By: Taratron
Cat
and mouse…
Our
kind. Us people.
All of us that started the game with a crooked cue, that wanted so much
and
got so little, that meant so good and did so bad.
-
Jim
Thompson
The
Killer Inside Me
It was night and he was supposed to be on patrol.
However, after a quick talk with the Fuzor, Quickstrike had been more
than happy to take the three mile hike around the volcano pits.
As a matter or fact, he had been so happy that he had run off without
even telling Megatron.
Rampage relaxed in his quarters, or at least came to a state resembling
that. He would never be fully
relaxed, much less happy, until his spark was his own again.
Contrary
to Megatron (that fool! And what a
fool he was!) believed, Rampage was not stupid, he knew very well who was in
control. Those brief times when
Rampage did fight back against an
order were rare indeed, and were results from primal rage, not rational thought.
He knew all too well who was in command, and he was not him.
This, of course, was the story of his life, the very theme
of his life…one he was determined to change.
I
wonder how any of them would like it,
he thought with barely a snarl; Megatron kept tight security in recorders and
cameras around the base, and certainly in Rampage’s quarters.
It would not do to give Megatron any more
reason to compress his spark, though the tyrant did when he was furious,
apathetic, or even bored. I
wonder how any of them, say, Tarantulas or Waspinator would like it.
Even Inferno, what would he think of his ‘Queen’ if Megatron used HIS
spark as a remote control, as a stress reliever?
He
knew how they would like it. Oh,
how many times he had dreamed of
getting a hold of one of their sparks. He
wouldn’t lock it into an energon-clasped box, oh, no, he had much better
plans. Eating a spark, he
remembered doing that once, how the spark had shrieked all the way down,
pleasantly tickling his throat and stomach.
Or popping one…he had once held a spark in his hands, cupped like a
sacred object, and then brought his fingers into fists, bursting it in a shatter
of brilliance and screaming. On
patrol once he had found a nest of organic animal eggs.
Squeezing them into bloody yolks had done little to relieve his
needs, but fantasy of those bird embryos instead being Megatron or Tarantulas or
even that idiot Quickstrike had kept him amused on a tedious mission.
His
needs…oh, yes, he had not hurt anyone save Tarantulas, and that
had been upon escaping that infernal pod. And
then freedom! Some confusion (And
where, he had wondered, did High
Command send me? Because I am
certainly not supposed to be ALIVE…), naturally, and then his sensors had
picked up the weak (and very messy, as it turned out) tarantula spider.
Things had gone from confusing to delight, because apparently High
Command had proved its thoughtfulness yet again by sending his pod to a place
with life, with sentient life that
could scream and beg as Tarantulas had, before he smashed out his vocal units.
And
then…then something had happened to his systems, warning of too much energon,
of another form, TWO alternative forms, and somehow, somehow three
prey, three bots who should have been
dead already, or at least been found by his sensors, fought back.
They did, sometimes, in his experience, but the lesson that you
couldn’t fight the beast settled in, usually posthumously.
Something had happened as his systems went into stasis, and even in
stasis he was conscious, trying to transform, and those
three left him, left him alive…and he might have been free still had
Megatron not traced and tracked him down.
He
had been slightly conscious when his spark was removed, scraped out like a
botched operation, and then mercifully full stasis of the mind threw him to the
darkness. That was the last time he
went into stasis under his own life and command.
When he awoke, of course, it had come to pass to understand that he was
free no longer, that he was again property.
This was hardly a new state, but it enraged him all the more that he had finally
escaped High Command, finally escaped
the hell of being conscious and in a stasis pod, formless but not mindless, only
to end up as a pawn for another egotistical maniac.
At
least Megatron is not into the science of eternal sparks.
No, for Megatron it was enough to know that Rampage could be made to obey
through that agony. Megatron thankfully was not interested in the science of
keeping Rampage under control, or how to extend that control, or (and here he
wondered if Primus, if there was such
a thing as that, had a sense of humor) to allow any scientist to work on making
Rampage’s spark more resistance to some types of pain.
For once in his life, he would have tolerated, not enjoyed, no, not by a
long shot, such experiments, for they would have loosened Megatron’s hold on
him.
But
the tyrant was a fool, not stupid. He
knew how to control his weapon of mass destruction, and that was all he needed
to know. Further exploration into
Rampage might prove…not safe for his health.
And Rampage knew he himself would see to that.
The
night was young, however, and he was not used to leisure time.
Megatron certainly saw that it was a rare beast indeed, but at times it
was wise to allow the crew some illusion (and when he had first thought this, he
had laughed again, laughed so hard Megatron compressed his spark) of freedom.
He
would have preferred an underwater quarters, but naturally Darkside was as far
from the ocean as it was from verdant fields; taking a trip to his beast
mode’s native (and thus desired) ground would surely arouse Megatron’s
attention and twitchy hands.
So
instead he sprawled on the metal bunk, studying the ceiling, letting his mind
drift out to reach his spark, to feel again its tormented state, and then
withdrew with barely a grimace. He
enjoyed pain, oh, yes, it was delicious, but only in others.
He developed tolerance, not delight for his own.
His
quarters were understandably Spartan. He
had never been one for possessions, and was a complete contrast to
Waspinator’s quarters, as the wasp would drag in anything shiny, bright,
colorful, or remotely floral stinking into his room.
The few times Rampage had seen inside it, the floor was not visible.
The spiders were not nearly as bad; they kept their quarters clean if
only not to arouse suspicion that something of use, or of treachery, might be
under the spoil. Inferno kept a
relatively neat quarters, unless you counted the bizarre (and in a way, Rampage
admitted privately, frightening) amounts of Megatron image scans on the walls
and ceiling. As for Quickstrike,
his walls were not overly covered like Waspinator’s, but there were some
images of his beast mode parts, as well as some scans of Maximals after battle.
Chances were he used those for target practice.
He certainly could use it.
Whereas
Megatron’s quarters were off-limits from the security cameras, and that
irritated Rampage to no end. Perhaps
the tyrant slept with Rampage’s spark in his hands, or left it in his
cleansing tub next to that absurd rubber duck creature.
Either way, it was lost to him…for now.
