Chapter Text
Sunstreaker stared at the grinning demon. At this angle, with Sideswipe leaning forward slightly, his gaze was drawn to the fuel lines either side of his neck, exposed just above the collar faring. Just like his own.
I have fuel in my lines, just like you.
And as Sunstreaker’s fuel tank settled and his systems took stock of the semi-processed fuel he’d drank, it was becoming very clear that the energy gained was much less than the ingested volume indicated. He would need more to get to full charge.
The vibro-blade still held between his digits, he flicked out with the knife, nicking at one of the lines in Sideswipe’s neck.
“Ow!” the demon protested, optics spiraling wide in surprise, bringing a hand up to touch at the cut. Sunstreaker didn’t give him a chance to do anything more than that — he pounced, toppling them off the corpse and onto the ground. “What the frag, Sunny?!”
“You said you have fuel in your lines,” Sunstreaker grunted, trying to snatch Sideswipe’s servos out of the way and pin them above his helm. Much like the demon had done to the Decepticon lying prone nearby.
Sideswipe’s expression was one of surprised outrage. “Yeah, so?”
“You don’t—” Sunstreaker rolled them again when the pit-spawn nearly wriggled out from his hold, giving the red frame a good slam into the ground, trapping his hips. “—need it.”
Amber optics gaped up at him. “Well, I—”
“Give it. Give me,” Sunstreaker growled, grabbing Sideswipe’s wrists in one servo and bringing the knife up to his neck with the other. Part of him was genuinely surprised the demon hadn’t dematerialized to get away yet; instead Sideswipe just sort of stared up at him with his jaw hanging open.
“…okay.”
Sunstreaker froze. He had been expecting a fight. Not this. Not Sideswipe surrendering, relaxing his frame beneath him, going so far as to lift his chin a little to better expose the line Sunstreaker was after. His spark decided to pulse a little faster, especially at the sight of Sideswipe giving his lip-plates a little nervous lick, amber optics darkening.
“You wanna check if the big guy’s med-case has a transfusion kit, or are you just gonna… bite?”
Sunstreaker’s spark executed a mad little acrobatic maneuver at the heavy look Sideswipe gave him just then. It reminded him of his workshop in Praxus, his large berth and other things he really didn’t want to think about.
“Don’t tempt me.” He’d meant it to sound harsh and threatening but it just came out breathless. Sideswipe gave that throaty laugh of his in turn, letting his helm fall back, one optic winking up at him.
“Go on,” he purred, frame arching up against Sunstreaker ever so slightly, warm plating rubbing up against Sunstreaker's own. “Take it.”
Fragging pit-spawn.
“You know you want it—”
“Shut up,” Sunstreaker growled, finally managing to get his voice under control, refocusing his optics and casting a sharp glance around their surroundings. His gaze landed on the smaller gray frame that lay further away. The one whose spark chamber Sideswipe had breached but hardly injured otherwise. “On second thought…”
“Don’t tell me you’d rather have a go at the corpse!” Sideswipe gasped, squirming in a horrible way and Sunstreaker’s attention snapped back to him with a glare.
“Me? No. But you will.”
Sideswipe let out a little indignant squawk as Sunstreaker yanked them both up to their pedes. “Seriously, Sunshine! I mean, your wish is my command and all, but I’d really rather not—”
“I will go look for that transfusion kit. You—” Sunstreaker poked him in the chest-plates, optics narrowing into slits. “—will carry the fuel for me, since you don’t burn through it and I don’t have any container for it. Taking it from you is a last resort.”
Sideswipe was sporting another one of those stupid bewildered looks, so Sunstreaker patted the side of his face with a little patronizing smirk. “Come along, now, fuel bag. Wishes and commands, and all that.”
“You are so…” Sideswipe’s optics flashed, his vocalizer reset with a quiet click. “…rude.”
“Yeah, well, hurry it along, would you,” Sunstreaker said with a roll of his optics, already riffling through the dead Decepticon’s subspace and pulling out the small medical case to search through. He glanced up at the sky but there was nothing but glum darkness in sight. “We don’t have long before the others come looking.”
“What others?” Sideswipe grumbled, shuffling over. “Can’t sense a spark for megamiles.”
Sunstreaker shot the red mech a sharp look. “Two Decepticons. Who the frag sends two soldiers out into Ankmor, alone? And why? They were looking for something, probably a scouting party. With no rations or supplies; they will be expected to return, soon. And when they don’t, their friends will come looking.”
