An Unsent Message - Kindred Oneshot
Disclaimer: do not own Transformers.
Summary: MovieAU, Sam and Mikaela-centric. Up until that point, they had been like cats playing with a caught mouse. But he should have known better than to threaten what they still cared about.
Rating/warning: T, violence, execution, character death
Author note: I’m debating whether or not this series is going to be perfectly in continuity with the “Masterpiece” ficlets, since, alas, ROTF has brought on a new onslaught of bunnies, but I think this by itself can be read as a stand-alone. Also, I am currently gushing over Sam and Mikaela in ROTF. Thus, this ficbit.
Acknowledgements: Is a slightly modified version of Epona Harper/drharper’s bunny, original number two of here. Thanks, Epona!
Theme: #18 - the wrong words, from 30_hugs .
Kindred
An Unsent Message
There used to be a human city here. There was a park in that city-peaceful and quaint, like the city itself and like the majority of its people. In that park there was an intricate water fountain, with a statue of a young woman surrounded by water, holding a jug from which the water poured. There were three little statue fish that crowded around her adoringly.
But then the Decepticons came, and the Autobots came after them.
And, as one human saying went, shit happened.
There wasn’t much left of the city. There were just skeletons of the living and working abodes of a barely sentient and uncivilized race. Weeds had gone amok, taking this chance to finally choke out all the weakling flowers-the favourite children-that had been protected until that point. The park was a shadow of its former self.
But-and this sight made some passing humans tearful, and some other humans smile, in that way that useless, sentimental things tend to do-the fountain was still there. There was still the young woman, smiling gently to the fish. She still smiled though the water ran in a thin, faintly glowing stream, because in a bid to harvest more energy, the Decepticons had attempted to turn Earth’s water supply into energon.
However, it didn’t quite work. The strange liquid was barely palatable and couldn’t support the more flexible needs of a fully upgraded mech let alone the more demanding needs of a newly-sparked cassette.
On the other hand, humans couldn’t drink it, either. It burned them on the inside, ate through their disgusting flesh, which made for very amusing entertainment when some humans, driven to desperation, chugged it down.
And so many others had terminated due to thirst.
So it was with a pleasant surprise that Frenzy saw one of Megatron’s coveted prizes near that dinghy water dispenser in that abandoned human city.
He and Barricade had been sent on patrol. It was boring, useless work - nothing happened here, and should he come across a little, lost human stray, he knew exactly what to do with it. So, with much cajoling, he had managed to talk Barricade into splitting up so they could get the report done more quickly.
“I won’t tell if you won’t,” he had promised.
Barricade, he sent as he watched the thing from behind the rubble. He saw that it was the human male - Megatron’s initial target. He approached the water fountain, not even paying attention to his surroundings. Must be one of those humans who finally cracked and decided to drink poison. You’ll never believe what I found.
What? Barricade radioed back irritably.
Let’s just say that Lord Megatron will be most pleased.
There was a pause, and then Barricade answered curtly, On my way.
Frenzy grinned. He supposed that he should stop the human, but on the other hand, the thing wouldn’t die immediately if he just took a small sip. He’d just be in a lot of pain, which would make for a more amusing capture.
So Frenzy watched in anticipation as the human dipped one small, trembling hand into the not-water, drew out a small handful, and then tipped it down his throat.
But then…nothing.
Frenzy was a bit surprised and disappointed. The human even took another handful. He even licked his lips.
And Frenzy looked on, baffled.
Then he started moving away.
Frenzy felt both surprised and annoyed, but, unwilling to lose his prize, he followed.
The human made his way through a maze of crumbled bricks and twisted metal, and bodies lay here and there. The organic ones were in varying degrees of decay - Fragger, Frenzy thought. Even the way they terminate is gross - and the inorganic ones were slowly being harvested for parts and wires by the little retro-rats that had stolen away on the Cybertronian ships.
Frenzy followed the human easily, who seemed to be somewhat aware that something was following him. He would pause, and then turn around with a frown on his face, and then he’d turn back to his trek and just walk a wee bit faster.
And then Frenzy would grin, and follow again.
But if he had bothered to turn on his sensors, he would have realized that the human’s heartbeat was steady.
He followed the human to a small, abandoned building. He went in first, and Frenzy turned on his scanners to find out where he went.
The top floor.
And-it seemed as though luck was smiling and giving him energon goodies, today-it looked like the other human was there, too.
He climbed on the wall, his spindly little fingers finding crevices in the barely-standing building. He scaled the wall, and reached his hand through the window-
And was suddenly yanked through.
