Spooky Spam weekend, part the first ~ Prompts 1-9
Title: Totentanz
Continuity: IDW
Character: Drift
Content Advice: Violence, stylized decriptions of injury
Rating: T
Disclaimer: Transformers belongs to Hasbro; no profit is made from this work.
Prompt: #1 "waking to a nightmare"
There was almost a sickly-sweet pleasure to it all, a soft thrumming whisper more felt than heard that glided across the ruddy, darkened haze that filled his mind and washed away all pain …
… It was better this way.
If there was no pain, there was no doubt; if there was no doubt, he needed not a moment’s hesitation as he whirled and sidestepped, blades scored black with dying spark-flames, soaked streaked and dripping with the dregs of a score of severed conduits, a horde of shattered fuel pumps.
It was a dance, almost. Almost something beautiful.
There was no pain; there was no doubt; there was no thought. Only the soft sweetness that flowed from the bright shattered crack in his mind and called the haze to him again.
And then the light flared once, and died, and the world rushed back in -
In a sea of corpses, Drift sank, stained sprayed and shaking, to his knees.
The blades fell limply in a hollow clatter; all around him lay the dead, dead by his hands. His own seeping wound, slickness tinting pinkly eyes bleached white with shock, meant nothing -
what have I done
Title: Lamprey's Surfeit
Continuity: Aligned
Characters: Mirage, Hound (memory)
Content Advice: Violence.
Rating: T
Disclaimer: Transformers belongs to Hasbro; no profit is made from this work.
Prompt: #2, "unnatural thirst"
The last Vehicon - the last drone, poor witless things - had barely begun to crumple towards the battered deckplates before Mirage, like the wraith he was named for, moved to ghost with silent steps to meet his victim once again.
It had been hard, once; was still hard, if he allowed himself the luxury to pause, to remember
* ‘Not your fault you’re designed with finicky insides, Mirage ~’ *
* This’s something I want to do. We’re going to get out of this together and I need you to do this to help yourself. For me, then -‘ *
Hound knew the way. He always knew the way, whether plucking out the faint trail of their lost ones across the stars or the simplest path to dealing with Mirage’s highly, too highly, refined internals in the face of desperation and lack.
… But Hound was gone. He was gone, and Mirage had nothing but the shadow of a scream, the tang of scorched plating, to try to search by, and he was undone.
Undone, until he had steeled himself to hunt the hunters.
It was only fair to steal from their wasted lives everything that they had taken from their own victims …
One more gliding step, another, a wraith in colourless blue, slim as ribbons; now he stood over the crumpled drones as the last life flickered and died in what passed for their eyes.
The slim barrels of his rifles retracted into their sheathing, unseen within his forearms, and in their place slid a single razor sharp as spite. Sinking gracefully to his heels, Mirage traced out fuel conduits and made his choice.
Hound would want it to be so.
Title: Palimpsest
Continuity: G1 (undefined), Shattered Glass
Characters: Optimus Prime
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Transformers belongs to Hasbro; no profit is made from this work.
Prompt: #3, "reflection"
A crack in time, some bleed between the worlds;
A split in his mind, some leaching of sense and sanity;
Whatever the truth of it, it could not change the horror of what he saw
an existence turned upside down
a world burnt black and empty
himself, violet as some organic bruise, bone-deep,
enthroned above hell itself
as he called for death and laughed and laughed
It must not be. It could not be - unless it were some warning, some premonition -
Prime drew the shining brightness of the Matrix from within, saw his own self reflected in the glittering orb, and knew the end for what it was.
It was time.
Title: Cover Thee In Mourning
Continuity: G1 (undefined)
Characters: Sideswipe
Content Advice: Reference to death.
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Transformers belongs to Hasbro; no profit is made from this work.
Prompt: #4, "ritual"
It always began the same; the world filtered in, time to drag chassis off the slab, torment your glowering counterpart, dark and gold, prance gleefully out of reach of his inevitable swing before reporting in for whatever creative carnage was due for the day, cause said carnage, unwind, downcycle.
Do it all over again the next day, with interest. Rinse, repeat.
