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ajremixSo I've been sitting on this for a long, long time. I mean like this was originally for the 100th chapter of What's Wrong with a Little Destruction long time ago. Which, if you looked through that meme I did near a month ago, you'd know that already so I'll go ahead and stop.
This was not an easy thing to write and, somehow, it's even harder to post. But, since interest was generated, up it goes. It's 50 pages all together and I'll be putting them up in 5 or so page increments for ease of reading, one chapter a day. Please enjoy and let me know what you think.
Title: No Survivors 1
Fandom: Transformers IDW
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2196
Characters: Wreckers
Summary: Character death. Death is not the greatest pain in life. The greatest pain belongs to those left alive.
Note: While this draws elements from my (sprawling) drabble series What’s Wrong with a Little Destruction?, it’s not necessary to read it to understand the fic, only to get the full effect. Special thanks to Vaeru, Cafei and Meallanmouse for being my betas
“Oh Primus no…”
“Sixshot-“
“Springer!”
Both teams raced forward, calling and praying and frantically hoping they’d get there in time. The bodies crashed hard, kicking up dirt that washed over the scrambling mechs. Sixshot twitched erratically for a moment before lying still, every light and hum fading out of him. Springer didn’t even move. As they neared their fallen leaders, weapons charged up and rifles swung about, sighting in on the enemy.
“Back the slag off!”
“Slag you, fragging glitch!”
“Step back or get your fragging head blown off!”
“Like to see you try with a hole in your-“
“THAT’S ENOUGH!” All optics zeroed on Roadbuster. His rifle clattered to the ground and he fell to his knees by the ruined body of his oldest and dearest friend. He gathered Springer into his arms and held him tight. “We’ve done enough.”
Around him weapons lowered and Hun-grrr said lowly, brokenly, “Terrorcons. Grab Sixshot. We’re leaving.”
The Wreckers stepped back, letting the Terrorcons pick up the giant frame of the once living weapon. They pulled Springer’s sword from Sixshot’s head and, with a moment’s hesitation, held it out. The Wreckers stood uncertainly, none of them willing to handle the weapon Springer loved more than any rifle. Slowly Whirl stepped forward, carefully taking the chipped and scarred blade in his hands with a nod. Then, without a word or look, the Decepticons marched off with Sixshot’s body high on their shoulders.
Roadbuster still clutched Springer, body shuddering, and what was left of the Wreckers were at a loss at what to do, what to say. Eventually Whirl opened a comm link to Xantium. “Get us out of here.”
~*~*~*~
Roadbuster had gone into Springer’s office to call Inferno and explain that they had to pull off from the planet temporarily.
“Things okay?” Inferno asked cautiously. He’d kept in touch of his old academy buddies off and on, but he hadn’t talked to the combat vehicle outside of missions as often as he’d liked. It didn’t take much intelligence to know something had happened.
And Roadbuster tried to tell him, felt he owed it that much to someone he and Springer had known for so long, but every time he tried the words kept getting caught. Because he desperately wanted to believe it wasn’t true.
“Inferno…” Springer is… Springer is… he’s… “Sixshot is dead,” he rasped. If he said the words it would make everything real and he just couldn’t deal with that right now.
Inferno’s optics went wide. “Sixshot? Seriously?”
He nodded. “Springer…” his vocalizer tripped over the name, “did it. He finally did it.”
The red mech’s mouth pressed into a thin line, not liking what he was seeing. “RB-“
“We’ll make them pay,” he said quietly, dangerously intent, “for everything.”
Even if he didn’t know the details, Inferno could see the Decepticons had just brought on the full wrath of the Wreckers upon them, and he nodded slightly. “You need anything from me’n mine, just say the word.”
“Thank you. Roadbuster out.” He clicked off the transmission, taking a moment to gather his shaken composure. They’d finish this fight, and they’d return each wound on their leader with a dead body.
The other Wreckers stood in the hall, fully armed and ready to go without one order. Roadbuster looked at each one, broken, leaking, hurting, but with a resolve that would not be shattered until their mission was accomplished.
“Where’s Topspin?”
Twin Twist dipped his head a little. “In medbay. He… he said he had to at least try.”
Roadbuster’s hands clenched, and his optics flared. “Let’s do this.”