The
others had left their marks on their respective quarters, and it was
understandable that Megatron might have as well.
Rampage’s room, however, was mostly bare and gray.
He was grateful, in a small way, for that color shift. He was not afraid of anything, but some things did
make him slightly more nervous than he wished.
Most of the time, those were merely nightmares, and they always seemed to
fade with time. He was not afraid
of them, but they did serve as more fuel to enrage him of the future in which he
might certainly be this idiot’s puppet for the rest of Megatron’s life.
No
images decorated his walls, and only his weapons were displayed on small
shelves. His room’s computer was relatively untouched.
For most of his life, possessions had always been out of reach, and he
did not envy those who had captured him any for those material things.
He did not even require his weapons, for he was well aware that he was a
living one. But they did
make life more interesting.
The
fact remained that he was alone for the night, without duties, without plans,
and if he left the base, surely some would be dutifully slammed into him via
that damned spark-box.
Recharge
seemed a viable option. Recharge
his energy cells, and remember, perchance to dream…
As
if guided by memory alone, a hand quested into subspace and revealed one of the
very scant few items he owned, and one that he did want to keep.
It would never do for Megatron to see such things, for he would take
untold delight in throwing them into the lava pits, if only for the expression
in Rampage’s optics.
But
Megatron did understand the need for brutality, and perhaps he understood and
was even amused by the Maximal rogue who ignored Primal’s near every command
in pursuit of his crab puppet. The
item was a scanned image, and it was a
fairly new image, but with old memories. The
image was of DepthCharge, and Rampage looked it over almost fondly.
With
an eerie expression on his face, he subspaced it again, and dropped into
recharge, a faint smirking smile on his face.
Light.
Bright
white, the coming of the white, and he snarled, or at least tried to.
They now had to gag him, else he would shriek throughout whatever the
cursed scientists had planned. He
still had no idea why he had finally been given a voice, for not a single one of
them spoke to him. He had a nasty
idea that this was a joke of theirs, to try and give him a way to fight back,
only to forcibly mute him when he tried. Either
that, or someone at the top had signed something without reading it first again.
He was all too aware of the mistakes in High Command, he had survived
them all.
There
was no way to escape, but his body vibrated under the restraints anyway; it was
an urge he could never subdue, nor really wanted to. The day he stopped fighting back would be the day he
surrendered, the day he gave up and admitted he was nothing but a thing, that he
deserved this. His optics flashed
in fury and the knowing of the coming of pain, and he tried again to scream
defiantly at those who approached with, he noted with no surprise but still a
raw fury, and some trace of fear, shock boxes.
His
chest cavity was open, the brilliant white lights and walls of the room seemed
to glow off of his inner wires and circuits, and for some reason he felt cold,
unbelievably cold, and again a choked back growl, his body shaking in fury and
rage that they could DO this…and that they were going to again.
He
had mastered speech from listening to them, from listening to the computers, and
when he had been given a voice, it had not seemed to surprise any of them that
he spoke. They only ignored that
factor, as they ignored seemingly everything else about him.
Shock
boxes…he looked at the seven small boxes brimming over with energy.
His head was locked into place so he could not raise it, but the boxes
were only inches away, and he could even read their sides in something like
dread. 1.92 AMU.
1.92?
1.92!?! The last shock box
treatment had been less than a quarter of that charge, and he could only stare
dumbly as one of the assistants began to settle one box inside a cavity made in
his torso, the chopped off wires still slowly leaking his life force painfully
into the air.
He
shook again, hands trying to clench into fists, but even those were pinned down,
monitors plugged into his wrists, reading off spark stasis, temperature, mech
fluid output. The second box was
locked into place in his lower torso, and his optics flared as two more were
secured into place, this time around his spark.
He felt himself trying to creep back, felt his spark trying to scream and
edge away as a third and then fourth were locked in, surrounding him, as more
monitor wires were inserted into the boxes, recording their readouts in dead
monotone.
It
was not a simple gag that bound his voice mute, but a rigid restraint over both
his throat, compressing on his vocal box enough to crack it, mech fluid leaking
down, swallowing it was bitter. Another
restraint latched his mouth closed; he could not even open or close it, only try
to bite, but even a bit had been placed inside him.
Biting onto it to express his pain was rewarded with more; the bit was
like all those from the past, plugged into the shock boxes.
One snap on it to even pretend to relieve pain would rocket his mouth and
throat with the same power as that which surrounded his spark and now filled his
body.
He
was determined to keep his optics on, determined to see which scientists had
planned THIS experiment, but when the assistant did the first test-run, he could
not keep from shrieking, his body suddenly alive with foreign energy, such
electricity strong enough to melt the boxes’ wires into his body.
In reflex he bit down on the only thing he could, and the recording
machines were rewarded with another audio-splicing scream, his body taut with
agony, his spark screeching and blinking, shuddering as it reached for whatever
haven it could find and only found more torment.
He
was not aware when the actual testing began, only that when it was over, and his
chronometer told him hours had passed by that time, after the boxes were
removed, some of their wires having to be cut, for they had welted onto his
armor, but when it was finally over and he was back in his cell, he tried to go
into recharge, only to find the gags were still in place, and he went in
screaming.
Time
later and there were still screams, and he could never fully speak of the relief
that it was not him, for once, that was screeching in such a way.
No…no, he was free now, he would never be used as a test subject again,
he was alive and he was free. The
same could not be said for the bot in front of him…and behind him, and to his
sides, splattered on the walls, the mech fluid, sticky silver gold plastering on
the otherwise dull support beams.
“Where
is he?” X demanded. He had kept
his name, or part of it at least. The
‘Protoform’ he had dropped, but X…in some perverse way he liked that.
In a way, it almost sounded like the mortal sound of disconnect, as a
spark twisted into the fading darkness, usually shrieking.
“WHERE is he?”
The
bot, or what remained of him, largely torso and head, only stared back with the
dumbness of those all too aware that they are dying fast.
Not fast enough, of course, he was skilled and practiced in keeping these
worthless toys alive. No, not worthless. They
did have worth, they were amusing, especially when they tried to escape as this
one had. Tossing a smaller bot, a
child, at X, and then running…it was not a novel approach, but hearing the
child screech for its father while its father raced away certainly was.
