Snowfall

[niyazi-a.livejournal.com]

Verse: G1
Rating: PG 13
Summary: The Combaticons are having trouble cohering as a team. And Onslaught's solution doesn't seem to be working. 

 

One thing they’d all eventually agree on: this had been a bad idea. Like a lot of Onslaught’s plans, it looked better on a tactics board than in reality. Onslaught had diagnosed the problem with their continued string of losses in their gestalt mode as a lack of unity. It wasn’t so much that Bruticus was stupid—all the gestalts in their combined modes suffered from a considerably lowered intellect. It was that they all hated each other with a passion. The other gestalts had been created as team, but not them: their sparks were originally strangers, stored in some Autobot sinkhole of a prison, until they’d been ‘liberated’ by Starscream, and shoved in these new bodies, thrust in a new war, and stuck with each other.

So, if the problem is disunity, the solution according to Onslaught was…forced team-building by volunteering them for special teams missions. In extreme conditions.  Right now, as his feet slipped in the white mess that coated the ground, Vortex was alternating between cursing and wondering why they followed Onslaught at all. What right did he have to be ‘leader’? Only difference between Onslaught and the rest of them was that Onslaught was the only one who cared. Brawl had no ambition beyond getting the chance to blow something up. Blast Off hated all of them and for all Vortex knew, hated the war as well, choosing to fight when possible from orbit. And Swindle? Well, Primus help them all if Swindle ever tried to lead the team. Sell them all into slavery. He’d done it once, back on Earth; he’d do it again.

And Onslaught wondered why his team hadn’t coalesced?

 

*****

Blast Off squatted at the waypoint, looking miserable. Feeling even worse. He hated being groundbound, and visibility was so low right now that he was…stuck here. With them. Not to mention that a proper launch would give their position away to the enemy. Blast Off wasn’t much of a ground-troop, but he’d picked up that much from listening to Onslaught’s chatter with Brawl and Vortex over comm. In a way he envied them: they’d been soldiers before they’d ended up in these bodies. They knew so much about the minutiae of war—Vortex and Onslaught from experience, Brawl from a fascinated zeal, so much they didn’t have to explain to each other. He’d never been a soldier. He was a student at the time of his arrest—his only crime had been a speech he’d given with his debate team. A speech, ironically, he hadn’t really believed in. The Autobot High Council hasn’t bothered to listen to his explanations about sophistry, insisting that a speech intending on stirring up positive feelings and support for the enemy was sedition plain and simple,  regardless of what fancy label he slapped on it. 

He shifted on his feet, looking behind him. His tracks were becoming obscured in the white precipitate falling from the sky. It was pretty, he thought, as it gathered on outcroppings of stone, on the delicate tracery of branches surrounding the waypoint’s small clearing. He even liked the sound. Unlike the stretching, empty silence of high orbit, this stuff falling from the sky created an almost cozy, staticky kind of silence—a subdued fluffy hiss. The sky above was whitish pink—the sky blended indistinguishably with the falling flakes.

He checked his nav. No, he was at the right coordinates. Just as he was about to wonder where everyone else was, he heard a branch snap. He whirled, weapon drawn, trying to duck his large frame into a smaller target. 

“Frag,” Swindle cursed, popping into the clearing. “Fantastic idea of Onslaught’s of course,” he said, acidly, “somehow getting us sent to the absolute bunghole of the universe.” 

Blast Off wanted to say something contradictory, just because he didn’t like Swindle and his greasy attitude, but wasn’t really inclined to argue too strenuously. This place certainly was…well off the beaten path. 

“And what,” Swindle said, as his feet slipped on the accumulated white stuff on the ground and he skidded into a small gully in the center of the clearing, “is this slag?”

“Frozen precipitated vapor,” Blast Off said, blandly. “I think it’s pretty.”

“Pretty? Shuh. Can’t put a profit on pretty.”

Actually, Blast Off thought, one could very easily do just that, and there was more to life than profit, but he’d rather go back to being able to enjoy the sight and the sound and even the smell—a dry, crisp scent—without getting engaged in anything with Swindle. We’re supposed to be teammates. And learning how to be better teammates, he admonished himself. Step one: don’t pick fights. Even if he is an unprincipled, materialistic thug.

No peaceful reflection was in the cards for Blast Off: Onslaught himself slipped almost noiselessly into the clearing. Blast Off watched their nominal leader as he checked his chrono. “Late,” Onslaught muttered. “You’d think of all of you, I could count on them after all this time to make a waypoint.” 

“I’m right here,” Vortex snapped. “And the only reason I’m slower than you is I hate walking.” Vortex entered the clearing on almost the same approach vector that Swindle had used, muttering a curse as his rotors caught in tree branches, showering him with dollops of fallen snow.