He was thrown against the wall, and then something heavy fell on top of him, pinning him. His arms were held against the ground, and something was digging into his back, and his sensors scrambled, trying to make sense of what had happened.
He was stronger, and faster, and yet-
“Why, hello there,” a pleasant voice said. He looked up-he hated looking up. “Fancy meeting you again. It’s been such a long time.”
One of Lord Megatron’s would-be prizes looked down at him, grinning. He craned his neck, and he could see that the other one was the one holding him down.
He felt relieved. For a moment there, he thought there was a threat.
But might as well be safe than sorry.
Barricade, he radioed. A little trouble, here.
He waited for Barricade’s exasperated curse, but Barricade did not answer.
Could they have…?
No. It was not possible. Humans did not have that capacity.
But still, they were smiling.
“Long time, no see,” said the other human. “I thought it was you at the water fountain.”
“You saw me?” Frenzy demanded. It was impossible - the human capacity for observation was laughable. He didn’t even need to try, when they had first arrived on Earth.
The two kind of laughed, as though sharing a private joke. Frenzy attempted to get free-to break out of the human’s grasp and then deactivate them in a very messy way.
He’d have to apologize to Megatron later.
But…the human’s grip held.
What was going on here? Out of the corner of his viewing screens, he saw that there were markings, eerily familiar markings, in the humans’ flesh.
The human in front of him bent down. “You know, usually we have something good lined up for someone like you,” she said.
The other human’s knee dug into his back. “But your lucky day today,” he said. “We have other things to do.”
“So we’ll let you go,” she said, grinning. “But only if you do something for us.”
“What?” Frenzy spat out, both in incredulity and indignation.
But she took it as acquiescence. “It’s simple. Just take this message to Megatron,” she said, and she gave him an almost gentle smile, and the tone in her voice was pleasant and pacifying, almost as if she were a schoolteacher gently lecturing a misbehaving child. “It’s never a good idea to put someone in a position where they have nothing left to lose.” She gave a small pout, and shook her head slightly from side to side. “You see, there's a certain agonizing freedom and power that comes from that. We may be weak, puny organics, but…We swear by all that you took from us that we will destroy you.”
Frenzy just looked at them, and then gave a garbled laugh. “Filthy fleshbags,” he spat. “You overestimate your strength. At the end of the day, you insects can’t stand against us. Just trotting after the Autobots like cute little drones. You won’t be so high on yourselves when Lord Megatron catches up with you.” And now it was his turn to smile, showing off all his horrible teeth stained with his energon - the disgusting maggots had made him bleed. “You think you’ve got it bad, now?” he asked them mockingly. “You have no idea what fun he’s going to have with you. You’re going to be in cages and chains for the rest of your pathetic, miserable lives. You’re going to be his quaint little pets, and I’ll be there to watch you break. And besides,” he added. “You two are going to be easy to train. Your puny little minds have forgotten something - Lord Megatron still has one more thing to take. After all, you still have each other.”
Frenzy felt a sense of satisfaction as he felt a tremble in the hands that detained him, and as he watched the other’s smile drop suddenly. He saw them look at one another, perhaps in horror, perhaps in fear.
He tensed. He was going to take this chance. They were caught off-guard, and Barricade was coming. He jerked out of the human’s grasp-
But then the human’s hands came down on him, clutched at him painfully, and the human’s knee dug in deeper into his back, and then he couldn’t get free. He couldn’t get free. Fingers and nails were suddenly digging through his metal and under his wires, human flesh burning into him, white-hot and just burning, and they shouldn’t have been like that. Human flesh and human nails and human everything was weak and couldn’t hold him, but still there was burning, like fire and lava-and he could barely make out, from the periphery of his visual sensors, how the formerly dark markings on the fleshlings now glinted bright and whatever ink made the marks seemed to flow in the lettering like the molten core of Cybertron. The humans said something to one another, and then one human disappeared from his viewing screens as the other human bent down, right next to his audio processors, and whispered: “Thanks for the reminder.”
She came back, dragging something heavy with her, and then went to the ground so that she and him were seeing eye to optic, and she put her hands on either side of his face and held him there, though he tried in vain to jerk out of her grasp, and he had no choice but to look at her, and he saw the smile come back again, only a full-out grin this time, and wider, and downright acidic, all her teeth bared as she gave a harsh laugh, like he’d just told her a funny joke…And then she kissed him, lightly, across his left optic, and then she was back on her feet and suddenly she was towering over him, something silver and heavy in her hands…
And then they dug his face into the dirt, and then a blinding pain, and then…
Nothing.
