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wyntir_knight) wrote2008-03-30 11:05 pm
wyntir_knight) wrote2008-03-30 11:05 pm
Entry tags:
[fic] The Devil You Know, Chapter 29
Title: The Devil You Know
Series: G1 universe, focusing on Original characters
Rating: R
Summary: In the early days of the civil war on Cybertron, Sentinel Prime authorized several refugee vessels to take Neutrals away from the planet in hopes that they could start peaceful colonies where they would be safe. Many of these refugees were never heard from again; lost to us through time and distance. But history does record the fate of one of the vessels. The Stormchaser was three orns away from its destination when it was shot down by Decepticons in an act of cowardice and deceit. There were no survivors. That is what history tells us. But in this case, history is wrong.
Author's Note: No comment
Chapter 29
“Windsaber,” Updraft whispered.
Cobalt tightened his grip on Updraft’s neck as his hands clenched in rage.
“That is it,” he growled. “I grow tired of these games!”
He threw Updraft violently away. The pilot hit the nearby wall with enough force to short out his vents and cause his optics to stutter with static. Cobalt turned and opened his vast arsenal upon Windsaber. As laser fire shot out at him, the Seeker dove out of the way, but not quickly enough to avoid getting the tip of one wing clipped. Windsaber grunted as green and gold electricity danced across his wings and back but didn’t allow the pain to stop his forward momentum. He brought his guns up and fired on his enemy, moving far quicker than anyone would have thought possible. Red streams of light flew out toward Cobalt striking the large Autobot in his side as he stepped out of the way. With a roar of anger and pain, Cobalt launched himself at Windsaber, sending the two tumbling to the floor in a tangle of limbs.
As they fought, Strobe picked himself up and lunged at Arclight as she was slowly getting to her feet, still dizzy and confused from the assault on her systems. Completely unprepared for this new attack, Arclight fell back to the floor under Strobe’s weight.
“Let me go!” she shrieked while pushing him away from her.
As Strobe released his data filaments, Arclight pulled a small surgical laser from subspace and fired it directly into Strobe’s optics. The Decepticon reared back with a shriek of pain and surprise. The laser was nowhere near strong enough to do any serious damage, but it did give Arclight the opportunity to push up against Strobe and scramble backwards. Strobe wasn't distracted for long, however, and with an outraged scream he launched himself at Arclight again. She was not caught flat-footed this time, however, and took to the air as soon as she got her feet under her.
“I am not done with you!” Strobe growled.
His body began to shake convulsively and a small pained noise escaped his vocalizer as his chest seemed to explode outward in a massive tentacle of cabled wires. Just as he was reaching up to pull Arclight back down to the ground he was bowled over as Cobalt slammed into him. Windsaber fired after his makeshift projectile, hitting the Autobot full in the back. Updraft jumped to his feet and added his laser fire to Windsaber’s, but his shot was too slow to hit as Strobe and Cobalt rolled out of the way, moving in perfect synchronization.
“Arclight! Get down here!” Windsaber ordered. “You’re of no use to me up there!”
Without any hesitation, Arclight landed and began to pull out her laser swords but was stopped as Windsaber pressed a blaster into her hand.
“Those will put you too close. Fire from a distance and make for the door!” the Seeker ordered.
“Yes, sir,” Arclight replied, and for the first time, there was no sarcasm or rebellion in her tone as she said it.
After quickly checking the gun, she aimed and fired at Strobe; but the kickback and her lack of training caused most of her shots to go wild. The few that did hit were glancing blows and Strobe shrugged them off as he retracted the cable in his chest. Windsaber and Updraft, on the other hand, fought like a single being striking forward and falling back in perfect harmony but their formal and elegant dance was no match for the wild and frenetic freestyle of their enemies.
Cobalt struck out at Windsaber, hitting the Seeker in the left wing with a massive blast from his shoulder mounted canons. Windsaber was thrown back against the wall with a sickening thud. He slid to the floor slowly, leaving a deep gouge in the wall as he fell. Without any hesitation Updraft moved in, placing himself between the Autobot and Seeker.