A quick twist and the brat had shut up, its spark too wrenched in metal
to continue.
X
was losing patience. “WHERE is
he, I said? Tell me…and I’ll
let you die.”
The
bot stared back, optics flashing as they surged and failed.
Mortal starlight of metal. “…I…I…”
It
was stuck, X realized with a smirk, and his fist compressed on the bot’s
throat, piercing shrieks his reward as he peeled back layers of metal to reveal
the damaged vocal unit. “Speak,
or you’ll live the longest.”
“Duh…Deh…DepthCharge,”
gagged the bot, optics flashing wildly as X placed a large digit on the unit,
pressing lightly. Another inch of
pressure and his finger would be out the back of its throat.
“I’m
not looking for him,” X said quietly. “I
said Meagos.”
“Me…me…Meagos,”
gagged the bot again, shuddering, circuits sparking as X slightly increased the
pressure. The unit squealed,
strained. The bot screamed, or
tried to, jerking in panic as X relaxed his grip.
Let it talk. Go on, little
toy, speak your mind.
“Issssssssssss,”
hissed the bot, its optics trying to flash on again, but perpetually dead.
Across the room, it might have seen its arms plastered in artistic pose
on the wall.
X
pressed on the unit, and it squealed as the bot’s throat burst like an organic
anything with pressure of any kind, the unit shattering on the ground, and he
dropped the bot without further interest. He
had already had his suspicions, and while the bot might have lied, chances were,
combined with its words and what he already knew, it was the truth.
Meagos.
DepthCharge. Meagos is. It
did not take a genius to realize they were the same.
“So
you are alive,” X said quietly as he surveyed what remained of Omicron’s
Guardian Station. He passed through
the remainder of the hallway, marked and marred with body parts of the
colony’s finest defense (again, evidence of the irony of this thing called
free life), and when he reached the end of the personnel walkway, he saw his
image. There it was, on the wall,
surrounded by similar images of other Guardians and the like. Worthless, and yes, these were.
Stupid ideas in the first place, using rats to guard the sheep from the
wolves. Ah, the beauty of taking
apart a professor whose main interest was not the screams of his neighbors, but
organic life. He had been rather
filled with information, as well as the usual mess X had come to associate with
these people.
Meagos’
image was on the wall, though the name was wrong. DepthCharge. What
kind of calling was that? Only one
those scientists, and here his fists clenched, squeaking and dribbling mech
fluid, gold and silver rain, had given him as a replacement. He wondered in a dull way what else they had replaced…and
what could NOT be taken away.
He
studied DepthCharge, no, it was Meagos, it would always BE Meagos, and studied
his optics. The face was similar,
the body was similar, the optics were the exact same.
They had not managed to replace him, then. Only build another glitch, another mask, a facade that had
been destroyed once and had the potential to again.
A
sudden thought curled his face into a smile, and using the mech of the
Guardians, he scrawled a message next to the portrait of Meagos in a new form.
He knew Meagos would find it…and then perhaps the true game, the true
chase would begin. As that
professor (who had proven many things of interest to X, one of the greatest
being a bot CAN survive for exactly half a millisecond after his spark is
crushed) had said in a wonderful analogy, it was a game of cat and mouse.
The mouse would be captured and the cat would be entertained with such a
game, until of course, the time came to chip in the dice and call it quits.
X had a vague idea that that analogy had been twisted, but it served its
purpose, as had the professor. And
that was one thing he had learned from Dihex Labs.
Everything has a purpose. It
was merely that he was to survive, and everyone else’s was to not.
He
was walking…walking, walking, and it seemed the corridor he had passed in only
hours before would never end. If
this nightmare would never end. If…if…if
only there had been some SIGN of survivors, but thus far only dead and glaring
optics, torn from limbs and torsos and faces, stared back at him, faces twisted
hideously, broken, come undone, and it was all he could do NOT to scream again.
And again. And again…and
here was his office, here was where he had taken the orders to go to a
neighboring colony, to Tetridan, only hours ago.
It was still as neat as when he had left it, unless you counted the
headless torso left in his chair, which he did, in a morbid kind of way.
DepthCharge
had heard of the word shellshocked, and this was perhaps the only time it could
have been applied to himself. Others,
easily…the female that discovered her mate was related to her, the child that
came home to find both parental units dead, the countless bots who could not
accept their relatives and friends were killed-
*there’s
that word again*
-on
a shuttle crash. Shellshocked.
Disbelief, un belief, but there was nothing else to do but realize this
was real, this was all there was, this was…
A
message. Something scrawled on the
wall, and he stared at it in continued shock, not seeing it for several minutes,
only dimly realizing it was written in the mech of his fellow Guardians.
Like Fastfall…whoever had done this had ripped his throat apart,
dismembered him, and left him in the hallway to die.
DepthCharge knew it had not been a fast death, but he could still hope.
Whoever
had done this…this monster, this beast, and DepthCharge knew even as he
finally saw and read the message, that it was not over, that Dihex had failed,
that it was too late and too early, that it was never over, perhaps.
He
stared and he stared at the message, written in Fastfall’s mech fluid in
large, careful, dribbling hands, digits huge and sprawling: Here, kitty kitty.
DepthCharge
had enough control over himself not to bolt awake.
This time. Other times there
simply was no control, nor even an
illusion of it.
“Here,
kitty kitty,” he growled, blinking at the console ahead of him.
He dully realized he had gone into recharge mode again while at work,
plotting Predacon patrol paths, trying to find where X would strike next, where
he would be next, and how to use the terrain against the monster.
Here,
kitty kitty, indeed. The sole
message left, and even though it would take High Command and Dihex Labs nearly
two days to piece everything together, he knew, had known perhaps even from the
sight of the first body. It was no
rogue killer, it was not politics, it was not an accident.
It was Protoform X.
He
glared at the console screen, which showed a jagged and rocky mountain range. Days before X (or Rampage, whatever you wanted to call him
now, the names did not matter, the beast did) had patrolled that range, and
DepthCharge, knowing chances of him doing so again so soon were low, still could
not help but check.
