him, giving a loud shout: “GET AWAY FROM HIM!”

    Evac seizes the Decepticon’s leg and drags him off of Hound, immediately swinging Barricade through the air before slamming him into the ground with an impressive upheaval of dirt and grasses. Barricade barely has time to re-sync with the nodule and give a shriek of denied anger, before the massive Autobot pulls him up again.

    The smaller Cybertronian has no chance. Repeatedly, Evac slams him down against the ground, viciously hauling the Decepticon up and smacking him down, before with a cry of anger, he throws him to the floor. Barricade hits the ground hard, hard enough to leave an imprint, but before he can even think about getting up, a massive foot stomps down onto him, digging him even further into the ground.

    Evac revs heavily as he stands atop the Decepticon for a moment, before stepping back, optics widening with surprise at his own anger. Seeing the Decepticon upon his friend, hurting him, had provoked an intense reaction; Evac had been barely aware of the power he was putting into his swings, so potent was his desire to protect Hound. But it seemed it had won him this brief match; Barricade wasn’t even twitching, possibly offline.

    Evac flickers his rotors uneasily, before shaking his head and turning his attention to Hound. The lieutenant was in a terrible condition; his torso had been ripped asunder, to the point his very spark chamber was exposed! Evac was horrified to see the panicked core pulsing under its protective casing, horrified to see the severed valves bleeding around it. This was terrible! He had to work fast!

    Darting forward and kneeling down next to Hound, he shouted: “Hound, Hound, speak to me! Can you hear me?”

    The jeep gave a low rev of pain, tilting his dented his head towards him with vague flickering optics, a painful shuddering of his systems before he managed to wheeze: “E-Evac?”

    “Yes, yes it’s me, Evac!” The helicopter stated, immediately transforming his hand into a plethora of tools and preparing to reconnect some valves. “Just stay with me, Hound, just keep focussed on my voice! That’s what Ratchet said I should do in this kind of situation, and I’m not as good as Ratchet, gosh no, but I’ll try, I’ll try-“

    He shuddered again, rotors clacking together fearfully, before getting to work, assessing any other injuries as he moved to seal off or re-join the jeep’s valves. The poor lieutenant was leaking badly, his abdomen was compromised and his processor might have been badly jolted. Evac would need to work fast, but he also needed help, and he quickly made ready to call Grimlock-

    “ARGH!”

    Barricade wasn’t offline after all; the Mustang slammed into the helicopter’s leg, his claws and jaws immediately digging into the thick armour of the rookie and tearing at it furiously, shrieking and howling a demented anger as he ripped at the surprised Autobot. Evac lurched to his feet, staggering violently as he tried to compensate for the Decepticon pulling on his appendage, shouting: “GET OFF ME! GET OFF!”

    “WON’T STOP ME KILLING HIM!” Barricade shrieked, jumping upward and latching onto the larger Cybertronian’s torso, slashing at him with all his might. “YOU WON’T RUIN THIS! YOU WON’T STOP ME KILLING EVERY LAST ONE OF YOU-“

    Evac managed to seize the Decepticon’s leg just as he sank his jaws into his chest, furiously struggling to pull off his procotic attacker. With a tear of metal, he dragged Barricade off of him, the Decepticon struggling furiously in his grip, gnawing at the shard of armour in his mouth, as he cried: “No more, Barricade! NO MORE!”

    His rotors activated, spinning rapidly and whipping up dirt as Evac raised up his hurt leg and kept on his toes with the other, before allowing himself to spin with the uplift of his rotors, maintain a firm hold on the screeching Decepticon. Round and round, Evac span faster and faster, faster and faster, and he finally roared: “GET AWAY FROM US!”

    And he let Barricade go. With the speeds at which he had been spun, the Mustang was sent flying at a colossal velocity, shredding through every tree in his path and vanishing through the foliage, his screams of fury echoing behind him.

    Evac ceased spinning, dazedly regaining his footing as his rotors came to a halt and folded down, blearily staring after the vanquished opponent. That had been intense; he hadn’t expected such a savage assault so quickly after his initial attack on Barricade. Tentatively, he touched a hand to the rip on his chest. Barricade had done that with his jaws; what kind of Cybertronian did that? Grimlock, sure, but he’d been twisted into his bestial shape by scientists. Barricade had no such justification.

    Evac shuddered, sensing that perhaps there might have been some kind of particularly twisted breakdown in the Decepticon before he’d even arrived, and decided to push it out of his processor for now; Hound needed him more.

    Falling beside the whimpering jeep, he contacted Grimlock: “Grimlock, Evac here! I’ve found Hound; he’s in a really bad condition. I gotta fly him back to the ship pronto!”

    “Confirmed, Evac. Evacuate him immediately; Are there any Decepticons in the area?”

    “Um, just Barricade, but I tossed him away.”

    “Very well. Get Hound to safety before he or any reinforcements return, Evac; Grimlock will hunt down any Decepticon in the area to cover your retreat.”

    “No problem, Grimlock, done and done!” Evac squeaked, before shutting off the communications link and thinking hard to himself. Field repairs wouldn’t be much use here; he’d need the med-bay, and Ratchet, to complete a repair of this magnitude. Promptly, he extended his transfusion tubules and connected them to the lieutenant’s ports, thankful they had remained undamaged.

    Tapping into the jeep’s neural net, Evac muttered: “It’s alright, Hound, I just need you to go into stasis lock for now, alright? I got rid of Barricade, and Grimlock’s on his way, so you just relax and I’ll get you back to base!”

    Hound gave a low rev, before he nodded, and Evac shut him down, the jeep’s frame locking up into the comatose state. Evac gave a rev of anxiety, before locking his processor into Hound’s data chip, stating: “Engage Energon link, prep for infusion. Divert incoming Energon to holographic systems and patch holographic generator to my processor.”

    The data chip beeped in confirmation, before Evac shuddered as their systems linked and he received confirmation of being in control of the jeep’s generator. He’d never done this before, a secure medical link to a stasis locked Cybertronian, and part of him was honestly just a bit excited!

    But then the rest of him reminded him just how bad these injuries were, and he quickly shook himself into action, transforming into vehicle mode, rotors lifting him upwards as he declared: “It’s okay, Hound, Evac will get you out of here!”

    With Hound held tightly to his underside via the tubules, the helicopter engaged the jeep’s holographic generator, expanding a layer of camouflage over them as he made his way upwards and back towards the ship. He could only hope he got Hound to Ratchet in time, and that he didn’t crash like an idiot as he had those other times.

    He shuddered at the thought, and pressed himself onwards, briefly scanning Grimlock driving up the road towards the forest. He increased his speed, deciding that he really did not want to be in the vicinity of the berserker finding Barricade, wherever he’d thrown the Decepticon to.

