Tortured Sanctuary

Writer's Note: Lady Venom and I started writing this fic over a year ago. It's taken a long time between our busy schedules and writer's blocks to get it done, but we both enjoyed it and are proud of the finished result. We hope you will enjoy it.

"He won't listen to a thing we say. He's got too much personality. I thought he was meant to come out as a drone?"

"So did I, but he fought the process. He has some strength in him. What shall we do?"

"Put him away. He's no use to us, and he's dangerous."

"Put him where?"

"You know. With the others. The others that...never quite made it."

"Are you sure? He's pretty unstable as it is. Putting him among that lot could push him over the edge."

"It doesn't matter. He's worthless. Why worry about something like that?"

* * *

He hit the cold metal floor hard and clutched at his aching knees. Why did they have to throw him? He wasn't struggling when they forced him into this cell. He was too sedated. It was cruelty to push him around when he was weak. Cruelty, and that was all he'd ever known.

"You sit tight there, Protoform X. And don't cause any trouble. We're watching you every second of every minute of every hour of the day, you hear me?" the guardbot snarled.

Protoform X did not grace him with an answer. The guardbot left.

The cell was dark, small. It smelt awful. Someone had died in here, not too long ago. Died, and bled a great deal. Couldn't they have at least put him in a larger enclosure? Where was he anyway?

He raised his head and stared ahead at the cell opposite him. It was too dark to see what lay there on a small, hard bed of metal. Whatever it was, it was small, and it was whimpering. X could almost feel its pain...

"Newbie," came a female hiss from down the corridor. Cells with dully glowing energon bars lined the wall opposite him. They were black recesses in the gloom, cold and foreboding.

"This one's a big one." Another voice, male, and next to the cell of the one opposite him. He could just make out the glowing orange eyes that pierced the darkness, watching him.

"Who are you?" X asked as he stood up, rubbing his sore joints gingerly. His head was spinning.

"Never mind who I am. Do you know where you are?" the malebot asked.

X glanced around him. "Pretty obvious, isn't it? I'm in a prison."

A vicious, rasping laugh from the femme down the passageway.

The orange eyes dimmed somewhat.

"Not just any prison. A torture chamber."

X did not flinch at the words. Torture...so what? He didn't know any different.

"Torture, I see. And you're an experiment gone wrong, like myself?" X queried.

The bot turned away with a snarl.

"I never used to be like this," he said, his voice breaking. "I used to be normal."

"Ah shut up, Grinks. We all used to be normal until those Maximal 'scientists' had to mess with our heads, never mind our bodies," said the femme opposite him. The voice was flat, without a metallic ring.

X squinted into the darkness.

"And you are?"

There was an uneasy pause and he heard some shuffling on the other end. The figure emerged, her face just visible by the glow of the energon bars.

"I'm Lady Venom," the human girl said, her eyes red with tears, but her face hardened and grim.

"Welcome to hell, Protoform X," she jeered.

The newest member to cell block 34 lifted his head slowly at the sound of multiple locks unhinging. The large door at the end of the hallway opened with a silent breath, indicating its over-use.

"Alright you pathetic rejects, time to feed your bottomless gullet." The guardbot barked, pushing a large metallic food cart slowly down the hallway. The guardbot paused at each cell, picking up a tray filled with glowing energon, and pushing it through the small opening in the bottom of each cell.

Moving over to his own, Protoform X watched the guard slide his own under the bars with such a force that the pitiful portion sloshed over onto the floor.

With a sneer the guard laughed at him, "What? You don't like your energon? Think you're too good for our food?"

With pain, the large robot behind bars bent over at the waist, picking up the food with his fingers and placing it inside his mouth. Satisfied, the guard turned to the human across the hall, she was barely visible in the dim lighting of her cell. X watched as the guard held the food just out of her reach, taunting her for amusement.

"Aww, whatsa matter honey? Don't you feel like eating today?" With a sardonic laugh, he moved the food away again, and left it there, moving on to Grinks in the cell beside X.

Grinks growled at the guard as he grabbed his food from the floor chewing into the slop ravenously. Finishing his own quickly after finding himself famished, he looked over to the human.

"What are you doing?" X asked, watching Lady Venom stretch her arm as far out as possible.

"Just watch newbie. She's got quite a talent this one." Grinks told him.

With a raised eyebrow, Protoform X watched as 3 inch long claws extended from her finger nails and touched her plate of food. Spearing some of the human food, she pulled it back with a satisfied smirk.

"That idiot does this to me every day," she snarled, biting into her food.

The Following Day: 5 am Cybertronian Time

"Hhuhh... Oh..."

X stirred from his slumber. He had a sharp pain in his leg.

He blinked at the darkness. He was lying on the floor, on his back, listening. Whimpers, of a girl, a human girl. Lady Venom.

He rolled over onto his side and gazed ahead.

She was sitting in the corner of her cell, holding her knees, crying into her lap. Not out of self-pity, that much he could tell. But from pain. Agonizing pain.

Since the sedative had worn off, his sight had gone back to normal, meaning he could pierce the darkness once more. This would be a skill that would later irritate Lady Venom, who valued her privacy. The darkness was all she had.

"You hurt. Is it your left leg?" he whispered. She looked up and narrowed her eyes at him, staring.

"Wha... Why...yes. How'd you..."

"I don't know. I felt it. There's slag all wrong with my leg, and yet, I feel your pain," he explained quietly.

She frowned and sneered. "What are you, some kinda psychopath sicko? You think that scares me?"