“Get him back on his feet!” Updraft ordered as he lay down a spray of covering fire.
Arclight ran forward and crouched beside Windsaber, running a quick scan of his systems. The damage was minor and his internal repairs were already taking care of it. Waving her off with an irritated look, Windsaber got to his feet and promptly hit the wall again.
“Stay put,” Arclight quietly ordered as she placed her fingers against Windsaber’s audio node. “That shot to your wing threw off your equilibrium.”
“Hurry,” Windsaber grunted as he fired. His lack of balance made the shot go wide and Strobe laughed as if this was the most hilarious thing he had ever seen.
“After all this, you still think you can win?” Strobe taunted.
He raised one hand to eye level and grinned hugely as his fingers began to extend and twist into shining blades of cable dripping with mech fluid. Never losing the grin, he pointed at Arclight and tensed his arm causing the blades to fly out and strike at the medic. It was only Windsaber’s reflexes, made keen by war, that saved Arclight from being impaled. He shoved her to the floor, shielding her body with his own as the blades flew over and embedded themselves in the wall. Keeping Arclight pinned down, Windsaber turned and fired at Strobe, striking him full in the chest and sending him to his knees with a gasp.
Cobalt growled furiously and launched himself at Windsaber only to be blocked by Updraft’s smaller form. The pilot fired at Cobalt but the Autobot only grunted under the barrage, never slowing his approach. Updraft steeled himself and stood his ground continuing to fire in a desperate attempt to protect his comrades. He was no match for Cobalt, however, and soon the large Autobot had him in a crushing grip, slamming him against the wall with enough force to short his systems and force a reboot. He was out of the fight, but he had bought Arclight enough time to set a basic patch on Windsaber’s systems.
Cobalt turned toward Windsaber, holding the slack form of Updraft in front of him like a shield.
“Go on,” he growled. “Take your best shot. Lower your numbers by one more.”
He shook Updraft violently in front of him, wrenching a pained squeak from the pilot’s already damaged systems. Windsaber’s optics narrowed and he began to stalk forward, gauging his enemy and the situation with a clinical, calculated gaze.
While Windsaber had his attention on Cobalt, Strobe focused on Arclight. He retracted the blades back into his arms and lunged at her. This time though Arclight wasn’t caught unawares. With a deft twist she spun out of the way and grabbed Strobe’s arm with one hand, pulling it taught while jabbing her fingers into his shoulder joint. Activating the sensors in her hand she deadened several nodes, leaving Strobe’s arm limp and lifeless. With an outraged shriek, the Decepticon pulled away violently, slamming his good arm into Arclight’s side and grabbing her remaining rotor blade in an iron grip. Using the blade like a handle, he slammed Arclight violently against the wall, pinning her in place with his weight against her back.
“You didn’t really think that would work, did you?” he hissed into her audio. “You don’t really think that your tricks can keep me from making this body work, do you?”
He twisted her rotor blade, drawing an agonized scream from her vocalizer as he ripped the blade from its socket.
“Just because I want you somewhat intact doesn’t mean I don’t get to have a little fun with you first,” he growled as he brought his previously deadened arm up to stroke her cheek in a gruesome parody of affection.
Arclight struggled against Strobe, trying to break free from his grip, but he wasn’t going anywhere.
“I am going to take possession of your form,” Strobe whispered. “I am going to break down every one of your firewalls, and unlike my darling mate over there,” he said, nodding toward Cobalt, “I have the patience to take this nice … and … slow. I am going to make sure you feel every piece of your sanity leave you before I finally crush your Spark completely.”
He extended his data cables again and brushed them against Arclight’s helm, causing her to whimper and squirm under the touch.
“And best of all,” Strobe whispered, “after I’m in your form, Cobalt and I are going to your home world to feed off of your own people. Your guards will let us in with no questions, and I will feed off of them until I am fat with all those wonderful emotions roiling around inside of you. … Maybe I’ll start with that surgeon mate of yours. Won’t he be surprised?”