    But just what had happened to reduce that Decepticon into some kind of savage biting monster?

    --

    Growling slightly, disorientated and rather in pain and buried in a mess of trees and bushes, Waspinator hovering above him, Barricade wrenched himself back to his feet. He felt rather angry, very angry, infuriated that against all odds another Autobot had ruined his moment of triumph. Hound’s weak little spark had been within his reach, and another fragging Autobot had spoiled it all! If Barricade ever saw that overgrown rookie again, he’d tear off those rotors one by one and shove them right through his vital systems one by one!

    But then, he considered, he wasn’t feeling that sort of angry sensation boiling with him anymore. How bizarre. In fact, he felt pretty normal. Curious, he felt the back of his neck; nothing was there. Considering this, he then scanned the area around him for a moment, and stopped upon sighting a silvery gleam; the nodule, thankfully undamaged, having apparently detached from him on impact.

    Wincing slightly as his injuries flared at him, he stepped over, bent down and picked it up with his functional arm. The nodule was deactivated, but he still felt a certain energy emanating from it. The energy of fury, the same fury that had completely overtaken him, disorientated his very neural net and had driven him to rip apart another Cybertronian with his ‘teeth’.

    Barricade stared at it for a moment, contemplating the implications. He’d heard it had worked well on the Seekers, driven them to impressive levels of anger, but they hadn’t been rushing around on all fours like some animal, hadn’t shrieked and roared and tore things with their non-existent mouths. They’d been angry, but they hadn’t been his kind of angry. There had been a moment, right before he would have killed Hound, when he’d held it back, but even then he’d felt the artificial fury boiling away.

    The best reason he could fathom for his extreme reaction was his own naturally angry and hateful disposition. The nodule must have latched onto it, merged with it, enhanced it, into something feral. Something…. Something like an Insecticon.

    “Crazy…” He muttered, staring at it. “You drove me absolutely crazy. I know what I was doing… but it’s like I was just watching a movie. I knew I was doing it, but it wasn’t quite me doing it…”

    Part of him wondered if he should be scared. Part of him wondered if he needed to see a procologist. But the rest of him-

    And he smiled widely, a genuine laugh of wonder escaping from him as he mused: “Wow. Wow! I’ve never fought so good in my life! So….. monstrous! You and I are gonna be good friends, little node!”

    His laughter escalated now, frightening the nearby Waspinator into a nervous flutter as the Decepticon howled with delight, his frame shaking wildly as he laughed and laughed, shrieking: “Good friends indeed! You and I, we’re gonna rip them all apart! Hound and his dumb little friends! Send them to the fragging Pit in tiny boxes! Tear up every Autobot! Tear them all to pieces!”

    He maintained his hysterics for a moment, cackling at the sky, before his laughter finally died off into a chuckle of appreciation: “Oh yes, things are definitely looking up for-“

    “Barricade!”

    The car jolted with surprise at the familiar calling through the forest, momentarily perplexed, before remembering that, yes, Soundwave and the idiot had indeed come down with him. Sheathing the nodule in a thigh compartment and extending his facial carapace over his internal cranium, he called: “Over here, Soundwave! You missed out on an awesome beatdown!”

    “I’ll give you another one for ignoring my communications, you incompetent idiot!” He heard Soundwave snap back, and he just laughed in response.

    The sound of footfalls and- wheels?- became apparent as Soundwave appeared nearby, fighting his way through some dense branches and visor flickering with annoyance, followed by a bright purple-and-yellow Decepticon wheeling around on a single leg with a wheel for a foot, wheels and exhaust pipes protruding from him and rather curved shoulders hosting thin arms.

    He raised a brow in confusion, not quite recognising this other Decepticon, before he realised who it was and snapped: “Sideways? Why the frag would you ever pick such a stupid colour scheme? And what’s up with the single leg?! You trying to be a mermaid or something, you idiot?!”

    The smaller Decepticon, apparently a motorbike judging by handlebars nervously flexing on his shoulders, cowered under the sharp tone, muttering some kind of justification, before Soundwave interjected: “Barricade, what happened to you? You look like you’ve been ran over by a Stunticon!”

    Barricade puffed his chest out proudly: “I took on my nemesis Hound of course! Left him bleeding and scrapped! I doubt even their medic can save the fragger from the injuries I put on him!”

    The Lamborghini paused, surprised, before asking: “Really? You brutalised the hologrammer? That’s…. well, that’s good news, I suppose. Was he guarding the solar foundry?”

    Sideways seemed disbelieving, tentatively asking: “Are you sure you actually brutalised the bot himself and not just a hologram?”

    Barricade ignored him in favour of bragging: “No solar foundry to be found, but Hound’s failure is good news indeed! Hopefully we’ll be seeing mourning Autobots soon enough, whimpering and whining over the loss of their stupid hologramming coward. Just another day in the life of Barricade, teaching filthy little Autobots their place in this universe!”

    Soundwave just shrugged: “If you say so. Now, how about we bridge back to the ship and get you looked at-“

    He was interrupted by the air ringing loud and fiercely with a terrifying roar, a distant roar of absolute fury and savagery, promising death for all who heard it, birds squawking in terror as they fled to the air. All three Decepticons froze as it dissipated into unnerving echoes, staring around them as Waspinator buzzed in a panic above them, before Sideways whimpered, his exhaust pipes immediately spitting out a puff of smoke in terror: “W-Was that the….”

    “The Autobot berserker?” Soundwave grunted, visor intently and nervously scanning the forest for any sign of the monster. “Yes, yes it was.”

    Immediately, he activated his com-link: “Nighttrace, this is Soundwave. We require a ground bridge. Immediately.”

    Barricade snorted in distaste: “Retreating? C’mon, we can take him! I’m so sure I can take him-“

    “Immediately.” Soundwave repeated, giving an annoyed rev, and Barricade revved in annoyance himself, glaring at the other car for daring to kill his buzz. Sideways just whimpered, emitting another puff of smoke.

    Thankfully, the UAV was prompt in fulfilling the communications officer’s request, and the flickering portal appeared before them, welcoming and safe. Promptly, the Decepticons went through it, and the bridge closed behind them not a moment too soon. Barely a minute after it vanished, there was the sound of heavy footfalls and snapping trees, and a particularly large one was felled by Grimlock shoving past it, snarling furiously as he stomped into the clearing and sniffed around for the Decepticons. The berserker lurched around the area, seeking out any trace of them, scanning the falling trees and footsteps ntently, before he was forced to concede defeat.

    As he turned to leave, fire burning at his mouth and his engine furiously revving, he reared his head upwards and unleashed a roar of anger full of flames, screaming his frustration to the sky above and the prey that had escaped from him.

