Fic - When the stars are right (AU, TF/Cthulhu mythos crossover), Part 2 of 4
Title: When the stars are right
Part 2: Swindle on the run
Rating: R
Continuity: AU (completely new one I haven't written in before). TF G1 cartoon/Cthulhu mythos crossover.
Genre: horror/SF
Content advice: MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH, THOUSANDS OF IT. Gore. Violence. You have been warned.
Characters: Swindle
Summary: Something has gone horifically wrong with the nature of the universe. Cybertron has been overtaken by monstrous things from another dimansion, and Swindle wants to get the hell out of there as quickly as he can.
Notes: I wrote this for the spook_me Halloween challenge.
Part 2. Swindle on the run
Oh frag no, frag no, not low on fuel, he couldn’t be low on fuel. Swindle’s intakes heaved, his tires burned. Everything was sharper than usual, clearer, brighter, as though a billion tiny shards of glass glittered from each and every surface.
Were they following? Surely they couldn’t be? He avoided his mirrors, he didn’t want to know. Driving, that was all that mattered, pedal to the metal, eating the miles. Oh Sigma what the scrap was he going to do?
Flee, that was it. Flee, and maybe fly if he could find someone big enough to take him. or a transport, that’d be great. A non-sentient transport, one of those huge hulking things Octane liked to pilot when he’d stolen something too big to carry by himself.
OK, so, he had to find a transport, which meant he had to find a hangar. Breaking in wouldn’t be a problem. He had his scatter blaster, and a wonderful selection of lock picks and hacking devices.
Go back.
No! Frag no! Not if the fate of the universe depended on it. Not for an emperor’s ransom. Not for a diamond the size of Trypticon.
Help them.
NO! he couldn’t do that, wouldn’t. He kept driving. His team mates were dead. He knew it, had seen it, felt it echoing at the end of the empty gestalt bond. Felt the programming reaching out for something that wasn’t there, transmitting signals that were never received. Could never be received.
He didn’t see the edge until he was almost over it. He spun, hitting a ridge, his momentum tipping him, flinging him out into the air. He transformed, screaming, clutching for anything as he fought to activate his thrusters. They kicked in, too harsh, and he toppled aft over head back onto the edge. His helm hit the ground, his vision blacking for one terrifying moment. It was them, it had to be! He grabbed for his gun, the ground, anything. His HUD flickered, patches of colour and light emerging through the crackling black.
OK, just a malfunction, visuals rebooting. He vented hard, his every cable trembling, hands shaking as he scrambled to his knees, propping the scatter blaster on his shoulder. He reached for the trigger, squeezing gently.
There was nothing there. Nothing moving anyway. Nothing alive.
Just a field of grey, jagged and broken. Metal; a foot, a tail. An insignia, Autobot, no longer red. The red was elsewhere, in smears and streaks, not gleaming, but drying to brown over steel and glass. Humans and Dinobots, all dead.
“Oh frag.” He tried to control his venting, to get a lid on his fear. “Oh frag, oh frag.” He stood, approached the edge. It was the same below. Energon and oil and the mess of dead organics, all overlaid with a glistening patina, slowly eating them away.
He’s seen the same with Brawl. The flap of caterpillar treads as the hiss of corroded metal filled his audials. Then the shouting and the screaming and the anger flying after him along the gestalt bond as he fled as fast as his wheels could carry him.
Then nothing. Just the roar of the wind and the rumble of the broken road beneath his tires.
You left them to die.
No! He shook his head, trying to dislodge the thought. It hadn’t been like that.
Brawl had been the last of them. One lone light glimmering, a final flare of agony-frustration-fury. Then he too had guttered and Swindle was left alone.
He took a shaky step forward, scanning all the time. Then another. No hint of smoky tendrils, no insubstantial alien fronds reaching for him like they’d reached for Brawl through the crack in the walls, and gripped him and pulled him and no, he mustn’t think of that. Had to keep on track. On track, yeah, that’s it! Follow the track, back to Iacon. Find a freighter, some big dumb drone. Find some energon. Get the slag off Cybertron.
“Gah!” He flinched as his foot snagged on something, his scatter blaster discharging a single violet shot into the star-spun sky. He froze, audials straining, and it was only by a force of will that he managed to get his foot back on the ground.
He looked down. Grey and pink. A long curve, tapering, a tail, a belly, clawed feet pointing up. Jaws that had once crushed seekers hung slack, the roof of a cavernous mouth blackened with soot.
Grimlock, colourless as the rest of them, dead as the human sprawled in pieces over the ground nearby.
But whole.
The low fuel warning pinged again just as a gust of wind carried a distant high wailing.
Them.
