[Transformers] Pincher is Tarantulas's daddy (1/2)beckyh2112January 16 2012, 23:08:02 UTC
"You are not a Predacon."
Tarantulas startled in the process of packing his laboratory, legs flexing to their full extent. That voice! Oh, how he hated it. Its mild sound, its strange cadences that were nearly unique.
"Father," he said neutrally, lowering a leg so he could glance over his shoulder. "To what do I owe the... pleasure?"
Pincher stood in the doorway of his lab, wearing the pseudo-flesh shell he had from the War. He scowled and glared, and Tarantulas mentally catalogued all the ways a Transformer should have found the expression exaggerated. All the ways he didn't - fwagh! Even now, he thought other people weren't expressive enough!
"You put in an application for Predacon citizenship," his father said, thumbs tapping against fingers in a steady rhythm. "It's curious for a mechanism built by an Autobot. Maximal citizenship is freely available to you."
"Built by a Maximal," he corrected, lingering over the word. The flinch, oh, he barely saw it, but it was there! "One of Shockwave's Maximals, and don't think I don't know what that means."
His father said nothing for long moments, and Tarantulas took advantage of them to stuff away some of the chemicals he really didn't want Pincher to get a good look at. No, no, nothing to see here, Father! Just... don't look too closely.
As long as he could keep his father off-balance, he might get out of this without the one mechanism who had a hope of seeing his ultimate goals realizing he ought to look for them.
"You really don't know what that means," Pincher said flatly.
Fear shivered through Tarantulas's struts, curling in the tips of his legs. "Aheheheheh, I think you'll find I do, Father. The Tripredicus Council was quite eager to entice me to work for them. They- declassified a few documents. Things they thought might help make the decision easier." He slanted a green-opticked glance at his father. "It is so nice to know some of my... refueling tendencies are hereditary."
The wonderfully disgusting sound of his father's Pretender shell splitting ripped through the lab. The smell of acetic acid hit Tarnatulas's sensors like a truck, then one massive scorpion claw wrapped around him and lifted him up.
He always forgot how big his father was. His scorpion tail was folded nearly double and it still brushed the ceiling. Tables and equipment were smashed under the bulk of the robotic scorpion's body. A single optic as big as Tarantulas's entire body glowed with the vicious light of a blue star.
The pseudo-flesh shell made Pincher as small as any Maximal, as weak as any down-graded Autobot. But his father never had down-graded.
[Transformers] Pincher is Tarantulas's daddy (2/2)beckyh2112January 16 2012, 23:08:20 UTC
"You do not understand," Pincher snarled.
"I understand you accepted one of Megatron's right-hand mechs as the leader of Cybetron," he taunted.
A heavy grey claw grasped all the legs on his left side. Gently, so gently Tarantulas could barely feel it- and he knew if his father squeezed even a millipascal, he'd sever all four legs. Electricity quickened in Tarantulas's wires, creating shivers in his spark.
He wasn't afraid.
"You never fought back, Father, and you're still wearing the shell Shockwave designed for you. Though I'm sure you know what he meant it for, eheheheheheh."
The bottom-most of Tarantulas's legs fell and clanged against the inside of Pincher's claw. He hissed in pain.
Father dropped him, and there was a flurry of movement as Tarantulas twisted to land on his feet and Pincher folded back into his Pretender shell. He snuck a glance at Father while he grabbed his leg and wanted to snicker at the haunted look on Pincher's face. Father always looked so upset when he lost his temper. Like he'd failed someone.
Tarantulas liked to fancy it was Optimus Prime or some other great Autobot leader, but as near as he could learn, his father had never met anyone. So he concluded it was some lover Father had hurt in one of his vicious, violent red rages. Maybe even murdered.
"You don't understand what that means," his father said tiredly. "But these are your choices. Any outside influence is just that- outside."
"Yes, yes," Tarantulas said in annoyance. "Really, Father, the way you programmed me is insane! I have to custom-write even simple driver updates. I've had to waste decades of my life learning to be a programmer and an engineer instead of focusing on chemistry like I wanted! I have no idea what you were even thinking when you did all this."
Pincher smiled crookedly. "I know. I've been saying that for a long time."
Re: [Transformers] Pincher is Tarantulas's daddy (2/2)lunatronJanuary 17 2012, 01:24:29 UTC
I like how Tarantulas picks at his father like an oxbird sipping the blood of a giraffe. You do a good job of conveying a disastrously screwed up family situation in a short amount of space.
I like how being exposed to a human-form Pretender has messed with Tarantulas's concept of expressiveness.
In some ways, they seem to be having two separate conversations.
'The wonderfully disgusting sound' is a neat bit of phrasing, because I can see Tarantulas thinking that way.
You give the Autobots of old an interesting fading grandeur, which works, I think. I also really dig how you hammer home the scale differences.
I like how you play with what Shockwave did to Pincher's head.