    --

    Slipstream is utterly appalled at the state of Barricade when the ground bridge opens and the quartet enter the control room, the wounded Barricade supported by Soundwave, Sideways just behind them and bearing a new look and Waspinator immediately fluttering over to Starscream, sat on his throne and flanked by Nighttrace. She’d seen the Mustang injured quite a few times, but none of them compared to the sight of him now!

    His facial plating was brutally dented and battered, one of his optics impeded by distorted metal, an entire arm was missing, scratches and markings scattered all over his armour, one of his leg’s joints seem far too loose and there was Energon splattered all over him. What a mess! What a sight!

    Fire flaring out of her thrusters in shock and stunned anger, Slipstream stomped forward and ceases Barricade’s healthy shoulder with a firm hand, her Energon ray immediately assessing the damages upon him. His internal damages were not as severe as his external bruises, thank Primus, but he was still a mess; his neural net seemed terribly unstable for some reason, a reason not connected to his multitude of damages.

    “What the frag even happened to you?” She wailed with horror, her data chip buzzing with all kinds of injuries she’d scanned upon the smirking Mustang and the best way to treat them, tailfins flickering with agitation as she reflexively charged up her ray. “You were scouting for a foundry, not getting torn apart by Autobots! You’re missing an entire arm for Primus’ sake! I swear, I should chain you up-“

    Barricade stared at her for a moment, before his rather sour expression suddenly morphed into something much more pleasant and he gave a brief chuckle: “I’m happy to see you too Slipstream.”

    Sideways’ optics widened in disbelief and he throws a shocked glance at Soundwave, who simply flickers his visor slightly and shrugs. Slipstream herself seemed a tad surprised at such a pleasant and calm response from the shock trooper, who’d normally be shrieking at her to stop treating him like a youngling or something. Did he have some really good news for them if he seemed to be in a pleasant mood despite these injuries? She wasn’t sure, but she shakes it off, regains herself and declares: “Primus, your neural net is a mess. Let’s get you to the med-bay-“

    “Wait a moment, Slipstream.” Starscream interjected, suddenly standing up from his seat as Waspinator scuttled from his shoulder into his back compartment, a curious look in his red optics as he gazed down at them. “I need to debrief Barricade on his mission.”

    The Mustang gave a rev of annoyance, which was much more characterful of him, as Slipstream snapped to her full height and gave her commander a look of complete disbelief: “Commander, you can’t be serious! He can get a debriefing AFTER he’s been repaired! Look at the state of him-“

    “I need to debrief Barricade on his mission.” Starscream repeated, a low threat underlining his tone as he glared at the other jet, daring her to defy him again. “You can fix him up all sparkly and clean afterwards, Slipstream, but right now, I require a report. Regardless of what fights he got in, I need confirmation on any solar foundry our enemies may have been trying to hide.”

    Slipstream sputtered out some protests, before she gave up with an infuriated flexing of her claws and retreated to one of the consoles, never letting up her angered glare at the commander. For all of Barricade’s annoying traits, she still was not content to let a comrade remain in such a condition longer than they needed to.

    Soundwave and Sideways made to also move to the consoles as Barricade grudgingly stepped forward, but they paused and turned when the door opened and Grindor stepped through, his claws rather dirty with Energon, and he asked: “Commander Starscream, how do you expect me to repair your ship when you seem to be falling into the habit of calling me away from my work?”

    “Rest assured, this won’t take long, Grindor.” The jet reassured him, smiling sweetly at the Trojan. “I just needed you all present to go over some things. But first; everyone who’s not Barricade, line up behind him please.”

    A few confused glances and murmurs before they and some ambient Seekers obediently lined up behind the agitated Mustang. Sideways immediately wheeled over to Grindor’s side, and the larger Decepticon glanced down, scanned him over, and immediately complimented: “Nice new look, Sideways. I have to say, the colour scheme complements your design very nicely. Excellent diversity on the single leg, I might add, it makes things much more interesting-“

    “Grindor.”

    The tank immediately muttered an apology to the Raptor and fell silent, nevertheless granting his pleased friend an approving nod. With everyone in place, Starscream said: “Alright, Barricade, two things. One, did you confirm the presence of an Autobot solar foundry?”

    The car gave him a filthy look, before grunting: “No. There was none in the area, not a single fragging trace of one. Waspinator didn’t see any holograms either, so I guess the Autobots aren’t hiding a damn thing in the forest.”

    Starscream gave a rev of annoyance: “Very well. Question number two.”

    Then, he leaned in, very slowly and menacingly, the Mustang nevertheless standing his ground as the jet drew down to face level, crimson optics flashing malevolently, before he growled, soft and quite furious: “Why did you steal the nodule?”

    Barricade raised a brow in annoyance at the question, while the other Decepticons exchanged looks of surprise and confusion, before he snorted: “What nodule? Airachnid took them back with her-“

    ”DON’T YOU DARE LIE TO ME!” Starscream screamed, suddenly and piercingly loud, the car flinching at the proximity of his screech, before the jet forced himself to calm down and reared back up, coldly stating: “Waspinator recorded it all, Barricade; your fight with the Autobot and the tool you employed. You kept one of Airachnid’s nodules, hid it away for yourself and in doing so you have betrayed both my trust and the trust of Conciller Shockwave. Hand it over, Barricade.”

    The Mustang gave a rev of anger, furiously glaring at the jet, claws flexing and dripping with Hound’s Energon. Starscream revved back, flaring his larger body, and the other Decepticons tense lest a fight break out, before the car grudgingly yielded and plucked the little device out of a thigh compartment and handing it over. Starscream took it and stepped back, examining the device critically, before sliding it into his own thigh compartment.

    The Decepticons weren’t too sure what to expect, as the jet turned and strode towards his chair, watching the furiously trembling Mustang with apprehension; this was a circumstance they hadn’t expected, Barricade having stolen one of Airachnid’s devices. Was Starscream going to punish him for it? Now? Later? Or would the meeting be adjourned for some reason? None of them were too sure, but all of them knew the outcome might not be pretty.

    Starscream pulled a long silver rod from a compartment on the chair’s armrest, twirled it around in his claws, before turning to face Barricade, a look of severe disappointment on his face as he said: “Fun fact, Barricade. Humanity is very reliant on electricity to power their cities and entertainments. Very reliant indeed.”

    Barricade tensed: “What the frag do those little fleshbags have to do with this?”

    He ignored the question and clicked a button on the rod; it extended, revealing a sharp prong at the end. A prong that instantly flickered bright blue with a crackle of electricity between it. Everyone immediately and instinctively flinched away from the display, optics widening in horror.

    “Another fun fact-“ Starscream hissed, slowly approaching Barricade, whose optics were wide in fear as he comprehended his situation, immediately trying to back away before he was stopped by two of the Seekers stepping forward and grabbing his shoulders. “-As we all know, Cybertronian metallicology does not appreciate electricity. Especially not in particularly sensitive areas. It screws up the neurals, overheats the Energon, destabilises the spark.”

