Spooky Spam weekend, part the second ~ Prompts 10-15
Title: Unraveling Skein
Continuity: G1 (undefined)
Character: Smokescreen
Rating: G
Disclaimer: Transformers belongs to Hasbro; no profit is made from this work.
Prompt: #10, Golden Earring, 'Twilight Zone'
how can it be ending when I can’t find the beginning
how can I see this through
Cold, in the small grey room - a cell by any other name - that was his entire world now. Cold, and featureless, and sterile, save for having been lined with a score and more of flickering flashing screens, a hundred panels of burning code.
At the centre, pinpointed, spotlighted, Smokescreen huddled like a lost thing, doors pinioned like a dying moth, eyes blankly riveted towards the screens and what they held.
Caught; he was caught and trapped in his own web, stripped bare of every deception, every last gilded lie. And he could hear, could hear the slow implacable tread of Magnus’ approach, the lighter pacing of Nightbeat’s gliding amble, as they came to winkle him from his shell …
Helpless, he was helpless.
I did what I had to do
he forgave me in the end - they all forgave me
have mercy
I don’t have your strength
Title: Frozen
Continuity: Dreamwave
Character: Prowl
Content Advice: Emotional turmoil.
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Transformers belongs to Hasbro; no profit is made from this work.
Prompt: #11, "mask"
For the briefest of times there had been hope.
But now - now, with alliances falling to a thousand thousand shards, after those dark days of factions and feudalism that savaged Cybertron’s remains to shreds - that hope was fleeting, was a lie.
A study in monochrome was Prowl, stark black on white, scored grey and scarred from the claws of unholy drones, from shrapnel and flame; and all he could see was the world falling to madness all around him.
Memory, unbidded: the azure of uncounted crystals chiming, shattered to dust and ashes. Art, harmony, pattern, lost forever, all of Praxus lost forever. The pain that bit and festered, a blade to the very core - biting deeper still as the very Prime chose to throw away all that they were -
And now, now this madness.
Despair chewed at the fragile suspension of his mind like acid, called him to the edge of that black abyss; it hurt so much, to lose so much …
Pain, even that pain, was luxury he could no longer afford to indulge.
Sharp as ice, cold as the void, Prowl locked the agony down deep and burned the bridges down behind him.
There was no more time for this.
’It’s what inside that counts‘ -
- and what lay inside was broken and bleeding.
They needed one who led, not one who shattered.
Let him bleed down deep inside where none could see.
Title: Swansong
Continuity: G1 (undefined)
Character: Ricochet
Content Advice: References to death and impending death.
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Transformers belongs to Hasbro; no profit is made from this work.
Prompt: #12, "memento mori"
Shattered field of fire and flame all around
Turning gold to molten copper, stark black to rusting sable
And all he could see was the small shattered body sprawled in his hands
Like a discarded poppet splashed in rose and sticky crimson.
His head swam with the agony of phantom pain - a broken bond, severed forever - and even as his systems fought in vain to stem the agony he felt the first wave of shivering weakness all but crush him to his knees.
A fool’s gambit
Should never have permitted
This fragile life bonded and bound to feed his own swiftly fading flame
Where was the justice in that?
And now that fleeting life was nothing but flesh, inert; and already through the pain he knew that flame would soon gutter low and feeble, slip slowly away.
Behind the visor’s blank wedge his eyes blazed like hellfires; white rage coursed through him, a false, final strength, and he drew his neglected rifle to his hand.
He’d bring an honour guard of murderers to the Pit with them.
Title: White Lightning
Continuity: G1 (undefined)
Characters: Skyfire, Dirge, Skids (mention)
Content Advice: Violence.
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Transformers belongs to Hasbro; no profit is made from this work.
Prompt: #13, "trope: rage breaking point"
Their first mistake was grounding him.
Oh, he bled and suffered, wings shattered and splintered. But Skyfire was used to being ground-bound; it happened so often.
Their second mistake was assuming he was helpless.
Rather he gathered his strength, held still and quiet amongst the splintered trees he’d plowed through, and concentrated on watching Soundwave hold his petty court, clipped orders barked at Skywarp and Dirge.
Their final mistake was savaging Skids in his very face, howling with glee as the gentle theorist crumpled in an instant.
Skyfire charged like an onrushing avalanche, cold-burning implacability alight in his pale eyes.
The hapless Dirge was first, torn limb from limb by hands enough to engulf half his torso -
Title: Líbera me
Continuity: Shattered Glass, G1 (undefined)
Characters: Starscream
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Transformers belongs to Hasbro; no profit is made from this work.
Prompt: #14, "scenario: possession by a malignant force or personality"
Get away from me -!