X sat up and leaned against his cell wall, his gaze never faltering.

"The way I see it, nothing scares you, Miss Venom."

"Hmph..." She buried her head in her knees again.

"Yeah...my leg's totally busted, inside. They tried to extend the metallic claws into my toenails, retards. It backfired. The nails went too far in, now I have 3 inch long silver blades floating inside my calf. Idiots."

"Can't they cut them out?" he asked, secretly horrified.

She snickered. "They said they'd do that tomorrow. My time in the operating room was up, apparently," came her muffled response.

A long silence settled over them both.

"How did you come here? You're from Earth," X wondered.

She looked up wearily. "It's a long story."

X shrugged. "So what? I've got time."

Lady Venom deliberated a moment, unsure of whether she should open up to this weirdo. But then again, she did seem to have a slight liking for him. He was strong, defiant like herself.

"Okay," she sighed. "But only because it'll take my mind off the pain."

* * *

"My father was a scientist who worked for the leaders of the Maximal and Human alliance. I lived with him on Earth until I was nine, but...as luck would have it, work brought us here. I hated it, there was something not quite right about this place but, heh....when you're nine who listens to the aimless thoughts of a child?" She paused as a wave of nausea struck her, swallowing back the bile that rose in her throat she continued.

"I guess dad found out what was happening here. Because one morning I woke up and he was gone. Just...gone. So, here I was, a human child abandoned in Omicron. A friend of my father's took me in until he returned. Hnh, I was naïve, but not stupid. I knew that he wouldn't be coming back...sometimes I wonder if he truly is dead...or just out there somewhere, trying to find me.... It was around then that the United Leaders of my homeworld feared that their enemies were planning an uprising. And demanded an equal share of the militant weapons being researched here."

"Militant?" X asked, shocked, looking at the girl, feeling her sudden pitch of hatred rather than seeing it.

"You really are ignorant, aren't you? That's their cover story for this operation." Leaning her head against the wall, she closed her eyes. There was something too familiar in his unwavering green gaze.

"I heard the news through a guard, a nuclear bomb had been dropped in Arizona, more than half of the surrounding states and its people turned to dust."

"Ashes to ashes, dust to dust." Came the sing-songy voice of a femmebot down the hall. Both ignored her.

"My planet, my people demanded retribution for the chaos done to them. But, no one was willing to sacrifice their humanity to do what had to be done to win the war. And me... I was the local pet, passed from scientist to scientist throughout the years. I was orphaned, unwanted, and perfect."

He squinted at her to see her features better, discovering that his first impression of her was wrong, she wasn't nearly as old as he originally gauged her. She had to be eighteen, at the most. It was her hard look of indifference she always wore when in the light that made her look all the older.

"You mean they just took you? How old were you?"

Here she gave a melancholic smile, "I was thirteen, the beginning of the best years of my life."

X found himself deeply intrigued by the past of this strange girl, but just as she was getting into her story, the hallway door opened and several heavily armoured Transformers came down the passage.

"Uh oh..." X murmured and cowered back to the deepest recess of his cell. Everyone did the same, except for Lady Venom, who seemed indifferent to the approach of those bots, who'd been nicknamed the 'Torture Squad'. It was someone's turn in the experiment lab, today.

X stared out coldly from the shadows as he awaited the passing of the bots. Only they did not pass, they stopped in front of his cell. He felt a slight wave of panic pass through him, and then subside with his acceptance of what was to come.

"Congratulations, Protoform X. Some interest has been restored in your project from a private investor. We're going to do an analysis on the durability of your spark."

"Another one? It's my lucky day," X said mirthlessly.

The main bot who'd been speaking to him waved his hand, and the two bots on either side of him raised their tranquilliser guns.

"Green energon? You've upgraded my sedative, I see," X commented dryly.

"We're not taking any chances," the headbot said, and then there were two blasts and X's world went dark.

Lady Venom watched bitterly as they walked away, dragging a barely conscious X along with them. He stumbled and muttered as they took him away. A bright light poured in as the door opened briefly, and then shut with an ominous clang.

She closed her eyes, feeling weary, and rested. Her rest was short-lived, as she was startled out of her snooze by a blood-curling scream. She lurched forward, a hand clutching at her chest. Her heart skipped a beat as the scream ended in an agonized wail. That was X's voice, no question.

She couldn't help but shiver. She'd been here for years and heard plenty of cries and yells of agony, but there was such deep pain in his voice, deep pain...and anger.

"Owies," the femmebot down the hall whispered. She'd been here as long as Lay Venom, but no one knew her name, as she was incapable of telling them. The scientists just called her Project J. So she'd been nicknamed Whisper, for obvious reasons.

"Owies indeed," Lady Venom murmured. She listened uncomfortably to X's shouts until they died down to wails and eventually the odd cry. Then there was a long silence, before the door opened again.

He stumbled back to his cell, his head down, little waves of blue energy coursing through his body. The guardbots threw him into his cell silently, and left with grim faces. The door shut and an eerie silence settled.

Lady Venom stealthily moved up to her bars and peered into his cell. He was sitting, crumpled and exhausted against the back wall.

"X?" she tried, surprised at the concern in her voice.

He was rasping, and it took him a few moments to raise his head. She let out a small gasp and recoiled a little at his face. It was hard and skewered with pain and fury. His eyes...they were so raw and terrible.

"What?" he asked gruffly. She bit her lip and dropped her gaze.