    “Starascream, you can’t!” Slipstream immediately protested, instantly realising what he was going to do. “Barricade’s condition is too unstable right now! You can’t honestly think-“

    Starscream interrupted her with a critical snarl: “Consider yourself lucky I’m not punishing you as well, Slipstream. Apparently, you and your stupid friend were duped on the authenticity of a solar foundry. By a rookie at that! So, if I were you, I would kindly SHUT THE FRAG UP!

    The medic immediately fell silent, horror-struck by the sudden savagery of her commander as the others tensed. They’d all seen him furious before, but never so furious as to bring out an electric prod; it was a tool of pain reserved for the most heinous offences. Whatever Barricade had done, it wasn’t enough for this kind of punishment.

    But apparently, Starscream seemed to think so.

    He continued his cold speech as he stopped in front of the struggling and squirming Mustang, glaring down at him with the eyes of a cruel judge: “All of you will now learn a very important lesson, with the consequences of ignoring said lesson shown by Barricade here: Never, ever, hide things from Starscream.”

    The electric prod was sparking more frequently now, blue jolts flickering across the prongs threateningly, as the jet seized Barricade’s head and slowly veered it towards his undamaged optic as the car protested, desperately struggling against the restricting Seekers: “Starscream, wait, wait! I didn’t mean to betray your trust, I just wanted to kill the Autobots! I, I mutilated one of them for you! I wasn’t trying to turn on you or anything! Starscream, please, don’t do it, just, just let me explain! Starscream, no, no, please, NO-“

    The control room flared bright blue with the disturbing crackles of electricity, Barricade’s pleas descending into distorted screams of agony, echoing throughout the entire ship. Every Decepticon forced to witness this cringed, cowered, averted their optics, did everything they could to avoid watching this, did everything they could not to tremble at the sounds of electricity and screaming.

    The only Decepticon who maintained a stoic demeanour was Nighttrace. She did not flinch or quiver or whimper at the sight of the torture before her, the sight of the dreadful electricity ravaging vulnerable systems; her only reaction was a distasteful flicker of the antenna.

    Author's Notes: First Jazz, now Hound! Lieutenants get the worst of it :p 

    Electricity, as hinted at in the very first episode, is actually a potent weakness of Cybertronian biology (or metallicology, as they refer to it as). Using it to torture someone is a very extreme measure.
     
  14. Jamocha101

    Jamocha101 Well-Known Member

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    When I started reading, I was actually shaking. There was actual adrenaline racing through my actual limbs. I was an actual very excited Jamocha. Know this. Moving on.

    This chapter was gruesome. At this point, I'm not sure whether or not the chapter forgoing beat this one on the level of disturbing content. Thinking about it, I think I might give this one the medal, just for the finale; wow, that was indescribably saddening; the conflicting thing is, that Barricade has been one of my ultimate favorite characters from the beginning. Granted, I need to openly acknowledge the fact that he is a sadistic, satanic, moronic, generally mean sack of slag and that he's not actually anybody's precious baby but a ruthless antagonist with no redeeming qualities, but I somehow still feel protective over him. It sounds horrible, that it does. (Granted if he weren't fictional and this wasn't fiction of course it would be different, let's make that clear). But once you establish your favorite character, you're in it for the long haul. There is no turning back. You are thereby obligated to endorse every aspect and behavior that the character exposes throughout the duration of the story. Inasmuch, although I sometimes think it's funny when karma is a glitch to him, my like points for Starscream have effectively plummeted and I am an unhappy person.

    Granted, I feel that something was added to Starscream's character, albeit the fact that I pretty much don't like him anymore. I'm not sure if I would call this development after all, because we've known pretty much jack about Starscream's actual substance for the duration of the series up until the revelation about his hate for Shockwave, and that was mostly a sidelined device used to clarify why he can't stand Airachnid in prep for her arrival. And what I mean is that it hasn't revealed anything indicative to a change of character, which nobody's expecting this early anyway. What I do mean, after all this rambling, is that we've found out a little more about Starscream's enigmatic mannerisms. He's generally very pretentious, of course. In this chapter, he still was. In fact, this is the most pretentious thing that he has done in my opinion. But this time he has become genuinely sadistic and uncaring. I don't know if he would have held back if it was anybody else (actually, I guess he would have because he specifically mentioned his discontent about Slipstream's misstep in falling for Bumblebee's lie), but he has displayed a so far otherwise unfounded cruelty, which contrasts his customary "properness." While the stereotypical Starscream is portrayed as a joke, the audience and the other characters now have reason to fear him. He has, in one single instance, become extremely intimidating. From now on, I will be regarding Starscream in a new light because before I didn't suspect that even he was capable of such inhumane behaviors. Not to mention it was Barricade, and that just makes me really mad.

    But now let's look at the other side of the spectrum. Here we have Hound and Eva'c situation. There's not much to say about the former in this case of course, since he was hardly actively in the chapter other than his monologue where he's worried about the consequences his death will have on Bumblebee's situation. (Not worried about himself on his deathbed, worried about somebody else. Wow). As for Evac, you said that there was frightening moment from an unexpected source at some point in the chapter, and I told you that I suspected either Sideways or Evac. Now I'm not sure if you were alluding to Evac or Starscream, but I digress. This is the first time in the series that we've really seen an in-battle show of brute strength from Evac, I guess partly because, if I remember correctly, this is only the third time he's been in a hostile battle situation. We had an indication toward his strength in Star's Screams (I think), and that was it. Here, there's a clearer implication that he can be a total and utter B.A., a quite literal Unskilled But Strong character. For what we know granted the situation, like others on his team, at least one of his triggers is a sense of protectiveness over other people. He reminds me of Mike Ore, in a way, if you have an idea of who that is. If you don't, he was a big strong football player (or I guess a soccer player to you), but was a huge soft teddy bear before he found his calling. However, after finding that his protective instinct could reliably fuel him on the field when it counted, he became an infamous athletic star for his skill and strength despite his fluffiness. Like Starscream, I feel as though something was added to Evac's character from this chapter. He handled the situation like a champ, so he doesn't have the same panicky aspect that we might have seen in one or two other characters. So far, the rookies have proved to be strong characters despite their inexperience. It was also great to visualize Evac finally tossing somebody around.