It was back again, that cloying clawing thing that he could feel, just feel attempting to worm past his defenses, find a crack to poison its way into his very ember -
He’d tried to hide his distress as the days ticked by, tried to bury it under research and honest work even as he all but became a living ghost in ruby-trimmed white within their hidden stronghold. But Megatron was as observant as he was concerned; and in the end he’d reluctantly explained.
The effort had brought sympathy, but no answers. And the thing returned, again and again.
Whatever you may be -
: But I am you. :
Cold, sibilant, calculating, cruel; but his voice, nonetheless, sliding into his mind like an oil slick.
Shuddering, Starscream wobbled to a halt, leaned heavily against the war-room’s broad table, drew air into his intakes … Glanced upward, wearily, and saw reflected in the great monitor’s dead glass his own haggard frame - and a spectre of death-grey and rusted crimson, eyes two carbuncles of cunning avarice.
Storm blue forearms draped weightless around his snow-pale neck as he stood frozen; then one phantom hand lifted, pressed against his head, traced the ridge of one pale cheek.
The voice purred.
: And now I have you. :
Title: Stained
Continuity: G1 (undefined)
Character: Springer
Content Advice: Death, violence, mercy killing.
Rating: T
Disclaimer: Transformers belongs to Hasbro; no profit is made from this work.
Prompt: #15, "alone at last"
The final thin-voiced wail faded and died, unseen and unlamented; and with the last tortured note fallen silent, Springer allowed himself one single agonizing cry as he crumpled against the rough and unforgiving wall.
Who would have thought it would have come to this?
But here he was, surrounded by the dead - dead by his own hands - and whimpering with broken guilt into the silence.
There was no one left but him.
His cellmates -- noncombatants, all - were dragged away one by one to scream unseen beyond the rough-hewn cell, or left battered and dying by inches at the hands of their mad jailer. Glimpses of the damned cyclops and his nightmare horde every time the door dragged open were maddening; seeing that same horde’s number increase slowly but surely all the moreso.
They had begged him to kill them. Even chipped and drugged and tethered like an animal, he was more than strong enough to quickly crush the life from one not bred and remade for warfare …
First he had refused.
Then he refused to hear their cries.
Then - in the end, desperate to end their terror and their pain - he struck, swiftly and without warning.
But it was over now. He was the last.
Last, and damned forever.
Continuity: G1 (undefined)
Character: Smokescreen
Rating: G
Disclaimer: Transformers belongs to Hasbro; no profit is made from this work.
Prompt: #10, Golden Earring, 'Twilight Zone'
how can it be ending when I can’t find the beginning
how can I see this through
Cold, in the small grey room - a cell by any other name - that was his entire world now. Cold, and featureless, and sterile, save for having been lined with a score and more of flickering flashing screens, a hundred panels of burning code.
At the centre, pinpointed, spotlighted, Smokescreen huddled like a lost thing, doors pinioned like a dying moth, eyes blankly riveted towards the screens and what they held.
Caught; he was caught and trapped in his own web, stripped bare of every deception, every last gilded lie. And he could hear, could hear the slow implacable tread of Magnus’ approach, the lighter pacing of Nightbeat’s gliding amble, as they came to winkle him from his shell …
Helpless, he was helpless.
I did what I had to do
he forgave me in the end - they all forgave me
have mercy
I don’t have your strength
Title: Frozen
Continuity: Dreamwave
Character: Prowl
Content Advice: Emotional turmoil.
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Transformers belongs to Hasbro; no profit is made from this work.
Prompt: #11, "mask"
For the briefest of times there had been hope.
But now - now, with alliances falling to a thousand thousand shards, after those dark days of factions and feudalism that savaged Cybertron’s remains to shreds - that hope was fleeting, was a lie.
A study in monochrome was Prowl, stark black on white, scored grey and scarred from the claws of unholy drones, from shrapnel and flame; and all he could see was the world falling to madness all around him.
Memory, unbidded: the azure of uncounted crystals chiming, shattered to dust and ashes. Art, harmony, pattern, lost forever, all of Praxus lost forever. The pain that bit and festered, a blade to the very core - biting deeper still as the very Prime chose to throw away all that they were -
And now, now this madness.
Despair chewed at the fragile suspension of his mind like acid, called him to the edge of that black abyss; it hurt so much, to lose so much …
Pain, even that pain, was luxury he could no longer afford to indulge.
Sharp as ice, cold as the void, Prowl locked the agony down deep and burned the bridges down behind him.
There was no more time for this.
’It’s what inside that counts‘ -
- and what lay inside was broken and bleeding.