Except
Except …
Except the rhythm was broken, the chain was snapped, and Sideswipe knew - he knew -- it would never be back again.
The way Sunstreaker would never be back again.
Slowly, painstakingly slowly, Sideswipe scraped the razor strigil across his trembling plating. Every last trace of crimson, he’d strip away. Delicately, carefully, every last movement as measured as one of those inane ceremonies barely half-remembered.
He needed to get this right before he splashed his savaged self black as night forever.
It needed to be perfect, as what was lost had been perfect …
Title: Shattered
Continuity: G1 (undefined)
Characters: Ricochet, Jazz
Content Advice: References to death, violence.
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Transformers belongs to Hasbro; no profit is made from this work.
Prompt: #5, "a scary place in space"
“Remind me why we’re here again?”
“Because if we don’t retrieve the calibration codes Prowl is going to lock us in a small hole forever?”
“Very funny. Reassuring, even. Got any better ones -“
Any further biting wit on Ricochet’s part was promptly swallowed by the wave of dread that all but picked him up and shook him like a trapped turbofox as soon as he’d lifted his gaze to the glass. Beside him, Jazz vented air in one long, pained exhalation of stunned disbelief.
Beyond the all-too-fragile enclosure of the shuttle lay an abattoir.
Something had torn the skirmish-ships - Autobot and Decepticon alike - to flinders, their contents and their crews scattered, shattered and lifeless; the dusting of random ribbons of broken planetoid, drifting idly through a suspended storm of twisted metal and frozen rose-scarlet droplets, was a final, surreal touch.
Jazz exhaled again, visor pale and lightless.
“If that’s where we gotta go …”
Gaze still locked on the grisly vista, Ricochet barely grated out the words.
“If that’s where we’re headed, it’s not codes we’re bringing back.
“I see Bluestreak’s colours out there.”
Title: The Lost
Continuity: IDW
Characters: Dai Atlas, Star Saber
Content Advice: References to death.
Rating: T
Disclaimer: Transformers belongs to Hasbro; no profit is made from this work.
Prompt: #6, "skeletons"
All thought was banished in a burst of agony cold as fire, all response choked off in one single savage plunge towards his very core; and Dai Atlas could do nothing, say nothing, as his assailant prepared to end his life.
The memories, soft-edged and already fading, flickered one last time to the forefront of his mind as they always did:
* the fallen, all those fallen, in the war to end all wars, blackened and stripped to nothing; never again *
He felt - felt! - Star Saber’s clutching claws punch through the last resistant shreds of his frame:
* Wing lying crumpled at the reaver’s feet, sacrificed to his own stubborn pride *
His limbs began to fail him, great soul’s blade guttering, falling from insensate hands:
* his followers - his kin - rendered to struts and then to slag before his eyes in numbers uncounted *
… So many, there had been so very many.
He never heard Saber’s last vicious hiss as the dark closed in one final time; he was too grateful for being released from his memories at last.
Title: Cleansing
Continuity: IDW
Character: Prowl
Content Advice: Reference to abuse, emotional turmoil.
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Transformers belongs to Hasbro; no profit is made from this work.
Prompt: #7, "lay my ghosts to rest"
It began slowly, a small thing that nonetheless burned incessantly (like rust, or a fracture in enamel); and so Prowl ignored it as he, with all the others, marched on leaden feet beyond the city walls. It was a selfish thought, after all, and after all that had happened (all that he had allowed to happen) ‘selfish’ was not an option.
Ignoring that small thought only fed it.
Watching, helpless, as the battered convoy picked their way through the wild-lands fed it further. Stubbornness turned it into a predator, stalking his dreams when he snatched moments to downcycle until it bid fair to eat him alive …
… So be it.
With his expression an impassive mask (never let them see your pain), it had been simple to slip from the Constructicons (his tormentors, violators) the knowledge that even his prior physical configuration was unretrievable. (no going back, even physically)
Perfect memory, perfect recitation; designed with the first, hard-practiced the second. All that he knew, all the plans, all the webs; all were recorded, downloaded from crystal clear memory (why did no one see what they made me become), left for a reluctant leader in tarnished yellow.
