Title/Prompt: Silicon Sand
Writer: Left_eye_better
Rating: MA
Characters: Tap-Out, Gutcruncher, Misc unnamed Autobots, and a stadium of unnamed Decepticons
Summary: Tap-Out always tends to choose the Do option when presented with Do or Die. Just don’t be surprised if he bites when forced to choose do.
Prompt: Tap-Out/Gutcruncher- Even on my knees, I'm still better than you
Warning: sticky, oral noncon, mechgore, dark
Continuity: G1
Word Count: 1664
Beta’d by:
darkesongDisclaimer: Transformers © Hasbro/Takara.
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Tap-Out sat in the holding pen. To his left and right were his brothers-in-arms. They were his family. They were all silent. As time passed, more of them became broken. As time passed, more of them were broken beneath their brother’s hands, all for the amusement of Decepticon crowds. He couldn’t stand the sight of his own hands, though he’d wiped them clean as best he could. He still believed that around the bends and joints, hidden from sight, were the lingering stains of processed energon and oil. He didn’t need to look at them to know it, if he was honest with himself. Every time the green minibot moved his fingers, he could feel the grimy residue, the slight adhesion that spoke wordlessly of what had seeped into him, gumming the joints from the inside.
It was nearly show time again. He looked to his brothers, as they were for this match, at least. Both larger mechs, and ground models with treads. Tap-Out knew not to get attached. That past the gate, if he could convince himself, the faction symbol mattered little. If they were to leave with their lives… He cycled air. His spark flared in the grip of the fear that crept over him, and the gate slowly parted, sliding away with either side with a horrible mechanical screech. The minibot hoped he’d never grow numb to that fear.
The light from the arena poured through the widening crack till it bathed the three members of his team. His audial sensors picked up the hum of energy blades being ignited and then tossed out before them. Three blades glowed purple, trapped in the sands of the arena floor. Out of the habit that had started to form, Tap-Out lunged forward, securing a weapon for himself. The Decepticons did not always see fit to provide them all with a weapon. With the knife in hand, he looked across the arena to see three mechs also emerging from their holding pen, only one weapon shared among them. He couldn’t bring himself to think about what the Cons were doing, what their true intentions were by the inequities they made the Autobots face each time they entered the arena.
The crowds cheered, and Tap-Out’s fuel pump fluttered. They were not cheering for him, or his brothers, but for their eventual deaths. His hand tightened on the knife’s handle as his teammates moved forward. A small arc of energy flared from the blade and danced across the minibot’s knuckles. His shoulders squared off, and with a hard look he pressed forward to meet their challengers. It was do or die time, and he wasn’t ready to surrender.
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Tap-Out fell to his knees, the knife slipping from his energon-coated hand and hitting the ground with a near-silent clatter amongst the riotous noise of the crowd. He didn’t understand it. His arms shook. Falling forward, he caught himself, allowing his fingers to dig into the silicon sand of the arena floor. Again, he’d killed them. His optics flickered, as an anguished growl escaped his vocalizer. Energon bled sluggishly from his own shoulder where a fellow Autobot combatant had managed to bury a blade, at least temporarily. He shuddered at the quick reply that played behind his optics. The cabling in his neck squealed reflexively from the involuntary tightening the unwelcome memory caused. He’d slit the other mech’s primary lines, sawing at them crudely, over and over until they’d been severed from one another.
A heavy mech landed on the patch of arena before the green minibot after dropping onto the ground from his jet gear. The sound of that one mech clapping seemed so loud in comparison to the rest of the world to Tap-Out. His hands clenched at the sand, making the particles slide through his fingers. The other’s pedes came into his line of sight. Gutcruncher… the horned mech’s growl deepened as the merchant of suffering, and the coordinator of this arena, loomed over him. “Good show, Mini, good show. Keep winning, and someday you might even realize you’d make a lousy excuse for a Decepticon. But, Decepticon or scrap, makes no difference to me.” The larger mech reached down and dragged Tap-out up to kneel before him. “Wouldn’t get much for your plating either way.”