“Where’s Brawl?”

Vortex shrugged, “I am not that idiot’s keeper.”

“He’s somewhere having fun,” Blast Off said. Onslaught glared at him, then nodded. It was another thing they’d eventually have to work on—their faulty gestalt bond. Right now, Blast Off was the only one with the focus and calmness to even begin to access the link.

“Any idea where?”

Blast Off dimmed his optics for a klik, relaxing into the faint stream of data. He turned, arm extended, in a semicircle. “There,” he said. “Not far.” 

Swindle plopped himself on his aft on a snow-covered log. “I ain’t getting him.” 

“No profit in that, huh? Except maybe one day Brawl saves your aft from imminent slag,” Vortex spat. 

“Vortex is right,” Onslaught said. “You get him.”

Swindle snarled. “Not getting him.” 

Onslaught came right up to where Swindle squatted, looking down his bulky chassis, his visor unreadable. “Get him.”

“Send Vortex. Or is he too good for this kind of thing, you know, bein’ all former military and slag like that?” Swindle folded his arms across his torso in blatant challenge, his weapon carelessly lying in the snow.  

“You’re the other foot,” Vortex snapped. “You feet have to stick together.”

“Just like you and Blast Off, huh?”

Vortex shoved Onslaught aside, and hauled Swindle up by a chest plate, till the smaller mech’s feet dangled above the ground. “You really want to start this right now, Swin? I mean, really? After some of the slag you’ve pulled on us? Three against one. And they’ll Never Fraggin’ Find The Body.” He shook Swindle for good measure. 

“Onslaught won’t let you,” Swindle bluffed.

“Onslaught,” Onslaught said, “has no use for disloyal insubordinates.” Which wasn’t the same as saying he’d let Vortex kill him, but…apparently Swindle heard something close enough. He jerked himself free, stumbling over the log he’d been sitting on. 

“Fine,” he said, dusting himself off. “I’ll get him.” He stomped off in the direction Blast Off had pointed. 

“Frag,” Onslaught said, white with fury as he kicked in the white fluffy stuff on the ground. “Stupid frag left his weapon.”

“Just as well,” Vortex muttered. “Just as likely to sell it to the enemy as shoot ‘em with it.”

Blast Off had settled himself against a tree, grimacing as the action shook some of the stuff down on him. It was prettier in the trees. He wished they’d be quieter. Too many cycles in high orbit and he got a little too used to the silence and too unaccustomed to noise.

Beside him, Vortex stomped in a slow circle, glaring off into the direction Swindle had gone. Vortex shivered. “Damn stuff gets right in the transformation seams,” he muttered. “Then melts.”

“I’m more worried about the tactical issues,” Onslaught said. 

“Visibility’s near zero,” Blast Off said. 

“Yes. And in IR we stand out like fireballs.”

“Easy to track, too,” Vortex said, studying the stomped-down center of the clearing. “Number of enemies, relative weight, speed of passage, possibly even alt mode.” 

Onslaught meandered over to the gouge in the snowfall where Swindle had slipped. “Treacherous, too.” 

“Brawl’s got the best alt for this stuff,” Vortex said. “You’re next best, Onslaught.” 

“Yes, I suspect part of the problem may be that Brawl has the best alt for this.” Onslaught edged to the side of the clearing. “Dead on, actually.”

Brawl roared up—completely defiant to any notion of tactical silence—the hill into the clearing. Swindle chuffed up behind, optics blazing with fury as he slipped and skidded in the packed trails of Brawl’s treads. Brawl spun in a tight circle in the clearing. “Missed me?”

“You know we had a chrono hack,” Onslaught said, bluntly. 

“Oh come on,” Brawl said, pushing back into his robot form. “Like the energon storage facility’s gonna go somewhere?” Onslaught glared. “Besides,” Brawl continued, “Whole point of this was to train under extreme conditions. I’m just acclimatizing to the extreme conditions.” 

“Whole point is we have a mission.” 

“Right. So I’m here, so let’s do it.”  

“One klik.” Onslaught bent to where Swindle’s fallen weapon lay buried in the snow. He tossed it at the mech with one smooth gesture. “Know you’re all about profit, Swindle, so consider that your finder’s fee for Brawl.” He shook some of the fallen snow off his visor. “Let’s move out.” 

*****

The assault itself went…badly, for all the tactical reasons Onslaught had mentioned: they were spotted well before hitting range from what must have been a positively blinding blaze they made on infrared, while they could still only barely discern the pale grey bulk of the brand-new refinery from the flurrying snow. Vortex had tried his damnedest, fighting the low visibility to try an aerial assault. Blast Off was grounded—his required airspeed was too high—it was too risky for him to go aloft, so he’d hung by Onslaught for the ground assault. 

