Sanctuary - Part Three
A/N: I own nothing, sadly enough. This chapter has violence, torture, near interfacing, vampiric feeding, and disturbing imagery, you have been warned.
Thanks to all my reviewers! I'm getting so many I don't know what to do with myself. ^.^
Sanctuary - Part Three
Listen younglings, and listen well, for this is your only warning. Your creators told you the Nightwalkers had vanished, that there was nothing in the darkness that could hurt you. They were wrong. Long ago they walked the land, crimson as the bloody forboding dawn, golden as the gentle evening sunset. They were merciless. These nightwalkers hunted as a pair, seeking their prey without remorse. They ravaged entire cities, and brought civilizations to their knees.
Why not kill them, you ask? They were unkillable. One hundred thousand brave mechs tried, and all were slain with the pair's wicked laughter echoing through the darkness. Day or night, they were invincible. Finally, in an act of desperation, the Great Priest, Alpha Trion, sealed the pair away forever.
Listen younglings, and listen well, for this is your only warning. The nightwalker pair were never killed, nor have they been heard of again. Yet, somewhere in the Darkling Forest where all the evils dwell is a sanctuary gilded in polished stone. Deep within that sanctuary from evil dwells its darkest minions waiting …
Listen youngling, and listen well, my carrier told me long ago, for this is your only warning. Long ago they walked the land, crimson as the bloody foreboding dawn, golden as the gentle evening sunset. They were merciless in their gluttony, relentless in sating their lust; bringing entire civilizations to their knees. In an act of desperation, the Great Priest, Alpha Trion, sealed the pair away forever within the Cathedral of Light …
Agony blossomed across Ratchet's helm, dragging him forcibly and unwillingly from the floating blackness of unconsciousness. With the encompassing agony came the cold along his back of lying on snow, and the too loud crunching of pedes marching nearby.
"This him?" A deep voice pounded into Ratchet's aching processors. Gravelly and cruel the voice chilled his spark, making Ratchet fear for First Aid.
"Yes, General Cyclonus, the healer Ratchet." A flat voice replied seeming devoid of any emotion.
"I asked for him here to tend to our troops, not incapacitated." Cyclonus warned, several pedes shifting uncomfortably in the frigid air.
"Unavoidable, the storm forced the decision." The same stilted voice replied unapologetically, a tendril of pleased cruelty underlying the words.
"Very well Soundwave, dismissed." The voice belonging to Cyclonus commanded coolly allowing all others to leave. As the many footsteps faded Ratchet was jostled as the litter he lay on was raised into the air and moved into sheltering warmth. Despite the heat melting into his chilled form the warmth could not ease his nerves. No one had mentioned his apprentice.
With a groan Ratchet opened his optics, feigning a greater disorientation than he really felt. Sharp optics raked over the room, kept dim to hide his awareness he scrutinized the elaborate room he rested in. Despite the cold the berth he lay on seemed so comfortable.
"Where?" Ratchet wheezed, wondering just what had happened to him while unconscious.
"I apologize for the rough treatment," the purple mech, Cyclonus, apologized blandly once Ratchet looked to him. "With the oncoming snow storm my mechs erred on the side of expediency."
"Where - where am I?" Ratchet sat up slowly, despite his caution pain lit up every nerve cluster, every servo in his frame aching. Patches of his tunic and shirt were frozen to his plating. Melting swaths allowed moisture to slide along his plating like icy slugs dragging themselves along his spinal array in icy wet kisses.
Repulsed and startled he shuddered jostling already achy circuits, making his vision cloud over and blacken from sudden agony. He felt bruised all over, and his helm felt six sizes too small for his processors while his lines refused to thaw. He was freezing and burning, while the world swam before his painfully prickling optics.
"Welcome, to Coldsteel Garrison." Ratchet's tanks churned at the other's serpentine smile. "I have troops that require your services."
With a feral growl that belied his pained state Ratchet snarled, "What troops?"
"Follow me." Cyclonus beckoned, forcing Ratchet to stand on wobbly legs and leading him from the tent to the ruins of Brightsteel. There was nothing left of the quaint village that had once graced the rolling hills. Blackened ruins poked out from thick, neglected drifts of snow like childhood memories left broken on a battlefield. A dark angry portion of Ratchet was turning on the taller Decepticon, pounding the professionally hash and grim faceplates into a thick metallic smear.