Arclight renewed her efforts to escape, but Strobe was too heavy and she was pinned too securely. She felt his data cables slip in under her helm, making connections with her neural net, striking her processor with surgical precision. She threw up her strongest firewalls, defending herself with every anti-viral program in her arsenal, but she was barely keeping him at bay. She knew that it was only a matter of time before he broke through her shields and since fighting him physically wasn’t going to work, she resorted to the only weapon she had left.
Twisting her arm carefully, she stroked Strobe’s thigh gently. Since she had installed Zenith’s legs onto Strobe’s torso, there wasn’t a micron of those limbs that she did not know. With an aggressiveness she had never shown before, she lit up every node she touched causing the leg to tense and shake uncontrollably as the systems started to fill with a searing pain. Strobe pulled back as his body reacted instinctively to the attack giving Arclight the leverage she needed to push him away. The moment she felt the weight leave her back she scrambled away, but the data tendrils were still attached and she winced as she felt them rip out of Strobe’s fingers. Without missing a beat, she reached up and began to tug violently at the tendrils trying desperately to remove them as they continued to assault her systems, seemingly taking on a life of their own.
As Strobe was attacking Arclight, Windsaber continued to circle Cobalt, slowly mapping out the Autobot’s movements and defences carefully.
“This is growing tiresome, Dinner,” Cobalt said with no attempt to hide his bored tone.
“If that was the case then you would have attacked already, rather than hiding behind my pilot,” Windsaber replied, as calm as if he was discussing a weather pattern.
“You’re right. Playing with you and Lunch has gone on long enough,” Cobalt replied.
Without any hesitation, he tossed Updraft’s limp form at Windsaber, but if he was hoping that the Seeker would be distracted, he was sorely mistaken. Windsaber spun out of the way in a graceful dance and opened both his guns on the Cobalt. Unfazed, the Autobot warrior struck back with his arsenal, but he was slower than Windsaber, and his brutish tactics only worked so long against trained discipline. Windsaber spun and struck weaving a deadly dance around Cobalt, firing on him again and again until he was close enough to strike out at his opponent manually.
Cobalt was not thrown off for long however. This new Cobalt, possessed as he was by the unknowable alien being, had weapons at his disposal that far outstripped Windsaber’s. Pulling back from the combat, Cobalt herded Windsaber toward a darkened corner, thick with overgrown vegetation. As the combatants approached, the vines began to pulse and twitch, as if in nervous anticipation.
On the other side of the room, Updraft finally rebooted his systems and looked about in momentary confusion. On one side of the hall Windsaber fought off both Cobalt and a wall of writhing organic matter. On the other, Arclight lay on the floor desperately pulling at her helm as Strobe stalked toward her. Updraft’s choice, his only choice, was clear. Windsaber would have to take care of himself for a bit longer.
“Please, don’t let him see me,” Updraft prayed as he brought his rifle up. “Please let this work.”
Waiting for the perfect moment, waiting for Strobe’s step fully into asides, Updraft’s gently pressed to trigger, firing a shot of orange-red energy directly into Strobe’s head. There was a moment of silence as all reality seems to freeze. Windsaber was being backed into the waiting tables the organic wall; Arclight pulling the last filaments from her helmet, seemingly unaware of her danger; and Strobe’s head began to crack shivers as processor was melted by Updraft’s shot.
Suddenly everything began again the world was filled with sounds of battle and pain. Cobalt cried out in English and Strobe’s fell to the ground, his head and that’s melted smoking metal and silicone.
“No !” Cobalt screamed. He started to yell out something that might have been a name, started to run forward, but was cut off as Windsaber knocked into the ground.
Before the Autobot was able to turnover and attack Windsaber, the Seeker fired into his back causing a plume of smoke to rise out of Cobalt’s body.
Without waiting to see if his enemy was in fact dead Windsaber turned and ran toward the door.
“Come on! We have to get here!” he yelled.
“But what about them?” Updraft asked as he motioned to the bodies of Strobe and Cobalt.
“We don’t have time to worry about them,” Windsaber replied. “We need to worry about us now. And we need to get out here. NOW!”
