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Perceptor choked and gasped, dropping to his knees and feeling life spill over his lipplates as he looked down at his chest, a hole blown through it and showing the erratic flail of his spark and it’s glimmering corona.
He heard Turmoil call for a medic, and then more gunfire as everything went to hell. He knew, without looking, that the hellish legionnaires of the Autobot Wrecker Unit was mowing down their opponents. Without care. Without mercy.
And then, Springer aimed at him.
“Friendly fire happens, Perceptor.”, he said, false mourning in his voice.
A gunshot, and then his optic feed went to static.
He awoke on an abandoned ship. In an empty, though clean medibay, a datapad sitting just outside the draining CR chamber he’d been crammed in. Moving hurt, living HURT- but still, he did. Still he pushed open the CR chamber door and collapsed onto the floor with a gasp and howl of pain unknowable. His helm throbbed, and so he crawled. Wet slaps of plating on plate flooring until he could pull himself up to sit on the desk, and lift the datapad.
It’s stocked and ready. I’m still with your old buddies, sugarspark. See you when I see you. -D.
Perceptor looked slowly around the room, and rasped, “Lights full.”
The low flourescent hum as the room was illuminated. Sterile and stinking of cleaning agents, tools left to gather dust. Perceptor looked down, grinding his dentae as he watched the nearly invisible lines through his conduits and sparkplating the last remnants of his injury.
And he knew what he wanted to do.
He got to his unsteady feet, letting his anger, letting the betrayal steady his limbs and he stalked around the medibay. First, he would patch what he could; he would repair and take stock of the damages.
A spark flicked from his empty optic canal, his HUD screamed warnings at him…
And he laughed- he laughed higher and higher until his voice rang through the halls of the empty ship and bounced off the abandoned carcasses and scars of gunfire.
Welder in hand, he stared at his reflection in the CR chamber as he passed by it- he noted the spiderwebbed lines of cracked and crumpled plating; still healing, still malleable.
And he smiled.
Months later, as Springer’s ship sat docked and quiet; the bay doors opened. Soft clicks, like claws on marble, echoed gently through the halls down and down further to the messier internals of the ship that this ghost still knew so well.
It was the work of a moment to change settings, to twist and turn pieces and parts and guarantee the sleep of the sedated.
A smile like spidersilk in moonlight as this new grim reaper wandered from room to room, medical tools at the ready. The exposed pistols at his thighs clacked against their holster pieces gently like bone windchimes in spring breezes….
And the first recharge-deep whimper sounded off, from Blaster’s quarters.
One by one, each Wrecker fell victim to hellish modifications, warping of their physical forms that Ratchet himself would be proud of.
And when they awoke, so late in a spacedark day, each one howled as pain sensors blasted online in a fury of white hot suffering a hole in their plating where their t-cogs had been drilled out.
Springer, clutching the plating that dangled off his figure as the clamps holding bleeding lines closed popped off from his movement, stumbled onto the bridge.
And there sat Perceptor, in the Captain’s seat. His plating diecut like lace and his sparkchamber visible through a chestplate like polished crystal as he hummed softly- rolling still sticky t-cogs with the tips of heeled pedes. A white rifle leaned against the side of the Captain’s chair as he looked up.
“Friendly fire happens.”, he sneered, his pede stopping the roll of the tcog beneath it, “Emergency surgery happens too.”
His reticule flickered as it onlined, and Springer new it was targeting him. The others of his unit stumbled out, retching and gagging on energon and each clutching a gaping wound in their frame.
“Did you think I was dead?”, asked Perceptor with a bitter cackle, “Did you think I would simply give up?”
Drift was the last to arrive, whole and unhurt and smiling like the devil.
“Ya look good Percy.”, he said, his voice like oil over asphalt, “The new style suits ya, I gotta admit.”
Kup, having bitten his cygar in two, watched as Drift’s steps took him to Perceptor’s side. A clawed hand moved up to rest almost fondly against Drift’s cheekplating as Perceptor laughed again.
“Why thank you, precious.”, he cooed, “Now, what shall I do with this lot, hm? Have they treated you well?”
Drift glanced back to the gathered Wreckers, noting the sudden fear in their optics and showing fangs as he smiled.
“Well…. now that you mention it….”