This
is eating you alive,
sneered a voice, and he stepped on it, crushing it without mercy or thought.
Then
it deserves to. Omicron…and
Rugby…and everyone else in between.
It
was not his fault for the massacres, but High Command, and partially Dihex Labs
that X was even alive today.
He
should have been destroyed when he was recaptured.
The second time.
The
second time? Oh…yes.
Yet
another example of the lack of security at Dihex Labs; DepthCharge found it
difficult to believe he had ever supported the laboratories, much less the
scientists working them. Protoform
X had escaped not once, but twice.
TWO times in the space under
six months, and somehow after the first escape and recapture, security had not
been increased, only the experiments had, as though the scientists feared losing
him again before their studies were sated. And somehow the first escape and recapture never made it to
the general public, nor even High Command.
The second time, the second time X had been free for over three months,
evading his captors and slaughtering everything in his path and wake.
Only then, at the second recapture, had High Command realized Dihex was
inadequate to the task of keeping the beast under bars.
But
they still underestimated him,
came a low growl DepthCharge was far too used to.
Yes, yes, they had underestimated X, they had underestimated everything.
Rather than try and destroy the protoform, they had sent X into stasis, to be left
somewhere barren, dead, lifeless. Leaving
him awake in stasis for eternity. But that was not enough, there was too much danger in that route, and it seemed that only DepthCharge could see
it.
And
ironies of irony that X’s pod had ended with Primal, one of the very bots who
had insisted X be destroyed, once. Overnight,
he had changed his voice and vote, declaring it “safer for Cybertron and
future generations” for X to be left in stasis and dropped off like an
unwanted child. And when Megatron
had stolen the Golden Disk, Primal had, naturally, followed…and allowed X’s
pod to be ejected with the rest of the normal crew.
And who could have guessed that X would survive that quantum surge, that
he would indeed have survived at all?
DepthCharge,
who did not know vital statistics on pods, did
know that when X was involved, the only chances possible were for continued
bloodshed and death. X would
survive no matter the odds or stats; that was why he had been made, after all.
From what DepthCharge understood from Dihex’s logs, X was the first and
last protoform undergoing spark immortality treatments.
The only downside was that the treatments had made the protoform insane,
cruel, a monster.
“He
should have never been put in a
pod,” DepthCharge hissed, a line of poetry he had rehearsed to death, and then
some, and that was when his ComLink began to beep, its light glowing and
blinking red.
Irritated,
he clicked it on, his optics flaring dully as Primal’s voice came on. “DepthCharge?”
“What
do you want, Primal.”
There
was a hesitant pause, and DepthCharge allowed himself a tiny victory.
He might have been marooned on ancient Earth with a crew of idiotic
Maximals engaging in some pointless war with a band of criminals, and X was free
and loosed again (in a way, of course, and DepthCharge was not quite sure of his
opinion of that drool Megatron either), but on the good side, Primal had finally
admitted his mistake with X.
DepthCharge
had to take his victories where he could.
“Sentinel
is picking up some odd energy activity in Sector Tallories.
Will you check it out?”
“I’m
busy.”
“DepthCharge-”
“Listen
to me, ape. I said I am busy!”
Optimus
was silent for a moment. “And you
will listen to me, DepthCharge. You
can’t defeat Rampage alone, and it’s insane to try-”
“Talk
to me about Omicron, Primal, and then
you can talk about insane.” DepthCharge
struck the link button, cutting it off with a slow glower.
Small victories, and he took them where he could, but he would much
rather have X.
Even
Rattrap knew better to comment to Optimus after a link to ‘Captain Minnow,’
but there were times, when that natural defense didn’t come in.
Thankfully,
Rhinox felt privately, Rattrap was working on the autoguns, leaving him as
Optimus’ target for now. But
Rhinox was more than used to it, and understood all too well Primal’s point of
view about the colony Omicron. Unfortunate
to happen, yes, should have been prevented, yes, but compared to a few hundred
lives, fighting to keep the Ark safe
was much more important. Omicron
could and would have to wait.
Unfortunately,
DepthCharge did not feel the same way.
“What
are we going to do with him,” sighed Optimus wearily.
“Let
things continue as they are, more than likely,” Rhinox commented, bringing up
monitor shots of the ship’s hull. Rattrap
was trying very enthusiastically to wire an autogun barrel to its fixture with
adhesive tape.
“He
just-”
“I
know, Optimus, I know.” He opened
a comm outside, nearly at second thought. “Rattrap,
if that autogun falls off in the next battle, I’ll wire it to your head.”
“Eh,
sure, Rhinox.” Rhinox allowed
himself a small grin as Rattrap redoubled his efforts to reattach the barrel
with twice as much adhesive.
Optimus
barely watched the actions of two of his more stable crew members. He found his optics drawn to Sector Tallories, its usual
blue-green forests drawn in black and gray tones on the monitor.
The energy surge was still happening, and he realized that DepthCharge
would be out there very quickly. Not
because Optimus had asked, and asked nicely at that, not because the surge would
interest him, but because Rampage did.
Patrol
held no interest for Rampage, but if that meant there was more time away from
that lizard tyrant, and hopefully less
time in agony from his spark, he would trek nearly anywhere.
Sector
Argon, however, was not a place he would have chosen for anyone, no matter how
much he despised those others. The
place bordered a tropical wasteland of tar pits and sinking, dying plantlife. The stench was unbelievable, even to his sensors, and the
winds carried it for miles.
Yet
he patrolled, if only because there was no real choice, and because Megatron had
not squeezed his infernal box in half a day, and Rampage was leaning for a new
record of twenty-four hours without
such agony. It could happen, he
supposed.
Chances
of that, he knew, were as likely as…as…as nearly anything remotely
positive happening to him. Chances
of Megatron not tormenting him for one
entire day were as good as…as…
“As
that glitch coming undone,” Rampage spoke, and until the birds around him took
off in a flurry of blue, he had not realized he had spoken aloud.
He paused, allowing his antennae to pick up any new currents of
information, but, no, the birds had flown because of his voice. The world here was dead in silence.
Like
Omicron after I left that message,
he thought wryly, and continued onward.