He was on his knees, his scatter blaster by his feet, his hands clasping for the dead Dinobot’s fuel hatch before he really knew what he was doing. He needed fuel, it didn’t matter where it came from. Metal was metal, he told himself. Energon was energon, and Grimlock was gone. It wasn’t disgusting, it wasn’t enough to make him want to purge his tanks. It was essential. It was the key to his survival. He was a survivor. And slag, but he was going to get out of this.
Quivering and uncoordinated, he managed to tear out some cabling, got a siphon going. Straight into his fuel tank; he wasn’t taking this orally. He could hardly bear to look. They hadn’t even done this on Charr, when they were starving. When his team mates had been with him, alive and snarky and violent.
Couldn’t think of that. He needed to focus. Listen to the wind, calculate how far away those things were, how long it would take for them to get to him. Which was the best direction to run.
His grip slipped, and the fuel sputtered. It speckled his paintwork, pink on yellow. He stared, watching the spilled drops dribble, while his chronometer ticked away the astroseconds. He should move, he knew it. He needed to go. Now. Right now.
A new noise cut through the sigh of the breeze, and Swindle almost ran. But it wasn’t them, not this time. It was something else. Something to do with Grimlock’s chest. A small click as a panel slid aside, a dull glow of circuits still alive with electricity while everything else around them was dead as the ground beneath his feet.
He dropped the hose, energon spurting for a moment until the siphon failed.
A tiny hologram sprang up, inert image of the Dinobot’s head. Three-dimensional, but immobile, a placeholder. Then his voice, gruff as rust, urgent and altogether too loud on the wind-whipped battlefield.
“Me Grimlock tell you, today are last day of war. The final battle are over. Me Grimlock…”
Swindle leapt on the equipment, pressing buttons at random. He couldn’t be found, not now, not because some stupid Autobot had left a memorial for people who would never come after him.
“…record this so others know, in future when me Grimlock bodyyy fouuuun…” The voice died, the hologram sparking to nothing. Swindle snapped the cover back on his auxiliary fuel intake, and snatched up his gun.
Glancing back at the tiny dancing lights, it occurred to him that, when all this was over, this kind of momento would fetch an absolute fortune on the open market. The last words of the mighty Grimlock. He pried out the recording device and secured it in a compartment on his arm.
Straightening, he took in the terrain. The next gust of wind never reached his audials. He’d already transformed and was speeding along the road to Iacon.
Part 2: Swindle on the run
Rating: R
Continuity: AU (completely new one I haven't written in before). TF G1 cartoon/Cthulhu mythos crossover.
Genre: horror/SF
Content advice: MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH, THOUSANDS OF IT. Gore. Violence. You have been warned.
Characters: Swindle
Summary: Something has gone horifically wrong with the nature of the universe. Cybertron has been overtaken by monstrous things from another dimansion, and Swindle wants to get the hell out of there as quickly as he can.
Notes: I wrote this for the spook_me Halloween challenge.
Part 2. Swindle on the run
Oh frag no, frag no, not low on fuel, he couldn’t be low on fuel. Swindle’s intakes heaved, his tires burned. Everything was sharper than usual, clearer, brighter, as though a billion tiny shards of glass glittered from each and every surface.
Were they following? Surely they couldn’t be? He avoided his mirrors, he didn’t want to know. Driving, that was all that mattered, pedal to the metal, eating the miles. Oh Sigma what the scrap was he going to do?
Flee, that was it. Flee, and maybe fly if he could find someone big enough to take him. or a transport, that’d be great. A non-sentient transport, one of those huge hulking things Octane liked to pilot when he’d stolen something too big to carry by himself.
OK, so, he had to find a transport, which meant he had to find a hangar. Breaking in wouldn’t be a problem. He had his scatter blaster, and a wonderful selection of lock picks and hacking devices.
Go back.
No! Frag no! Not if the fate of the universe depended on it. Not for an emperor’s ransom. Not for a diamond the size of Trypticon.
Help them.
NO! he couldn’t do that, wouldn’t. He kept driving. His team mates were dead. He knew it, had seen it, felt it echoing at the end of the empty gestalt bond. Felt the programming reaching out for something that wasn’t there, transmitting signals that were never received. Could never be received.
He didn’t see the edge until he was almost over it. He spun, hitting a ridge, his momentum tipping him, flinging him out into the air. He transformed, screaming, clutching for anything as he fought to activate his thrusters. They kicked in, too harsh, and he toppled aft over head back onto the edge. His helm hit the ground, his vision blacking for one terrifying moment. It was them, it had to be! He grabbed for his gun, the ground, anything. His HUD flickered, patches of colour and light emerging through the crackling black.