He found a rudimentary transfusion kit and shoved it at Sideswipe, turning the gray frames over to look for hidden weapons that might be portable. Thinking out loud, he searched his memory banks for old war histories he’d read as a youngling. “A company unit, most likely. How big are those usually, like, ten bots? With two down, that leaves eight.”
He found a pair of missile launchers on the big bot’s servos but no ammunition, before glancing over to where Sideswipe crouched beside the other Decepticon. A heavy hitter and a scout, then. It made sense to send them out in pairs. The search party would also most likely consist of at least two bots, which left six.
“Keep a lookout for another two sparks,” Sunstreaker instructed, picking up his discarded blaster. “If you can sense them — how wide is your range?”
“Depends on the spark,” Sideswipe muttered, sounding distinctly sullen right about then. He glanced up at Sunstreaker from his crouch, pouting as he inserted a needle into one of his fuel lines and flicked the switch on the small pump that came with the kit. It squeaked, but it worked.
“Tell me the direction they’re coming from if you notice anything,” Sunstreaker muttered, coming over to search the smaller frame. Sideswipe squinted at him, lip-plates twitching.
“So we can run the other way?”
“No,” Sunstreaker snapped, surprised by the hardness in his tone. “It stands to reason they made camp not too far from here. We’re going to find it.”
“And then what, general?” challenged Sideswipe, a little scoff in his tone. But when Sunstreaker glanced up, he saw a teasing smirk on the demon’s lips, sharp amber optics watching him with some amusement.
“Rations, weapons, ammo,” Sunstreaker listed off, thinking to the near empty charge pack in his blaster. Blue optics flicked up to Sideswipe’s face. “You can take three mechs, right?”
The demon threw his helm back and laughed. Sunstreaker felt his own lips twitch upward.
~||~
“Ugly, ain’t it?” said Tracer, big grin across his face-plates.
“Is it?” muttered Octane. He’d been thinking about the spot of ground their high and mighty unit leader had chosen, and how it could be used or what they might do if the enemy spotted them. Not that the Autobots dared come so close to Kaon territory from this side of the wastes.
The plateau they’d chosen had a bit of a view, beyond a staggered set of plates that might have been a road cutting in between a smattering of abandoned structures that sprouted around it.
Hard to believe this place had been a central square of a small settlement, bustling with life. It was a ghost town, now.
Ugly or not, Octane had spent most of his existence in the mining pits in Kaon, where views were scarce and this place had good air-flow, so he couldn’t even bring himself to complain. He peered up, dark shreds of cloud shifting through the atmosphere, a bit of a purple haze about the distance.
“Ugly,” said Tracer again, the rotary assembly on his back giving a merry jingle as he shifted.
“Everything looks uglier in slag weather,” Octane retorted. “If there was sunshine, you’d be calling it the most beautiful view in the world.”
“Maybe.” Tracer shrugged, rattling the blades on his back with the motion. “But there ain’t no sunshine.”
That was a fact, but there was no denying that it was in their favor. Easier to hide in the dark shadows cast by the clouds than sparkle in the brightness of sunlight. Not that Octane had ever sparkled in his life. Sure enough, joining the cause had earned him a new coat of paint to cover up the plain scratched up silver — never even had primer on until joining up. His plating was still nicked and scratched to the Pit underneath the paint, though. Unlike that fragger, Sweeps, who carried himself over in his shiny-plated glory, acting like he was the leader of a legion instead of an officer in charge of a group of six misfits.
Well, there’d been seven of them, before Overhaul decided to talk slag to the wrong bot and disappeared the very next cycle. Considering who their division’s commander was, Octane wasn’t surprised.
Now, given that the whole division was short on mechpower by this point in the war, most units were understrength; so when their scouts never checked back in, Octane began to worry. They were far from the active fights, so there really shouldn’t have been any trouble. He’d argued with Sweeps that they should all go look for them but the officer had insisted they hold their ground. And now Octane was wondering how they’d use it if whatever trouble got their scouting party would find them there.
The trouble with trouble was, it was hard to predict.
He’d joined up to help put the world to rights by lending his brawn, but as it turned out, he needed to use his processors more often than expected. Someone has to, he thought to himself, glaring at Sweeps sidelong. Sending the only two bots who couldn’t fly— if anything they should have told Tracer to go, told him to fly low and it would’ve been faster. He didn't much like the ground Sweeps had chosen and was of the opinion that the sooner they left it behind, the better.
