Sandbox - Mutually Assured Destruction
Jan 12, 2013 10:51:27 GMT -5
Post by Deleted on Jan 12, 2013 10:51:27 GMT -5
(I'm writing within the confines of this game's universe, playing with ideas, getting some literary practice in, and just to be general entertainment. Posted in pieces as I go until the story reaches a suitable end. - CAG)
Hungry. He was always hungry.
Kickback gnawed contentedly on long-dead remains of a fallen Decepticon. It was badly crushed and had been cold for perhaps centuries, one of the myriad casualties of the Great War that, like so many others, were left strewn throughout Cybertron, unmourned, unmissed, unburied. It was a good find; this carcass was rich in alloys that the Insecticon had been searching for. His last meal had left him less than satisfied, and it had only been a few cycles before the gnawing ache in his abdomen had returned. Of course these days he was becoming accustomed to the endless need for food. Shockwave's demand for fresh specimens was equally insatiable.
He consumed with renewed vigor; shattered servos and mangled actuators crunching pleasantly between his mandibles, mingling with potent solvents, transforming into a metal and mineral-rich slurry. His internal systems would sift and sort the chemical chime; anything not immediately necessary would be converted into energon for direct fueling, while the valuable alloys made their way deeper, being gathered and reforged in his internal nanoassemblers into new parts. He felt heavier. The process was nearly complete.
The steady vorns of feasting on the fallen, Autobot, Neutral and Decepticon alike, had given him plenty of time to think, to contemplate, and much to Shockwave's disdain, become philosophical. Eating did not require much in the way of concentration, and with the planet largely dead, he could graze contentedly, turned out to pasture amid the decay. The companions that had been one of his few sources of social interaction were not with him, so he was alone with his thoughts.
They were good company.
Kickback had turned his focus to the brilliant young scientist with whom he had struck a deal ages ago. The youth's curiosity was almost the equal of an Insecticon's hunger, and he had made colossal strides into technologies once possessed by the Ancients. Shockwave would remind Kickback that he was not, in fact, "young", but to the Insecticon who had claimed the Underground beneath Tarn as his dominion long before Shockwave had been sparked, the researcher would always be a dear, toddling hatchling.
Wistfully he paused to admire one of the moons rising overhead. He had not always been able to enjoy such sights. His was the dark depths, among the monstrous creatures that the surface-dwellers had rightly feared and shuddered at the sight of. Once, the new Cybertronians would venture into the depths as right of passage, cheered on by those who had gone before. He and others like him would give chase, and would often times secure screaming prey from among these hardy souls. They never returned to the surface, or were torn apart in view of the cheering spectators. He had always preferred it this way, for he saw himself not as a monster; he was a maintainer of the health and fitness of their once living planet. He and his kind serviced the other children of Primus by consuming the weak and unfit, letting only the strong populate the surface. Even the deaths of the lesser ones were not something to be mourned; he was not wasting life, but rather, reforging it into something new. He was no destroyer. He was a font of rebirth.
Those were pleasant days, he thought to himself. Until the fools above had decided to begin trying to wrest control of their generations from the hand of Primus, and the implacable idiocy of the caste-system had begun. The necessary purging of the population from the underground had ceased, and the hungry times had begun for the denizens of the deep. The covenant had been breached, and there had been no alternative but to begin rising to the surface to lay hold of whomever could be stealthily taken. The forgotten slums had been excellent hunting grounds for some of the others, while he had sent forays into Kaon and Tarn. It had been there that he had noticed the remarkable scientist, along with the impressive gladiators. He had allowed Shockwave to lay hold of three of the lesser spawn, modify them into combiners, and pit them in a match with the one who had named himself Megatronus. The chanting roar of "Megatron" and the defiant gladiator's cry, "I still function!" were etched into his memory still. They were the tipping point for his decision to support them.
Swallowing his last mouthful, he could feel the urgency of completion settle on him. It was time to return to the hive in the depths of Shockwave's lab.
***
Hungry. He was always hungry.
Kickback gnawed contentedly on long-dead remains of a fallen Decepticon. It was badly crushed and had been cold for perhaps centuries, one of the myriad casualties of the Great War that, like so many others, were left strewn throughout Cybertron, unmourned, unmissed, unburied. It was a good find; this carcass was rich in alloys that the Insecticon had been searching for. His last meal had left him less than satisfied, and it had only been a few cycles before the gnawing ache in his abdomen had returned. Of course these days he was becoming accustomed to the endless need for food. Shockwave's demand for fresh specimens was equally insatiable.
He consumed with renewed vigor; shattered servos and mangled actuators crunching pleasantly between his mandibles, mingling with potent solvents, transforming into a metal and mineral-rich slurry. His internal systems would sift and sort the chemical chime; anything not immediately necessary would be converted into energon for direct fueling, while the valuable alloys made their way deeper, being gathered and reforged in his internal nanoassemblers into new parts. He felt heavier. The process was nearly complete.
The steady vorns of feasting on the fallen, Autobot, Neutral and Decepticon alike, had given him plenty of time to think, to contemplate, and much to Shockwave's disdain, become philosophical. Eating did not require much in the way of concentration, and with the planet largely dead, he could graze contentedly, turned out to pasture amid the decay. The companions that had been one of his few sources of social interaction were not with him, so he was alone with his thoughts.
They were good company.
Kickback had turned his focus to the brilliant young scientist with whom he had struck a deal ages ago. The youth's curiosity was almost the equal of an Insecticon's hunger, and he had made colossal strides into technologies once possessed by the Ancients. Shockwave would remind Kickback that he was not, in fact, "young", but to the Insecticon who had claimed the Underground beneath Tarn as his dominion long before Shockwave had been sparked, the researcher would always be a dear, toddling hatchling.
Wistfully he paused to admire one of the moons rising overhead. He had not always been able to enjoy such sights. His was the dark depths, among the monstrous creatures that the surface-dwellers had rightly feared and shuddered at the sight of. Once, the new Cybertronians would venture into the depths as right of passage, cheered on by those who had gone before. He and others like him would give chase, and would often times secure screaming prey from among these hardy souls. They never returned to the surface, or were torn apart in view of the cheering spectators. He had always preferred it this way, for he saw himself not as a monster; he was a maintainer of the health and fitness of their once living planet. He and his kind serviced the other children of Primus by consuming the weak and unfit, letting only the strong populate the surface. Even the deaths of the lesser ones were not something to be mourned; he was not wasting life, but rather, reforging it into something new. He was no destroyer. He was a font of rebirth.
Those were pleasant days, he thought to himself. Until the fools above had decided to begin trying to wrest control of their generations from the hand of Primus, and the implacable idiocy of the caste-system had begun. The necessary purging of the population from the underground had ceased, and the hungry times had begun for the denizens of the deep. The covenant had been breached, and there had been no alternative but to begin rising to the surface to lay hold of whomever could be stealthily taken. The forgotten slums had been excellent hunting grounds for some of the others, while he had sent forays into Kaon and Tarn. It had been there that he had noticed the remarkable scientist, along with the impressive gladiators. He had allowed Shockwave to lay hold of three of the lesser spawn, modify them into combiners, and pit them in a match with the one who had named himself Megatronus. The chanting roar of "Megatron" and the defiant gladiator's cry, "I still function!" were etched into his memory still. They were the tipping point for his decision to support them.
Swallowing his last mouthful, he could feel the urgency of completion settle on him. It was time to return to the hive in the depths of Shockwave's lab.