OK, just a malfunction, visuals rebooting. He vented hard, his every cable trembling, hands shaking as he scrambled to his knees, propping the scatter blaster on his shoulder. He reached for the trigger, squeezing gently.
There was nothing there. Nothing moving anyway. Nothing alive.
Just a field of grey, jagged and broken. Metal; a foot, a tail. An insignia, Autobot, no longer red. The red was elsewhere, in smears and streaks, not gleaming, but drying to brown over steel and glass. Humans and Dinobots, all dead.
“Oh frag.” He tried to control his venting, to get a lid on his fear. “Oh frag, oh frag.” He stood, approached the edge. It was the same below. Energon and oil and the mess of dead organics, all overlaid with a glistening patina, slowly eating them away.
He’s seen the same with Brawl. The flap of caterpillar treads as the hiss of corroded metal filled his audials. Then the shouting and the screaming and the anger flying after him along the gestalt bond as he fled as fast as his wheels could carry him.
Then nothing. Just the roar of the wind and the rumble of the broken road beneath his tires.
You left them to die.
No! He shook his head, trying to dislodge the thought. It hadn’t been like that.
Brawl had been the last of them. One lone light glimmering, a final flare of agony-frustration-fury. Then he too had guttered and Swindle was left alone.
He took a shaky step forward, scanning all the time. Then another. No hint of smoky tendrils, no insubstantial alien fronds reaching for him like they’d reached for Brawl through the crack in the walls, and gripped him and pulled him and no, he mustn’t think of that. Had to keep on track. On track, yeah, that’s it! Follow the track, back to Iacon. Find a freighter, some big dumb drone. Find some energon. Get the slag off Cybertron.
“Gah!” He flinched as his foot snagged on something, his scatter blaster discharging a single violet shot into the star-spun sky. He froze, audials straining, and it was only by a force of will that he managed to get his foot back on the ground.
He looked down. Grey and pink. A long curve, tapering, a tail, a belly, clawed feet pointing up. Jaws that had once crushed seekers hung slack, the roof of a cavernous mouth blackened with soot.
Grimlock, colourless as the rest of them, dead as the human sprawled in pieces over the ground nearby.
But whole.
The low fuel warning pinged again just as a gust of wind carried a distant high wailing.
Them.
He was on his knees, his scatter blaster by his feet, his hands clasping for the dead Dinobot’s fuel hatch before he really knew what he was doing. He needed fuel, it didn’t matter where it came from. Metal was metal, he told himself. Energon was energon, and Grimlock was gone. It wasn’t disgusting, it wasn’t enough to make him want to purge his tanks. It was essential. It was the key to his survival. He was a survivor. And slag, but he was going to get out of this.
Quivering and uncoordinated, he managed to tear out some cabling, got a siphon going. Straight into his fuel tank; he wasn’t taking this orally. He could hardly bear to look. They hadn’t even done this on Charr, when they were starving. When his team mates had been with him, alive and snarky and violent.
Couldn’t think of that. He needed to focus. Listen to the wind, calculate how far away those things were, how long it would take for them to get to him. Which was the best direction to run.
His grip slipped, and the fuel sputtered. It speckled his paintwork, pink on yellow. He stared, watching the spilled drops dribble, while his chronometer ticked away the astroseconds. He should move, he knew it. He needed to go. Now. Right now.
A new noise cut through the sigh of the breeze, and Swindle almost ran. But it wasn’t them, not this time. It was something else. Something to do with Grimlock’s chest. A small click as a panel slid aside, a dull glow of circuits still alive with electricity while everything else around them was dead as the ground beneath his feet.
He dropped the hose, energon spurting for a moment until the siphon failed.
A tiny hologram sprang up, inert image of the Dinobot’s head. Three-dimensional, but immobile, a placeholder. Then his voice, gruff as rust, urgent and altogether too loud on the wind-whipped battlefield.
“Me Grimlock tell you, today are last day of war. The final battle are over. Me Grimlock…”
Swindle leapt on the equipment, pressing buttons at random. He couldn’t be found, not now, not because some stupid Autobot had left a memorial for people who would never come after him.
“…record this so others know, in future when me Grimlock bodyyy fouuuun…” The voice died, the hologram sparking to nothing. Swindle snapped the cover back on his auxiliary fuel intake, and snatched up his gun.
Glancing back at the tiny dancing lights, it occurred to him that, when all this was over, this kind of momento would fetch an absolute fortune on the open market. The last words of the mighty Grimlock. He pried out the recording device and secured it in a compartment on his arm.
Straightening, he took in the terrain. The next gust of wind never reached his audials. He’d already transformed and was speeding along the road to Iacon.