The
place was still silent, save for the rustling of his crab legs over deadfall. The natural rust of the neighboring wasteland seemed to be
overflowing into this otherwise pleasant place. He stepped over a mound of eerie green ants; he didn’t
usually, but his last encounter with these mutants had left his beast form in a
form of toxic overdose. To say it
had been unpleasant was a vast understatement.
Rampage
disliked patrol for many reasons, and one of them was the fact that he could
have been killing Megatron, and another more realistic (of course, he realized
with a snarl) was the fact it was a dull task.
Maximals rarely came out by Argon, and if they did, usually the stench
drove them away. As a result, there
was very little to concentrate on, and so his mind wandered to the past.
Like
Cybertron. True, the majority of
the time he had spent there he had no want to remember, no wish to recall the
labs, the experiments, the tortures and the scientists’ impassive faces to his
screams, but a rare scant part of Cybertron he had enjoyed.
Of course, at that rare time, he had not been solitary.
Having an ally was something new to him even then, and a more alien
concept now, but it had been one of the more enjoyable times of his life.
It
did not do to dwell on that, however. He
was a person who had little use for regret and less use for the past.
Unfortunately, the past was not eager to relinquish him so easily.
Caught
in a pose that would soon litter the remains of Omicron’s populous, but he had
no way of knowing that at the time, he hung suspended from the wall, trying
fervently to reactivate his optics, but it was as he had feared: their source
supply was cut, gone, just as gone as his limbs.
For some reason the scientists had removed them, hacked them away, and
before his sight had vanished, he had seen them piled up carefully by the wall
like instruments in a medic’s bag.
“Activate,”
he tried to say, but even that power was gone, there was only the sensation of
being awake and in agony, his body segmented and left alive, pinned to the wall
like some wall decoration. Around
in the darkness, he heard the others at work, hissing, whispering, and he
wondered dimly why they had allowed him to retain his audio units.
“…Alphix…”
“-they
said the colony was-”
“-a
shame this had to happen-”
“-such
a promising career-”
“-a
HEAD in the wall, and-”
“…won’t
get away THIS time-”
He
knew enough that they were talking about him.
His trek of freedom. But it
hadn’t been a solitary venture now, had it?
Of course not. HE didn’t
have a promising career, but he knew someone who had, or might have had…and
such a shame that they had both been captured indeed.
Such…a…SLAGGING
shame, and he knew he would possibly never have that kind of chance again, that
he would never experience freedom again. And
part of him suddenly woke in alarm. If
he was here, and he was like this…then where was Meagos?
What had been done with him?
Chances
were that he was alive…he had, after all, had such a promising career in the
Guardians, and he had been a volunteer at Dihexaline Labs before this
“accident,” and these scientists and those commanders of High Command would
surely not want to lose that. No,
Meagos had been the model citizen until that last volunteer stunt, and now he,
X, was trapped on a wall, his mech fluid a steady stream, leaking to the ground,
and Meagos was…Meagos was simply gone.
Gone,
and even now Rampage knew that. Or
suspected it, at least. Because
Meagos was in fact not gone, he was
not dead, and Rampage knew that too. No,
he had quite a lot of evidence that High Command had indeed ordered something done to Meagos, because that bot was still very much
alive, but he was not himself any longer. They
had done something, and Rampage could only wonder how badly it had been done.
But he had known for a long time that Meagos was alive.
It was merely ironic how surprising life ended up being, sometimes.
He
shuddered as he walked, the daydream not dreamish nor nice, only a grim reminder
of how his life had been, mirroring how it was now, with only a few new rules. And, thankfully, Tarantulas was the only scientist capable of
any comparable torment here, and he did not even dream of it.
Or of coming close enough to ask Rampage to hold still to be strapped
down.
The
monstrous crab continued his patrol, and the sheer boredom of it was broken only
when his radar beeped in warning. Rampage
smiled.
Chances
were X knew he was coming. X,
Rampage, whatever you wanted to call him; it often depended on DepthCharge’s
mood.
Two
names for the same beast,
he thought again as he landed, transforming, his blaster out and primed, his
finger wrapped around its trigger. He
was ready, but then again, he was always
ready. All he needed was that chance Optimus and Cheetor had had
long ago: X to be locked in a stasis form.
Without having Rampage’s spark, DepthCharge knew he would not be able
to kill him, but without a body and resources scarce, chances were unlikely
Megatron could rebuild an adequate replacement.
His
radar system, put in stealth mode, no longer beeped, but its red warning light
showed X all too clearly. Less than
fifty meters away, and judging from the sickening stench, he was where he
belonged, in a wasteland.
No.
Where he belongs is dead.
DepthCharge
nodded to himself, more than used to that private voice of reason, a voice that
perhaps was not his but worthwhile all the same.
Rampage belonged dead, no doubt.
He
stepped over and closer, and then the monster was in plain view, not shielded by
any plants or rot of the natural world. In
his beast mode still, antennae perked to attention.
“It’s
over, X.”
“Haven’t
you realized,” asked Rampage in a maddeningly polite voice, and here he
transformed, “that it’s never
over, Meagos?”
“It
is this time,” and the first blast tore away a dead hunk of tree a foot to
Rampage’s left. His launcher came
into quick view and fired thrice, fast and repetitive, striking not DepthCharge,
but the scenery around him, exploding a dry trunk into fiery dots in the air.
“It’s
NEVER over, Meagos! You should have
realized that by now!” Rampage’s
face was terrible to behold, a twist of ravenous desire for the fear of the
spark, although Meagos had never
feared him, DepthCharge did not either, a twist of want for the fear, and some
alien feature on his face. It was
hope, skewered and terrible, but it was there.
DepthCharge
paused, and while part of him screamed that this was a trick, a falseness, and
he did know that, but his memory banks
ached suddenly with bringing up a face to match the name. No, not a starbase, not another colony, not any person he
could remember…and then he asked himself why it mattered, and returned fire.
It’s
true then,
Rampage realized, but he had known forever, hadn’t he?
Since his second escape and breakaway to freedom, he had known and in a
way had always known that this alteration of programming and self had been done
on an unwilling person. He had
always known, and he did not allow himself the indignity of emotion, but it was
irritating still. Madness.