Brawl had had…fun. His sort of fun, which involved his main cannon blasting deafeningly through the soft silence of the snow, his treads gouging the white ground down to bare dirt. Until he crashed, bodily, into the plassteel wall, which broached it nicely, but left him helpless and pinned down, his gun unable to shift to fire upwards.  Part of the wall had caved in on him, trapping him in his tank mode.

 The Autobot defenders rained their ordnance on him, and Onslaught and Blast Off were hard-pressed to cover him until Vortex could swing by again. Even Vortex struggled—unable to drop one of his heavier bombs for fear of blowing up Brawl. If it had been Swindle, pinned down, his drivetrain belts flapping on empty air and gushing black smoke, Onslaught didn’t doubt Vortex wouldn’t have hesitated. Especially as, as soon as they drove the Autobots back, Swindle dashed ahead of the advance, doubtless to bypass the obvious military targets in search of moveable goods.

Onslaught swore and dashed in after Swindle, his sonic gun ripping holes in the metalwork. Brawl squealed as Onslaught bounced over his turret, in pursuit of Swindle, leaving Blast Off to cover Brawl. “Get him unstuck so he can at least transform,” Onslaught snarled over comm. “I’m going to go kill Swindle before any of them get a chance.”

Blast Off ducked behind a tree. He wasn’t good at hot and fast combat, but one thing he could do was snipe. Take your time, frame your shot, and *bam*. One Autobot fell. And then another. The defenders fired wildly into the trees, unable to pinpoint Blast Off in the gusting snow. The instant the defenders retreated, Blast Off darted forward, helping Brawl rock off the stone outcrop that was blocking his drivetrain. Brawl stood up, relieved. Blast Off waited for some acknowledgement or word of thanks…in vain. Brawl muttered something about ‘payback’ and bolted inside. Blast Off had no choice but to follow.

The commnet went business-like for a few megakliks as they got to the business of laying the charges around the foundation. The mission was to deny the asset to the enemy, and Onslaught had decided—and Brawl had gleefully agreed—that high explosives were the best denial.

As Blast Off prepared to bolt from one building to another to lay his last charge, the winds picked up suddenly, going from gusting white to a forceful howl. Blast Off felt a twinge of anxiety, then grim determination across the gestalt link, then one last burst of panic as Vortex sent a burst of obscenities over the comm channel as the winds tore him out of the sky. Blast Off winced as he heard a crashing thud inside the compound, followed by a high thin wire of pain across the bond.  

“Onslaught, Vortex is down,” he reported over comm. “Injured.”

“How badly?” Onslaught’s frustration at his own inability to access the link hit Blast Off like a handful of gravel.

“Pretty bad. May be stuck in alt.” Which meant sitting duck—all of Vortex’s weapons in his copter mode pointed forward. 

“Can—Can you get through to him? Comm’s not working.” Blast Off again felt Onslaught’s frustration, and what it cost him to ask even that much. 

“I’ll try.” Blast Off pushed along the bond, trying to reach out. This was different from what he usually did, which was just…step out of the way and let the link speak to him. He found a nook under a stairwell, tucking himself under it for cover so he could concentrate without fear of attack as he leaned into the link, first, finding the tremulous line of pain and helplessness and frustration and fury that was Vortex, then, clumsily, trying to push into that. 

A wash of pain, and then Blast Off was swallowed by memories of battles fought long before their time together. Names and faces of the dead whipped past him in blinding succession—friend? Enemy? He couldn’t tell—the emotions cycled too fast for him to pinpoint. Relax, he tried to push through the link. Onslaught is coming. The link pushed back at him memories of Onslaught—respect, fear, a little envy. Yes, Blast Off thought, while at the same time, he felt a little envy of his own. None of them, he knew, respected him. Stayed far from the fighting whenever possible, didn’t have anything like leadership they’d recognize. Even now, he heard explosions and the unmistakable whoomph of Onslaught’s sonic gun, the furious pops of Brawl’s secondary guns. And he? He was in a stairwell. Only Swindle was probably less useful.

Swindle: something of his thoughts must have carried over the link: he felt Vortex’s dislike, palpable and muddy brown. How were they ever going to fight as a team with Swindle? 

Onslaught cut over comm. “Lay your last charges and rally these coordinates.” Blast Off nodded to himself, ducking out from under the stairwell. On his way. 

****

“Where the frag is Swindle?” Onslaught fumed, a decacycle later. Brawl had bashed his way through to Vortex’s location. Blast Off had followed, and knelt down by Vortex’s frame, his hands working stanching clamps around damaged hoses. Vortex growled—but at himself, blaming himself for his injuries, hating that he couldn’t help. That he needed rescue. And protesting the pain, with every sine wave of his processor. He was in…worrisome shape, Blast Off decided: two of the rotors torn, his tailboom mangled, sparks leaping from his exposed circuitry.

