Title: Come Closer (Part 2)
Fandom: Transformers
Continuity: AU loosely G1-based
Genre: Angst, Drama, Family
Rating: M (for safety)
Overall warnings: OCs, unnamed characters, implied slash, violence, character death
Summary: Years after the Great War’s end a creator must decide Cybertron’s fate, a youngling wonders whether or not to open the gate, and a monster lies in wait.
Beta: Knightryder007 on fanfiction.net
Disclaimer: I claim no ownership of the Transformers franchise.
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1,204 vorns later…
Starscream struggled to free himself from a monster's vice-like grasp as he was dragged painfully toward the Cybertronian version of an iron maiden by his broken arm, the beast too strong for him. The seeker screamed in excruciating pain as his arm was twisted violently by his captive, more of his internal cables breaking and snapping. In the corner of his optic, he could see emerald green optics in the darkness of the prisoner's chambers, glittering with manic delight as they witnessed the elder Seeker's coming doom. Nimbus, his processor whispered.
No, that can't be right.
Why would his son be here? It just...wasn't right...
The murderer Starscream was captive to couldn't be Nimbus; those optics can't be his, the Seeker convinced himself. Starscream turned his thoughts away from the other Seeker and toward the beast currently dragging him, sharp pangs of pain wracking his frame. He needed to get the frag of here. He quickly self-scanned himself, seeking a weapon hidden in himself the monsters may not have noticed, his blaster and Energon sword robbed by the monsters, many ecstatic at bearing new arms. Desperate, he remembered the only weapon he had on his body. A weapon, so obvious yet so easily forgotten as a mere part of Starscream.
He at least had to try. Readying himself, Starscream dug his long, sharp claws, his only remaining weapon deep into his captor's arm until it bled, long gashes pouring out the thick, impure blood of the monster. However, as much damage he had caused, his actions were pointless; the pain didn't even seem to make Starscream's captor flinch. It was as if Starscream's captors knew his claws were useless against their vastly superior skin, a cruel joke left by the creatures of the dark to taunt the unfortunate Seeker.
The younger Seeker only chuckled as the beast lobbed Starscream from the broken arm it held, the trapped victim screeching as he flew involuntarily into the Energon-splattered iron maiden meeting the spikes within, his delicate wings torn to ribbons as the spikes on the backboard ripped deep into the appendages and his back, impaling him on the device. Managing to hang onto a shred of his wavering consciousness, Starscream's final image was that of gleaming emerald optics and a large paw closing the heavy doors of the deathly contraption, rusted hinges screaming out as the spikes on the door closed in of the heaving chassis of Starscream.
With a scream and a scrambled gasp, scratching furiously as he felt something grip around his helm then promptly letting go, Starscream awoke to find himself sitting up on the berth in his well-lit room. Before he could allow himself to relax, soft sobbing had caught his attention, the seeker swiveling his helm towards the doorway where the sobbing originated from. In the doorframe, his only daughter stood, holding her bleeding right arm close to her chest. He glanced down and he found her energon staining his servo, the majority of it on his digits. His daughter, having done her duty promptly left without a word.
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Nimbus's home was quieter than usual when his systems came online that solar-cycle. Usually the Seekerling, now the equivalent of an eight-year-old human, would online to the sounds of his elder sister bustling around their home, cleaning and scrubbing what she could before walking him and their adopted brother to school. Nimbus didn't pay the silence much mind as he forced himself out of berth in order to go wake his probably still recharging brother. Bounding into the larger room of his brother, a non-Seeker flyer only a few vorns older than Nimbus himself, the younger seeker instantly ran over to the berth where his brother was currently recharging, his chassis slowly rising and sinking with each ventilation.
"Hey! Come on! Wake up!" Nimbus chirped, watching his brother stirred as his systems roused at the sound of his voice.
"Ugh... I'm still recharging, Nim. Go away..."
"Come on, get up!" Nimbus shook his brother, who annoyedly swatted at his brother. Nimbus continued to shake him until the flyer sat up, still groggy as his systems fully woke up. Once the adopted flyer was online, the two young mechs headed to the main dining room where two small cubes of Energon were found waiting on the table, in the same place their sister always left them. They took their usual seats at the table and began enjoying their meal quietly, chatting about their favourite pastimes and about upcoming school events. After what seemed to be a few astro-seconds, their sister and Seeker creator, Starscream, appeared; neither one spoke, not even in greeting. Starscream's wings dropped down, color dull and optics sullen. Their older sister had dried coolant around her droopy optics. She held her right arm protectively, letting go for a second which caused her brother to stare. Nimbus glanced up at his older sister and his optics widened at the new welds on her forearm, covering what appeared to be two long, deep scratches. Before he could say anything, she noticed his staring and gave the mechling a minute shake of her helm. Nimbus grimaced, but kept his mouth shut. He had seen his Grounder creator with similar injuries on mornings his Seeker creator had to be forcibly awakened, from nightmares, he had been told. Really, it shouldn't have been that surprising that his sister was hurt from doing the same. But Nimbus, concerned for his sibling was anyway.