But
when has ANY world made sense?
He
dropped out of sight behind some deadfall as DepthCharge began firing with
something new. An…attachment!
How novel. The more you’ve
changed, the more you have stayed the same.
And
yes, it was, an attachment that allowed not one blast, but from the looks of
things, up to six at once. Segmented
rays from a gun shaped like a fish.
“You
can’t deny it!” he called out again, and was rewarded by another smoking
firefall in his direction. The
blasts missed again, only smearing him with ash from another exploded plant, its
sap clingy in the humid atmosphere. He
rose from the deadfall, and fired, letting the scorches rip the air like
screaming metal, but of course he missed too; DepthCharge was simply not going
to stand still today.
“Today
is your LAST day alive!”
“Promises,
promises, old friend!”
The
air was burnt from the laserfire, and had things been different, perhaps
DepthCharge’s next blast might have detonated Rampage’s launcher, or even
taken a hand off, which might have led to a form of victory.
And in hundreds of other incidents, that might have happened, if Megatron
had not chosen that moment to release tension in the most gratifying way he
knew.
Rampage
was nearly dropped to his knees from the force, and he couldn’t still the
strangled shriek as his spark wailed, trembling from its stab wounds, the blades
raw energon, calm, soothing, life-giving and death-bringing (or at least the want of it, in some of his worse moments).
He managed enough control to keep his finger around the trigger,
releasing a final volley of energy, then collapsed to beast mode with gasping
hisses; he was not aware of the other Maximal till DepthCharge’s voice, raised
in fury, rang over the decadence, and by then he had managed to slink away.
Normally he would have attacked both Maximals, but a slight grip and
shudder of agony racing through him convinced him otherwise.
Either the tyrant had forgotten how to use a comm, or had decided to use
more informal ways to let Rampage know patrol time was over.
Despising
Megatron more than ever, he slunk away with low snarls, none of which even began
to equal DepthCharge’s rage.
“DepthCharge-”
was all Silverbolt had time to begin to say when a blast he was not quite sure
was errant, or intentional, cracked a trunk by his head in half.
The Fuzor was stunned silent for a moment, but quickly rallied.
“Optimus says he’s found-”
The
ray turned a scathing look to him, and Silverbolt, had he the imagination to,
would have backed away. “I,”
said Omicron’s Guardian, “don’t give a slag WHAT Optimus says.”
Diplomacy
was one of Silverbolt’s fortes, but he was still uncertain around the
Guardian, or ex-Guardian, since he was not guarding much these days, and the
Fuzor had the utmost respect for Optimus. While
he, like most of the other Maximals, had tried to see DepthCharge’s point of
view, he could also see the ray’s quest was destroying him.
Convincing him of that, however, was even more difficult than persuading
Blackarachnia of her true Maximal self.
“Nevertheless,”
Silverbolt rallied, “Optimus wants everyone back at base, and sent me to bring
you. There’s been a lack in the
Ark’s defenses located, and-”
“Did
you hear me the first time, Fuzor?”
Silverbolt
stared at him for another moment. “Yes,”
he said honestly. “But Optimus
has asked-”
“Tell
Optimus,” growled DepthCharge, “that when I’m done with X and OPTIMUS’
mistake with him, THEN I will care about the Ark.”
“The
Ark is important,” insisted Silverbolt, but hadn’t he already
known this might be a losing battle? Of
course…but he would never admit that, even to himself.
“Everything on Cybertron, every balance depends
on the Ark!”
DepthCharge
ignored him, and the Fuzor was all too aware of it.
Silverbolt internally sighed; he only had one high card to play, and he
didn’t desire to. Using Omicron
as an excuse to defend the Ark seemed
more…more of Rattrap’s style, no offense to him, of course.
“Did
Omicron?” snarled DepthCharge nastily.
“It
might have,” Silverbolt said quietly, and of course he had
used his high card in this gamble, even if DepthCharge had been the one to put
it into play. The ray stared at him
for several minutes, and Silverbolt grew aware in a dim way that DepthCharge
might shoot again, and this time with enough aim to do considerable damage to
him.
Instead
the ray transformed to vehicle mode and left.
Silverbolt exhaled in relief, beastmoded and followed.
Recharge
did not come easily to DepthCharge later, but it never had since Omicron and
Rugby. His systems were used to
recharging their systems on limited time, but for once he was exhausted enough
to slip into that state without much conflict.
It
was X, he knew it. Another meeting,
another chance, another waste. The Ark was not important, this war was not important, only X was.
And had any of these idiot Maximals been
at either the colony or the starbase, they would realize which was the priority.
It
was not even as if the Ark was going anywhere. Rampage,
on the other hand, was all too mobile and alive.
Megatron could access the Ark,
he already had too much access to Rampage.
The Predacons couldn’t win any war with the Ark. With Rampage, it
was feasible.
As
were a lot of things…or they were supposed to be, at least,
he thought wearily. Times like
this, he was tired of it all. Of
Optimus’ pointless banter, of Rhinox’s attempts at soothing his temper, at
the cat’s inexperience and vague stupidity, at Rattrap’s irritating habits
and speech problem, and Silverbolt…for just being Silverbolt.
He
wondered vaguely about Dinobot, someone he had only known through files. Somehow on the night of his kamikaze run, Dinobot had not
only managed to defeat over ninety percent of the Predacon ranks alone, he had
taken Rampage down and out for a while. DepthCharge
had yet to do this. Dinobot,
according to records, had been armed with a basic armory, but in the end had
used a Predacon, Quickstrike of all
things, to fill Rampage’s tank blaster, thus blowing his circuits to bits.
X had obviously survived, but it had taken Megatron long enough to
retrieve his troops and R-tank them back to health.
Why
didn’t they DO something about X then!?!? His mind raged, but it always did, and the only reason he
had, other than Maximal stupidity, was that the Maximals had been too shocked
over the death of the raptor. They
had not even realized (but have they ever?
his mind demanded) that they could have taken X over then.
Megatron was there, he was damaged, and he had to have had the spark box to control Rampage.