 Onslaught covered the gaping hole Vortex had made crashing into the structure, Brawl covered his, firing intermittently into the rallying Autobots.

Swindle swaggered in from an interior door, weapon hanging loosely from his hands. “Right here,” he drawled.

“Pick ‘em blind already?” Vortex snarled. The pain was redlining most of his alarm sensors. Not that he was any less surly when he wasn’t in agony.

Swindle raked his eyes over Vortex’s damaged frame. “Actually, got interrupted by one of my fraggin’ teammates getting himself injured.”

“Injured trying to cover you when you bolted in front of formation!”

“Formation,” Swindle scoffed. 

Onslaught had had enough. “Yes,” he roared. “Formation. It’s how we achieve our mission objective.”

“Mission objective, mission objective,” Swindle mused, as though he’d never heard the term before.  “Riiiiight.” Swindle smirked. He did a circuit of the room, opening drawers at random. “We have one of those?”

“Right now,” Vortex snapped, “My only objective is to offline you.”

“Yeeeeeeahhhhh, and I bet that will go just as well as…whatever we were supposed to be doing here.” He turned to Onslaught. “When’s our pickup?”

“Our pickup,” Brawl said, barreling across the room and pinning Swindle to the wall, “is in thirty decas. Yours, who knows?” 

“Brawl,” Onslaught said, not even turning around, unleashing a salvo from his shoulder cannons, “Put Swindle down.” 

“You can’t be serious! If he had a way off this rock without us you think he’d still be here?” Brawl’s hands tightened around Swindle’s neck. Which had the positive effect of removing the smirk.

“That’s exactly why he’s here now, isn’t it, Swindle. You forget, all subspace comm relays through me. I heard your little attempt a while ago to find your own lift.” Onslaught kept firing. The return fire seemed thinner. Skirls of snow blew in around the gaping holes. 

“Yeah?” Brawl turned back to Swindle.

“Oh, so what? Come on. You don’t even like me. Why you even care?”

“He doesn’t,” Vortex said. “We’re fraggin’ stuck with each other.”

Blast Off added, “He’s right. It’s not a matter of what any of us want. We’re stuck together. That means you with us, too, Swindle.”

“I’m stuck with you until we get off this dirtball. After that, thanks, but I’ve had it. You can all pretend you don’t know what happened to me, but I am out.” 

“No,” Blast Off said, pushing to his feet. “You’re stuck with us.” He reached out through the gestalt link. He could still feel Vortex’s pain through the link, and now he reached through the rest of them, ALL of them. He didn’t have the skill or the time to figure which thread of data was Swindle’s and they all, in the end, probably needed the lesson: He relayed everything Vortex was feeling through the open link. Swindle howled. Brawl gasped, dropping Swindle at last, shuddering at the sudden rush of agonized sensations across his sensor net. Onslaught grunted. 

“Need to be sane to get to the LZ,” Onslaught mumbled. Blast Off got the hint. Brawl shook himself, glaring at Blast Off. Swindle collapsed, panting. 

“You little frag,” Swindle swore. 

“He’s made the point better than I could.” Onslaught withdrew from the hole he’d been guarding. “Mission’s set to go. Just need to detonate. That is, if you laid your charges?” He glared pointedly at Swindle.  “Brawl, alt up and we’ll get Vortex on you for transport. Blast Off, you’re going to have to detonate and then grab sky. You can do a straight vector to atmosphere and wait for us there. ” Blast Off nodded, opening his hand to receive the detonator. 

“So, Swindle,” Onslaught said, “you with us? If not, welcome to stay here as we blow the place. Can probably sell the scrap.” 

“You wouldn’t actually leave me here,” Swindle said. “You just said, I’m one of you guys. Means you can’t leave me.” 

“Only time I’m going to explain this to you, Swindle,” Onslaught said, bending to help lift Vortex onto Brawl’s turret. “Team can survive fine without you. However, without the team, YOU don’t survive.” Clear enough?” When he turned, his sonic gun pointed straight, almost casually, at Swindle’s head. 

Swindle quailed. From anyone else, it’d be a joke. Brawl threatened to kill him half a hundred times already: Vortex would beat him up, yeah, IF he could catch him. But Onslaught? He didn’t play that kind of game. He looked at Blast Off, who watched him coolly—no help there. “Yeah,” Swindle said, finally. “I’m part of the team. I-We can profit together.” And as soon as he said it, it clicked in his head. Well, why not? Sure he’d have to give them a cut of his profits, but a larger team like this—greater mobility, free travel, new places to exploit. Yeah, this could actually work out. “I’m so in.” For now.