“Hey, Oc’,” Tracer’s voice was low, his shoulder plating nudged Octane’s own. The rotorform jerked his chin toward some of the buildings where their second scouting party — or rather, retrieval duo — had disappeared behind. “Ransack and Lancer are back. And they ain’t alone.”
Strange thing to say considering they were expected to come back with their two lost comrades. Octane felt a shiver rattle down his spinal column.
“No?” He didn’t particularly feel like looking over. “Who’ve they got with them?”
Tracer shrugged, then shoved up to his pedes, the blades on his back tinkling their merry tune with the motion. “Looks like some Neutral.”
“What?” Octane twisted around, frowning just as Sweep’s voice cut through the air, obnoxiously loudly.
“The frag is this?! Where are the others?”
The two grounders shared a quick glance, walking up to the plateau, shouldering a mech between them. He was a good deal taller than them, too, wore no marks and even from far away, Octane could see dried energon splatters decorating his frame.
“Slag,” said Tracer.
“Yeah,” muttered Octane. “Slag.” And he stood up.
The Neutral walked slow, like he was only really propelled by Lancer’s servo pulling on the cuffs they’d put him in. He didn’t look at any of them; his optics didn’t seem to be capable of cycling into focus, shining a haunting near-white color. Shell-shocked was the word, if Octane remembered correctly; like the mech had seen something he really shouldn’t have and couldn’t process anything anymore. Octane had seen soldiers looking like that, except that had been after a lot of loud explosions. The ruins, though, had been almost eerily quiet all the while they’d been there.
Octane got that shivery feeling again, optics glancing around the ground they’d chosen, following the dark shadows that moved about, following the clouds.
“Still not answering comms. But we found this one,” Ransack gave the mech a sharp poke, warily watching for some sort of reaction or show of acknowledgment. Nothing happened. “Looks like a scavenger.”
“Found him wandering the ruins,” Lancer supplemented, yanking on the cuffs a little. The mech wobbled forward a bit but continued to stare off into space, unseeing. “Nothing much in his subspace except a knife and an empty blaster.”
“That much I slagging well guessed. Why the frag did you bring him here?” Sweeps snapped, storming over and running a scalding glance over the dazed Neutral. “We don’t take prisoners. Kill him and get back to the job!”
“You sure the boss won’t want him?” Lancer asked, a bit more quietly. There was a pause. Octane had to give it to her, the femme was a clever one, thinking higher up the fuel chain. Thinking about trading a mostly functional mech for some small comfort they might earn and split between them if they brought him in for the commander to make use of.
Sweeps took note of the significant looks being passed around him and hesitated. Then, as if it had dawned on him that his own unit might as well just cuff him up and sit him with the Neutral if he disagreed on the point, Sweeps puffed up his chest-plates and put on a mighty act of considering the suggestion. “Fine. Might as well. But if he runs off, it’s not my problem.”
“This one’s not running,” Ransack scoffed, poking the mech again, hard enough that it was almost a shove. Earned him nothing but a small stumble, an automatic resettling of stance, that blank stare pointed somewhere just past Sweep’s shoulder. Ransack’s lip-plate curved up into a sneer. “Not talking, either. Pretty sure his cortex is fried.”
The grounder’s optics lifted over to where Octane stood, darting between him and Tracer’s sloppy stance. “Hey, Octane, what do you say to some quiet company? I’ll trade you.”
Lancer shot the mech a dirty look while Tracer grinned, already hopping over, ever eager to get some action.
“No,” Sweeps snapped out, glaring all the while. For a brief instant, his red optics flicked over to Octane, as though having read his processors. “You had your chance — wasting my damn time — Tracer, get in the air, keep low. Find those two idiots and get them back on track. As for you…”
Their mighty officer in charge turned a look full of contempt at the pair of grounders and their prisoner. “You get to keep watch over this here article until we get back to base.”
Instead of getting a rise out of Ransack, as Octane was sure their leader had intended, the racer shrugged. “All the same to me.” And he shoved the captured Neutral toward Octane’s position. Made Lancer nearly topple over and take a dive with the force of it, too.
The femme’s engine growled out a wordless warning which only made Ransack’s sneer grow. They walked the scavenger over and shoved him much into the same spot Tracer had occupied just moments ago, while the copter leapt into the air, the blades on his back whirring into action.
Lancer folded her servos over her smooth flat chest-plate, watching him buzz off and settling in to do some more of what Octane had been doing all this time — waiting.