"Nothing. I'll...finish the story tomorrow, if you wanna hear." She turned away.

"No!" he wheezed, and she glanced over her shoulder at him. His gaze had softened considerably.

"Please...continue. It'll...take my mind...off the pain," he told her.

She nodded slightly and settled down again. "It'll take my mind of your pain, too. It's my turn for that tomorrow."

And so she continued, and described her life from age 13 onwards.

"You know, as Grinks told you, we were all normal at one point. We were all innocent -no-" Here Lady Venom chuckled, shaking her head.

"Not innocent, I think we all had a pretty good idea of what was to come, we were just naïve enough to let ourselves believe in thoughts of grandeur."

Shaking her head, hair dank and unkempt, hung around her, shielding her face as she stretched her legs out before her. Rubbing away the pain.

"The day of my birthday, my foster family at the time came to fetch me. I didn't mind since it was an escape from the boredom. My tutor had been dismissed shortly after my relocating to a new family the previous years, as a human child's education in a mechanically dominant world was a frivolous cost. So I spent days on end repairing broken cleaning bots and the such. But, I digress... I was woken quite early that day if memory serves me right."

"The amount of times they've poked around that pretty noggin'? Not likely." Grinks interrupted.

Lady Venom growled, but otherwise ignored the comment.

"There was a surprise for me, they'd said. But I had to hurry." She said, voice turning almost whimsical for a moment at the thought of having something nice on her birthday. "They ushered me through the main part of the lab, a place I had been many times with my father. But, I soon became lost as we took turn after turn in a catacomb of hallways. We soon stopped, and through a set of doors I met with a small crowd of robots and humans alike. None were familiar, the humans wore militant uniforms."

Pausing when the femmebot down the hall took to a screaming fit, she was about to resume when X interrupted her.

"Why do you call them human? They are your people are they not?"

X breathed in as a wave of intense hatred hit him.

"They are not kindred, would you still receive the scientists here with open arms? No? Didn't think so, besides....I'm not human any more, at least not technically."

"Then technically, what are you?"

Letting her nails out, she watched them glint in the dull light. "Truthfully? I'm a mutt, a mix of human and cybertronian technology."

"You're getting side-tracked again."

"Hmm? Oh, you're right, thank you Whisper." Retracting her claws, Lady Venom continued.

"I didn't know what to expect, who would? But they were silent when I entered, and I remember this part distinctly; the human soldier, I assume their leader, walked up to me, took my face in his hand, turned my head either way, as if looking for something. Then looked to my foster parents and said : ' She's a bit pudgy around the edges, are you certain this is the best we've got?'

Here, both Lady Venom and Grinks chuckled, as if it were an everyday joke shared among friends.

"You have to admit Lady, they were right."

"Hey, I worked off the rough edges!" She retorted, a hint of humour still in her voice.

Turning back to X she shrugged. "Not that it mattered, I 'was' the best thing they had....pathetic when you think about it. Their hopes lied in the life of a small thirteen year old child. From the room with all the hard asses....I mean scientists.." She gave a dark smirk, "I was escorted to a type of gym where I was expected to show my skills. Which was very little unless something needed fixing. In other words, if I could stay alive, I was in."

X watched her quizzically.

"In? In for what?"

Lady Venom glanced up a moment later, still remembering things yet to be said.

"If I survived the test that they had set up for me, then I would become their latest guinea pig and my foster parents would be rid of me...if I failed I would be killed. Either way, my parents would be free of me."

"What kind of tests did they have for you?"

"They wanted to test my dexterity, my strength among other things." Flexing her wrist, the bones inside made a sound of bone crunching against metal as she cracked it. "Ah, much better....I hate when my wrists get stiff...I'm getting sidetracked again...." She shook her head to clear her mind.

"I had not had much exercise in my life, but I did cherish my life, so I hung in, barely...I had to dodge the usual...guns, hand on hand attackers...basic stuff you're taught in basic training...of course, to a thirteen year old, it's the equivalent of running for your life."

She watched him through two sets of bars. "But tell me X....I've been the one rambling...what of you? How did you come to be in squalor such as this?"

She could hear Grinks and Whisper perking up at the question; this robot seemed to be the most interesting one yet, and Grinks was curious as to how long he would last.

X watched watched the shadowed human/ Cybertronian half-breed for a moment before replying.

"I...don't know anything about my past. I woke up to these experiments, the scientists and the white walls. If I had a life before that, they wiped my memory of it." He paused, frowning thoughtfully. "They said I was born to fight, born to kill. They said the tests were necessary to see just how tough I was and how well I'd fare in battle. They created me a super soldier. I resent them for the pain they put me through. I did everything in my power to disobey them. I fought every step of the way. They grew tired of me and deemed me... Hmm, 'brilliant, but too treacherous'. Until they could devise ways to 'correct' the apparent flaws in my behavior, I was to be confined here. Now it seems someone has become re-interested in me, which means they must have devised some more...effective ways to get me to do what they want. The tests continue, each one longer and more painful than the last."

Lady Venom's eyes held pity in them. X detected more than just pity, though. He sensed hatred, frustration and sympathy. But the pity was still there, and it was unwelcome.

"I don't want your pity," he spat, suddenly aggressive.

Lady Venom drew back slowly but the look in her eyes only softened. "So you have no knowledge of the outside world, do you?"

X stiffened at that question, although it was more an observation. He leaned back against his cell wall, gaze to the ceiling. "No," he replied quietly.