They needed one who led, not one who shattered.
Let him bleed down deep inside where none could see.
Title: Swansong
Continuity: G1 (undefined)
Character: Ricochet
Content Advice: References to death and impending death.
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Transformers belongs to Hasbro; no profit is made from this work.
Prompt: #12, "memento mori"
Shattered field of fire and flame all around
Turning gold to molten copper, stark black to rusting sable
And all he could see was the small shattered body sprawled in his hands
Like a discarded poppet splashed in rose and sticky crimson.
His head swam with the agony of phantom pain - a broken bond, severed forever - and even as his systems fought in vain to stem the agony he felt the first wave of shivering weakness all but crush him to his knees.
A fool’s gambit
Should never have permitted
This fragile life bonded and bound to feed his own swiftly fading flame
Where was the justice in that?
And now that fleeting life was nothing but flesh, inert; and already through the pain he knew that flame would soon gutter low and feeble, slip slowly away.
Behind the visor’s blank wedge his eyes blazed like hellfires; white rage coursed through him, a false, final strength, and he drew his neglected rifle to his hand.
He’d bring an honour guard of murderers to the Pit with them.
Title: White Lightning
Continuity: G1 (undefined)
Characters: Skyfire, Dirge, Skids (mention)
Content Advice: Violence.
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Transformers belongs to Hasbro; no profit is made from this work.
Prompt: #13, "trope: rage breaking point"
Their first mistake was grounding him.
Oh, he bled and suffered, wings shattered and splintered. But Skyfire was used to being ground-bound; it happened so often.
Their second mistake was assuming he was helpless.
Rather he gathered his strength, held still and quiet amongst the splintered trees he’d plowed through, and concentrated on watching Soundwave hold his petty court, clipped orders barked at Skywarp and Dirge.
Their final mistake was savaging Skids in his very face, howling with glee as the gentle theorist crumpled in an instant.
Skyfire charged like an onrushing avalanche, cold-burning implacability alight in his pale eyes.
The hapless Dirge was first, torn limb from limb by hands enough to engulf half his torso -
Title: Líbera me
Continuity: Shattered Glass, G1 (undefined)
Characters: Starscream
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Transformers belongs to Hasbro; no profit is made from this work.
Prompt: #14, "scenario: possession by a malignant force or personality"
Get away from me -!
It was back again, that cloying clawing thing that he could feel, just feel attempting to worm past his defenses, find a crack to poison its way into his very ember -
He’d tried to hide his distress as the days ticked by, tried to bury it under research and honest work even as he all but became a living ghost in ruby-trimmed white within their hidden stronghold. But Megatron was as observant as he was concerned; and in the end he’d reluctantly explained.
The effort had brought sympathy, but no answers. And the thing returned, again and again.
Whatever you may be -
: But I am you. :
Cold, sibilant, calculating, cruel; but his voice, nonetheless, sliding into his mind like an oil slick.
Shuddering, Starscream wobbled to a halt, leaned heavily against the war-room’s broad table, drew air into his intakes … Glanced upward, wearily, and saw reflected in the great monitor’s dead glass his own haggard frame - and a spectre of death-grey and rusted crimson, eyes two carbuncles of cunning avarice.
Storm blue forearms draped weightless around his snow-pale neck as he stood frozen; then one phantom hand lifted, pressed against his head, traced the ridge of one pale cheek.
The voice purred.
: And now I have you. :
Title: Stained
Continuity: G1 (undefined)
Character: Springer
Content Advice: Death, violence, mercy killing.
Rating: T
Disclaimer: Transformers belongs to Hasbro; no profit is made from this work.
Prompt: #15, "alone at last"
The final thin-voiced wail faded and died, unseen and unlamented; and with the last tortured note fallen silent, Springer allowed himself one single agonizing cry as he crumpled against the rough and unforgiving wall.
Who would have thought it would have come to this?
But here he was, surrounded by the dead - dead by his own hands - and whimpering with broken guilt into the silence.
There was no one left but him.
His cellmates -- noncombatants, all - were dragged away one by one to scream unseen beyond the rough-hewn cell, or left battered and dying by inches at the hands of their mad jailer. Glimpses of the damned cyclops and his nightmare horde every time the door dragged open were maddening; seeing that same horde’s number increase slowly but surely all the moreso.
They had begged him to kill them. Even chipped and drugged and tethered like an animal, he was more than strong enough to quickly crush the life from one not bred and remade for warfare …
First he had refused.
Then he refused to hear their cries.
Then - in the end, desperate to end their terror and their pain - he struck, swiftly and without warning.
But it was over now. He was the last.
Last, and damned forever.