It felt like voors went past as the gloomy haze settled lower over the plateau, somewhat obscuring the view. The quiet stretched on, Lancer standing silent watch beside him while keeping one optic on their prisoner. Ransack, for all his bluster and usual bubbly swell personality, also kept mostly to himself, outside of the occasional grumbling mutter about the injustice of being stuck out there. Even Sweeps kept his usually prolific thoughts on leadership and the way things ought to be to himself, pacing round the edges of the buildings around them, sticking his helm through the openings to peer in.
Now, while Octane appreciated the rare moments of quiet in his existence, something about the silence that fell around them was unsettling. Couldn't hear Tracer no more. Not even the sound of wind, and yet the clouds moved above, roiling dark and merging together.
It was the low whisper that did it, he supposed. Sent a shiver wracking right down his spinal struts, made unease squeeze tight around his intake.
“It’s coming.”
Octane shot a look at Lancer, watched the femme slowly turn back to the Neutral mech sitting meekly nearby, wrists shackled and pale optics unfocused. There was energon splashed all the way up to his lip-plates, drawing Octane’s gaze when they moved again.
“It wants my spark.” Said in a whispery croak.
A chill spread through Octane’s lines and Ransack's helm shot up from its slouch. Octane didn’t know why he did it, but he whispered back: “What? What’s coming?”
For the first time since arriving, their prisoner’s optics moved. Cycled into focus. Pale and almost white, they met Octane’s gaze with burning intensity. “It’s too late.”
There was a soft sound of surprise behind him and Octane whipped his helm around to stare. Sweeps had ducked his helm into a shattered window. One of his claws was gripping the edge of it, a trickle of energon beginning the seep down his servo from an injured line somewhere around his wrist.
Then there was a crunch, the sound of wires snapping. Sweeps staggered away from the building, fluids gushing from the point where his neck should have been. His helm was gone. One of his servos made as if to swat at it, then his entire frame sagged and crumpled to the ground.
Something moved in the shadows.
“The frag?!” Ransack shouted, engaged his fang-blades and sort of jerked forward as though to fight when something came flying out the window. Lancer was there with her pistols, tried to shoot it, missed and sort of just lowered her guns once it became clear what the object was.
Sweep’s helm. Torn neck cables twisting around it as it rolled nearly all the way over to where Ransack stood his ground.
A low chuckle echoed around the plateau, bouncing between the buildings. It seemed to come from everywhere around them, from the darkness within the husks of buildings scattered around the plateau.
Optics came alive in the dark, fiery shards of amber staring right at them. A silhouette resolved itself in one of the doorways, emerging from the shadows with a sharp screech of metal and flying sparks.
Two blades, as long as servos, spitting sparks where the edges dug furrows into the ground with each step. They weren’t swords, though — Octane would recognize those rotaries anywhere. Guess Tracer wasn't coming back.
He twisted, reaching for his gun and shield, thinking that this was mighty bad ground to try and hold if they were surrounded and outnumbered. And that was his first mistake — trying to think at all. As soon as he thought of taking defensive action and shifted to activate his shield, a pair of servos grabbed around him from behind.
The biting edge of a pair of cuffs crushed his intake, a pede dug into his back, right into the hinges between his wings. Made his back arch, his wings flare and choked him to boot. Made him realize one of two things was going to give first: the cuffs or his neck.
“Lancer…” he tried to croak out, but his vocalizer was as crushed as it could get without breaking.
Lancer couldn’t get a shot in without hitting Octane. Then again, Octane was a big triple-changer and could deal with an unarmed prisoner himself. Lancer was much too focused on the thing that prowled out of the shadows.
It looked like a mech but moved much too fast to be one. Caught Ransack by surprise, brought the rotor blades down on him with the force of a falling mountain. It didn’t even matter that they weren’t sharpened to a razor’s edge.
Metal screamed, wires and cables snapped apart. Energon gushed out and Ransack roared, the sound filling Lancer’s audials. She twisted herself sideways, took proper aim and began to shoot. Not that any of it seemed to matter.
There was a strut-jarring crunch, a bark of laughter and the thing that looked like a mech grabbed what was left of Ransack by the helm, holding it up for her. Like this was target practice. Then it wrenched one of its red servos upward.
Ransack’s entire spine burst out of his frame. Connecting lines sprayed fluid, whipped up into the air and the mech-impostor grinned at her with way too many jagged teeth before tossing one of Tracer’s rotors at her. Knocked the pistol right out of her left servo and she quickly snapped it up to hold her shaking right hand steady, emptying her entire charge mag.