She nodded slightly. "Do you plan on staying here forever?"

X turned his head and gave her a hard, steady look. "Do you?"

Lady Venom snickered bitterly and drew back into her cell, also leaning against the wall. She slid out her claws and grated two of them together. "No. I will get out of here. And I'll make them pay."

X, had he been able to, would have smiled. The smile was in his eyes though, as he regarded the small girl. "May I ask why and how?"

"Why?" Lady Venom almost shouted the question. "Why? I don't need to justify WHY. They tortured me, they took away my human...my human..." she faltered, a surge of emotion welling up inside of her, tears stinging at her eyes. "...rights... Forced me to do things I gave no consent for! And all in the name of science! What good has torturing me done them? I also proved too damn 'treacherous' to be used. But do they remove the claws and set me free? No, they keep me here, a dirty little secret locked away for all eternity. And you know why, X?"

"Tell me," he drawled, but Lady Venom did not seem to notice the amusement in his eyes.

"Because out there there are people and bots with morals. Lots of them. And if they found out about what this facility was really about...what they did to us... Well, it would get shut down and the scientists would pay. Hah-hah, yes, they'd pay with their careers. After that they would be at the public's mercy, and the public have always been fond of executions... Especially where I come from."

X nodded slowly, absorbing the information. He was intelligent, yes, but he was not wise or knowledgeable. They had never taught him anything beyond what they deemed necessary for him to know. He had never observed any others' behavior save the scientists and so, listening to Lady Venom's reasoning was both entertaining and intriguing. So, her idea was if they did something unpleasant to her, she would do something unpleasant back. It seemed logical enough, and he couldn't deny he was feeling more and more vengeful as the days went by. At first he had just been confused, wondering why they had wanted to hurt him so. But the shock and confusion soon turned to resentment and then a building, seething rage. After each session of 'experimentation', he had felt it grow stronger. He knew why, yes, but he wanted to hear Lady Venom's explanation as well. He wanted to see if he was the only one in feeling such...strong hatred.

"As to how I will escape and make them pay... That's something I'm still working on," she said quietly. Whisper erupted in a fit of sardonic laughter, as if it were a repeated favourite joke.

There was a long pause between them, before X finally spoke. "Do you think making them 'pay', as you put it, is justified?"

"Damn well it is."

That was all he needed to hear. He turned his gaze from her and looked back at the ceiling. It was metal and barren - there weren't even tiles for him to count in fits of boredom or insomnia.

X dimmed his optics, aware of the pain again. Lady Venom's rant has distracted him from it for a while, but now that she was apparently finished, his mind refocused on it. His whole body ached. He did not have words in his vocabulary to describe just how severe the pain was. All he could do was sit and wait for it to pass...

...and keep a sharp eye out for any opportunities that would lend to his escape. And payback.

The following day, it was Lady Venom's turn to scream. X watched three guards come for her. The girl had been battling to sleep all night due to the pain in her calves. For someone who had endured it for so long, Lady Venom still seemed unable to shut off from it and allow her body to recharge. X has managed to block out the pain well enough to let him sleep, or to let him think. But the pain always dominated Lady Venom and he wondered if she'd ever get used to it. He found it mildly disturbing that he was getting used to it himself. Perhaps what was more unsettling was that he was acutely aware of her pain and every other bot's pain and emotions. He felt it like a vague echo in his own body. The sensation, however, was not wholly unpleasant. There was something about being able to feel what others do that was invigorating the same as it was draining. It was like a melody he was forced to listen to, that wasn't unpleasant, but which he wanted to be able to turn off as well, when he wanted. Only he couldn't. He couldn't shut out the emotions. They emitted from those bots around him and he received them unwillingly.

He eyed the guards striding to her cell. Lady Venom had only just dozed off, and it angered him that after such a quiet but exhausting battle to find peace the guards were about to disturb her, again.

"Leave her alone, she's just fallen asleep," he growled.

One of the guards whirled around and frowned at him. "Since when did you give a slag?" he spat.

Another of the guards snorted as he unlocked her cage door. "Be quiet, Zion. Don't talk to it."

X felt an unusual wave of anger at being called an 'it'. He was always being referred to as an 'it', but today it especially grated on his nerves.

The cage door swung open and one of the guards leaned in and grabbed her roughly.

"Huh? Hey-HEY!" Lady Venom protested. The guards were armed to the teeth and X couldn't help but wonder why they were so cautious with one so weak.

And then Lady Venom did something he did not expect. With a roar of anger, she kicked out and hit the guard squarely in the stomach. He dropped her and the other two raced into her cell to restrain her. X watched her claws come out and she slashed viciously with them. Each slash cut deep into their protective armour, almost right through! X knew the armour on those guards was tough and so he knew that the metal of her claws must be something quite remarkable.

Lady Venom socked a punch across the second guard's face and sprang over his sprawling body. But the third guard latched onto her leg even as she leapt and in one swift motion stabbed her with a needle he must have brought out in the turmoil. She let out a cry and her eyes shut even as she fell. He yanked her backwards and turned her roughly in his grip. He threw her over his shoulder with a grunt.

"Get up you two idiots! She's sedated, for now."

The other two guards stood up, grumbling in pain and irritation. This obviously wasn't the first time Lady Venom had done this.

As they turned away and headed off down the passageway, the guard who had snapped at him earlier gave X a dirty look. "Don't you try anything when we drag you out later."