X x X
One of the good things about being invaded by a race of giant technologically advanced robots was that everyone was trying to go up on the weapons scale. Make everything faster, better, stronger, because tanks and missiles are to these things as rock is to a trained armada outfitted with lasers.
This was good because, it meant that, should one have the feeling of having a quick foray into the nearest abandoned town, that a lot of interesting weaponry is there for one to pick up, seeing that its owner took one look at it, one look at the laser, and one look at the robot, and grabbed the laser.
But, you see, sometimes rock beats laser. And, often, hatchet beats the neck of the technologically advanced thingamabob trying to kill you.
The blade on the hatchet was dulled with constant use and abuse, and she had yet to find the time or the means to sharpen it properly. This meant that he had to hold the cassette’s squealing face down in the dirt as she swung the hatchet up, and let go quickly as she swung down, again and again, working with the dull blade and tearing through the alien metal and then going through the wires. Processed energon splattered everywhere-on their clothes and on their faces, in their eyes and on their lips. The cassette screamed, his free arm scrambled up, and he dug his talons into her beloved’s arm as he still held on, and eventually the cassette’s grip loosened, though he still twitched.
Then she stepped on its head, digging it into the ground, as he yanked the body away, the action severing the last remaining wires. Then she let the hatchet clatter to the floor, and took the dismembered head-they remembered the last time-and before it could start sprouting little legs she yanked out all the wires and gears and chips on the inside, letting them all fall to the floor.
He rose to his feet as she dropped the dead thing.
Both of them were still, just for a moment.
Then they both chuckled.
“You know,” he said, approaching her. “I think we just killed our messenger.”
She smiled. “Plenty more where he came from, I assure you.”
They looked at the talon marks at his arms, cutting through the Allspark marks. He was bleeding, red blood mixing in with the bright green energon. He put his hand over the scratches, and then squeezed.
When he removed his hand, the talon marks were gone, and the flesh and Allspark writings were once again whole.
He then looked at the processed energon that splattered onto his fingers for a moment, thinking, and then made a move as if to lick them. She stopped him, and brushed his thumb against her lips, and then licked the energon smudge left behind.
She wrapped her arms around his neck as he put his hands around her waist, pulling her closer to himself. They held still-just for one moment, one precious moment-their foreheads meeting, and they smiled gently to one another as the blood of the cassette slowly pooled around their feet.
Summary: MovieAU, Sam and Mikaela-centric. Up until that point, they had been like cats playing with a caught mouse. But he should have known better than to threaten what they still cared about.
Rating/warning: T, violence, execution, character death
Author note: I’m debating whether or not this series is going to be perfectly in continuity with the “Masterpiece” ficlets, since, alas, ROTF has brought on a new onslaught of bunnies, but I think this by itself can be read as a stand-alone. Also, I am currently gushing over Sam and Mikaela in ROTF. Thus, this ficbit.
Acknowledgements: Is a slightly modified version of Epona Harper/drharper’s bunny, original number two of here. Thanks, Epona!
Theme: #18 - the wrong words, from 30_hugs .
Kindred
An Unsent Message
There used to be a human city here. There was a park in that city-peaceful and quaint, like the city itself and like the majority of its people. In that park there was an intricate water fountain, with a statue of a young woman surrounded by water, holding a jug from which the water poured. There were three little statue fish that crowded around her adoringly.
But then the Decepticons came, and the Autobots came after them.
And, as one human saying went, shit happened.
There wasn’t much left of the city. There were just skeletons of the living and working abodes of a barely sentient and uncivilized race. Weeds had gone amok, taking this chance to finally choke out all the weakling flowers-the favourite children-that had been protected until that point. The park was a shadow of its former self.
But-and this sight made some passing humans tearful, and some other humans smile, in that way that useless, sentimental things tend to do-the fountain was still there. There was still the young woman, smiling gently to the fish. She still smiled though the water ran in a thin, faintly glowing stream, because in a bid to harvest more energy, the Decepticons had attempted to turn Earth’s water supply into energon.
However, it didn’t quite work. The strange liquid was barely palatable and couldn’t support the more flexible needs of a fully upgraded mech let alone the more demanding needs of a newly-sparked cassette.
On the other hand, humans couldn’t drink it, either. It burned them on the inside, ate through their disgusting flesh, which made for very amusing entertainment when some humans, driven to desperation, chugged it down.
And so many others had terminated due to thirst.
So it was with a pleasant surprise that Frenzy saw one of Megatron’s coveted prizes near that dinghy water dispenser in that abandoned human city.