The Maximals could have…could have ended
this all already. They could
have…
But
then again, if we are looking for COULD HAVES, we could go all the way back to
Dihex, and wonder why the HELL no one thought to tighten restraints after his
FIRST escape?
He
knew all too much about the second, which had ended with Omicron…and
Rugby…and taunting DepthCharge from every location, every torn house and
dismembered corpse. The first
escape he honestly had not known much about; he had not even known X existed
until he had escaped, and after he had been recaptured, only then did
DepthCharge realize X had tasted freedom and massacre once already.
A colony by the name of Alphix had been destroyed, but for some reason,
the files about Alphix had been labeled off-limits.
Not that he had been wholly interested about Alphix.
The protoform had escaped not once but twice,
and he had destroyed far more on his second escapade. So many more lives, and for some reason DepthCharge still did
not know, X had taunted him from each,
scrawling messages and cruel words. Somehow,
X knew DepthCharge, had known him before Omicron…even though DepthCharge had no memories of even a
protoform in Dihex Labs; X had, and did remember him.
It
was an alarming thought, and one that stayed with him as recharge settled in.
And
that name.
Knowing
X, Meagos was a victim from Omicron, or from Rugby, which was entirely possible,
as DepthCharge had not known every person at either site.
Or perhaps he was a standalone, someone X had torn apart and left
elsewhere as a further gibe. Look here, DepthCharge, you cannot save a colony, you
can’t even save ONE spark!
Yet...yet…for
some reason he knew that was not so, in the same way he was alarmed by how X had
known him, even when he had had no idea X ever existed.
Chances were, he knew, highly unlikely anyone in Dihex had told a mere
protoform about the outside world, and surely not about some remote colony or
its Guardian. Yet X had left
messages at both sites, naming DepthCharge…and hinting,
taunting, scoffing about Guardians, and about him. It was a puzzle,
and more than that, in a way it scared him.
What
does X know that I don’t? Other
than mercy and justice, that is.
But
what DID he know? It was a
troubling thought, a bad wander onto weak ice, and he knew it.
What
does it matter?
But it did, it did in a way he could not name, and the Axalon
had had no files about X save the initial preliminaries.
His creation at Dihex Labs, the destruction of mass life forms, as the
reports worded it, and his destination: some random barren place.
How
scientific.
But
it was science that had made the beast, perhaps it could destroy it as well. Energon crystals jabbed through X’s spark didn’t work, as
DepthCharge was well aware.
Slag
it all…what does he KNOW?
Nothing...of
course, not one damn thing.
Those
messages…
And
he had no rebuttal or excuse for them. DepthCharge
slipped into recharge, but peace of mind was a long time in coming.
Dreams, unfortunately, were not.
“Here,
kitty kitty,” a nonsense message, a pointless one (but why else would it have
been there, his mind wondered) had been repeated on three other major building
around the Guardian Station, and on several walls, optic-aching images of
organic cats, as well as some very badly done scratches that DepthCharge
supposed were rodents, had been scratched and dented into the armor of corpses.
A nonsense message, and he knew it, but somehow it was not, somehow it
meant the world.
Or
at least the part of it that contained Omicron.
There
was another message scrawled in the steps leading to the station.
Several hands with broken fingers, most of them missing the last final
joints, bloody with mech fluid, had been used as the instruments, and they
rested where they had been flung, in piles, at random.
But
it’s only one,
read the message, and somehow that was worse than the one about domestic organic
animals. In the same way the
murdered Guardians were somehow worse than the civilians…but he shook his head
at that thought. No, no, the Guardians had been armed. It had not helped them any.
He
stared, not aware that he was no longer on the colony’s site, that he was back
on Cybertron, that the images replaying in his mind eternally were also being
played on nearby monitors, the lead security panel of Cybertron wincing, many of
them looking ill. He was not aware
that several members of the panel were talking at him, trying to talk TO him and
failing…no, he was not aware of any of those things any more than he was aware
someone he would soon be tracking was tracking HIM, he was unaware of all these
things, except a dead dread feeling inside about a starbase he had visited
recently, a dull sensation of Omicron, and then only the closing feeling of a
whispered phrase from a then-unknown scientists from Dihexaline Laboratories:
Protoform X…Protoform X…has escaped…
It
had been another failure today, but Rampage had had no expectations of anything
else. He had lived too long to
accept success as a high ratio.
But
the reminder was a cold, aching sore inside him, an emotion (is
THAT what those things are?) of fury not at his current enslavement, a
novelty in itself. No…here was
the anger of the denied, of those all too aware that justice was only a word and
not one with value.
I
wonder what they did to him,
he wondered vaguely as he studied the monitors before him with barely disguised
contempt. To be called in from
patrol because he had been “taking too long” for this…an
assignment even Waspinator found difficult to mistake with.
I wonder just what they did.
Reprogramming? That sounds about right…and of course when Megatron does
it, it is a travesty. When High
Command…or Dihex scientists do it…it’s a miracle and beautiful.
He
found himself snarling at the screen, his tone low so the tyrant would not hear. After the last compressing, and due to his current mood, he
was not in any order to take another squeeze.
Megatron, however, did not seem bored for once, but was yelling at
Waspinator.
The
wasp buzzed back in his irritating fashion, and Rampage tried to put them both
out from his mind. That was
surprisingly easy, but then again, he had had experience for several long years
of ignoring people…or being ignored as a person.
A
failure today. Yes, but had he
expected anything else?
“ZZZo
then Wazzpinator went to Zzector Omega and-”
Perhaps.
Perhaps not.
“-no
Maximalzz-”
Today
was the first day I called him, of course.
And
it had been, and perhaps in some unrealistic part of his spark and self, he had
expected that to matter.
“-but
Wazzpinator DID zzzee-”
He
found his mind wandering again, and it was only when a monitor blanked out to
static and then to a dull white from lack of power (it was Tarantulas at work,
and he knew that in a dim way) did the full force of it hit him, and he could
only stare at it, and stare. He was
still looking at it, nearly trapped as a moth in the force of the sunlight, when
Megatron called him the only way he enjoyed five minutes later.