X didn't respond to the threat in his voice. Instead his eyes followed the limp form of Lady Venom. What were they going to do to her?

* * *

It was X's turn to listen to another's screams. Lady Venom's shouts and wails of agony were harsh and high-pitched. He was still all throughout, listening with quiet fury as they tormented her. He didn't know why he felt angry for another person's pain. He wasn't entirely sure what he saw in Lady Venom that he liked. All he did know was that he could feel her pain, even from in here, and he was not enjoying it. He had enjoyed the pain she had inflicted upon the guards earlier. Yes, that pain had been lovely. He had savoured it, even though it was brief.

But feeling her every wound... He rubbed his legs gingerly. They must be removing the 3-inch claws in her legs...without painkillers.

After an hour of it, X was sure he was beginning slip. The calm resentment had turned into a boiling, murderous rage and he was barely restraining himself from lunging at the bars and trying to tear them down, just to get to her, to make it stop. It wasn't just the pain anymore; it was the whole situation. What had she ever done to them that made them deliberately put her in agony? They could just as easily have removed the claws with an anaesthetic, but they chose not to. That was not science, that was cruelty. X knew cruelty now - it was what he had been subjected to the day he came online. There was a certain pleasure to be derived from being cruel to another. It was a power play, a feeling of being in control.

Finally, the wails stopped and the prison went silent. The door hissed open and two guards walked down the passageway, dragging Lady Venom between them. Her legs were roughly stitched up and huge, still-oozing cuts were down both of them. Her eyes were closed and tears were streaming from them. They turned to her open cage and shuffled her in, having the mercy at least this time, not to throw her.

They closed the cage door and walked silently from the room. Even they didn't seem in the mood for taunting the prisoners.

X stared at her. She lay on her stomach, face pressed to the cold, dirty floor.

"Lady Venom?" he asked tentatively. He was almost afraid she wouldn't answer.

A rasping sigh escaped her lips, followed by a sniffle. Lady Venom did not turn her head nor open her eyes when she spoke to him.

"X," she breathed. "I can't take this anymore. Help me..."

X watched Lady Venom closely throughout the day and evening; she had not moved or spoken except for that one, soft rasped plea. And that had been hours ago. He knew she was not sleeping, her breathing was too irregular. The supper trolley came and went; he gazed at her untouched food momentarily before returning to look about his cell. So intent to find a worn seam in the walls that he was surprised to hear Grinks shout out at the female’s prostrate form.

“She had stopped breathing.” He told the other matter-of-factly through the bars, his face visible in their blue energon glow. He turned back to her cell, watching her as if ready to shout again.

X listened as he heard a deep, ragged breath quickly drawn from the dimly lit figure on the concrete floor.

“She does that sometimes, usually after a particularly hard session. It happens as she starts to fall asleep...interesting to watch. First time it happened I thought it was odd, but then I thought it wasn’t as odd as a human in a robotic science lab. So I ignored it.”

X took in this information quietly; still feeling the pain from her wounds penetrate his defences. Trying at first to block out the sensation, in the end he relinquished the battle and tasted every ounce of mingled hurt, pain, anger and frustration that Lady Venom was feeling. Turning to Grinks, X watched as the robot moved to sit down, apparently satisfied that she was breathing properly.

“And when did you begin to care?” He queried, deep voice rumbling quietly.

There was a pause, almost as if he was weighing his thoughts carefully before speaking.

“She and I use to train together, or more like, I trained her. You see, when she was still young, they left her in my charge to give basic survival training.” He paused, a small smile playing on his lips. “That move she pulled on the guards earlier...? I taught her that.” The smile faded. “Of course, she wasn’t that sloppy when she was still taking orders from me.”

The conversation faded as several guards made their way into the room, carrying guns at the ready. The hallway fell silent; all were watching to see who was next. It came as no surprise to the new participant when they stopped outside of X’s cell.

“Stand back from the bars!” Came the barked order from one of the guards.

The others trained their guns on his large bulky form, as he moved to the back of the cell. Moving forward, the one ‘bot opened the cell, and walked inside. Keeping his gun trained on the robot experiment he pulled out some large restraints and clapped them down on his arms, the chains attached to them acted as a leash. At this moment, the others come into the cell, and began to tug him outside unceremoniously. Resisting their incentives to get him to move, he stood still for a moment, when a thought came to him.

“Get moving freak!” The leader of the troupe commanded.

Glaring, he felt his rage intensify at the one robot, knowing that he felt no fear at his large size. He made a mental note to himself, that this one ‘bot, would pay for what he called him. Following them outside Hells Hallway, as he had heard Lady Venom call it, they directed him toward a doorway that he was all too familiar with.

Upon entering, he took note of the slab of table that was permanently coated silver from Mech fluid, but toward the bottom, he could make out red, which could only belong to the sole human occupant. The sight of the stain made his rage grow deeper as they moved him over and strapped him onto the ‘bed’.

“There…comfortable?” The blue and gold leader asked, looking down, a grin on his face.

X simply stared at the ceiling, or what he could make of it among the tools hanging up above. He felt his emotions closing off as the scientists entered the room, he knew what was to come, and the less he felt, the more aggravated the scientists became.

As their knives and blades cut into his metallic flesh, he could tell by their approving comments that his skin was regenerating the way they expected. The blades were replaced by heat, white hot heat that began to melt his skin off in slabs and chunks.

“I think it’s time to see how well the body can heal without the spark, would you be so kind Bravem?”