~*~*~*~
News of the death of the Wreckers’ leader spread through Decepticon ranks just as fast as Sixshot’s did the Autobots. But while the Autobots hadn’t heard of Springer’s fate, the Decepticons did of their six-changer’s and their morale was devastated. There were still seven very deadly and torqued Wreckers and no other Sixshots.
The Wreckers swept over the planet like nothing else. They’d lost close friends and teammates before, they knew how to turn grief to anger, to focus, and the rage they felt at their loss, the extreme ache and pain of the wound made each one powerful, frightening. They felt no wounds, had no fear. Their only thought was to kill and kill until they exhausted themselves or ran out of enemies.
They broke through every Decepticon line, slaughtered everyone that stood before them- they just couldn’t be stopped. While the other Autobots feared the Wrecker’s ruthlessness and skill, it was always tempered by their respect for the strike force’s intelligence and their selflessness in regards to their fellow Autobots. This time, with their reserves shattered behind them, they were surrounded by nothing but fear from both sides, and yet they couldn’t bring themselves to care. Couldn’t bring themselves to feel anything but grief as their fury- no longer able to be pointed in a direction and be let loose –drained away.
The Wreckers knew the other Autobots had found out, had heard from some captive Decepticon of Springer’s death and they realized the triplechanger was no where to be seen. Inferno had quietly taken Roadbuster aside to ask and could read the answer on that carefully blank battlemask. Inferno’s crew, who could read their superior’s often unguarded and unrestrained expression easily, saw the answer without having to ask. And the Wreckers could see the pity and grief in all the optics around them, and it just made the sting of their loss intensify.
Roadbuster kept the Wreckers at the command center to help organize personnel to clear battlefields and strip Decepticon holdings, to get fixed up by the medical staff and ensure they be kept busy, their minds kept off what had happened. Roadbuster himself went back up to Xantium, more worried about Topspin than anything else going on. The hall wasn’t silent, the quiet hum of Xantium’s engine, buzzing of lights and cycled air and the sounds of his footfalls eerie in the empty expanse.
He stopped outside the door to the medbay and just stood there. It was common practice for their race to strip all useful components from their dead and recycle them in the living. The dead would decree certain parts went to specific friends, becoming part of them. Many of Roadbuster’s armaments were gathered from old comrades, and he never balked at the idea of claiming them (hell, occasionally the Wreckers would claim parts of dead Decepticons, that blatant disregard of the deceased’s will was often deemed as barbaric in Autobot views), but he was afraid to go inside the medbay now. He didn’t want to see Springer’s parts being excavated. The thought of those familiar planes and angles spread out in that dispassionately organized way, distantly reverent, scientifically categorized made him go cold.
He took the last step forward into the door’s sensors, and the doors opened to… show nothing as he was expecting it to be.
Most of the lights in the medbay were turned off, and Roadbuster could make out the faint silhouette of a covered body in the dark. The floor, though, was cluttered with tossed and broken equipment. A saw thrown clear across the room, laser scalpels broken, hoses ripped apart, retractors, catheters, rammers, cutters, dilators, everything needed to strip equipment off a body had been scattered and destroyed. Roadbuster stepped carefully around the room and couldn’t spot Topspin. He hurried quickly out, not giving the dark another look.
Just as he figured, Topspin was found in the common room, slouched against the wall under the energon dispenser, surrounded by a fair number of empty containers. As Roadbuster approached he could smell the thick, sweet mess and knew the jumpstarter had been hitting the high-grade hard.
“Topspin…” His words trailed off, not certain what to say.
The blue and white looked up at him with faded, unfocused optics. “’M sorry, RB.” He slurred unevenly. Roadbuster wondered how much he had drunk. “I tried- I really did try. It’s part of my job fer Primus sake but I… I just can’t.” His fans hitched as his body tried to increase the air circulation in his overcharged systems. “I’ve done this t’so many others, to some of my buds but I just couldn’t. Not on Springer.”
There was probably a better way to handle it, probably some protocol somewhere that stated what should and shouldn’t be done regarding the situation. Protocol could go get itself slagged for all Roadbuster cared. He grabbed two more containers of high-grade, sat next to Topspin and handed him one, letting him spill it all out.