He and Barricade had been sent on patrol. It was boring, useless work - nothing happened here, and should he come across a little, lost human stray, he knew exactly what to do with it. So, with much cajoling, he had managed to talk Barricade into splitting up so they could get the report done more quickly.
“I won’t tell if you won’t,” he had promised.
Barricade, he sent as he watched the thing from behind the rubble. He saw that it was the human male - Megatron’s initial target. He approached the water fountain, not even paying attention to his surroundings. Must be one of those humans who finally cracked and decided to drink poison. You’ll never believe what I found.
What? Barricade radioed back irritably.
Let’s just say that Lord Megatron will be most pleased.
There was a pause, and then Barricade answered curtly, On my way.
Frenzy grinned. He supposed that he should stop the human, but on the other hand, the thing wouldn’t die immediately if he just took a small sip. He’d just be in a lot of pain, which would make for a more amusing capture.
So Frenzy watched in anticipation as the human dipped one small, trembling hand into the not-water, drew out a small handful, and then tipped it down his throat.
But then…nothing.
Frenzy was a bit surprised and disappointed. The human even took another handful. He even licked his lips.
And Frenzy looked on, baffled.
Then he started moving away.
Frenzy felt both surprised and annoyed, but, unwilling to lose his prize, he followed.
The human made his way through a maze of crumbled bricks and twisted metal, and bodies lay here and there. The organic ones were in varying degrees of decay - Fragger, Frenzy thought. Even the way they terminate is gross - and the inorganic ones were slowly being harvested for parts and wires by the little retro-rats that had stolen away on the Cybertronian ships.
Frenzy followed the human easily, who seemed to be somewhat aware that something was following him. He would pause, and then turn around with a frown on his face, and then he’d turn back to his trek and just walk a wee bit faster.
And then Frenzy would grin, and follow again.
But if he had bothered to turn on his sensors, he would have realized that the human’s heartbeat was steady.
He followed the human to a small, abandoned building. He went in first, and Frenzy turned on his scanners to find out where he went.
The top floor.
And-it seemed as though luck was smiling and giving him energon goodies, today-it looked like the other human was there, too.
He climbed on the wall, his spindly little fingers finding crevices in the barely-standing building. He scaled the wall, and reached his hand through the window-
And was suddenly yanked through.
He was thrown against the wall, and then something heavy fell on top of him, pinning him. His arms were held against the ground, and something was digging into his back, and his sensors scrambled, trying to make sense of what had happened.
He was stronger, and faster, and yet-
“Why, hello there,” a pleasant voice said. He looked up-he hated looking up. “Fancy meeting you again. It’s been such a long time.”
One of Lord Megatron’s would-be prizes looked down at him, grinning. He craned his neck, and he could see that the other one was the one holding him down.
He felt relieved. For a moment there, he thought there was a threat.
But might as well be safe than sorry.
Barricade, he radioed. A little trouble, here.
He waited for Barricade’s exasperated curse, but Barricade did not answer.
Could they have…?
No. It was not possible. Humans did not have that capacity.
But still, they were smiling.
“Long time, no see,” said the other human. “I thought it was you at the water fountain.”
“You saw me?” Frenzy demanded. It was impossible - the human capacity for observation was laughable. He didn’t even need to try, when they had first arrived on Earth.
The two kind of laughed, as though sharing a private joke. Frenzy attempted to get free-to break out of the human’s grasp and then deactivate them in a very messy way.
He’d have to apologize to Megatron later.
But…the human’s grip held.
What was going on here? Out of the corner of his viewing screens, he saw that there were markings, eerily familiar markings, in the humans’ flesh.
The human in front of him bent down. “You know, usually we have something good lined up for someone like you,” she said.
The other human’s knee dug into his back. “But your lucky day today,” he said. “We have other things to do.”
“So we’ll let you go,” she said, grinning. “But only if you do something for us.”
“What?” Frenzy spat out, both in incredulity and indignation.
But she took it as acquiescence. “It’s simple. Just take this message to Megatron,” she said, and she gave him an almost gentle smile, and the tone in her voice was pleasant and pacifying, almost as if she were a schoolteacher gently lecturing a misbehaving child. “It’s never a good idea to put someone in a position where they have nothing left to lose.” She gave a small pout, and shook her head slightly from side to side. “You see, there's a certain agonizing freedom and power that comes from that. We may be weak, puny organics, but…We swear by all that you took from us that we will destroy you.”