One the slugs were scanned, Bee would know it all.
Every decision, however cold. Every sacrifice, however pained. All of it. Every last fork in the path of expediency, made for the purpose of sparing others the choice (take this weight from me); every rationalization, every gambit.
Ironhide questioned the recordings, canny old campaigner. He passed it off as strategic documentation. (not even a lie)
When night fell again, he strode eyes wide open into the wild and did not look back.
Title: Parting The Veil
Continuity: G1 (undefined)
Characters: Beachcomber
Rating: G
Disclaimer: Transformers belongs to Hasbro; no profit is made from this work.
Prompt: #8
There wasn’t much left, whatever it was.
Two gnarled claws puncturing the barren alloy of Luna 2’s dead skin - whether sheared from some unknown goliath attempting to burrow beneath, or punching upwards from some chthonic labyrinth, none could decide.
Seated silent, statue-still, between the jagged remnants, Beachcomber was inclined towards the second of the two.
Stilled to near-oblivion, barely cycling, he could feel the whisper of the frozen goliath’s ghostly mind like a fluttering shade still clinging to some shred of shadowy existence - could almost see the shiver of spark-stuff still drifting in the moon’s whisper of air.
Just a little closer - just a little - and he could touch -
Title: Retreat
Continuity: IDW (of a sort)
Characters: Ratchet, Drift
Content Advice: Confinement, hallucination.
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Transformers belongs to Hasbro; no profit is made from this work.
Prompt: #9, "a haunted mind"
run run run don’t stop don’t look don’t
they were right at his heels shrieking gnashing
clashing jaws claws to tend and tear
there was no escape
the light blinded the dark concealed them
judgement in their teeth
run run forever
don’t stop don’t look back --
-*-
Ratchet’s mouth tightened as he stared down at the pale frame clamped, for his own safety, against the sterile solidity of the medslab.
Though he seemed motionless, Drift strained against the clamps - the monitors confirmed it - though he stared out at nothing, made no sound, acknowledged no one.
Where he was, what he saw; that, Ratchet had no answer for.
Continuity: IDW
Character: Drift
Content Advice: Violence, stylized decriptions of injury
Rating: T
Disclaimer: Transformers belongs to Hasbro; no profit is made from this work.
Prompt: #1 "waking to a nightmare"
There was almost a sickly-sweet pleasure to it all, a soft thrumming whisper more felt than heard that glided across the ruddy, darkened haze that filled his mind and washed away all pain …
… It was better this way.
If there was no pain, there was no doubt; if there was no doubt, he needed not a moment’s hesitation as he whirled and sidestepped, blades scored black with dying spark-flames, soaked streaked and dripping with the dregs of a score of severed conduits, a horde of shattered fuel pumps.
It was a dance, almost. Almost something beautiful.
There was no pain; there was no doubt; there was no thought. Only the soft sweetness that flowed from the bright shattered crack in his mind and called the haze to him again.
And then the light flared once, and died, and the world rushed back in -
In a sea of corpses, Drift sank, stained sprayed and shaking, to his knees.
The blades fell limply in a hollow clatter; all around him lay the dead, dead by his hands. His own seeping wound, slickness tinting pinkly eyes bleached white with shock, meant nothing -
what have I done
Title: Lamprey's Surfeit
Continuity: Aligned
Characters: Mirage, Hound (memory)
Content Advice: Violence.
Rating: T
Disclaimer: Transformers belongs to Hasbro; no profit is made from this work.
Prompt: #2, "unnatural thirst"
The last Vehicon - the last drone, poor witless things - had barely begun to crumple towards the battered deckplates before Mirage, like the wraith he was named for, moved to ghost with silent steps to meet his victim once again.
It had been hard, once; was still hard, if he allowed himself the luxury to pause, to remember
* ‘Not your fault you’re designed with finicky insides, Mirage ~’ *
* This’s something I want to do. We’re going to get out of this together and I need you to do this to help yourself. For me, then -‘ *
Hound knew the way. He always knew the way, whether plucking out the faint trail of their lost ones across the stars or the simplest path to dealing with Mirage’s highly, too highly, refined internals in the face of desperation and lack.