"My soldiers are in here." Ratchet pulled his processors from their wandering. They were in the village chapel, once stately pews long since burned for firewood. Mechs now littered the floor, six long rows stretching along the chapel floor.
"These are battle wounds, not from a nightwalker or other fiend. There are no armies here." Ratchet stared Cyclonus down, wanting answers.
"We are here, apparently your information is wrong." Again that smug purr of a voice taunted Ratchet and once more the dark voice in his spark urged him to make the slagger hurt.
Gritting his denta Ratchet turned to the many wounded, noting a complete lack of unit medics. "You did not bring medics of your own?"
Cyclonus grinned darkly, "They are tending our guests. My men are your only concern." Nodding victoriously Cyclonus turned from the chapel, vanishing into the thick drifting snow once more falling beyond the sheltering walls of the chapel.
"If you've killed First Aid the darkling races will be the least of your worries." Ratchet snarled under his breath, noting the dozen guards flanking the chapel walls. Then he saw the decorations between the guards. Dim blue optics of Autobot prisoners gazed from the mechs and femmes hanging by their thumb servos. Resetting his optics in the vain hope that the horrid image was but an illusion, Ratchet on lined his optics once again.
It was no illusion. The Autobots were gagged, strips of cloths tied around their necks like beast collars marked them as slaves. Then Ratchet noticed how the mechs were displayed. The wounded Decepticons could easily gaze at any wall and proudly watch the slow agony of their prisoners brought closer to termination. The decorations were rewards.
With a shudder Ratchet pulled himself straighter, ignoring the steady ache that had yet to leave his frame or processors. Picking a soldier that was closest Ratchet marched up to the black mech. "Soldier! Grab two others, I need assistants if I'm going to keep your comrades alive and you've been promoted. Get me water, cleanser, cloths, pressure wraps and whatever medical supplies you can scrounge."
"Healer, we are to guard all wounded and observe." The soldier replied stiffly, unstable cruelty shining within his red optics.
"Then you will observe them offline!" A red hand slammed the soldier into the stone wall hard enough to dent metal as he yelled into the soldier's face, "Is that what you want?" Despite the harsh treatment the soldier only smiled, a small, disturbingly gleeful smile that terrified Ratchet more than any beast or mech ever had before.
"We'll help sir." A voice pulled Ratchet from his assault on the soldier. Turning he met the golden gaze of a soldier with a noble face, blue and white plating pristine and sleek beneath the trim uniform. "Unit commander Mirage, my team will assist." Grunting, Ratchet ignored the dented guard, willing to leave the healthy alone so long as they either stayed out of his way or did what he told them to.
Mirage and three others moved at Ratchet's command, helping him as nurses would have in the hospital by the teaching academy in the Imperial City. They moved in almost complete silence, yst something felt off about them. Ratchet moving from pallet to pallet along the floor treating the worst and moving up the mental cue he didn't have the time to delve into his unease. Given his surroundings he wasn't sure if he wanted to. He didn't know how long it would take, but soon, he would have to try to escape and find out what happened to First Aid.
Despite knowing that the mechs beneath his hands had killed his friends and destroyed their village Ratchet found his healer's protocols coming to the fore. Wounds came and went blurring until he could no longer tell which mech belonged to which injury. His internal memory banks would record the major details, and later he would transcribe his records.
Outside the morning brightened and the evening darkened, orders were given without thinking to his recruited assistants until strong deft hands were guiding him from where he knelt at his latest patient. "Enough medic, time to rest." Exhausted blue optics focused on the light grey face above his, dark green hands carefully pushing Ratchet to sit.
"Who?"
"I'm Hound." The mech smiled, blue optics twinkling with concern "You've been at our wounded all day. Rest, they'll be right as rain soon enough." Ratchet looked over the medical room, his processors filling in the reports on the mechs he had seen to. The worst had been tended to. Those with lighter injuries were treated by the mechs Mirage had brought to be his assistants. Exhaustion coursing through his systems Ratchet leaned back, letting his systems cycle into recharge as a lonely metallic howl echoed in the deepening night.
