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This was not the first time he they had wondered what it felt like to experience empurata. Though they he had never asked Lugnut before, what it had been like. It would have been cruel beyond words to dredge that up from the war torn depths. And besides, he they liked Lugnut, more than they'd he'd ever thought they he would, after their first meeting. Lugnut was his our friend. OUR his!! first friend in so many vorns. It was a comfort now to think about him, even remembering every rant and speech that had once been so aggravating. Lugnut was surprisingly eloquent for his sheer lack of intelligence. Wisdom he was full of, strangely - intellect not so much. Blitzwing didn't mind anymore. They he didn't mind leading on that front. He THEY made an excellent team with Lugnut, Blitzwing making the calls, forming the strategies, Lugnut following in all his righteous, enthusiastic power. Primus, they wished he could be out there now, fighting beside Lugnut, his comrades, doing what they’d honed and perfected over so many vorns.
Not stuck in their own head.
Not tearing into thirds.
Not screaming in one.
Not raging and snarling in one.
Not cackling in one.
Was this what empurata felt like? Being ripped apart, bit by bit, until everything was disconnected? Pieces made so ragged and disjointed and bloody until nothing felt like you anymore? Even the one they had 'sort of' designated as him was not Blitzwing. This one was the one with the logic. He was the one with the mind of a strategist. This was the one whose anger and joy, defiance and humor were being completely stripped away, the other two snatching them from him in desperate attempts to find something stable. The problem was, the fear had to go somewhere. And despite the logic screaming at him that giving in to the fear and pain was a terrible idea, it wouldn’t help anything…
He was so scared.
Everything hurt so much .
“Ve don’t know. Ve, I- I still don’t know vhat you are referring to!! ” The Blitzwing that was not Blitzwing hoarsely pleaded, useless as it was. He’d said it so many times that it barely held meaning. It was just sound, a response that was required but meant nothing at all. Not to him, not to the others, especially not to the mech looming over him.
“Ve have not strayed! Ve serve General Strika in all things, and thus have served Lord Megatron. I am a Decepticon, all of us are Decepticons! Ve ver not s-separate before-”
“Blitzwing. I am aware of the circumstances under which you requested Shockwave to modify your helm.” Tarn’s voice was smooth as glass. The hidden, razor edges slid up Blitzwing’s spinal column in an agonizingly familiar sense of dread. “You had need of assistance in compartmentalizing, did you not? You have been in three parts for quite some time. I have multiple eyewitness accounts to pull from, detailing the differences between each face. Kaon?”
The leader of the Decepticon Justice Division took a data pad from his grinning second. Those sightless sockets seemed to sear into Blitzwing’s spark, reminding him of the jolts of unfiltered electricity shooting through his cabling, burning his upgrade skin, sparking against his protoform until he could smell the smoke and-!!!!
Blitzwing no longer had control. The face he had once used to find edge in the fight, to focus his aggression through, to carry the burden of his highest passions, it took center stage, shunting the rest of him fully to the background. He couldn’t speak, he couldn’t so much as cycle his optics, and just thinking was so damn difficult. He tried, tried, tried to claw his way back, but their rage was more powerful than his desperation in the moment, and he was just so tired…
“Zhat list is nothing but lies, and you know it!!” Blitzwing’s anger snarled. “All coercion! All mizconstruzions! My comrades vould never claim me to be anyzhing but myself! I am Blitzwing! I have always been Blitzwing! If you zhink I am a traitor, zhen judge me as ME, you bolt-headed, pede-licking coward!!”
Claws sunk into barely healed wounds around his throat. Anger could no longer override the fear. Blitzwing had control again. But now he didn’t want it. Still, his helm spun, roughly, off-kilter from the amount of times it had turned recently, and the face that held Blitzwing's fear emerged. The turn hurt. Almost as much as the gaze that held his optics, locked as if they were tethered by hook and chain.