The scientist in question turned and moved out of Protoform X’s line of vision, only to return with a hand held spark extractor. Placing it above the body, X felt a slight vibration that soon intensified into an agonizing flow of pain that seemed to grow as he felt his spark literally ripped from its shell.

Back in her cage, Lady Venom awoke to hear Protoform X’s shouts reverberate around the cells. Instead of the usual crescendo and fall that accompanied his tests, this time they only increased and then abruptly stopped. She raised her head and looked toward Grinks.

“Do you think he…?” She asked, whispering.

Grinks shrugged, “You know as well as I do that sometimes they just don’t make it…”

“I suppose you’re right…but…slag...he seemed to be...” She trailed off as the doors to Hells Hallway opened up and four bots entered dragging something. In the dim light, she could tell that it appeared to be an unconscious X.

Her breath caught in her throat as they approached, hauling his heavy, dead weight back to his cell. It was routine. He'd go into the labs, have the tests done on him and then he was pulled along, exhausted and agonized, to his prison. But something was wrong this time. X was too quiet, too still. He wasn't dead obviously, but he wasn't twitching and writhing like usual. The silence was unnervingly heavy and ominous. She did not fear him, she feared what was going to happen next, even though she wasn't sure what that was. Something was definitely out of the ordinary here, she just couldn't pin what.

The guards were struggling to pull him along as he wasn't helping them in the slightest. He was behaving as if he had not an ounce of strength left in him. Maybe he didn't...

One of the guards moved forward and retracted the glowing bars to allow X entrance. "Put him in slowly this time," he said quietly.

It was then X woke violently. Very violently. Lady Venom had never seen anything like it. He jerked himself back and onto his feet, optics lighting up with bright fury. He rapidly retracted his arms and flung the two heavy guards backwards. So much force was behind the movement, that both considerably large bots were thrown to the floor. The third guard wheeled around to face him and whipped out his gun. He squeezed off a shot but X charged forward nonetheless, absorbing the shot without showing a hint of pain. He smashed a fist into the bot's face. His entire armour mask crumpled and he toppled backwards. X leapt onto him, hands closing around his neck. He cleanly snapped off his head. The two floored bots had since gotten to their feet. Both lunged forward and pulled X off the dead bot. He roared in fury as they jabbed him with tranquilliser needles, as thick as Lady Venom's arm. X managed to work out of one of the guardbot's grips and turned around, swinging his arm out openly and whacking the other bot in neck. The flying bot hit the energy bars of one of the cells and was electrocuted into stasis lock. X elbowed the remaining guard, who was the strongest of the three of them. He grunted loudly in pain, but continued to thrust the needle in deeper. X snorted, shaking his head in an effort to stave off the weariness that was encroaching on him. He doubled over, resting his hands on his knees and panted. The guardbot stepped away, leaving the needle in him and drew his gun, satisfied that enough of the sedative had entered the experiment's systems.

Lady Venom watched as he prepped his weapon for a fully-charged laser blast that would definitely bring X to his knees. He was so close to escaping! In less than a minute he'd taken out two huge bots with powerful weaponry, and yet he was still functional and barely scathed...it was the sedative that was defeating him. Even so, the amount injected into him would have killed any other bot, and yet X was still standing. Barely, granted, but still online nonetheless. She decided that this moment was the closest she'd ever gotten to being free herself. The remaining guardbot was standing directly in front of her. She bit her lip and narrowed her eyes in a focussed frown as she took aim. Her silver claws shot out and went straight into the bot's leg. He yelped in pain and surprise - it was all the time X needed. Summoning strength from sheer hatred and grim determination, he drew to his full height and threw himself against the guardbot, pressing him against the electric bars. The energy waves ripped through the guardbot and passed onto X. The sudden increase in energy had a negative effect on X's enemy, but a different effect on himself. He let go of his adversary and stood, body charged with energon energy, smoking from the joints. The shock hadn't done his systems any good, but they were healing even as he stood there...what the energy had done was wake him up and neutralize the cyberpoison inside him. Lady Venom would never know if X had planned that, but it didn't really matter. He was free, for the moment.

Alarms were triggered by the voltage disruption in the energy bars and red lights bathed the hallways in a bloody light that seemed to reflect the awesome, murderous rage X was experiencing. He was on another level of consciousness, Lady Venom could tell by the wild look in his eyes.

He stooped to fetch the weapons the headless guard had dropped and used it to shoot the spinning red bulbs above his head.

"X!" Lady Venom called. He turned and looked at her and for a moment there was no recognition in his eyes.

"X, get me out of here!" she pleaded, looking up at him desperately.

He stared at her confusedly for a few tense seconds, while the remaining bulbs coated his metal in red light and the sirens screamed all around. Then he registered her - understanding came back into his gaze. "Stand back, to the farthest left," he ordered above the noise. Both could just hear the doors on the opposite end of the lab entrance opening and heavy footsteps thundering along the corridor.

Lady Venom complied and X picked up the corpse of the headless bot and threw it into the energy bars of her cell. Tendrils of electricity focussed on the bot that was held by them, suspended in midair in the centre. The tendrils waxed and waned, leaving brief openings for Lady Venom to dive through, if she was lucky.

"Leap!" he cried and fired several shots at the first guards that rounded the corner. Whisper was screaming at them. "He'll savage you, don't you know! He's savage you!"