    Going back to Barricade. I'm unsure of how to react to his reaction of the nodule's effect. I was initially a tad surprised that he was clear in the head after the whole ordeal, like he remembered everything right away and was mentally fine after it had been removed, but it acted to clear some misconceptions I had about its function. It's not an ultimately mind-controlling device, it's just an enhancement. It came off as mind-controlling with the state of mind that it put Barricade in, but once again, I digress. It was much more surprising to me that Barricade found any sort of discontent from the experience, but I was glad that he did because I subconsciously keep an open eye out for anything that I could argue is redeemable about his otherwise horrible character. It was nice to see that he was conflicted about it right after taking it off, even thinking that maybe he should see a doctor for crying out loud, but he stayed true to his character in quickly deciding that this was a good thing for him. And then continuing to talk and laugh to himself about it like the consistently demented psychopath that he is. I wasn't surprised about it, but disappointed, only for the reason that I mentioned before. It wasn't bad writing that caused my unhappiness, it was genius writing that did. Me being so immersed into a character that I actually cringe when he continues to mess up. Me being upset about your writing because it's so good has to be one of the highest compliments that I can offer.

    Some things that I found ironically cute about this chapter were Slipstream's and Soundwave's reactions to Barricade getting the ever living shizz beat out of him. Soundwave being that mad for one thing, which I personally found uncharacteristic of him, but this time in a good way because I see him and Barricade as foils to one another. As for Slisptream, I really love her motherly-character archetype, so it was nice to see her all frantic and mad about Barricade coming back in the state that he was in. There were bonus points for Barricade being kind of nice--or at least casual I guess, which is still weird for him--to her when he got back. It's such ship fuel. I ship those two viciously now. Still as the "cute stuff happens occasionally, but it would never actually happen" ship, but it's a ship nonetheless and I will go down with it as I must. But YET AGAIN: I digress.

    So I'm currently worried about Hound's status and the reactions of his comrade when he gets back because he's obviously probably gotten himself in deeper crap than anybody else since the series began. It's plain to see that the team is deteriorating because Ratchet got beaten to a pulp shortly ago and still isn't completely functional (AND has self esteem issues, let's not forget), and Jazz is laid up with a shot to the chest. Now, Hound is down for the count. Taking into account, the chronology of the episodes so far, it looks like he won't be involved in the A story in the next episode unless there's a time jump (which like I said, seems unlikely with how the series has so far progressed). It also looks like Ratchet and Evac will be busy as usual. Inasmuch, Grimlock and Wheeljack appear to be the most likely candidates for the A-story of the next episode. If Jazz wakes up and by any chance gets outside, he might also be, but I doubt it.

    I don't want to forget about Nighttrace. So far in the series, I've had nothing against her and have felt that she was definitely among the most enigmatic, if not the most enigmatic character. I've never considered her particularly eccentric, that was, up until this episode. Since she just looked on as one of her cohorts was being tortured by means that were unusually cruel and didn't show hardly any signs of disturbance, unlike everybody else. You're probably not going to care for my text-to-text relations if you don't know about my comparison material (which I'm know you don't), but I immediately related her to Equius from Homestuck. In a few ways, they're very much alike. Equius is also very quiet and mindful of etiquette. However, one occurrence involving him in the story is very much similar to Nighttrace in this installment. At one point, another character named Tavros was paralyzed from the waist down and Kanaya, yet another character, sawed his legs off in his sleep while others were present. The text emphasized that Equius just stared as it happened. That's all he did, was stared. Didn't flinch or anything, he just looked at it. Like him, his placidness is what makes him a "weird" character. It's not an eloquent term, but one that I would shamelessly use to describe Nighttrace, especially after this. She's weird.

    Continuing with the trend of focusing on individual characters, I'll just take a moment to say something about Waspinator. Wow, Wasp. Way to throw a brother under the bus. Way to go.

    All in all, this episode was crazy insane, but in a really great way. We got a lot of character building (and wrecking) and some of the most violent, intense visuals since the series started. Additionally, the revelation in regards to Houndicade was not disappointing at all, and the nodule fodder has been officially checked off the list. I'm not sure how Barricade will handle seeing that Hound survived this (that is if you follow through with your ten episode rule and won't pull anything like just dragging this out and killing Hound because of this in the eleventh episode), but Houndicade is not over. :/ Since it looks like Barricade won't be getting a nodule back anytime soon, I can't imagine how conflicts between those two will go in the future.

    I'm so very excited for the next episode. This one was so great. Rock on, Meta!
     
  15. C888

    C888 Well-Known Member

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    I think this is the first time I've genuinely found Starscream to be intimidating. I'm no reviewer but I just wanna say this one was absolutely great. I mean they're all pretty good but this one, just, wow. Also nice to see Evac get some action. And I just wanna throw out that I really wish someone could do art for your character designs.
     
  16. Jamocha101

    Jamocha101 Well-Known Member

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    Greigio's deviantART Gallery
     
  17. C888

    C888 Well-Known Member

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  18. Jamocha101

    Jamocha101 Well-Known Member

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    Yep!
     
  19. Meta777

    Meta777 Dr Pepper Fan

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    Episode 9: Cave In

    Synopsis: A freak accident in battle ends up trapping Bumblebee and Slipstream deep underground, leaving their comrades struggling to rescue them in a time when Autobot and Decepticon must cooperate.


    "I still think Starscream went too far with that one."

    Two days had passed since the reconnaissance mission in the forest, since Barricade had returned with a missing arm, other injuries and a stolen nodule. The Darksyde was still lounging upon the moon, soaking up as much solar energy as it could to fuel its repairs, which were thankfully coming along well; it may very well be airborne at last tomorrow.

    Grindor and Sideways might be an odd duo, but no-one could deny their efficiency in engineering. Well, Grindor's at least, Sideways was just the helper. Still, reasonably efficient.

    But most notably, especially to the non-drone members of this ship, it had been two days since Starscream had mercilessly tortured Barricade, with electricity no less, over the theft of the Battle-Inducement Nodule. Now, they had all known of Starscream's rather unstable temper, and they all knew he wasn't very tolerant of failure or lying, but this incident had crossed a line.

    Electricity was a danger to their very metallicology, one of the few things in this universe a Cybertronian genuinely feared. To employ it in punishment was reserved for only the most disgusting and terrible offences. However bad stealing an experimental technology might be, it had not been bad enough to deserve such a reaction.

    And this was what Slipstream was currently discussing to Grindor as they sat in his room, currently piecing together a replacement arm for Barricade. Grindor had certainly made himself at home; his desk was littered with projects and turrets and other devices he liked to tinker with.

    The jet was currently scanning the crude neural systems within this template appendage while Grindor busied himself connecting the finger joints. One might suspect his bulky arms and thick claws were unsuited for such delicate work, but he moved nimbly and precisely.

    "And I agree with you." Grindor replied, just a tad impatient given that he had heard this before. "I agree that the use of electricity as a punishment in this context was a grave overreaction. But we cannot change the past, Slipstream. Barricade made an error, and he has paid the price."