Without any further argument Arclight and Updraft followed Windsaber from the room.
Series: G1 universe, focusing on Original characters
Rating: R
Summary: In the early days of the civil war on Cybertron, Sentinel Prime authorized several refugee vessels to take Neutrals away from the planet in hopes that they could start peaceful colonies where they would be safe. Many of these refugees were never heard from again; lost to us through time and distance. But history does record the fate of one of the vessels. The Stormchaser was three orns away from its destination when it was shot down by Decepticons in an act of cowardice and deceit. There were no survivors. That is what history tells us. But in this case, history is wrong.
Author's Note: No comment
“Windsaber,” Updraft whispered.
Cobalt tightened his grip on Updraft’s neck as his hands clenched in rage.
“That is it,” he growled. “I grow tired of these games!”
He threw Updraft violently away. The pilot hit the nearby wall with enough force to short out his vents and cause his optics to stutter with static. Cobalt turned and opened his vast arsenal upon Windsaber. As laser fire shot out at him, the Seeker dove out of the way, but not quickly enough to avoid getting the tip of one wing clipped. Windsaber grunted as green and gold electricity danced across his wings and back but didn’t allow the pain to stop his forward momentum. He brought his guns up and fired on his enemy, moving far quicker than anyone would have thought possible. Red streams of light flew out toward Cobalt striking the large Autobot in his side as he stepped out of the way. With a roar of anger and pain, Cobalt launched himself at Windsaber, sending the two tumbling to the floor in a tangle of limbs.
As they fought, Strobe picked himself up and lunged at Arclight as she was slowly getting to her feet, still dizzy and confused from the assault on her systems. Completely unprepared for this new attack, Arclight fell back to the floor under Strobe’s weight.
“Let me go!” she shrieked while pushing him away from her.
As Strobe released his data filaments, Arclight pulled a small surgical laser from subspace and fired it directly into Strobe’s optics. The Decepticon reared back with a shriek of pain and surprise. The laser was nowhere near strong enough to do any serious damage, but it did give Arclight the opportunity to push up against Strobe and scramble backwards. Strobe wasn't distracted for long, however, and with an outraged scream he launched himself at Arclight again. She was not caught flat-footed this time, however, and took to the air as soon as she got her feet under her.
“I am not done with you!” Strobe growled.
His body began to shake convulsively and a small pained noise escaped his vocalizer as his chest seemed to explode outward in a massive tentacle of cabled wires. Just as he was reaching up to pull Arclight back down to the ground he was bowled over as Cobalt slammed into him. Windsaber fired after his makeshift projectile, hitting the Autobot full in the back. Updraft jumped to his feet and added his laser fire to Windsaber’s, but his shot was too slow to hit as Strobe and Cobalt rolled out of the way, moving in perfect synchronization.
“Arclight! Get down here!” Windsaber ordered. “You’re of no use to me up there!”
Without any hesitation, Arclight landed and began to pull out her laser swords but was stopped as Windsaber pressed a blaster into her hand.
“Those will put you too close. Fire from a distance and make for the door!” the Seeker ordered.
“Yes, sir,” Arclight replied, and for the first time, there was no sarcasm or rebellion in her tone as she said it.
After quickly checking the gun, she aimed and fired at Strobe; but the kickback and her lack of training caused most of her shots to go wild. The few that did hit were glancing blows and Strobe shrugged them off as he retracted the cable in his chest. Windsaber and Updraft, on the other hand, fought like a single being striking forward and falling back in perfect harmony but their formal and elegant dance was no match for the wild and frenetic freestyle of their enemies.
Cobalt struck out at Windsaber, hitting the Seeker in the left wing with a massive blast from his shoulder mounted canons. Windsaber was thrown back against the wall with a sickening thud. He slid to the floor slowly, leaving a deep gouge in the wall as he fell. Without any hesitation Updraft moved in, placing himself between the Autobot and Seeker.
“Get him back on his feet!” Updraft ordered as he lay down a spray of covering fire.