Lady Venom didn't pause to think, she just leapt. One of the vicious tendrils of electricity clipped her arm and sent a painful shock through her body, but she made it out and skidded to the other side of the passageway, thankfully hitting the steel bar that divided two cells opposite hers instead of more electric bars. Her head connected with the steel and a searing headache followed. She saw red for a few seconds and her head throbbed. She clambered upwards, still unable to see as the speckled red dots filled her vision. When they cleared and her headache numbed a little, she could see X pulverising two bots by smashing them repeatedly into each other. High pitched shrieks from lime and turquoise laser fire shot past him as well as into him, but they did nothing but infuriate him further.

Able to think clearly again, Lady Venom's survival instincts kicked in. She rolled forward and stood behind X's enormous form. She turned to the laboratory behind them and saw that the door was partially open.

"X! Let's head for the lab! There's nothing but more security ahead of you that way," she yelled above the cacophony of shouts and blaring alarms.

X threw the lifeless bodies of the two guards he'd been smashing into four others, knocking them off their feet. He swivelled around to face her.

"Come on!" she cried and sprinted towards the lab. He followed.

She burst into it and saw the scientists that had been tormenting her earlier dashing through a closing security door. "Oh no you don't!" she snarled and picked up one of the syringes lying on a tray table. With expert aim, she threw it like a dart and it hit the last of the fleeing scientists in his neck. He fell over backwards and the security door slammed closed. A security lockdown was taking place to isolate them and keep them contained. Lady Venom knew this, but she didn't care for the moment. She wanted at least one of her tormentors to pay for what they'd put her through. X, meanwhile, had pushed a heavy lab bed against the door, holding off the ever-increasing amount of guards that were coming to arrest them.

Lady Venom strode over to the scientist writhing on the floor ahead of her.

He was twice her size but he was no match for her claws and combat skill. Lady Venom looked down at him hatefully. "You sick sonofabitch..." she trailed darkly.

A crash distracted her and she turned to see that the lab doors were being pelted by laser fire. X was standing before them, fists clenched, body tensed for the moment they caved and the guards rushed in.

"X, you can't take them all on! We have to find a way out!" Lady Venom shouted, putting off her revenge on the scientist at her feet for the moment.

"I can take them. I will take them, and I'll murder each and every one of them," he said in a calm, chilling tone of voice.

The bright, white sterile room of the lab was a place Lady Venom associated with pain and terror, and it only heightened her sense of desperation. She had to get out, now!

"Focus your rage on the security door on this side! If you can get through that, we'll have a straight passage into the headquarters. Those are the guys you REALLY wanna kill. The scientists and head honchos who ordered every bit of agony you've ever felt!"

X froze and his gaze became distant as he thought it over for a second. He turned and looked at the security door.

"You slash, I'll punch," he stated simply and headed over to her.

Lady Venom raised her arm and brought down her claws on the door, just as X's fist connected with it. Sparks flew from her first attempt, but as she struck again the metal peeled. X, meanwhile, had caused a large dent in the door. He continued to beat at it and it wasn't long before the door was beginning to cave and buckle. Lady Venom's slashing was having a far lesser effect, but she continued nonetheless. Finally, the door broke down. They were greeted by a hallway full of security bots.

"Holy sh---" Lady Venom began but she was cut off by an eruption of bangs and shrieks.

X roared in both fury and defiance and ran forward, ploughing into the bots before him. He flung his arms open wide, smashing several bots on either side of him into the walls. Lady Venom moved in behind him, cutting up any arms that reached out to grab her and trying her best to dodge or deflect the laser bullets with her claws. Fortunately for her most of the guards' firepower was on X. If it had been on her, they would have decked her by now. She was fast and strong, but her body was still mostly human and therefore vulnerable.

Because she was so busy concentrating on her own survival, she did not see what X was actually doing. Had she been watching, she would have been in awe. The behemoth of a Transformer was slashing and punching his way through scores of security bots and swatting some like they were nothing. His body was decorated with holes and dents but his mind had long since switched off from the pain. His only thought was to kill in order to live, and to live freely. Every bot who tried to stop him ignited a fury in him so intense that nothing short of a mega-cannon could stop him. Before long he had reached the end of the hall and murdered every bot in his path. A few lay dying behind him, fatally wounded. Some of the work had been Lady Venom's, but most of it had been X. The full realization of his destructive capability only dawned on her when she turned to fight off any more enemies and saw that there were none. Corpses littered the hallway, mech fluid was splattered along the walls and forming great puddles on the tiled white floor.

A huge crash made her swivel round and she saw X blow open a door with two guns he must've taken from the bodies. A white and grey room was revealed but it was completely empty. X did not hesitate to march into it. Lady Venom followed suit.

He turned around in the room, eyes scanning the walls with a look of madness. "There's no exit on the other side. They must've escaped some way!"

Lady Venom searched the room and overthrew tables and chairs while she was at it. It looked like some kind of meeting room. There was a big screen on the front. She paused to look at it. To her disgust, she saw that it was a one-way mirror into the laboratory.

"So here's where they sat and watched... watched as we were mutilated!" she ended yelling. She hefted up a chair and hurtled it at the glass, but it did not break. "Cowards!" She shrieked and charged forward. She threw herself against the glass and started punching at it, getting more and more frustrated as it did not shatter. A hand gripped her shoulder and pulled her back. She stumbled, just managing to catch her balance, and looked up angrily at X.

"Forget the mirror! I think I've found their way out."

Lady Venom followed him to a section of wall. There was a barely visible crack in the shape of a rectangle on it. She could see where X had battered it but his attempts had obviously failed. He pointed to a tiny hole to the left of it.