    "Paid too much if you ask me." Slipstream huffed, flickering her tailfins discontentedly. "You saw the condition he was in, his systems were lucky they didn't all collapse! When you're a medic, these things are just so much worse, because you know exactly what it's doing, what you'll have to do to fix it, and it's just-"

    "Slipstream." Grindor stated, finally looking from his work to stare at her. "What's done is done. If this is bothering you so much, you can report this incident to a Conciller and seek their guidance."

    "But I can't, can I, not with that thing watching me." Slipstream snapped, jerking her head back, indicating the small form of Waspinator perched on the ceiling near the door, clicking idly as it observed them with huge navy-blue optics. "Starscream wouldn't want his chances for a promotion threatened by this becoming public. Plus, he knows my friend is linked to the one Conciller he hates more than anything else, so he'd be damned if he let me get away with reporting this to Airachnid and, by extension, Shockwave."

    Grindor raised a brow: "Your friend works for Shockwave? I didn't know that."

    "You do now. We learn something new everyday, just like I learnt two days ago that my commander, often just prone to tantrums or a kick to the aft, is willing to electrocute an injured soldier."

    She huffed a flare of fire out of her thrusters as slapped a panel over the incomplete arm, forcibly soldering it on with a concentrated stream of plasma from her ray, clearly agitated now. Grindor continued to gaze at her for a moment, contemplating her mood, before he returned his attentions to his own part of the job.

    Slipstream rarely got worked up so much. The last time she'd felt this neural-wracking anger was when, ironically enough, Barricade had insulted her position as a medic. But this was even more potent than a simple insult on her job; this was a blatant case of overzealous punishment, too high a tier for this incident! The fact that Starscream had done it at all, never mind to an injured trooper, made her viral. Who could ever do that to another Cybertronian over such a comparatively small manner?!

    But then she's grimly reminded of what Airachnid said to her before, how her philosophy of 'life is life' was not appropriately applied to Autobots. If Starscream had done this to one of the Autobots, would she be reacting so strongly?

    Truth be told, she knows the answer is no. She flares another flicker of flame from her thrusters before pushing the thought out of processor.

    They sat in silence for a moment, continuing to go through the finer aspects of the new appendage, Grindor absently making sure the fingers could flex as Slipstream examined the elbow joint, before she sighed and said: "I know I might have been a bit overbearing lately with all this, Grindor, but it just... what do humans say... it just rustles my jimmies knowing Starscream could do that."

    Grindor patted her on the shoulder reassuringly with his third arm: "It's alright. We've all learned at some point that there are individuals out there capable of doing what others could only dream of. Take Conciller Overlord, for example."

    She shuddered: "Let's not and say we did. But seriously, thank you for listening, Grindor. It's nice to have someone who can really listen."

    "Surely Soundwave and Nighttrace fulfilled that role for you before I came?"

    Slipstream chuckled: "True. But unlike Nighttrace, you talk back. And unlike Soundwave.... well, actually, he's no problem, but he wouldn't be as good at helping me build a new arm."

    Grindor laughed: "Not everyone's good at everything."

    A chuckle: "True. But speaking of being good at things, do you think the reason we haven't seen any trace of the Autobots is because Barricade actually managed to kill their hologrammer?"

    "Possibly, but if I've heard right, he'd also wounded the Lieutenant before this. The Autobots can't afford to hunt us now, not with their chain of command in disarray. No, if you ask me, they'll remain on the defensive for a while."

    She nodded in agreement. The last thing they needed was for the Autobot ship to descend upon them, guns blazing.

    They worked in silence for another moment, when there was a knock at the door, loud and impatient, and Slipstream sighed: "Come in, Barricade, even though we're still not finished and this is the third time in two hours you've barged in asking!"

    Coincidentally, the Mustang barged in while she was saying this, asking: "Are you fraggers done yet? I want two arms already! Soundwave keeps hogging the consoles because I don't have two hands to play games with!"

    Grindor snorted: "There's always a game for one-handed folks, particularly the crude ones like you."

    "Yeah, such as punching you in the face, you jerk."

    Despite the incident two days ago, Barricade was in relatively good condition, thanks to the efforts of Slipstream and assistance from Grindor, who's engineering skills translated neatly to framework. His armour was smooth and shining again, his leg joint was stabilised, any damaged valves repaired and his facial armour neatly repaired. The only flaws left was the fact his arm was still missing and one of his optics remained inactive.

    In terms of processing, he was still the same old Barricade; crass and rude. The nodule, thankfully (or not), had not permanently damaged him or anything; if anything, the event seemed to leave him a better mood than usual. Though perhaps a little bit less likely to pick a fight with Starscream.

    "How's the optic, Barricade?" Slipstream asked, turning to face the smaller Decepticon. "Does it still ache?"

    "No, not anymore." He grumbled, idly poking at his currently offline optic. "Tingly, but not hurtful. When does it realign again?"

    "A few hours, give or take. Just don't try and activate it anytime soon though, just in case."

    "Sure, sure."

    He sauntered over to the desk and glanced at the arm they were building, nodding approvingly: "Very nice, you two. Be sure to add extra hydraulics to the hand so I can crush Autobot throats easier. OH! And make it transform it into a big cannon, perfect to blast those fraggers with!"

    "Barricade, you already have Shredder Shotguns."

    "Yeah, and Grindor already has tread-whips, but he's always happy for more turrets. The more weapons the better, Slipstream! Now are you going to keep questioning me or are you going to upgrade this arm?"

    She turned and fixed him with a lethal glare: "I'm going to kick you off this ship if you don't shut up and let us work."

    Barricade grumbled and whined in response, before turning tail and heading for the door. But before he left, he stated: "Oh, just to let you know, Starscream said you and Nighttrace are going scouting in a while. So yeah, get ready to make yourself useful, medic."

    With that, he strode out and the door shut behind him.

    Slipstream was understandably annoyed, immediately snapping to Grindor: "The little fragger! Here I am building him a new arm, complaining about his treatment, wishing Starscream would go scout himself, the jerk, helping him out with an optic that had an electric prod jammed in it, and yet he's strolling around without a damn care! He even insults me for Primus' sake! What is up with that?!"

    "Barricade, I regret to say, lacks the sentimental philosophy possessed by more intuitive Cybertronians to truly comprehend a reality over than his own egotism."

    Slipstream stared at him for a moment before she leaned back and gave a slight moan: "Oh, I love it when you talk smart, Grindor. It gets me all tingly."

    Grindor raised a brow, bemused: "I'm flattered. So, are you going to install a cannon in his arm?"

    "After that, he'll be lucky if I don't hide a bomb in it."

    Grindor just laughed.

    --

    In his quarters, Starscream had different things on his mind. The first and foremost thought was the nodule clutched in his hands, observed under critical crimson optics. Once just a piece of tech delivered to him by Shockwave's assistant, it was now an unwelcome reminder of his failure to realise that one of his own soldiers had been hiding things from him.