Blue optics met the orange of the Decepticon’s, and he gritted his dental plating together in an attempt to remain silent. The larger mech’s hand moved from his shoulder to decorate his helm with streaks of iridescent energon from his own wound. The markings started at the tip of his right horn and trailed downward, following the motion of the Action Master’s gray hand. “Down on your knees, and nothing to say for once? I’m shocked.” Although Gutcruncher’s mask covered his lower face, it was clear to Tap-Out from the overly bright shine in the larger mech’s optics that the other took humor in the situation, in his misery. The large gray hand tilted the minibot’s face up with plans of turning it side to side in mock inspection but when he turned it one way and met resistance the plans had changed.
A snarl pulled up the edge of Tap-Out’s upper lip as he stubbornly kept his helm turned to the left. He knew he stood little chance against his captor in his current shape. Another day, another time, another fight, and he would slaughter the Decepticon as he deserved, but he would not let the other taunt him with no reply. “An Autobot on his knees is still better than a two-cred scrap dealing ‘Con.”
The blow was swift. The impact caused the minibot’s vision to falter, first blacking out completely only to reset moments later, leaving flickering lines running across the ruined feed. Tap-Out kept his helm turned fully to the left from where it had been pushed from the hit. A small series of groves were carved in the softer malleable metal of the smaller mech’s facial plating. The corner of Tap-Out’s mouth crept up slowly in a smirk.
Gutcruncher’s hand roughly took hold of his chin and pulled the minibot’s helm straight, tilting it up slightly to make sure the other mech felt their height difference. “As if you didn’t have enough things to regret already… Don’t worry, I’ll make sure you remember this one.”
The crowd had started to die down as mechs became occupied in settling bets and starting fights of their own. Only a few spectators’ optics remained turned toward the Arena sands. Those who did soon alerted their neighbors, drawing their attention back to the scene. Gutcruncher had wrapped a hand around the victor’s neck. The minibot jerked, trying to pull out of the hold only for it to tighten excruciatingly, crimping various energon supplies to his system. Warnings sprang up in his processor as his hands rose to scrape at the gray digits that still slowly tightened. His helm tilted further back to alleviate the tension on the hold, with hopes to slip fingers under the hand, but the Action Master pressed on, securing his hold with another clench.
Tap-Out’s mouth fell open, letting a weak hitching gasp slip out. His optics flickered from the lack of energon. Aware that the image of Gutcruncher could be the last he processed, his optical shutters fell closed in protest of that idea. He didn’t hear the interface panel retract, nor did he hear it lock with a click. A second hand took hold of the back of his helm and he was pulled forward. His helm collided with the larger mech’s hip causing him to unshutter his optics in surprise. The Decepticon’s spike was in front of his face, and in trying to pull back he only managed to tilt his helm. Much to Tap-Out’s disgust, the pressurized spike rubbed against his chin. The lack of energon to his processor was about to drive him into stasis lock, and he knew that then the Decepticon would take what he wanted. He piteously pushed against the other mech with one hand, the other remaining at his neck.
It didn’t take a scientist to conclude what the other mech’s intentions were. The hand that held onto the back of his helm slid to the side in a deceptively gentle touch, and a thumb entered his mouth and situated itself at the hinge to his jaw, pressing it open. The crowd hollered and cheered. Catcalls directed at the Autobot were numerous, and their laughter was disorienting to him as it rose and fell, melding with the static that had begun crackling in his audials. It seemed that the entertainment was back on. Gutcruncher used his hold to pull the weakly struggling minibot’s mouth onto his spike.
The horned Autobot choked, his intake suddenly assaulted by the entry. His processor swam and his visual cut out. Sucking in air through his chassis’s vent, he struggled, and in one last ditch effort there really was only one thing to do. Jerking his helm, he managed to get the larger mech’s thumb from his jaw hinge, and he bit down as hard as he could. The hand on his neck components tightened fiercely enough to snap a support strut as the Decepticon howled in pain.
He was pulled off the spike and tossed away, skidding across the sands of the arena. Tap-Out landed on his side, and the sudden return of energon to his processor allowed him to remain aware for long enough to hear the crowd’s taunts shift, their laughter no longer directed at his own beaten form. He could taste processed energon from the wound he must have inflicted. The minibot smirked as his helm dropped into the silicon sands, his injuries finally forcing him into a countdown towards stasis lock. Words swelled in his processor as darkness began to envelop him, a strange triumph coloring the last thought that seemed to roll over his fading consciousness like cold oil.
I’ll never quit. Never.