Click.
Lancer’s optics went wide. She could still hear Octane choking, scrambling about somewhere but it was like she couldn’t look away. Her digits kept trying to squeeze the trigger.
Click-click-click.
Ransack’s spine rattled, dragged and snapped against the ground as the mech-shaped creature advanced on her. It snapped at her with the whip-like part of her battle buddy and it was at that point she regretted ever choosing a side. If only she’d fled the planet, she would never have had to know what Ransack’s frame fluids tasted like as some of them got flicked into her gaping mouth.
She staggered back, saw Octane break free, heard him bellow. His blaster came up quick but the scavenger was quicker, servo snaking out and ramming a fist into Octane’s mouth, snapping his helm back and sending him toppling. The triple-changer turned to flee.
Tracer’s rotor flashed before Lancer’s optics, nearly cleaving her helm straight off. She let out a whimper, rolled backward and whipped her gaze up — but the thing that was after her wasn’t looking. Instead, it chucked its improvised weapon at the scavenger just as Octane leapt into the air.
The mech snatched it up, briefly took aim and threw the rotor like a lance. Caught Octane’s form mid-air, mid-transformation, and brought him crashing down. The creature towering above her watched it all, momentarily distracted.
Lancer’s optics darted down. Her digits found the edge of the other rotary blade, just a pace away. She snatched it up with a snarl and brought it up, barely managed to get the angle right — and lunged.
There was a screech of metal as it pierced red armor. Amber optics snapped to her face, cycling wide in shocked surprise. Lancer felt a triumphant smile stretch her face. Right through the chamber. She could see the tip of the blade poking out the other side, could feel energon dripping down her digits from the force with which she gripped it. She hung on tighter and drove it in further.
The creature let out a sharp gasp, clawed black digits going up to scratch at the metal as it staggered back, staring at the mortal injury in disbelief.
Much to Lancer’s astonishment, it didn’t topple over sideways. Instead, it’s bright optics fixed on her. It’s lips twitched. First a lopsided smirk, then a full-on grin.
Much to Lancer’s growing horror, it began to pull the blade out. And laugh.
It cackled at her as the open gash in its plating revealed nothing but a dead sort of dark, not even a tiny glimmer of spark-light within. Nothing. Just a horrible black lot of nothing.
Lancer tasted processed fuel coming up her intake, energon from her glossa as she bit it; there were claws in her chest, ripping through her plating. Everything was going blurry. “Primus, but it… hurts.”
“Imagine how I feel,” the creature murmured in a rich mellow voice, claws digging into her spark chamber.
~||~
Sideswipe frowned down at his chest-plates, smoothing his digits over where the femme had impaled him. He could still feel it; like an itch that was impossible to scratch, like it hadn’t healed properly. Which was strange.
Glancing up, he saw Sunstreaker lift something into the air and smile to himself. Practically unharmed, if a little banged up from having a triple-changer sit on him, the former noble-mech upended what looked to be a cube of high-grade.
Sideswipe gave a quiet snort to himself, watching Sunstreaker shudder from helm to pede and make a face like he’d just been punched.
Doesn’t so much as wince when drinking from a bot’s ripped out fuel tank, but a rancid batch of high-grade? Sideswipe couldn’t help the grin on his lips at the thought. He vented out a long gust of air, trying to cool his heated frame as he forced himself to look away.
It still felt like he was burning from within. Had been since the moment he’d glimpsed the golden mech get in trouble during the fight.
Of course, Sunstreaker had gone for the biggest slagger of the bunch. Armed with a pair of cuffs, of all things. And Sideswipe had been utterly distracted by the flare of his spark, pulsing so close, calling to him like it was shouting his name, beckoning him closer. He’d been so tempted to cross the distance… he was still very much tempted to cross the distance.
Blowing out a puff of warm air past his lip-plates, Sideswipe’s optics slid unerringly back to a frame no less beautiful for the amount of energon it was spattered in.
Unfortunately for him, Sunstreaker seemed much more interested in Decepticon corpses.
He was just about in the middle of draining one of them of fuel, transferring it into the empty high-grade container when Sideswipe caught his gaze in the reflective side of the cube. And felt that stirring sensation of panic rise within.
Because those were not Sunstreaker’s pale blue optics looking back at him — they were the wrong color.