Vaguely aware of Hound kneeling beside him Ratchet could barely recognize the green mech's voice, focusing on the words he would try to understand later. "The journeyman is with friends."
Crimson dawn, birdsong, and the stale reek of unwashed mech and dried fluids assaulted Ratchet's senses, pulling him into consciousness. Gagging slightly from the stench and bitter taste in the back of his throat Ratchet forced himself up. He was still in the chapel; his patients were tended by two Decepticon medics that moved with cold efficiency from patient to patient. No one looked at him, Mirage, Hound and the two others who had aided them were nowhere to be seen.
Shrugging, Ratchet stood, staggering from neglected systems and untreated helm damage. The injuries were minor, self repair would be complete shortly, provided he could find a ration. He scanned the soldiers on the floor, blocking out the hanging Autobots begging for recourse. He was a prisoner as much as they. With one last pleading glance of apology Ratchet turned from the stagnant room.
Outside where a crimson dawn slowly light the sky a strange sense of unease filled his lines. Decepticon soldiers and priests marched through the garrison, their altered optics sharing the same violent crimson as the dawn. Purple sigils graced every breast, red optics shone from every face. All signs that these mechs had converted to the Decepticon faith, taking the implants to their optics that allowed them to distinguish between the heated systems of mortals and the chilled ones of the nightwalkers.
"Healer, you are not approved to leave the premises." Ratchet snarled under his breath as the same soldier from the previous day approached. That same unbalanced smile played along the mech's lip plates, the same terror raced through Ratchet's lines.
"Do you have bathing facilities or do you want to smell me all day?" Ratchet looked the other mech in the optics, attempting to hide his fear.
"Runamuck, take our guest to the keep. Ensure he is taken care of." Cyconus appeared at Ratchet's side, indicating the stone keep that served as officers' quarters and mess hall at the far end of the village. The black guard saluted, shoving Ratchet before him. They moved swiftly through the compound, passing ranks of tents and abandoned houses repurposed for the families of the troops who had chosen to follow after. The small village had become a Decepticon military fort in the span of a year.
Ratchet let his optics rake over the camp noting the overall health and number of troops. The camp was well maintained. Commanders put their troops through maneuvers while civilian Decepticons worked to restore the village to its former beauty. As they approached the keep Ratchet noticed a strange forest of poles dotting the old courtyard. There, he finally realized, the entire village hung by their wrists. Optics blindfolded, gagged, and gray the hollow husks remained motionless regardless of the breeze that stirred amongst them.
Shuttering his optics, Ratchet shuddered in rage and agony. These pitiful gray forms had been his friends. What had at first seemed like dozens was actually over one hundred villagers from tiniest protoform to eldest ancient. Ratchet could only feel all consuming guilt as he silently rejoiced that First Aid and Wheeljack were not among the forms hanging from those poles.
"Hurry it up," Runamuck shoved Ratchet harshly, "You can admire our handiwork later." There was a sick, proud grin in that gloating sneer, one that Ratchet wanted to forcibly wipe off the taller mech's face with a dull scalpel and all pain receptors set to their highest setting. Instead he could only trudge to the keep for the bath and energon his frame so desperately needed.
Clean. Ratchet could not remember the last time he had felt this clean. His plating tingled from the warm wash and wax, and yet he was torn with guilt and shame. He had been given Brightsteeel's special energon brew, their winter blend held for the winter solstice celebration. He had used Lady Firestar's favorite cleanser, and Lord Lightspeed's wax. He had been pampered with the belongings of the dead. Of all the trappings of this lost village.
Was this how Wheeljack felt those terrible times when hunger had taken over and forced him to feed to the point of death? This painful guilt and sickening shame that came with the realization that he had allowed this to happen. Ratchet should have stayed closer to the villages, should have listened to the summer rumors of bad things in Darkling Woods.
"Stay in the keep, I will return you to the chapel in two hours." Runamuck had sneered those words, as if expecting Ratchet to have a tryst between his shower and ration and not wanting to bear witness to it. Ratchet snorted in disdain and turned to walk the halls. He had to get out of Coldsteel, and so far he was nowhere near escaping.