… But Hound was gone. He was gone, and Mirage had nothing but the shadow of a scream, the tang of scorched plating, to try to search by, and he was undone.
Undone, until he had steeled himself to hunt the hunters.
It was only fair to steal from their wasted lives everything that they had taken from their own victims …
One more gliding step, another, a wraith in colourless blue, slim as ribbons; now he stood over the crumpled drones as the last life flickered and died in what passed for their eyes.
The slim barrels of his rifles retracted into their sheathing, unseen within his forearms, and in their place slid a single razor sharp as spite. Sinking gracefully to his heels, Mirage traced out fuel conduits and made his choice.
Hound would want it to be so.
Title: Palimpsest
Continuity: G1 (undefined), Shattered Glass
Characters: Optimus Prime
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Transformers belongs to Hasbro; no profit is made from this work.
Prompt: #3, "reflection"
A crack in time, some bleed between the worlds;
A split in his mind, some leaching of sense and sanity;
Whatever the truth of it, it could not change the horror of what he saw
an existence turned upside down
a world burnt black and empty
himself, violet as some organic bruise, bone-deep,
enthroned above hell itself
as he called for death and laughed and laughed
It must not be. It could not be - unless it were some warning, some premonition -
Prime drew the shining brightness of the Matrix from within, saw his own self reflected in the glittering orb, and knew the end for what it was.
It was time.
Title: Cover Thee In Mourning
Continuity: G1 (undefined)
Characters: Sideswipe
Content Advice: Reference to death.
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Transformers belongs to Hasbro; no profit is made from this work.
Prompt: #4, "ritual"
It always began the same; the world filtered in, time to drag chassis off the slab, torment your glowering counterpart, dark and gold, prance gleefully out of reach of his inevitable swing before reporting in for whatever creative carnage was due for the day, cause said carnage, unwind, downcycle.
Do it all over again the next day, with interest. Rinse, repeat.
Except
Except …
Except the rhythm was broken, the chain was snapped, and Sideswipe knew - he knew -- it would never be back again.
The way Sunstreaker would never be back again.
Slowly, painstakingly slowly, Sideswipe scraped the razor strigil across his trembling plating. Every last trace of crimson, he’d strip away. Delicately, carefully, every last movement as measured as one of those inane ceremonies barely half-remembered.
He needed to get this right before he splashed his savaged self black as night forever.
It needed to be perfect, as what was lost had been perfect …
Title: Shattered
Continuity: G1 (undefined)
Characters: Ricochet, Jazz
Content Advice: References to death, violence.
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Transformers belongs to Hasbro; no profit is made from this work.
Prompt: #5, "a scary place in space"
“Remind me why we’re here again?”
“Because if we don’t retrieve the calibration codes Prowl is going to lock us in a small hole forever?”
“Very funny. Reassuring, even. Got any better ones -“
Any further biting wit on Ricochet’s part was promptly swallowed by the wave of dread that all but picked him up and shook him like a trapped turbofox as soon as he’d lifted his gaze to the glass. Beside him, Jazz vented air in one long, pained exhalation of stunned disbelief.
Beyond the all-too-fragile enclosure of the shuttle lay an abattoir.
Something had torn the skirmish-ships - Autobot and Decepticon alike - to flinders, their contents and their crews scattered, shattered and lifeless; the dusting of random ribbons of broken planetoid, drifting idly through a suspended storm of twisted metal and frozen rose-scarlet droplets, was a final, surreal touch.
Jazz exhaled again, visor pale and lightless.
“If that’s where we gotta go …”
Gaze still locked on the grisly vista, Ricochet barely grated out the words.
“If that’s where we’re headed, it’s not codes we’re bringing back.
“I see Bluestreak’s colours out there.”
Title: The Lost
Continuity: IDW
Characters: Dai Atlas, Star Saber
Content Advice: References to death.
Rating: T
Disclaimer: Transformers belongs to Hasbro; no profit is made from this work.
