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[niyazi-a.livejournal.com]

PG
Bayverse (with some G1 borrowings)
Combaticons
no warnings
for tf_speedwriting  prompt "collapse"

The whole battle seemed to squeal to a halt when Onslaught fell.  At least that’s how it felt to Vortex, wheeling above the strikezone to set up another strafing run.  He was chortling, lining up Perceptor in his reticle, when he felt a ripping ache over the gestalt bond, as if something were being torn from the roots. 

His rotors skipped, collective losing power for a few kliks, lurching him toward the ground before he caught himself, reeling back on his cyclic, powering forward. 

He couldn’t conceive of a plan, not right now, with half of his gestalt bond burning with pain. All he could get through the fog in his processor was that the Autobots couldn’t, wouldn’t, be able to capitalize on this.

“What happened?” Brawl’s voice over the comm was partly deadened by the ‘thoom’ of his cannon.  “What happened to Onslaught?”  

I don’t slaggin’ know, Vortex growled to himself. But someone had to take over until their commander could be brought back online, and you didn’t start that sort of thing by having your first words be ‘I don’t know.’   “Hold the Autobots back,” he snapped, instead. 

“He didn’t get hit.” Blast Off’s voice, cool, neutral.  Well, at least he wasn’t asking stupid questions.  And was on private comm. And was, in his way, ceding the decision making to Vortex. “I can come in for pick up.”  

“We need to clear an LZ first,” Vortex said.

“The mission?”

“Don’t prod me about that. Scrap the mission.” The burn was growing. “You feel it, yeah?”

A hesitation.  Blast Off was a different class of mech than he was, the gender that was large enough to carry others. It made him more sensitive to some aspects of the bond. His diagnostics were more attuned than Vortex’s. “Yes. Something is spreading.”

Frag. Frag frag FRAG.  He never thought he’d hate being right.  He’d always thought it would feel better.

And Swindle was being…awfully silent. “Swindle, report,” he snapped.

“I’m here,” the other mech drawled, as deliberately non-militarily as he could.  As if being a soldier were somehow beneath him.

Vortex’s voice sharpened. “Where the frag are you?”   He scanned the strikezone, unable to spot the grounder.

“Doing my thing,” Swindle replied, widening his insolence with vagueness.  A beat. “So, what was Brawl mumbling about Onslaught?”

Vortex snapped. “He fraggin’ went down!”

“Oh, well, what a shame. I’m glad he died a hero.”  The tone was mocking, deliberately offensive.

Vortex bridled. “He’s not dead, slaggit!”  Denial? No. Onslaught was still there, burning in the sea of whatever that strange pain was that had locked his systems. He circled lower, firing his guns, punching gleefully wrathful holes in the mechs who were daring to approach the terribly, terribly inert form of the Combaticon leader. 

Blast Off hit him on comm again. “Why doesn’t he know?” 

Vortex paused.  

“Brawl can feel it,” Blast Off continued. “Why can’t Swindle?” 

Vortex felt the pressure boil up in him. Too much thinking that he didn’t have time to do right now.  Too many complexities to untangle. “Worry about that later.  We have to get Onslaught or it’s all slaggin’ pointless.”

“I can get him.  I need help loading him, though.”  Blast Off hated coming this close to ground, preferring to snipe from above. The offer struck Vortex—yet another thing he didn’t have time or processing speed to cope with. 

“Let’s go.”  Vortex would tear into any Autobots who dared to approach.

“Brawl,” Blast Off said. “You need to be in the air, covering us.”

“Don’t you give the orders around here!” Vortex snapped.  Even as the words crossed the comm, he winced at how petty they sounded.  How out of control he obviously was.  He was no leader.  He couldn’t do what Onslaught did, the way he did it.

He could only do things his way. 

“I have a theory about Swindle,” he said, offered, really, to Blast Off. 

“There’s a reason he can’t feel it,” Blast Off said, calmly, as if Vortex’s snipe had glossed right off him.  “You think he’s behind it.”  Blast Off spiraled over the strike zone, even in his descent popping off slow, carefully aligned shots, driving Autobots under cover. He hated being a soldier—Vortex knew it. Anyone who spent five astrokliks with Blast Off knew it.  But when he needed to, he could pull it off.  Vortex granted him that.  And right now, slag, Vortex needed that, more than he wanted to admit.

Vortex grunted. “Let’s say I wouldn’t put it past him.”  Perhaps even more than Vortex himself, Swindle had chafed at the loyalty programming. Onslaught hadn’t been thrilled with it, but he’d borne it with a wry tolerance that refused to cede dignity.

Which was more than Vortex had done.  And Swindle—Swindle had somehow managed to blame everything on Onslaught. 

And that made Onslaught the perfect target for a malicious file. Perhaps to break the loyalty programming. Perhaps just to punish him. But the burn was increasing, sucking Vortex’s energy and attention.  He heard Brawl, distantly, mutter something—he was feeling it too.  Only Swindle was somehow immune. 

Not, Vortex thought, punching his guns to maximum rate-of-fire, blazing a circle of lead and heat and rage around Onslaught’s inert form, for long. 

 

Comments

[ultharkitty.livejournal.com]

That was awesome :D

I'm far from awake enough to articulate my thoughts properly, but I really like this fic - especially their interactions, and the way Vortex really isn't good at leading, but he tries anyway because for him there's no other choice.

[niyazi-a.livejournal.com]

Thanks! You know I love me some Vortex, but in his mind (and honestly he's not so far wrong) he'd be better at it than, say, Brawl.

It means a lot that you like it--you're like my Guru of Combaticons! :D