Arclight ran forward and crouched beside Windsaber, running a quick scan of his systems. The damage was minor and his internal repairs were already taking care of it. Waving her off with an irritated look, Windsaber got to his feet and promptly hit the wall again.
“Stay put,” Arclight quietly ordered as she placed her fingers against Windsaber’s audio node. “That shot to your wing threw off your equilibrium.”
“Hurry,” Windsaber grunted as he fired. His lack of balance made the shot go wide and Strobe laughed as if this was the most hilarious thing he had ever seen.
“After all this, you still think you can win?” Strobe taunted.
He raised one hand to eye level and grinned hugely as his fingers began to extend and twist into shining blades of cable dripping with mech fluid. Never losing the grin, he pointed at Arclight and tensed his arm causing the blades to fly out and strike at the medic. It was only Windsaber’s reflexes, made keen by war, that saved Arclight from being impaled. He shoved her to the floor, shielding her body with his own as the blades flew over and embedded themselves in the wall. Keeping Arclight pinned down, Windsaber turned and fired at Strobe, striking him full in the chest and sending him to his knees with a gasp.
Cobalt growled furiously and launched himself at Windsaber only to be blocked by Updraft’s smaller form. The pilot fired at Cobalt but the Autobot only grunted under the barrage, never slowing his approach. Updraft steeled himself and stood his ground continuing to fire in a desperate attempt to protect his comrades. He was no match for Cobalt, however, and soon the large Autobot had him in a crushing grip, slamming him against the wall with enough force to short his systems and force a reboot. He was out of the fight, but he had bought Arclight enough time to set a basic patch on Windsaber’s systems.
Cobalt turned toward Windsaber, holding the slack form of Updraft in front of him like a shield.
“Go on,” he growled. “Take your best shot. Lower your numbers by one more.”
He shook Updraft violently in front of him, wrenching a pained squeak from the pilot’s already damaged systems. Windsaber’s optics narrowed and he began to stalk forward, gauging his enemy and the situation with a clinical, calculated gaze.
While Windsaber had his attention on Cobalt, Strobe focused on Arclight. He retracted the blades back into his arms and lunged at her. This time though Arclight wasn’t caught unawares. With a deft twist she spun out of the way and grabbed Strobe’s arm with one hand, pulling it taught while jabbing her fingers into his shoulder joint. Activating the sensors in her hand she deadened several nodes, leaving Strobe’s arm limp and lifeless. With an outraged shriek, the Decepticon pulled away violently, slamming his good arm into Arclight’s side and grabbing her remaining rotor blade in an iron grip. Using the blade like a handle, he slammed Arclight violently against the wall, pinning her in place with his weight against her back.
“You didn’t really think that would work, did you?” he hissed into her audio. “You don’t really think that your tricks can keep me from making this body work, do you?”
He twisted her rotor blade, drawing an agonized scream from her vocalizer as he ripped the blade from its socket.
“Just because I want you somewhat intact doesn’t mean I don’t get to have a little fun with you first,” he growled as he brought his previously deadened arm up to stroke her cheek in a gruesome parody of affection.
Arclight struggled against Strobe, trying to break free from his grip, but he wasn’t going anywhere.
“I am going to take possession of your form,” Strobe whispered. “I am going to break down every one of your firewalls, and unlike my darling mate over there,” he said, nodding toward Cobalt, “I have the patience to take this nice … and … slow. I am going to make sure you feel every piece of your sanity leave you before I finally crush your Spark completely.”
He extended his data cables again and brushed them against Arclight’s helm, causing her to whimper and squirm under the touch.
“And best of all,” Strobe whispered, “after I’m in your form, Cobalt and I are going to your home world to feed off of your own people. Your guards will let us in with no questions, and I will feed off of them until I am fat with all those wonderful emotions roiling around inside of you. … Maybe I’ll start with that surgeon mate of yours. Won’t he be surprised?”