Topspin huddled under Roadbuster’s arm, curled up and talked about how he tried to piece Springer back together, hoped- even as he knew it was impossible –he could do something to save him. He talked about looking down on Springer, restored and cleaned as best he could be and how Topspin had just stood there, trying to bring himself to make the initial cuts to support struts that would open Springer’s chest to him, to begin the process of stripping components. And then he said he lost it and told Roadbuster this and told him he hated doing it, hated himself for doing it to all of his friends. To Rack’n’Ruin and to Long Shot and Pitchback, Shrike –all of them. They were his brothers, dammit! He was supposed to be the one that put them together and kept them working and alive and he was ripping them all apart and he hated doing it! It was tradition to have a close friend or equivalent medic to do it, but it made Topspin sick to his fuel processor every slagging time and he just… just couldn’t, please RB, don’t make me do it, I-I can’t…
Roadbuster held the medic to his chest silently. He never knew Topspin felt this way about it, and he supposed he couldn’t really blame him- he barely felt able to do welds to major damage to any of the Wreckers let alone attempting critical surgery. And the idea of taking apart one of their own just… he didn’t know how ‘bots like Ratchet and First Aid did it- didn’t know how Topspin could bully himself into doing it.
They stayed like that until Topspin went into recharge, and Roadbuster still let the two of them sit there until there was a communications request from Inferno. He was confident in his detachment’s abilities to deal with the planet without the Wreckers there and told Roadbuster they could head off. If he felt like calling the emergency vehicle out, Roadbuster would guess this had very little to do with what the detachment could handle but rather to get the Wreckers to report to Prime.
The planetside Wreckers returned to Xantium unnaturally quiet. Twin Twist automatically sought out Topspin, kept the hovercraft close by, and the two never left each other’s side the entire trip back. Sandstorm and Scoop and Whirl went to the washracks, didn’t come out until they docked, and Broadside stayed on the bridge with Roadbuster, neither saying a word. No one went near the medbay, didn’t speak about it, didn’t even dare think about it.
Despite the condition of the crew, Xantium paced easily with an Ark vessel filled with the badly injured, prisoners of war and units unneeded in helping to rebuild the planet. Xantium hung back as the rear guard, sullen and quiet. As fast as Xantium went the news went faster. When they docked at the Orbital Hub, Optimus Prime, Hot Rod, and Arcee were waiting for them. As the Wreckers disembarked, Roadbuster saw Optimus Prime striding towards him, and he knew what he was going to say, going to ask-
Roadbuster ran.
For the first time in as long as he could remember he actually ran away. Took a few steps back, turned on his heel and paced stiffly towards the doors.
That was all he needed to do because he heard- praying he’d reach the doors before anyone stopped him –Hot Rod and Arcee racing up Xantium’s ramp, heard voices raising up, telling them to stop, and then he heard the most anguished, spark-wrenching screams anyone could imagine. It ripped at him all the way to the core, made him want to curl up and die, tear his own spark out and scream with them.
He had promised Springer, some thousand or more years ago, that he’d look after his two- just in case. Roadbuster knew, as he made that promise, it meant promising to look after Springer for them. And he failed all three and now their grief was going to shatter him from the inside.
He heard their screaming as he hurried out of the hangar, heard it echoing in his processor as he half-dashed down the halls, unable to out run it, unable to dig his hands into his cranial unit and rip that torture out. It was going to stay with him forever, he knew. Even as Prime’s deep, sorrowful voice rumbled through the Hub, “It is with overwhelming regret and a heavy spark that I inform you Autobot Springer, leader of the Wreckers, has been killed in action…”
This was not an easy thing to write and, somehow, it's even harder to post. But, since interest was generated, up it goes. It's 50 pages all together and I'll be putting them up in 5 or so page increments for ease of reading, one chapter a day. Please enjoy and let me know what you think.
Title: No Survivors 1
Fandom: Transformers IDW
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2196
Characters: Wreckers
Summary: Character death. Death is not the greatest pain in life. The greatest pain belongs to those left alive.
Note: While this draws elements from my (sprawling) drabble series What’s Wrong with a Little Destruction?, it’s not necessary to read it to understand the fic, only to get the full effect. Special thanks to Vaeru, Cafei and Meallanmouse for being my betas
“Oh Primus no…”
“Sixshot-“
“Springer!”