His pedes took him through the keep finding himself retracing his last visit. The grand ballroom had been filled with dancing. Back rooms curtained off and screened had seen many trysts. Trysts that would have resulted in sparklings for him to tend to this trip. It was a cycle he didn't mind. Celebrating in winter to come back and tend to the consequences of having too much fun.
Ratchet had been enjoying his winter brew and gossip with the older and more grounded elders too much to accept any of the advances the village femmes and young mechs had given him. Now, he could only endure the memories.
"Ratch't! Ratch't!" The tiny youngling Wheelie called as he toddled into Ratchet's grasp. "Come play!" Wheelie's frame had hung with his creators in the courtyard. The entire ruling family was terminated.
"Ratchet! Come see, we found treasure." Outback and Longhaul ran up to him, optics shinning in youthful exuberance. Ratchet followed the younglings, only a year out from their final upgrades to the forest... Ratchet scrubbed a hand over his face plating. He had scheduled those lads for their upgrades this winter, should have done it yesterday so that they could join the solstice celebration with the adults, and taste their first halting attempts at passion. Several young femmes were scheduled for their upgrades as well, scheduled before the lads, giving the young mechs something to look forward to.
"Healer!" Ratchet started, finding himself before the royal chambers. "Time for work." A white mech identical to Runamuck marched smartly up to Ratchet, looking down into the smaller healer's blue optics with fiendish cruelty bruning with lust. "I get to watch today."
Ratchet suppressed a shudder, this one was crazy too. Only this one sought to take his pleasure in Ratchet's forced pain. "Lead the way." While his voice stayed a steady deadpan Ratchet's insides were churning with terror. The warm bath, the comforting wax, the revitalizing energon - all of it felt as if Ratchet had bathed in and fed on ashes, covering himself in the filth that oozed from the pure white soldier like a plume of stench.
Ratchet once more found himself in the chapel, tending to soldiers that spat on him as soon as they could stand. Medics moved around him, barely fixing anything before they ignored a festering wound to fawn over any mech of rank. This place sickened Ratchet. He glanced outside to the midday darkness. The old adage from long ago floated through his processors as he worked on one of the last remaining patients, "Red at morning Hunters take warning, red at night hunter's delight."
Whatever terrible weather that omen predicted would be upon them soon, Ratchet could feel it in the heavy air that lay still over the garrison like a shroud.
"Healer, my medics can tend to the rest here. There are more soldiers that need your skills." Cyclonus spoke from Ratchet's side, making the healer flinch at the other's silent approach.
"Fraggit, make some noise!" Ratchet snarled at Cyclonus, moving fluidly from crouching over his patient to staring the taller general down fast enough to make the purple mech reach for his sheathed fighting dagger.
"Take the right corridor." Cyclonus commanded calmly, goading Ratchet with a superior smirk.
Grumbling under his breath the healer shouldered his kit and a large bin of spare parts then turned down the indicated hallway moving past silent rooms that emanated the sour stench of death. He refused to look into the darkened rooms, refused to discover more innocents beyond his aid.
Midway down the corridor a massive door painted to match the hall perfectly creaked open at his approach. Just as he reached the door, Ratchet froze, he did not want to go in there. Fear told him to flee; self preserving terror goaded him to run back to Cyclonus and Runamuck, that he would be safer with the Decepticons than in that room. An unnatural chill emanated from the darkened room, forming cold condensation on his sensitive plating along his hands and pooling between his fingers to drip with a startlingly loud plop onto the wet floor.
Ratchet took a step back, the floor was dry, had been as he walked along. Now, as if summoned by a dryad or nymph water coated the floor in a fine mist, seeping into every pore of the frigid stone floor. "Fraggit! My brother is a nightwalker and I'm afraid of cold room and a little water." Ratchet snorted, screwing his courage back in place before striding purposefully into the dark room. Deft fingers took flint and steel to a tuft of tinder, lighting surprisingly dry wall sconces and bringing a warm fire in the hearth to life. With enough light for his needs Ratchet turned to the rest of the room.