Tarantulas wanting it to be Optimus Prime is interesting - a little notoriety hound, he is.
Poor Pincher. He wanted a baby that couldn't be brainwashed via code... but there are emotional means, too.
Also, hereditary vampirism.
So much love. It seems like you had fun writing this!
Tarantulas startled in the process of packing his laboratory, legs flexing to their full extent. That voice! Oh, how he hated it. Its mild sound, its strange cadences that were nearly unique.
"Father," he said neutrally, lowering a leg so he could glance over his shoulder. "To what do I owe the... pleasure?"
Pincher stood in the doorway of his lab, wearing the pseudo-flesh shell he had from the War. He scowled and glared, and Tarantulas mentally catalogued all the ways a Transformer should have found the expression exaggerated. All the ways he didn't - fwagh! Even now, he thought other people weren't expressive enough!
"You put in an application for Predacon citizenship," his father said, thumbs tapping against fingers in a steady rhythm. "It's curious for a mechanism built by an Autobot. Maximal citizenship is freely available to you."
"Built by a Maximal," he corrected, lingering over the word. The flinch, oh, he barely saw it, but it was there! "One of Shockwave's Maximals, and don't think I don't know what that means."
His father said nothing for long moments, and Tarantulas took advantage of them to stuff away some of the chemicals he really didn't want Pincher to get a good look at. No, no, nothing to see here, Father! Just... don't look too closely.
As long as he could keep his father off-balance, he might get out of this without the one mechanism who had a hope of seeing his ultimate goals realizing he ought to look for them.
"You really don't know what that means," Pincher said flatly.
Fear shivered through Tarantulas's struts, curling in the tips of his legs. "Aheheheheh, I think you'll find I do, Father. The Tripredicus Council was quite eager to entice me to work for them. They- declassified a few documents. Things they thought might help make the decision easier." He slanted a green-opticked glance at his father. "It is so nice to know some of my... refueling tendencies are hereditary."
The wonderfully disgusting sound of his father's Pretender shell splitting ripped through the lab. The smell of acetic acid hit Tarnatulas's sensors like a truck, then one massive scorpion claw wrapped around him and lifted him up.
He always forgot how big his father was. His scorpion tail was folded nearly double and it still brushed the ceiling. Tables and equipment were smashed under the bulk of the robotic scorpion's body. A single optic as big as Tarantulas's entire body glowed with the vicious light of a blue star.
The pseudo-flesh shell made Pincher as small as any Maximal, as weak as any down-graded Autobot. But his father never had down-graded.
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"I understand you accepted one of Megatron's right-hand mechs as the leader of Cybetron," he taunted.
A heavy grey claw grasped all the legs on his left side. Gently, so gently Tarantulas could barely feel it- and he knew if his father squeezed even a millipascal, he'd sever all four legs. Electricity quickened in Tarantulas's wires, creating shivers in his spark.
He wasn't afraid.
"You never fought back, Father, and you're still wearing the shell Shockwave designed for you. Though I'm sure you know what he meant it for, eheheheheheh."
The bottom-most of Tarantulas's legs fell and clanged against the inside of Pincher's claw. He hissed in pain.
Father dropped him, and there was a flurry of movement as Tarantulas twisted to land on his feet and Pincher folded back into his Pretender shell. He snuck a glance at Father while he grabbed his leg and wanted to snicker at the haunted look on Pincher's face. Father always looked so upset when he lost his temper. Like he'd failed someone.
Tarantulas liked to fancy it was Optimus Prime or some other great Autobot leader, but as near as he could learn, his father had never met anyone. So he concluded it was some lover Father had hurt in one of his vicious, violent red rages. Maybe even murdered.
"You don't understand what that means," his father said tiredly. "But these are your choices. Any outside influence is just that- outside."
"Yes, yes," Tarantulas said in annoyance. "Really, Father, the way you programmed me is insane! I have to custom-write even simple driver updates. I've had to waste decades of my life learning to be a programmer and an engineer instead of focusing on chemistry like I wanted! I have no idea what you were even thinking when you did all this."
Pincher smiled crookedly. "I know. I've been saying that for a long time."
Reply
I like how being exposed to a human-form Pretender has messed with Tarantulas's concept of expressiveness.
In some ways, they seem to be having two separate conversations.
'The wonderfully disgusting sound' is a neat bit of phrasing, because I can see Tarantulas thinking that way.
You give the Autobots of old an interesting fading grandeur, which works, I think. I also really dig how you hammer home the scale differences.
I like how you play with what Shockwave did to Pincher's head.
Tarantulas wanting it to be Optimus Prime is interesting - a little notoriety hound, he is.
Poor Pincher. He wanted a baby that couldn't be brainwashed via code... but there are emotional means, too.
Also, hereditary vampirism.
So much love. It seems like you had fun writing this!
Reply
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