Frenzy just looked at them, and then gave a garbled laugh. “Filthy fleshbags,” he spat. “You overestimate your strength. At the end of the day, you insects can’t stand against us. Just trotting after the Autobots like cute little drones. You won’t be so high on yourselves when Lord Megatron catches up with you.” And now it was his turn to smile, showing off all his horrible teeth stained with his energon - the disgusting maggots had made him bleed. “You think you’ve got it bad, now?” he asked them mockingly. “You have no idea what fun he’s going to have with you. You’re going to be in cages and chains for the rest of your pathetic, miserable lives. You’re going to be his quaint little pets, and I’ll be there to watch you break. And besides,” he added. “You two are going to be easy to train. Your puny little minds have forgotten something - Lord Megatron still has one more thing to take. After all, you still have each other.”
Frenzy felt a sense of satisfaction as he felt a tremble in the hands that detained him, and as he watched the other’s smile drop suddenly. He saw them look at one another, perhaps in horror, perhaps in fear.
He tensed. He was going to take this chance. They were caught off-guard, and Barricade was coming. He jerked out of the human’s grasp-
But then the human’s hands came down on him, clutched at him painfully, and the human’s knee dug in deeper into his back, and then he couldn’t get free. He couldn’t get free. Fingers and nails were suddenly digging through his metal and under his wires, human flesh burning into him, white-hot and just burning, and they shouldn’t have been like that. Human flesh and human nails and human everything was weak and couldn’t hold him, but still there was burning, like fire and lava-and he could barely make out, from the periphery of his visual sensors, how the formerly dark markings on the fleshlings now glinted bright and whatever ink made the marks seemed to flow in the lettering like the molten core of Cybertron. The humans said something to one another, and then one human disappeared from his viewing screens as the other human bent down, right next to his audio processors, and whispered: “Thanks for the reminder.”
She came back, dragging something heavy with her, and then went to the ground so that she and him were seeing eye to optic, and she put her hands on either side of his face and held him there, though he tried in vain to jerk out of her grasp, and he had no choice but to look at her, and he saw the smile come back again, only a full-out grin this time, and wider, and downright acidic, all her teeth bared as she gave a harsh laugh, like he’d just told her a funny joke…And then she kissed him, lightly, across his left optic, and then she was back on her feet and suddenly she was towering over him, something silver and heavy in her hands…
And then they dug his face into the dirt, and then a blinding pain, and then…
Nothing.
X x X
One of the good things about being invaded by a race of giant technologically advanced robots was that everyone was trying to go up on the weapons scale. Make everything faster, better, stronger, because tanks and missiles are to these things as rock is to a trained armada outfitted with lasers.
This was good because, it meant that, should one have the feeling of having a quick foray into the nearest abandoned town, that a lot of interesting weaponry is there for one to pick up, seeing that its owner took one look at it, one look at the laser, and one look at the robot, and grabbed the laser.
But, you see, sometimes rock beats laser. And, often, hatchet beats the neck of the technologically advanced thingamabob trying to kill you.
The blade on the hatchet was dulled with constant use and abuse, and she had yet to find the time or the means to sharpen it properly. This meant that he had to hold the cassette’s squealing face down in the dirt as she swung the hatchet up, and let go quickly as she swung down, again and again, working with the dull blade and tearing through the alien metal and then going through the wires. Processed energon splattered everywhere-on their clothes and on their faces, in their eyes and on their lips. The cassette screamed, his free arm scrambled up, and he dug his talons into her beloved’s arm as he still held on, and eventually the cassette’s grip loosened, though he still twitched.
Then she stepped on its head, digging it into the ground, as he yanked the body away, the action severing the last remaining wires. Then she let the hatchet clatter to the floor, and took the dismembered head-they remembered the last time-and before it could start sprouting little legs she yanked out all the wires and gears and chips on the inside, letting them all fall to the floor.
He rose to his feet as she dropped the dead thing.
Both of them were still, just for a moment.
Then they both chuckled.
“You know,” he said, approaching her. “I think we just killed our messenger.”
She smiled. “Plenty more where he came from, I assure you.”
They looked at the talon marks at his arms, cutting through the Allspark marks. He was bleeding, red blood mixing in with the bright green energon. He put his hand over the scratches, and then squeezed.
When he removed his hand, the talon marks were gone, and the flesh and Allspark writings were once again whole.
He then looked at the processed energon that splattered onto his fingers for a moment, thinking, and then made a move as if to lick them. She stopped him, and brushed his thumb against her lips, and then licked the energon smudge left behind.
She wrapped her arms around his neck as he put his hands around her waist, pulling her closer to himself. They held still-just for one moment, one precious moment-their foreheads meeting, and they smiled gently to one another as the blood of the cassette slowly pooled around their feet.