The walk to school was quiet and awkward, with neither Nimbus nor his older brother knowing what to say their sister to get her to smile again. She'd never exactly been the cheery type, but usually she was much more lively when it was just the three of them, initiating conversation and friendly banter. Honestly, Nimbus felt sort of relieved when she finally left them at the entrance with a half-hearted goodbye to go to work.
School today had been a fair trip, not bad, yet not good either. In fact, Nimbus's favorite time of the day had been whenever the class was in session; mostly because he was able to sit next to his big brother and work with him during group assignments. The issue Nimbus had with school was the break time they were given on the schoolyard: the other younglings had a habit of avoiding him the moment they left the classroom. He didn't know why; they just didn't talk to him, look at him, or even bump into him by accident. It was almost as if he had some sort of repelling aura to him. People would quiet and change their paths if they were walking towards him, others would push by him with extreme malice. Nimbus had no idea why people detested him so, although he had once thought it was because of his creator's past work... Nimbus broke his train of thought as a voice he knew rang out loud.
"I'll see you back in class, Nim!" his brother called out as he followed the other younglings toward the climbing bars.
"'Kay!" Nimbus gave him a small smile and waved him goodbye. The smile slipped away the moment his brother looked away. Being left alone isn't so bad; he could've been picked on relentlessly by bullies like some of the others, such as a young femme, an oddball of another class. She was mainly bullied for her armour, a shiny, expensive pink and blue medley that somehow did not settle well with the other sparklings, perhaps out of jealousy. Nimbus was different, however. Instead of having unwanted attention, he had no attention at all. But that was just it, wasn't it? No one paid him any mind outside of class, except for those few moments when his brother let him know where he was going to be. When was the last time the both of them played together at school? Nimbus couldn't remember, and felt his optics filling with coolant at the thought. He immediately stopped himself from letting the tears slip out and looked for a quiet spot to play with his bag of marbles. Nimbus had nothing to cry about. He and his brother spent plenty of time together at home. It was only natural that his brother would want to spend time with other people for at least part of the day, right?
Nimbus sighed. That still didn't change the fact that the separation would be easier to bear if Nimbus was allowed to have other friends too. The bell rang. Hoards of students ran inside to the classrooms, and Nimbus wearily followed suit.
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Supper was a quiet affair in Nimbus's home on the best of days. The little seeker hated suppertime and he knew his older siblings hated it too. He could tell by his brother's rigid winglets and his sister's avoidance of optic contact with anyone at the table. On this particular day, a heavy, uptight air kept everyone bored yet alert. On the worst of days, supper escalated to angry shouting, shattered plates, and at one point, a broken table. His creators weren't looking at each other either. Neither were they asking about the other's day. On the best of days, there would be civil small talk. Though this silence was the norm for their family. Once again, Nimbus wondered why they even bothered eating together. The sparkling tiredly swirled his Energon, sipping it up with one gulp and wordlessly left the table for his berthroom.
At least today had been one of the better days.
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Nimbus did not know where he was when his optics first onlined, but he knew he was no longer in his room by the amount of light filtering into his young optics. His optics looked up towards the sky, hoping to find the constellations his Seeker creator had shown him, trying to establish his position. Instead of seeing familiar stars and kind skies, he only saw the high ceiling of a cavern. He shivered, and thanked Primus that at least this place seemed large enough to pretend there was a sky. The Seekerling tore his optics away from the ceiling and sat up, high alert. It was then he took in the rest of his surroundings.
"Whoa..." It was scarily dark where he was, but there was just enough luminance to see the terrain, where Nimbus immediately wished he was blind. The Seeker squinted and buried his helm into his servos as he saw the most horrific scene he had ever seen in his short life. Upon the very dirt he had lied upon were stains of the blood of many aliens, the Energon of his own people included, a macabre rainbow to pink, red, blue and green. All the plant life were awful parodies of the pictures he had seen in school, their branches and vines holding blackened, rotting limbs. Nimbus screamed as he noticed corpses of all races littered the ground like piles of Earthen autumn leaves, their faces twisted into agonized, painful expressions. Once his audios came back online Nimbus heard screams coming from the distance, hundreds, thousands, maybe even more; he couldn't tell. He was too terrified. The Seekerling climbed onto his pedes and ran and ran, his little spark pulsating wildly within its chamber from primal fear. Nimbus knew he had to find a way out of this nightmarish place or at the very least, put some distance between himself and the screaming.