Beauty was something Ratchet had never held much stock in. He knew he was less than beautiful, his creators had been homely and Wheeljack under that ridiculous face plate of his was more on the handsome side of beauty. Still sometimes, like the perfect golden dawn in summer or a youngling activating its optics for the first time, beauty caught him by surprise.
And, Ratchet mused as he tried to get his spark back in its chamber and his glossa out of his throat, this was definitely one of those times. They were beautiful. Warriors, taller than him by at least a head were pressed against the far wall. Bright plating colored a ruddy gold and deep red glimmered in the fire lit room. Their lines were clean, forms radiating power and strength even in their unconscious state.
Yet, something was off about how they stood there. It was as if they had no optics to speak of. Ratchet took a fresh candle from his pack, lighting it from the closest wall sconce and approached the warrior pair - and cursed in horrified surprise. The pair had been bolted to massive arching pillars. The heavy titanium spikes piercing through each joint ensured they would not be moving easily. Chains secured their frames to the pillars over the bolts as if someone feared the two could have the strength to rip the bolts from their systems.
Thick blind folds masked the upper portions of their faces, gags muzzled them and around their necks shimmering golden gossamer cloths hung as bizarre accessories to their heavy metal bindings. Ratchet huffed resignedly; Cyclonus had told him to tend to the soldiers down this corridor. So tend he would.
He pulled a lantern from his parts bin, making the area around the matched warriors shine brightly. Then, finally ready to begin the messy procedure of freeing the pair. Bolts were carefully pulled from the wounds, each gaping hole thoroughly cleaned and bound despite the disconcerting lack of gushing fluids. With each spike pulled Ratchet looked for the silver grey of processed energon, the light blue coolant, dark greenish-black lubricants, vibrant orange hydraulics, venom yellow servo fluids, or any other rainbow hued fluid a mech could generate - and found none.
The frames beneath his hands hummed steadily from active systems. They were running on the cool side, but with so little fluids in their systems Ratchet was grateful that they ran at all. Finally, the last wound tended, he pulled the chains from the warriors, one at a time with painstaking slowness. He had to carefully lower them to the ground to keep from aggravating their wounds.
Hands and arms trembling from the exertion Ratchet finally rolled the golden warrior over, accidentally snagging the golden gossamer on a seam and pulling partially off the black neck cabling. With a curse Ratchet ripped the fabric away and reached for the gag and blindfold on the mech.
Suddenly he was pinned against the golden plating, the mech sitting up faster than Ratchet could process the movement. Strong arms held him immobile against the broad chest plates. This close to the other mech a soft fragrance rose to Ratchet's olfactory sensors, alluring and heady he pressed closer, white hot desire making him rub wantonly against the other as another set of arms wrapped securely about his waist sandwiching him between both warriors with a needy moan.
"Please" the plea echoed in the cavernous, dark room a desperate voice Ratchet distantly recognized as his own. Then, with delicious agony their mouths latched onto his neck, fangs deep within his cabling making is frame shudder and lurch as energon levels depleted faster than his systems could handle. Exquisite ecstasy thrummed through Ratchet's heaving systems as he ground his interface panel against the golden warrior. The black void beyond nirvana beckoned him as his lust heightened, wanton moans filled the room. Alerts filled his vision as his systems tried to warn him of immanent systems failures, still he cared little, only having the capacity to raise shaking arms to pull the pair closer uncaring of the consequences.
"No!" a dual tone cry filled the room, tearing Ratchet from the brink of release to come crashing down onto the cold floor in a painful heap. Resetting his optics Ratchet's systems heaved raggedly. He had just succumbed to a vampire kiss. He shuddered from cold and terror as realization came crashing down on how close he had come to his own death.
He finally pushed himself to sit on his knees, frame chilled and running too hot. Weak, trembling hands sought his medical pack, weakly pulling a condensed energon ration and chewing it carefully. Lust still pooled in his interface systems, made his unfulfilled desires known despite the terror that flooded his every system as a bitter counterpoint to the flood of energon hitting his systems. Even as his processors still spun from his encounter he shuddered, finally realizing that he was alone -
Then the screams started.
A/N: I'm evil, aren't I?