"I think that might be the lock. They must use a long, thin key to open it."

She needed no instruction. She positioned one of her claws and tried to thrust it in. It was just a bit too large. "Argh! It won't fit!"

X grabbed her arm roughly and clutched her clawed hand. He examined it, optics narrowing. Then he took her other hand and held it at a right angle to the single, extended claw. "Extend your left hand's index claw," he ordered. She complied, knowing better than to ask questions of a bot in his state of mind He pushed her hand downwards and her left claw cleanly sliced through the second one. It did not hurt and she found herself smirking at the action. The amount of force to do that was beyond her, but X did it effortlessly. When he came to the tip of her finger, he snapped off one of the halves.

He let go of her and thrust the thin blade into the hole. There was a bleep and the door embossed and opened.

Lady Venom waited for him to go first. X ducked slightly and rushed into the dimly lit hallway. It was deserted. There was nothing ahead of him but a wall and a turnoff. He came to it and continued down a second hallway, towards an energy gate that barred their exit.

"What are we going to do about that?" she asked. Echoing sounds of footsteps made her turn around nervously. "God, is there no end to them?!"

X pushed past her as he turned around and made his way to the corner. Lady Venom hung back as the first sounds of laser fire and rendering metal sounded. There was a roar, screams, bullets singing and metal grinding. She grimaced as a bot hit the wall at the end of the turning and slid down, broken. After that there was silence. X reappeared around the corner, holding a bot who was still twitching, despite his severed arm and crumpled face.

"Are you going to throw..." she started but interrupted herself to duck. The bot went sailing overhead and the next moment there was an explosion. Lady Venom covered her head with her arms and felt the wave of heat roll over her. The next moment she felt the ground shaking as X ran down the hallway. She raised her head and looked over her shoulder to see him pelt the door several times with laser shots and then kick it down. Dark night was on the other side, broken by search lights. X stood at the exit, a huge silhouette against the pulsing white lights that sought him. He turned around and his bright green optics, alive and terrible, shone from the shadow of his form.

"Go well," he said simply, and then ran into the night. He was met a few moments later by a shower of laserbullets. Lady Venom stared after him, awed by his image. Reality dawned on her when voices sounded over a loud speaker. "Stop and submit now or be terminated. I repeat, stop and submit now or be terminated."

Lady Venom leapt to her feet and raced towards the exit. She watched as X tore apart two bots and grabbed hold of a machine gun. He turned it on the two circling hovercraft.

"Stop and submit now or----"

She shielded her eyes from the explosion and then turned her gaze to the far side of the compound. Ahead of her she could see a gate. It was opening and on the other side of it were three armoured vehicles.

"I won't go well unless I have something more substantial to fight with," she muttered. She followed X's example and took a weapon from one of the corpses. She was glad the puddles she stepped in were mech fluid and not blood. As a human she was unaffected by the gore of robots, but the brutality with which X had ended their lives was what really chilled her. She did not pause to think about it and continued down the hallway and into the night, running as fast as she could while holding a gun too big for her.

By the time she was out again, the last of the armoured vehicles was passing through the gate. She sprinted towards it, largely ignored by the gunmen rushing into the compound as X was a far more obvious target. Her small size was proving an advantage. As she neared, she realized she wasn't going to get passed the soldiers trailing the third vehicle. She stood a mere fifty meters from her exit and tried to think of a plan. Suddenly there was a high-pitched shriek and then a very low blast and the next thing she knew, the third vehicle was a warped black chunk of metal in a burning ball of flame. She turned to see X moving the barrel of the machine gun away from the vehicle and aim it at several bots approaching him from behind. They promptly exploded. She watched as he tilted his head back and laughed. His entire body shuddered as he did so. It was the last Lady Venom would see of him. He stood there at the control of the machine gun, pitch against the roaring inferno around him, which he had caused. Lady Venom tore her eyes away from the mysterious bot who had helped her escape and started forward again. She ran those last few meters, exited the compound and stuck to the shadows as she continued down the street. There were no more vehicles coming and no more soldiers. Omicron was, after all, mainly a research facility. The compound contained 90% of its security. Now that X had more or less annihilated that, there was nothing she could think of that was in his way. It cleared her own path.

She rushed down the street, still clutching the heavy gun in her arms. A cyber car's headlights appeared in the distance and she backed into a narrow gap between two large fuel domes. The cyber car pulled up and stopped directly opposite her and a huge blue, purple and silver bot stepped out from it. He stood staring with wide eyes at the burning compound before him, the fire dancing reflections on his metal. He shook his head in horror and shouted into his wrist where she assumed he had a comm. link. She did not catch what he was saying but she guessed, by the look of him, that he was a Guardian. She had seen them before. They were high-ranking guard officers. After he'd finished yelling, he rushed forward, drawing a laser rifle from his side. Lady Venom waited until he was a safe distance away before she made a dash for his cyber car. She clambered in, shut the door and fired it up, glad that they were simple things to fly. She adjusted the setting for space flight and typed in a set of co-ordinates she had memorized since she was a girl. The cyber car transformed around her into a space-worthy vehicle as thrusters slid out and wings extended. Lady Venom did not look back as she sped away from her prison. She did, however, spare a thought for the bot she left behind. The bot who had given her brief comradeship, who had taken her mind off the pain and who had made her dank cell a tortured sanctuary for a few weeks of her life.

It wouldn't be the last she heard of him.