Prompt: #6, "skeletons"
All thought was banished in a burst of agony cold as fire, all response choked off in one single savage plunge towards his very core; and Dai Atlas could do nothing, say nothing, as his assailant prepared to end his life.
The memories, soft-edged and already fading, flickered one last time to the forefront of his mind as they always did:
* the fallen, all those fallen, in the war to end all wars, blackened and stripped to nothing; never again *
He felt - felt! - Star Saber’s clutching claws punch through the last resistant shreds of his frame:
* Wing lying crumpled at the reaver’s feet, sacrificed to his own stubborn pride *
His limbs began to fail him, great soul’s blade guttering, falling from insensate hands:
* his followers - his kin - rendered to struts and then to slag before his eyes in numbers uncounted *
… So many, there had been so very many.
He never heard Saber’s last vicious hiss as the dark closed in one final time; he was too grateful for being released from his memories at last.
Title: Cleansing
Continuity: IDW
Character: Prowl
Content Advice: Reference to abuse, emotional turmoil.
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Transformers belongs to Hasbro; no profit is made from this work.
Prompt: #7, "lay my ghosts to rest"
It began slowly, a small thing that nonetheless burned incessantly (like rust, or a fracture in enamel); and so Prowl ignored it as he, with all the others, marched on leaden feet beyond the city walls. It was a selfish thought, after all, and after all that had happened (all that he had allowed to happen) ‘selfish’ was not an option.
Ignoring that small thought only fed it.
Watching, helpless, as the battered convoy picked their way through the wild-lands fed it further. Stubbornness turned it into a predator, stalking his dreams when he snatched moments to downcycle until it bid fair to eat him alive …
… So be it.
With his expression an impassive mask (never let them see your pain), it had been simple to slip from the Constructicons (his tormentors, violators) the knowledge that even his prior physical configuration was unretrievable. (no going back, even physically)
Perfect memory, perfect recitation; designed with the first, hard-practiced the second. All that he knew, all the plans, all the webs; all were recorded, downloaded from crystal clear memory (why did no one see what they made me become), left for a reluctant leader in tarnished yellow.
One the slugs were scanned, Bee would know it all.
Every decision, however cold. Every sacrifice, however pained. All of it. Every last fork in the path of expediency, made for the purpose of sparing others the choice (take this weight from me); every rationalization, every gambit.
Ironhide questioned the recordings, canny old campaigner. He passed it off as strategic documentation. (not even a lie)
When night fell again, he strode eyes wide open into the wild and did not look back.
Title: Parting The Veil
Continuity: G1 (undefined)
Characters: Beachcomber
Rating: G
Disclaimer: Transformers belongs to Hasbro; no profit is made from this work.
Prompt: #8
There wasn’t much left, whatever it was.
Two gnarled claws puncturing the barren alloy of Luna 2’s dead skin - whether sheared from some unknown goliath attempting to burrow beneath, or punching upwards from some chthonic labyrinth, none could decide.
Seated silent, statue-still, between the jagged remnants, Beachcomber was inclined towards the second of the two.
Stilled to near-oblivion, barely cycling, he could feel the whisper of the frozen goliath’s ghostly mind like a fluttering shade still clinging to some shred of shadowy existence - could almost see the shiver of spark-stuff still drifting in the moon’s whisper of air.
Just a little closer - just a little - and he could touch -
Title: Retreat
Continuity: IDW (of a sort)
Characters: Ratchet, Drift
Content Advice: Confinement, hallucination.
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Transformers belongs to Hasbro; no profit is made from this work.
Prompt: #9, "a haunted mind"
run run run don’t stop don’t look don’t
they were right at his heels shrieking gnashing
clashing jaws claws to tend and tear
there was no escape
the light blinded the dark concealed them
judgement in their teeth
run run forever
don’t stop don’t look back --
-*-
Ratchet’s mouth tightened as he stared down at the pale frame clamped, for his own safety, against the sterile solidity of the medslab.
Though he seemed motionless, Drift strained against the clamps - the monitors confirmed it - though he stared out at nothing, made no sound, acknowledged no one.
Where he was, what he saw; that, Ratchet had no answer for.