His emerald optics kept flitting around, continuously spying shadows prowling in the corners of his optics. How long could he run before the shadows caught him? Not long, his processor whispered. The Seekerling's vision started to become blurry with unshed tears; he wanted to wake from this nightmare and to return to his home. A shriek from above tore Nimbus's focus off the threats hiding in the dark shadows. He did not stop running as he looked up; there, up in the "sky" was a winged creature with large, rusty talons and gaping, insectoid jaws filled with sharp fangs dripping with Energon and poison. The creature swooped down; its deadly intent obvious to the Seekerling. Nimbus screamed as he dived onto the hard ground, causing the creature's talons to miss their target by mere inches. He winced and cried out as he felt his fragile cockpit crack from the massive impact, but he forced himself to get up and keep running. His joints cried out in protest of the abuse. Fear was threatening to overcome Nimbus when his optics caught sight of the creature's silhouette circling above from that demonic mockery of a sky. Unfortunately, right at that moment, Nimbus tripped over a tree root and fell, his servos luckily absorbing the blow and sparing his cockpit from further damage. He was gasping and sobbing by now for he knew he was doomed.
Strangely enough, the creature did not attack the defenseless Seekerling. Instead it flew in circles -while shrieking loudly- for a few minutes before changing direction sharply, leaving the terrified Nimbus alone. He wiped the tears from his optics with shaking servos. He was safe… For now at least. His winglets drooped at the dark but realistic, thought. Nimbus vented heavily, gathering just enough courage to retake a closer look at his surroundings. This area looked deserted; there were no wandering shadows out to get him. The spatters of lifeblood scattered randomly, the colours a macabre piece of art taunted the little Seeker, pangs of terror scoring his tiny frame. Nimbus eventually spotted a cliff face off to his right. There appeared to be a cave that had been carved into the cliff face, but oddly enough, the gated entrance of the cave was covered with chains and locks. Curiosity getting the better of him, Nimbus cautiously took a few steps closer to the cave, pointedly keeping his gaze from the noticeably large number of corpses surrounding it. He saw something shift behind the gate, but could not see what it could be. Nimbus leapt back as suddenly, huge claws reached out between the bars, swiping at and narrowly missing Nimbus, the slashing and clinking of the deadly sickles enough to make the youngling instantly back away. Nimbus was not completely unscathed, however, having stared into the creature behind the claws. A true visage of fear and death, its horrible, unending black optics a portal into Unicron himself. The optics began to get wider, bigger, until eventually it was all that Nimbus saw, enveloping him into the insane blackness of the deepest pitfalls of the Pit.
Nimbus screamed for his life.
He sat up from his berth with tears flowing freely down his faceplates, ventilations heavy, gasping for cool air. Nimbus saw that he was back in his room; he was safe from that creature of his night terrors.
"Bad dream?" A familiar voice asked tonelessly. Nimbus turned his helm and saw his Seeker creator lazily leaning on his doorway. The Seekerling suppressed a shudder at his creator's blank expression and constantly haunted optics.
"Yes," Nimbus whispered, remembering his creator's experience with such things.
Starscream's mouth twitched and he sluggishly approached his creation's berth. "Now, now, a nightmare is nothing to be worked up about," he said with a cracked, somewhat broken smile. Nimbus knew his Seeker creator was lying through his denta; they both knew how damaging Starscream's own "nightmares" have been on the family. Nimbus quietly kept his thoughts to himself and simply nodded in agreement to the lie.
"Good," Starscream said, his servo petting Nimbus's right winglet, ignoring how his youngest creation flinched when he touched him. He tucked his petrified creation back into its berth, humming a soft Vosnian lullaby to calm Nimbus down enough to recharge. Nimbus's optics instantly began to dim, dragging him back closer to recharge. Starscream allowed his smile to fade away and quietly left the small room for his own room across the hall.
Nimbus was brought back to alertness by the argument between his creators that began moments later, once again over Starscream's refusal to recharge. Trying to block it out, he maneuvered onto his side, but felt a sharp pain in his abdomen as he did so. He examined his torso and found a hairline crack on his cockpit that hadn't been there before.
The Seekerling did not go back into recharge that night.