Both teams raced forward, calling and praying and frantically hoping they’d get there in time. The bodies crashed hard, kicking up dirt that washed over the scrambling mechs. Sixshot twitched erratically for a moment before lying still, every light and hum fading out of him. Springer didn’t even move. As they neared their fallen leaders, weapons charged up and rifles swung about, sighting in on the enemy.
“Back the slag off!”
“Slag you, fragging glitch!”
“Step back or get your fragging head blown off!”
“Like to see you try with a hole in your-“
“THAT’S ENOUGH!” All optics zeroed on Roadbuster. His rifle clattered to the ground and he fell to his knees by the ruined body of his oldest and dearest friend. He gathered Springer into his arms and held him tight. “We’ve done enough.”
Around him weapons lowered and Hun-grrr said lowly, brokenly, “Terrorcons. Grab Sixshot. We’re leaving.”
The Wreckers stepped back, letting the Terrorcons pick up the giant frame of the once living weapon. They pulled Springer’s sword from Sixshot’s head and, with a moment’s hesitation, held it out. The Wreckers stood uncertainly, none of them willing to handle the weapon Springer loved more than any rifle. Slowly Whirl stepped forward, carefully taking the chipped and scarred blade in his hands with a nod. Then, without a word or look, the Decepticons marched off with Sixshot’s body high on their shoulders.
Roadbuster still clutched Springer, body shuddering, and what was left of the Wreckers were at a loss at what to do, what to say. Eventually Whirl opened a comm link to Xantium. “Get us out of here.”
~*~*~*~
Roadbuster had gone into Springer’s office to call Inferno and explain that they had to pull off from the planet temporarily.
“Things okay?” Inferno asked cautiously. He’d kept in touch of his old academy buddies off and on, but he hadn’t talked to the combat vehicle outside of missions as often as he’d liked. It didn’t take much intelligence to know something had happened.
And Roadbuster tried to tell him, felt he owed it that much to someone he and Springer had known for so long, but every time he tried the words kept getting caught. Because he desperately wanted to believe it wasn’t true.
“Inferno…” Springer is… Springer is… he’s… “Sixshot is dead,” he rasped. If he said the words it would make everything real and he just couldn’t deal with that right now.
Inferno’s optics went wide. “Sixshot? Seriously?”
He nodded. “Springer…” his vocalizer tripped over the name, “did it. He finally did it.”
The red mech’s mouth pressed into a thin line, not liking what he was seeing. “RB-“
“We’ll make them pay,” he said quietly, dangerously intent, “for everything.”
Even if he didn’t know the details, Inferno could see the Decepticons had just brought on the full wrath of the Wreckers upon them, and he nodded slightly. “You need anything from me’n mine, just say the word.”
“Thank you. Roadbuster out.” He clicked off the transmission, taking a moment to gather his shaken composure. They’d finish this fight, and they’d return each wound on their leader with a dead body.
The other Wreckers stood in the hall, fully armed and ready to go without one order. Roadbuster looked at each one, broken, leaking, hurting, but with a resolve that would not be shattered until their mission was accomplished.
“Where’s Topspin?”
Twin Twist dipped his head a little. “In medbay. He… he said he had to at least try.”
Roadbuster’s hands clenched, and his optics flared. “Let’s do this.”
~*~*~*~
News of the death of the Wreckers’ leader spread through Decepticon ranks just as fast as Sixshot’s did the Autobots. But while the Autobots hadn’t heard of Springer’s fate, the Decepticons did of their six-changer’s and their morale was devastated. There were still seven very deadly and torqued Wreckers and no other Sixshots.
The Wreckers swept over the planet like nothing else. They’d lost close friends and teammates before, they knew how to turn grief to anger, to focus, and the rage they felt at their loss, the extreme ache and pain of the wound made each one powerful, frightening. They felt no wounds, had no fear. Their only thought was to kill and kill until they exhausted themselves or ran out of enemies.