    Now, he knew that every soldier, himself included, would always have some aspect they didn't want to share. Soundwave didn't want to share how he came to be a Decepticon despite the yellow visor, fair enough. Nighttrace didn't want to share why she didn't talk much, fair enough. But this wasn't some past pain or torment; this was theft, theft from a Conciller no less, and used to further one's own agenda outside of the chain of command!

    That just would not do. That just would not do. One of his own soldiers flying under his own radar like that wouldn't bode well for his reputation in the slightest. Not one bit. Barricade had had it coming, constantly belittling and doubting him at every turn, and now he had been hiding experimental technology behind his back all for his petty rivalry! It made Starscream's Energon boil.

    But the second thought biting at him, less sharply than the first but no less aggravating was the reaction of his crew.

    Quite frankly, they'd been avoiding him. Slipstream was positively furious about his reaction, most evident from Waspinator's current feed, but he could deal with that; medics were always so much more sentimental than others. Soundwave was more distant than normal, and he could deal with that too. Grindor and Sideways were less blunt about it, but they hadn't been here nearly as long, and Sideways avoided him anyway, so whatever. Barricade himself was less aggravating and less loud than usual, which should be a plus but only came out as unnerving.

    Even Nighttrace was less talkative (so to speak) to him.

    He told himself that he didn't care, that he could deal with their dislike. If they wanted to get all soft over a soldier's blatant disobedience, then let them! Let them mope around in their little moods. This was war; the soft and sappy and sentimental were always the first ones to either die or harden up. They'd get over it.

    That's what he told himself. So how come it still bit at him?

    Barricade had had it coming. A personality like him was nigh-unbearable; he'd been flung through multiple commanders for his arrogant and hateful and impudent nature! He'd had a prod coming for a long time, especially compounded with a betrayal of trust like this! Starscream had expected better from his soldiers, had expected them to not go behind his back like filthy little spies.

    If Shockwave ever found out about this, found out Starscream had let a soldier run wild with his invention... The thought made Starscream fume. The blasted Conciller would soil his reputation, demand punishment, mock him! He couldn't bear the thought of it.

    But still. One thought made itself known; had he gone too far with that? Electricity was something you reserved for the worst. What Barricade had done, regardless of whatever reaction Shockwave might have, was not the worst, technically.

    But he'd had it coming! He'd had it coming....

    Starscream snarled in anger and tossed the nodule onto his desk, where it clattered and twirled for a moment before coming to a stop. Never mind all this slag; so long as Operation Harvest, so near to the next phase, went ahead as planned, who cared what his crew thought of his punishment? He didn't care, he didn't care one bit-

    Someone knocked at his door and he grunted: "Enter."

    The door slid open and Nighttrace fluttered in, a contemplative light in her optics. Starscream was curious; she hadn't been interested in talking to him for two days, so what had brought her here now?

    She stopped just before him as he stood up, apparently wondering how to start her intended conversation, before she gave a low nod and fixed him with a grim stare.

    He tensed, instantly aware of what she was here for, and grunted: "I've already had a complaint from Slipstream and Soundwave, Nighttrace, so please, don't think you shouldn't be blunt."

    "Alright then." She replied, and he stared at her in surprise at actual words from her as she continued: "Quite frankly, Starscream, I think your response to Barricade's theft was wrong."

    Surprise vanished, replaced by irritation as he threw up his arms in annoyance: "Of course you do, everyone else thinks so! Apparently, punishing an impudent incompetent idiot who's displayed notable examples of disobedience and disrespect and had the neurals to hide experimental technology from us is a BAD thing! Can you believe that?!"

    She glared at him then, and he snapped back: "Don't give me that look, Barricade had it coming to him! Did you honestly expect I could respond to his treachery with smiles and forgiveness?! Do you think he was justified to steal that nodule, justified to put us all at risk of suffering a Conciller's displeasure?!"

    "I do not deny Barricade's failure." She replied coldly. "What I'm doing is refusing to condone your response."

    "Of course you are, because electricity is reserved for truly grave offences and all that good slag." Starscream snapped, stepping forward right to her face, towering over her. "Forgive me for being blunt, Nighttrace, but right now, I don't give a frag about your sentiment regarding levels of punishment. If you ask me, Barricade needed a good shock a long time ago, possibly when his impudent spark was thrust into this universe!"

    Nighttrace responded swiftly, hovering upwards to force him onto the lower level as she hissed, her calm tone bearing a sharp underline of anger: "Excellent justification of overreaction, Starscream. Have you practiced the words you spout to deny any fault of yours, or does it come naturally?"

    He sputtered at the sharpness of her tone, before regaining himself and retaliating: "Oh wow, wow, turn it on me why don't you?! It's all Starscream's fault, isn't it?! Never mind what Barricade does, Starscream's the con to blame! I thought you were above such petty insinuations, Nighttrace, or maybe you've been taking lessons from Slipstream!"

    Her glare intensified further, antenna flickering with frustration, before responding: "I'm not blaming you for Barricade's actions. I'm asking whether or not you can admit to this flaw."

    "Oh, oh I see how it is! Well then, if you're going to rant at me about flaws, Nighttrace, how about we look at the Decepticon who watched it happen and didn't do a damn thing about it?! Where were your protests against this when it was actually going on, not two days later?!"

    "Would you have listened if I had?"

    "Oh I'd listen, Nighttrace, I'm listening to you right now, aren't I? But I guess you can't tell whether or not people will listen to you because YOU NEVER FRAGGING TALK! But you're talking a lot now, I've never heard you talk so much in one sitting! Who would have thought that all I'd have to do to get a full conversation with you was to jam an electric prod in an idiot's optic?!"

    They glared at each other for a moment, before he forced himself to back away a step, trying to calm himself as he rubbed a hand against his aching cranium: "... You know, you're my most loyal soldier, Nighttrace. You're ten times more competent than anyone else on this ship. But if I can't even count on you to stand by my decisions as a commander, who can I count on? Barricade committed a crime, I punished him for it, and yet you and all the rest of them act as if I'm the baddie in this situation!"

    "I'm so sorry. I should have realised holding any opinion other than yours is foolish." She replied, sarcasm painting her otherwise stoic tone. "I'll get right back to being your yes-con, shall I?"

    He sputtered indignantly: "This isn't about agreeing with every damn view I have, this is about acknowledging Barricade's crime and the fact he deserved his punishment! I have to run a tight ship, Nighttrace, I have to keep one step ahead of the Lieutenant, I have to make sure we don't return to Megatron as failures, and how can I do that if you lot are just going to hide tech from me and treat me as the villain?! How can I ever expect to become a Conciller if my own crew thinks punishing an idiot is some kind of ultimate offence?!"