“I will not risk bringing judgement to a mech who is not guilty, Blitzwing.” More razor wire, worse the quieter Tarn’s vocalizer dipped. The triple-changer’s spark was racing, so hard he wondered if Kaon was already sending amps into it. “Only one of you is on the list... It is simply a matter of determining which. This is why we have to ensure that you are fully separated before delivering the verdict.”
Now his spark was quieting. Slowing. Panic that didn’t invoke the sensations it should have made his energon run freezing cold. He could feel the sync happening, and couldn’t do anything but keep trying to intake.
“Any admissions, any outbursts, they cannot be judged fairly until we know we’re getting them from the right sources.” Tarn’s claws withdrew, only to slide up his jaw in an insultingly gentle caress. Lower and softer his voice fell, dragging the triple-changer down into murky, sluggish depths. “I wouldn’t be doing my job correctly otherwise. Don’t you agree?”
“Yes. O-of course.” Blitzwing murmured with the last bit of his numb, terrified energy. His optics involuntarily twitched in erratic patterns as they tried to find Tarn again, the blurry darkness and coolant effectively blinding him. “Z…zhat is…logical.”
He could almost feel Tarn’s amusement in the faint flex of his claws. He could hear it when he spoke again, blessedly loud in his buzzing audials. “Excellent. I had a feeling you were the reasonable one.” The grip on his chin tightened. “But that means we will need to continue working with the other two, until we’re sure they’ve settled into themselves.”
Blitzwing’s T-cog shrieked in protest as his helm was yanked by Tarn’s vicious strength. One spin to the anger that had faded to cold ashes again, another to the carrier of the building anxious stress and attempts to grasp at any semblance of hope of getting through this. The dark faceplate grinned up at Tarn. “Vat, I am not good enough zhen? Vat do you need for me to be me, hmm? Hard to express myself properly vhen I’m strapped down! Let me up and I’ll show you - ve can get lunch, talk hobbies... Pit, ve can go dancing aftervard, I’ll teach you how to use zhose treads properly, hahaha!!”
Tarn’s chuckle seemed legitimately amused. “Perhaps, once we have this resolved. In the meantime… Vos?”
The chill of fresh fear made Blitzwing's T-cog grind in the attempt to turn, but Tarn’s hold kept the transformation from completing. “Vait…”
The lanky sniper came into view above him, the contrast in size between the two DJD members almost ludicrous from his position. Yet, knowing what Vos’ reputation was…
“I believe it will be helpful for this one to be guided towards stability. He has fluctuated the most out of the three. Lock him down for me.”
There was a short lilt of Primal Vernacular as those red optics over the battle mask settled on Blitzwing, burning straight into his increasingly anxious/fearful/raging mind.
“Vait! I, ve-”
Tarn’s hand shifted to clamp over his mouth, still holding him from rotating, silencing him. “Shh. Don’t worry, this won’t take long. Vos is quite precise. And besides, you do have some experience with similar procedures. Think of this as… face number four.”
Terror suddenly bleeding through every fracture. And as they watched Vos remove the faceplate, revealing the horrific spires of needles and spikes, panic clouded everything else.
Outliers were called on unsuccessfully. Thrashing got him nowhere. Their vocalizer screeched static.
Blitzwing and Blitzwing and Blitzwing all watched the face approach, the three parts desperately scrambling to find some semblance of balance and stability again, to find anything that might allow them to escape, to survive!!
Something snapped.
He wondered again if this was what empurata felt like. He assumed this was about to be a sensation much closer. It was kind of funny. He was about to understand dear Lugnut just a little better. It was so ironic. His best friend, his dear Lugnut, and Blitzwing was about to feel a little more like him! Be just a bit more like him! The irony was just so funny.
Blitzwing watched, optics spun wide, as the needles came towards them. The anxious energy bubbled up to his throat, twisting into a giddy, manic cackle, bursting in his audials, echoing in a three-part harmony through the medbay when Tarn’s servo slid away from his mouth.
Tarn hadn’t lied. It was quick. And Blitzwing was still laughing between his own screams.