They broke through every Decepticon line, slaughtered everyone that stood before them- they just couldn’t be stopped. While the other Autobots feared the Wrecker’s ruthlessness and skill, it was always tempered by their respect for the strike force’s intelligence and their selflessness in regards to their fellow Autobots. This time, with their reserves shattered behind them, they were surrounded by nothing but fear from both sides, and yet they couldn’t bring themselves to care. Couldn’t bring themselves to feel anything but grief as their fury- no longer able to be pointed in a direction and be let loose –drained away.
The Wreckers knew the other Autobots had found out, had heard from some captive Decepticon of Springer’s death and they realized the triplechanger was no where to be seen. Inferno had quietly taken Roadbuster aside to ask and could read the answer on that carefully blank battlemask. Inferno’s crew, who could read their superior’s often unguarded and unrestrained expression easily, saw the answer without having to ask. And the Wreckers could see the pity and grief in all the optics around them, and it just made the sting of their loss intensify.
Roadbuster kept the Wreckers at the command center to help organize personnel to clear battlefields and strip Decepticon holdings, to get fixed up by the medical staff and ensure they be kept busy, their minds kept off what had happened. Roadbuster himself went back up to Xantium, more worried about Topspin than anything else going on. The hall wasn’t silent, the quiet hum of Xantium’s engine, buzzing of lights and cycled air and the sounds of his footfalls eerie in the empty expanse.
He stopped outside the door to the medbay and just stood there. It was common practice for their race to strip all useful components from their dead and recycle them in the living. The dead would decree certain parts went to specific friends, becoming part of them. Many of Roadbuster’s armaments were gathered from old comrades, and he never balked at the idea of claiming them (hell, occasionally the Wreckers would claim parts of dead Decepticons, that blatant disregard of the deceased’s will was often deemed as barbaric in Autobot views), but he was afraid to go inside the medbay now. He didn’t want to see Springer’s parts being excavated. The thought of those familiar planes and angles spread out in that dispassionately organized way, distantly reverent, scientifically categorized made him go cold.
He took the last step forward into the door’s sensors, and the doors opened to… show nothing as he was expecting it to be.
Most of the lights in the medbay were turned off, and Roadbuster could make out the faint silhouette of a covered body in the dark. The floor, though, was cluttered with tossed and broken equipment. A saw thrown clear across the room, laser scalpels broken, hoses ripped apart, retractors, catheters, rammers, cutters, dilators, everything needed to strip equipment off a body had been scattered and destroyed. Roadbuster stepped carefully around the room and couldn’t spot Topspin. He hurried quickly out, not giving the dark another look.
Just as he figured, Topspin was found in the common room, slouched against the wall under the energon dispenser, surrounded by a fair number of empty containers. As Roadbuster approached he could smell the thick, sweet mess and knew the jumpstarter had been hitting the high-grade hard.
“Topspin…” His words trailed off, not certain what to say.
The blue and white looked up at him with faded, unfocused optics. “’M sorry, RB.” He slurred unevenly. Roadbuster wondered how much he had drunk. “I tried- I really did try. It’s part of my job fer Primus sake but I… I just can’t.” His fans hitched as his body tried to increase the air circulation in his overcharged systems. “I’ve done this t’so many others, to some of my buds but I just couldn’t. Not on Springer.”
There was probably a better way to handle it, probably some protocol somewhere that stated what should and shouldn’t be done regarding the situation. Protocol could go get itself slagged for all Roadbuster cared. He grabbed two more containers of high-grade, sat next to Topspin and handed him one, letting him spill it all out.
Topspin huddled under Roadbuster’s arm, curled up and talked about how he tried to piece Springer back together, hoped- even as he knew it was impossible –he could do something to save him. He talked about looking down on Springer, restored and cleaned as best he could be and how Topspin had just stood there, trying to bring himself to make the initial cuts to support struts that would open Springer’s chest to him, to begin the process of stripping components. And then he said he lost it and told Roadbuster this and told him he hated doing it, hated himself for doing it to all of his friends. To Rack’n’Ruin and to Long Shot and Pitchback, Shrike –all of them. They were his brothers, dammit! He was supposed to be the one that put them together and kept them working and alive and he was ripping them all apart and he hated doing it! It was tradition to have a close friend or equivalent medic to do it, but it made Topspin sick to his fuel processor every slagging time and he just… just couldn’t, please RB, don’t make me do it, I-I can’t…
Roadbuster held the medic to his chest silently. He never knew Topspin felt this way about it, and he supposed he couldn’t really blame him- he barely felt able to do welds to major damage to any of the Wreckers let alone attempting critical surgery. And the idea of taking apart one of their own just… he didn’t know how ‘bots like Ratchet and First Aid did it- didn’t know how Topspin could bully himself into doing it.