    She just shook her head in disappointment and turned her back on him, fluttering towards the door as she gave him a final statement: "You and I have different perceptions of offence, Starscream. In this case, my perception on it is where you've placed your priorities."

    With that, she exited through the doorway, and he immediately stomped over to it, poked his head out and yelled after her: "Fine, fine! Flutter away from the arguments you start, isn't that mature?! You know what, I bet you don't talk a lot because you have a hard time finding anything good to say, you defective moron!"

    Furiously, he lurched back into his quarters and punched the wall as hard as he could, producing an echoing clang and leaving a fair dent in it. Growling, he withdrew his arm and flexed his aching claws, before revving furiously and stomping over to his seat, plopping down onto it and muttering curses to himself.

    Just what he needed to brighten up his day, a nice little argument with his best soldier over this damn controversy with the shock trooper. Wasn't that just damn delightful? Well, whatever, what did she know? She wasn't a commander, her reputation wasn't balancing on this sudden dilemma, it wasn't her duty to punish insubordination!

    Annoyed, he scraped his claws along the table. No-one understood the pressure on him, no-one! He had to make decisions for the good of his crew, for the good of his future, and if they got all fussy over Barricade's punishment, who cared?! Their own fault for being so damn inadaptable. Frag the lot of them, so what if he used electricity, so what if he desired to be a Conciller, it wasn't any of their damn business. All they did was whine and whinge at every decision he made! Frag the lot of them!

    ...

    So Starscream, what kind of a good commander goes off shouting after their best soldier and calling them a defective moron for maybe having a point?

    A moment of pause as he considered the sudden thought, before he let out a low groan and slammed his head against the table: "Why oh why, Nighttrace, do you have to be so damn frustrating and... and..... Oh frag it all, I need some Energon."

    --

    Coincidentally, Slipstream was just leaving the room, Waspinator buzzing out behind her and darting off, when Nighttrace fluttered over to collect her, having also heard from Barricade that she was due a scouting run, and Slipstream was a bit taken aback; Nighttrace seemed perfectly calm as ever, but there was a kind of tension to her antenna that had the medic perplexed.

    What did Nighttrace ever get so tense about? She hadn't reacted to Barricade like the rest of them had. Sure, she didn't approve, but she hadn't exactly being cringing away either. Slipstream wasn't sure whether she should dislike the ability to watch torture with a straight face.

    Still, she asked: "Are you okay, Nighttrace? You seem a bit tense."

    The UAV just shrugged, before fluttering onwards towards the lift. The F-117 stared after her for a moment, before promptly following, figuring that if Nighttrace didn't want to talk about it, as she often did, it would be best not to probe. It was probably related to Starscream at any rate; Slipstream felt a bit bad for the other flyer, having to cope with the fact the commander she'd shown good loyalty and compassion for was capable of such brutality. Shame.

    As they left, Sideways drove down the hallway, testing out his vehicular features, most prominently the large headlight. His bike form was very agile and very fast too, and he could pop a wheelie on it! At least, that's what humans called it. Oh well. At least his holographic driver seemed legitimate; Soundwave said it suited him very well, and Soundwave knew more about Earth than he did.

    So, Sideways wheeled his way into Grindor's room and cheerfully said: "Hey Grindor, check out my holographic driver! Think this will fool any humans?"

    Grindor turned and examined it, before replying: "Ballet dancers don't make good motorcyclists, Sideways."

    "... Pardon?"

    "Your driver's a ballet dancer. Ballet dancing attire is not suited for riding motorbikes."

    "But... Soundwave said-"

    "Soundwave was joking."

    "Oh.... oh okay. Sigh..."

    Grindor just chuckled, returning to his work, before asking: "Tell me, how goes the ship's repairs currently?"

    "The ship? Oh the ship! Very well, very well! I did what you told me to do, Grindor, and I've put into its recharge cycle to rejuvenate the more sensitive systems, like you said it would. Some major functions, like the warp driver and thus the ground bridge, are shut down for a bit, but it'll be done in two Earth hours or so!"

    "Excellent work, Sideways." Grindor said, idly setting a valve in place and preparing to solder it to the other one. "The ship will soon be fully repaired, and Starscream can continue with his operation."

    "Speaking of which, are we sticking around to see it finished?"

    "Of course; Starscream requires our assistance to help bring it to completion in the first place. And besides, we have other endeavours upon this ship."

    "Such as?"

    Grindor turned and gazed knowingly at the bike: "Well, for one we have our insurance policy to maintain, to make sure we are well prepared for any exceptionally negative circumstances." He turned back to the arm and finished: "Just in case."

    The bike shrugged his handlebars, his hologram haphazardly hanging off of his seat, before turning around and driving out of the room, leaving Grindor to his work and his contemplations.


    Author's notes: So yeah, Barricade's pretty okay, no worries. Just needs that new arm :) 

    We'll see how the Autobots are coping next chapter.
     
  20. Jamocha101

    Jamocha101 Well-Known Member

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    Whoa, that was fast! :O

    I am so dang happy to see Starscream worked up over his team's disapproval regarding his astoundingly overzealous temper tantrum. >.> It sure is ironic that a character who is so notoriously arrogant can show that he puts quite a bit of weight on what other characters think of him. You're going to get tired of hearing about this, but he reminds me of Eridan from Homestuck. The latter is also a cocky pretentious d-bag, but is also desperate for companionship. The two aren't exactly alike, but close in some ways. Starscream's inner conflict also eerily reminded me of some issues that I've had to face in the past when it came to the opinions of other people on me. I guess what most of us want is approval. Regret is hard because you can't undo what it is that causes it. Then again, Starscream is too proud to ever admit that he was wrong, as was clearly shown by his exchange with Nighttrace in this chapter. I might just chalk the whole thing up to guilt, but I'm not sure that what Starscream's feeling germinates from a guilty conscience. Maybe? Who knows.

    Nighttrace was also cool in this chapter, it was nice to hear some real dialogue from her. It seemed uncharacteristic for her to go toe-to-toe with anybody, especially when she's smart enough to know that nobody can ever win an argument with Starscream, but I guess that's what surprises everybody whenever she actually talks, the blatant defiance of her typical behavior. More pragmatically, it was great to have one more person rag on Starscream for this. Because wow, I really can't stand him.

    I can see how we're leading up to the next episode! Given how the chronology was plainly stated, I can see that my prior analysis was incorrect and that there was in fact a bit of a time jump between the last episode and this one, which means Wheeljack and Bumblebee definitely got back to the ship before the events of this episode. I'm eagerly wondering how things are going on their end of the spectrum, I was kind of disappointed that there were no Autobots in this chapter! Then again I know how you like to keep us on our toes, so it just makes me all the more excited for the next one.

    Also:

    Yooooooooooooo.