Arclight renewed her efforts to escape, but Strobe was too heavy and she was pinned too securely. She felt his data cables slip in under her helm, making connections with her neural net, striking her processor with surgical precision. She threw up her strongest firewalls, defending herself with every anti-viral program in her arsenal, but she was barely keeping him at bay. She knew that it was only a matter of time before he broke through her shields and since fighting him physically wasn’t going to work, she resorted to the only weapon she had left.
Twisting her arm carefully, she stroked Strobe’s thigh gently. Since she had installed Zenith’s legs onto Strobe’s torso, there wasn’t a micron of those limbs that she did not know. With an aggressiveness she had never shown before, she lit up every node she touched causing the leg to tense and shake uncontrollably as the systems started to fill with a searing pain. Strobe pulled back as his body reacted instinctively to the attack giving Arclight the leverage she needed to push him away. The moment she felt the weight leave her back she scrambled away, but the data tendrils were still attached and she winced as she felt them rip out of Strobe’s fingers. Without missing a beat, she reached up and began to tug violently at the tendrils trying desperately to remove them as they continued to assault her systems, seemingly taking on a life of their own.
As Strobe was attacking Arclight, Windsaber continued to circle Cobalt, slowly mapping out the Autobot’s movements and defences carefully.
“This is growing tiresome, Dinner,” Cobalt said with no attempt to hide his bored tone.
“If that was the case then you would have attacked already, rather than hiding behind my pilot,” Windsaber replied, as calm as if he was discussing a weather pattern.
“You’re right. Playing with you and Lunch has gone on long enough,” Cobalt replied.
Without any hesitation, he tossed Updraft’s limp form at Windsaber, but if he was hoping that the Seeker would be distracted, he was sorely mistaken. Windsaber spun out of the way in a graceful dance and opened both his guns on the Cobalt. Unfazed, the Autobot warrior struck back with his arsenal, but he was slower than Windsaber, and his brutish tactics only worked so long against trained discipline. Windsaber spun and struck weaving a deadly dance around Cobalt, firing on him again and again until he was close enough to strike out at his opponent manually.
Cobalt was not thrown off for long however. This new Cobalt, possessed as he was by the unknowable alien being, had weapons at his disposal that far outstripped Windsaber’s. Pulling back from the combat, Cobalt herded Windsaber toward a darkened corner, thick with overgrown vegetation. As the combatants approached, the vines began to pulse and twitch, as if in nervous anticipation.
On the other side of the room, Updraft finally rebooted his systems and looked about in momentary confusion. On one side of the hall Windsaber fought off both Cobalt and a wall of writhing organic matter. On the other, Arclight lay on the floor desperately pulling at her helm as Strobe stalked toward her. Updraft’s choice, his only choice, was clear. Windsaber would have to take care of himself for a bit longer.
“Please, don’t let him see me,” Updraft prayed as he brought his rifle up. “Please let this work.”
Waiting for the perfect moment, waiting for Strobe’s step fully into asides, Updraft’s gently pressed to trigger, firing a shot of orange-red energy directly into Strobe’s head. There was a moment of silence as all reality seems to freeze. Windsaber was being backed into the waiting tables the organic wall; Arclight pulling the last filaments from her helmet, seemingly unaware of her danger; and Strobe’s head began to crack shivers as processor was melted by Updraft’s shot.
Suddenly everything began again the world was filled with sounds of battle and pain. Cobalt cried out in English and Strobe’s fell to the ground, his head and that’s melted smoking metal and silicone.
“No !” Cobalt screamed. He started to yell out something that might have been a name, started to run forward, but was cut off as Windsaber knocked into the ground.
Before the Autobot was able to turnover and attack Windsaber, the Seeker fired into his back causing a plume of smoke to rise out of Cobalt’s body.
Without waiting to see if his enemy was in fact dead Windsaber turned and ran toward the door.
“Come on! We have to get here!” he yelled.
“But what about them?” Updraft asked as he motioned to the bodies of Strobe and Cobalt.
“We don’t have time to worry about them,” Windsaber replied. “We need to worry about us now. And we need to get out here. NOW!”
Without any further argument Arclight and Updraft followed Windsaber from the room.