The
coming of the white! The white, the
light, and then darkness suddenly, and he realized that someone had cut the
power cords to his optics again. But
for once he didn’t care, only the rage that was eternal exploded back at them,
and he could feel himself screaming this time, and even as his body was shocked
tight with power, a fist slammed into the table. He realized in that split second of mirroring agony that he
HAD been able to make a fist this time…that his fist could move…that someone
had not strapped his lower arm limb down tightly, and that was all he needed to
realize.
Even
as the second wave of shock jerked through his systems like a living viral, even
as someone began to scream, his right arm busted and was free, the shackles
falling to the floor like so much old wiring, garbage, trash, and he flung his
freed limb outward, striking and knocking over the shock box generator, hearing
the screams, and even blind as he was, he was able to rip his other arm’s
restraints, and chest torso ones free and to the ground.
By the time he was sitting up on the operations table, the generator had
started smoking, and by the time the guards were racing inside, it had exploded,
due to him picking it up and flinging it into their masses.
By that time his optics came back on again, if only because he ripped out
his missing connecting piece from a dead guard, and by then someone had finally
thought to close down the room. This
movement came two minutes too late as X ripped the field generator from the
wall, and all power to the room died, the automatic security system fading
before it even came online.
Screams
and shouts and gunshots, but by that time the protoform known only as X had
escaped the operations room, smashing the once-brilliant lights overhead with
limbs as he fled, leaving a battalion of security behind him, and only the image
of freedom, tasted once and now bittersweet, in his mind, and even as those left
alive were destroyed on the passage out, he was gone and he was free.
And he was determined not to be captured again…almost, in a way, like a
marking he had seen on a guard’s armor: Death Before Dishonor.
Or, in his case, Death (which was impossible at any rate) Before Slavery.
But
that of course was before he was recaptured…but after Omicron, after Rugby,
and most importantly, after finding Meagos again…or what was left of him.
His
spark still aching, as it always was, but he had at least managed not to shriek
this time, only scream and clutch his chest (the
usual motions, he thought sardonically), Rampage returned to his quarters in
beast mode. There were a few
reasons he was pleased with an alternate mode, and not only his tank one.
The beast mode allowed him much more freedom, at least in terms of speed,
and while hands were excellent, claws were also interesting as torture items.
As well, on those frequent times when Megatron wanted to see how long he
could remain standing while being compressed, being in beast mode gave him a
less of a fall.
It
was also more comfortable, in some arcane way, to recharge in beast mode.
He settled in his empty quarters, head resting on his claws, antennae
lowered not in disinterest but the continual wrath he seemed to always be in.
I
wonder how they would like it,
he thought again with a low snigger laugh.
I do wonder…it would be
very…entertaining to test out.
It
was dark in his quarters, as he nearly always had it.
In Dihex, it had always been the opposite, even in his sleeping cell, on
those few times he had used it over the years.
And
Dihex…it would certainly amuse those scientists to NO end to see me like this
now…not a slave to a greater idea or mere experiments, but a madman who sees
only a living weapon. And while I
despise that…it is much better than what they had planned.
Up past 1.92, no less.
Dihexaline
Laboratories, its official name. He
knew that name all too well. In his
second escape, he had ripped those letters declaring the building to be so from
the walls, and used them in very…interesting ways to pin the head scientists
in very numerous positions around the main hall.
It had been a fast and nearly messy job, but what else could one expect
from these creatures that leaked mech fluid with one hit?
Dihex…he
wondered if DepthCharge remembered anything about the place.
It had once been a very large
facility with several government-sponsored projects, all going on at once
usually, but there was never a shortage of them, from weapons systems to new
stasis pod ideas to…well, to protoforms like himself, he was certain, though
Rampage had done his research. His
spark had been the only one to survive the creation process, otherwise Dihex
might have upped security with over twelve protoforms with his prowess.
Dihex
was famous for its inventions, the least of which had been himself. But of course, no one had really known about that project…
Rampage
did not believe he was plagued by nightmares.
He insisted they were merely memories, and that was true as well. Recharge to him came very easily, unlike DepthCharge, because
unlike DepthCharge, Rampage had no regrets.
At least none that he could find the solutions to easily.
Unlike DepthCharge, Rampage was able to recharge without guilt, but like
DepthCharge, dreams were not as easy to accept with grace.
He
had finally gotten his vocal cords and circuits back, for reasons as always
unknown to him, and as well for once the shock cords were not in place around
them. He was free, in a limited,
torn and terrible kind of way, to speak. He
had never really spoken to any of these people before, none of the scientists
and none of the technicians, not for fear of doing so, but lack of anything
coherent to say.
He
tried now. He knew speech now, at
least, and rage overcame his usual snarls and growls, a cold, cooling feeling of
controlled fury. It was a new
sensation.
“Where
is he?” he asked, barely able to keep the hatred from his voice.
If the technician sensed any level of that, X was certain he would be
ignored, perhaps even have his vocal cords electrified enough to melt them
again.
The
technician, however, looked at him with some amusement.
X had been free enough to have seen other bots look at captives like that
before. A free bot watching some
trapped organic animal in an air bubble box called a zoo.
He had seen the organic creature jump around in its fake environment, and
the watchers clapped and cheered, watching it with barely disguised amusement
over its stupidity for thinking it was happy.
X, on the other hand, knew he was not happy; he was the farthest thing
from that word as he knew possible.
“Who?”
asked the technician, smiling, but then again he could afford to; X was so
clapped in restraints he could barely feel his lower form.
The restraints cut through his armor in some weaker spots, leaving cords
and circuits open in the freezing room.
“Meagos.”
There, he had said it, he had finally said it, and he could only hope
against reality that this technician would not lie.
He had no guarantees even if the bot was telling the truth.
“Meagos?”
“Yes.”
A strained hiss.
And
here the technician leaned closer with that amused look still, and now a very
cruel yet happy smile. “He’s
dead.”
That
had silenced him, and even as his inner mind screamed that this was a lie, it
was not so, that they would not have destroyed such a promising person, had he
not just heard others talking about him, he could only stare back, silent and
shuddering in denial.
He’s
dead, said the technician, and it would be nearly a year before X could prove
otherwise, but by then the technician’s words had come true.