They stayed like that until Topspin went into recharge, and Roadbuster still let the two of them sit there until there was a communications request from Inferno. He was confident in his detachment’s abilities to deal with the planet without the Wreckers there and told Roadbuster they could head off. If he felt like calling the emergency vehicle out, Roadbuster would guess this had very little to do with what the detachment could handle but rather to get the Wreckers to report to Prime.
The planetside Wreckers returned to Xantium unnaturally quiet. Twin Twist automatically sought out Topspin, kept the hovercraft close by, and the two never left each other’s side the entire trip back. Sandstorm and Scoop and Whirl went to the washracks, didn’t come out until they docked, and Broadside stayed on the bridge with Roadbuster, neither saying a word. No one went near the medbay, didn’t speak about it, didn’t even dare think about it.
Despite the condition of the crew, Xantium paced easily with an Ark vessel filled with the badly injured, prisoners of war and units unneeded in helping to rebuild the planet. Xantium hung back as the rear guard, sullen and quiet. As fast as Xantium went the news went faster. When they docked at the Orbital Hub, Optimus Prime, Hot Rod, and Arcee were waiting for them. As the Wreckers disembarked, Roadbuster saw Optimus Prime striding towards him, and he knew what he was going to say, going to ask-
Roadbuster ran.
For the first time in as long as he could remember he actually ran away. Took a few steps back, turned on his heel and paced stiffly towards the doors.
That was all he needed to do because he heard- praying he’d reach the doors before anyone stopped him –Hot Rod and Arcee racing up Xantium’s ramp, heard voices raising up, telling them to stop, and then he heard the most anguished, spark-wrenching screams anyone could imagine. It ripped at him all the way to the core, made him want to curl up and die, tear his own spark out and scream with them.
He had promised Springer, some thousand or more years ago, that he’d look after his two- just in case. Roadbuster knew, as he made that promise, it meant promising to look after Springer for them. And he failed all three and now their grief was going to shatter him from the inside.
He heard their screaming as he hurried out of the hangar, heard it echoing in his processor as he half-dashed down the halls, unable to out run it, unable to dig his hands into his cranial unit and rip that torture out. It was going to stay with him forever, he knew. Even as Prime’s deep, sorrowful voice rumbled through the Hub, “It is with overwhelming regret and a heavy spark that I inform you Autobot Springer, leader of the Wreckers, has been killed in action…”
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no subject
Date: 2010-08-31 05:48 am (UTC)I don't even know what to say. Brilliant writing, of course. It always is. But.
I can see what you meant, about this being hard. I can't even imagine trying to write it. It's hard to read. Not because of poor handling or poor writing or anything like that, but because it hits you over the lungs from the word go (The Terrorcons) and it's like you're mentally clawing for air as you read each line and each word. It's powerful. Very powerful.
That last bit about the screaming is going to haunt me in my sleep tonight, I know it. And Topspin, Topspin there's just nothing to say about him, and Twin Twist seeking him out...
I think I'm babbling. I just don't know how to get across how good this is since words like "great" and "wow" and especially *sobs* just don't seem to fit.
I look forward to the next installments, as much as I'm dreading them.
This is seikk, btw, if you remember who I am :)
no subject
Date: 2010-08-31 06:30 pm (UTC)Thanks for the encouragement and I hope you continue to enjoy the story (if enjoy is a word you can use for it...)
no subject
Date: 2010-08-31 06:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-08-31 05:49 pm (UTC)Oh geez... D: The sadness and grief it kills... Looking forward to the next piece that you do.
;__;
no subject
Date: 2010-08-31 06:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-01 01:56 am (UTC)It's also worth at least two Kleenex for tears and whatnot. Holy smokes.
no subject
Date: 2010-09-02 03:16 am (UTC)But you are a good writer... and it involves 3 of my faves...and my favorite team... and
*BAWLS BEFORE BED*
Nice piece *sniff* the IDW series tore me up too.